Winter on the Ranch

It looks like winter is here to stay. Well, at least for awhile. Of course Christmas day was still plus 16, warm, and sunny so, I shouldn't bitch too much. Took a long walk with just my sweat shirt and shorts. Highly unusual for the great white north. Then, as it will, the temperatures dropped and so did the white stuff. I went from wearing shorts to long pants, winter coats, head bands and neck warmers.

Today the sun came out after being cloudy and kind of miserable for a few days, and even though I still had to bundle up and wear spikes on my shoes to stop from killing myself on the ice, I had a great walk with the hell hounds.

All in all this autumn was pretty nice. We managed to get all of our wood cut, bucked, split and stacked before the snow fell. Wood for the winter of 2017/2018. Oh yeah, two years worth of wood already to go. Woot. And it was all done with having to worry about being chewed alive by black flies, mosquitoes and other loathsome critters. So much better!!!!

Our new chickens seem to be weathering the season not bad, so far anyway. And seeing as it hasn't really been too cold that should be the case. We wrapped the outdoor run with plastic so that even on the bad, snowy days they would be able to go outside the coop for awhile. Now, whenever the sun comes out it is almost tropical in there. Like a green house. We have eight new guineas and nine chickens together. The idea was that the guineas would become much more domesticated because of their influence. So far they have been giant asshats to the chickens. Yeah, that's not working. The old guineas are pretty much trained, but they are in their old coop and don't spend much time giving a shit about the new birds. They are easy peasy when it comes to taking care of them.

Well, back to editing.

The Pretend-War on Christmas…The Return!

Well it looks like Halloween is over and the pretend-war on Christmas season is upon us.

Some of the old incendiary memes are starting to appear. “Post this if you will say merry Christmas instead of happy holidays this year.” Sigh. Then the old bogus stories from five years ago appear and are refreshed. My husband’s friend told me that he knows someone’s aunt’s, cousin’s, bestfriend’s, mother’s, father-in-law who was fired from their job at the K-tel patty stacker factory for uttering the word Christmas. But, before they let him go everyone on the assembly line had to take a turn squishing his ass between plastic disks.

People—this did not happen. It does not happen! These stories are fake. Only people who are desperate to be persecuted make this shit up (and Fox news). Unfortunately there are still a few gullible people who share this crap without realizing that it’s just some turd trying to stir the pot.    

There are no government laws, rules, policies, or any other nefarious organizations out there who want to limit what people say to each other over the holidays. If you want to say merry Christmas, go for it. I’m 99.99% certain that there won’t be a mandatory jail sentence handed down if you do.  Unless of course, if you happen to be naked and flashing your raincoat while you are saying it, then all bets are off.  

The latest target in the pretend-war on Christmas is Starbucks. Apparently if you want to buy a seven dollar chai, mocha, low fat, latte decaf, with a candy cane stir-stick, you now get it in a holiday cup. These cups are the same as their regular ones except they are red. Yes, you read that correctly. Those bastards! How dare they? Instead of putting pictures of snowmen or reindeer onto their cups like they usually do they decided to go with a red cup and a white lid. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to make me wonder why someone hasn’t reported them to the Human’s Rights Commission.

I understand how we can be sucked into bullshit agendas. I try really, really hard not to fall for this kind of stuff, but I can still get swept up in crap. For example, during the election someone started a movement to get niqabs banned from the swearing in ceremonies for Canadian citizenship, and I fell for it.  Not because I give two shits about what someone wears during the ceremony, but because I do care about women being forced to do things that they don’t want to do. In my mind, when I see a woman walking around wearing a sack over her head I immediately think that she is doing it because she has been brainwashed to do it since infancy. Or, some asshole is forcing her to look like a complete dweeb to make himself feel manly. So when I saw that meme I thought, “Dam right they shouldn’t wear one. It’s unsafe. What about security?” Ho-boy. Thanks Harper government, the pinnacle for promoting women’s rights in this country, for making me feel like an idiot.

I think it’s important to remember that when we begin to get offended after reading something on line, we need to start asking ourselves a few questions. Is this true? Do I really care? Could there possibly be a hidden agenda? What does Snopes have to say about it? Do I need to expend my time and energy with it? Would I look good wearing a Zorro mask?

Writing

Anyone who tells you that writing is easy has probably had a frontal lobotomy. Writing is hard work. Good writing is the hardest. The funny thing about it is that if I had to choose between an easy peasy lemon squeezy job and writing, I'd pick writing. It may be hard, it may be frustrating, it may be pretty skint in the paying department, but at the end of the day I still love the feeling of a word, sentence, paragraph, story...well written.

Summer the Season of Shit...

Wow! What a crazy summer it is. Why is it that we save all of our shit to do for the few months of the year when we should be out enjoying the shit out of it? Between moving crap from one house to another, raising chickens and guinea fowl, and painting, painting, and more painting a person can get no rest.

Thankfully it has been gorgeous this year. So much better than last year where it rained 24/7.

Quick, someone bring me a rum and Pepsi and get me to the beach.

War

I have a veritable war going on just outside my window. At any given moment my humming bird feeder will have anywhere from one to twenty would be customers. They zip about, they fight, they land, they flit, and they attack. Birds are mean.

My guineas are mean as well. Last year I started with six. One, ended up with an injured foot and automatically became low man on the pole. He (or she) was literally hen pecked all day long. Then one day death came in an instant, and just like that, a new low man was born. To me, it was hard to tell why, but to the others it was easy. They spent the rest of the summer chasing and pecking at him (her) until she too was murdered. Then a new low man was born.

I live in a rather secluded area and get to see many types of birds. We put out feed in the winter and watch them going in and out of their bird houses in the summer. They are blue, yellow, black, grey, red, pink, brown, and everything in between. They are big, small, fast, slow, in the air, and on the ground. Their behaviours are a varying as their looks, but the one thing which they all have in common is that they are assholes.

I can only imagine what this would was like when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Large, constantly shitting, and forever battling. Perhaps that asteroid did us a favour. At least the devolved species of dinosaurs are small.

A Lesson in Too Much

Yesterday was the first day I was able to get to my favourite sea-glass beach and go combing. When I arrived, a thick bank of white was sitting just off the shore and a fog horn across the bay kept up its steady tolling. It is in Old Lunenburg town. I couldn’t those colourful buildings, but I could picture the reds and yellows in my mind. I could picture its narrow streets, its funky little shops and its tar covered piers. I crunched over pebbles and sand while I listened to that horn and the sough and crash of the waves on the shore. At one point I looked up and just caught the stern of a sailing ship disappearing into the thick mists. It was like a scene right out of a Hollywood film. Did I actually see it? I stood for a long time looking out into the fog as tendrils of mist curled around my legs before blowing away like ephemeral spirits.

My very first glass find was a light blue piece, a rare treasure. I was thrilled. Normally I have to wander up and down, back and forth, to and fro for a couple of hours before I find anything so wonderful. My usual beach combing M.O. is to spend two hours wandering. I might find just enough pieces to cover the bottom of my bag. Once in a blue moon I fill it to the top. Yesterday I filled my bag in twenty minutes. Sea-glass lay scattered everywhere. Initially I was ecstatic, than as I bent down and picked my hundredth piece, leaving about twenty on the ground, I realized that this cornucopia of finds had reduced the experience. I felt cheated.

Literally there were too many to pick from. More than half the fun comes from the search. It came as a bit of an epiphany this act of finding too much and I realized that sometimes the best things in life come from a lot of work.

The fog moved further out to sea and I watched a lobster boat weave in and out of the curtain of white. The deep tolling of the horn kept up its warning of shallow waters and the tide began to move back in. I slung my bag of treasure over my arm and took one last deep breath of the wet, salty air, and then turned to leave. Sometimes the best things in life are free. Sometimes the best things in life come from knowing where to look. Sometimes the very best thing in life is what you have to work hard for. Understanding this lesson, deep down inside, is one treasure I did not expect to find yesterday.

Another Pile...

Yes, another day, another pile of the white stuff. I am living in Westeros where winter has arrived and isn't going anywhere, anytime soon. Four more inches.

I'm starting to work on putting together a bit of a writing class. I'm thinking of offering one in the fall. My nefarious reasons--because I want to surround myself with like minded people. I know, shocking. But when you have the bug, you have the bug, and there doesn't seem to be a cure for it. Even when I'm not writing, I think about writing. (Which I'm sure for those of you who can crank out the words day in and day out don't mean a thing. In order to produce, one must sit down and work, this, thinking about it, business is for losers.)

Speaking about thinking about it...time to get up and walk around before I seize up.

Sitting Pretty

Finally on the mend. I'm still a little sore and stiff, but not anywhere as bad as last week. The best thing is that I can actually sit up now. It turned out to be a locked hip joint that was pulling on my back and doing bad things to my innards. A combination of shovelling many, many shovel fulls of snow and then having a 100 pound German Shepherd jump on my snow shoes and making me hit the ground. Sometimes I could just take off a snow shoe and beat the turd with it. Lucky for her that I'm not a violent type person.

The worst part of my convalescence was my book choices. They were boring, crappy, creepy, and sigh...another fucking zombie book.  How come I always end up with zombie books? I think there should be a rule about that. If it contains the undead wanting to attack and eat people there should be a warning label on the cover. Warning, Warning...there be zombies here!!! I get it, zombies and vampires sell, but come on...who the hell wants to read that many? Or any? I just can't buy into the premise. They are dead...they do not need to eat...they can't see, think, or move...I DO NOT BUY IT!

I have two pathetic looking dogs sitting here trying to will me into giving them some food. In order to save my capacity to smell anything than stinky dog, i had better go and feed them. 

Bad hip...very bad...

WTF? I mean really. What is going on with my back/hip? It's as if I was doing something like lifting a million pounds of sludge or something. Today I am much, much worse.  The worst thing is that it is sunny and warm outside. How often has that happened? Not very, that's how often. So instead of enjoying the sun and the warmth I get to feel like someone ran over my midsection. Grrrrr. Well I think I will try and go for a walk and see if I can shake it off.  It's either that or sit around and whine. And god only knows I've done enough of that for awhile.

Oh my aching hip...

What in the seventh level of the abyss is up with my hip.  I got up this morning all sunshine and happiness (I have to do my own sunshine because it sure as hell isn't outside) and decided that the house needed a vacuum and wash.  About half way through my vacuum my hip started hurting so bad that it actually took my breath away whenever I bent over.  WTF? Is this what I have to look forward to as I age?  If so...it sucks something bad.  So, now I get to sit here on a heating pad and hope that it goes away.  Me not so happy.  Grrrrrr.

And speaking of grrrrr...every time I look up and out my window all I see is cold, blowing snow. Come on already, its almost the end of March. Typically at this time of the year we have zero snow, not four feet of the shit.

Okay, whining and complaining is over now. I shall return to other more productive things. Kicking the cat, stomping around (and saying ouch), and possibly eating anything that isn't nailed down.  Sigh.

Happy Pi Day

Yes it is Pi Day today. And right at this moment it is warm and sort of sunny. Apparently we are in for another storm tomorrow.  So quick like a bunny I have to get some stuff done and then go for a walk before the roads become impassable.  The whole idea of another storm right now sucks to the nth degree. I was just starting to see patches of grass and snow banks beginning to shrink.  It's enough to make a person seriously consider taking a tropical vacation somewhere.  Now if I only had the money...

Planted = Production

So, yesterday I managed to sit down and do some writing, although it wasn't writing which I could share. It was all background information on my characters. Which means that only me, myself, and I will be the ones actually seeing 90% or more of it.  Today I would like to do more than that.  So the plan is that I plant my ass to the chair and do some writing.  Writing which I want to share with others.  That means that planted = production = task completed.  Or so she thought.vv

Bunnies on the Move

I'm not exaggerating when I say that today is the nicest day we've had in months. It is sunny, +14, and bright, bright, and bright some more. Yesterday just as I was finishing my walk it started to snow, and today, when I went out for my walk I (and my trusty side kick Poncho...aka Kit) were the only two creatures to leave footie prints on the snow.  And then I turned the corner...

All I can say is that today must have been so beautiful that every single bunny, squirrel, mouse, and other kind of rodent, decided that it was a great day to go out for a hop/scurry/run.  The road was criss-crossed with trails.  Poncho was so excited that she snorted the white powder for at least six kilometers, non-stop. Then, having over indulged, thought it was a great idea to slide along head first in the stuff there after. The snow is no longer untouched.

The strange thing was that on the way home we ran across a clam shell.  Just sitting there on the top of the snow.  How the hell did it get there?  All the lakes in these here parts have several feet of ice over them.  The ocean is very far, as the crow or any other type of bird flies, so where did it come from?  It had to be a bird because there were no tracks of any kind around it, but where the hell did the bird get it?  Strange...

Speaking of birds, the guineas are also enjoying the hell out of the day.  Although the majority of their world is still covered in snow, there are one or two patches of grass peaking through.  The caterwauling and squawking is reaching a crescendo of guinea pleasure. 

Paint Splatters and Otters

I'm sitting here with my hands covered in paint.  I've just finished a painting and am getting ready to pack up and go back into the house.  Just a minute ago, out over the frozen lake, I watched an otter running and swimming across the snow.  It's black, almost serpentine like shape moved with surprising speed over and through the whiteness of winter's blanket.  How many times have I missed these kinds of escapades because my face is buried somewhere else?  Just a few seconds and s/he was back into the bush and out of sight. I need to remember to breathe deep during this moments and just be.  

Old Lunenburg Town - Missed Again

This is the second Friday in a row that I had to miss my writing group because of weather.  WTF?  Its like winter decided to be as much of an asshole as possible.  It can go away anytime now.  So instead of going off to do writing somewhere else, I painted, and then painted, and then actually worked on the second edit of a story.  However, because it was so sucky outside I decided to curtail an outing.  Usually that makes me feel like poop.  And surprise, surprise...I feel like poop. 

On the upside it is suppose to be nice tomorrow, the calm before the storm, so I'll take Hellhound 1 and Hellhound 2 out for a jaunt before the really ugly stuff rolls in. 

Yesterday

Yup...yesterday was supposed to be a seriously bad day, I decided to chance the trip to my class and voila...all was good.  However, the snow started and it fell.  It will take at least two hours to get our shit plowed out.  So I'm calling off my trip to Old Lunenburg Town and not going to my writing group.  Which means that I have to do my writing at home.  Gack! 

I've got this story pinging around in the brain pan which I have been putting down here and there.  I really, really, really shouldn't seeing as I have a ton of work to do on my other stories.  But I can't help it, it keeps leaking out of my fingers.  (Such a wonderful problem to have.) 

The down side is that it is -14 and it will take at least two hours to dig out.  The upside is that the hubby has already jumped on that project.  Which leaves me to do what I want to do until my services are required. 

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Actually the weather outside is winter.  We got a dump and a half yesterday and then another dump through the night.  The good news is that it didn't warm up and start raining.  I cannot even imagine what that would have done to the surroundings.  And also on the plus side is that after plowing and shoveling three times we have an actual driveway and place to park vehicles today. 

I went for a walk in the storm yesterday and almost had to tunnel my way home.  So I jumped on the quad and plowed out our driveway, all half a kilometer of it, then the hubby did later on, and then the hubby went out this morning and did it again.  So yay us. On the down side, our road is not a main road so the snow plows have yet to make it back here.  It still has a good foot or so of snow on it, so no driving anywhere.

Now it is blue skies, sunny, windy, and cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.  I took the hellhound out for a walk this afternoon and was ever so glad when I got to turn out of the wind.  Its lucky I still have a nose and cheeks left and they didn't fall right off.

The water for the birds was frozen almost right through, so when I replaced it with warm water I was greeted by cheers.  Well perhaps not cheers, more like...SQUAWK!  (Which means, what the hell took you so long.)  I have the water sitting on a cement block which is being heated by a light bulb so at least there is always a small part of the water that remains liquid enough to drink. But I pulled it out earlier thaw it and obviously I waited a little too long.  My bad.  But now they are watered and fed and should be able to fill the coop with poop.  Oh the joy.

STORM WARNING!

Yup...another storm.  Since January 27th we have had storm day...clear day...storm day...clear day...storm day...  And yesterday it was nice and sunny...today it was sunny until around 7:30 am and then the clouds moved in.  Now, according to the weather people, we are in for another nor' easter-wester-souther-cane.  It started snowing just after noon and apparently just after midnight it is supposed to turn to rain and then back into snow. 

In the meantime I just don't care.

My plans for today are - laundry, bake cookies, and do homework.  I've managed the first two and have been doing some serious time-wasting for the last one.  I also have three more paintings commissioned which I will have to get to right smartly.  Why is it that shitty weather always makes me lazy? 

Sunny Days...and then...

What is it about living on the east coast which make people go a little loopy? 

Today the skies are blue and the sun is shining and the temperatures are quite pleasant.  Apparently tomorrow that is about to change.  We are in for a bit of a storm.  Which means we will go from green fields and clear roads to large quantities of snow.  Yes, it happens.  It is winter.  Shit like that has been going on ever since I was pushed out into this world.  In Canada...wait for it...in the winter...it snows.  There I said it.  The awful truth. 

Now this snowfall is predicted to end the next day.  So really, in the scheme of things, this winter storm will be rather short.  The hubby decided to go to the city (Halifax) today to get a quote for some material we need to finish our project, on the way out he stopped and talked with one of the people who live out here in the sticks.  "Going into town to get supplies?" he asked.  "There's a storm coming tomorrow." 

Every time!  People around here act like survivalists whenever they hear of a weather event.  Dog forbid that you should actually have to go shopping the day before a storm.  There is mayhem and hysteria everywhere.  Shelves are actually empty all over the stores.  Never once, in all the years I lived out west did I ever see the grocery stores with empty shelves like you do here.  In fact, if I didn't know better I would have assumed that they were just perpetually filled by some sort of magic. 

Is it the population density?  Was it normal previous to me moving here that they had to go weeks without food and water after a storm?  Or is it some kind of mass hypnosis or delusion that is at work.  Either way it leads me to believe that when the Zombie Apocalypse happens, living in the eastern part of the world will be bad.  All the food and water will be gone.  All the fuel and ammunition will be hoarded.  And the Zombie chanting will sound like..."We told you so.  We told you so. We told you so. We told you so, but you wouldn't listen." 

Sunday Afternoons and Chocolate Chip Cookies

So yay for me!  I managed to convince myself to go for a walk.  Hazzuh!  The roads were pretty much okay, there were a few spots that still had ice covering, those places I did more skating than walking.  Actually I was surprised that there was any kind of ice, after the massive rainfall we had yesterday.  In fact, I was expecting to wake up to piles and piles of snow.  But it never dropped below zero and consequently we are still in the green belt.  On a better note, I now feel less shitastic after my walk.  Perhaps, fingers crossed, this cold is beginning to bugger off. 

The neighbours once again made trip after trip after trip, this time removing sled after sled full of stuff from the cabin across the channel.  So after my walk I went down to the lake to perhaps try doing a running skate with my boots on, but the first 8' to solid ice was just water.  I'm curious to know how the neighbours managed to get on the ice with the quad that many times?  And how they managed not to go through.  Lucky people. 

I need the hubby to build me a doggy rinse shed.  The hellhound is one humungous dripping muddy icicle.  Or better yet, anyone interested in one, slightly used German Shepherd?