Finally finished the renovation of our sunroom (aka. the cat porch).

This was a year in the making. Our roofing contractor offered to cover the old porch siding with vinyl while he was doing the aluminum fascia and gutters last year. We took him up on the offer and rushed to replace all the old aluminum storm windows with double hung Pella vinyl windows before he hung the siding. We didn’t touch the room again until last week.  The old ceiling texture was peeling off, so I scraped the entire ceiling and painted. Then installed the wood trim around the windows. Painted walls, trim and doors. Then spent today on my hands and knees scrubbing the brick floor. I just finished sealing it with some masonry waterproofing (after this picture was taken). Tonight the cats are sleeping in the garage. They’ll get to move back in tomorrow with all new beds and new food bowls. Their new beds are wicker baskets filled with straw. They’ve already used them a few times and they look like Easter bunnies when they’re all curled up asleep. So cute. I switched them to straw bedding because the cat hair from six cats was impossible to get out of their old blankets and rugs, so now I can just throw the straw out in the compost pile when it’s ready to be changed. Problem solved.

A few nights ago my son and I ventured out to our carriage house to look for a missing key. No luck with the key, but while scanning the shelves we did find this:

It seems that a mouse found Home Sweet Home in an unfinished bird house that my husband bought years ago from a craft store. We laughed when we imagined how excited that little guy must have been to discover his dream home while scavenging around our shelves. He surely must have thought he was a blessed mouse. A new home with a window view of the yard. No fear of the cats. And a 50lb bag of sunflower seeds just a few feet away! Mouse heaven!

We left it alone. I’d much rather he lived in his own home, than trying to move into mine.

Very gross farm stuff ahead. The squeemish should stop reading now. No pictures…that would just be reader abuse.

Just spent the last hour outside with the sheep. I noticed Brio (Icelandic) was looking more unicorn than sheep. Closer inspection revealed that he had partially tore off one of his horns. Now he doesn’t have what most would consider ‘real’ horns. The Shetlands, Loki and Ash, have those nice curl around the face mountain sheep horns…but that’s only because we didn’t castrate them until after they had grown. The poor Icelandics were banded at a few days old, so Brio ended up with some pathetic, deformed, wonky nubs that are more nuisance than anything. They usually grow about two or three inches before he knocks the tips off, bleeds a little, and repeats the process a few times a year. Holstein is the same way. WHY the breeder did not go ahead and cauterize the nubs, I don’t know? (is that what they call it?…I don’t breed lambs) Anyway, I think it burns the horn stem so they won’t grown. Now I know that sounds abusive and painful…but you know, so does circumcision but we still do it to little boys. That said, knowing that Icelandics are a horned breed, and that castrating them as babies stunts their horns, she should have at least finished the job. If she had, then I wouldn’t have had to spend the rest of the night trying to forget the last hour.

This year, Brio’s horns grew a bit more than usual. About 6-8 inches long, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and twisted around like some knarly tree root. And sometime over the past day or so he’s knocked one almost completely off at the base. It’s hanging by about 1/4″ of horn and a sizable chunk of skin (told you it would get nasty…stop reading now if you’re sensitive to this stuff) So, we chased him down and caught him. That wasn’t too hard, since he’s as fat as a barrel. The plan had been to just pour some peroxide on the wound and see if we could ‘encourage’ the rest of the horn to come off. No luck, it is still too attached to come off, but not connected to the horn stump on his head. Not good.

So, Jim poked around a bit and decided he could probably cut it off with some surgical scissors. He goes to the house. I stand there thinking, “OMG.” Brio, of course is looking at me and also thinking “OMG.” Long story short…it wasn’t going to be that easy. There was going to be a lot more blood than we were comfortable with, the flesh inside the horn is rotting so it reeks to all heaven…AND he still couldn’t get it off before he had to go stand in the paddock retching, getting light-headed and nearly passing out from the smell.

These are the times, when you really do think “What the hell am I doing this for?” “Why don’t I have a normal hobby…like scuba diving or making clocks.” This isn’t fun. This is an animal with an abscessed head, a puking husband, tons of flies and gnats, and I had no earthly idea of what to do next. It SUCKS!

The good news is that I don’t think he’s in any immediate danger. It isn’t infected, just disgusting. So tomorrow I’m going to call the vet. Maybe he has some sharper scissors (or a saw), some antibiotics, something protective to keep the flies off, and a stronger stomach than us. I don’t know what it’ll cost, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s mine to care for.

Today I drove to Home Depot and loaded my car with gallon jugs of liquid death (aka. weed killer and bug spray). Now normally, I am quite content to just let the world exist around me as-is. This is the country. You can’t pretend it’s the suburbs. You can’t fight nature. Things live. Things grow. You are not, and never will be ‘in control’.

But…and this is a big BUT…as of right now, I’ve had enough. I have poison ivy. I have chiggers. I have mosquito bites. I flushed a 4″ centipede crawling across my floor. I flicked a spider out of my bed. Some flying gnat things have invaded my television (creating reflections in the DLP that make them look as large as birds when they flutter around inside ruining my viewing pleasure). There are colonies of ants so thick around our foundation that their lines make the LA freeway system look like a Sunday afternoon drive. And there is more greenery growing in between the cracks of my driveway than there is in the pasture around the barn. Enough.

So, going completely against my Taoist philosophy of acceptance and ‘non-action’ I have decided to fight. Selecting as my weapons of choice the popular “Mist of Green Death” known as Round Up (regular and the super ‘Poison Ivy Killer’ varieties) and the “Liquid Fire of Insect Fury” known as Ortho Defender. I prepared myself to accept the consequences to my karma by choosing to wield such weapons, knowing this could mean I have to adopt yet another unwanted, surly kitten to make amends…but so be it.

But then fate intervened. Or as I like to call him…my husband. Apparently wielding such weapons has an irresistible appeal to the male species, because before I could even take them out of the car he had grabbed the sprayers and spent the next hour walking around outside the house with an evil smirk on his face.
So now I am not sure whether to be grateful that he took the burden upon himself…or disturbed that he seemed to enjoy it just a little too much… Oh well.

I didn’t dwell on it for long because “MY WOK IS HERE”. Two weeks ago I ordered a wok from our local asian grocery. A present to myself for finally having a gas cooktop put in the house (been waiting 7 years for that) Anyway, I didn’t know what size to get, but I knew I wanted a BIG one. Something I could fling rice around in like a mad woman. So I told them to get a 22″. Then a co-worker told me his Weber grill was 22″ and I thought “uh oh.” And then when we went to get it today and the guy asked if we were opening a restaurant and I thought “double uh oh”. And then he told us they couldn’t get a 22″ so they got a 24″!!!!! OMG

Check it out.

It’s as big as the frick’n stove!!

Get this…$29. Honest.

My Korean grocer told me how to clean, prep and season it. My son washed the factory oil (to keep it from rusting) off out in the yard with some soap and the garden hose. Then I scrubbed it out with a pound of coarse sea salt and my bare hands for about 15 minutes (my hands are very soft now). Rinsed. Washed again. Wiped with corn oil. Heated on stove until very hot. Let cool. Cooked an egg. And it did NOT stick, thank you very much.

Tomorrow: fried rice. Oh yeah.

Just a few scenes from the farm on this sunny afternoon.

Growing garlic in coffee grounds. The idea came from the college age son. He swears it works and that a friend grew some in the dorm this way. I didn’t ask what else they grew in the dorm…

The oregano that I neglect is thriving. I have found that any plant I actually pay attention to dies, so my most effective garden method is to completely ignore everything. If it was meant to grow…it will.

Auron the cat followed me around hoping for attention. He got an ear rub for the effort.

Our horizontal willow. Victim of the ice storm a few months ago. His will to live is heroic. We are taking a wait and see attitude. If he can survive the normal August drought, then the family consensus is that we have no right to deny him life just because he is vertically challenged. He will become a living art installation and we will landscape around him and post a bronze plaque with the word ‘Perseverance’ on it to honor his efforts.

The koi that lived in the fountain were not as lucky as the willow. They did not survive the ice and electrical outages over the winter. The local frogs do not seem very heartbroken about this fact. The nightly croaking chorus has reached a fevered pitch lately, and I expect lots of tadpoles to arrive very soon. And without any hungry fish maybe this year they will actually survive to adulthood. The waterlilies and other greenery also seem happier…it’s like an apartment complex where the one bad family finally moved out. Everyone just lets out a big sigh of relief and enjoys the peace.

For the past 3 years I have sheared my own sheep (with varying degrees of success). It’s hard work. The sun is always hot, the lanolin is sticky and since I am not a professional it takes FOREVER. After about 18 to 20 hours (spread over several weekends) I always have beautiful scissor clipped fleeces…but the sheep would look like they had been subjected to haircut by weed eater and I would have bruises, cuts and sore muscles all over my body. But not this year. Sometime back in November a nice guy called and offered to shear my sheep. At first I wasn’t sure, but after talking to him awhile, I thought “Why not. At least try it once.” So we made plans for this spring.

Well today was the day. Martin drove down from Indiana (about 70 miles one way) and arrived just after 9:00am. We already had the sheep in the barn, so after just 15 minutes of set up time he was already working on the first sheep. Jim and I stood by and put the fleeces in bags as he finished. By 11:30am he was done. By noon, he was gone and headed to another farm. He had an appointment to do another 18, and then a pair of llamas before heading back home. Amazing.

So here are the pictures. Despite their embarrassment at being on their backs, I think the sheep definitely prefer the neat 10 minute clip to my 2 hour hack job that leaves them looking like they have some molting disease. I know I definitely do! And they didn’t seem the least bit traumatized…as soon as they were released they had that “whatever” look on their face and within seconds were back to grazing.

Here is everyone waiting patiently in the barn.

Martin shearing Erec.

The gang all sheared and enjoying a nice afternoon breeze.

Two and a half weeks after the Ice Storm, our phone and internet connection has finally been restored. Things are getting back to normal, but it just won’t be the same around here without this guy.

On January 27th, he seemed to be holding up okay under the weight of the ice. But that night, with the electricity out, no heat and all of us huddled in a dark kitchen we heard the horrible sound of wood mercilessly being ripped out of the ground and murdered in cold blood. It’s not a sound I ever want to hear again.

This is what I found in the morning. It broke my heart. I loved this old tree.

There are alot more pictures of our farm during the storm on Flickr. In the photostream you can see the progression from pretty winter ice on the morning of day 1 to the complete devastation by day 2.

Just a quick update: Kentucky is a disaster. Lots of areas still without power. We’ve been lucky there, but our internet connection is down and probably won’t be back for awhile (our telephone line is currently lying in a cornfield), so no new pictures for now, but I have a lot to post though once we’re back online.

The snow was a no-show, but ice has encased everything. No school. No work.

I couldn’t avoid venturing out to feed the sheep, so I made the most of the trek outside and took pictures. It was eerily quiet, but then the wind would blow and the trees would creak and groan under the weight of the ice. Then every few minutes a loud crash would erupt from the woods as branches and trees fell under the strain. I made a point to not walk under any trees when hauling the hay from the barn, just in case. Scary.

More pictures on Flickr…

Making the most of time off during the holidays, Jim lit the forge and spent a nice winter afternoon hammering on steel. The smoke pouring out of the chimney made it look like a cottage out a fairytale.

He spent most of the day working on an iron hanger that I requested for a piece of fiber art, but he also created this: An Over-the-Door Hook

Believe it or not, this was only his second or third time out in the forge. Not too shabby for a beginner blacksmith, huh?