All Purls. No Swine.
After sorting out the gates a few days ago, I moved on to the arch and the climbing rose. Got that done yesterday and this morning. Next--tree planting! (I live in a lovely, shady, rural environment. But over the almost 40 years I've been here, many of the existing--not necessarily all that great--trees have died… Continue reading The Next Project–Because, Out Here, There Always is One
A goat rodeo is a slang term for something going totally, unbelievably, disastrously wrong, and there’s nothing left to do but to sit back and watch the trainwreck. In other words, a goat rodeo is a chaotic situation, fiasco, or, more vulgarly, a shitshow--dictionary.com I've been there. After thirty years as a goat owner, I finally gave… Continue reading Gate Rodeo: Not My First, Nor (Likely) My Last
Years ago, I set up a rain barrel here at Chateau Right, to collect fifty-odd gallons of rainwater at a time that I could use to water the plants in direst need during a prolonged drought. (Yes, I do have running water on the property, but it comes from a well, so I'm careful.) On… Continue reading EarthMinded FlexiFit™–An Unobtrusive, Effective, Rain Barrel Diverter System
I've had Whistle pet trackers on my Great Pyrenees dogs for at least a decade. I haven't really kept track (see what I did there) of the technology, what it was, how it's changed, where it is now. (As a 30-year IT professional myself, I have a deep aversion to wasting time looking at how… Continue reading A Review of the Whistle Pet Tracker–Short Answer for Rural Dwellers: Look Elsewhere
This is the third publication of my Proverbs:31 post on this site. The last was almost two-and-a-half years ago. While I do occasionally republish posts from long ago, I try not to do it to excess. However, recent events, particularly those concerning the arrest of social media and influential member of the "manosphere," Andrew Tate,… Continue reading In Praise of Proverbs 31: 2022 Edition, For Andrew Tate
About a week ago, I made an executive decision: Come this next Sunday, I’m sending almost all of my sheep to the auction. All that is, except: Dizzabel, the tiny lamb who entered my life last January when I discovered her, down the bottom of the field, in the snow, crying, at about 10PM when… Continue reading Changes: Down Here on the Farm
I’ve started mowing the fields. Very late this year, due to a series of calamities and necessary service adjustments that put my essential vehicle in the tractor hospital for several months (“supply-chain issues”): a leaky hydraulic hose, worn tires, and a–not-required, but I thought wise–thorough going-over at her coming-of-age twenty-first birthday anniversary. (I poured myself… Continue reading One Girl Went to Mow….
To be perfectly clear from the outset, I've been living in a construction zone since 1986, the year the late Mr. Right and I moved out to the country and started on our house. Large swaths of the drywall were never painted. Much finishing was left undone. Doors have been missing. Floors were, in some… Continue reading Feeling Grateful, Blessed, and Very–Very–Clean
A few months ago, I was invited, by someone I've known slightly online for a number of years, to join a book club. Rather trepidatiously, I agreed, with the stipulation that I couldn't be much involved for several weeks due to some personal commitments around the same time as their weekly online meetings, commitments which… Continue reading Blessings from the Great Beyond: The Machine That Thinks Like a Man
As some of you know, I’m currently owned by two dogs: Xena, an elderly Great Pyrenees, and Odo, a puppy of the same breed. My last experience with a puppy was in 1986 (Wulfie, the Old English Sheepdog), and I’d forgotten how exhausting, challenging, charming, and occasionally hilarious, such a thing can be. In the… Continue reading No Matter What: Contrarian Pets, and the Owner Who Loves Them