2024, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized

Wrapping Up

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

The chickens might be coming around, slowly, to laying eggs again. Friday we got five eggs. Three on Saturday, and that’s normal to have more every other day.

Still have three guineas. They sure seem like bullies; they’ll chase roosters away from food. And they don’t even necessarily eat it, just stopping someone else from eating.

No sign of ducks lately. I’m really bummed about that. I’ve been wondering if next year I got mallards, would that help? Would being able to fly help them escape whatever it is that’s been taking ours? Don’t know. But I sure miss having ducks around. I noticed today my pond has sprung another leak and there’s not much water in it. No need to fix it at the moment.

We had a nice quiet Christmas Day. I made cinnamon rolls from scratch the night before. Never made anything with yeast that had to rise before, so that was fun. I’d like to try biscuits, too. Then Kelly made lasagna for supper and it was really good. When we were first dating, lasagna was the first meal she made for me, showing me that she knew how to cook. Well, readily admitting lasagna was the only fancy meal she knew how to cook. What did we eat when younger? A lot of potato chips and dip, I remember that. I don’t remember what else. Maybe we ate out a lot.

I was working on the shop the other day and pounding in some trim nails and caught myself with my tongue out.

I must have been concentrating, but I hate the tongue thing.

The shop is really coming along.

This past week I installed a trim piece along the top to protect the insulation and keep the birds out of it. And with all the rain and warm temps the last few days, I cleaned up some stuff, got the trailer for the scissor lift in the shed, and the four wheeler inside so I can try and get that running again. (I think it needs new fuel. Take off the carburetor, again, and dump out the old fuel, and clean the tank, and try this for a 3rd time).

My friend Doug sent me a photo had had found. He titled it ‘mentors’. The two guys left and middle were his mentors and all three were/are mentors to me.

That’s Donald on the left. He was such a cool guy with a great laugh. And such a craftsman. Besides theater he would fix furniture and make vases out of old fence posts. And he was an actor. One of his roles, he played the butler, ‘Firs’, in Chekov’s play, ‘The Cherry Orchard’ and he had a great death scene. He also told me, “If you think about it long enough, you’ll find an easier way to do something.”

In the middle is Gary. He was at the Civic Theater when I first started to volunteer there in 1983, but then he became the technical director and speech instructor at the Community College. We discovered we were distantly related: his Grandfather and my Grandfather were brothers. He retired from the theater technical director position, but continued to teach speech, and that’s when I got hired as the college TD. We shared an office for a couple years. He was a fantastic designer. And did his best to impress that upon me. Some of it stuck. He passed away the same day as Prince, which is why you didn’t hear about his passing.

On the right is Doug, the man who sent the photo. He is also so creative and such a great designer! I talk with Gary or Doug sometimes when I need inspiration. In the way back days, Doug and his wife Joan created trophies to give out at a theater award banquet. I received ‘Best Director’ for sitting in the booth trying to get actors to stay in their light. (Talking to myself: “Don’t go there! Come over this way! No, not up there! C’mon, one more step!”) I was young. I didn’t know that wasn’t a thing.

WHAT ARE YOU GONNA WRAP UP IN THE LAST TWO DAYS OF 2024?

24 thoughts on “Wrapping Up”

  4. I want to get my clipboards re-organized. These are like my In-boxes for various activities & responsibilities. There has been “clipboard drift”, where stuff has ended up on the wrong clipboard…

    And of course finish the Christmas cards… Let’s see, I know there’s something else…

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  6. I’m reading three books right now. One of them needs to be finished soon! Then I’m going to start ‘Virgil Wander,’ for BBC.

    I’m also making/knitting a denim colored neck cowl. It has fewer mistakes in it than anything else I have ever knitted! It’s a simple little thing, but I’m still a beginner. It will be done tonight.

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  8. I’m going to have a big tax bill this year, due to the sale of our woods and the lumber from the harvest. I’m already organizing my documents for taxes. I hope to have everything organized so that I can fly through the planner when I get it and have my taxes turned in to my person before January 25. Going to Mazatlan on January 25, so I want to have my documents turned in to the preparer.

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      1. I’ll be staying with some friends who rent an apartment there every winter. We play music together. I’m going to cram my mandolin, in its padded case, into my biggest checked bag and wrap clothes around it so that I can bring it along without having it as a carry-on. Wish me luck because I love that mandolin.

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  9. Rise and It’s a Wrap, Baboons,

    I spent the last 6 weeks doing a financial report for Lou’s VA benefits. If we had enough eligible medical expenses (defined by the VA) to reduce our income enough, Lou may qualify for a program called “Community Support.” So I had to comb through the medical expenses for the year. If the income is reduced enough for eligibility, it will be the walk-in shower that was installed in April that does it. Please cross your fingers. I think he will come in just right below the income line, or just above it. I do not do such paperwork easily or well, so it was my big wrap up project. It also took all the time I would have put into a Christmas card and letter, so the VA interfered with Santa’s job this year. What a Scrooge. I faxed all the info into them last Thursday–there is a deluge after January 1, so I made sure to get it in before the end of the year, but late enough into December to claim every last medical expense.

    OT: OP ED COMMENTARY. Having had little experience with military matters, I had never interacted with any part of the VA before. After I got into the website I found any number of little compartments and niches and mazes of services that I did not know about. More than once I got lost in some corner of services that I did not need and I never knew how I got there. There are County, State, and Federal ports of entry to all this. I am very pleased to see how many services there are for these folks. I felt like I was in the catacombs, lost forever. If Lou does not qualify, then it won’t matter. Otherwise, I will need to learn to navigate this.

    Ben, how did you get that picture of you with your tongue out? Lou has a similar habit that tells me how hard he is concentrating on any given task.

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  11. VS’s top ten reading list goes out tomorrow some time (I have the top ten identified, but I still need to write up the little summaries).

    I have until Saturday morning to finish Starter Villain, recommended by Bill. It’s due at the library and there is a hefty waiting list, so if I don’t finish it, it will be awhile before I get it back.

    I’m also trying to finish Crocodile on the Sandbank. I think this was a Jacque recommendation. Should be able to get it done tomorrow (I can listed to the last two CDs while I’m cleaning up all the holiday decorations.

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