Sunday, January 24, 2010

It's that time of year again!

The seed catalogs have come in! I've been poking around the Fedco and Seed Savers websites, peeking at new varieties, dreaming about the garden. While this year we will be cutting back on a full fledged garden in an effort to build our house, I'm taking this opportunity to try my hand at a solo garden (sans hubby help).

I'm particularly excited to try out the seeder that Ted has up in his barn. As far as varieties I'm excited about trying the Touchstone Gold Beet and planting some Lupines!

Maybe for my birthday I'll ask for a lawnmower and a weedwhacker. That'll make the front of our property look more homey.

Good things to come!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Better Half


This was the best picture I could get of Kristin. Allison came over and finished shoeing Kristin. I wasn't much in the mood to work today so we went out for a nice sleigh ride. Kristin is the oldest mare, and completely out of shape. However, she is very well learned, and a pleasure to work with. So today she pulled my fat bottom around to the back field where Zac enjoyed doing figure eights and just going around, and around and around...Next week we'll have to go out on the snowmobile trail.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The 19th Century Novel

Why is it in every Romantic Period novel or Victorian Era piece, every time a raindrop falls on some fancy tart, she falls into bed with chills and is stricken with the immediate risk of pneumonia? Was this the only plot twist authors ago could come up with? And the lady authors are the worst, like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. She can't weather a sprinkle of a storm, but Colonel Brandon can ride horseback through the counties at night and just jump of his mount dripping only of testosterone, and a mild sweat. Sophie learns of a few false Valentines and soon she's laid up in bed near convulsions (Gaskell). And why is it that we are so terribly attracted to this...?

I used to think that a good tragedy would make the best tale; a couple in deep love split by his having to go off to war, letters through the years, the war is over he is ready to come back, she yearns for him, and a freak fire in the ammunition shed sends a random round through his heart and he is buried somewhere in France. Now there is a good novel! Till a friend recommended the movie Atonement- you see essentially that, and Zac is sitting there mouth agape murmuring, "No, no. They were in love. They were supposed to get married. IT just isn't...."

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Don't play football with broken ribs


Lydia just wanted to say hello. She's freshening in 6 weeks.


And this is what I did today. I made two tenons. Not the most impressive turnout for a day. It was cold. I have never mortised and tenoned before. Yes it was inefficient. If you came up to me when I was working (and you didn't!) and asked, "What are you doing?" I'd say: No freakin idea. Do you know what I am doing because I sure don't. In fact I am just making this up as I go and kind of hoping it'll turn out right. Kinda like when the cop pulls you over for speeding, you know you were speeding, but you still give him the deer in headlights look like 'What was I doing? No waaay.' Then you swing an excuse for your hastiness, hand over your license and registration, and then wait as he walks back to his car, and wonder if you'll get a summon or if in fact your B.S. actually worked. Well here, I am waiting to see if this will in the end work. If it doesn't then I will still have something to show for it: cold fingers, cold toes, a cold duodenum, ingested snotcicles, bitterness, a pining to research condos in North Carolina, a surplus of wood chisels from a local junk shop, bitterness...oops said that one already.
Actually should work out alright. Just a cold day.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Thought at 2010

I fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 last night and woke sometime around 2. (as you can see, I am a party animal on New Years) I went outside, disconnected the charger on the Massey, collected the rabbit water bottles and then flopped into bed. It was a lovely night/morning as it was very bright. I like nights without flashlights. I was a bit morose about a decade being over considering that the last decade was nearly half on my life up until now, and most of my life experiences occurred during that period. But I was more saddened with the thought of how many decades I had left. It seems finitely little compared to the course of history the five or so decades I have left, and even more saddening was the simple thought that nearly every goal addressing climate change has target goals for 2040, 2050 or onward; and to be honest with ourselves by then most of us will be deceased or on our way there. And that thought bummed me out a bit; that at best we'll have taken care of today at a very distant twilight.