Tis the Season

It's been a chilly weekend.  I'm laying on the floor in front of a fire typing on the laptop with Cloe laying in her bed at my feet.  Bootsy is all sleepy eyed on the couch laying on an afghan Ross' mom made.  As I look up and out our front plate glass window I can see a light snow falling as illuminated by the glow of our Christmas lights.  Carols are playing in the background.  I smell a mixture of fresh pine from our Christmas tree and Ross' nut roll baking in the kitchen.  It is a picture perfect moment.

It has been a Christmas weekend.  We got the decorations down from the attic and started decorating.  During Thanksgiving weekend I had placed some illuminated orb decorations on the pine tree in our front yard (I had put the same ornaments on a tree at work last year and loved it so much I duplicated the look here).  On Friday I started to put lights on the eaves of the house.  I did the same last year with LED lights but was never satisfied with the look because the lights were too crisp and cool.  I wanted something more warm so I went with traditional bulbs this year.  I love how they look.  Now all we need is a coating of snow to stick to finish the look!

I wasn't able to finish the lights Friday night.  I didn't think Ross would be keen on me climbing on the roof in the dark so I held off.  It was a good stay at home project for Saturday which turned out to be beneficial as Ross woke up with a major migraine at 5:30 in the morning.  He was out of commission for the entire morning and only got back half his steam during the afternoon.  That gave me time to finish the lights and do some odd jobs.  We spent the evening doing all the miscellaneous decorating except the tree.  I was hoping to go get our tree at some point Saturday, but with Ross' headache it wasn't meant to be.

Ross awoke today feeling fine so our tree hunt was on.  We had a light breakfast and then got ready to go.  We headed to Angevine farm in Warren which is a hunt and cut your own tree place.  We walked through field after field looking at trees.  Each field a bit more downhill from the last.  We headed back uphill through some other fields till we made it back to the beginning.  We saw a couple of contenders, but found the tree we would take just yards away from where we started (go figure).  We got the tree home and spent the afternoon decorating it.  I love having the house decorated for Christmas.  It just makes a house feel even more like a home.  Now all we have to do is get the presents that go under the tree.  Does anyone know where I can get some coal? (just kidding!)

It's nap time!

Tummy's are full. Dishes are done. The turkey bones are simmering on the stove in a bath of herbs, vegetables, citrus, and a nice dash of white wine. The lingering smell of turkey still makes my mouth water. The leftovers are beckoning to be made into a sandwich. The chickens were just put to bed a little bit ago. They too had a treat today, a little bird seed and apples. Bootsy & Cloe enjoyed morsels of turkey & ham. The boys (Shannon & Bootsy) are sleeping on the couch. It was a wonderful day cooking and cleaning with Shannon in the kitchen while the parade was on the television. Now it is time to make the whipped cream for the pumpkin pie (yes, we grew the pumpkin & rendered it down, mmmm pie!) to awaken the sleepy heads. 

Quiet Weekend

It has been a nice weekend.  Not much to write about which given last weekend is a treat.  Ross and I went grocery shopping for our Thanksgiving meal.  We have everything but the bird which he will pick up Tuesday (we order a fresh, organic, free range turkey every year from a specialty grocery store in Northville).

Saturday was sunny and mild so I used the break from the cold to start hanging up Christmas lights.  Having never owned a house before this one, I really enjoy having Christmas lights; it feels like a right of passage.  After I lit them to test them someone drove by, rolled down their window, and mentioned how nice they looked.  Immediate positive feedback is nice.  I also love living somewhere where other people acknowledge that you exist.

We spent today outdoors also.  Ross worked some more on the chicken coop; he has been fortifying where the chicken wire sections meet so that nothing can break through.  He also came up with an idea to modify the nesting box which will make it even harder for a large predator to attack the chickens if it should break off the new door.  My man is always thinking!

I pulled out the chain saw and cut up a tree that we felled earlier this year.  When we originally cut it down it was in an area full of brambles.  This is the same area that Ross has been clearing over the last few weeks.  He has been waiting on me to get the tree out of his way so I obliged.  We both worked on splitting it and getting it into the firewood pile.  Looks like we are going to have a lot of firewood next year!

Speaking of fires, we lit the fireplace Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  It was nice and cozy resting in front of a roaring fire.  I was going to light one tonight but got sidetracked sweeping and dusting.  There's no rest for the obsessive compulsive!

It's been a quiet weekend, and given last week's antics a quiet weekend was just what we needed.

Indomitable Spirit

I tried attaching this video to yesterday's update but kept having technical difficulty.  If you don't succeed try, try again.

Ross and I spent the day sourcing electric fences.  The guys from the Department of Environmental Protection told us we should install a electric barbed wire fence.  This would be the greatest deterrent to a bear.  I read online that this could be dangerous to both livestock and humans; if you get caught in it and have trouble getting out your in trouble.  The user manual from one of the manufacturers we looked at also warned against it.  Finally the clerk at the Tractor Supply store said that it would be possible to hook barbed wire up to the fence controller, but it could burn out the system since barbed wire is a different gauge than the recommended wire (gauge has to do with size of wire and the power it can draw).  Lots to think about, but it looks like we will be going with a regular electric fence and maybe add some non-electrified barb wire.

Prices weren't as bad as I had thought (who really has a reference point for how much and electric fence costs except seasoned farmers and prison wardens).  The item with the biggest cost to use ratio will be a $60 crimping tool.  Anyone have one we can borrow?   I think that by Spring we will have the fence up and running.  Our biggest hurdle to installation will be cutting down the trees next to the fence.  I had a revelation today as I walked the path; if bears can easily climb trees then what is to stop them from using trees next to the fence as a ladder?  Worse, how do they get back out?  It looks like we now know where we will be getting next year's firewood.

Our last stop today was to pick up the supplies to fix the chicken coop.  The last door was a solid piece of plywood with trim on all four sides.  The hinges were attached to the trim, and the bear easily pulled the trim from the plywood which is what gave him such easy access.  I modified the new door so that it was two solid pieces of plywood with no trim making it harder to bust straight through.  It seems much sturdier.  We lowered the latches so that the door's pivot point would not allow it to swing open from the top like the last one did.  I replaced the hinges and used longer screws to make it harder to pull out.  I also used bolts with washers instead of screws for the hinges and latch hardware that attached to the door.  On the last door, the handle was bolted through the door to keep it from pulling out as we used it. On the new door the handle is screwed in with shallow screws so that it can pull out if someone would try to use it as leverage when forcing the door open.  It is amazing how much thought can go into a simple rectangle!  Finally, Ross threw a quick coat of paint over all the damaged areas  and the new door so they could withstand the weather.  All in all it feels good to reclaim the coop.  It really helps the psyche heal from our ordeal.

I Sit With My Head In My Hands

It has been a trying few days.  I mentioned to someone that if this was a TV show and not my real life it would be quite entertaining...

I set my alarm to wake me up today.  I rarely wake up early on a Saturday but this one was different.  I knew that we would be entertaining people today; some coming to see the spectacle, the culmination of the past several days of our lives, and others to remedy it.  It can best be summed up by a quote from Kevin, my employer and our friend, when he said, "Shannon, you have a bear." (KC I think that this is a much better shout out than the farm tour!)  It was a moment when conceptual idea met reality.

Let me take you back to Wednesday night.  I decided to hop in the tub and try to relax.  Shortly thereafter Ross came running in and was barely able to speak.  The only comprehensible things I heard were "bear" and "bees."  I went from naked and soaking wet to shirt/pants/boots with no socks/bee suit in approximately five minutes; this was unfortunate because I did not put the bee suit on so well.  

The bear had come stealthily and knocked over the bee hive.  I instructed Ross to go inside and get me a flashlight.  Once I was outside alone I heard the bear over by the side of the house in the woods moving. I stumbled into one of those moments where you just don't know what to do-I could leave the bees strewn across the orchard and they could freeze or be eaten by predators, or I could go out, put the hive back together, and risk running into a black bear.  I decided to put the hive back together.  Ross wanted to help.  I told him he would be a better help if he watched out for the bear.  

Now when a bee keeper services a hive he or she will smoke the bees first.  A cool smoke makes the bees more docile and keeps them from swarming on the keeper in protection of the hive.  There is no cool smoke ready and waiting in an emergency situation, and this is where not having the bee suit on so well comes into play.  I received a number of stings as I picked up frame after frame and put them back carefully in the hive body.   With each frame came another assault from the bees.  I tried telling them that I was there to help, but they weren't interested in listening.  I ended up with stings on the back of my neck, around my wrists (my leather bee gloves have a small mesh section around the wrist to keep the wearer cool in the summer), on my hands (the bees were stinging the palm of my gloves and then as I would pick up the next frame I would push these stings through the glove and into my hands), and around my ankles.  It was not a fun time, and I was happy when I had the hive back together.  

Damaged Main Door

Happiness lasted about a minute because Ross asked me to go check on the chickens.  Now I never really thought about the chickens during all this.  TV has left me with the impression that bears gorge themselves on honey, and the small amount that I have read and heard indicated that black bears eat berries, fruit, nuts, and insects.  I must have selectively removed the, and small fowl and livestock part from my mind.  The coop looked fine from the front, but as I walked up to it I noticed all was not fine.  The bear had tried getting in the main door to no avail but was able to break open the nesting door that we used to collect eggs.  He had ripped it from its bottom hinges, but it remained in its latches and was able to swing open upwards.  I pushed up the door and counted mentally to myself one chicken, two chickens, three chickens, where's the fourth chicken.  Please God let her be under the nesting box.  Calmly but firmly I asked Ross to get me the keys to the main door.  He asked what was wrong and I repeated for him to get me the key.  I knew that we were about to hit a moment when Ross could lose it, and I needed him not to because I had chickens in an unprotected coop that needed to be moved to somewhere safe.  This was no time for emotions, just actions.

Nesting Door Removed

Ross brought me the key and my chicken was not in the coop.  I looked under the coop to see if she was there.  No.  Then I looked around and found a small amount of feathers.  This is not a good sign.  Ross wanted to continue to look for her, but I made him stay with the other chickens as I prepared the garage as a temporary home for our girls.  Once I was done we moved each girl one by one to the garage.  They were freaked, and I can't blame them.  I wish we had heard them when the bear was mauling their home; maybe we cold have saved our dear Flopsie.  Damn bear.

We ended the day feeling violated.  I had in the back of my mind accepted that one day we might have an issue with the bees, but I was unprepared for another chicken loss.  We were proud of the coop and it had kept the foxes, raccoons, and weasels at bay, but it was no match for the bear.  How much I have learned, and no end in sight.  I mentioned at one point after this episode that we were on a learning curve on how to protect our animals from predators.  The sad part is that little lives are being lost as we ride this curve.  It is my logical personality that helps me through these trying times.  Unfortunately for Ross he is more emotional.

One of the things I love about Ross is his sensitive soul.  Unfortunately, this is not a desirable trait when you are dealing with trauma.  The bear's attack on the bees and chickens really upset him.  He, having seen the bear during the day in the past, was scared to go outside.  During a conversation Ross told me that before the attack he thought the idea of a bear in the area was novel or whimsical, but after seeing its destructive force the idea became frightening.  He was so distraught, and I was worried for him.

My Precious!

These feelings only intensified when the bear came back the next evening.  Ross had been feeling down in the dumps.  I called him about 5:00 PM from work to check on how he was doing.  He said he was cold and tired.  I told him that he should take a shower to help him relax.  He was in the shower for ten minutes.  When he went in the bee hive was fine.  When he got out it was knocked over.  He called me very distraught to tell me.  I told him to just let them be, and we will get to them when I got home form work.  I didn't want him out there with no one watching for the bear.  When I got home we moved the bees to the back porch hoping that the bear wouldn't venture so close.  We ate dinner and then I washed dishes checking the hive every ten minutes or so.  After I finished the dishes I knew I couldn't sit and watch TV because I was just going to keep getting up so I decided to process some of the honey we removed last weekend.  Given the fact that the bear had now stolen more honey from the hive I decided to freeze most of the frames to give back to the bees once it got cold outside.  I processed two frames with a mixing bowl and some cheesecloth.  A crude setup but was quite effective.  I was able to get thirteen 4-oz jars out of it.  I was really hoping to have more to share, but the bear had a different idea.  I cleaned up my mess, Ross and I wound down for the night, and went to bed with the hive untouched.

Nature called early in the morning, and when I got up to answer the call I noticed that the hive was down again.  I'm cold, I'm tired, and I'm ticked.  I left Ross to sleep; he needed it.  At first I went out to see the damage.  I was in a night shirt.  I was not sure how long the bees had been exposed to the cold, night air. I subsequently got stung on both my calves.  More stings, how nice.  I went in and dressed, got in the bee suit, and put the hive back together.  I noticed that many of the bees were dead.  The porch was strewn with little bee carcasses.  I moved from annoyed to beaten.  At this point reality kicked in.  I knew that even if the queen had survived all three assaults on the hive there were probably not enough bees left for all to survive the winter.  They rely on clustering to maintain warmth.  Fewer bees mean a smaller cluster.  Couple that with depleted honey and we have a disaster waiting to happen.  I crawled back into bed demoralized.  Ross awoke and asked me if the bees were OK.  It took a second for me to answer because I thought maybe I should tell him a lie.  I didn't which is good because he noticed that the bear tried to get in the chicken coop again (the chickens were still in the garage).  This time he wrenched the nesting door completely off the coop.  I feel a spiral pulling me down.  I happily go to work; I need the distraction and the feeling that life continues forward.

Bear In a Can

Now I should mention at this time that bears are monitored by Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection.  Bear sightings can be submitted online, and the state maintains a 24-hour emergency hotline in case someone is in danger.  The state has biologists and rangers and by Friday they were well aware of us and our struggle.  On Thursday morning, a ranger came out to survey the damage caused on Wednesday night.  Thursday night, before I got home, a ranger had actually seen the bear in the woods behind our porch after it hit the hive the second time.  The ranger didn't shoot the bear because he was not a threat at that moment.  That same ranger came over Friday morning, after the third hit, and was looking for the bear because at this point he was a nuisance to us and our agriculture (our agriculture-I can't tell you how tickled I was to hear this from Ross).  Later that morning, state biologists delivered a bear trap to the side of my house.  I have armed rangers, and biologists, and bear traps (oh my!).  By 5:30 PM I also have a bear in a trap.

What a sight to come home to.  Ross had seen the bear sneak into the back yard.  He scared the bear enough that he bypassed the bee hive but couldn't resist the banana peels and doughnuts in the trap.  Our neighbor Mike came over shortly after, and Ross sat down in a chair and started laughing uncontrollably;  three days of pent up frustration can do that to a man.  We all stood outside with our flashlights looking at the bear.  The biologist called and said that they would be out in the morning to take care of him.  Our neighbors from across the street stopped on their way out to tell us they had seen a bear on their property (we routinely call them when we see a bear heading their way).  We pointed to the trap and said you mean that bear.  They got their boys out of the car to see the bear in the tube.  Later the ranger from that morning stopped with his daughter and a friend so see if the bear sprung the trap.  They all took a moment to look at the poor thing.  I say poor thing because I really felt for it.  He was scared and wanted out and I could relate.  I hadn't forgiven him for killing my bees and chicken, but I did feel for him.  After all, he is just a bear and was just doing bear things.

Rangers and Biologists

So that brings me to an alarm waking me up on a Saturday morning,  people coming over to see the bear (like this doesn't happen everyday), and the biologists and rangers coming to take care of our prisoner.  I wasn't lying when I called it a spectacle.  The state's team came and gave us our options.  We could have the bear hazed on the property and released or hazed off site and released.  Either way it is hazed.  Hazing involves irritating, scaring, and causing moderate pain to the bear.  The benefit of doing it on site is that the bear remembers and associates the negative stimuli with the area and it almost always causes the bear to never return.  If they do it off site the bear is likely to return.  We had the bear hazed on site.  They banged on the metal tube of the trap, shot it with paint balls,  poked it with a stick, and yelled at it.  The bear was not too pleased.  When they finally opened the gate on the trap he didn't come out.  They had to bang on the tube again to get him to run and boy did he run.  As he left the rangers shot him with these bean bag shells that police officers use in crowd control situations.  You'd never think something that weighed 250 pounds could move so quick!  I felt for the poor guy, but it is in his and our best interest.  His other option was to get caught too close to the house and shot to death.  I didn't want him harmed, but I didn't want him back either.

Ross Bunyon

We breathed a sigh of relief and moved on with our lives.  We still had to get out the chain saw and take care of the tree that fell in the driveway Monday morning.  We took turns chopping up the larger pieces with the ax and put everything on the woodpile (the ax work was a little therapeutic).  That frees us up tomorrow to go source an electric fence for the orchard area (the chickens and the bees are both housed in the orchard).  As the biologist told me, this bear will probably never return, but there is always another waiting to take its place.  It is not a matter of if another predator will visit us but when. I want us to be prepared for the next one, and can you really call yourself a working farm if you don't have a four wire, barbed, electric fence (boo-yah)!

What a Day!

As I sit here to write I can hear the wind in the background.  It sounds like a low, constant roar.  It started last night and brought us quite a day.

We woke up to a weather trifecta.  There was just a trace of snow on the ground that was quickly being replaced by sleet.  The snow plows were out salting the roads.  It seems just a premonition of things to come.

The wind was roaring and gusting and overnight snapped one of our maple trees in two.  Of course the broken section landed right across the driveway making it impossible to pass until Ross and I moved it to the side; thank God it was light enough for the two of us to move without getting out the chainsaw!

Finally as I was getting ready for work we lost power.  The wind must have knocked a branch down on one of the power lines somewhere close by.  I rolled out the generator and got some juice flowing so that Ross didn't freeze his tuckus off waiting for the power to come back on (which was shortly before 1 PM).  Having a generator switch added to the electrical panel was a great investment.

Ross was concerned about the chickens too.  He let them out so they could move about their run but was worried that a tree or limb would fall on them.  He kept checking them throughout the day, and each time they were just going about their business as if all was normal.  At one point he looked out, and they were all at the fence really agitated.  Ross got worried that something was out to get them.  It turned out to be a rafter of turkeys (a rafter is a flock of turkeys).   The chickens were none-to-pleased to have invaders on their land.  I asked Ross if he was able to get us a Thanksgiving bird! He said that he opened up a window and told them to shoo.  They went to the side of the house and came back when they thought the coast was clear.  He may be able to chase off a bear, but I guess he is no match for a turkey!  What a day.

Fall Back

It's 5:10 PM as I start to write this, and it's pitch black outside.  Daylight Savings Time came to an official close earlier this morning.  Now we have one less hour of daylight each evening which means less project time (unless we got up earlier on the weekends, and I can't see that happening).  Of course that means more time in the house, and Ross is kicking off Regular Time with homemade pizza (this is another instance where Ross has ruined being able to go to a restaurant because his food always ends up being better).

Going back to projects, Ross surprised me earlier this past week by starting one that I did not think we'd get to until Spring.  There was this moderately-sized, triangular swatch of bramble that I wanted to reclaim as either yard or as a squash garden.  The area is bordered by large boulders that I assume were placed there when the basement of the house was dug; their layout is too methodical to suggest Mother Nature's hand.  Ross has cleared 90% of the area which just astounds me.  He is a busy little beaver.  He said that the chickens stay right with him while he is out there, and as he would rake an area they would come right behind and scratch up all the bugs.  I guess they can't pass up a good opportunity!  I was going to use a wonderful picture of Ross rolling a small boulder instead of the one I posted, but it had his butt in the air and that could get me divorced.

Another project that we have talked about and started this weekend is building a trail through our woods.  Those in the know know that our land was once upon a time farm pasture land (hence Looking Glass Hill Farm) but is now a wooded lot.  This year I have taken a great interest in the trees on our lot.  I spent part of the summer walking around with a pair of binoculars looking at the leaves on the trees.  Ross would laugh when he would come upon me laying on my back looking up in the tree canopies.  I was looking at the leaves and the branches and the fruit and whatever else I could make out.  We have a wonderful mix mostly made up of oaks, black cherry, young sugar maple (grow my babies so that Ross and I can tap you for maple syrup), and eastern white pine. In smaller numbers we have birch, ash, eastern cottonwood, and American beech.  We also have a few eastern hemlock which is one of my favorite trees; our neighbor's lot has a tremendous amount more, and ours is probably a result of theirs.  Of course a trail would make it a lot easier to get to all my lovely trees, so hence the project.  Ross and I walked on Saturday what we thought would make the best trail showcasing some of the more outstanding landscape features.  Today I went through about one-half of the trail marking trees and clearing logs, sticks, and shrubbery from the path.  We are hoping to get the path completed before the snow falls so that we may cross country ski and snowshoe it this winter.  Between me and the trail and Ross and the land reclamation we sound like old men complaining about our sore muscles and tired backs!

Our last project was the bees.  Over the last month Ross and I have discussed exactly what we were going to do with the bees and their honey.  Last year was our first year with them, and they did not fare so well.  We ended up having to feed them sugar candy starting on January 1st of this year until there was enough supply in Spring for them to fend for themselves.  They produced more supplies this year than last, but with it being such a dry Summer we found ourselves second guessing if they had enough honey to make it through the winter.  Saturday it was warm enough for us to get into the hive one last time this year.  It looked like there was an abundant supply in the hive so we decided to remove the honey super (we only got one super with honey of which we placed two frames back in the hive because the honey was still too wet to be processed).  We are excited to get honey as this is the first time our bees have produced enough for us to have some too.  We're talking about starting another hive next Spring with the hopes of getting twice the supply.

It's been a full weekend, and now, just like the clocks, Ross and I are looking to fall back-to fall back into the couch to relax and eat some homemade pizza (yum, yum).

Happy Halloween!

I just finished my mini-sized Kit Kat and decided that it was time to log on and tell all Happy Halloween.  Ross is in the kitchen making us chicken paprikash for dinner.  This is one of those cold night meals that will really hit the spot tonight.

Last week we had our Indian Summer.  Temps got into the 70s and it was rainy-it felt like a balmy Spring day.  I was OK with it but felt it was almost too warm.  Once I get used to it being cold I don't want to get warm and then have to get used to cold again which is exactly what happened.  By Friday the warm weather was gone and was replaced by clear, cold weather (tonight it should get down to 25 degrees).  With the cold weather is a chilly arctic wind that can cut right through you.  It makes me a bit happy, I must say, because it makes the candle light in the jack'o'lanterns dance.  More on that later.

We started the weekend by doing another Halloween cemetery tour (we did one last weekend when my sister came to visit).  This time the tour was in Washington and was really well done.  Ross and I had decided to only wear our puffy vests; I wish I had worn my winter coat.  The weather was biting but the tour was still fun.  It was nice to get into the car afterwards and turn on the heater.

On Saturday Ross and I ran some errands and then came home to give the chickens some free range time.  Most of the underbrush has died away so we can get a clear view of the woods.  There are still some beautiful colors hanging on out there so it was a nice time to walk and look.  Ross took a nap for an hour or so (he got a head cold late in the week so Dr. Shannon prescribed rest).  After he got up and did some chores (Saturday is clean the coop day), we went on a hike of our property.  It is nice to look at the different parts of our land at different times of the year to see how dramatically different they can look.  After the hike came pumpkin carving.  Earlier in the day we bought some pumpkins (Ross got one and I got two to go with the one I already had).  I love to carve pumpkins, and this year it seems Cloe was in on it too.  I think she thought we had some good food since we were at the table, but she stayed for quite a while.  It made my day to set our jack'o'lanterns out on the stone wall.  I think I went out about ten times to look at them.  I asked Ross if he thought it made people smile to see them.  He said yes.  That makes me feel good.

Today is Halloween-the most frightful day of the year!  And, Ross and I did the most frightful things today; we winterized.  That's right we winterized.  Who'd of thought that getting everything ready for winter could be so frightening.  We got rid of the last of the annuals, washed the pots and put them into storage.  We took down the deer fence around Ross' vegetable garden.  Ross sanitized all his tomato cages, and we put them up in the garage attic.  We drained and stored the hoses.  Ross put fertilizer spikes around all the fruit trees in the orchard.  And the worse of all, we got out the snow shovels.  I bet you just shivered from fright!  It was a nice feeling to get everything done just in time to dip below freezing tonight.  After we finished our tasks I took the chickens on a Halloween parade (yes I am somewhat insane).  They came with me to light the pumpkins as it was getting to be dusk.  We then put the girls to bed and came in to warm up.  I have been out twice already to check on the pumpkins.  Ross told me that someone earlier stopped their car after passing our house and backed up to look at them.  I just love that something so simple can give so much enjoyment, but isn't that usually how life works!  I wish you all a Happy Halloween.  And now, I'm off to look at my jack'o'lanterns once again.

Good Daddy, Bad Husband!

Every time I have to start a story with "so I got a call at work from Ross" you know it is going to be interesting...

So I got a call at work from Ross.  For a brief second I thought someone was pulling a prank on me because all I heard was heavy breathing on the line.  After a second or two Ross, breathless, said hello.  Of course I am starting to panic-Ross breathless and calling me at work is not a good sign that things are as they should be.  He told me that we had a big black bear in the backyard that was interested in our bird feeder.

I should note for all those who haven't read any of my earlier posts that my neighbor has several bird feeders and has had trouble with black bears who happen to think that they are little birdies.  I guess they seem to like the seed, and they are now trained to search it out.

Now having the bear interested in the bird feeder is not really a bad thing (although I would prefer that it would get its fill somewhere else, and I'm sure my neighbor is thinking the same thing about his feeders).  What makes it bad is that the bird feeder is really close to the bee hive and the chicken coop.  The last thing I need is to have the bear realize that we have a smorgasbord of good eats in our yard!

So with the bear's proximity to the coop and hive in mind I take you back to my phone call.  I asked Ross what was wrong and he told me about the bear in between breaths.  I asked him if the chickens were alright and secured and he said yes.  I asked him if he had ran away from it and he said "no, I chased it."  [long pause]

"You chased it?"  "Yeah, I chased it, and it ran away behind the blueberry bushes." [another long pause]

I can only assume that this is one of those moments that parents experience when their child does something so utterly crazy and incredible that the parents are left secretly filled with pride while at the same time knowing they have to admonish the behavior lest the dumb kid get killed.  In this case the dumb kid happens to be my very loving and overly protective husband; he was not about to lose another chicken this year.

After letting the idea of Ross chasing a bear sink into my brain, I asked him to please never do it again.  I also reminded him that a bear could out run him, and if it felt threatened enough it could decide to fight instead of flee.  I know Ross has a tough spirit, but I think the bear might take him in a fight.

Once I got home Ross clarified that he did not go chasing the bear through the yard.  He merely went to the end of the garden which is next to the back porch and yelled at it to go away.  This is still a bit too close for my comfort, but it worked. Ahhh, the crazy life of us country folk never ceases to amaze me!

Hall-O-Birthday

What a weekend.  My sister came to visit for a mini-vacation sans her family.  She needed a little R and R given all the excitement that she has had this past year; packing and moving your family to another state can be very stressful.  It was a good time for her to visit given that October is her birthday month, Halloween is her favorite holiday, and it is also peak foliage season in New England.  She flew in on Thursday and I picked her up in New York.  We celebrated her birthday that night with a jack o'lantern cake that Ross made.  It was cute and tasty.  He also made coq au vin for her first meal here-it was mighty delicious.  We were all stuffed afterwards (which given how much we ate this weekend it might as well be its unofficial theme).

We started Friday with a tour of the property and afterwards headed to breakfast at the local diner down the road.  Next we had lots of fun; Ross and my sister went shopping on the Litchfield green while I went to a dental appointment to fix one of my crowns (note to all kids out there-take care of your teeth because having dental work done is not fun and is not cheap).  During their shopping excursion my sister found a couple of small knick-knacks the she bought in one of the antique stores.  Happy birthday to her!  After my appointment we met up for lunch and then checked out the sights.  We stopped at the local potter.  Amazingly I left empty handed although there was something there that I wanted; for once my self control kicked in (I can control my addiction I swear).  We also took her to the Averill apple orchard in Washington to get some apple cider doughnuts which were yummy.  It was a chilly and blustery day so we headed home to warm up.  Ross filled our bellies with beef goulash.  We had a relaxing evening before hitting the hay.

I had a couple of events planned for Saturday.  The first was a ride on the historic Naugatuck Railroad.  We took a 75 minute ride in a circa 1920s railroad passenger car along the Naugatuck River.  It was fun and a nice way to see the sights and get some historical information about the area.  There was a little boy about to turn two with his grandfather next to us.  The boy was dressed in all his Thomas the Train gear.  I think he lasted about ten minutes before the rattling of the car caused him to fall fast asleep.  He woke up as the train pulled into the station.  It was so cute.  I could understand because the train made me feel the same way.

After the train ride we went looking for a place to have lunch.  I will say that this was more of a chore than I expected, and I have crossed one local eatery off my list for good due to poor customer service (when you tell me that I can't be served at 2:55 PM because the deli closes at 3 PM at least try to tell me nicely and not act like me trying to spend my hard earned money in your establishment is such an inconvenience-cough, cough Nine Main in New Preston, CT).  After finding a place to eat we headed to a local rustic, country shop where my sister was able to purchase an herb drying rack.  She really liked ours so we took her to the source.

We spent Saturday evening visiting the Glebe House in Woodbury.  This is a historical house, now museum, that had a special Halloween tour (I believe one guide said it was the ninth year for this event).  The house was candlelit and they had actors in each room.  This was not a fright-fest but more an educational endeavor.  The actors portrayed the ghosts of early residents of the house including the first owners.  It should be noted that this house was where the American Episcopalian Church was founded, so making it a haunted house would have been in poor taste.  After the house tour we went to the nearby cemetery where there where more actors who portrayed some of the more famous and infamous characters in the town's history (in most cases right next to where the residents were buried).  It was a beautiful night with luminaries leading the way and a full moon hanging brightly in the sky.  The actors did a good job too.  I would recommend going to this next year if you can make it to the area and like historical tours and such.

My sister left today so we had a quick breakfast this morning, loaded up the car, and headed back to New York so she could make her flight.  All the driving really took the wind out of my sails; I ended up taking a 2 1/2 hour nap once we got home.  We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get some one-on-one time with my sister.  And now, I should probably go and make sure Ross is awake since I haven't heard him stirring in a bit.  I think he might be curled up with Bootsy on the couch.

Time Flies

Guess what...

Boy does time fly by in the blink of an eye.  It just seems like yesterday that we were growing and harvesting our garlic, and Ross planted his new bulbs for next year today.  His garden is officially defunct for the year.  He pulled the last of the plants this past week.  We were able to get one last lettuce haul that gave us enough for a salad, and there are some carrots in the fridge that we will need to eat.  For the most part it was a good growing year.  All did well except the potatoes.

I spent part of the day performing the sad task of disposing of our annual flowers that are now spent and cleaning and storing the pots for the Winter.  It's sad to see the plants fade away knowing that another Summer has come and gone.  I still left some plants that are hanging in there go so that there was at least something on the patio when my sister comes to visit next weekend.

Ross planted some more daffodil bulbs in the front of the house last weekend.  The first Spring after we bought the place we had some daffodils sprout.  Ross has added to them each year since.  I can't believe we are quickly coming up on three years in this house.  All I can say is that the house and the landscaping keeps getting better every year.

The weather seems to be getting cooler and cooler as the month rolls along.  I haven't broken out a coat yet but did pull out my quilted flannel shirt.  We are back to wearing multiple layers while we are outside.  What is worse is that I have turned on the heater in the house.  It kills me to say that.  I usually try to make it till November to turn it on, but the temperature has been low enough that the house does not get back to a comfortable temperature during the day on its own.  It is not fair to Ross to ask him to freeze his tuckus off all day long just because I'm a heat miser.  FYI, I know it's gotten cold when Ross tells me that he is cold.  He has officially been wearing jeans and even wore his coat one day while he watched the chickens.  The chickens on the other hand don't seem fazed by the temperature change.

Last weekend Ross and I had our anniversary.  We had a relaxing weekend at home.  We did go to the Garlic Festival at the the Bethlehem Fairgrounds.  It is fun to go and see all the people and try all the different garlic dips and sauces.  I bought a carved wood bowl there to house my pocket change.  While walking around we discussed whether to go out to dinner or to cook at home.  We ended up cooking.  For dinner we had prime rib, baked potatoes, fresh garden salad with a garlic vinegar dressing (we got the vinegar at the fair), mushrooms sauteed in red wine, and champagne to toast another year together.  Ross made an incredible dinner.  I am blessed to have such a talented husband.

All in all it does seem that time is flying by.  I think part of what makes it seem to go so fast is the good company I get to keep!

Break Out the Coats

What a weekend.  We had two beautiful and sunny days with daytime temperatures in the 60s and evenings in the 40s.  This was the first time since Spring that we had to bundle up.  By this I mean that I put on a sweatshirt and long pants (and thought at one point of getting a jacket) and Ross went with a long sleeve shirt and his shorts instead of a short sleeve shirt.  Ross is warm blooded and I am always cold.  In the dead of winter I want to place flannel sheets and a wool blanket on the bed but he gets too hot.  He is best with a light blanket and regular sheets.  I would wake up as popsicle if he had his way.

As you can see in the picture we are starting to lose our leaves.  Everything in the garden has been early this year and it looks as if the changing of the leaves will be early too.  We had a tropical storm go up the East Coast Thursday and Friday which dumped a lot of rain on us.  With it came strong winds which knocked down a lot of leaves.  We needed the rain but could have done without the winds.  We thought about starting to rake, but I thought we should wait another week and let some more drop.  Ross mowed the grass though to help mulch what was already on the ground.  I think the chickens were upset since they love scratching up the leaves looking for bugs and worms hiding beneath.

I spent a lot of the weekend watching the chickens (they desperately needed some outdoor time after two days of rain) while Ross worked on a new Spring bulb border in the front of the house.  He has gotten really good at making rock borders, and we are in no short supply of rocks.  We chit chatted a bit with our neighbors from across the street, and they even mentioned how nice Ross' borders looked.  Now that he has finished this border we will have Daffodils framing the entrance to the driveway; I just love Daffodils and they look so nice with our old stone walls as a backdrop.

Speaking of the stone walls, I have decided to make several jack-o-lanterns this year to place along the wall.  I already started getting pumpkins (because pumpkins are also early this year) to complete my task.  I just love Halloween.  I only wished that the communities around here made a bigger deal over this holiday.  I'll probably start carving in a week or two and slowly build up my army of orange gourds.  As I buy more pumpkins I will of course sneak a sugar pumpkin or two Ross' way for rendering.  He makes a mean homemade pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Weekend Visitors

Sorry for the delay in recapping the weekend, but I've been a busy beaver.  Ross' father came to visit this past weekend and brought his girlfriend.  This was the first time we have met her, and she was a delight.

We had a wonderful weekend.  It was a bit of a whirlwind with visits here and there.  They arrived Thursday evening, and Ross had spent the day preparing.  He'd made a Lebanese meal like his grandmother (his father's mother) used to make.  Ross also tricked me; he knows that I've had some bad experiences with lamb in the past.  He gave me a taste test off the grill of what I thought was beef.  It was mighty tasty.  I guess I'll have to rethink my position on lamb.  We relaxed that evening so that they could recharge their batteries after driving all day.

We started Friday with a hearty breakfast at Patty's-a local breakfast/lunch diner in Litchfield.  I tried to warn everyone that the pancakes were huge.  I'm not sure if they thought I was exaggerating, but I was proven correct upon delivery of our order!  After that we did some shopping/sight-seeing on the Litchfield town green where I picked up some adorable new place mats and matching napkins for our dining room table.  After that we checked out some sites on a bit of a car tour and ended the tour with a walk through an old cemetery in Washington.   After getting a bite to eat we headed up to Averill Farm to get some apple cider donuts (oh so good) for Saturday breakfast, and then we took another car ride around scenic Lake Waramaug.  For our final stop we went to Guy Wolff's pottery shop.  Everyone who knows me knows that I have an addiction to his handmade flower pots and other accoutrements.  A visit to Guy's is always enjoyable and this visit proved to be the same.  Afterwards, we headed home for some r&r before Ross stuffed us with his chicken enchiladas.

Saturday began with breakfast at the house (those Averill donuts were so good).  We headed to Kent next (with a stop at Guy Wolff's again-I'm not the only person with an addiction to his wares it seems) and went to Bull's Bridge which is one of three covered bridges left in Connecticut.  It is such a scenic place, and watching Ross' father act like a little boy climbing over all the rocks was quite amusing.  Our next stop was to Belgique which is a local chocolateur (another oh so yummy treat).  We spent some time window shopping again down Kent's main drag and then headed back towards home.  On our way back we stopped at Angevine Farm to pick pumpkins, and we got to take a hayride around the farm.  We loaded the car with our pumpkins and headed back home where Ross stuffed us, once again, with barbecue ribs.  I think I'm still recovering from all the food.

Our guests left after breakfast Sunday morning.  In between all the running around we had a lot of great conversations.  It was a pleasure to catch up and to get to know Ross' father's girlfriend.  The two seem very happy together.  We had such a great time visiting and were sorry to see them go, although I was able use the free time to repot our aloe plant into my new Guy Wolff pot!

But Does He Do Windows?

The answer is yes he does!  I spent a good portion of the weekend cleaning windows.  Now I'd like to say that this was part of my semi-annual maintenance, but truth be told, we have not done a thorough cleaning of the windows since we bought the place two and a half years ago (and I can't begin to tell you when they were cleaned before that).  I never really realized how dirty they were until I cleaned one, and then I had to clean the rest.  I also didn't realize how many windows there are on our house between the regular panes and the storm windows until I started this very tedious job.  My thought half-way through was thank God we have a one-story house.  Although the job is in no way glamorous, I cannot describe the feeling of going inside and looking out through sparkling, clean windows.  It was very satisfying to see the world in full color instead of through the whitish-gray haze that was there before.  Of course, someone had to put a finger print on one of my freshly cleaned windows within hours of me cleaning it.  Ross assures me he did not do it.

This was just a precursor to the interior cleaning that we will be doing this coming week.  We are having family visit next weekend.  As such the whole house will be getting  a good going-over.  My mother accused us once of keeping our house too clean, and referred to us a Felix and Super-Felix (me being Super-Felix).  I took it as a compliment.  One of my fondest memories of meeting Ross' family was the first time I met his grandmother, affectionately referred to as Sito.  She came to our place for Thanksgiving, and her first remark after greeting everyone was to compliment us on how clean our home was.  Personally, I think our house could be cleaner, but that's just my obsessive compulsive disorder talking.

It has been a banner year for our tomatoes.  Ross was able to can another batch of his tomato sauce this weekend.  I love his tomato sauce.  For Friday supper, he made homemade spaghetti in his sauce with garlic bread (he made the bread himself and the garlic was from our garden); I am so spoiled.  With all the tomatoes this year, he has canned three batches of sauce, two batches of tomato soup, a batch of salsa, and two batches of tomato ketchup.  We will be eating well this winter!

Of course with me washing windows, Ross was on chicken patrol.  Blackie, our Black Australorps, had a tough Saturday.  Every so often chickens can lay soft-shelled eggs; the shell is there but it is not rigid or hard.  Blackie for some reason does this pretty much once a month, but instead of one egg she usually lays two in quick succession.  This was the case on Saturday.  It was later in the day, and Ross noticed that she was all puffed up and was looking like she was going to lay.  He got the other girls to go to their run so he could baby sit Blackie while she passed her eggs.  I was out front with them cleaning windows at the time.  To my great dismay, I heard a pack of coyotes in the distance howling while Ross was herding the rest of the girls to the back.  Coyotes are common place here, but hearing a group of them howling in the distance during daylight hours is not.  I said a little prayer that out little Australorps would get her eggs out before our property was overrun with hungry mongrels stumbling upon a chicken dinner.  She did get her eggs out, and we were not overrun by coyotes.  Of course, had we been, we would have been able to see them clearly through those freshly cleaned windows!

Fall is in the Air

I can't believe that it is Sunday already.  Ross and I have had a wonderful and relaxing weekend.  The weather Saturday was bright, sunny and cool.  It was a perfect day for our planned outing.  We went on a farm tour in Roxbury, CT which is one of those idyllic, small New England towns that commercialism has yet to reach.  We got to see two, historic farms and two, more-modern farms.  We had a wonderful time looking at the orchards and farm animals.  The not-so-little girl to the left is a Scottish Highland cow.  She was quite the character.  One of the guides mentioned that one farm in Roxbury imported this cattle breed a number of years ago, and now it seems that every other farm in the area has gotten itself two or so from the babies that followed.  They seemed quite the gentle giants and are supposedly well suited to our New England winters.  The farm where this picture was taken is one of the oldest continuous running farms in the country.  It is currently being run by the eighth generation of the family, and the land it sits on was originally granted to them in the early 1700s by the King of England.

On another farm there were goats and donkeys.  As stated in an earlier post, Ross really wants goats.  I was  surprised at the simple shed that was used to house them.  It is definitely something that we could build.   I should have asked if they stay in the shed in the winter or if they are transferred to another barn.  Oh well, we have some time before we get to goats, unless Ross pulls the chicken stunt on me again!

We also toured a certified organic vegetable farm and a local meat farm that focuses on humane treatment of its black angus cattle, heritage hogs, and free-range chickens.  We ended up buying some bacon for Sunday breakfast.  It was really good!  We had a great time touring the farms, but I think it was also very dangerous because now my head is filled with all kinds of ideas.

We awoke to an overcast and very cool Sunday.  I think the temperature might have made it to 62 degrees if we were lucky.  It was a good day to trim some of our trees though.  Ross got this picture of me climbing the ladder.  I wish he was able to catch the moment that I was trying to move it while it was still extended and almost fell backwards.  That would have been classic.  Always the worrier, Ross came around front (with the chickens in tow) and reminded me not to let the limbs fall on my head like I did when I trimmed one of our pine trees in the Spring.  I wasn't directly under that limb, but somehow or another when it dropped it hit me straight on the head.  It hit me so hard all I kept repeating to myself was "don't let go of the ladder."  It took me a couple of minutes to steady myself and then slowly descend to the ground.  Today was the first day since the pine that I tackled some larger limbs.  Believe me, not letting them hit my head was definitely a priority.  I got them down just fine with no new dents in my noggin, phew.

For Sunday supper, Ross made a most tasty pot roast with potatoes and carrots from the garden.  Ross likes to joke that it was his pot roast that sealed the deal on our relationship since that was the first meal he cooked for me.  I think my waistline agrees.

Since I'm on food I just wanted to give a quick update on one of our annual events-Peach Week-which occurred this past week.  Each year since we moved to Connecticut Ross and I go peach picking at a local farm; we did it this year this past Sunday (Daisy's last day-hence the reason that I'm getting to this now).  The week starts off with us just eating the peaches, and ends with jars of peach jam, peach butter, peach chutney, and halved peaches in a light sugar syrup all heading to storage in the cellar.  I can't tell you what a treat it is on a cold, late February night to open a can of the peaches we picked and get a taste of summer.  Peach Week is one of the main reasons we started our own, small orchard.

This year there were two additions to Peach Week; the first was Ross' new copper jam pot (which worked great), and the second was me.  He actually let me help.  It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about canning.   Of course my mom telephoned me at the same time that I placed a jar of jam in the hot water bath and the heat broke the bottom off lickety-split.  Nothing like trying to juggle a phone and a mess at the same time.  C'est la vie!

I should also mention that Ross made a delicious peach pie.  Some people love cakes; some love cookies.  I'm a pie guy.  Ross has always made stellar pies, but I must say that he has perfected his crust.  I think I could down a mud pie if it was cooked up in his crust!  And, on this note I think I will go since I know that there is still some pie in the fridge that needs attending to.

Nothing Left But Memories

As I awoke this morning I did what I do every morning laying there half-awake.  I gently moved my legs around to see where my little Daisy was sleeping.  This morning she wasn't there, nor will she be ever again.  We had her put down yesterday.

As those close to us know, Daisy was diagnosed with oral cancer this past May.  I asked the vet if the cancer would metastasize and she said no.  This was a bit of a blessing since the cancer would not ravage my little girl's body.  We were given two months; we got four.  What finally put us over the edge was that little Daisy could no longer eat.  We hadn't seen her eat anything in two days.  The cancer had grown to a point that she could not get food past the mass.  Her head was drooping (the vet told us that this was a sign of a potassium deficiency), she was wobbly when she walked, and she was becoming even more lethargic.  Once Ross pried open her mouth we knew that the inevitable had come.

Yesterday was a beautiful day-the sky was blue with big puffy white clouds, there was a nice breeze blowing, and the temperature was in the seventies.  Once we knew what was to happen we brought a sleeping bag out to the back yard next to the flower garden; Daisy loved to lay on the rocks in this garden.  I called the vet who said he would come to the house for this, and Ross and I took turns laying with Daisy. The picture above is the last picture taken of Daisy; it was taken about ten minutes before the vet arrived.  She slept next to both of us so peacefully.  What was to follow I will leave out because I feel that these moments are hard and emotional yet special, and words can never do them justice.  Afterwards we said our goodbyes, and the vet took Daisy away so that she could be cremated.  We held each other for a moment and then life began again.

When I was in high school we had to meet certain requirements to graduate, but there were many elective classes that one could choose around the core curriculum to meet the necessary standards.  For my health class elective I chose Thanatology-the study of death and dying.  I know it sounds a bit morose, but the teacher was cool.  And, I heard there were no tests.  The no tests rumor was confirmed on the first day of class to everyone's great glee until the teacher stopped us and said that there were no tests in the class, but we would be tested someday.  The basis of the class was not the study of death but how to live with loss.  I can remember the teacher saying that everyone will lose something important to them- a job, a marriage, a loved one, and what will be left behind is grief.  This grief will be like a measuring stick; it will show you the measure of how much you loved what you lost.  As an example, you might hear on the news about the tragic loss of someone you don't know, and your heart goes out for their family.  Although you felt something your life still goes on because you had no investment in that poor, lost soul, while that family you don't know's lives have just come to a screeching, sudden stop because their dear loved one has died.  Love is measured in grief; the more you love the more your grieve.  Plain and simple.  What isn't simple is how you grieve.

Shortly after losing Daisy I went back to work stripping paint off the columns in front of our garage (the task I've been working on this weekend).  Ross called his family for support.  Back when Daisy was first diagnosed with cancer I became acutely aware that Ross and I were a mismatched set when it came to grieving.  Ross reaches out to others to seek comfort while I withdraw from the world.  The interesting part of this behavior is that normally Ross is more reserved, if not downright shy, and I am the more gregarious of us two.  As I sat there working, all I thought of was Daisy and how much I already missed her.  I was using a heat gun to remove the layers of paint, and afterwards I could tell each time I started to cry because I ended up scorching the wood from leaving the gun in one area too long.  I felt, I still feel bad-bad for Daisy for having had cancer, bad for me because I feel so crappy, and bad for Ross because he feels bad and needs me while all I want to do is go away (yes to all of you crying out avoidance-I know I know...).  We'll muddle through somehow.

To conclude this most sad entry I will leave you with a thought I had while sitting there charring my column, with pain in my heart and tears rolling down my cheeks.  I thanked God for allowing me to feel so bad because it allowed me to know that what I had was special, and it mattered.  It was good and will be missed.

I love my little Daisy, my Doodlebug, and I hope that I never stop trying to feel for her every morning, half-awake, with my feet for the rest of my days even though I will always be left with disappointment.

Ouchy!

Ross was being a trooper today and mowed most of the lawn.  He hit a stopping point in the orchard.  We located our bee hive in this area, and when I mow I try to go as fast around the hive as possible.  I've held on to the theory that the mower agitates the bees, and I guess I was right.  Ross was mowing around it and he got stung twice.  What made it worse was that the first bee stung him around his mouth and just as he was reacting to that sting (hence opening his mouth to gasp in pain) another stung him right on the fleshy part right next to his lip inside his mouth.  Talk about a boo-boo lip!

On the plus side, we got a good batch of cucumbers from the garden so Ross is working on canning me some dill pickles while he is also working on supper.  He made foil dinners to go on the grill, filled with squash, carrots, beans and potatoes from the garden.  I just love foil dinners.  They remind me of camping.

A Beautiful Weekend

Well the weekend is almost over and no more cougar sightings thank the Lord.  We had a very productive weekend.  Ross was able to can a batch of his homemade tomato soup and made a terrific Mexican dinner for us Saturday night.  He made everything from scratch including the nacho chips for the cheese dip.  Mmm, mmm tasty.  They were even better today as a snack!

On Saturday, we finally got the roof completed on the chicken run.  I had placed wire mesh over the top to keep our little cluckers in but it was not secured.  This weekend we connected each of the posts with 2x4s and nailed the chicken wire in place.  We started to weave each of the sections together with galvanized wire, but still have some weaving left to do.  I'll leave that to Ross to finish this week.  I am feeling much better about the safety of my little girls.

Ross noticed that one of the hens was limping as she walked.  We checked her foot and all seems in order.  We are hoping that she just strained it and that in time it will get better.  We'll keep an eye on that.

Today I finished up a job that I have put off for two summers now.  When we first bought the property the woods came right up to the house.  The house sits on a hill (hence Looking Glass Hill) with the area that the house sits on leveled out.  On one side of the house the property slopes upward and on the other the property slopes downward.  Several months after we closed the septic system was replaced.  To do this the contractor had to cut down a lot of trees to place the tank and leaching field as well as to gain access to those sites.  He created a quasi road on our property and opened up a lot of what is now green space for us to enjoy.  That summer I placed some stone steps on the downward sloping side of the house that led to the quasi road.  I always intended to build a hand rail as the grade is somewhat steep but have put it off until this weekend.  As fate would have it Ross and I came across discounted, end of season hostas and decided to place these in this small swatch of land right next to the stairs.  The area was overrun with weeds and was the last remaining section of the area between the driveway and the quasi road that we still had left to reclaim from the woods; probably half of Ross' poison ivy outbreaks have come from reclaiming this area of our property.  I decided before planting the hostas that I should place the handrail  so that I wouldn't have to disturb the plants later.  So as Ross cooked brunch, and a tasty bread pudding that we had for dessert tonight, I went out and started digging the post holes.  Thankfully there were no major rock obstacles so hole digging went quickly.  For the posts I used a maple tree trunk from a tree we cut down earlier this summer.  The handrail is a maple sapling that I cut down today.  I had the posts in place and the sapling cut all before Ross called me to the table.  After a quick trip to the local hardware store for some quick drying cement to hold the poles in place, I was close to being done.  I'm really happy with the railing and was done so quickly that I was able to get all the hostas planted too.  Progress makes me happy.  What makes me really happy is crossing a two year old project off my to do list!

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

Let me start by saying that I miss all the cool things!  Late this morning I get an email from Ross sent from his iPod touch that read, "omg. just saw a bobcat."  Now a bobcat would not be an abnormal sight here in Connecticut, but it would be a first for both of us.

Making sure all was okay, I gave Ross a call and learned that he had been out herding the chickens while they free ranged for a bit when he saw the big cat.  He was a bit nervous because it was no more than 100 feet away from him.  I included this picture because the big cat was just on the other side of the hammock while Ross was standing about where the picture was taken.  Our phone call was short and sweet as I got back to work.

I got the whole story when Ross came to bring me lunch.  He told me that he was watching the chickens and then looked over and saw what he thought was a dog is in our backyard.  This is a concern when you have unprotected chickens because dogs can easily kill them.  The creature then looked at him and his first thought was "kitty."  His next thought was "BIG kitty."  His final thought was "BIG KITTY!"  It was at this point that he started flailing around the gett'n stick and telling the big cat to go away.  Thank God it did.  Now anyone who knows Ross knows that he loves cats, so I can only imagine that he must have cracked a momentary grin between his "kitty" and "BIG kitty" thoughts.

The next thing Ross told me is what really makes this story interesting.  He said that he was mistaken, and it wasn't a bobcat that he saw but a cougar (aka mountain lion, panther or puma).  Now this is a bit of a problem here in Connecticut because the official stance of the State's Department of Environmental Protection has been that cougars are not found in Connecticut and haven't been for over a century.  Cougar sightings in the state have been classified as either a mistaken identity of some other animal or someone's pet cougar gone astray.  Essentially, as my Internet research has led me to believe, the difference between Ross seeing a bobcat and a cougar in Connecticut is the same difference between someone seeing an airplane and a UFO.  I was even able to find a conspiracy theory online; the person said the state introduced the cougars back into the wild to control the deer population but did not want to notify the public because of the danger cougar's pose.  Going forward we will refer to this as the cougar on the grassy knoll theory.

Now what makes Ross' sighting even more interesting is that our elderly neighbor, who had the bear in her apple trees, has on several occasions told our next door neighbor that she has spotted a cougar in her yard.  He thought she was just being crazy.  Guess not.  Now I'm on a quest to get a picture of the cougar so that I can prove the big cats are back!  As an aside, when I got home from work Ross' big, bowie knife was sitting on the kitchen counter.  He had been wearing it this afternoon when he let the chickens out for some more free time.  I guess he thought he'd get all Grizzly Adams on the cougar if it decided to come back for a tasty chicken treat. Grrrrrr!

Here is another person's blog about cougars here in the Litchfield Hills. http://www.damnedct.com/mountain-lions-litchfield-hills/

Red Cabbage, Sore Knuckles

So Ross and I worked on the red cabbage kraut as he had hoped yesterday evening.  Ross had grown several heads of red cabbage in the garden and had been looking forward to mashing the cabbage this time- or so he says.  Unfortunately poor Ross has gotten poison ivy all over his fingers; he just has to look at a poison ivy plant to get it.  He looks like a mini-mummy right now with his fingers wrapped up in Band-Aids.  Of course this made it impossible for him to mash the cabbage so he was left to weighing and shredding.  This left the job of mashing to me-oh joy!

Mashing is a simple process.  You just keep pushing down on the cabbage with your knuckles to get the cells of the cabbage to release its moisture.  I am amazed at how much fluid gets released.  I used a mixture of knuckle mashing and squeezing in my fist as I worked the shredded cabbage.  The squeezing helped a bunch, but my knuckles are still so sore today from all the mashing.  Cabbage is a really tough vegetable!  This batch was red cabbage so the released fluid was a deep purple.  The fluid lent my hand a wonderful hue (not to mention smell) as you can see in the picture.  All I can say is that doing this gives me a great appreciation for our ancestors.  Food preserving and processing was a tough chore, and they did it in much greater quantity than us.

City Chicken Weekend

The weekend is almost over, and it has been a full one!  We started it off with City Chicken for Friday supper. This is a new dish to our table.  I personally never heard of it before, but it is something that Ross grew up eating and thought only his grandmother made (until he did some research and realized that many others had grown up with it too).  Although the name states chicken it is actually not.  Ross' recipe calls for a mixture of beef and pork.  I guess in the old days beef and pork were cheaper than chicken so City Chicken was the poor man's dish.  All I can say is that it was quite tasty, and as you can tell by the picture we had plenty enough for leftovers.

Speaking of chicken,  all four of ours are now laying eggs pretty consistently.  On Saturday I took the camera with me when I went to let them out and collect the eggs.  I took this picture of these three brown beauties waiting for me.  We are now getting more eggs than we are using so either Ross is going to need to bake more, or we are going to have to start giving them away.  I am amazed, and feel somewhat bad, that these little hens push out something relatively so big on such a consistent basis.  I guess there is no rest for the little cluckers.

The ladies are also getting accustomed to their new run.  The first couple of days they tried to escape via their not so great flying, but realized very quickly that their was no escape from Chicken-traz (think Alcatraz-my other name for it is Fort Clux like Fort Knox).  They also went from wall to wall looking for a way out to no avail.  Now they go about their business like it's old hat.  They even found a little space to have their dirt baths.  They are so adorable as they roll themselves around in the dirt.  They get it all up in their feathers.  When they are done, they give a grand shake and release a plume of dust.  It reminds me of Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoon.  They are my little dirty birds.

Ross and I also spent part of Saturday replanting his largest fig tree and changing out some of our spent annuals with mums and asters.  I have a thing for mums.  I just love their smell and the bright colors.  It is one of the things that I love about the late summer/early autumn period.  I will definitely post some pictures later once they start to bloom.  So far I picked up a couple of smaller pinks called Gigi and for the front planters I got a couple of oranges named Hannah.  Ross also picked out one that has a yellow center that radiates out to white; it is quite pretty.  In the evening we ran into town and got some more chicken bedding and food from the Tractor Supply store and then grabbed some supper.  When we got back it was dark, but it was still nice out so we took our kitty Daisy out to the rock garden with us.  I used this time to cut the flower stems off the lavender so that they could be bunched together and dried.  It was nice to just sit, talk and share a moment with our little girl who is quickly winding down (damn cancer).

We awoke today to rain.  Now I normally would be a bit down about a rainy day on my weekend, but we are in such need of water that I found it refreshing.  The rain caused a bit of trouble to my rain barrel though.  Those in the know know that I have had fits with this barrel since I got it.  It was sent to me as long wood slats with these small metal bands to hold them together.  Inside the barrel is a plastic bladder to hold the rain water.  The problem with it is that these metal bands cannot withstand the outward pressure pushed on them by the water.  I have now had three of the bands break so I went to Home Depot to see if I could find a solution.  Now my rain barrel is being held together by nylon tie downs attached to tensioning ratchets.  If it works...

I have included this picture of peaches I took Saturday because peaches permeated the whole weekend.  Our peach trees are young but have given us several tasty treats to snack on.  All I can say is that I cannot wait for these trees to mature so that I can stuff my face with peach after peach.  So, so tasty.  

So now I must go as I hear Ross in the kitchen working on his salsa (he finds so many ways to preserve all the tomatoes).  I also promised him I'd do the dishes, and then I think he wants to make a batch a red cabbage kraut this evening.  With all this still pending I'm really hoping to get to bed before the day's over.  Wish me luck!

Garden Variety

So we are hitting that point with our garden where everything is starting to ripen at once.  Ross goes out daily to pick tomatoes.  So far he has made a batch of his wonderful tomato sauce and some ketchup which is a first for him.  I am so thrilled about the ketchup.  Earlier this summer we were having some burgers for lunch and I happened to pick up the ketchup bottle and looked at the ingredients.  For the most part it was what I had expected, but there was one thing on there that I did not expect or like.  I would say more, but I won't here, given the fact that it is a big industry doing a lot of spin marketing lately.  All I need is a libel suit filed against me.  All said, I can't wait to crack open a jar of Ross' homemade garden tomato ketchup.

Ross also has made a couple of batches of pickles.  He prefers bread and butter pickles; I like dill so he makes a batch specifically for me.  He really is quite industrious.  So now we have ketchup and pickles.  I keep joking that he needs to make some mustard.  Of course now that we have farm fresh eggs, I bet he could whip up some great mayo (to make mayo you need your eggs at room temperature which is easy to do when you get fresh ones every day).  Now I'm getting hungry for a burger!  Oh well.  On a side note, I hope you like the labels on the lids.  I did this once before for Ross several years ago when he gave away his preserves as Christmas presents.  I thought 2010 was a good time to revive the practice.