Almost

At my wit's end. And the only reason I haven't quite reached that point is that I am too old and too sick to take the hop, skip, and jump I would need to get there.

The house is still a hot bed of fevers, sore throats, coughing, and assorted other miseries. I am still an unwilling participant in all.

After over two weeks. ...So is Becky. And Liz. Jade is recovering slowly but he will not be better until after another surgery and another long round of recovery. 

Thus when I attempted to send in my newspaper column, assuming that the folks in charge had received it, I was chagrined to get a note that they had not.

Sent it again with the same assumption. You know what they say about the word assume, right?

I have no idea if anyone at the paper has seen it and the only way I can find out, since email doesn't seem to be working, is to call on an actual telephone during business hours. Small thing, but important to me on a personal...and financial...level.

Meanwhile our boy's bank account was hit again. Don't know how they are getting his card number but this is getting really, really old. His job keeps him on the road all week, all over America. He needs the darned thing. We just got it straightened out a couple of weeks ago and now, here we go again. I end up doing all the dirty work as he has my name on the account so I can monitor it for him and I have all the paperwork and numbers handy. 

Thus disgruntled doesn't begin to describe the beginning of this day. It is still too early to do anything about anything so I will sit here and wheeze and drink coffee and whine.

Thanks for reading.

Good Morning to You

But wasn't the Schoharie pretty the other evening when we went down?

So this morning we awaken to tsunami warnings for the left coast where two of my favorite guys are....centered near Anchorage, where a good blog friend lives, and flood watches and warnings for our local area, with one of our girls spending her work day a few yards from the river.

And squirrels on the bird feeders.

Dagnabbit. 

Actually, I haven't even put the feeders out yet, as it is still pretty dark and it's pouring, but there was just a squirrel looking in the kitchen window at me.

***Update, tsunami warning cancelled. And it's not raining anywhere near as hard as it was. 

We were in a traffic jam the other day......

I Had to Laugh

Can't complain about the birding. New for the year species almost every day
And they put on a fine show for my dear friend yesterday.
The Carolina wren came right down to visit

I was walking over to the barn to help with chores yesterday. Speaking of which, chores are absurdly easy now. As we get all the babies moved up into the "new" (think 1960s) part of the barn, and get a new routine established it takes less and less time and effort to feed, clean, and bed everybody and milk the one cow that is milking.

Anyhow, I was thinking how we, and everybody we have talked to about our change in circumstance, had this silly idea that we would have a lot more discretionary time after the cows went.

The Lord is laying on the lovely these days. What a great season!

Hah! Meetings, taxes, building things, cleaning things up, inventing those new routines, talking with officials about elderly relatives who have been having terrible issues with .....stuff....the days are as busy as ever, or maybe even busier.

 Only a few people have my cell number, but the house phone just rings and rings. And it is almost never the kids or my mama or friends I want to talk to for a while. Nope, it is lenders, and telemarketers, and people from the county about that home health care situation. 

Hopefully all this will level off when the taxes are done, and the upcoming Sprout Brook Auction done, etc. etc.  The boss is one of the auxiliary auctioneers for that one, and has to sell fishnets and hookers all day. (Well actually he sells farm stuff, but there is a long story about the f&h that we tease him about every year.)

Meanwhile, if this is retirement......please may I go back to work?

Even in the evening......

Snowy Owls

Hairy woodpecker. He is sure a shy son of a gun, but noisy

Nope, not here, but a neighbor from a couple of miles to the south brought down a photo taken on their farm and their neighbors have been seeing them too. Guess if we can get up some gumption we'll have to take a run up that way and see if we see one. I've seen several in my lifetime, but not in quite a while.

Meanwhile, the song sparrows are back. A nice, natty red one showed up yesterday. I have only seen one or two since the first snowfall, but we usually have quite a few.

Saw a pair of ravens too. I was just mentioning that I hadn't counted any yet this year, and a pair came right through the yard.

Speaking of gumption....where can I buy some? These night barn checks and working with only Becky all the time is wearing us old fogies out. She does all she can, but she is just one person. I could barely drag myself to the barn at 4 AM for calf check. Seemed like a mile, all uphill. Of course we were in the barn until after nine last night so it makes for a short time indoors.

Thankfully after Bailey has her calf we get a few weeks respite before the next ones start coming.

 I am ready for some warmer weather and the cows are too. Can't get them outside with all the ice. Even with all this snow it is so cold that it doesn't stick to the ice underneath, so you are walking in a foot of thick fluff with glare ice underneath. We do okay, but for hoofs it's not so good. 

Can't Complain

Of course the lawn is nice and

green and Sadie the pound puppy/deer guard is liking it

About the weather....because it is so much worse in so many other places, but dang it!

We have had the worst spring, rain, and rain, and more rain and so cold they said it was going to snow last night.

The cows should be out to pasture, crops should be getting planted, the garden should be half in, fences built etc. etc.

Instead the cows are languishing in the barn, we are running out of feed, and we can't do a thing about it. Bring on the proper spring weather please, and bring on the green grass! It's time for Pete's sake and past time!

Oh, and locking the gates...yeah that worked. Not. I felt so much more secure with it locked until last night an Amish kid came to the house just after chores to ask if he could hunt (no). And he had come from the barn side and climbed right over the gate, ignoring the dog. Guess we need a longer chain.