There have been some pretty cold temperatures this winter. I have a heavy, down coat I only wear if it is colder than -20, and a lighter but warm Columbia jacket with a lining that I wear most of the winter. Sweaters help.
I am the happy owner of three Norwegian wool sweaters, a really warm wool sweater daughter got for me in Iceland, and a thick, cable knit Irish wool sweater I got in Dublin. They all keep me nicely warm.
I went to graduate school Winnipeg, and lived there through six winters. Although I was used to cold Fargo temperatures, the winters in Winnipeg were much colder. The main reason for Winnipeg’s existence was the fur trade, and as an animal lover, it was disconcerting to go to what was known as The Exchange District and see all the stores selling fur coats and fur pelts, retail and wholesale. I could never in good conscience wear a fur coat. Wool and down keep me warm enough.
The only person I knew in Winnipeg who owned a fur coat was Vuyo, a fellow graduate student who was a refugee from South Africa. This was before the end of Apartheid. Her husband was a freedom fighter who had been killed by the South African security forces, and she had fled to Lesotho with her children and somehow ended up in one of the coldest cities in Canada. Her father was an Anglican priest, and she knew Desmond Tutu very well. She had a beautiful leopard coat she got from a friend in London, England. The friend was verbally harassed in the London streets for wearing fur, so she gave Vuyo the coat. Vuyo wore that coat without a shred of guilt, as it kept her very warm in that very cold place. She had a far different attitude about animals and their utility for humans than the rest of us did.
What is your strategy for keeping warm in the winter? What are your favorite kinds of sweaters? Have you ever known anyone who had a fur coat?
Husband is an oldest son with younger siblings, and is a real caretaker. This extends to a sense of duty that he has toward our pets. He is currently feeling very guilty because he can’t give our dog the three walks a day that he has become accustomed to. Husband just doesn’t think that vigorous indoor play is sufficient. The problem is that there is so much treacherous ice coating the sidewalks that it isn’t safe for him to walk the dog right now. He cracked his wrist last Friday by falling on the ice while walking the dog.
Kyrill is very spoiled, in terms of the dog treats he gets and the attention that he is paid, by both me and Husband. Husband carefully reads the ingredients of the treats we buy, and we seem to make weekly trips to Runnings and the pet store in search of just the the right chews and toys. I don’t remember Husband spoiling our children like this, although he was always playing with them and keeping them busy.
Husband decided to brave the ice last night and try to walk the dog. He made it half way down to block and came back home as he was afraid of falling. I am afraid that there will be terrible ice for some time, as there is tons of snow, and as the weather warms during the day it is just going to melt and then refreeze into more ice.
I heard from a friend yesterday that the city street department has sixteen vacant positions that no one will take due to a reportedly toxic work environment. I don’t foresee the city stepping up to remove the snow and ice, so Husband is going to have to deal with his pet guilt for many weeks.
How does guilt factor in how you deal with your pets? How well does your municipal government function? What are the best and worst city governments you have dealt with?
Husband describes himself as a left handed person, so one would think that the small fracture he currently is sporting in his right wrist wouldn’t be as big a problem as if had he fractured his left wrist. Well, that isn’t the case at all. Husband writes and reaches for things with his left hand. Those are things he learned before the age of 5. He does everything else with his right hand, including throwing balls and fine motor tasks like buttoning and tying his shoes. He also has carpal tunnel issues with his right hand, so his fingers don’t work that well.
It has been an exhausting learning experience for him to make his left hand work in ways it is unaccustomed to. I am unusually dexterous, so this is all painful for me to watch. I suppose this is a textbook case of mixed lateral dominance. We are supposed to write and throw and kick with hands and feet on the same side of the body. Husband writes with his left hand, but kicks and throws with his right hand and foot. He is also right eye dominant. Can you imagine how hard it would be to navigate the world not knowing what eye, hand, or foot to use? Husband’s father was a lefty. Both our children and our grandson are righties, so I hope the mixed lateral dominance gene has been evaded for future generations.
Are you a lefty or a righty? Know any lefties who struggle? Any stories of lefties who were forced to change to righties in school? Ever broken a bone?
Our children grew up eating a lot of rice, especially Basmati rice since we made curry pretty often. I made risotto occasionally, but not often since it was such a boring pain to make, standing at the stove and stirring and adding the broth for what seemed like an eternity.
The advent of the Instant Pot has revolutionized risotto making, and you can get a really decent risotto in no time with very little effort. I splurged and got a large bag of Carnaroli rice from a fancy, mail order Italian grocery store. It is heavenly. It is said to be far superior to Arborio rice. I haven’t decided yet.
I was tickled the other day when our daughter told me that she and a friend are determined to sample every risotto in Seattle. Their most recent foray into risotto was at a very fancy Italian restaurant where the risotto was green (presumably from pesto) and had Wagyu beef on the top. Daughter said it was wonderful.
I think she and her friend are on a lovely quest, and I wondered where I would want to go to sample a delicacy. All the minestrone in Tuscany? All the baguettes in Paris?
Where would you like to travel to sample the food? What is your favorite rice dish?
This weekend Husband and I plan to order our seeds for the garden. Husband has picked out three varieties of zinnia seeds. We will have our usual San Marzano 2 and Brandy Boy tomatoes which we will start in March. I found a source for the Doux D’Espana red sweet peppers. They are unavailable from our usual suppliers, so I hope the new source is reliable. I have no idea why they are in such short supply. We will also grow New Mexico Joe Parker Anaheim peppers.
Husband wants to plant turnips this year instead of kohlrabi. He will have them all to himself, as I don’t like turnips. I don’t like kohlrabi, either. He also wants to grow 12 heads of Alcosa savoy cabbage. We agreed on growing more Hamburg turnip-rooted parsley, as it is so good in soup and stock. We will grow our regular peas, Italian giant winter spinach, chard, Hidatsa pole beans and green beans, Italian parsley, and butternut squash. I am feeling tired already!
What are your summer garden plans? Any travel plans? What flowers do you like to grow? Any opinions about turnips?
Husband drives to Bismarck for work every Tuesday night, and returns home Wednesday night. He is usually pretty tired on both drives, and cranks up music on the radio to keep himself awake.
The other night he listened to the Sinatra station, and heard what he thought was one of the oddest duets he ever heard. It featured Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin singing What Now, My Love.
I have to agree with husband that this is quite weird. I can’t imagine what possessed the Queen of Soul to sing that with Ol’ Blue Eyes. Their styles are so different and not really compatible. Sort of like Ozzy Osbourne singing gospel music with Amy Grant.
What music keeps you awake when you drive? What are your favorite duets? What are some duets you wouldn’t want to hear?
Our dog’s toy arsenal has been quite limited because of his post-surgery cone, and he has had to adapt to continue to have fun. Some toys just don’t work with a cone. I am happy to report the horrid cone comes off today. We and he are heartily sick of it.
One toy that has proven a continued delight for him is the large, orange tennis ball in the header photo. I placed a smaller red ball next to it so you could see the size difference. The orange ball is about 7 inches in diameter. He plays with it in several ways. He loves to peel the orange cover off it. That orange cover is glued on really tightly, and I am amazed at the strength of his jaws and teeth. He also likes to slam the ball on the floor while holding the fabric scrap in his mouth, then shaking it violently. He rolls the ball and chases it all around living room. We like it because it is too large to roll under the furniture. He barks and whines for us to retrieve smaller balls. He also likes to have us hold the ball while he tugs and tugs the fabric scrap. A ball lasts about a week.
What have been your pets’ favorite toys? What were your favorite toys as a child.What toys would you buy for a child these days?
The end of another year, pretty fitting that it happens on the last day of the week. It just fits the calendar so nicely and it feels so right that the last day of the year, the last day of the month, also ends on the last day of the week. And then we begin another month, another week, another year on the first day of the week. No open squares, it just all seems better that way.
The end of the year, all the old hackneyed, banal phrases of closing out another chapter, turning the page, another chance to try it again. But they still apply.
On the farm I will collect mileage from all the vehicles and the hours on the tractors and the lawnmower, the four-wheeler, the gator, and even the total gallons on the diesel barrel pump. I put all the data in my spreadsheet to compare with the other years. (At one point I believe we had to report the mileage to our accountant and there must’ve been a deduction for farm mileage or something. Now it’s just all under the standard deduction but I have always enjoyed keeping track of things like that). I also have our farm balance sheet that I will spend the next month working on. It’s fun for me; I like compiling the data and seeing the changes, adding pretty colors, and formatting it.
During 2022, I kept track of how many dozens of eggs I moved out of the house. It was easier keeping track of the dozens going out then it was the eggs coming in. The last few weeks I haven’t actually moved very many, so counting the eight dozen I have on the counter now, I moved 320 dozen eggs. That’s kind of impressive. That’s 3480 eggs. Which averages 10 eggs per day for an entire year. Back in October I only moved about 10 dozen, while between March and August it was upwards of 30 per month. If you count all the chickens around here, which is somewhere between 40 and 50, 10 eggs per day doesn’t seem like enough. I never said I was looking for efficiency, I’ve always said it was a chicken retirement farm.
I’ve also been getting crop inputs finalized for next year. Prepaid some fertilizer, locked in prices on some other products, and finalizing my seed orders. It’s discouraging that fertilizer and chemicals are as expensive this year as last. Hope for another good year of crop production and prices. I expect prices will have to crash and we’ll all take a loss one year before things will come down again.
A lot of the stuff we do before the end of the calendar year so that I can take the financial expense this year. There’s also typically a discount on pricing when you order sooner. My seed company discount goes until mid-January, and I expect to be driving again by then so I will get that done at that point. We paid off all of this year‘s crop loans, paid off another small loan on my truck, and paid a good chunk of an operating loan. Also, at the end of the year the equity checks come in from the various co-ops that we belong to. March 2023 will be 19 years since I sold the milk cows. The dairy co-op that we sold to, AMPI, has a 20 year payback on their equity and so for the last 18 years I’ve been getting a check for a few hundred dollars from the dairy co-op even though there has not been a milk cow on the farm. The check this year was for $200. There’s $2.48 remaining in my equity. Seems to me it would’ve made more sense to just add it on too this year‘s check. But whatever, one more check from the milk cows.
We are all glad the weather has finally warmed up. The ducks finally got out of the pond and actually came back up in the yard. Chickens, squirrels, pheasants, and lots of birds are out and about and enjoying it. The show has melted off the deck so I can go out there and walk around a bit.
I am getting along very well on my knew knee. (Gnu G-knee!) And the 37 staples were removed from the incision on Thursday. The doctor gave me a good report. A few days prior to that Kelly took me out for a ride in the gator, it was just nice to get out of the house. She even took me over to the shop and I got up in the tractors. Just to say I could. Again, after all the trouble I had the spring and summer, I didn’t really think this would stop me, but it still felt good to get in there. I sort of expect to be driving again this weekend and I may have to take over snow clearing duties soon.
Prior to the surgery I had to remove the two earrings that I wear. I asked daughter to put them in. She doesn’t have pierced ears, and she’s never done earrings before and I thought this would be good practice for her. As a guy, I can’t get them in myself, I generally ask Kelly. Daughter got one in and Kelly got the second one.
Years ago when I was giving a farm tour to some elementary school kids, a little girl asked me about the ear tags that I put in the calves ears. I was kneeling down and face-to-face with her and I told her it was like getting your ears pierced. I have a very vivid memory of her looking to my ears at the same moment I Iooked to hers. I had earrings, she didn’t and I thought to myself, this is a fascinating little discussion and I wondered if she’s going to go home and ask to get her ears pierced.
One of the movies I watched this week was ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’. One of those movies I’ve heard about and seen bits of, but never seen the whole thing. I enjoyed it. I also watched ‘All That Jazz’ for the 349th time. I was home alone so I had it loud to make it the best it could be. And I picked some new bits out of it. I never get tired of that movie.
Kyrill, our Cesky Terrier pup, was neutered on Tuesday. He was really good at leaving his incision alone at the Vet Office, but started licking it once we got him home, so I got a cone from the vet.
Kyrill hates it. It is made even more awkward by his shape. Kyrill has a long snout, so he needs a good sized cone to keep that long snout away from the incision. His legs are really short, though, so unless he holds his head up high, the cone drags on the floor. The cone also pushes away or obscures things he wants to pick up. This makes eating and drinking difficult.
We tried a soft cone that looks like a life preserver, but it wasn’t wide enough and allowed access to the incision.
I considered a dog recovery suit just for this purpose, but I couldn’t find one in town, and if I ordered one, it would take too long to get here. I also didn’t relish the idea of wrestling him into an infant onesie every time he needed to go outside. We can’t crate him easily with the cone on, so he hangs with us and looks miserable. We hope for quick healing so the cone can go away.
What are your experiences with the cone of shame? How do your animals handle being under the weather?
Trail Baboon 