Christmas and books

Christmas has come and went in Clifford. It was a quiet one for us. We
were awakened early Christmas morning by the dogs, almost as if they
understood what day it was and wanted their presents. Since we have
followed the same ritual of going to my parents on Christmas Eve and coming
home a bit later than normal, maybe some of the older dogs do recognize the
significance. It is Hazels 15th Christmas with us after all and Bugsy,
Cricket, and Sadie have logged 13 Christmases with us.

The dogs got new toys, some of which were squeaky and like little kids
playing with a new drum set they are driving us a bit crazy from time to
time squeaking them. Soon however they will be chewed apart and the squeak
"killed".

One of the new toys was pilfered off the counter a few days before Christmas
and disappeared outside. But it has re-appeared now that there are plenty
of toys to go around. Ginger immediately appropriated the stuffed snowman
toy on Christmas morning. She loves toys, especially stuffed ones that
remind her of a small animal. She carried that thing everywhere for a few
days, even jumping up in our laps with it. The older dogs were more
interested in the chewy rolls and special treat of canned dog food.

I picked up some small candy canes for the horses. Horses love peppermint.
Lily very much appreciated the gift, although Chance was a bit skeptical at
first. The chickens and turkeys got greens for a present and the barn cats
canned food. The canary got a few hulled sunflower seeds. All creatures
great and small were gifted.

I got to read a few books over the holidays, even though I did a lot of
baking and candy making. There was no good TV shows so I read instead. I
read Of Bees and Mist,(Setiawan) an odd story set in what must be an
alternate world, and Larry McMurtry's Rhino Ranch, also a bit odd, and Eight
Days to Live,(Johansen) a spooky thriller, lots of action, with a bit of the
supernatural. All of them I would recommend, although Rhino Ranch somewhat
disappointed me as there was not much of a story there unlike McMurtry's
other westerns.

I am going to dip into my reading box again before New Years. I buy books
from time to time and put them in a box on a shelf in my office until I have
time to read them. A lot of them come from book clubs- I can't resist those
get 5 books for a dollar things although I usually regret it later. When I
read I get really absorbed in the book- my husband will attest to this, and
it rarely takes me more than three days of reading in the evening to finish
a book. There is some danger in reading in the evening- especially if you
have to work the next day. Just one more chapter syndrome makes you plenty
tired the next day.

Winter- what is it good for? Reading!

Wicked winter weather

You forget just how brutal Michigan winter can be until you get a day like
today. Last night we got 6-8 inches of snow - it's hard to say because of
the drifting. But the north wind is whipping through here and the
temperatures are in the teens with wind chills below 0. Getting to the barn
this morning with a bucket of water was a real job. In places the snow
had drifted over my knee boots.

Inside the barn out of the wind it is a bit better but still plenty cold. I
kept Chance inside because his little crippled legs probably couldn't make
it through that stuff outside and of course Lily won't let him come back in
"her" barn and he would be stuck out in the cold. Lily had been out and
wandering the paddock this morning but was back inside when I went out.

I tried to get some wild birdseed out of the car but all the doors were
frozen shut. I finally got the passenger side door open and was able to
reach the jug of finch seed I bought but not the sunflower, which was way in
the back. And when I waded through to the bird feeder I found the big one
was frozen shut- I was freezing so their seed got dumped in a spot I tramped
out on the ground.

Outside my home office window the wind is blowing the plastic we covered our
home made storm windows with around. It's still attached on one side but
that probably won't last. The snow outside is blowing around like a
blizzard, even though the sun is out and no snow is really falling right
now. I have my little heater running full blast under my desk. The office
dogs are gratefully huddled around it. My canary is sitting under his heat
light.

I haven't attempted to shovel yet - with it drifting so badly it's useless.
I didn't have to drive into work today and that's a good thing. Just the
thought of cleaning that car off makes me tired. If they plow tonight I'll
try making it to my Extension job tomorrow. I am supposed to attend a
memorial service for a colleague's wife and then go to the office Christmas
party.

I spent a great deal of time over the weekend baking and making candy. My
father decided he could no longer make our family's traditional Christmas
meat pies. His hands make peeling potatoes hard and its just too much work
for him. It's our tradition to eat meat pie on Christmas morning and dad
made them for everyone after his mom died. That's 10 full sized pies, one
for each family. So I decided as the eldest it's my turn to make them.

Meat pies are a lot like pasty's - meat, potatoes and onion in a nice crust.
Of course at one time they used turnips or rutabaga in them but for the last
30 years or so it's just been meat, (we use ground beef), potatoes and
onions. Dad didn't quite remember proportions, and there is no written
recipe. I have watched him make them a few times and I have made them just
for us a few times so I hope I got the huge amount done right. I used 10
pounds of ground beef and 5 pounds of diced potatoes and 2 pounds of diced
onions. I'm hoping that will fill all the pies.

I had to cook all this in my big roast pan in the oven because I didn't have
a big enough stock pot for the top of the stove. That seemed to work all
right, I took it out and stirred and mashed it a couple times to keep it
from setting up like a big meatloaf. The problem is getting the seasoning
right. It has to be spicy, but not too spicy. I think dad just used pepper
and salt, I added a bit of garlic and used seasoned salt.

The crusts- now that is a chore. Making pie crust is not my favorite thing.
So far all the bottom crusts are done and in the pans and I have the top
crusts chilling in the refrigerator. I will finish and bake them tonight,
then wrap and freeze them for Christmas Eve. The proper way to eat meat
pie is to heat it up on Christmas morning and enjoy it for breakfast -
usually with catsup slathered on it. With this pie we have fruit salad and
generally some kind of loaf bread like banana nut bread.

I also made peanut butter fudge - and I really need to make another batch of
fudge if I am going in to work tomorrow. We exchange white elephant gifts
but I always put in some of my fudge and it's kind of expected. Every
Christmas I usually make about 12 batches of fudge to give as gifts - but I
am cutting that down this year. And most of that will get done next week.

Ah, Christmas. I don't shop much for it but I still keep busy.

Lily gets a friend for Christmas

We rescued a mini horse for Christmas. His name is Chance. Chance has
some very "deformed" hind legs yet he still manages to get around pretty
good. He's four years old but hasn't been gelded- something that will
change this spring. He's a dark sorrel, about 30" at the shoulder; possibly
he shows some of the dwarf traits some mini horses exhibit. He's a little
fat and full of burrs but a sweet, well mannered guy.

He spent his time with some other mini horses and some large mares until his
owner could no longer keep them. She was able to find homes for the other
horses but Chance scared everyone off with his bad legs. We decided to take
him and give Lily, our spoiled mini, some company. Somebody needs to care
about the disabled ones, and who better than us, with our own disabilities.

Lily has been alone since her son Charlie died and she was moping around and
getting fat. She got very excited whenever riders came down the road and
even talked to passing horse trailers. Although she could see horses at the
farm across the street it wasn't the same as being with another horse.

Despite all of that Lily wasn't totally sure she liked this new guy. He's
shorter than her by about 6 inches. He smelled different and was a little
unkempt. We put them in stalls with a gate between them for the first day.
The next day I took Lily out on a lead into the pasture and turned Chance
loose in it. He was happy to get outside again; he wasn't used to a stall.

Chance wandered around smelling everything and Lily was stamping her feet
and giving little mini squeals. If he came too close she presented him
with her rear and kicked out. But she watched him intently. The next day
I put Lily in the east pasture and Chance out in the little paddock behind
the barn and they could see each other through the fence.

Lily spent a lot of time standing at the gate but if Chance stuck his nose
through she bit him. She also spent a lot of time racing to the far end of
the pasture and back, tail in the air, showing Chance just how well she
could run. She was getting exercise without even being with him.

After an hour or so of this I let her back into the little paddock with him.
She promptly began chasing him around but didn't seem too intent on actually
catching him. Chance seemed to understand just what he should do and he
didn't seem to have any trouble keeping away from her. Still I was a little
worried that she would make his poor little legs sore and I put him back in
the stall after 20 minutes or so.

The next day I let him eat his breakfast and then let him out. Lily's stall
opens into the paddock and she was already outside eating some hay I put out
there. They spent several hours together, with only minor chasing although
he was not allowed to get too close to Lily. However Lily would not let him
go inside to the water nor eat from either of the two widely separated piles
of hay I put out. So I put him back in the stall for the night.

They are out together today, well Chance is out but Lily was inside keeping
out of the wind. Hopefully in a day or two more they can share that big
area for shelter like Lily and Charlie did and I can use the other stall for
hay again. Our barn is crowded and we used the stall we put Chance in to
store hay. We are too old to put it in the loft anymore and go up there to
throw it down.

Chance needs to be able to get to the water and eat his share of hay in
peace. There is a windbreak for him but being inside on a blustery day
would be better. So for a few days at least I will bring him in at night to
the stall. Maybe by Christmas Lily will appreciate her Christmas present!

There are a lot of horses out there that need new homes because of this bad
economy. A friend actually adopted a mustang mare that was with Chance. If
you have room in your barn and heart for a horse rescue this winter please
consider adopting one.

Little problems

I saw a chipmunk on my front porch this morning. It was not a happy
discovery. Now I have chipmunks as well as squirrels and rats to make a
mess of everything. Luckily chipmunks aren't very active in the winter-
being "almost hibernators". And winter is almost here- even though you
would never know it from the beautiful weather we have been having.

The stupid squirrels are in the attic again. And from there they like to
come down inside the back porch to get into the sunflower seed for the birds
and to destroy my plants out there. They chewed off the tops of a geranium
of all things and dug up my tuberous begonia to hide nuts.

I wish I could leave the door open all the time so the dogs could get in
there and possibly kill them. But we have a lot of stuff stored out there
and the dogs could be just as much trouble with that as the squirrels.
Barack would probably carry all the tools outside and Ginger would be
climbing all over my plants to look out the window. It's a toss up.

I put rat poison in the barn again and now I get to deal with dead and dying
rats. But at least we may save on the feed bill. We are also having
trouble with sparrows coming in to eat the chicken feed. That just started
this summer. We never had this much trouble with the birds before. I think
it's because there are no cats left except the one wild one and Vicky the
visitor cat. The birds come through the chicken door and through the barn
door because we leave it open for the turkeys. When I walk in the barn they
fly all over, batting themselves into the plastic covered windows. If I had
a badminton racquet I could really hit the birdies.

Lily my horse became the victim of my kindness. I had to lock her in the
east pasture after she foundered a bit on the grass in the west pasture. I
firmly believe, as does the vet, that the walnuts are the culprit over
there. She doesn't eat them but I think they lay on the grass and leach
their toxin on it or she eats leaves from the trees when they fall.

Anyway she was recovering nicely from that but the grass was mostly gone
from the east side. So I bought hay - 1st cutting alfalfa mix first, but
then I bought a bale of 4th cutting and after a day or two she foundered on
that. (Foundering makes the horses hooves swell with blood and it's very
painful for them to walk. It can become so bad they have to be put down.
It's caused by too much sugar and carbs in the diet).

I bought some 2nd cutting mix but the vet said that was still way too rich
and said I had to find 1st cutting grass hay, which isn't as easy as it
sounds. I was lucky and got some from a big dairy farm on the East side of
Marlette- right on our road.

Lily is now doing much better and walking well. No grain and only a little
bit of carrot or apple for her now. Vet says she needs to lose 50 pounds-
but that sounds a little extreme for her size. She is on bute, a pain
killer, that I don't like and hopefully can soon be weaned off of it. She
was locked up in the small pasture right behind the barn, which is
essentially without any grass but last night she pushed open the gate to the
east pasture just before I went out to feed her. Luckily that grass is dry
and she wasn't out there long. And it proves she feels better.

The vet said she needs a companion and I do agree. I am going to find
another mini, pony or goat for her. She is bored and has nothing to do but
eat. Steve wants a goat I think. I do like goats but they are hard to keep
inside a fence and get in a lot of trouble. And I wonder if the cross
species company is really that satisfying for them.

The turkeys are laying eggs- very odd for the fall. Maybe it means we will
have no winter- spring is already here. Wouldn't that be great?

November 1, 2010

It's a pretty day, cold but pretty. Today was the first morning this fall
that the hose at the barn was frozen. It must have gone well below freezing
last night because there was ice on the bucket that I ran the night before
in anticipation of the hose freezing. It said 32 degrees at the thermometer
just outside the barn. I forgot my gloves, hard to get used to that again,
and my hands were freezing. But inside the barn the water hadn't froze -
the barn does stay a few degrees warmer than outside even though the windows
are still open.

The leaves are falling off the catalpa and mulberry trees like rain; they
hold their leaves and drop them all at once after a hard freeze. I can see
the neighbor's houses again now that most of the leaves have fallen off the
trees. After the color has dropped it always seems a little drab and
"exposed" around here.

The geese have been extremely noisy in the morning. They are taking the
corn off the fields around here and lots of it is spilled on the roads and
edges of the fields. Big flocks of geese are actually flying north-
following the harvest as it moves south to north. I have seen ducks, cranes
and swans flying south but not geese.

One beautiful migrant I was lucky to see was a bald eagle. He was feeding
on some road kill one frosty morning. It took me a minute to realize why
the "buzzard" I was seeing had a white head and tail. I was also fortunate
enough to see a Great Horned owl at daylight one morning. He was sitting in
a field trying to eat something he had caught while early rising crows were
dive bombing him.

I started feeding Lily, my horse, hay again. There is still plenty of nice
green grass in the west pasture but she foundered on it (went lame) either
because the grass was too rich or because she was getting too many windfall
apples or autumn olive berries. We had to pen her in the smaller east
pasture. There was still some grass there but it was older, tougher stuff.
Of course she has eaten most of that and now we added hay.

It's a shame to have all this pasture and not be able to let her roam and
eat it. I was naïve to think that I could give a couple of little horses
the nearly wild experience and just observe and play with them. Maybe it
would work if I had more horses to eat the pasture but they are so expensive
to feed through the winter.

Lily has lost some weight - which is really good for her- since being on the
east side. It is really hard for me to ration what she eats but the
expression "eat like a horse" is quite apt. Horses will eat continuously
until they make themselves sick. And Lily probably eats more because she
has no companion this year to run and play with. One day I will find the
right new friend for her.

Squirrels are back in the attic again. I am going to have to throw some
poison around up there. I also saw a squirrel drop a nut down our sewer
vent pipe on the roof. I wonder how many more are in there. And I know of
no way to get them out. I do not think squirrels are cute. These little
red monsters around here are mean and destructive.

Ah fall, I wish it could stay at least until spring. Does that make sense?
I am starting to sense winter coming. I dread winter. So not fun doing
chores and driving in it. I hate wearing coats and particularly boots. I
hope it's at least like last winter - not too cold or snowy.

Fall in the country

We are having beautiful fall weather here in Michigan. The colors are better than I expected and the cool but sunny weather is great. Cool is relative I guess because while its much cooler than summer was its still a bit above average.

Friday I had just came out of the barn after the morning chores when I saw three deer ambling down the middle of the road. There was a pick up behind them and it was almost as if he was herding them. They didn’t seem scared and they kept up a fast walk right down the center of the road. They were headed to the corn field southeast of us.

Saturday I was trapped inside on a beautiful day, hosting a fruit tree pruning seminar until about 3 pm. Then when I got home I went outside to sit by the pond in the sun to unwind. I was sitting on my redneck bench, an old van seat, watching all the dozens of kinds of birds eating the autumn olive berries in front of me. Suddenly my eyes caught movement across the pond and I watched a young buck strolling along, rubbing his head on everything and also eating a few autumn olive berries. He was there for several minutes before he was out of my view.

Later when I went to check the back pasture fence I scared up 2 big does. They had been resting under the arched branches of another autumn olive right up against the fence. That autumn olive is invasive but it sure seems to please a lot of animals. Lily my horse almost made herself sick eating the berries before I caught her doing it and penned her away from it.

We have had autumn olive on the property since we moved here, we’ve fought it like crazy, but I have never seen it being enjoyed by so many critters as this year. I remember some birds eating the berries, but usually a bit later. I never remember seeing horses and deer eat them. Maybe the drought kept more native plants like dogwood and Virginia creeper from setting a lot of fruit. That’s what would attract more birds, but hardly horses and deer. Maybe they are sweeter this year.

Autumn Olive berries can be made into jelly quite easily. I have done it. It’s a beautiful red color but has little taste. They are high in lycopene and vitamin C. I should pick some branches and let the chickens eat them.

The mast crop is big around here. We had tons of acorns come down and now the black walnuts make it dangerous to stand in the front yard. One hit the top of my plastic bird feeder and went right through. They make it difficult to walk without turning an ankle. I will have to sit in the yard and throw them into the street. Cars crushing them let birds eat the meats.

I suppose I should save them and husk them and shell out the meats like my grandfather did. But that is very messy and time consuming work. I used to have an older guy who would ask to pick them up every year but he hasn’t been around the last few years. Black walnuts may be fine as a woodland tree but why people planted them in yards is beyond me.

A big nut and berry crop- does that mean a long cold winter? It’s not predicted but we shall see.

Good Bye Chuck

I am mourning the loss of Chuck today. I have only known him this summer
but he has been interesting. Last night was the first time I had been able
to get a picture of him and to wake up and find him dead- well I'll be
watching for he cat I took pictures of last night too.

Chuck was the woodchuck that came to our yard this spring. In all the time
we lived here we have never had a chuck up close to the house- there were
some in the pasture by the woods. Last year one was on the other side of
the pond and I guess he or she moved or multiplied. I saw him first sunning
on a pile of wood behind the barn. Then I saw him stretched out on the
lower limbs of a tree near the barn. I occasionally saw him in the evening
out eating.

At first I worried about Lily our horse stepping in a hole he made but his
burrows were carefully concealed right along the fence and his holes were
under the wood pile and right in a corner of the fence where it would be
unlikely Lily would stumble in it. Lily didn't like him though. His one
entrance hole was close to the gate she comes through from the pasture to
the barn and if he was out her ears would go up and back and she would snort
and prance around.

By midsummer I noticed a hole had been made right under the propane tank and
another in my butterfly garden in a huge clump of bee balm about 30 feet
away. Both were pretty well concealed and didn't do much damage. I don't
know to this day if it was the chuck from behind the barn or a new one. I
worried about my garden which was only about 50 feet away.

My experience with chucks was from the community garden where they did
horrendous damage and from the stories of clients and friends. My parents
in the city battled chucks that undermined their shed and garage. But I
decided that if he behaved himself I wouldn't bother our chuck. And behave
himself he did. No damage to the garden that I could find, and other than
the bee balm patch- which seemed unfazed, he didn't dig up my gardens. My
own turkeys were far more damaging to the garden.

I would see him out grazing in the lawn in the early mornings or late
evenings. Many times he would be quite close to the turkeys or Frizzle the
rooster, without causing them any concern. My husband in his noisy wheel
chair never saw him. That is until yesterday. I was washing dishes in the
evening and saw Chuck feeding on acorns smashed in the driveway. I called
my husband over to watch out the window. "He is real" he said. "And huge."

When I went out to do chores I put my camera in my pocket. He ran when I
came out the door as usual but I could see he was quite fond of those
acorns. I sat down in a chair, got the camera focused in the right area and
waited quietly. Soon he came sneaking back out of a clump of weeds by the
mailbox and I was able to get several pictures of him, although not from as
close as I would have liked.

Alas those acorns would prove to be his undoing. Even though he ran every
time a car passed the end of the drive where the acorns were, he must have
not ran fast enough at one point. This morning when I went out to feed he
was lying there dead in the middle of the road at the end of the driveway.
I suspect he crossed the road for some reason- looking for acorns? - and
tried to get back across to his hiding spots when he heard a car coming.

As I moved his huge, heavy but sleek and shiny body out of the road with a
shovel, I noticed some other animals had found the acorns attractive. The
road and drive were covered with deer tracks. I sure hope none of them get
hit at the end of the driveway.

Chili weather

Lambsquarters are big lanky weeds that come up everywhere. I have some in
the dog run just outside my office window. They are about 6 foot high.
They have small green flowers that don't look like much but must turn into
some tasty seeds because the ones outside my window are filled with tiny
birds. Goldfinches, sparrows, and other small birds seem to be eating the
seeds. My canary is right by the window and he keeps singing his head
off. He's probably trying to warn them away.

I am eating some trail mix with sunflower seeds in it. My little canary
loves me to save him a few. He eats mostly fruit flavored complete and
balanced pellets for birds. That's got to be pretty boring but I can see it
makes less mess- no seed hulls. The sunflower seeds are hulled too. I
think the canary recognizes the package the trail mix comes in and knows he
is going to get a treat. He was eating the pellets when I got him so I have
kept him on them.

My chickens have started to ay again. I broke down and bought a box of eggs
and sure enough the next day there were two eggs in the nest. At least 2
white and two brown egg laying hens are back to laying after the big dog
scare. One of them has to be a new layer- one of the hens who hadn't
started laying yet. The one young rooster who survived has not crowed since
"D" day - I wonder if he will start again soon.

The weather has been cloudy and cool but basically dry. We had some good
rain last week but it wasn't enough to make up the deficit. Our pond is the
lowest I have ever seen. The herons are down there every night looking for
fish in the shallow water but there isn't much I can do about it. I am
actually hoping for rain from one of the hurricanes to make it up here. I
will actually have to drag the hose around this evening even though it's
about 60 degrees.

The tomatoes are ripening more slowly but my new crop of lettuce is growing
like crazy. I can't ever seem to get the two of them ready for eating at
the same time. I was making tomato sauce and freezing it just last week -
then the tomatoes stop ripening because of the cold and cloudy weather. I
dug all the potatoes though and we have been doing some good eating.

I think I will use some of my delicious tomato sauce tonight and make a big
pot of chili. Sure seems like chili weather to me.

update on the hens

Well 8 hens and a rooster survived the first great dog attack. We have not had any eggs since that date and it’s been 2 weeks now. Three of the hens were laying before the attack and should have recovered from the shock - everyone looks fine- but no eggs. Hopefully the 6 hens who weren’t laying will begin soon - at least.

Then there was the second attack. My husband let Ginger - one of the terrible terriers get by him as he went out the door. She was a participant in the last attack and must have been remembering the fun. She hasn’t done that in a long while. Anyway I was at work and the turkeys and their frizzle escort rooster just happened to be walking by the back door as she darted out. The fun began.

As my husband hurried to get his wheelchair down the ramp he hit one of my plant stands filled with a large geranium at the bottom of the ramp. It caught in his wheels. As this was going on Ginger nailed Frizzle in the driveway. My husband thought he was dead. Then she took off after one of the turkeys, chasing her down the dirt road. The other turkey flew up to the roof of the house.

When Steve got the bent wire stand out of the wheel chair he decided he better get to the barn before Ginger came back and got into the coop again. He waited for about 15 minutes before she showed up hot and tired and he was able to corner her in the barn. The hens had no trauma this time. After Steve got Ginger locked inside the house he went out to see if he could find the remains of the one hen turkey and Frizzle.

Much to his surprise Frizzle was gone. He followed the trail of turkey feathers down the road but didn’t find a body. With his chair he couldn’t go into the high weeds and he could only hope the turkey had escaped into them. He couldn’t find Frizzle either. He then called me at work to get me all upset.

When I came home for work I looked for Frizzle then followed the trail of turkey feathers down the road. They crossed the road and I could see piles of them in the neighbors horse pasture. She had to pass several nice trees that she could have flown up into, but once under the fence, which was 3 straps of electric webbing, she had only a well grazed pasture in front of her. I didn’t think it was worthwhile to roll under the fence to look for her. There were big clumps of feathers everywhere and the dog had been gone for a good while. I couldn’t see a body but I assumed it was there somewhere.

At sundown the other hen turkey came down off the roof and took her regular perch on the fence rail by the barn. And lo and behold Frizzle appeared out of the butterfly garden, looking none the worse for wear. He must have played dead. But no dark turkey hen.

The next day I listened for turkey calls as the girls are usually very vocal when separated. But there were none. It was very quiet and Frizzle decided not to leave the barn where he roosts each night. But when I went out to our horse Lilies stall in the evening there stood the dark turkey hen. She had survived. She walked a little stiffly but surprisingly it seemed like most of her feathers were there- despite the large amounts by the road. Even her tail was intact.

She went over to the outside gate of the chicken run and made it obvious she wanted to be let inside. Normally she would have flown right over so she was hurt in some way. The hens have not been let out into the run yet this year, because I always wait until they are laying well in nest boxes before giving them outside space. I gave her some food and water in the run and the lighter colored hen jumped up on the rail to talk to her.

She has stayed in the run the last few days; I guess it makes her feel safe. The lighter hen visits from time to time and stays close by. Neither the turkeys or Frizzle have strayed far from the barn area. It’s a miracle she survived. I think the big brown mare that resides in the pasture the dog chased her into may have chased the dog away. I have seen the horses over there chase dogs a few times. I hope she gave Ginger a good scare.

Everything was quiet until Saturday when Lily, ( our horse), decided to bust the latch off her stall door and get into the front part of the barn. She was eating dry cat food when I found her. She has never done that before- what is going on here? But fortunately she didn’t founder from her food indiscretion and seems fine.

Well life is fun here.

dog days of summer

Yesterday was not a good day. To start off it was 90 degrees with a
relative humidity of 70%. I had to get up early to drive to the fairgrounds
and help break down the Master Gardener exhibit, load my car with some very
heavy stuff and drive home and unload. Then after doing a bit of housework
I went into my office to write and my husband went to take his afternoon
nap.

Now had we been a little smarter what happened next wouldn't have happened.
In the last few days I kept remarking to my husband on how dirty some of the
dogs were, I asked them if they were digging holes to keep cool, I even
remarked to my husband that they were probably up to something. Jack
Russell's are usually up to something. But it was hot and we were busy
during fair week and neither of us pursued the matter. Besides, we hadn't
had any breakouts for over a year, since we installed hot wire on the top
and bottom of the backyard fence.

Well three of my darling little Jacks had discovered that they could dig
near the bottom of the fence in the corner by where the dog door from the
house exits. There was a short stretch where we left out hotwire so our
older dogs coming and going from the house wouldn't get shocked. Our
garbage bin was on the other side of the fence there and we had laid down
some aluminum panels on the dog's side of the fence. Seemed pretty secure
and so it was for about 15 months. Then some how the panel got shifted and
the dogs began their tunnel to freedom.

We figure it took them about three days. That's when I noticed how dirty
they seemed to be. They had to dig a tunnel under the fence then under the
trash bin on the other side. They are nothing but ambitious even in the
sweltering heat. Although I walked by that stretch regularly on my way to
the barn all the clandestine activity was hidden behind the trash bin. Then
as my husband and the big dogs lay down for their nap and I disappeared into
my office the great escape began.

I heard some excited barking but that's not unusual here. Suddenly it
dawned on me the barking seemed a little more excited than usual and farther
away. I hurried outside and realized the barking was coming from the barn
and my heart sank.

Inside the barn and inside the chicken coop- standing on top of the nest
boxes- was Susan, Ginger and Tina. They were barking at a hen who had
managed to fly up to the ledge by the loft rafters. The pen where my
banties had been was torn apart and the dead birds strewn across it. On the
coop floor below them were the bodies of my dead and dying hens. Feathers
and blood were everywhere.

I didn't have much trouble catching the culprits. They were pretty hot and
exhausted. I could only carry two of them but Tina was content to follow us
back to the house. There, after I threw them into the spare room I screamed
and yelled at them for a few seconds, and at my husband to get out of bed.

I brought a big muck bucket with me to the barn and began picking up dead
bodies. Besides the hen that flew up into the rafters another had flown up
onto the highest perch and was safe. Had more of the birds went up high
they would have been safe. Instead they piled under the nest boxes, which
begin about a foot from the floor. There they were pretty easy pickings,
but the sheer number of them managed to protect a few of them, who were
still alive when I began pulling out bodies. I placed the injured birds in
nest boxes to calm down and offered them water about 30 minutes later.

When my husband came out he found one hen outside in the yard which seemed
unharmed. I still can't find one of the tiny banty hens - she may be
hiding somewhere. Our resident roaming turkeys and frizzle rooster were
also unharmed. All in all 10 birds were killed, 9 birds are left, and some
of them have some nasty wounds and may die. One bird is missing.

Our egg production was just getting good. I had actually sold off some hens
because I figured we didn't need them. I just sat down and cried. Such a
waste. I don't know how the dogs got inside the coop- we figure they
squeezed through the door at the bottom.

The dogs were punished by being left locked in the spare room with only
water until we went to bed. They hate being away from the pack. I went to
bed scheming about ways to really punish them, like hiring strangers dressed
in giant chicken suits to chase them around or strapping them to a board on
their sides with vet wrap and putting them in a chicken coop full of hungry
chickens.

Don't worry- none of that happened. We spent the morning filling in a
tunnel, strengthening the coop door and burying chickens. And Tina,
Ginger and Susan are being watched more closely than ever.

Canary song in the office again

I bought a canary today, a small yellow male who is a few years old. He
started singing when we put him in the cage I brought to carry him home and
he has been singing here in my office on and off all afternoon. I love to
hear the song of a canary or similar small birds and I have missed having
one in the house since my green singing finch died a few years ago.

My husband and I used to raise a number of small birds. Twenty years ago we
had a basement full of aviaries containing finches, canaries, pekin robins,
Java rice birds, crested parakeets, Bourkes parakeets and assorted other
birds. We had mostly small birds although I did have two conures and an
African grey parrot . When we moved we had a month between our old house
and our new one in which we had to live in a trailer. So we sold off most
of the birds.

When we got to the country we were so busy trying all the larger livestock
and raising things like peacocks and pheasants that we didn't get small
birds again although I had my green singer and we had Cruiser, a Senegal
parrot. We began raising dogs and our choice- Jack Russell Terriers - made
raising any other small animal in the house with them hard.

But recently after I remodeled my office and had some tall bookcases put in
I decided I really missed birds. Although the office contains a yorkie and
her son, a yorkie - jack cross because they do not play well with other
dogs, I decided the tall bookcases would be a safe place for a bird or two.
My dog groomer had a male canary for sale and so here we are again.

Hardy, the male office dog has not stopped staring at the bird cage since I
set it in here and that has been several hours. Cricket, his mother, has
basically ignored it. I do hope he doesn't kill himself or make a mess out
of things trying to reach the cage. It is 5 feet off the ground so I think
it will be ok. The little bird is used to dogs, being from a grooming
shop. He is already eating and drinking and singing so I think he feels at
home.

The good thing about canaries is that they are perfectly content to be the
only bird around. Even males and females fight unless they are in a huge
flight cage. I do intend to find a few females that I will house
separately, and eventually breed to him but there is no rush. I will get to
hear his wonderful singing as I work.

no longer organic

It’s very hot and humid here today. This weather is hard on people and animals alike and even though the garden is growing like crazy the humidity and heat are also excellent for diseases in the garden. Today I participated in a conference call about how to make homeowners aware of the serious tomato and potato disease late blight. Michigan State University Extension folk want everyone to be aware that the disease is in the state again this year. Controlling it on a homeowner level helps protect farmer’s crops. And homeowners knowing about how to control the disease will let them harvest tomatoes and potatoes this year. Last year many home gardeners lost their entire crop of tomatoes.

We discussed whether or not there was a good organic control and the consensus was unfortunately, is that there is not. When late blight hits your entire tomato or potato crop is usually gone in a few days. It’s too late to spray with chemicals after the disease attacks a plant; you can only protect plants with preventative sprays. For the first time in my entire adult life I am spraying my tomato plants with a fungicide on a regular basis. Last year I tried neem oil, considered to be organic- but I lost all my plants to late blight. Organic controls have to work and be readily available to consumers as well as affordable. Copper sprays and blends have some effect, but usually only delay plant death a short time.

I like being organic. I wish no crops had to be sprayed. However working on the front line and seeing the devastation of home gardens last year I am also a realist. I like fresh, vine ripened tomatoes. If I don’t grow them at home and go out to buy them at the farmers market you can bet that that farmer has treated the plants with something and probably something a lot stronger than I can buy and use at home. ( If you want recommendations for late blight control see my article on it here
Hopefully in a few years researchers will have bred late blight resistant plants and will have discovered cultural and organic controls that deal with it effectively. In the meantime if you grow tomatoes and potatoes- or cucumbers- which have their own new deadly disease called downy mildew- and you want to be sure of a crop you need to spray them preventatively. Don’t beat yourself up over not being organic. If you follow the label directions and wash the tomatoes well before eating you won’t be getting any more chemicals than when you apply most make up, shaving creams, and hair dyes, which most consumers do without thinking twice about.

Middle of a warm July

The smell of the oriental lilies blooming in front of the house keeps
wafting around on this hot, humid air - oh so delicious a smell. Almost
makes the heat and humidity worthwhile. We had a storm blow in last
evening- not too bad and it left about an inch of rain, which was nice
because I didn't have to water. The grass is starting to green up again.
I made sure we bought some bacon at the store today so we can have bacon and
tomatoes for breakfast tomorrow- I have a few ripe ones.

My rose of sharon is blooming and the buddleia is about to bloom too.
Everything is so early- I wonder what will be left to bloom this fall? And
I think it will be a long, warm fall.

Our 6 oldest hens are laying about 4 eggs a day now - although only one is
using a nest box. We have 6 nice nest boxes and they won't use them. I
explained to them politely that if they ever want to go outside and roam in
the big pen they need to learn where to lay their eggs. The younger set
should start laying soon. Just found out that one of them is actually a
rooster - saw it crow today- and I suspect another is too. They are
Ameraucanas. That makes a couple fewer hens than planned but we should
still end up with 14 hens.

Tomorrow morning, when its cooler I am going to experiment and move the nest
boxes to another spot. I may need to adjust the lighting so the boxes are
darker. They are laying on the floor down by the roosts and it is darker
there.

Frizzle, the old rooster and the two turkeys are roaming around the back of
the barn still. They jump over the outside pen wall and sit looking in the
grate that I put over the hole to the outside pen at the new chickens. I
don't want them inside because the turkeys eat eggs. And I think the young
roosters would make mincemeat out of Frizzle. So I have some decisions to
make soon.

I am trying to find some canaries to buy. I want one for my office and
maybe to start breeding them. I used to breed them as a kid and then we had
some when we had the big finch aviary but that was almost 20 years ago.
They have gotten scarce and expensive since then- or I just don't know where
to look. My dog groomer has a few but she didn't have any luck breeding
them this year. Maybe I can find someone who wants to trade roosters for
canaries- or turkeys for canaries, now that would work.

hot weather

I do not like hot weather. My plants are enjoying it but I am not. I have
never seen such happy thriving tomatoes, corn, cucumbers and melons. If
they don't get hit by one of the awful fungal diseases floating around
harvest should be good.

Our weather has been hot, humid but just on the edge of being too dry. We
get browning grass then a moderate rain helps out. I water for a few days,
then get a day or two off. Everything is 2 weeks a head of schedule in
blooming. By the end of summer there won't be any flowers left in the
garden. But I should be too busy canning and freezing the harvest to worry
about that - right?

Our oldest of the new hens are starting to lay fairly well. I am having
trouble getting them to use the nest boxes though. We have lost all but one
of the barn cats to some disease, even the cat we call the "visitor" seems
to have contracted it, she is still alive but has difficulty with balance
and walking and seems to be hanging around here full time so I can bury her.
I always thought she was immune to those diseases.

The barn swallows have came back to the nest they had last year over the
light in the horse stall. They are adding long hairs from Lily to the nest.
I am seeing a kingfisher on the pond quite often and that seems odd. It
doesn't seem like the habitat they would prefer. I also have a pair of
night herons nesting somewhere down there.

Saw a doe with a new, still spotted fawn on the way to town this morning.
It was a rainy, dreary morning and deer were in all the fields. The people
who think that deer are scarce- the stupid ones- should just take a drive
down our roads on a day like today. Deer are smarter than you think. If
you just drive by them and don't stop they ignore you pretty much- except if
they are trying to commit suicide. But if you stop and try to roll down
the window to take a picture they take off. I snapped a couple this morning
but they aren't very good.

Finally - a new post

I spent much of yesterday morning moving the young chickens into their new home, which was actually the old chicken coop area, which we had cleaned up and added some more nest boxes. There were 3 groups, 6 almost ready to lay pullets, and 2 groups of younger birds totaling 20. Each of those groups had an Ameruacana rooster in it, one of which I wanted to sell. They are several breeds, Ameruacana, Leghorn, Issa Brown, Buff Orpington, and Shaver Black. There were a few hens I had wanted to sell too, but I was tired of maintaining 3 separate groups.

There were some bantams in two of those groups and they were getting a little bullied as the other birds got larger so they were all combined into a separate group. So I still have 2 groups to feed and water- 3 if you count the turkeys and the frizzle rooster that are out roaming the pasture.

I was most worried about the two young roosters getting together. They had both started crowing. And they did indeed square off at each other for an hour or so. Then things seemed to settle down. They separated one at each end of the pen with the group of hens they had been housed with. It seemed like everything was going smoothly later in the day.

When I went out this morning to feed I found all of the younger birds hiding under the nest boxes, which are off the floor about 18 inches. The 6 nearly adult hens were strutting around and every time a younger bird ventured out they chased it back under the nest boxes. Great fun. I had to move the water near their hiding place and add a second feed tray close to them. I threw some weeds off to the other end of the coop to occupy the 6 bullies and the little ones could eat and drink. I am hoping this situation resolves itself soon. We are going to add another 4 feet of space at the end of the coop- probably tomorrow and maybe that will help.

The little banties seemed to integrate pretty well. There are 6 of them, only 1 rooster. There had been a pair of Gold Sebrights but the little rooster was already very aggressive and I decided to give them to my dog groomer as a tip. She loved them. She raises all kinds of birds.

Left behind are a pair of buff cochins and 4 little hens who seem to be Old English Game. Three of them appear to be red pyle - although I am not real familiar with OEG colors. They are white with fine goldish red lacing around the neck. The other is a tiny dark thing with some gold lacing around the neck and who is very aggressive with all the others. I don’t know what color she would be called. She may become a tip somewhere herself.

The turkeys and the frizzle rooster that was left behind when the old hens were given away are unhappy that they can’t come into the coop anymore. They can get inside the horse stall in the back - where the turkeys already spend a lot of time- but they did like to come in the coop at night. I closed off the door to the outside run and put heavy wire on the window- which the turkeys can fly up to and enter. I don’t want them around the new hens because they eat eggs- and teach the hens to do it.

And I do want to start getting those farm fresh eggs again! The oldest of the new birds are just about ready to lay. I expect eggs in a week or so. I am changing them over to layer rations this week.

I was happy to see the big animal that I had glimpsed a few times out behind the barn is a woodchuck. Woodchucks don’t eat meat, the chickens are safe. I was worried it was a coon and I had talked to several people last week who had coons kill some of their chickens. He was stretched out on some old pallets and junk about 3 foot off the ground and I got a good look at him. It’s a healthy large specimen. As long as he puts his holes where Lily can’t step in them he can stay.

I found baby fish in the pond, several sizes. The bluegills that my friend gave me this spring must have survived long enough to breed anyway. I haven’t seen the big fish lately- but then there were only 7 and the pond is large. The pond is shrinking rapidly this year and is full of weeds. Saw deer tracks down there too and there is a night heron nesting somewhere close who screams at me whenever I go down there.

Our garden is doing great. I picked the first ripe tomato today - in June! I bought one plant very early and set it out in a black tub. It’s an Early Girl and the tomato is not much bigger than a cherry tomato but hey -June!

Mud season

Well its here- the fifth season in Michigan country, the mud season. I see it in the path to the barn, the path to my car and the muddy path down the laundry room and across the kitchen made by dozens of tiny and not so tiny dog paws. Today was beautiful and sunny, 55 degrees and the snow is melting very quickly. However it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, which is definitely going to make it mud season. So far the road hasn’t been too bad, but I expect that to change.

I got the hose to run today going to the barn, glory halleluiah. Hopefully if I fill buckets in the evening before the sun goes down I won’t be carrying those heavy buckets from the house twice a day. The hose runs inside my raised herb bed and as I pulled it out of the remaining snow and mulch to lay on top of the bed in the sun, I noticed that the oregano was still bright green where it had been buried under the snow. Tomorrow I will pick some for the chickens.

The chickens sit on their ramp just outside their door, but they don’t go down into the snow. The snow is still deep in their run. Its supposed to rain in the next few days so maybe it will clear it away. The little pasture and the backyard where the dogs run have most of the snow melted. The horses are also tracking the wet into their stall, making it mucky. All the lovely piles of manure in the pasture are waiting to be moved to the garden or compost pile.

Started scraping the paint off the house, its time to re-paint. I want to get it done before the plants are up too much - it will be a race to see if the weather is nice enough to paint but the plants still too small to damage. Steve’s new wheelchair ramp is up and I did some measuring to make some landscaping plans. There is so much I want to get done this spring, as usual. Time and money will decide just how much actually gets done.

Although it is very crisp if you are in the light breeze that’s blowing today, it’s still a beautiful, sunny winter today. The sun is starting to feel warmer and the birds are starting to sing on sunny days. I heard a goldfinch and a cardinal singing away this morning. It’s hard to believe that tomorrow we are scheduled to get a heavy winter storm.

I am not a winter loving person. The snow could just skip us and I would be fine. But many people are very excited, especially kids, who anticipate a snow day coming.

I found it interesting that kids have these little “magic” tricks to get Mother Nature to give them a snow day. They wear their pajamas inside out and tape pennies to the window. Who starts these things?

Our propane bill has been terrible this winter. I thought maybe something was really wrong with this drafty old house but my mom’s natural gas bill was nearly the same as our propane bill. That’s one more thing to hate about winter- how much more it costs to live. I would love to have the money to have one of those “green” houses that produce their own energy. Solar panels and geo-thermal heating and cooling, maybe a wind turbine- that would be so great.

We are doing a little winter home improvement. We are painting two rooms, my office and our spare bedroom in anticipation of a granddaughter coming to stay with us for a while. I have such a hard time picking colors, I drive Steve nuts. I finally choose and purchased the spare room paint, it’s a light celery green, it will have darker green trim.

I wanted red in my office but the room is too small to paint the walls dark red, so I think I have settled on a very pale rose as the wall color with dark velvet red trim and accents. I am definitely not a pink person, but I think this will work. A female power room.

We have old wood siding on our house and it needs painting too. I brought home paint samples from the hardware and Steve rolled his eyes. I am down to two choices, a soft melon green, and a pale sunlit yellow. Our house is gray now. The paint brochure shows the yellow with a beautiful bird’s egg blue as the trim but I don’t think I could get away with that. I saw a home in a garden magazine with lovely pale lavender walls but Steve looked horrified when I suggested that. It will be a while before we get to painting the outside of the house so I will have time to think about it.

Animal rights

The floor of my house is filled with sticks, pinecones and walnuts. The backyard is littered with dish cloths, socks and used paper plates. All of this is courtesy of Barack, the cocker puppy, who is free to come in and out of the house, and who is busy as a bee decorating his spaces. Then there is Charlie, my colt , who also redecorates his spaces, removing the rubber feed dishes and buckets from his stall to the paddock and bringing sticks and other choice finds into the barn. My hens, as evidenced by their foot tracks, seldom go farther than the little ramp outside the door of their coop, not wanting to tread in cold snow, but willing to brave the cold just a little to sit in the sun outside the door. There are tradeoffs for allowing animals to go outside on their own and some animals don’t find winter outside very appealing. But my animals have the choice to go outside or stay inside, which is more than can be said for millions of animals around the world.

Before I go any farther with my little rant, let me explain that I am a meat eater. I have raised my own meat, bought meat from local farmers and the supermarket. I love farming - I think it’s the best occupation on earth. However I believe you can farm- particularly raise food animals - so that the animals have some quality of life before you butcher them. I applaud all the research done to make animals healthier, but I wonder if the focus on the bottom line - how much money can we make from each square foot of space? sometimes overrides making animals comfortable before we “use” them.

Michigan recently passed some laws that govern humane treatment of animals. The law doesn’t state that all animals need to have access to the outdoors, simply that they must have room to stand up, turn around, lie down and perform some natural movements. Yet the laws were met with outrage by many in the agricultural sector. It puzzles me why the law enacted bothers those in agricultural pursuits so much, it doesn’t call for unreasonable changes, it doesn’t follow some outrageous ideas of animal keeping dreamed up by animal extremist groups, just what should be considered some very basic standards of humane treatment.

Farmers as a rule don’t like being told what to do. They worry that these laws enacted will be followed by more laws, one that are harder to follow and based on ideology rather than reality. In truth most people who keep animals sincerely believe they are keeping them in a humane way. They are told it’s the best way by the researchers, and it certainly works well for the bottom line, in most cases. Money is tight in farming; profit margins are low for a lot of hard work. So if the experts say it’s ok to stuff 4 hens in 2 feet of space then they can have a lot more hens in the same amount of room, taking about the same amount of care,but getting more eggs, than if they had 1 hen in 2 feet of space.

If the experts say the best way to raise the most pigs from a sow is to confine her in a tiny crate so she can’t lay down on them, can’t turn around to even nuzzle them, the farmer might not be convinced at first. But if all the other swine farms start doing it and they are able to achieve that slight profit edge, eventually the hold outs convert or are slowly edged out of the market. (Unless they are more intelligent than most and make their more humane methods an asset, and market to a concerned and informed group of consumers.)

As part of the argument that how big farms treat animals is better for them- experts site a new study that says pigs are healthier confined indoors- they don’t get as many diseases as they did 50 years ago when most were kept outside part of their life. And yes that is probably true, they get less diseases. We would get less diseases if we were confined to our own homes, never going outside too, but most of us wouldn’t consider that a very good life. Pigs like comfort and I bet most would choose to remain inside during a typical Midwestern winter. But during the milder months give those pigs a choice and I bet they would head outside. And the inside-outside thing is only one part of the issue. Animals need enough space to feel comfortable, to move around normally, exercise and socialize. Inside confinement space costs money and a lot of time and effort to maintain, the more animals we can stuff into that unit, the more cost effective it becomes.

How happy do we need to make animals? How do we know what quality of life means to them? Do they miss what they never had? All hard questions to answer, but most of us know instinctively that there should be a balance between profit, modern farming methods, protecting our food supply and humane treatment of animals. Asking that food animals have enough room to sit, stand, lie down and perform natural movements while waiting to serve us certainly shouldn’t be considered animal rights extremism and an infringement on farmer’s “rights”. It’s just doing the right thing.

Just jabbering

We had hoar frost the last two mornings or ice fog. It’s when there is moisture in the air that condenses on all the trees and other surfaces and then freezes, like frozen dew. It’s so beautiful, although it can make the roads a little slick. I don’t mind this kind of winter weather too much, although it’s been a bit gloomy. Our temps have been in the low 30’s daytime and 20’s at night. Enough to keep the plants dormant but not too cold and we haven’t had any big snow or ice storms.

I had to take Charlie, the little stud colts halter off because it was getting too tight for him. He reminds me of someone who isn’t wearing their glasses when you are used to seeing them with glasses on. He keeps hiding the water bucket and feed dishes on me. It’s amazing how well he can do that when they are now locked in the small paddock and it’s covered with snow. He put the water bucket inside an old shelter we had for the ducks. He dropped one of the big rubber feed dishes inside an old burn barrel, which is empty and just sitting there and the other was hidden beneath the bottom of a tarp we have stretched in back of their stall door to block the wind. These are not areas where you would just expect him to drop things when he was done playing, it’s like he does it on purpose. And that means he must use some kind of reasoning when doing it. I think we underestimate the power of animal minds.

I have started teaching the Master Gardener program again. A new class of people eager to learn more about gardening. It always amazes me the range of ages and range of professional occupations that take the class. All these wonderful skills that they have outside of gardening. And you can almost predict that there will be the joker, the frowner, the overly anxious and the know it all in each class. I do think that most people enjoy our Master Gardener class and do learn a lot.

I know that for the most part, I enjoy teaching it. I wish we had the funds to offer it for free, and I want to make sure that the class thinks it got its money’s worth because it is expensive for them to take. I do get tired standing and talking for 4 hours - it’s amazing how that wears you out. And then of course you get to talk before and after class to all the students who need your personal touch. It’s a good thing I like talking!

Banana bread and paint

One good thing about working from home part of the time is that when I feel like leaving my cubby hole of an office and baking something in the kitchen I can. Today I had a hankering for some banana nut bread - the yeast kind baked in the bread machine. I thought I had some mashed frozen banana in the freezer and put it in the microwave to defrost. Turns out I defrosted some beef gravy-well banana does get brown when you freeze it. Luckily I discovered my mistake before I poured it in the bread pan.

So I looked for some banana in the freezer and couldn’t find any- but we did have tons of frozen apple slices. I chopped some of those up, added walnuts and it was just as good as banana bread. We had hot bread with supper. The nice thing about a bread machine is once you throw those ingredients in the pan you can just go back to working in your office with out a worry.

My office is looking very sad right now. It was originally the smallest room in the house and painted a cream color. The cream is definitely dirty looking. When I get done with this next book I am going to take some time to paint it, put up some shelves and get things organized a bit better. My trouble is deciding what color to paint it. One day I decide on pale green, the next chocolate brown, the next deep red and so on. I think someone needs to develop mood paint. You paint the room with a paint that you can switch colors on by touching a button. Come on inventors, surely this is doable.

I thought about painting each wall a different color, (husband’s idea), and then turning my desk to face what color I preferred that day - but I think that’s too much trouble. Reminds me of when I was a kid and my sister wanted to paint our bedroom lavender and I wanted to paint it green. We ended up painting each side a different color, and believe me, it wasn’t pretty. Maybe I’ll paint a forest mural on the walls, and hide among the trees. I bet the office dogs would like that.

It's a New Year

Well its January 1, 2010. It’s a typical blustery winter day and I’m in my office working, not celebrating the New Year. I really don’t make New Years resolutions, just wishes. We did stay up until midnight. I was reading a book - a new type of book called a cyber novel. It’s called Level 26, quite a gruesome story about a serial killer of amazing and creepy abilities. I have gotten half way through the online film clips of the book- the cyber portion, although I’ve finished the book. I can read faster than my dial up connection can download film clips. I will say I have not been totally impressed. I never liked it when movies took liberties with a books story line and I’m a bit disappointed that the on line clips seem to stray a bit from the book. There are so many interesting things that could have been exactly like the book. Some of the clips weren’t worth the download time, like number 9.

Level 26 is a pretty good read, you can tell in spots it was written to make a movie from- which is hard to explain - but on the whole it was interesting. I did like getting an image of the killer in his white condom like suit and the reptilian way he moved from the on line clips. On the other hand when you just read a book you can imagine the characters anyway you like - which could be different from the way someone else would imagine them. I certainly would imagine the hero a bit differently from the scruffy little guy in the clips.

The author is a CSI writer, and the way the book is laid out is like a TV show, you can almost feel the places where a commercial break will take place. It was written to make a serial line of books, which is obvious, so I guess I will have to see if the next is worth it. A lot of serials fizzle after a book or two. This cyber thing needs to evolve a bit if it’s going to work. And one of my wishes for the New Year is to have high speed internet out here at an affordable rate.

I have been able to get a few books read over the holidays. My treat to myself. An excellent book was the Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a mystery by a new writer. I also read a new Stephanie Plum book- Finger Licking Fifteen. I like those books but they seem to be getting sillier, on the border line of being too silly.

One day I will attempt to write fiction. Oh gosh, is that a New Years resolution?