Monthly Archives: November 2014

Family Time

Here in Wisconsin we’ve survived another ten days of a family gatherings and deer hunting, culminating in our big Thanksgiving meal.

It can run you through the wringer, a week of that.

While spending time with family is always pleasant, it can sometimes be a bit bemusing…

Jane

A night of human foosball can leave you feeling like this in the morning…Ivy pretending to sleep

There are always some great times…John with spike buck

But there is this thing about spending time with family. Sometimes, no matter how much you love them, they can be a bit like… well… a bit like having someone take a drill to your head.Clara "drilling" Johnny

Hope your holiday was great and that your “drill moments” came with as big of smiles as ours did!

 

Absolute Power: Book 1: Origins by Grayson Queen

It was the morning of what was to be an extraordinarily uneventful day. Unpacking, laundry, cooking, more laundry… but before I even started my day I discovered that Grayson Queen’s new book was released. Of course, I had to go check it out, pin it to my board of books to read, add it to my Amazon wishlist… and that’s when I discovered that not only was it out, but that the e-book is free until the 27th! There was no reason not to “buy” and download it just at that moment, so I did.

And then it hijacked my day.

I wasn’t going to read any of it today, I’m in the middle of another book,  but I had to at least check out the cover… and the first pages… and before I knew it I was knee deep in the history of Super-Human wars before I had even had breakfast.

I folded laundry at super speeds, promising myself another chapter (or three) if I finished it all.

Lunch time found me struggling to keep characters and their crazy abilities straight while reading, feeding the girls and eating myself. (Had I followed the directions of my grade school teachers I would have looked through the whole book and found a character list in the back, but where is the challenge in that?)

Once the kids were in bed I settled into the couch to enjoy the rest of the book in peace which was good, because things were getting a little crazy with space and time and I needed to concentrate.

Long before I was ready, the book ended with a bang and I was left desperate to know what happens next.

And my boring day? I hardly noticed all that laundry, I was too busy lost in a world of telepaths, heroes and intrigue.

Would I recommend it? Yes in the course of my day it moved from my Pinterest “Books to read” board right on over to my “Book Recommendations” board. It’s a fast-paced-blow-shit-up and intelligent-make-you-think read all at the same time.

Here is the Amazon link:

Don’t Open the Door!

Don’t open the door!Jane and Clara at the door

Those smiling faces are merely the technique that snowball fiends use to gain entry into nice, dry, warm houses!

Once the flurry of snowballs and giggles are released the fiends will run back off into the snowy day, leaving you mopping up the floor until their next attack.

But the worst part is that they unleash such a blast of snowy day cheer with each volley that their giggles become contagious and the serious-stop-throwing-snow-in-the-house voice can’t seem to make an appearance because you are too busy throwing the mopped up snow back at them.

On second thought, open the door.

Every house needs a little snowy day cheer!

 

 

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Reading…

…reading..

…reading…

…reading last chapter…

“Wait, what?!”

…re-reading last chapter…

“WHAT?!?”

…re-skimming last chapter…

“No, seriously, what! WHAT? What!?!”

Would I recommend it?  I was finding the book interesting up until the end but after an end like that I just can’t recommend it.  However, if you happen to read it as part of a book club, I can tell you from recent experience that when everyone ends a book thinking, “Wait, WHAT?!?” there is loads of discussion to be had!

 

 

 

Fire Bricks

Replacing the firebricks in the wood stove would have been a much less of a mystery had the replacements come in the proper size or with some sort of helpful hints.

fire bricks

This is my “mystery” picture for photo10 but I’d like it to be clear that I actually found these bricks to be confounding, dirty bastards rather than interesting and mysterious items.

 

Receiving nothing but a cryptic “map”, with what were eventually determined to be incorrectly sized bricks, the project turned into an entire evening full of…. entertainment.

Ready For Winter

The chickens are ready for winter and it’s a beautiful sight. Chicken Coop Ready For Winter

They live in an old hay wagon which was converted to chicken coop that we move every few weeks all spring, summer and fall. It works beautifully. The wire floor means I don’t have to shovel out a chicken coop and the easy mobility means the chickens can roam out away from the house and gardens all summer long.

I love my chicken coop.

But in winter the chickens need a little extra warmth. So every fall, at the last possible second, we pull them up close to the house, plug in a heated water bowl and stop up that drafty underside with a ring of straw bales. Today was the last possible second.  John and I moved the bales around the edge as Clara jumped inside, out of the wind and snow, letting us know where we needed more straw.

Maybe my chicken coop doesn’t fit your definition of beauty but as I stood back, job finished, chickens ready for whatever this winter may throw at them, the sun peeked out through the clouds.  The straw shone golden in the sunshine, it’s clean smell filled the air and it was just my kind of beautiful.

If you’d like to see what the chicken coop looks like without it’s winter wrapping check out:

The Indecisive Chicken or When Chickens Fly