ReluctantFarmChick.com

Scrolling down my recent blog entries has been a bit . . . telling.  There has been no farming.  (I’m not complaining here – I’m just stating what is).  There has been crazy busy-ness. (I know I’m not alone).  Blog entries have flown through my head at an alarming rate, but I’ve not had time (or energy) (or clarity of thought) to even jot them down.  And now I have BWD.  Because I have a quiet time (right before the next storm) and thought you might want to hear about what I was avoiding or, (truthfully) procrastinating on.  My mind has been operating in "list mode" for quite a while now, so that is all I have.  And it’s not pretty.  I’m going to spare you the details.  You must have lists of your own that can run circles around mine.

Some neighbors decorate our mailbox while we were gone one weekend

My next list involves a Barn Party.  I mean, we live on a farm, and it’s fall.  Surely a Barn Party is in order.  Actually, we’re hosting the Church Barn Party on Sunday.  It used to be on a neighboring farm, but some property was sold and the venue was rearranged, and it just didn’t work out there anymore.  Last year was the first year with no Barn Party.  The kids nearly mutinied.  So this year, what  – with a new barn (read "no cow poop" yet) we have a great opportunity to initiate it. 

Problem is:  I’ve never hosted a barn party before (this is Year 1 on a farm for me).  I know it can be free-flowing and fun. But people will want stuff to do.  And things to see.  And food to eat.  And a fire to burn.  And . . . . what else?  Oh.  A hay ride.  And a pony ride.  So I can figure that out.  But what about the behind-the-scenes stuff.  A PA system at the barn requires power.  We have a generator but it is LOUD.    Prince Farming very kindly made a  L O N G  heavy duty extension chord so we could put the generator on the front side of the old barn between hay bales (for sound insulation).  Must borrow the PA system from the hospital.  Trash cans?  Money box? (Pathfinders are selling food for fundraiser, as are 8th graders with desserts and baked goods).  Who will "man" the jail? (you know – where you pay two tickets for someone to be thrown into jail, who then has to stay there for 15 minutes or do something embarrassing (drawn from a bag) to get out right away?).  And the games?  What games?

I have less than 3 days to pull this planning off. With no clue how many people will be here (we’ve invited neighbors and other community people, and the high school & college kids will be home on home-leave, but lots of local church people are traveling because of Fall Break). 

Today my daughter and I are traveling to the big city to do shopping,  We’ll add to/modify/clarify the list while we drive.  Hopefully there won’t be any glaring omissions.  Tomorrow Prince Farming gets to have "free labor" in cleaning up stuff that I think lends itself to the character of a barn (I’m not talking about manure here – that would need to be cleaned up.  There is old lumber and things I’m sure I haven’t even noticed yet that Prince Farming would like to have dealt with).  But that was part of the deal.   Luckily the kids are on Fall Break, so they get to participate in the Thursday drill.

My outrageous 3 weeks are almost over.  I’ll be able to report with sanity (at least the usual level) starting next week. 

Happy Wednesday ya’ll!

In keeping with my current state of mind I thought I’d remind you of something you might have seen before.  I know I have.  It floats across my email box periodically, and always gives me a little chuckle.  Here’s wishing you a stress-free day!

This is a simple test to help you gauge your current level of stress. Once that is known, you can adjust your behavior to either relieve or accommodate your stress.

The test is quite simple. Sit upright. View the screen head-on, take a deep breath, breathe out and then scroll down to the picture and look directly at it.

How stressed are you!!???

Last weekend we, with a group of friends, all went to a nearby mountain top (about 40 minutes away) where Elk are frequently spotted.  We went right around sun-down, and were not disappointed!  Our house is situated in a community called "Elk Valley" and apparently Elk used to be quite a nuisance here.  They have since been hunted to the point of no longer calling this their home.  It was wonderful to go and see a variety of Elk at this viewing area.

You can see the fall colors starting to show their splendor too.

There were several bull Elk.  We even got to see a bull fight – horns clashing, dust flying and all.  I couldn’t capture a non-blurry shot of the event (it was getting pretty dark) but the experience was awesome. 

When I turned around to face the west, the sunset was stunning.

The colors were HOT but the air was refreshingly cool.  A very nice contrast.

This is about the time of the bull fight.  My camera (with the current lens and unskilled photographer) couldn’t capture anything below the skyline.

For good measure, and to make this post complete, here’s your Gredemeer pond fix:

This was taken just this morning (Wednesday).  You can see a small inkling of the amazing color that’s going to grace us very soon.  It’s been a bit rainy, which makes the colors more vivid, I think.  Lovely fall weather.  If it weren’t such a short season, I think fall would be my all time favorite.  But fall is the pre-winter season, and cold is not my favorite thing, really.

Happy Skywatching!  You can see more amazing skies from all over the world by visiting here.

 My non-apologies for the length of this post.  I’m sure you’re here doing exactly what I was doing to make this post possible (avoiding life).  So grab a cup of tea, then sit back and enjoy! 

This is a strange concept really, because normally I would choose to avoid cooking.  Like set-fire-to-the-stove avoid.  But my life is currently in a bit of a twister, and so I did what anyone might have done.  I avoided my life and made Watermelon Preserves.  This is something from my childhood that is a comfort food.  I’ve had the recipe (well, if you can call it that) for about 15 years, and this was the first time I’ve tried it.  You must understand then that my schedule crisis must be significant – for me to attempt this thing that I LOVE but have put off for this long.  I understand now why I put it off.  See, the recipe is hand-written on a half sheet of paper, now faded and stained from being shuffled in that box of recipes for so long.  It’s moved from CA to TX to GA to OH to DE and to its final home here (yes, I moved with the recipe box through all those states too).  But that half-sheet is misleading.  When you see a half-sheet recipe, you don’t imagine that the thing will take 3 days to accomplish.  At least I didn’t.  Apart from that little section that says to soak something overnight – there is NOTHING that would make you think it would take as long as it did.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  (In hindsight I did notice the writers’ recognition of the lengthy procedure where she says "to speed up the process."  I wonder if she was successful)

In addition to cooking, I actually took pictures too (big shock, huh?)  Thought you’d enjoy the experience, but in a fraction of the time, even considering how long you’ll be reading this.  You’re welcome.  And you know, because there’s so much for me to accomplish this week, today, this hour  immediately yesterday, I’m going to bring you the full report.  Right now.  Yet another symptom of this growing avoidance phenomenon.  I’m not even calling it procrastination.  No, that word is for the people who intend to do the work, but just not yet.  You understand that I’m trying to get out of doing it altogether.  Like "go ahead, fire me!" 

Watermelon Preserves (I grew up calling it "Waatlemoen Konfyt") probably stems from my ancestor’s desperate attempt to make every resource go as far as it possibly could.  So when the rest of the world was eating their delicious watermelon meat (you know – that reddish pink part), my countrymen were thinking "there has to be something that we can use the rest of this stuff for" (referring to the white covered-with-green-peel part of the watermelon – the rind).  So here is what they came up with.  And after taste-testing during the process, I can’t imagine the first people a) deciding to go through this process, b) experimenting with the ingredients and c) doing it until they got it "right."  I mean, it is insane.  I’m so glad they didn’t give up though.  I have to admit that I nearly gave up at day 2.  I was positive it just couldn’t work out.  This might have something to do with the fact that the hand-written recipe was slightly significantly vague in most steps.

First, you cut the watermelon and eat the naturally yummy stuff (or in this case, throw it out – it was a dud watermelon.  I had to find a redeeming quality to make me feel better about the purchase, so I embarked on this adventure).  Then you peel the green part off (just like a cucumber, only tougher).

The old people didn’t tell me what to do with this green part.  They probably took it out to the "hole" (my grandmother had one – it was a composting hole – so it didn’t go to waste).  Or maybe they gave it to the chickens

(I didn’t feed it to the chickens – I fed it to the garbage disposal.  Right while the dishwasher was running.  DON’T run the disposal while the dishwasher is draining.  The peels get washed to the other side of the drain -under the other sink- and it clogs the whole system, making Prince Farming not-so-very happy to have to do an indoor plumbing job while the barn plumbing job is still unfinished.)

 After peeling the entire watermelon, you have to poke it with a fork.  I imagine that the first time this recipe was made, way back when, they omitted this step.  I mean, it doesn’t totally make sense.  Until you’re part way through, and it’s just not working.  I’m sure the poking of it was probably in the 3rd attempt.  I imagine them saying (like after day 1 1/2) "maybe if we prick holes in the stuff it might get softer faster." (these last two words almost rhyming)

 This was a bit tedious.  Do you have any idea how hard watermelon rind is?  And how MUCH rind there is on a watermelon? But I was in the beginning of the process, and still full of courage. 

The next part was the easiest to accomplish, but the worst for what I was really trying to do.  My objective was:  AVOID.  This next step allowed me to engage.  I had to soak the cut-up pieces of naked, poked rind in baking soda water.  Actually, the old people used slaked lime.  But a) I have no clue what slaked lime is, and b) I had a box of baking soda handy.  I didn’t make this comparison/leap on my own.  It was actually provided on the recipe.  This soaking had to occur for 12 hours. 

My concern was that the watermelon pieces were floating, and therefore not getting all the benefits of the huge pot of baking soda water they were in.  I put a dinner plate on top of them and pushed them down (ever so gently – no displacement spillage).  I had to wonder here:  Did they initially soak the rind in plain water, and it just didn’t work?  What made them add slaked lime to the mix?  I can tell you, these people were determined to get the rind into something edible.  And enjoyably so.

After the baking soda soak, I rinsed the rind (twice, it said) in fresh water.  And let it soak in fresh water for 2 hours.  I half thought it might be to get rid of the residual toxins of that slaked lime or concentrated baking soda.  Not sure.

So here’s where I thought the process would speed up.  Boil the rind in water.  Until you can poke it with a matchstick.  I thought this was strange.  But then I remembered that they probably didn’t have toothpicks back then.  After completing the process, I imagine they would have suggested a matchstick over a toothpick anyway.  They really needed the rind to be broken down more than just fork-prick tender.   I really wish I would have timed this part.  I didn’t.  Nor did they.  What I can tell you is that it boiled.  For a very.  Long.  Time.  And I only broke one match-stick trying to poke that dull end into the rind.  I didn’t take a picture of this step.  You know what boiling water looks like.  And you can imagine the soaking picture above, just at a higher temperature.

After more than 2 hours of boiling in water, I transferred the rind into boiling syrup.  A lot of syrup.  Made with sugar, water, salt, lemon juice, and fresh ginger.  The recipe called for 2 pieces of bruised ginger.  I wonder if, way back when, they could go to a store and purchase bruised ginger.  Because when it calls for 2 pieces, I had to ask – how big is a piece?  The piece I had would have been 2 tablespoons, had I chopped it up.  It’s all the ginger I had, so I used it.  Except I rebelliously chopped it into FIVE pieces – hoping to make it go a bit farther.

You can see that this still looks like watermelon.  There is still a greenish and pinkish hue to it.  I was fairly skeptical at this point, because it’s NOT what I remember Waatlemoen Konfyt looking like.  After all the abuse, you’d think it would start changing appearance at least slightly.  I was in Day 2.  I can tell I have matured over the past 10 years.  Ten years ago I would have opened the back door and thrown this whole pot of junk out.  And maybe covered it with some leaves.  But somewhere between my maturity level and the still strong desire to avoid, I kept on going.  I was sure that since the rind was SO tender (what, with being poked, and soaked, and boiled till a match-stick could slide in) it would absorb this delicious syrupy mix and be all done.
 

I washed all the cute little jars and lids in preparation for the final step.  I put the lids in a pot to boil and the jars in the oven (steralize).  I was ready.

It boiled.  And boiled.  And boiled.  The 3 litres of syrup reduced and reduced and reduced.  For a  L O N G  time.  At 10:30 pm I got up to check on the stupid thing and all the syrup was gone.  And the rind wasn’t done.  I turned off the stove and went to bed.  I was sure that the whole thing was a complete and utter failure.  It sat on the stove over night (again) and all morning (while I did some of the work I was trying to avoid).  Then I had to clean the house because we have a group who meets here every Tuesday evening and it’s a great motivator to get things picked up and wiped off.  But there sat this massive gooey pot of junk, like an elephant in the middle of the room.  So I mixed up more syrup.  Without fresh ginger.  I added some powdered ginger, just in case.  And I brought the whole mess to a boil.  Again.  For a LONG time.  But guess what!!~?  It started changing color and texture.  The recipe said for it to boil until the pieces were translucent.  The night before I could still see greenish/pink.  And I could see the fork-pokes fairly clearly.  NOT the image I had from my childhood.  But on this attempt at boiling, I could see the change in some of the smaller pieces.  So I turned up the heat and let it boil more.  And finally,

It looked more like what I remember.  The pieces were translucent.

I could finally drop these puppies into their jars.  The only slight hang-up was that syrup was supposed to fill all the jars around the watermelon preserves.  But I was totally out of sugar!  Do you have any idea how much sugar this recipe takes?  It called for 1kg of sugar for every 1kg of rind.  Having no kitchen scale and no idea how to guess a kg, I just "wung" it.  So not all the jars are filled with syrup.  That’s okay.  I’ll eat the "empty" one first.  This stuff is SWEET.  And yummy.  And amazing.  And wonderful.  And DONE.

I used to eat these preserves sliced, and on bread.  After Googling it, I see that people around the world eat Waatlemoen Konfyt as an accompaniment on a cheese platter.  Mmmmmm.  That sounds good too.  You’ll notice I haven’t shared the recipe (other than the photo of the half-sheet).  It’s not because I’m not willing.  I’m more than happy to spread the wealth.  I just can’t imagine someone going through this ordeal without a foretaste of what they’ll end up with.  If you would like the recipe, I’ll be happy to send it.  OR you can get a copy here.  Scroll down, click on "preserves" and then scroll down to Watermelon Preserves. 

- – - – - – - – - – -

LATER EDIT:  Some stroke of insight hit me while I was doing some of my avoided work.  I’ll send a cute little jar of Waatlemoen Konfyt as "Blog Candy" to one of my lucky readers!!  Simply leave a comment on this post between now and October 23, and then I’ll do a drawing and email you for your address, and you’ll get to experience the fruits of my labor!!  How easy is that!!?

(My kids will tell you – and so can I- that my title is "alliteration" – a word on last week’s English test. . . those education dollars at work) 

I didn’t have to work on the farm this weekend.  We had some friends over, and the husband went out and did what I normally would be doing (digging a trench for a faucet by the barn and piecing together water pipe – skinny stuff . . . a one-man job).  Prince Farming was on the borrowed excavator digging a trench from a water source (broken pipe in the field) to the old barn for the water pipe to rest in (and not freeze during the winter).   So I feel really blessed, and amazingly rested.  And without a funny story for your reading pleasure.

Last Monday I shared a post about despair.  For some reason my humor is sort of leaning toward the political genre, which is odd because politics and me just aren’t that close.  I’m not a US citizen (nor am I here illegally, if you’re wondering ).  I have a hard time following what’s going on and giving any kind of intelligent analysis.  Actually – I probably have a hard time giving intelligent analysis anywhere in my life, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.  Maybe it’s just that politics is the primary topic every time I turn on the radio.  But every week I get this little video podcast that makes me smirk, or giggle, or laugh out loud, or sigh with a "I wish I could have thought that out and said it first."  And sometimes, no matter how simplified it is, I just don’t get it.  Or it doesn’t strike me all that funny.  Which is okay too.  Helping little minds understand big things, Uncle Jay has a great way ‘splaining things and I thought maybe you’d enjoy hearing a couple of my favorites.  I would hazard a guess that it isn’t so much the politics that strike me as funny as the irreverence does. That’s probably more like it.

I haven’t watched this week’s video cast yet.  But with everyone talking about the financial mayhem that we find ourselves in, I thought it would be appropriate to share a simplified version of what’s going on.  Check this out.

Another one that is fairly popular (by vote of most clicks) is the congressional recess episode.  It’s pretty funny too.

Hope you have a great week!

The day I posted about a box that I picked up from the Post Office early one morning had the most hits in the short history of this blog.  I didn’t realize ya’ll were so thrilled by chicks, but hey – I aim to please, so here’s the update.

The chicks are still living in their box, but it’s starting to look like we need to really work on another option.  I feel badly for them – how will they survive moving from their cute little cozy garage condo to an out of the house dwelling?  Will they be warm enough?  We won’t just throw them out on the street.  I mean, we’re not that heartless.  We’ll make sure they move to appropriate enough accommodation.  But you know a mother’s heart.  Actually, that’s not true.  I’d probably be fine putting them down in the barn with all that hay to rummage through, poop on, and hide in, but Prince Farming is not interested in losing any chicks.

It’s amazing how fast chicks grow – in human terms they’re not even a month old, but in chicken time they’ve reached that full gangly, mostly ugly, very curious and brave tweenage stage.

This is not a stressed out tween – she’s(?) just coming to see what hand-outs I might have.  They absolutely love crickets and earthworms.  When they were tiny, we loved to watch the tug-of-war that ensued when we threw an earthworm into the box.  Such mayhem you’ve never seen.  Wish I could share pictures, but they moved way faster than my clicker-finger or camera shutter could deal with.

Prince Farming is having such fun trying to figure out what breeds of chicks we have.  We ordered the "rainbow mix" from the hatchery, guaranteed at least 5 varieties.  If any of you have ideas, leave them in the comments section – you have more chicken experience than we do, for sure. 

The white and yellow ones are always in the front.  The ones you can’t really see in this shot are ones that looked like chipmunks when they were tiny.  They still have the same coloring, but its all ruffled now – in this tween-age stage. 

Here’s another variety that have very scruffy necks – like their "neck hair" is way long and sticks out on end, like significant "bed head" – except we’d probably have to call it "bed-neck" in this case.

We knew they were maturing when we found a brave chick on top of their water jug.  Prince Farming rigged all sorts of things in their box to allow more of them to "roost" at the same time.  I’ve seen them all lined up on these rods – but the chicken ones jump down when I bring my camera by.

Ooh, wait – here’s one with more of them roosting.  There’s a bit of movement (probably scrambling to get down) but you get the idea

By the way – for those who were concerned about our first family of chicks (the ones we got unexpectedly and so weren’t totally prepared for), Prince Farming and I were working down at the barn recently and we heard chickens!!  We’ve actually seen the rooster a couple of times, but don’t know who else is a survivor.  This is truely a case of "Survival of the Fittest."  We’d carelessly left some chicken feed down there.  And there are puddles all around the barn, not to mention an entire breeding ground for worms and crickets, so they have fared really well – without our help, thank you very much.  Maybe that’s the way to go.

When scouting around for some cool farm shots last night, I remembered this little detail.  Maybe this sentry is the chicken guard of Gredemeer.  He is stationed right on the old barn door-post.  Proud, and cocky, and faithful – he’s been there from the beginning.

So many of you leave happy comments about the sky over my pond.  Last week TheFishingGuy asked about the sky over my barn.  What an idea.  Same sky.  Different perspective.  Got on my little Rhino with my little camera, and here’s what you get.

This shot even has a few left-over hay rolls that hadn’t made it into the barn yet.  They’re all safe and warm now.

And here’s the same sky over the field.  The field looks particularly green.  That happens after the hay is mowed and then we had some rain – which has happy new grass growing.

There have been some spectacular sunrise shots on recent Skywatch posts.  I dream of having a cool sunrise.  I’m sure there is one out there – but from my vantage point, here is what the sunrise looks like:

Actually, the sun would be rising from the opposite direction, but since you know how close the pond mostly seems, you know I’d never see the sun, if I can barely see the pond.  Here’s what I saw when I swung around to the east.

Beautiful, ain’t it?  Actually, it is pretty.  Just not with the stunning, dense colors that some people see when the day overtakes darkness. 

Just so you don’t go through complete withdrawal, here’s a pond sky for you.  I’ll settle for cool sunsets.  I’m not usually up in time to see sunrise – colors or not.

You can see more very amazing skies, clouds, sunrises and sunsets from various angles and from all over the world right here.  Better yet, take a shot of your own, and share it with us – everyone can play.

No, no – I’m not completely heartless.  I don’t laugh at people who are experiencing despair (I might laugh WITH them though).  I laugh at the company and the writers who work for www.despair.com .  Their company slogan is:  "We’re not happy ’till you’re not happy."  They do these crazy lithographs that smack of the popular "Motivators" posters.  Here’s their "Despair" demotivator:

There are about 100 other lithographs – all laugh-out-loud funny.  Here’s a fairly current one, for which they’ve gotten a lot of flack:

And in response to an irate citizen who reamed them for their complete insensitivity in the government demotivator, they created this one:

If you have a hard-to-shop-for cynic on your Christmas list, this is a great place to find a gift (I get no kick-backs from this endorsement – it’s purely for your convenience and enjoyment).

Here’s an example of another one of their recent releases. You can get this on a T-shirt.  I own the Pessimist’s Mug (the non-executive one).  This is a take-off from that mug  (I think these people consume truck-loads of caffeine and work between the hours of 1am and 4am)

If you go over and browse their site, be sure to check out their video podcasts.  You might get a chuckle from one or two of them too.

Today I had a gym session.  With a personal trainer coach master torture-inflictor.  Let me be clear that I am an active, card-holding (charter), all be it somewhat not so silent, member of the National Organization Against Organized Exercise (NOAOE).  I will not drive to a gym.  I do not buy memberships.  It’s just one of those NOAOE standards that I won’t cave on (well, except for that once when a friend person convinced me to join that ladies’ work-out circuit thingy).  And had I asked a few more questions or gotten outside of MY thinking and into Prince Farming’s thinking, I could have avoided this little massive NOAOE rule-breaker.

He asked me to help him lay pipe.  Looking out my window, I saw the trenches he’d been digging on a cute little excavator for weeks days.  And I saw piles of pipe.  Big pipe and little pipe.  Pipe, pipe, pipe.  In my mind, we were going to go down there, and I’d help him carry these pipe segments and lay them where they need to be, to what – like, see if there’s enough pipe? (just writing this makes me realize that I didn’t think this thing through.  Duh!).

During this work-out session, I experienced weight training.  Have you ever lifted 6" PVC pipe?  I’m talking about 6" in diameter.  20 feet in length.  That’s weight lifting!  And I’ve heard people talk about "reps".  We did reps alright.  If I were to guess, I’d say probably 50 reps.  But that wouldn’t be right.  In reality, we only moved about 8 lengths of this pipe (surely it was more than that!).  BUT we moved each one more than once.  From the pipe pile to next to the trench.  Then down into the trench.  Sometimes back out of the trench and then back in.  And these reps actually got fairly creative in the muscle groups they worked, which probably is in direct conflict with the very term Reps.  This weight-training included walking (from the pipe pile to the trench), obstacle course (over 3′ piles/ridges of dirt dug from the trench, and then jumping stepping  maneuvering over the trenches – sometimes more than one), and squatting (to lower the pipe – it might crack if you drop it, like those strong, muscular, cut dudes do to the weight bars in the gym).  Then we had to clean and apply adhesive to the segments and heave them together.  Using a cracked 2 x 4, whacking the end to make it join in to the elbow piece, or "T" or coupling.  "Harder.  Harder!  HARDER!  It’s not going anywhere!"  Trying to be effective in a 36" wide trench.  Sideways.  With limited time, the adhesive bonding almost on contact.  Sheesh.

And those pansy little step-aerobics in gyms (or in front of the TV) don’t hold a candle to our step aerobics.  Forget 4", 6" or even 8" steps.  These trenches afforded 18" to 72" steps (depending on where along the trench we were).  Step in, out, over, and back.  In, out, over, and back.  You got it!  Now again. In, out, over, and back.  Now with a 20′ pipe!  In, out, over, and in.  Add stones and dirt in your boots, to toughen you up. In, out, over, and back.  Shut up!  The Marines could have used today’s little venture as their physical/mental stamina-building routine finale.

Okay, so that was the warm-up.  Now for the work-out part.  This work-out was one of those whole-body experiences.  I mean we did abs, quads, butt, thighs, dangly arm-bits, attitudes, relationship, language, existence, is there a God, whole-body work.  After the first two segments of pipe, I knew the agony was more than my imagination when Prince Farming said (out loud, in a voice I distinctly heard and he can’t deny) "This is harder than I thought it would be."  And we kept going.  For 5 more hours.  And we’re only half way done with the job.

We’re doing the drainage at the barn.  Both barns.  We had to start at one end of the old barn and run pipe the length of it (all the time ensuring that we were allowing a slight decline – used surveying tools – a transit – to do that) then meeting up with additional pipe along the perpendicular side of the new barn – they had to meet at the same depth and continue down-hill toward the other side of the old barn.  So sometimes we had to dig a little deeper (pick & shovel), and sometimes we had to add soil back (bobcat and shovel), so we didn’t drop too quickly and so that we could make all the pipe meet at a happy junction on the way to the drain by the road.  Then we had the extra puzzle of having to junction in to downspouts (which we had to add to the old barn as we went) at one time requiring the joining of 4 pieces of HUGE pipe.  We’ll finish it some time this weekend.  And if I have energy I’ll take photos.  But seeing pipe lying neatly in cut trenches – all pieced together nicely – really isn’t going to give you an accurate picture of the absolute torture of getting it there.

Excuse me – I need to convene a NOAOE forum to recommend an addendum to the charter.  Anything that smacks of a work-out needs to be included.  No matter what the venue or guise or cost (or not) might be.  It’s all a conspiracy that we must be alert and attentive to.  Pay attention, people!

My biggest Farm Regret is not being able to travel.  There’s always so much to do.  Since I’ve been doing Skywatch Friday it has occured to me that even though I’m sitting in one place here on the farm, the earth is rotating and spinning, so I’m actually getting to see skies from all over – these skies have seen the parts of the earth that I’m yearning to visit.  It has become a fun thing for me to imagine what my skies have seen as they’ve "passed over" other people and places.  Just a bit of whimsy as I share the clouds from Gredemeer this week.  Happy Skywatch Friday!

You might not be able to see it very clearly, but there is almost a "pillar of cloud" in this shot:

The reflection of these clouds in the pond makes it look like there are ripples in the water:

These clouds looked extra fluffy against the very blue sky:

Same day as the above shot – just an additional set of texture here.  It’s amazing how quickly the cloud formations and textures change.  The "naked" mountain top on the right has been strip-mined for coal.  When they are done they have to introduce plants back to make it "natural" again. . . there’s a term for this, but it’s not coming to me at this insomniac moment.  Maybe "reclaimed"?

You can see clouds (and other skies) from all over the world by visiting here.  You can play along too, and share your skies, which may very well have flown over Gredemeer some time in the not too distant past!