I'm not ready to be

nice yet.

After the circus came, I was tired. I was exhausted and woke up with what felt like fire and glass in my throat.
Imagine that? For 3 days my throat raged against me with intense pain. I put on a mask and drank tea to help calm the shards of glass in my throat.

I spent most of the day napping in the upstairs bedroom. I napped and I read. I did chores and made meals but tried to stay away from the other half.

I had no fever, no cough, and only a slightly stuffed up nose. 

By yesterday, I felt un-tired enough to get some groceries and take Charlie to his vet appointment. I was nice at the vet's office. Charlie had some blood drawn and his toenails clipped [I hate that job!]. 

I warned them that he would be vocal about the whole thing.

Oh and he was vocal, he has a yodel-ish voice to express his displeasure when he is removed from the same room I am in. For such a tiny dog, he has a big voice.

The vet brought him me and told me that the whole time they were with him, he was wagging his tail [I think she thought I may have worried about all the noise he made]. 

I laughed and explained that he got like that when I stop and get out of the car to fill it with gas. Usually, it only lasted about two minutes. I imagine it is a separation thing?

Charlie is now considered to be a late middle aged dog who is in great physical shape. Doc told me he was nicely muscled up!

I'm coming out of the Grumpy -- I feel Icky Stage and becoming more human again. Just in time for another group of visitors for this weekend. 
I don't know if they will come tomorrow or not. As usual, we haven't heard a word about their plans.

Me as a Grumpy Person:

Good news also. We've been seeing a lot of bluebirds!

This morning we woke up to the predicted snow fall. We may have gotten about two inches so far so we are happy with the moisture and happy it isn't a blizzard.

I'm going to work more on my being nice. I can't walk around with a fierce Grumpy Face too long. My mom once told me, my face would freeze like that if I did it too long.....

Meanwhile

I woke up Monday to a dreary dreary day with an ice watch-warning. When I stepped outside to do the chores what looked wet was just pure ice.

The bird feeders were iced, the grass, the gravel driveway...all ice. Enough so, that I returned to the house and put on my Yak Traks. 

Hello winter weather.

After breakfast, Charlie and I decided to take a woods walk and get the mail on the ridge so we could check the gravel road.

I put on his bow tie so he'd be fancy while we walked. Of course he got it dirty and I had to wash it!

The ice was evident in most places and as I neared the ridge, it started dripping off the trees above us.

Some drops of ice/water reflected the trees above the branches.

We got to the mailbox and I met my new neighbor Cybil coming back from getting groceries. She told me that the gravel road was a bit slippery but the main roads were good.

I still opted out of going to the gym. I felt grumpy [so I should have gone!] and didn't want to share my grumpiness.

Charlie's bow tie gave me an idea.

He is getting much better at sitting down when I place him. He was such a good dog to let me do this to him....

The light was terrible, the setting was terrible, the white balance was awful and Charlie started to yawn as if he were too bored.

He was much more cooperative than he has been in all the past years though. 

I got creative with a puck light to try and light him up. He followed the light as I moved it around.

I don't have a flash on this camera and I learned quickly that Charlie would not look at the camera with a flash mounted on it.

Charlie: This is 
beneath me. Unless
cookies are involved.

What was I thinking?

Nope, I won't

look. 

I want
to get out of this 
embarrassing situation.

In the end, it was fun and I decided there was too much busy-ness around him for it to be a 'good' series of shots. I may try again. Or I may not.

I like his shots from the past years and it has always been fun. It is something I started when we had Morris. Morris sat and stared intently at me camera or no camera. He was Mr. High Energy.

Charlie is Mr. Chill.

If we get a better day for some light, I may try it again.

Meanwhile,....

back to the grind 

and kicking Grumpy out of my head.

Lights OUT

So just after chores the other night the power ... blam

went out.

I didn't get too excited because we have 'smart' meters. They notify the local electric company that the power is out and things get fixed. 
After about an hour, I texted my neighbor asking her if she was out. I had no internet, no land line [it sure makes a case for having a Hardwired phone and no wireless phone]. My cell phone was at almost nothing percent with no bars. 

Since I didn't hear back from the neighbor I started to walk up to the top of the hill to knock on there door. By this time ol' Grumpy was having fits. His mindset doesn't do well with things like no electric. They had power and she'd call it in for me.

I grabbed a headlamp and sat down to read a book. Grumpy started pacing and yelling. I should have called, I was wrong, why did it go out? How come? I explained the best I could that ALL technology had failed us at the moment. The Electric Company didn't get notified and we had no hard wire phone and the cell phone was useless unless I went to the ridge.

More yelling. I started reading wishing I had more battery so I could tune in Pandora. Hmmm. I could start the car and go charge up the phone, drive to the ridge and listen to music. 

"Lipstick Powder Horn Mushroom. Description: Fruiticose grayish or greenish slender, unbranched stalks arising from a finally scaled surface and topped with a blunt red tip..." I tore a scrap of paper and wrote on it:
Found March 23 in the morning midway up a hill on a mossy fallen oak log with 3 or 4 types of mosses mixed in. NW facing hillside--very shady in summer. No idea what all the different mosses are as of yet but will search the moss book.

[Photo taken but obviously not posted with no power]

Another note to self:
Look up a bit more info on macro and in camera stacking along with Helicon stacking. 

I got up to get a drink of water and there was more yelling. I was wasting water. I reminded Grumpy that we were on a shared well and the pump was up on the ridge and it had power so we did have water. 
Long ago I'd talked to a counselor regarding this sort of behavior. The best advice I ever got was to not think of him as the rational person I usually knew. But to call him in my mind Irrational Man. Really nothing I said or did would change Irrational Man's mind. 

I opened up a notebook and started to make a list of things I'd like to explore with photography this summer. Small things in particular. The nasty icky ugly weeds that grow. Fungi? Lichen? Mosses and Liverworts. Things close to the ground. Poison Ivy? Tick weed, wild parsnip, and hawkweed. 

Eventually two trucks slowly came down the hill. Vernon Electric. I walked out to talk with them. I kept my distance and the first guy checked the meter and then quizzically looked at me and opened up the box on the post next to the meter. 

"Here is the problem," he said and pointed his light at a switch. He pulled it down and then pushed it to ON. 
Apparently it is the original on off thingy that controls all the other thingies. 

"You might want to call an electrician and have him fix this. It is odd that its a 100 amp. It is old. Update it to a 200 amp." 
I shrugged and pointed out that I had no idea that box was something that was ours so I never touched it. I apologized for not knowing that but also was very relieved that this incident happened as we needed that box to be upgraded.

I suppose it was missed when we upgraded the house in 2016.

Grumpy was hovering when I came in. I explained to him about the box and that I'd call our electrician in the morning. 
He was calm and wanted to watch some TV. 

I marveled at how his mind worked. Crisis over and all was forgotten. I wanted to really get back at him in some way and remind him that he'd hurt my feelings. 

Irrational Man. It just works that way. 
Jake will be showing up in a few moments and I'll need to go back out. 

I asked Grumpy if he would be okay without power while Jake worked on the box.

Whaddya mean? 

He'd forgotten. 

Update sort of....
Don't feel bad for me, I'm used to this. Yes I was really upset at his inability to understand reasoning. I had to walk outside and stand for a while and take a few deep breaths. This is what a CareGiver does. Screaming back at him would not have made anything better.
I kept telling myself I was better than that. The worst part is not having a way to release the pressure. 

I so need to get back to CrossFit! Be well.

How the Grinch was stopped by Morris the guard dog.

The Terrible Grinch was Grouchy. She hadn't had a good night's sleep because of the big snow storm.
Oh the snow wasn't bad, finding out that one of her co workers had started her car and then left with her keys in his pocket probably made the bad night much worse.

After only a few hours of sleep Miss Grinch woke up and discovered that the beautiful white snow was still coming down and by night fall it was supposed to be super frigid. Like -12 frigid.

Miss Grinch decided that instead of placing all of the nice gifts under the Christmas Chair she'd get them ready for the Christmas visit next week.

However she had an evil thought.

Perhaps she should just hide them.

If she stuffed them in a paper bag and hid them well, no one would get their Christmas gifts.

She chortled and chuckled.

Naughty Miss Grinch.
She thought she should be ashamed of herself but she was oddly pleased.

Hide the gifts!
Whoops, she forgot her boots. So off ran Miss Grinch to grab her chore boots and think of where to cleverly hide gifts.

And as she took off...

...thinking she was being wicked and wise...

...she was stopped by Morris.

Morris even made her put everything back.

Morris, the dog who saved Christmas from the Grouchy Miss Grinch.

Rockin' It.

Well there we go.  Another day on the farm.

Rich was in a big hurry after the contractors got to the house.  He decided to run his errands in town and I was to stay at home for the plumbers and the construction crew.

Well I did.  I found two more beat up buckets for my marigolds and petunias.  I figured this summer that I'd make my flowers movable so when the construction was done, I could move the planters around the porch.

The porch is now the place to hang out. It is quieter than inside the house during the day.
Just ask Morris.

Morning views from the porch are exceptional.  I can see that we will be spending a ton of time on said porch.

Morning View from the Porch

 Our relaxing spot

Yesterday he finished re-stringing the gelding mule pasture in the woods and let them out.  Today he was going to finish re-stringing fence and let the Dexter cattle out on their summer pasture.

I'd offered to do this a few weeks ago but he'd told me that he needed to do it.
I'd reminded him that last year I made electric fence all by myself and moved all of our animals onto our summer pastures too.

He told me no, that he'd do it. He sort of indicated that I wasn't capable. 
Well that kind of steamed me so I decided to sit back and let him do it in his own good time. 
[Which of course is different than my own good time...]


When he returned he backed his pickup as close to the shed as he could get.  The plumbers and the contractor's truck were parked close in as they had supplies in their trucks.

So Mr. I am In a Hurry, came out of the shed and made tried to hustle over to his truck across the gravel. In that section of our 'dooryard' there are large breaker run gravel that still poke up out of the driveway.

And Mr. I am In a Hurry, stepped on one and went down in a heap.
I believe that I am married to the man with the worst ankles on the face of the earth.

He sat a long while.
"You okay?" I asked.
He grunted.
Well I took that to mean 'Not really.'

I waited, he sighed and then finally got up.  In our 20 years of marriage, I think he has been on crutches for a twisted, broken, or sprained ankle at least once every two years.

He gimped over to the truck and limped back with dog food. I offered to help but he got Grumpy. When he is Grumpy Gus, I simply let him be.

I went back to my buckets and my dirt. 

I found a cool old crate in the little red shed and cleaned it up.  While it dried I took out some scraps of lumber and sanded them.
I thought I'd try something I'd looked up on a DIY site. I'd put some numbers on the kids' blocks for Elena and Sterling.

They didn't turn out too badly.  I choose the blocks at random, but after setting them on the spool table together I thought they might fit together like a puzzle.

I still have to put a finish on them, but that was fun. I guess I have to make numbers including 0 and 4 through 9 now.

Meanwhile ol' Grumpy supervised the workers putting up drywall and the plumbers who finished installing the shower/tub.

Of course his ankle was getting more sore by the minute. I suggested he take a load off and ice it.

NOPE. 
I shook my head.  Men.

When the guys left at 4:30, ol' Grumpy had me wrap his ankle and he went to lay down.
By the time he got up, he was really gimping and limping.

He sat on the porch where I showed him my blocks and the crate.  Then he spoke up. 

He needed to get back to the Dexter's summer pasture and put those lines back up right now.  

Since he was so bullheaded about his ankle and my abilities... I shrugged and said, "Okay, go ahead."

I didn't offer to move off the porch.  He sat there.

By golly he wasn't going to pull the wool over my eyes. And since he was Mr. Stubborn, I wasn't going to offer him help. When the other men were around, he was Tough Guy.
Now? Not so much it seemed.

I waited. I arranged some flowers inside the old crate and snapped a shot of them.

I intended to take several more shot while I waited.

I knew he needed help. But he was going to be too stubborn to ask for it. 

He looked out at the winter pasture and sighed. "I really need to get out there, maybe I'll take the 4 wheeler."

"Good idea," I replied.

After another long pause in conversation I gave up. 
"Why don't you take me back there and I can help you, then it will be done in a jiffy."

I sort of hated myself for giving him an out. 
Mr. Stubborn looked pleased and got up out of his chair, he limped across the new porch and I reluctantly followed.

Wasn't that mean of me? 
Before we went to bed he thanked me for my help. I shrugged.

Isn't it an interesting way we interact with our spouses sometimes? 

I'm sure ol' Grumpy Gus knew that if he waited me out long enough that I'd help. I'm sure he really knows that I am very capable of the work but likes things done his way.

And so it goes.
I'm going to keep an eye out for those ankle busting rocks.

Modeling~~ again! by Morris

SHE said she had to do some 'black and white' shadows and lights study sort of thing for her Black and White Photography group thingy she is doing.

SHE said the weather outside was pretty crappy, the winds were howling something awful and the sun was shining through the living room window.
While SHE was wandering about trying to figure out all something to shoot with her camera...I decided to do the only honorable thing.

Take advantage of the nice sunlight.
Nap.

Then I started hearing the faint noise of her camera shutter.
After a few minutes it got pretty annoying.  

The sun kept moving so I had to also.
Here you can see I am keeping an EYE on HER.

Really?
Can't you just let an old dog rest?

So I got up and moved to the couch.
Did that stop her?  No.

Here is my charming look.  Don't I look charming?
I was too tired to even demand a dog cookie.

Finally she gave up on me, the sunlight went away.

So SHE picked another victim!

Grumpy!

I'm pretty sure that he is not as handsome as I am.  
Well...

However he was more co-operative.

He didn't get any dog cookies either.