2017 in review

I suppose it's time to look back over the year and see how we did. And plan to do better in 2018!

Successes
Chicken and guinea birth control
We had zero population growth this year, thanks to keeping the birds confined during most of the summer, and hunting out guinea nests. Since we had to sequester our four extra roosters to keep them from abusing the little hens, no more roosters is a good thing! And no frozen baby guineas in October is also a good thing. And no more guineas is a good thing – 25 is plenty.

We could use more hens and eggs, though. And feeding and watering the separate colony of roosters is a pain. Also, Bob across the road says the crowing from bachelor quarters is a problem, so we'll have to move the boys this spring. We wouldn't have this problem if we were carnivores.

The garden was wonderfully productive.

Guineas kept tick and grasshopper populations down.

Worming the goats helped improve coats.


Failures
We had three hen deaths this year. Maybe due to the obnoxious guineas? Maybe separate the guineas from chickens?

Garden watering system was a fail. Again.


MS in 2017
I've had some progression over the year. My left hand is less able, and my walking a bit worse. I'm still walking, though, and still able to do wood and animal chores. And I've finally accepted having this disease, I think, so I can spend less time angry and resentful, and get on with it.

My friend Sandra sent me a book by a guy with MS, and it helped. It's "Challenging the Dragon" by Jim Havelock, and while it's not well-written or edited (sorry, but as a former journalist and copy editor, this matters to me), it is heartfelt. I was thinking about the book a lot, and on Dec. 6 I decided to be happy. Just generally. Immediately felt better in a weird way. And still do. What the hell, ay?


Plans for next year
Install a watering system in the garden. Really. A functional one. No joke.

Apply for historic-building status, and then for grants to fix the damn roof.

Get the alpaca sheared. It will get ugly. Do it anyway.

Install a frost-free hydrant in the pasture so I won't have to carry water in the winter.

Install gutters on the barn to save water for the animals.

Install heat in the studios.

Fence at least part of the lower field so we can rotate the big animals in the pastures.

Install "chunnels" or chicken tunnels around the garden fence so the confined birds can eat more bugs and be less bored.

Hire some help.
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Here's to 2018. I hope it's good for all of us.

Into the new year

Here we are. It's been warmer, which is nice.

Our new neighbors, who turn out to be our old neighbors from town (which is weird), came down unasked and plowed the six inches of new snow off the driveway and the big berm at the road with their vintage blue Ford tractor. Sweet. Gave them gas money. We got to know them 20 years ago when all our teenage girls were being horrible and we carpooled to Tough Love meetings. Tough Love is a support group you join when your teenagers are being horrible. Good support, good advice, good company in hard times. Bad coffee, though.

And all three horrible teens are now nice, responsible women with kids of their own. (Evil laugh.) (Not really.) (Well, maybe really.)

A plowed driveway restored my driving confidence, and Earl and I hit Deer Park Wednesday for chicken food and other essentials.

C. is better. Thanks for your kind wishes. She brought a cold home from the clinic, of course, and we're both getting over that. One good thing about getting old is that you rarely catch the colds and flus going around, but this one nailed us.

As soon as we're all done being sick, we'll have the kids up for our post-Christmas Christmas.

The dachshund rocker is progressing, and now C. is working on furry ears and tail. I don't sew, but she does, and very well. The tail is attached in an amusing way – I'll post pictures when it's done. Still trying to figure out how to attach the ears in a way safe for a toddler. Screws and washers might not do.

C. trims the fake fur from the edge of an ear before sewing it to a silky lining, and turning it.

The base, ready for stain and sealing.

We muddle along; muddle-dee-doo, muddle-dee-doo, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

Here are a couple of gratuitous wiener-dog shots. Though they like the old leopard-spotted throw, they are well pleased with the new super-silky grey fleece blanket we got for Christmas.

Where did Christmas go?

It disappeared somewhere after I found an excellent recipe for gluten-free ginger cookies. Having learned my lesson, I made a single batch to test the recipe. It was wonderful. And I don't even like  most ginger stuff.  But these cookies were dark and rich and chewy and intense, almost like chocolate. And pretty. So I  made a quadruple batch for my holiday mailings. Mmmm.

Then C. got sick. We drove in to the CHAS Clinic (she doesn't have insurance) in Deer Park, and the bastards refused to see her as we were eight minutes late (I slid off the driveway in six inches of fresh wet snow and had to cowboy my way out in the Subaru). And we didn't call (C., bless her heart, is plumb unable to get the cell phone to work though she tried repeatedly.) So they blew us off. In a rural area after a winter storm. I was shocked.

So we went to urgent care, which costs a bundle. C. got antibiotics for mastitis, and we crept home.

So C. is now really quite sick with this infection. (Or maybe it's my cooking. I have a limited repertoire, and nachos every day can make you feel a little weird.) And I find I just can't make myself  get back in the car and face the roads. I learned to drive in Alaska, and I usually love to go charging into the snow, hurtling over berms, sliding into my parking spot, but MS has pretty much killed my confidence. It's less fun to get stuck when you have a hell of time walking or digging out. I put off mailing cookies until it's too late. Pathetic, I know.

And we hesitate to have the kids come up for Christmas, since mastitis can be contagious and both girls are nursing their babies.

So C. rests and we work on our now post-Christmas-present projects.

I'm making a rocking dachshund for our little granddaughter. The rocking base is the hard part, and I get it assembled all wonky. I've never made a rocking anything, and we're winging it without a pattern. And it's really cold in the shop area of the unheated gym, so I set up a spot in the living room and proceed to make a huge mess. C. is too ill to protest. I dart in to the gym and sand or cut or drill, them rush back into the warmth.

I disassemble the base, clamp the rockers to a box to keep everything square, and reassemble. It works!

I feel pretty successful when Bella barks at the partly finished intruder. I still need to cover the screws, and apply the final paint, ears and loooooooong tail.

When C. feels better she works on her own metal project. Shoot, she's making a bigger mess than I am!

We plan to get everyone together soon and pass out weird homemade presents. It will be lovely.

Holiday crankiness

Well, crap.

I got all giddy with the season, and decided to make awesome gluten-free cookies for my work friends and my garden friends and my family near and my family far.

No, I hadn't tested the recipes. Shut up.

So far, it's gone badly, and I'm surprised.

Now I'm thinking I'll be lucky to get a tiny box of cookies to my folks in Texas, and one to C.'s most excellent brother in Seattle. And lots of ugly bits to foist off on the kids when they come up. Or maybe the dogs.

The top row is three failed attempts to cook normal (not gluten-free) shortbread cookies. I'm getting really, really pissed. I Googled the problem, and apparently it might be the fat content of the butter (Oh, Mr. Grocer, can I exchange this butter for less-fatty butter?), or the proportions in the recipe (too late to do anything about that), or rolling them out too thin (if they were thicker they could make even bigger puddles!) or the oven firing too hot. I started cooking at 325. I'm down to 200 now. They are a a tiny bit better. Feh. And I forgot they had wheat flour and ate some dough, so now I have a headache and feel like a moron. (I cook, I nibble. It's how I roll.)

That's the Martha Stewart Cookbook in the back, and the Bonnie Scottish Cookbook to the left. You guys were not helpful.

I've wasted three pounds of butter, and my kitchen (C.'s kitchen, really) is a greasy, flour-streaked mess.

Sigh.

The bottom row is my less-than-brilliant success row. Left, gf lemon shortbread (better for baking, but with a funny gluten-free taste. You know what I mean), the pretty-dang-good gf chocolate crinkle cookie, and two fairly successful gf chocolate-covered peanut-butter cheesecake balls (yes, they are "decorated." It's the holidays. Shut up).

So, Ma, Pa and Dick, guess what you are getting for Christmas?

No, not pecan shortbread cookies. Those are for the dogs.

Snow, again

Kewpie noticed that it snowed.

Pantry inventory

I went over to the pantry (off the other kitchen) to turn the heater on, since 20 is the expected low tonight. And while I was there, I counted the jars of canned food, which I've been meaning to do.

Here's the 2017 inventory:
In quarts, from this year:

40 vegetable soup
93 green beans
6 shelled peas
36 snap peas
32.5 tomatoes
23 tomato sauce with herbs
10 quarts salsa (in pints)
9 spinach
4.5 sauerkraut
20 sweet pickles
5 carrots


From past years:

9.5 beet pickles
31 dill pickles
8.5 tomato sauce
13.5 borsht
6 plums
and 27 half-pints of jam

There are also 6 Jarrahdale squashes, a bag of shallots and a bag of onions.

This is to feed two people, and five dogs (four small and one medium-sized).

Rain, meh

Grey drizzle outside. The bathroom ceiling drips into its bucket. I'm not feeling motivated to a damn thing. The house is a mess. The rabbit room is a mess. The hallway is getting narrower and narrower. Feh.

I haven't been idle all week. I'm just about done hanging the pantry door – need to find a couple of trim pieces in the gym, and patch the holes and dings in the cheap, modern, used-and-abused door jamb. It took days of slow-mo carpentry to do – chiseling out the hinge pockets, finding hinges and pins, rummaging out shims and trim.... Richard, bless his heart, hauled the door over from the gym. It's one of the original doors from the school – there are 20 or 30 stored over there. The casing (thats the flat trim part, yes?) is original, too, and warped and fragile. The jamb is a battered newer one, almost tall and wide enough, that I found in two different places. The handles and operational bit (we call them "door guts") are from our stockpile of cool metal parts.

Of course, since this is an old building, nothing is truly square or plumb. And the old materials are not in the best shape. And the walls are a weird thickness. And I scrounge materials. So it's all a little funky. But since the old door was sheet of plastic stapled over the hole (augmented by a down sleeping bag during the cold spell last year), it is a big improvement. 

It opens and closes beautifully.

I'll have to get creative on the inside trim.

C. has been making corn tortillas from masa harina (gluten free!) and we've been making enchiladas from our own black beans, salsa and tomato sauce. Pretty tasty.

Also, the local roofing guy came by and did some patching up there. He's a nice guy, but very shy. He quietly appears, climbs up there, and clumps around painting roof-goop on bad spots. We're shy, too, so this lack of interaction is fine. He does need to get us an invoice so we can pay him from our special roofing account at the bank. 

Right now, trying to make myself do something. I split a little wood and haul it in in our little red wagon. Feed and water the animals. Read. Wait for some kind of ambition. Or motivation. Or sunshine.

Meh.