Wednesday, March 12, 2014

wordy wednesday

I'm trying to pay attention to the small things.

The weather is a big thing.
I am trying to pay very little attention to the weather.


For example, I am trying to make good, healthy things to eat,
even when I don't feel like bothering.

Fresh organic eggs, rice, cheese, gently cooked in butter. Yum.

~~~

Fortunately, I have many daily reminders from the other critters.

Pay attention!
Here is food! Let's eat.
Here is a moment of sunshine!
Quick! Get inside the sunshine.
Then relax.
Enjoy.

The Black Jersey Giant and the Rhode Island Red.

~~~
Also: the treats these days are Really Good Treats.
Remember all those apple slices I put in the freezer in November?
Remember the Macintosh and Winesaps, carefully preserved
for experiments in winter baking?

(Remember "baking"? A moment of silence for my oven, please.)

Well, guess what!
It turns out, a little bowl of apple slices frozen in November
is just about the best snack you can imagine in March!

They even smell like fresh apples. Ahhhhhh!

~~~

And because I know (I do know) that soon the days will be chockablock full of seasonal tasks that Will Not Wait, I am taking this "opportunity" to do a lot of indoor tasks. 
Long overdue tasks, most of them. 

This strange view is the space behind the washer and dryer.
It is now the cleanest space in the house.
This little project took hours.
It seemed worth a commemorative photograph.
Just this once.

Cleaning, reorganizing, tossing, donating.
I've started putting a few things on eBay.
Things that I'd rather not donate, for one reason or another.
Long-held-onto things. Nice things. Useful things. Specific-interest things.
Including - at last - the first steps in dispersing my horse-related library.
(There's a discreet link to the shop on the sidebar, if anyone is interested.)

~~~
In barnyard news: 
the 2014 cashmere harvest is...
bizarre.

"Sure, comb me! Take your time! Until I run out of oats..."

I have no idea what the end result will be, but at the moment I have one goat who is 90% finished shedding, and three goats who have barely started dropping about 5% and who wish very much that I would stop bothering them with a daily check.
The others are hanging onto every fiber, with no indication that they ever intend to shed at all.

Which is okay.
But it's also weird.

And if they all let go of massive amounts of fiber simultaneously,
especially in wet weather, I could be in for a challenging time...

but that is not the kind of thing I am focusing on!

No.

Living in the moment, me!

Look, tulips!


~~~
And now it's evening, and chores are done.
Time for a beverage.
I've recently moved on from hot milk and rum.
This is ginger ale with a splash of Cosmopolitan.

A Gingerpolitan?

Very refreshing. Probably make a nice Summer beverage, but why wait?

At least, that's Acer's approach.


~~~~~