Sat Feb 21st… Another Day, another doughnut…no.. just a hole…?

Here we are again… the beginning to an obviously beautiful doughnut. It’s sunny and clear with a lot of blue sky up there. Then, I see the temperature and realize it’s just another doughnut hole instead, you know....you think your gonna get the doughnut, then you find all you get is the hole. IT'S COLD…twenty six degrees and windy. Cold enough to freeze your toes and fingers off, because the winds out there are gusting to 27 mph, making it feel like fifteen degrees out there.
Come On SPRING!!!!! We know you’re out there!!!

Today I’ll work on the biography re-write again. Vicki has three illustrations done for the poetry book now and still making more while I’m still checking out publishers, to see which one I want to give our money to. Does anyone out there recommend a good publishing house? One who will work with you and let you do it your way? I don’t want to, or expect to become another Roth, Salinger, Orwell or Hemingway, but I would like to publish my book……… you know, simply publish it. It doesn’t need to be distributed all over the world, or suffer great acclaim, but I’d like to be a published poet and author, so I dredge through the internet scum to find a reputable and fair publisher. This takes much of my precious time and then I start to become disenchanted with the literary pursuits that make me feel as though I am wasting my time when I could be doing tangible things at the barn or planning more feasible things… or just hugging Sweet Vicki and making her more happy…… things that are real, positive…now…the future… but Vicki keeps assuring me that I need to chase that silver lining in that distant cloud and publish my book of poems. She is also adamant that our story of life here together and how “It all Began With a Puppy”, should be published. It’s a story of Vicki and I, just a few years ago when both of our lives were drastically and involuntarily changed. I suppose two such people, united by such inimitably celestial intervention, of such magnitude, should definitely be published so the world might be able to share in their happiness, thus, I continue to search out a venue by which to get our story into print.
Yep…… it’s gonna just be another hole day…… but this evening, we are going to the Villa Vosilla to help celebrate Vicki's brother, Richie and Robin’s Anniversary. We will have dinner there and Vicki’s father, Joe Drao will be entertaining the dinner crowd as we dine. It will be a memorable evening for all in attendance as we celebrate.

Fri Feb 20th… Driven from the barn by winter again……

Wow, winter is relentless this year… slinking around… re-appearing regularly every week or so now. We get a break in the temperatures and start to let our guard down, by talking about spring and what we’ve been waiting all winter long to do and as we continue to become psyched…… BLAP… we’re hit between the eyes with winter’s reality all over again. Thus, it has been this week!!
Even yesterday… I went out the front door to the garbage tote and it was beautiful. It was sunny, had warmed up to about forty degrees and the warmth was melting the newly fallen snow of Wednesday evening. The three inches were reduced to almost nothing where the sun was hitting it and down to one inch in the shade. I told Vick I would finish her outside lights, as soon as we made the trip to the Vet, which she had called to schedule. We wanted Kurt, our Vet, to take a look at some worms expelled from the turkey’s and give us a medicine to treating them. We left the house with two of the fat, white, ugly worms, measuring about two or three inches in length and headed for the Vet’s office, down the road. Upon seeing it, Kurt mumbled “hummm, Lungworm…… now what’s the med I used last time…oh…ahh… been awhile since I treated a turkey… hummm.” He then spit out a twenty dollar word and took off for the med cabinet, returning with four hypodermic needles filled with the stuff. Twenty bucks and we were on our way back to the barn, to shoot the turkey’s with the medicine to eliminate the Lungworms and stop their chronic cough.
On the way back, the temperature dropped like a rock, along with a bunch of snow and sleet. That continued until we had about a half inch of the new white stuff on the ground. We still put up the lights, be we were almost frozen solid until we was done. Anyway, we now have outside fluorescent lighting, on a dusk-to-dawn controller now………… just what Sweet Vicki always wanted.
After that, we warmed up and I finished my re-writes for all of the poems. Vicki is now doing illustrations for my book, which I think is a beautiful addition to the effort and is bound to give it some of the added pizzazz it needed. Once Vick is done illustrating, then it’s off to the publisher. We Can’t wait…that will be an excitement that I never envisioned happening…… Being a published author……WOW! Now that the poetry is that close to being ready for the publisher, I’m going to return to my other big book and complete the re-write on it. I was going to call it “An Uncommon Journey “, but have since settled on the title of, “It all Began With a Puppy”. It’s the story of Vicki and I, how we met because of a puppy and finally ended up together in Upstate New York, with five dogs, all the critters and a farm on almost nine acres of land. It’s chocked full of excitement, disappointments, adventurous day trips, errands for supplies, tender moments and lots of funny happenings. I’ve finished the original book and am now doing the re-write which is adding pages, but enriching the content. When completed and proof read by Vicki, my editor in chief, it will also go to the publishing house. Then…… I will start on another book about the finished barn, the spring arrival of the Alpacas, expanding the new barn already, for the Angora rabbits coming this summer, selling eggs and hatching young chicken peeps to sell and the trials and tribulations of New York farming as we continue to acquire our farm status and expand…… It’s an adventure.

Thurs Feb 19th… Obviously Winter has given up a little……

Obviously, this could have been my business card too.......But we have fun!

Well, I’m happy to report that the three inches of snow we received yesterday when it was cold and blowing has been reduced to about an inch already. The weather is mild, sunny and there isn’t a breeze in the sky anywhere…… a perfect set-up for the entire snow load of yesterday to disappear today and make us all happy. I must say that it was beautiful, all the virgin white snow without a track in it… but by morning the zillions of deer in our yard have it looking like the Grand Central Station of nature’s woodland terminal.
I will finish the lights on the front of the barn today, which I opted to not do yesterday in light of the nasty weather that developed a few hours after writing the morning blog, because my fingers were about frozen just doing the critters. Instead, I stayed inside and did the final re-writes on my poetry so we could start doing the proof reading and finalize everything to go to the publisher. Once the poetry book is completed and in the hands of the publisher, I will then concentrate on my biography. It’s a story about myself, Vicki, the dogs and the beginning of the farm. The name has been changed several times throughout it’s existence from the birth of the idea…… until the choice of the final name which just occurred yesterday in the bakery as we talked to Keren and Reggie, the owners. I mentioned the biography and said it was a story of us, the farm and the animals…… “It all started with a little puppy”, so in that very moment, I decided that should be the final name of the book.
“It all began with a little puppy” is finished, but I must perform the first re-write and then Vicki will edit it for me and then I will read it from beginning to end as if I had never seen it before. After that, Vicki will do the same, all the while, both of us will use a marker to circle wrong grammar, misspelled words and sentences that do not flow or ramble on. There is always a few things you’ll find, even after all the work is completed, if you just keep reading over it. Finally, I might ask my cousin in Mississippi if she would kindly proof read it also. She used to do that for a living, I understand, so she may be my first, objective critic. Vicki is too lovingly prejudicial….if you know what I mean, but then, Bonnie is the second closest female in my life too, so who knows. Anyway…… we’ll get it published one of these days and into the bookstores. That’s the main thing, but it won’t be a rapid thing, because I do that work in my spare time or mornings and evenings. That is why my blog posts have suffered a little recently. I have been working on the poetry book, but today it’s 38 degrees at 9:50 and I’m ready to hit the barns for feed and water and then, finish the lights. See ya’ll later today…………

Wed Feb. 18th… Welcome to the Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm…

It’s morning again and the dogs were rearing to go this morning at 6:30 or so, so I gave up and jumped out of bed to let them run out the back door. The want to bark at the deer, which enjoy eating grass in the yard and tormenting the dogs. They know all to well, just how far those dogs can go in the fenced yard and they as much as shake their little butts at the dogs to arouse them into furiously barking. They just stand there as if to say. “Ha, Ha, HAA… HAA… Ha, similar to a kid thumbing their nose at another to incite anger, then simply amble away, unconcerned for the dogs turbulent churning together, much like a pile of furry tailed, jumping beans, barking incessantly all the while.
With that re-occurring scenario out of the way, I can then get on with making my pot of coffee and getting down to so reading of the AOL news and checking emails and the blog, before allowing my loose fitting brain to wander aimlessly into a morning post for ya’ll to read.
It’s 34 degrees outside this morning and a bit windy, but I will still brave the elements to cut the plywood gussets and mount the light fixtures on the front of the barn. To much time has elapsed since the wiring was started and too many times we have tripped and stumbled in the dark, on our way to the barn at night. It will be really nice that the barn area will be illuminated this summer, when we have the Alpacas in the barn and pasture. The rear light has made a huge difference in negotiating around the back of the barn at night, and since I just saw huge bear prints in the snow a few weeks ago, I’d like to see where I’m going out there at night. I never want to do as a friend of mine once did in Pa, in the darkness. He wanted to go out to his car to retrieve something and failed to turn on the porch light, but just opened the door and burst out onto the porch, yanking the door shut behind him. Shortly after that, we heard a scream that made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Upon rushing to the light switch for the porch light and opening the door, we saw him standing like a statue……frozen in place…… with his arms outstretched…… clutching two hand full’s of black hair. He had run directly into a huge black bear on the porch in the dark, scaring the bear off, after grabbing two full clumps of fur and tearing them out as he screamed. It took a few minutes to get him breathing normally again and pry the fur from his hands.
Anyway… that’s mute testimony for lighting an area up after dark. Even just a little bit……… especially this spring, when the sow’s emerge from hibernation with cubs……… a bad encounter in an illuminated area…… unthinkable in the darkness…… because you would probably never know what hit you.

Tues. Feb 17th Clear today, Snow Tomorrow… Hate that #*!%@&

I hate that fat, scruffy, little, tunnel rat from Pennsylvania that always see’s his shadow…… why can’t he get coordinated with the one from New York, so they both see the same thing? The one from New York didn’t see his shadow, (although he did bite mayor Bloomberg ha ha ha) but this little rat from PA?????? He has been predicting since 1887……… that’s 112 years folks…… and of these 112 predictions on record so far, Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early spring 14 times, making his accuracy about 39%. NOT TOO GOOD! Now, I know that winter lasts about six weeks beyond the Feb. 2nd groundhog day crap, so why don’t these stupid rodents? They could just forget it and winter would end somewhere around six weeks past his Feb. 2nd day anyway…… but no… he has to constantly see his shadow and remind us, which pisses us all off! I still want to shoot him dead, that stupid, giant, buck toothed mouseketeer looking rat.
Well, anyway…… today I bundled up and went to the barn, despite the chilly wind and ran the wires for the front lights of the barn. I got everything hooked up and ready, but quit until tomorrow when I can cut two gusset pieces of plywood for mounting the lights onto. There are two octagon boxes which will house the lights, mounted against the plywood gussets I make, so I’ll have them made and done in a half hour or so. After they’re done, I’ll run the two on the pasture side and install the fluorescent bulbs in them all. I like paying for 13 watts and getting the lighting of 75 watts. We are going to install these same bulbs in the driveway lights at the road and the night light at the garden pond too.
I will then still have the loft lighting to do which is inside and pretty easy. It’s going to be nice when the wiring is all done and there are lights and receptacles everywhere you need them. I gotta get this done so I’m ready for building the hospice gift shop too.

Mon Feb 16th… Winter is hard on EVERYTHING in it’s path……

Winter isn’t only hard on people as we try to function on a daily basis…… looking at the pictures I took this morning, you can see that the devastating cold of this winter has affected far more than the human’s inhabiting the north. These pictures were taken at our neighbor’s pond, just 100 yards from his summer cottage. Tony and his wife were up over the holiday weekend with his daughter, her husband and two kids, and somewhere along the line, his grandson was at the pond and noticed the fish frozen in and under the ice at the edge of the pond. The fish on top of the ice, were under it near the edge and after breaking the ice, they pulled them out and after inspecting the dead fish, the kids threw them out onto the ice for the birds and foxes to devour. This could be a fluke occurrence or…..it could be nature’s way of thinning the population of fish in a small pond, by this happening every so many years. I think the fish died in the shallows trying to get oxygen from the edges where spring water seeps into the pond. The ice was thick enough and snow covered long enough that photosynthesis probably ceased to occur as usual, due to the continued darkness caused by the snow. If this occurred, there would soon be a depletion of oxygen in the water for the fish and they would suffocate. I know the feed stream was frozen solid, so the only new water in to the pond would have been spring water and the edges were frozen to about sixteen inches down.
I hope that our pond was not affected this way, because it is sixteen feet deep in the center and adjoins the spring fed stream that flowed even when everything froze over, because there were slivers of moving, unfrozen water in the center of the stream and our pond is at least seven feet deep where the stream flows into and out of the pond, so our fish could get plenty of feed and oxygen there. They actually need very little of both to survive this time of the year, because their metabolism has slowed greatly and I believe they really don’t even feed below forty degrees, so our fish should have been ok. I hope so anyway, but it’s a shame that Tony’s pond suffered such a loss of really nice bass, crappie and sunfish. It will replenish this summer, because there is a channel tie between Tony’s pond and the huge beaver lake which lays about 50 yards beyond his pond and even though the wildlife will dine on them, it’s a shame about the fish dying.
It’s still too cold to actually work outside normally, so we will busy ourselves getting ready for Vick’s family’s arrival here later for dinner. Vicki is at this moment, preparing, preparing, preparing and until she is done……… will have enough food to feed several families, TWICE!!
I may venture out to play with wiring or the gate……… you know… all the stuff I keep threatening to do on a regular basis, but never seem to get accomplished. I did, however get a rear light fixture installed and on a dusk to dawn control, so we would never have to stumble in the dark behind the barn again, but I have more lighting to install as time and weather permits, so who knows…… maybe I’ll get some done today…… We’ll see………

Sun Feb. 15th…… Sunny…cold… but folks were out & moving around…

Today was a nice spring like day with the exception of the brutal chill carried on the impending wind that modulated between an almost un-detectable breeze to a tree bending wind that could easily cut to the bone. There were several folks that showed up to buy eggs and the neighbor brought his son-in-law over with his son and daughter to see the chickens, bunnies and the turkeys, but they couldn’t stay very long because of the cold. I mentioned that when they came back in a few months, they would be able to see the Alpacas in their stalls or out in the pasture. They said they were looking forward to seeing them and it being warmer so they could enjoy watching them for a little while.
Later in the day, Vicki and I went to pick up a few things we needed to prepare dinner for the family tomorrow evening here and stopped at Jem Stoves to pick up another ten bags of pellets for the fireplace insert downstairs.
We are going to cut matting material later, so we can matt a canvas picture that Vicki painted for her brother, depicting Richie’s favorite dog Scruffy, which was a mixed Schnauzer, from his younger, adult life in Tannersville, several years ago. As usual, I think Vick outdid herself again. She was working form a tiny picture that was totally against everything we set forth as criteria for painting someone’s pet. This is the very project that led to the list of five things on Vick’s Artwork Commission Agreement listed on this mornings post entry. Richie is sitting with his arm around the dog, obstructing the dogs shape, the lighting is poor, the picture fuzzy and measures about a big 2 ½ x 4”…… a truly miserable picture for her to be painting from, yet she did a lovely job and the dog looks remarkable! He should be absolutely beside himself with joy. I can’t wait to see it when it is matted and framed on his office wall.


Vicki is making soap. Just as they did 200 years ago, she is checking the temperature of the liquid lye. It must be at 100 degrees

Constantly reading the thermometer until 100 degrees is reached on the lye mixture.

The rendered tallow was cooked down from suet we got from the slaughter house in Greenville.






Once both the rendered tallow and lye are at the same temperature of 100 degrees, she mixes the two to achieve the chemical reaction.

As you can see, this is not for the faint of heart and you can get a nasty chemical burn if something goes wrong!

Here you can se the beginning of the reaction as Vick stirs the mixture as the lye is stirred in.

Once the mixture starts to "trail" as you stir and test it, you can pour the mixture into a mold pan.

It now must cure for a few days in a warm area, then Vick can remove it from the mold pan, shave it down into small chips and remelt it again and then add the fragrance and re-pour it into the final molds to cool. It then gets cut into bar size blocks and will be wrapped and sold this summer in the hospice gift shop.

This is our swimming pool after the mysterious "water disappearing act".










This thick chunk of ice goes clear to the bottom..... all the way around the pools perimeter. The water dis-appeared in five minutes time and the cover was on the bottom. The pool rumbled for five solid minutes, then became quiet.

This is Vicki's watercolor on canvas of Scruffy.

This is a poor reproduction of the original which is really pretty. Neither of these pictures does the original any justice at all, but you at least, get to see it.

Sun Feb 15th… A chilly Start to yet another day on the farm……

This morning started off with me getting a late start… Well, not really a late start, so much as my being late getting to bed last night...... or more like this morning! I was watching two of Charles Bronson's movies, which he did in the 70's, called “Death Wish”. Obviously, it was Charles Bronson night on AMC, because they had all three movies airing in a row. I watched the last two, which ran until about 4:20 this morning, after which, I finally went to sleep. so I guess that my getting up at 8:30, after retiring to sleep at 4:30 or so, really doesn’t seem that bad. Vicki was painting until around three, so I became engrossed in Death Wish II and when it was over and they started the next one, I was hooked. I dearly love that American Movie Classics (AMC)channel……

Vicki has been receiving emails about commission work to paint pet portraits for folks, on an increasing basis, due in part to showing her work on the blog. With so many inquiries about her terms, we came up with an artwork commission agreement that states everything as best she can express it. She hates formalities but I convinced her to come up with a list, which she doesn’t really care to promote. She loves to paint and create but she loves to do it in a peaceful, relaxing manner which she is worried about losing when she does commission work for people. Her concerns and fears do not lie with receiving payment as much as acceptance of her work by others, so I have tried to relieve this stress with the agreement, as you will find when you read it. If any part of it appears to be curt or pretensious, I appoligize and point out that I believe Vicki see’s it as such, but cannot invent a better, more friendly approach to the problem. Ultimately, she wants everyone to know that she would like to paint your pets, but she wants to have it remain pleasant for both parties. Here is the agreement which I devised with her help.

Vicki’s Artwork Commission Agreement

First and foremost, She enjoys painting these pictures and wishes not to paint under the stress of obligation or acceptance scrutiny, because it is no longer enjoyable to her. Therefore, she enters into a painting agreement with the understanding that both you and she must approve the painting to complete the endeavor. If for some reason, the finished artwork does not please Vicki, she reserves the right not to release it, thereby removing worry and stress of her performance, keeping it pleasurable to produce.
With the above completely stated and understood:

1. You have to submit a full, clear picture that shows the entire pet to be painted. (multiple pets may require additional cost)

2. Once the picture is received and it is determined Vicki can use it to produce a quality painting, she will give you a price Quote for the painting. (Remember, Vicki can’t see your pet in person, so she must be able to see all your pets features from this photo to reproduce a quality watercolor
Painting that looks like your pet.)

3. Once payment is received, Vicki will begin work on your painting and when completed, she will send an electronic copy for you to approve. When approved, she will apply the final protective coating and send it out to you for final approval.

4. When you receive your painting, you must be completely satisfied or you may return the painting and Vicki will, (per request) refund your money or re-touch the painting. Once
You are completely satisfied , Vicki will consider the matter Closed. You must walk away happy in conclusion.

5. Vicki reserves the right to maintain one “Artist’s Proof” and the privilege of displaying to perpetuate her work, or in her portfolio.

I personally think that it is extremely hard to protect yourself and make someone else feel at ease and understand what you are saying, without sounding indifferent of that end goal in the process most of the time. I hope this is not the case here and everyone understands that both Vicki and I love all our friends and acquaintances and cherish all friendships above all else. That is why she is so insistent on customer satisfaction and that no one must purchase the finished watercolor unless fully satisfied.