Snug as a Bug in a Rug!

High above the forest floor, there's a whole world of living, out here JOTOLR!  This time of year it becomes more obvious.  Bald-faced Hornet nests we never saw before appear and finally pinpoint the source of our summer long annoyance with this double-edged sword of the insect world.  On the one hand hornets provide great pest control.  On the other, though, it's hard to ignore their annoying and threatening presence!

Vacated bird nests of one kind or another are tucked into the shrubbery and reveal how crowded are yard has been!  A new house in the distance can be seen amidst the tree tops, its elevation higher than ours, and which wasn't there back in the spring.  And that serves to solve the mystery of all that hammering and sawing this past summer.  

And that black blob you see in the photo?  It's a mass of tightly balled up leaves, crammed between the bare branches of an ash tree by a squirrel.  Every night at milking time--and yes, we are into darkness now as we milk Marigold, (lights in the milking shed help!) having to milk at roughly 12-hour intervals--this is the scene, right behind the milking stall.  The fretwork of the limbs against the sunset, highlight the sculpture of the leaf-ball.

Those of us who live in the Appalachian region, mainly take these nests for granted, but when the wind is blowing hard, as it does often throughout the winter I am amazed at how sturdy, safe,  and apparently warm they are.  Right now,  squirrels scurry up and down the trees, gathering all manner of "mast" (food, such as acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts) for the winter, burying it close by the nest site. And the mast has been good this year.  The forest floor is a vast carpet of acorns.


We have three varieties of squirrels here in West Virginia--actually four, if one includes the illusive Flying Squirrel.  The Fox Squirrel is the largest, followed by the Gray, and then there's the Red, which inhabits the pine woods of higher elevations in the northern part of West Virginia.  Here's a link to a great article on squirrel nests, written several years back by the Art Shomo, Writer for the West Virginia DNR.  Go to:  Squirrel Nests  This is an excellent collection of information that lets us all appreciate what we often don't notice!

The Nuts and Bolts of Farming

What makes a farm run?  Animals?  Pastures?  The feed store?  Nope.  None of the above.  It's nuts and bolts.  Thousands of tools and supplies...not to mention experience to use them and address problems that arise.  MM is a jack of all trades, and he would be the first to admit that he's master of none...and that's good...because that leaves room for discovery!  Discovering the problem, interpreting the problem, and then applying the "nuts and bolts" saved over 40 years, to be able to make just the right repair at the right time.  I love this photo because I know it illustrates the very essence of self-sufficiency.

If the tractor breaks down, do we head for the tractor doctor?  Admittedly, sometimes we do.  But mostly, MM burrows into his brain and into his stash of stuff and comes up with a repair.  Not many people are truly able to do that.  They have to find someone to make a repair.  They need to have the problem diagnosed.  Thus, they are less self-sufficient.  MM has rarely failed to be able to fix something or to manufacture a part in the nick of time, to --for example--be able to get that last bit of hay off the field and into the barn before it rains.  There's often pressure involved.  And there are countless--COUNTLESS--repairs to be made of one kind or another on a farm!  So you don't just dial up Mr. Fixit.  Mr. Fixit LIVES here on the farm.

I believe MM's most significant repair ever, though, came about when we were traveling by van in the Yukon Territories.  We hadn't seen another vehicle in days.  We were utterly, completely alone.  The radiator on the truck sprang a leak. And it was waaay to big for StopLeak!  A rock had been thrown into the radiator, but had apparently stuck for quite awhile, but decided to give way out there in the wilderness.    MM cogitated a bit and with studied engineering, cut off a short piece of polypropylene rope that dangled from the canoe on top of the van; took out a cigarette lighter, melted the rope, drip by drip and stuffed the drips, one by one,  into the hole on the radiator.  The repair not only got us back into Alaska, but it survived until the old hulk was hauled off to the junkyard five years later!

Here's the inner sanctum of the repair world, out here JOTOLR.  MM has saved screws, nails, plumbing parts, electrical parts, all manner of scrap (which one would assume was trash) and from these collections has made a part, or fixed a part, or patched a hole....or whatever!  This farm runs on nuts and bolts!  And MM IS a master of all trades to keep us up and running!

Thank you so much!

Dearest Readers, all,

Thank you so much for your sweet words! I've stored them in my "Blog Comments" file, like the treasures they are so I can take them out and re-remember them, one by one.  Barbara, Linda, Debbi, NCMW, Thomas, Chris, Ruta, Marlene, and all...wishing you the best!  And will do my best to keep the balls in the air for another 250 posts!

 

The weekend is here!  Again.  Thought I would mention that the EPOXI, NASA's spacecraft on the move, traveling at 8 miles per second has a fly-by tonight that will come within 435 miles of the Hartley comet.  There is a spectacular image on the Daily Telegraph's website today, as the Hartley is capturing photos as I write.  The Hartley comet was discovered a few years back by a British amateur astronomer, and is named for him.  Here's the link to the Hartley Comet Photo

The comet is actually visible to the naked eye, more so with binoculars...providing you have a clear sky, which, here in Southern West Virginia, is unlikely because of clouds and snow in the forecast.  Oh, and BTW...I cheated.  That's that fuzzy moon from a few days back.  But it kind of looks like a comet, don't you think?

And just look what I bought last week when it was 75 degrees! And you all laughed! Well, you should have been with me this morning at milking when the ice chips rattled down on the metal roof of the milking stall. I got in on the ground floor with this baby, called Green Lightning! I mean to tell you this is going to be the speediest downhiller I've ever owned. The yellow one we had last year finally gave up the ghost. This is way better! Come real snow, I will be that green streak of greezed lightning, tearing across the pastures, out here JOTOLR!

Well, everyone, that about does it for this week.  NCAA football tomorrow is LSU and Alabama...should be good.  MM is a reasonable (not crazy) football fan and enjoys the game and how it's played rather than who wins.  Which is very cool, I think.

Have a great weekend!  See you Monday!

Sunrise, Sunset....

Today marks my 250th post.  Today also marks MM's and my 43rd anniversary.  Forty-three years of "wedding bliss..."  well....almost! :-))  It's hard for me to picture 43 years of marriage.  Where did it go?

I was certain when I was young that staying married to the same person for any credible length of time would result in suffocating boredom!  NOT!  How we do evolve! 

No big celebration for us.  No sappy Hallmark cards.  No orchid corsage decorating my sweatshirt.  No champagne.  Just a homegrown dinner from the garden, followed by a tall glass of cold milk, a little homemade ice cream, a kiss and an exchange of thank yous...for putting up with each other all this time!    And another day out here JOTOLR with the cows and the dogs and the chickens and a quiet reflection on the years of joy.  Where did it go?  The time has simply flown by and become a lifetime.  And what a lifetime we've had!  Who would ever guess that this is a sunrise...and not a sunset...?  Thank you, love, for a wonderful journey...so far!

Time to Log On

And that, dearest readers, is why I won't be logging on very long, today!  MM is already out in the woods.  I can hear his chainsaw roaring away.  I'm inside at the moment finishing up making a half-gallon of ice cream and shortly I'll be on my way out to LOG ON! 

MM fells the trees (he did that way last spring); he drags them in with the tractor; saws them into usable lengths and splits them.  All I have to do is carry and stack.  We're on our way to wood for the winter!  And this is how the heating system out here JOTOLR works!

Gotta go!  The ice cream maker just shut off, so it's time to put the produce in the freezer, grab my raincoat (yes, it just started to sprinkle) and leather gloves and head for the woods and the sound of the saw! See you tomorrow!

Fabulous Realities

Fabulous Realities....that's the name of Colleen Anderson's CD.  She's a West Virginia treasure!  And she's a fabulous reality all by herself.  If you haven't had the pleasure of hearing her songs, do yourself a favor and get her self-produced CD! You can find it at the following:

www.cdbaby.com/cd/colleenanderson

Meantime....some feel sorry for us out here JOTOLR that we have to milk a cow early and late...

But were it not for  milking, I would probably never see these incredible sunrises and sunsets!

Of course, I tweaked the above photo just a bit to reach for "fabulous realities."

But, I left the one below alone.  Both photos are from this morning.

The weather forecast is calling for snow showers on Friday!  And it's definitely chilly out now.  We spent the afternoon cutting, hauling and stacking firewood, so I'm a bit late posting, today, but we're ready!  Ready for soup, homemade biscuits  and chai!

The Housing Crisis

Prior to this past weekend, we've been in the midst of a canine housing crisis out here JOTOLR.  Bandit was all but wearing her doghouse.  It had belonged to Nell, our ten-year-old Border Collie who passed away two years ago.  The homebuilt house, though at first sturdy, had developed some weak spots and the original joints between boards had grown wider and become rather large cracks.  In short, drafty, dilapidated, disreputable-looking, and cold.

Cade's house had originally been purchased for the Great Pyrenees, but he declined housing all together and refused the comforts of that home resolutely. So, this apartment-sized dogbox was passed down to Cade, who could've used at least two other dogs to fill up the spare bed-room.

Enter two homewreckers:



Bandit's House



Cade's House

The BC's do want their own space and are not willing to share.  To this day, Jessie's nose and the scars Nell laid on it, attest to that!  The countless power struggles between the two half-sisters resulted in our building that house that Bandit has been occupying, with separate kennels for Nell and Jess, and now, Cade and Bandit, who are littermates. Oh, and BTW, Jess has her own condo on the porch--a place of honor for the queen of all.


So, we went shopping for doghouses this time instead of building them from scratch as we've done in the past.  They were right pricey!  Lowe's had some for $115 apiece.  Walmart's selection was minimal.  As an afterthought (should have been aforethought) I suggested we stop at Magic Mart and see what their inventory looked like.  Voila'!  Two identical houses, for $60 each.

The igloo will now become the home of a German Shepherd puppy (when we get him); and the two BC's got a new store-bought house each, and MM and Elora went to work! We hauled out the big-box, demolished the homebuilt wreck, filled triple-layered feed sacks with cedar chips and placed two, side-by-side in each doghouse, rearranged food water dishes...all this time being watched by suspicious eyes....

 I was so excited to have new homes for them.  I just couldn't wait to have each pup comfy and cozy in their new nests.....I knew better, though.  I really did....

Now, we humans take it for granted that a new doghouse would be welcomed, if not cheered....NOT.  To a dog, it "smells funny" and the new cedar chips are gross and overpowering.  The lumps in the new bed no longer conform to the body as did the old house and bedding (The Princess and the Pea...), regardless of how pulverzied and musty it was!   In a few words.....they HATED IT!   But I was determined.

It took awhile to get Cade to go in, but I finally succeeded.  (new command, here....instead of  "go to your house" (which is met with a "what house--there's no house anymore??" look)....I used "go in" as a better fit, for the moment.  Cade finally did "go in" and sit down.  "Hmmmmm.  Not half-bad,"  she said....and stayed


Bandit?  No way.  Especially since it was my idea and not hers.


"Go in." 


"Not on your life. I hate it." 


"Go in!" 


"Never."


"GO INNNNN!"  (shove, shove, squirm, squirm ...treats (refused)


"All right.  Go ahead and freeze to death this winter.  See if I care!"

"I'm sleeping outside."

"Fine.  Enjoy.  In fact, I'll give your house to the cat."

(We don't have a cat.)  It's all bark and no bite on my part.  And Bandit knows it.


I really, really want the satisfaction of seeing all the dogs happily installed in their new quarters.  But, as I said,  dogs don't see things the same way humans do.  Believe me, I am a dog trainer and I know dogs.  I expected this from at least one of the BC's.  Funny thing was, though,  I expected it from Cade who is usually much more suspicious of things, generally.  Cade?  She LOVED her new house.  Bandit is still sitting outside unless absolutely forced to go in... So, we'll see as the mountain air nips at noses...whether she will submit to acceptance of her new quarters.  I rather doubt it.  Expect to see a For Sale ad for a nice, dry, warm doghouse in the not-too-distant future!


From an aesthetic standpoint, both their yards look a whole lot better!  Sleeping quarters are no longer targets for demolition. And at least one dog is happy with the new accommodations!  The other one is camped out on the spot where her old house used to be!