Tuesday, December 17, 2013

566

That's how many unread blog posts are waiting for me, 
now that I've got the laptop back!

My non-audio books are going back onto shelves and under plant pots, where they belong.

Lady Without A Laptop.
Add some (many) years and pounds, and this portrait looks amazingly like me. Including the crazy hairline.

Darn it.

Dear blog readers, thank you so much for checking in and leaving comments and sending messages during the Horrible Laptop Collapse of 2013. I've missed you and your blogs!!

The ancient Emergency Thinkpad allowed me to briefly check email and twitter, but at less than dial-up speed. And if I dared try to open tabs in a browser (which of course I did roughly 400 times), the OS would hold its breath til it turned purple, then shut down completely.

Good times.

But now I'm getting back to normal, and hardly know where to begin. Maybe just a few notes and snaps?

There's been some of this, and there's more falling right now:


~~~

It's been bitterly, truly, too-soon-for-this-cold.

Which has resulted in not only homemade stew, 
but homemade stew eaten in bed.


Apparently, when early February lands with a thud in mid-December, I become a wimp.
And I think maybe I'm okay with that.
~~~

When morning chores are done and Piper has been toweled off and all my work clothes are hanging by the heater to dry again, I sometimes turn on the oven and bake something - anything! - to make the house feel a bit cozier. Roasted chicken, turnip and cream casserole, baked sweet potato slices...whatever is on hand.

This morning it was baked eggs with gruyere cheese and portabello mushrooms:

Full disclosure: this dish was not as tasty as it looks.
Rather dry and bland, I'm sorry to say.
Seemed so promising...
I'll try to work on it.

~~~
Meanwhile, the snow has been coming down all day and it's time for another coffee-and-cocoa delivery to the goats.



It's not really coffee or cocoa.
It's just warm water. 
But if you don't tell them, they'll never know.
It was 2 degrees F this morning, and they had warm water and carrot pennies for a little "hey-look-we-all-survived-another-night-in-the-Yukon!" treat.

Really, they are fine and dandy.
Perhaps a bit bored with the snow, but after their breakfast buckets of grub they have an endless supply of nice hay and they all go back and forth between the shelters, in ones and twos and threes, bumping each other off the decks and checking to be sure no one else has:

better hay

or more hay

or different hay.

Goats are funny.

Oh, and we have a visitor:

Meet Paul.

I'm glad I took a picture before the first snow.
It's challenging to photograph solid black;
even more so when it's surrounded by solid white.
There may not be any Paul updates for quite a while.
~~~

Time to suit up again, whistle for Piper, and try to get us both out the door without Piper bumping into either me or the water buckets.
Somehow, the splashes only seem to land on one of us, and it's never, ever, Piper.

I'll be gradually catching up on blog-reading over the next few days, so I'll see you soon!
~~~~~

7 comments:

  1. Your life with Piper and the goats always sounds such fun! It's good to have you back xx

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Lucy - it's good to be back! Now I have to try to get a nice new picture of Piper :)

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  2. Well, Paul's certainly an imposing figure - I love your goats! They actually look pretty comfortable in that shelter, with their coffee and cocoa! Glad to hear the computer stuff is on the mend - so sorry about the scads of email. STAY WARM, my friend...maybe a bit more stew! XOXO

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul has matured a lot since he visited us last year - he's Tsuga and Sambucus' daddy, but last year he was sort of a clueless teenager. Hoping for a more efficient and effective approach this year.

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  3. Glad you're back. I missed the goats! Paul certainly has an impressive set of horns--looks like goat royalty.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Computer problems are quite aggravating. I'm still upset that I slammed my mini laptop closed last year because I was mad at my husband which resulted in him buying me this Toshiba which really isn't the greatest. And now I can't find my charger for the mini -- the screen is messed up but what I would like to do is get all my photos from it before I let it go but can't do that until I find the dang charger. And with all the electronics we have around here, do you know how many wayward cords and chargers there are? That's also very aggravating. Happy holidays and warm wishes to you and your creature clan. :) Best wishes, Tammy

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    Replies
    1. I recently donated a box full of miscellaneous computer components and cords and chargers and printers and digital cameras...wonder how long it will take before I discover there was something in that box I should have kept?

      Delete

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