remain calm

breathe in, breathe out

Remain calm. That's what I'm telling myself.

Part of the reason I've been blogging so little lately is that my laptop has been struggling to function. Yesterday I got a diagnosis: the hard drive is failing. Now I'm scrambling to salvage everything possible while random things appear and disappear, expand and shrink, and jump around the screen. Not a lot of fun, but I'm glad to have a chance to save whatever I can. I really cannot overstate how much of a communication lifeline and general world-connection tool my laptop is for me.

Replacement of the hard drive is already scheduled for the 17th, which will mean starting from scratch: reloading applications and restoring files. I saved 140,020 images last night, if the files haven't been damaged in any way by the state of the current hard drive. Time will tell.

Today I want to attempt to post this quick message to tell you one important thing:

the kids are named Hazel (the girl) and Bud (the boy).

I just tried to upload new pictures of them but the blog screen vanished twice - yikes. So please refer back to the earlier pictures, and apply additional cuteness. Thank you.

See you on the other side!

~~~~~

catching up a bit

Well. The laptop is back and, after a couple of initial hiccoughs, is being put through it's paces, bit by bit. Photographs have been uploaded. The optical drive has been tested with an audiobook on CD and soon - since a trip to the library this morning - a movie on DVD. So far, so good. Time for a little blog post.

Let's see. What's been happening? Well, there's been weather.

Fog.

 Snow. And more snow.

Also sleet, hail, freezing rain, and warm sun.

It's February. Anything can happen.

I've been trying to get things done, indoors and out.

Little by little.

Emptied and washed the kitchen cupboards, then reorganized.

Rearranged the stilt barn, so there is room to sneak just one goat out into a little private dining area for a special bucket of grub.

Got some of the construction disorder under control.

Made two long trips to pick up goat supplies.

Started my first seed list for the 2018 gardens.

Took hundreds of photographs.

Della - a rare portrait!

Wednesday was in the high 60s (it snowed on Thursday, hailed on Friday) and my Occasional Helper was here for three hours. We got a few things done, which is good because he is taking the month of March off. I sometimes don't see him for a couple of weeks, but a whole month in Spring will be quite a difference. I may have to pull my socks up and work harder. Or look for a Very Occasional Helper?

No, probably that first thing.

I've continued with the Daily Markmaking; last night was #54. It's a watercolor based on a photograph of Sambucus in a recent snowstorm.

Some nights I suddenly realize I am dozing off and haven't done any markmaking. So I grab a pen or brush and look for something I can work on without getting out of bed. Like the knitting basket on the porch table, or the last winter squash on the windowsill.

Here, Moxie is closely observing the start of a watercolor sketch:

Hope your weekend is going well!

~~~~~

wordy wednesday

The weather has lightened up, and everyone is enjoying it.

It's sunny, and it's hot. But not stultifyingly humid.

And there's an occasional breeze.

The air is breathable.

Ahhhhh.

Betula had been basking in the sun, but when he saw me walking up from the garden, he got up and walked down to meet me halfway.

 LeShodu naturally assumed that I would walk to her.

She is rarely mistaken.

~~~

We had a brief but heavy rain one evening,

and the corn is higher than my knees at last:

The corn - it's organic popcorn, actually! - 

still has a long way to go.

But the summer squash is coming along:

~~~

In very "other" news, I'm in the process of switching to a new laptop. It's a necessary step - overdue, really - but now I must get it done because the tiny laptop needs to go away for repair ASAP. I've been switching over for a week now, bit by bit.

I am not going to make you look at pictures of a laptop.

Look, pumpkin leaves! Aren't they glorious?

I'll talk about the laptops though. Two big hurdles are: getting the goatcams talking to the new laptop, and finding a replacement for Picasa, which I've been happy with as an image manager (mostly) and editor (a bit), but which Google cut loose a while ago. Oh, Google. You are a blister at times.

I do so little "post-processing" of images, I have no need of PhotoShop. And I don't want my images in "the cloud" so I'm not even looking at Google's "replacement" for Picasa.

FastStone was recommended but doesn't seem to have keyword tagging. Tagging is a feature I need at this point; otherwise I will never find anything when I want it. Ideally, I need to find software that will not only offer tagging but which will read the tags on tens of thousands of images already tagged in Picasa.

What are y'all using? Any software suggestions will be much appreciated!

~~~

Hurdle 2: the goatcams are critical to my peace of mind; no exaggeration. There's just no calculating how many unnecessary trips to the barns and paddocks they've prevented, especially in the middle of the night. Nor how many times I've gone out with a flashlight because a goatcam let me know there was something genuinely amiss. They've certainly saved at least one life.

After many hair-tearing failures this week, I managed to get one of the cameras talking to the new laptop this afternoon. I have such a headache now, I'm going to rest on that one scrawny laurel til tomorrow, when I'll tackle the second camera again.

And speaking of tomorrow, it's the Giveaway Giveaway! I just discovered that I did not put a time on the random drawing, so to be fair, I will keep entries open til midnight Eastern Time on Thursday, and will draw and post the winner on Friday. That means there's still time to share, so please do...this is just a tiny giveaway, but the more people who hear about Kiva, the better our world may be :)

~~~~~

fumbling friday

Well.

I've got a tiny new laptop and I'm trying to find my way through a new Operating System, a touchscreen that makes things appear and disappear when I swear I did not touch anything, and the mixed blessing of adding familiar software but not having any of my preferences (such as toolbar arrangements and fonts) come along with it. Then there's the disconcerting way my open source office software (LibreOffice, which I love) is crashing every time I open a document. Every. Time.

Well.

Look! It's the Mystery Bugs!

Also, going from a 15" to an 11" monitor has drawbacks. Some of it is a simple trade-off, such as the aggravation of miniature (and therefore unreadable) drop-down menus versus the comfort factor of a lightweight laptop.

Close-up!

I'm certainly enjoying the light weight, so maybe it's worth keeping a pair of embiggening glasses at hand, just to reduce the amount of time spent randomly selecting things from a drop-down menu I cannot read? But some issues are proving more difficult to work around. Some applications - for example, my photo-editing software - have a disorienting, wrong-end-of-the-telescope quality that may not be easily overcome. Reviewing images to transfer from my camera has become quite a challenge.

Is that a picture of Piper?

Or a piece of oak bark?

Or one of the chickens?

Oh, I think it's kale!

Oops, too late...the photograph has disappeared from the screen,

replaced by that doggone giant clock again.

And I swear, I did not touch anything!!!

It's early days, so it's reasonable to assume that many hours of poking around and modification will be necessary. But I can only do so much of that at one time before I start questioning the application, the computer, my sanity and, by the way, why haven't I heard anything from the goats in the past two hours? Even Campion the Champion is suspiciously - not to say ominously - silent. Maybe I'd better just put the tiny laptop away and stroll out to the paddocks to see what they are up to.

And then maybe Piper and I will go for a little walk in the woods.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

~~~

 I hope you are having a lovely Friday, as practice for having a lovely weekend.

And I hope you can read this, because to me, right now, the text I'm typing looks like tiny little ants have walked through ink and are tap-dancing across my itty-bitty screen.

Happy Weekend!

~~~~~

bits and pieces

Remember #DrawingAugust?

I'm sorry to say I haven't managed a daily sketch.

But I've drawn or painted something most days,

and I've been having fun!

Would you like to see one?

~~~

Now, in (less fun) tech news:

My laptop has been abruptly folding its tent on a daily basis for some weeks now. Maybe even months; I'm in a Timewarp of Denial about it because I did not expect to replace this laptop so soon.

I haven't posted more goat videos despite the apparent appeal to my non-goatherding readers because even hinting at loading a video of any kind makes the screen go black and the hard drive produce the computer-equivalent sound of water being sucked down a drain.

So...no inspiring YouTube recipes, no late-night-can't-sleep Netflix, no delightful videos on other blogs. And it's not just videos; but apart from videos, the implosions seem random. Repair efforts have been futile. With fingers crossed, I've been recovering my most frequently accessed files (like my cashmere records, for instance) several times weekly. It's been...interesting.

Last weekend (the tax-free weekend in MA) I finally forced myself to make a decision. On Sunday night I bought a little laptop online, in part because I would be able to pick it up at the retail location the very next morning, while doing monthly errands in the same town. Huzzah!

Early the next morning, however, I got a text informing me that the laptop was, um, actually, not in stock as, erm, promised a few hours earlier. But it would be shipped to the retail location within 3 to 6 days at no additional cost!! (As if that was doing me a favor.) And could I please confirm the purchase so the shipping process could begin?

Well, disappointing, but no point in getting upset. I called the store to confirm, and asked that it be shipped directly to me. Was told, no, this was not possible, because I had asked to pick it up at the store.

Yes, I said, because I had been told I could pick it up the very next morning. If I had expected to wait for shipping, I would have had it sent to my house. Of course.

Nope.
Impossible.
Can't be done.
Even though it has not yet been scheduled to ship?
Right.

Well, that makes zero sense to me.
As usual, Dara, we are in total agreement.

A week later, the package is on a truck somewhere in Massachusetts, so that's progress. And not a moment too soon, because today my laptop is making a Constant Noise. Sounds like someone using an electric hedge trimmer some distance away. It's a bit alarming. I spent two hours this morning backing up files and images on an external hard drive.

I mention all this in case there is a Total Irretrievable Meltdown before the new laptop is here and loaded and running. (The fact that the laptop folded once while I was writing this little post seems rather ominous.) So...if I don't post here or comment on your blogs for a week, it will probably mean I am temporarily between devices and incommunicado.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Oh well. I'll catch up!
And to close on a cheery note, here are a couple of snaps I took in the gardens this morning:

The edge of this squash blossom is  the size of a dinner plate.

No exaggeration!

I wonder if it is an indicator of the eventual size of the squash?

And the first-ever adorable melon continues to grow!

~~~~~

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!

~~~~~