Not the smartest…

I’m working away in my office, and as usual the animals are with me. I’m not sure if they figure they’re babysitting me or vice versa. It’s a small room so Mulder seldom does more than stop by and snooze for a few minutes before padding down the hallway to his mat. That’s where he can conveniently be in everyone’s way, all at once. Most efficient. I heard a strange noise, not a...

Ewww… what did that used to be?

There’s something along the path to the corral that used to be alive.  What’s left is 10 meters of hair and blood and parts unknown.  The magpies are happy, and Mulder is, of course, delighted. I think I’ll make a new path.

Ski on

With Lynda’s help the ski trail is now open.

Frosty coating

This has been the hoar-frosty-est month ever. Hardly a morning goes by lately that the trees aren’t coated with the stuff. It’s beautiful.  The branches of the birch tree close to the steps are literally weighted down. When going out to feed the ponies I duck under to keep from disturbing the delicate layers.

Word play at breakfast

I bought some apple cinnamon pita thingys that go in the toaster, called Toast’ems. The first line of the cooking directions is: Place the Toast’ems in the toaster and toast until toasted. It’s two nouns, a verb an adjective, all in the space of ten words. How many other words are like that?  “Garbage” is a good one – a better one even because it doesn’t even need suffixes...

The Christmas stove

This year’s Christmas present to ourselves was a new woodstove for the Balehouse. In a way, it is also a present to our guests as we were suspicious that the older stove was past its prime. Very fancy, by our standards, it is properly rated and can be as close as 16 inches from the wall. Unfortunately our last stove needed to be miles away and the stove pipe still dictates the placement of the new one. At...

I hear icicles

The weather broke at last. I can almost, just almost, smell humidity. The horses are smiling. The dog naps on the deck and I’ve seen the cats exploring as far away as the corral. Life is good again.

Making ice like Ma and Pa Kettle

There’s a 7 foot length of downspout that slopes from the water hydrant outside the corral into the horses water buckets. It’s not a very steep slope and over the past month of watering has slowly built up a tiny layer at a time. We’ve noticed over the last few days that the water was only making it out the end in a tiny trickle. Time to bring it in to thaw. Carrying it into the house it was...

Free Beer tomorrow

If we hear another radio weather forecast saying that the cold is sure to break tomorrow I’ll go mad. It’s always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. When is it going to be today?

Little Dipper

This morning was the first time I’ve ever really seen the little Dipper distinctly. I actually used it to find the big dipper, instead of the other way around. Funny how different the stars are in the morning.