A good day for hike.

 This was a great weekend! My oldest daughter and my only grandson came to visit! The weather was beautiful and we were able to enjoy a great weekend outside!  We woke up yesterday and set off to do a few geocaches.  I have to say that my oldest daughter is a geocacher aficionado. Or at least she was a few years ago. We all loved to geocached and ended up in some pretty interesting places as a result.  I'm not entirely sure why stopped doing it.  But that doesn't matter, the bug has bitten again.  It is always amazing to me that no matter how long you've lived somewhere, there is always someplace that you haven't visited.     For instance, one of the geocaches we did was in a local town.  A place I've been to countless times.  But the geocache took us to a part of the town we never would have seen - totally inaccessible by car.  The other geocache was relatively closeby but again, had we not been searching for the little cache, we never would have looked twice at this long ago cemetery and we certainly never would have noticed the mammoth tulip tree!

On the surface, geocaching probably seems like an odd activity to most: people looking for a little box - sometimes smaller than a matchbox.  But it is so much fun and combines so many things - hiking (you can do geocaches that take as much as energy and fortitude as a marathon), using your brain (sure, the gps guides you to the general direction of the cache but you have to use common sense and reasoning to locate it), and if you want, family time.  These things are so much fun to do with family members.

It is amazing the stuff you can talk about when you are traipsing through the woods or down a sidewalk or through a cemetery.  And the value of simply being with someone is priceless.  I feel as if I know my kids so much better after doing this type of thing.  I am so incredibly thankful that many of my kids like to geocache and to hike.  I've always hoped that I've passed along my love of nature to my kids and I think I have.

Of wine and gardens.

A friend of mine offered up a most excellent barter of her dad's homemade wine for a lifetime supply of fresh eggs.  As good as farm fresh eggs are, I definitely got the better end of the deal.  And after a long day without students, a healthy glass (jelly jar) of good sweet wine sounded like the perfect way to relax.  And a nap - I really needed a nap.  Preferably the wine first and then the nap.  But instead I reversed the process and fell asleep for a very short snooze and then woke up and gulped sipped my wine.

Prior to this, I had gone through my seed packages to see what I wanted to plant last night because as everyone knows, the waning moon is the better time to plant root veggies.  I really wanted to plant some hyssop and chamomile but knew that radishes would be a much better choice. In my first garden box, I had two squares yet to fill so after my nap, I grabbed some seeds, grabbed my daughter and went out to plant.

I woke up this morning and remembered that I had planted some seeds.  I wanted to write down exactly what I planted in my garden journal but I couldn't really remember what I planted.  I remember having small seeds in my hands and giving my daughter two larger seeds to hold.  But I'll be darned if I can remember what the seeds were!  I was too embarrassed to ask one of the kids so I sorted through my seed packets to see if I could tell what I had opened.  I'm assuming that I planted radishes because I know that I had poked 16 holes into that area of my garden. But I sure couldn't figure out what the bigger seeds were.  I knew they weren't pumpkins, they may have been zucchini but I'm not sure.  I guess I'll know in a couple of months.

But until then, no more gardening under the influence. And it was only a glass of wine!

And......since I didn't post this the day I wrote it, I did figure out that in addition to the radishes, I planted 2 zucchini seeds!

Goats = happy

 No matter how I feel, my goats always make me happy.  They make me laugh.  Sometimes the comparison between Leslie's beard and my own make me snicker.  Sometimes the fact that I thought Bella was actually a Bella is enough to make me guffaw.  Because really, what kind of farmer - what kind of mother am I to not be able to tell between a girl and a guy?

My dad's mighty Oak.

 But the goats are funny.  I love to sit in their little area with them and have them jump on my back, chew on my watch, sniff my hands.  Clover, my pony, is always excited to see me but it is mainly because he knows that I'm the one that puts her feed in her stall.  And I'm the one who brushes her, scratches her neck, gives her treats, loves her.

And what's not to love?

Surrogates.

 It is no secret that I am having an incredibly horrid time dealing with the loss of my dad almost a year ago exactly. I still can't look at any but a few pictures of him, still can't really think about him. I'm just really, really careful what memories I bring to the surface.  Nearly all of memories are good but I just think that if I think too much, remember too much then that will be that. But one thing I have allowed is to remember him through my love of animals.  Horses in particular.  Losing my dad combined with my twin daughters graduating high school in two years, my daughter and grandson being so far away, my oldest son being across the country........that's just too much.

So I'll replace them.  With a horse.  But as I've said time and time again. I won't get a horse until I know how to take care of him. Or her.

But until then, take a look at these beauties I've been spending time with.  They are the horses from Wildfire Ranch Spiritual Retreat here in Spring Mills PA. 

I've been thinking of buying a farm.  As I get older, my eyesight has gotten so much worse, my hearing sucks......and although I love the students with whom I work, seriously how much longer can I work with them?

I am (or was) a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor so I'm aware of the essential functions of a job.  Since I'm a counselor, communication is key.  If I can't hear, then what good am I?  

I'd like to know what I'd be good at.  I love working with transitional students - I've always been able to connect - whether it is high school to college or college to college.......I never in a million years would have thought that would be my niche.  But it is.  

Hmmmm so working with transitional students as they learn to ride horses??????   I don't think I'm ready for that but a farm would be a good start.  

How to turn an hour project into an all day event.

I was quite productive today.  I could have been a whole lot more productive if I didn't have to spend so much time doing useless stuff.  Like looking for things.  The morning started off perfectly.  I even slept in a little bit.  I got up took care of the animals, put my plants out and made bread for the week.  This morning could have started out quite differently however. I had no coffee.  Lucky for me, I hadn't tossed the old grounds from yesterday so I just added the teaspoon or so of coffee that was still in the canister and reperculated the old grounds. Ta da!  A hot drink that resembled coffee.  I was ready to head outside to build shelves for the greenhouse and two more garden boxes.  But first, I had to run to Dollar General and pick up coffee.  Because even as cheap as I am, I refuse to reuse coffee a third time.

I had most all the wood sawn for both the shelves and the boxes - just had to cut a few cross pieces to use as supports.  After looking for one of the two pencils I keep out in my 'saw area', I marked the wood and cut it.  And since I am an extremely conscientious carpenter, I decided that I would probably want my shelf level since I was going to put plants on them and all.  So I spent no less than half an hour looking for the level that I had put away just last week.  I never did find it but I did find the nice level that I had bought for myself and lost years ago!

So now I was ready to put this thing together.  Put one screw in and the board started to split so I figured I better drill a hole first.  Forty-five minutes later, I found the drillbit - the same one that I had used a couple weeks ago. I certainly don't remember shoving it under all the wrenches in the toolbench drawer.  So around 3:30, I finally stepped back to admire my wonderful, sturdy, level planting shelf.  I'm not being the least bit sarcastic when I say that I was more than a little proud of myself.

Since I had already located all the tools and things that I needed for the garden boxes, I was able to put those together in no time flat.  So I did accomplish a lot today - I didn't bake the cookies but they are all mixed up and in the fridge for tomorrow.  And I did manage to get the weedcloth down and the boxes filled with compost.  For which Casper was happy, as he stood in one of the boxes grazing on horse manure.

Goodbye old friend.

Today we said goodbye to a pillar of fun and laughter.  Our hot tub. The hot tub that never got hot. Or wet.  I remember that day nearly three years ago when I came from work and my sweet youngest son was waiting for me: "Just wait til you see what dad brought home!", he said. Imagine my surprise (really, imagine it) when I looked out back and lo and behold, there was a hot tub. Someone was giving it away on Craigs List.  And no one wanted it.  No one except the Browns. If I remember correctly, the bubbler didn't work, the heater didn't work. But yet there was hope.  I understood the reasons why this hot tub held appeal for my husband: it was big, it held water (I recently had the pool taken down after developing a repulsion to skimming instead of swimming) and it was free.

Over the years, the hot tub lost its parts bit by bit.A wire here, a electrical jigger there.....and pretty soon, it was clear that the hot tub that didn't work, would never work.  The most use this tub offered was a sled holder and a birthing ward for several litters of kittens.

Fast forward to spring 2013 Riff Raff days. Several weeks ago my husband made the announcement that first thing in the morning on Riff Raff day, the hot tub would be loaded up and taken away.  I couldn't believe it. That hot tub may not have held water but it has provided lots of laughs over the years. I was almost sorry to see it go.  Almost.

Broke.

A trifecta (or would it be a quadfecta?) of broken things........my car went kaput Wednesday night. My glasses snapped in half while I was lifting a goat. My microwave turns on when I open the door. I can spit harder than the water trickles out of the shower.

Luckily the car broke down only a quarter of a mile away from home, after the rain and we were able to walk home. And my glasses? Well thank goodness I have at least six pairs of readers that I could use. True, only the ugliest pair of frames will accommodate my lenses but at least I'll be able to see.  And I'll admit, I got to meet several new people today by waving and saying hello - only to realize they weren't who I thought they were. After explaining that I really couldn't tell who they were and that I didn't have my glasses on and that I wasn't really a creeper.........well, you know that uncomfortable laugh you hear when people just want to get away from you......

And even though my microwave turns on when I open the door, I don't think it is microwaving anything.  And at least I have dripping running water in my house which is more than I can say for a large percentage of this world's population.

So have a plethora of blessings to count. And adding to that, is being able to add the word 'plethora' to a sentence in a way that makes sense.