The Grass IS Greener

Bob and I were enjoying our morning cup of coffee in bed this drizzly a.m. when there came a loud rapping at our back door; an unusual occurence that sent Jules barking down the stairs and me frantically pulling on my pants, one leg at a time. At the door was our neighbor Meagan (resplendent in bright pink fuzzy pjs and an interesting robe). She bore the intelligence that Crispin had escaped his pasture and was to be seen galloping and gamboling acoss their lawn. Happy dancing horse! Fortunately, he proved easy to capture and re-corral once a bucket resembling breakfast was produced, although he flirted momentarily with a bit of high-heeled rearing and snorting looking for all the world like a small Lippizaner.
I'm glad that Crisco the Stallion had a mini-adventure. He looked very pleased with himself and no harm was done to our neighbor's lawn. I guess everyone is delighting in spring!
And on a less dramatic note, the daffodils that provided only a cluster of leaves last spring (inherited, not planted) decided to flower, so I no longer need lament my dearth of daffodils. I was so busy last fall that I planted only some tulips; I neglected daffodils and crocuses (and all the other bulbs like muscari, frittilaria, chinodoxia etc. etc.) You can't do everything!

Life Lessons

I was attempting to vacuum the other morning and every where I turned, there were more of Jules' toys, possessions and weird talismans. (The weird things barely pass as toys but Jules seems to like them every bit as much as the presentable "store bought" ones. Like chunks of sticks and old empty plastic seltzer bottles and stuffed animals with the stuffing long ago torn out). I think he keeps count as I find him surrounded by them, seeming to take inventory. He periodically resurrects a particulary odd old bit and parades it around like its brand new all over again.

Anyway, he seemed especially pleased with himself while sunning, surrounded like a true Material Boy by all his worldly goods. I thought this was a good time to give him a lecture in The Way Things Used to Be and Counting Ones Blessings.

"I hope you realize", I said, "A hundred years ago, you wouldn't be laying here in the warm house, noodling about with your toys. No, you'd be chained to the house without shelter acting as a guard dog. or you'd be off on some remote hillside, forced to tend the sheep in sub-zero temperatures fighting off wolves!"

Jules looked unimpressed and relied, "Oh yeah? Touch just one of my things and I'll call the Humane Society! I've got there number on speed dial on my cell phone!"

Later when outside, throwing the thousandth tennis ball for Jules to fetch as he is tireless in his pursuit of anything thrown, I spied the horse.

Crispin is another ungrateful wretch. I can just see the expression on Crispin's face when he watches me play with Jules. "Oooh. There's that awful woman and her stupid dog. They're beneath my notice. And why that horrid spoiled dog thinks I'd be interested in some nasty old ball is beyond me."

"You! Crispin!" I called. "Do you realize that just last century, you'd be pulling a plow and glad to get thrown a forkful of musty hay after a grueling day in the fields? A day drawing a wagon could still be arranged!" 

I don't think either dog or pony were seriously worried about "The Bad Olde Days " returning.

Here's evidence (in the form of a picture taken of Crispin back at the horse farm before he came to live here) that Crispin has always been grumpy and seems to "have his nose out of joint".

(I am supposing that there are now laws on the books prohibiting the posting of unflattering portrayals or unattractive pictures of one's pets on the Internet... just don't tell Jules or Crispin about this entry. And I also trust that my sagacious friends know that I am only kidding about my furry friends...)



Tax Assessors Say the Darndest Things!

Bob and I appealed our taxes the other night. We've been taxed on things we simply didn't have when we moved in- like a whole house air condtioner and a "fireplace".  We showed pictures of insulation-filled holes in the living room wall; covered in plastic, no less. Also, shots of what could be a "hole house" air conditioner sitting outside in the woodland, waiting for a family of squirrels (or maybe that displaced skunk?) to move into. They had our house assessed at (get this) $365000! I said, "Hahahahahaha! we like our house, but please!" Anyway, midway through this (inevitably) rather dull back and forth about property revaluations and mil rates, the assessor to our left (a woman maybe in her sixties) inexplicably interrupts with. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Barbra Streisand?" Hello? First of all, Babs has a big nose and I fancy mine to be petite and... well, no, no one has ever suggested this resemblance but it certainly made for an interesting reassessment. We're supposed to hear back in a couple of weeks, but I feel like dropping an autographed copy of Yentl in the mail to Tax Assessorr #1; maybe that will lower our rate.
And on more projects on the home fornt, I took advantage of the super warm and benevolent weather on Wednesday to de-sod and prepare the edge by the house for quartz rock mulch. Bob put in a metal strip to edge it with and keep the quartz off the lawn. It was easy as the soil was remarkably rock-free and nice to dig in. Figures! We should have made our vegetable beds here not in the gravel pit that is the vegetable garden. By late afternoon, this is what it looked like:

Time Change

I've been blogging about our move to the BauHaus Chicken Coop for a little over a year now. We really have done an awful lot, but there are all kinds of annoying things to administer to- like the stupid, unattractive and useless towel rack on the downstairs bathroom door. (As in hang a towel up and wait for it to hit the floor. The rack looks like it came out of a 1960's car; chrome and oddly shaped. And there's this oozy blob of old glue seeping out of one end... I won't even photograph it! ) We're making an entirely new list...
But outside looks pretty swell. The pond (above) has been entertaining ducks and I sawed off a bit of the elder tree that had been cracked in that freaky snow storm of last October. Just straightening things up a bit. Bob has done a dynamite job down by the stream, clearing away old piles of sticks and making the swampy area look much more pleasant and festive. There is even skunk cabbage appearing. And I just had a tick crawling on my hand. Must be spring!
Now that it's lighter outside later, it is a great motivator. I can come home and have time- and daylight- for projects or just fooling around with The Dog. I'm going to de-sod the strip by the back of the house so we can continue to mulch with white quartz rocks and make a border all the way around. that's on the table for this afternoon. I don't want to be inside as its so warm and sunny but I do want to get some work done in my studio.

C-C-C-limate Ch-Ch-Changes

I'm surprised that we have any horse left! Because the weather has turned warmer (well,  maybe not tonight but it is supposed to up to 60 degreess by Wednesday!) Crispin started to shed his impressive winter coat- with a vengence. I began to casually curry him on Sunday and 45 minutes later, I was still coming up with clumps like the one above. I left wads of horse hair around for birds to use as nest making materials. I am certain that Crispin enjoyed getting a lengthy grooming session as I'll bet all that departing fur is itchy. He was less crabby for a little while.
Has anyone else noticed that there are a great deal of spring birds singing already? We even have ducks on our mini-pond. Last year, they had to be satisfied with swimming on the stream as the pond was frozen solid and under snow. And they're back so early!
On a particularly warm day a few weeks back, I spied a snake on the dirt road. Talk about bad luck! Not only does the snake come out on a 60 degree February day, but then he gets run over by one of the two or three cars that travel down that road on a typical day. I returned the next day, armed with my camera, but the snake was long gone. No doubt someone else's lunch.
I had to go back and read my several previous blog entries as I couldn't remember if I posted about the snake or not. I've told a few friends the snake anecdote and let's face it; the weather this winter has been super or scary depending on which side of the bed you wake up on. A friend reported on blooming crocuses and we've heard stories of all kinds of other anomolous spring appearances. I saw a forsythia bush blooming on the way to my mother's house. I'm glad to embrace an early spring (despite groundhog prognostications) but I'll be the first to admit that it also alarms me that everything is a month or so too soon.
And then a friend reminded me that they're changing the time this weekend. Am I crazy? Didn't that used to happen a month later too???

The Woman Who Mistook the Laundry Pile for Her Dog

Isn't that cool? When Jules and I are out on our morning walk, we like to jump on the frozen puddles and break the ice. (It makes both Jules and I very silly to do this). But as we approached this particular puddle, I was drawn up short and pushed Jules out of the way because it formed a perfect ice spiral. Of course, I had neglected to bring my camera and I had to return about an hour later to shoot this picture. Bob observed that it looked almost like the rings in the center of a tree. I pointed this out to a couple walking their dog and they were suitably intrigued by it, too. Luckily no one had smashed the ice!
Getting back to the title of this posting, however:  I sing to Jules fairly frequently (between you and me, Jules is a saint because I'm no great singer). So because of my messed up left eye and the habit I now have of taking my right contact lens out when I'm in the house I see in a corrupted and odd way. I was changing my clothes in the bedroom and I glanced over to Bob's closet and saw (what I took to be) Jules. I started into some (truly stupid) song about going for a walk with my dog and I was going on for quite a while while I tied my boots and simultaneously realized that the large black shape was really a laundry pile and my dog was just then entering the bedroom, wondering for whom I was ululating. Jules looked embarrassed for me but I  think our dirty socks enjoyed it. Maybe I should take the laundry on our walk tomorrow.
Here's another shot, but including my feet for scale (shod in my new hiking boots).

Sick O" Single Socks

The equivalent of airing one's dirty linen in public is exposing the alarmingly disorganized contents of one's sock drawer on the Internet. But I'm nothing if not brave.
Bob says (correctly) that whenever he washes the laundry, he winds up with a fistful of singleton socks.... and they're all mine! I have no idea where they have all fled to; they're probably seeking sock asylum , longing to reunited someday with their straying mate. I just bought five new pairs of socks and do you think I can locate half of them already?
I suspect Jules (who's father was a thief) swipes some of them. I have spied him slipping down the stairs with head tucked low to his chest, slobbering over one of my socks. If only he'd take the whole pair!
I haev vowed to spend a rainy afternoon sorting and discarding those socks who have been orphaned for too long- or maybe I'll just resort to furtively wearing mismatched hose.