Summer(?) Break

Welcome Home to the Firebird!  I picked him up from campus Friday.  His last final was Thursday afternoon.  The Firebird will be home for a week or two, and then plans to return to work on some engineering projects on campus.  One of them is associated with NASA, so we are both excited about that!

The Firebird is majoring in Mechanical Engineering.  He took four years of Russian in high school, so he is an good position to eventually get employment in the Air and Space industry.

The Willow has another month of high school.  I think she is pretty envious of her brother being out of classes!  His current priority is catching up on sleep!  On one hand I am glad he is so comfy at home that he can sleep the entire morning away, but another part of me wants to spend as much time with him as I can while he is here!

I pulled one of the Firebirds windows a few days before he came home to air out his room. I kept asking him last night if he wanted me to pin a blanket over the screen to reduce the wind tunnel effect, but he insisited he was fine.  The temps dropped into the 40's last night, so I guess the cold air doesn't bother him too much!  I am crouched by the woodstove as I type this, sitting on the ottoman with the laptop on the coffeetable.  The waterfall is still running over the dam, and we all like to have the windows open this tinme of year to hear the rushing water.  And all the spring bird song and frogs peeping in the vernal pools.

Today the main audio is the windchimes tinkling in the gusty wind-and the sound of the trees blowing in the wind. I swear I saw a few bits of sleet while doing morning chores. Brrr!  I can't wait for summer!

Blue Moon

 

 

 

 

 

I was wrong about the Firebird's position on the varsity soccer team.  He has been first string, a starter playing outside mid.

I also had the camera settings wrong, been making a lot of mistakes lately! 

Mostly I have been trying to forge my way ahead by backtracking, and that seems to consist of finding out I never want to do (whatever) again!

Hopefully a new door will open ahead and the path forward will become apparent. In the meantime, I try and enjoy the moment and make do with what is available.

We had a rooster appear in our dooryard this week. A young handsome rhode island red. I thought he wandered down from the neighbor, who has chickens and at least one rooster, so I tried to shoo him up there, but he didn't want to go.

A short while later he seemed to be heading in the direction of another neighbors who also has poultry,( in the mornings you can hear the roosters calling up and down the road, it is funny) so Willow and I shooed him that way.  A little while later he was back.

We have three roosters of our own, separated into two groups, and no room for a fourth. Our flock is locked in for the summer, so we weren't having any fights, and the newcomer was well behaved and not trying to be a bad bird. We all sort of admired him, truthfully.

As soon as I saw him I thought of my old Boss, and a couple days later I was answering an email from her and asked about her rooster. She had taken in three Red hens and a rooster a couple years ago someone dumped at HER neighbors. She told me her rooster had died, and agreed to take the newcomer off our hands.

I saw him in the goose house around noon and shut him in. That way I could catch him. I put him in a carrier and drove him over to the farm. He was very happy! The hens looked happy! Everyone was happy!

Willow and I saw a large spotted fawn and an enormous doe on the way there, and then two wild hen turkeys and a large brood of young turkeys.  Then we learned the peafowl at the farm had hatched some chicks, and saw three cute peafowl chics!

 

 

Here are some pix Willow and I took of the last soccer game.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 2 in this shot by Willow looks to be trying to trip the fast Firebird up before he can beat 14 to the ball

This was right afterwards, the Firebird had the ball and something happened with 14 and he was down.  Willow snapped this pic just as he fell, and he lept right back up and took off again, but the pic of him flat like that is a bit unnerving for this mother.

I took this lo-res shot of him coming down from a header, boy he sent that ball high! But when I looked closer it looks like the guy from the other team is trying to elbow the Firebird on his descent. Maybe he was just trying to keep his balance. I have overheard a coach(not ours) encouraging his players to play rough, so I pray the flashy Firebird doesn't become a target on the field.

 

The coach from the best team in the league was at the game watching. The Firebird played with his son in 8th grade. The coach commented to me that the Firebird was coming right along and nodded approvingly. So now I am in the unenviable position of wanting the Firebird to slow down and not draw so much attention to himself. He'll have the toughest guys on him. He's still my baby, after all.

 

He had two assists on goals and we won the game. 

 

 

The downslide of August

Lost one post during a cracking thunderstorm out of the Nor'East-atypical for this time of year. I thought it would miss us, cursed the touchpad blue when it highlighted then deleted unrcovereably several hard-typed paragraphs, then blessed the powers that be when the storm barrelled down atop of us with seconds between lightning and thunderbooms.

Now to recover lost thoughts and not highlight and delete again in a random moment....

The Firebird made the high school varsity soccer team, yeah! He's subbing second string right mid, not my favorite place for him since he is so agressive with the head butting of the ball, and I am convinced that someday in the near future the soccer heads are going to realize that this is simply NOT good for the brain, and ban head contact.  I mean, you can't touch the ball with your hand, but you can slap your brain silly banging the ball into the goal..and this is "football"...jus' sayin'.

And being one of the underclassmen, I am totally comfortable with his low starting rank, I knew that to be a given if he made the upper team. For the team to function well, he needs to be accepted by his teammates when the team knows he can do it, he will get more field time. And, as a parent, the less time he spends on the field with those strapping 17-18 years olds the better his odds are of surviving the season...:D

The Freshmen parents were telling me they were a bit frightened of the Firebird during summer soccer. I remembered the year before watching him join all those big boys in high school, and sympathized.  But the Firebird is big for his age now. He just went through a big huge health scare causing me to pull him from the NorthEastern soccer invitationals-but everything looks good now except for some seasonal allergies.

****

We've had fleas really really bad this year.  I have always knocked them down with two frontline treatments and blamed flea-infested visitors. This year I Frontlined at the first sign of a flea.  Then repeated in a month, while the flea population exploded. Now it was ourselves that were the carriers. I saw fleas hopping off my pants in the doctor's office.  the dentist's office, Lord help the laudramat, (where I think we got them this time)

The cats caught on quick, and refused to touch the floor upstairs. Then downstairs. The dog stopped coming upstairs and whined on the steps. The trick to Frontline is that it gets in the animals blood stream and stops the cycle after the flea bites.  Well, my animals ain't no dummies, because they were NOT going anywhere near those fleas.  Pity the stupid humans, who took another month to dance across the floors eventually taking to tiptoeing over the furniture and end tables and quickly wiping legs off into buckets of soapy water or keeping a vacuum handy in every room and vaccuuming three times a day.... OMG!!!! Thank God it's been beautiful 80's because forget pants and socks...unless you want to spray insecticide on them.

I contemplated malathion, onced used successfully on a bedbug infestation that took care of every insect for ten years. (forget the 30 day half life on the MDOS)  I contemplated bombing. I thought about the stuff on the shelf at Wally world for spraying everything in your house for bedbugs and fleas,..(probably developed after I called that big chemical company 10 years ago about their perimeter spray and told them I was using it and they kept repeating, "we don't recommend it for that use" and I finally said, "well, I am using it!"

We got just about everything those two years-we had all been living rather reclusively and then I was in University and the Willow in day care and the Firebird in the public school system. Oh yeah. I was never sure if that violent intestinal upset was a roto virus or a stray flick of campylbacter jejundi I flicked across the lab table from my innoculating loop...but it was the threat of head lice at day care that had me pull at least two of us out of that public bacterial swamp lol.(In other words, I stayed at home until Willow was ready to go to Kindergarten)

I had a friend recommend Pine Sol on everything for the fleas including carpets and furniture with a spray bottle...which I meant to buy today and forgot, dang., It is two week's past the second month treatment and I think they are tailing off a bit...I hate ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, black flies, bedbugs, lice, any of that nasty stuff. Obviously something must be bugging me... hehe

***Like the price of feed, for instance. I swear to god the price of a fifty pound bag of layethe cornpellets was $16.50. Yes there is a drought, but corn was $ 6 for a 40 pound bushel . So how the heck is feed that high?

I bought a 50 lb sack of whole corn. I had stopped graining the goats for a couple weeks when pasture was good, and thought I would just give a bit of corn to supplement.  Then I ran out of layer pellets for the chickens at the same time. Ok, this is really cheap to say, but it cost me $4 in gasoline to get that bag of feed 10 miles away, so I decided to tide the (free range ) poultry over on the corn  in the meantime.

Here "Free range" means the birds get to be outside. Not running around the yard. Which is what free range means to me. Anyhow, my birds get daytime access to an enclosed pen, where they get the stray bug or worm and lots of garden thinnings plus their grain. Well their grain for their 2-3 eggs a day was getting pretty high.  A bag lasts us about ten days for the two ganders, 7 hens or so, three roosters...so when you get a couple dozen eggs for $16.50 that is sort of pricey. Free range (sic) or no.

So they were on corn and thinnings for two straight days.  The first day I soaked the corn overnight and then put it in the blender.  Poor blender. Corn milk. That took while.  The chickens thought I was nuts when I put it in the pan.

The next day I realized I had this ancient grinder that I have used to grind leftover meat bits for the pets(real ground chicken, yuym)
So I did the dried grain in that. The grain did grind, every full stroke forward I had to do a half stroke back to free the whole kernels up, and it took forever and I felt I was skimping everyone. So we threw in some crushed stale potato chips and some raisin bread crust ( don't all children hate crusts to the delight of their animal friends?)

Anyhow, while the whole corn is preferable for the goat's digestion, I preferred the ground product for the poultry, so I decided to give in (to modern convenience)and buy the pellets today.  When I arrived home I looked at the ingredients:

Processed corn by-product, Plant protein by product, and then vitamins. What the heck?????BY_PRODUCT?!?!?!?!

The Willow came in tonight with four more eggs. Our eggs prduction on straight corn doubled for two days.  Screw the over-priced by-product crap!!! I am going with grain and a handful of stale frosted flakes!

Anyone for breakfast? :D

We'll have it on the patio- the fleas aren't so bad out there.

That Boy can Jump!

1-11-12

Lots of stuff has been happening around the homestead.

Both the saplings made honor roll at their respective schools, yay!

Then the Firebird suffered a concussion during basketball practice. He told me when he arrived home he had taken a crack from a team mate's head that bloodied his nose. I was distracted and didn't think it too serious so I told him to grab a bag of frozen veggies to apply to his nose. An hour later he didn't respond to the dinner call, and I went to check on him.

He complained of being exhausted and his head hurting and I quickly grabbed a flashlight to check his pupil response. His right pupil was not contracting in response to the light and spun eerily trying to avoid the light.

Everything stopped and I took him into the ER. We weren't treated with much priority there, but the doc recommended a ct scan to be on the safe side. The scan came back normal, so we went home with instructions to watch for anymore symptoms. (headache, slurred speech, vision trouble, etc)

The Firebird was adamant about attending school the next day, (and wanting to play in a far away game the next evening)so I put him on the bus and called the high school. The athletic director told me the school's sports injury specialist would take a look at him and would have to clear him to play again.

Word came back via the Firebird later that he couldn't play, but he was going to the game on the bench. When he was examined, he had experienced dizziness when tippping his head back, so he was still exhibiting signs of a concussion.

He felt pretty miserable after sitting through the loud game. I kept him quiet for the weekend, and again he insisted on attending school on Monday. No practice or game after school, so he rode the bus home, or to the bus stop.

He sent me a text from the bus asking me to make sure I was at the stop on time. When he got off the bus, he started crying; his head hurt so badly. Everything stopped, and I rushed him into the ER.

I managed to get him into a wheelchair, and when intake saw that he had been in a few days before, they rushed us right through- way down the back of the ER, where all was quiet except for the nearby bleep of monitors. I was getting a little scared.

He was sent off for another CT scan. I was told that sometimes bleeding in the brain can take several days to appear. The CT scan came back normal. He was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome, given a pill for nausea, some Ibuprofen and some Benydryl, and I was told to take him to his PCP for followup.

In the meantime, the Willow had developed a horrible cough. She had been fighting off a bug for awhile and it had obviously settled in her lungs, so I took her to the clinic the next morning for a script of Amoxycillin and kept the Firebird quiet at home. He had an appointment the next day.

His PCP laid down the law and told the Firebird to take the rest of the week off from school and sports, and the following week of vacation, and see how he felt after the New Year. He was pretty cooperative the first week but got pretty restless by the second week, texting back and forth with his coach (he was sorely missed by the team) trying to con me into at least letting him go WATCH the practices, but I held firm and howled about it being doctor's order's and I wasn't the bad guy...while wondering if I really wanted to let him go back to play at all.

Willow didn't get better on the Amoxycillin. She had been given capsules and can't swallow a pill. So we were dumping the powder in chocolate pudding. Her cough got worse. The script was changed to one of the cephalexans in liquid form and she thought that was yummy tasting so that went pretty well. She finished the course and still has a little congestion. Overall, she seems her old self again, yay.

The Firebird was cleared to gradually return to basketball. He had some minutes in the last game. He has fallen out of condition with two weeks off and been tired and trying to catch up on his work, too. He is on the student concil and had to been @ school before 7 this morning, and then attend school; finally a late practice tonight from 7-8:30.

Of course it is now my turn. I was laid low for three days with fever and sore throat and sinus pain. Then my ear filled up and I frantically swallowed Advil and Benydryl one after another until the pain subsided. All day yesterday I had the signs of a ruptured eardrum, so i finally went to the clinic this morning.

The Doc took one look inside the ear in question, quickly recoiled, and pronounced I had returned to my second childhood and had an inner ear infection. He handed me a ten day supply of Amoxycillin.

Welome January. :)

Friday

Thanks for your comments Tonia and Dave. :)

My thyroid saga has been reduced to one pill six times a week. I was just a tad hyper my last visit so I get to skip Sunday's pill. Then labs in three months to see how that is working.

At my last visit the doc went through the big list of symptoms I had last December and I answered NO to almost all of them. I told him I was glad I went through the treatment because one pill a day is much better than 5 pills 5 times a day and still feeling like crap. lol.

I still have some real thryroid left, and hopefully that behaves itself and doesn't start overproducing thyroid hormone again. That happens rarely-and usually in severe cases like mine. I think that is one reason I was so aggravated it took so long to get to see the specialist after I was diagnosed- because my thyroid raged on for months. There is some rule that objects in motion want to stay in motion...one of Newton's laws?

****

We had our first frost on the lawn this morning. BRRRRR so cold. We didn't get one yesterday, but other places did. One farm had their front and back field cloaked in frost and I thought that looked like a cold place to live!

Our foliage is a disaster. For the last 14 years the Firebird's birthday has been the absolute peak of foliage here, the height of early color of maples and ash. This year everywhere but the swamps is still green.

We did have periods of wind and rain, and my sugar maples have dropped a lot of leaves before they changed.

I am not the only one to notice, I have seen the foliage story carried on AP the last few days. Many hypothesis abound as to what is going on with the foliage. I don't really have a strong opinion myself-I am puzzled.

The change of fall color is attributed to shorter day length-the leaves stop producing chlorophyll and what remains is the actual color of the leaf. As far as I know the day's length is shortening as it usually does.

As far as weather and temperature, we have not been much different from the norm-we get rain and drought and wind on a regular basis but the the leaves still change every year about the same time.

Fungus is getting blamed-well I hope they find out which one! I heard through the farmer's grapevine that potatoes diseased with late blight have been getting dumped along the shore, and then the moist air coming off the ocean is carrying the blight inland and really destroyed everyone's tomatoe crop here. So perhaps that is what is causing the leaves to drop and not change?

Or maybe those big solar flares triggered the trees to keep growing for a bit longer?

I do know that the Firebird's birthday seemed a little less festive with the autumn colors still in hiding.

Online for the moment

Another call to Dell, another temporary reprieve from internet banishment?

"Homer's Last Hurrah" BLF Lois and two of her three, hours-old triplets out of Homer. Two bucks and a doe. Homer never fully recovered from injuries, and although obviously still able to breed, was unable to re-join the buck herd and recently went to slaughter. Willow showed him to Grand Champion last year, and he was sire to my Badgee.



Update on my own goats: Jenny the goat, several minutes after my last update about her weeks ago, hopped her dividing fence and worked it out with everyone and is back with the herd.

Willow showed Uther for BLF in the yearling buck division @ the Fiber Frolic. He won Grand Champion cashmere goat. He is half brother to my Badgee. Willow won Grand Champion in Showmanship.



The Firebird graduated 8th grade fifth in his class, top ranked boy. He received several prestigious awards, even though his mother can't fashion a tie, lol.





Beautiful weather, not getting anything done with lots of things dividing my attention.

Happy Independence Day!

Congrats to the Firebird for winning a trophy for basketball!

So, I'm 50 hours into the radioactive iodine treatment. Although the only known side effect is a possible sore neck, I have been draggin butt and just got up from a three hour nap.

The tech said I was getting a good dose that will knock the thyroid out, so most likely I am looking at replacement hormone the rest of my life. Thanks Tonia, for the tip on the generic, after I took the pill I was thinking that I hope the meds over my loifetime weren't going to cost me an arm and a leg...figuratively speaking.

Monday

Yesterday was my birthday, yay me! I had a good time, the pattern of the last few was broken, and although I try and be a traditionalist, change was good. :)

The Firebird is doing great in basketball. He is a shooter. He gets the other team's rebound, passes it off to one of his teammates to move the ball down the court, and races down the court to get in position for our rebound. He made 8 points tonight. His highest so far was twelve. He had a lame couple of games with few or no points right after Kristen's accident. He has rebounded well.

The whole team is doing well; everyone's improving and our coach challenges them more every game. Willow and I are a couple of fans, cheering in the stands. Phoenix's success has enabled us to gain acceptance in his new school. Some of the parents assume I must be a basketball expert, so it's really funny when I make some really dumb comment. haha.

We have a big storm coming, welcome February. January went fast, I'm hoping the rest of the winter follows that pattern. The temp was 10 below zero this morning. Supposed to be 15 below tomorrow morning, and not knowing that I called Boss this noon and begged to work tomorrow. I missed Friday because I was in the ER.

I had three trips to the hospital last week. Monday for my three week blood work. The nurse called me Tuesday and said my levels were coming down and stay on the med. Then I mentioned I had a sore throat. She told me to go right to the lab and have blood drawn. It was snowing-so she grudgingly agreed I could go in the morning, but I had to stop taking methimazole immediately until the results came in.

Methimazole has a rare side effect. It can cause your white blood cell level to crash, making you vulnerable to infection. A sore throat is apparently cause for immediate concern.

Those blood tests came back fine. I was off the med for 24 hours and resumed it that night. The next day my shoulders felt like I had a tetanus shot. By bedtime the pain settled in one shoulder and I struggled all night to sleep, getting out of bed at dawn to drive myself (singledhandedly, literally) to the hospital.

Trying to get into a hospital gown had me in tears. I could wiggle the fingers of my left hand and that was it. I had to use my right hand to move my left arm and even that was agony. I had an x-ray series, an ice pack, and 500 mg of Ibuprofen. They offered me something stronger, but I would have had to have someone pick me up because they wouldn't let me drive. After once driving myself home after receiving morphine in the ER and getting carsick after the rotary, I hastily agreed to just Ibuprofen.

I was diagnosed with rotator cuff injury. The pain started to fade. When I was released 4 hours later, I was able to touch the steering wheel with my fingers. By noon I was lugging laundry one handed to the laundramat. I worked the farm the next morning. By the 36 hour mark all pain and stiffness was gone. Today I split wood.

Ok, that was weird! I had something similar happen before I went on the meds with the other shoulder, only not so painful. So I wonder if there was a relation to going off the meds for 24 hours? I should probably let the endo know, but I am waiting to see if it happens again. So here's hoping it doesn't!

Saturday I went over to visit Kristen's family. They wanted me to go through her clothes. You would not believe the bags and boxes they had put aside. I went through everything one thing at a time. If I hesistated over something, her daughter would say how K had loved that, or wore it all the time, So in the keep pile it would go.

Then her daughter's boyfriend was helping, "Oh, that's a nice shirt," if I hesitated.

The only comment D made was when I put on a silver metallic thread turtleneck sweater. "That's shiny," he said. I put that in the reject pile. :)

About halfway through I said, "I'll just throw out all my clothes."

Because there is two complete wardrobes of stuff sitting in bags downstairs right now. I have no idea where I can put it. So I am going to go through everything again in front of a mirror and try and keep a quarter of it? That still seems a lot!

No tears were shed during the visit, although Willow got a little bleary eyed at one point. That was her first visit to the house since K passed. I am sort of in shock, no so much because of the volume of stuff, but the concept of it. It's like an extension of my own stuff, from old stained sweatshirts, felted sweaters, nice stuff, out of date stuff. So it sort of rocks my feeling of immortality, to put it mildly.

Her daughter had already taken what she wanted, so you can imagine what the entire amount must have equaled! Then, I'll call her Vine, gave Willow several of her own beautiful dresses, including her prom dress. Willow was thrilled!!

D was smoking a butt on the deck when we made our goodbyes. He gave me a big hug and pressed something into my hand and said, "Happy Birthday, this is from Kristen." I closed my hand and thanked him sincerely. As I walked away, I opened my hand and saw her beautiful pair of blue glass and silver drop earrings.

I'm not very fond of Death at the moment.

Student of the Month

Another award! So proud of my big boy!


A few days ago I looked out front and thought, "What the heck is that coming through the woods, dinosaurs?!?"

The dinosaurs were really a flock of wild turkeys. My chickens and geese didn't think too much of that and quickly headed out back.



Still waiting to see an endo. The Firebird qualifies for braces-I just found out it's a 9 month wait! I hope the endo isn't that backed up!

Go Team!

The soccer season is winding down. Our team needed a win away last night to continue to the playoffs. There was no stopping them!

The score was 2-0 in our favor at the half. I wasn't too confident of a win because the last game we were 3-0 at the half and lost. But the team was on fire last night!

3-0, then another quick goal, 4-0, then 5-0! Just a few seconds left in the game, the home team kicked the ball towards our goal, and the Firebird on defense charged up to the ball and power kicked it. From the 18 yard line. Going, going....is it going OVER the goal? Then it dropped and *swish*! In the goal net from 82 yards!

It was an incredible kick! I was jumping up and down screaming. Tears came to my eyes! The whistle blew, our goalie came dashing out of our goal and jumped on Firebird, legs around his waist, thumping him on the back. The rest of the team mobbed him. The coach said it was astonishing. Team mates and parents came up to congratulate him on the way to the car.

Um, I'm not bursting with pride, or anything...lol

The Firebird modestly said the wind took it.

We won 6-0.

A make-up away game tonight, then the playoffs. Woot!

Running behind

We went to the beach couple of days ago. There wasn't any surf to speak of, so the kids each dug a big hole til they hit water. Then the tide came in and in a few surges the holes were gone. There's a lot of energy in tides!

The fog was almost right up to the waterline, and a couple times I looked up the beach and saw the fog blowing in. The water was freezing!






Worked the farm all week while the bosses were out of state at a funeral. Poor old Balloo, one of the farmdogs, died before they left and we buried him Saturday.

R and young D helped me run some fence to keep the bucks out of the new upper pasture. The neighbors across the street, although they own a couple of Belgian horses, don't like the smell of bucks. Running that upper pasture may have been for naught. The bucks love the new big south pasture, and I just learned that the owner of the property wants it extended even more down through the woods!

A couple of goat injuries this week. My little brown Derek is favoring a front leg. The hoof seems fine, so I think he twisted the knee. Champion Homer at the farm suffered a major rear injury, unknown, up the length of the inside of his back thigh, and a spot on the top of the back- same hip. Willow and I love Homer and wish him a speedy recovery!

So a tumultuous week, looking forward to a great weekend and wishing the same for everybody!

Afternoon Walk

Saturday

Firebird CR

Today was a raptor day. This morning Willow spotted a golden eagle flying over the house. Then later we heard the call of a broad tailed hawk, and spotted a pair hunting right around the house. One would fly ahead, perch on a tree, and call, then the other flew up, and perched, still behind, and they tagged tandem out of sight through the woods.

We went fishing this afternoon, late. The Firebird went along and caught his first fish of the season, a small large mouthed bass. Now they are tied one each. Two folks had used boat trailers to put in bass boats, and in short time the first one came to put in.

We had a nice chat and learned their catch of the day was a 7 pound bass. The Firebird headed home after they left-Willow wanted to stay, but right away the second boat came in.

Younger guys, bigger boat, and they took more time then the first ones. The water in the cove was well murked up by then, so I convinced Willow we should head home and try again soon.

While the second boat trailer was backing up, Willow spotted a bald eagle flying down off the pond.

I am going to have to nick name her eagle-eye with all her sightings.

Trimmed Nicholas' hooves today and bug sprayed all the goats. Peko had a bath. It took three of us to drag him into the bathroom, but he is all soft and shiny now.

Fishing, tree climbing, and ice out?

Open water fishing began April first. We thought today there might be just enough open water to give it a go. Here is Willow, the determined, but disappointed, fisherwoman.


I managed to catch a tree (bobber dangling in middle of photo). Where is that tree-trimmer when you need him?

I turned over casting to the saplings, who managed much better, only snagging the ice floes a few times.


The Firebird managed a few excellent casts on his own, until he (wisely) gave up fishing, and retreated to his more preferred pastime, tree-climbing. Note the snowboots and t-shirt, while Willow is huddled in a snowcoat. ;)