12/22/2017 6:27:18 PM: This snow storm is supposed to last several days off and on, right through Christmas. I just made it back from the shops about 6PM. It took Me an entire hour to drive home, even with new studded snow tires. Traffic is nuts in Waterville. Everyone is bumper to bumper, people are driving up the wrong lane to cut in line, sometimes driving the WRONG direction. Holy shit. I sat in the Kmart parking lot for awhile, just watching the fiasco. Shortly after I left there I came upon an accident, which of course was no surprise. These people are all idiots. Why do they think they need to come out on the road during a storm and cause trouble? Is it really worth it to wreck their own car and someone else's? What a great way to say Merry fucking Christmas, and even ruin someone's life perhaps. I made a couple stops on the way home and sold five dozen eggs to a few of My egg customers. My hens are still laying eggs even though the days are so short, some lay special-colored eggs, and several of them lay jumbo sized ones, which people who buy from Me can't get elsewhere. I love animals that help pay their own room and board, lol. Finally I made it home, the woodstove was out of course, and the house was cold enough for the stupid furnace to be running. Damn, I hate supporting oil companies, that's why I love having a woodstove...well, that and the fact that the heat it gives off is pretty nice after a day out in the snow. I try not to let the furnace run too much because I feel it's a waste when I can usually get free wood from My own property. There was no kindling in the kitchen rack (an oversight), and the kindling in the rack outdoors had gotten snowed on. I changed into My barn clothes (so very glamorous) and brought in an armload of that to let dry, then grabbed the splitting maul and went back out the door to split some big dry chunks into new kindling. With that and a wadded up paper bag the fire lit with a soft wuuf and quickly roared to life. After the kindling was red hot I added some larger firewood, adjusted the flue, and headed back out into the heavy snow to tend animals. What some don't appreciate is the fact some of us enjoy the outdoors. We don't like to be cooped up. We move to the country to get peace and quiet, and to be around wildlife. I certainly have that here and I enjoy sharing this experience with My in-town friends. I have pretty much every type of wildlife here, and outdoors at night we can hear them moving through the woods surrounding this little homestead. Having livestock comes naturally if you have adequate land. I don't have cows or pigs (yet), but poultry and two small horses are nice to have around. They give activity to the yard and an excuse to get outside every day. The eggs are certainly appreciated as well. After feeding the horses and securing pens of all the chickens and ducks for the night, I'm now inside. I had bought a steak at Hannaford earlier ($2.15/lb, how could I resist?) and some asparagus. I COULD cook them inside...but the grill is just outside on the patio, so I went back out, brushed the 4' of snow off the grill, and fired it up. Minutes later the metal was hot and the steak hissed loudly when I slapped it onto the grill, then I added five stems of asparagus beside it and brushed them with olive oil, crumbled some rosemary across them and closed the lid. I watched it cook from the kitchen window. In the patio light I could just make out thin tendrils of smoke drifting off toward the road. There isn't much traffic here on a dry day, and there is even less traffic tonight in the storm, but I wondered briefly if the few who did drive by could smell My grilling steak and felt hungry. HAH, it's MINE and I'm not sharing! Well, the asparagus is tender and My steak is now done, a lovely bloody-rare with a little singe along the fat side, just the way a steak should be done. The kitchen fire is now roaring, the kitchen is toasty warm, and I've made Myself a big mug of hot spicy chai tea. I'm going to change into something fluffy and soft, take My plate and mug into the other room, and maybe I'll do some online gaming.

12/16/2017 1:17:14 AM: Well, we finally have snow as of last Sunday. It's not much, but it's enough that My strange new summer resident has finally left to fly south for better grub hunting. Hopefully he will return in the spring, as I always enjoy new additions to My flora and fauna here. He's a strange bird, rather creepy looking in fact, completely camouflaged with eyes that appear wrongly placed, almost on the top and back of his head, like something created in a weird dream. Looking him up online makes it no better, 'prehensile upper bill, a unique bone-and-muscle arrangement lets the bird open and close the tip of its upper bill, or mandible, while it is sunk in the ground'. Ew, an upper bill that splits open? Great, I have an alien mutant creature that has chosen to inhabit My yard. Common names: timberdoodle, hokum poke, woodcock. Yeah, I knew you'd like that last one, you penis-obsessed perverts.

12/2/2017 6:48:24 AM: 102, 69, 28, 19, counts of Canadian geese flocks flying overhead toward the lakes in the past ten minutes.

12/2/2017 5:55:28 AM: Mowing the meadow went much better this time. The tractor didn't end up tipped over in the brook, and nothing got broken (that I know of). Getting rid of the tall grass eliminated hiding places for foxes and rodents, and should help my hawks and owls hunt more efficiently. If their bellies are full of rodents they are less likely to consider my poultry. I still have alders that need to be cleared in a few spots the tractor couldn't reach, but that's minor and can be done even after it snows. It might actually be easier, since pulling a full cargo sled is easier on snow than across muddy, uneven terrain. Alders are 'junk wood', but they make great kindling. 'Waste not, want not', as the saying goes.

10/31/2017 7:26:56 PM: This past weekend's wind storm was NUTS. We had 30 mph winds with predicted wind gusts of 55mph (that's EXCESSIVE for Maine) but some areas experienced 70mph gusts. Our region was hit hard with large trees down on nearly every street, many are still across the road and hanging on power lines because the crews are busy in more populated regions. I could hear trees breaking and crashing in the woods all around the farm non stop, but amazingly none of the big ones in the dooryard fell. The roofs of both house and barn took a beating though, and there are torn shingles all around the yard along with sheets of plywood, many of which had flown 30 + feet of where they had been placed. I was upset to see My lovely new swimming pool fence distorted and leaning after the constant wind pushed at it, but thankfully none of it is actually broken...uprighting it is just ANOTHER project to add before the ground freezes. The animals are all fine, and that's more important than the mess. Half of them were out playing in the torrential rain even with the wind nearly knocking them over (chickens and ducks in the wind, I'm sure there are funny videos of that somewhere), they seemed to really enjoy it (we built you nice warm houses, you bozos!) and the horses of course were out sleeping in the rain dispite having a dry run-in shed to snooze in. At least the weather was warm during the storm so no one caught a chill. I'm told the power outage may last for days. We are fine here with a nice hot woodstove, plenty of water stored, and a camp shower, but some people are flipping out. It's not the end of the world, folks.