All Purls. No Swine.
She is, indeed, my Warrior Princess. Eleven years old today. And a survivor. She was born on June 17, 2011, and–as a Great Pyrenees puppy–somehow ended up living in an apartment in center-city Philadelphia PA. God knows why. Or how. GPs are not–as a rule–high-energy dogs, and they can do quite well without an extensive… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Xena!
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
Well, OK. Einstein was wrong. (I say this because I refuse to believe, just because I indulge this particular sort of repetitive behavior--always believing that, next time, when the end comes I'm going to weather the storm without incident--that I’m insane. Obtuse, stubborn, and human, perhaps. But not insane.) Shortly before Christmas, it fell to… Continue reading Giving My Heart (Just Once More) For a Dog to Tear
He was the biggest--in every sense of the word--dog who's ever owned me. Big of size, big (well, reasonably big) of brain, big of spirit, but most of all, big of heart. Levi's long, and very good, run came to an end this morning. He'd been having increasing trouble hauling his 150lb frame to its… Continue reading Ave Atque Vale: The Greatest Pyrenees
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral--Frank Lloyd Wright. I do like a man who has his priorities straight. Even if I’m not one of them. Frank Lloyd Wright was, while not exactly a Southwest Pennsylvanian, often claimed as one of ours on account of Fallingwater, a… Continue reading From the Chicken House to the Cathedral
Tom T. Hall died yesterday. While my contemporaries were listening to the addled, screeching, incoherent outpourings of the deranged, the dysfunctional, and the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll addicted contingent of my generation, I was here: https://youtu.be/pQAk-xYxvVo Don't like it? I don't really think I want to know you.
OK, before anybody make a scatalogical joke, I'm already reminded of this billboard: But, seriously. Grain bins. What I need (and all I need) is a bin in which I can securely (that is racoon and mouse-proof-ly) store a few hundred pounds of sheep feed at a time. Many years ago, I built a nice… Continue reading Building a Small Grain Bin From Septic Tank Riser Sections
They’re so funny. And, in many ways, so very human. This is Oleg. He’s tiny for his age (about six weeks), and his “sister” (Tatiana) who’s only a couple of days older, is almost twice his size. I only named them this morning, upon the increasing certainty that the little fermentation vats that comprise their… Continue reading Guilty Pleasures
I like to share the vicissitudes joys of life on the farm with those I love. So this morning I sent the above shot of Pinky and Perky in their playpen in my kitchen, replete and mercifully (temporarily) quiet after breakfast, to my brother. His response? “You’re microwaving them?”
One of my more popular posts has proven to be this one, written in October 2020, about my hacking efforts with my two eight-foot hay feeders made using Premier Panels, in which I described the process of turning them into four four-foot long feeders. I regularly get notifications that it's been viewed by others, and… Continue reading Midwinter’s Update on my Premier Panel Hay Feeders