Almost Thanksgiving

The weather has been rather cold for bees, but at least we don't have 8 feet of snow on the ground, my sympathies and prayers to Buffalo, New York area!

My co-worker and I, the "outside kitties", have been busy readying the ten frame hives for shipment down south for the winter.

We have been averaging about 5o hives a day.  There are four hives to a pallet, and usually about four pallets to a "bee yard".

The town is a rural Maine farming community, must be good dirt up there, lots of farms, lots of owner builder camps.  Being an architect nut, I have been immensely enjoying driving from bee yard to bee yard on the  back roads.

The weather has been surprisingly compliant compared to the rest of the country; most of the bee yard locations are sheltered, and the early winter sun has made the job not as miserable as it could be.  There is still snow in the shady parts of the fields, but basically just crumbs.

We have a nice pace worked out.  We arrive at the yard and J starts hauling boxes of bee candy.  I grab the riobi drill and start shutting the entrance reducers on the first pallet, then move on to cracking the top covers while J moves on to the entrance reducers on the rest of the pallets.

Cracking the top covers is a bit like Christmas-what's under there? Are there a pile of bees on top of a queen excluder, buzzing and perhaps flying right at my face?  Will  I see a few bees? Will they be the bright yellow Italians, or the dark carniolans? Will I be met with dead silence and have to press my ear against the top of the frames and listen to detect a buzz in the lower super, or with a stillness that determines the hive is an "out"?

Depending on what I discover determines my next course of action.  If there is no queen excluder, I am to carefully place one on top of the frames and then two bricks of candy and then replace the cover.  Sometimes the inside of the cover is covered with honeycomb and bees.  Bees make use of available space, and I have just used that space up with candy and have to remove the comb to replace the cover.

Being a softy, I want to save every bee, even though by this point I usually have at least a dozen trying to get me through the gloves, pants, hood, back....

So I shake the cover over the candy, trying to get the bees off.  The owner can do this magically with a flick of the wrist, but either I am lacking in skill or the bees are just more tenacious when the temps are30 or a combinations of both....it just is not that simple.  So sometimes I lean the cover in front of the entrance while I am placing the candy, and then shake, and then thump a corner on the ground to get them in the corner of the cover so I can shake them in, but they are clinging little creatures and this usually involves several thumps and shakes and on a rare occasion results in a clump of bees on the ground near the entrance.

There was one hive today that I kept returning to, scooping up bees off the ground-they ball up when cold- and trying to shake them into the entrance to save them.  My seniors on the job scoff at this behavior, but in my greeness I feel every bee matters and keep returning to try and save every stray bee, knowing that a bee too long outside the hive will just freeze to death.  I have flicked many off my coat that had died in  place.

Sometimes they burrow into the folds of whatever-and hours later come crawling out of what feels like every orifice ....and  I have bees emerging from my clothes in the car, the grocery store, my home...

Because when you are working the whole day outside in these temps, you dress in layers.  I found my bee coat doesn't quite come down over my hoodies.  The first few days this week I left my bee hood off until I had to, and then bees had worked their way inside the hoods of my coats.  I wear a sleeveless tank long enough to tuck in, a long sleeved shirt, a fleece hooded coat, and two hood sweatshirts and then the bee coat.  I wear a pair of sweatpants and a pair of jeans.  I gave up on the leather bee gloves this week-the sleeves are just a pain to get over the bee coat and they get cold wet and slimy-and wear a pair of insulated gloves. The bees haven't managed to sting through them yet, although they have been trying. 

Generally if I get a lively hive that comes at me, I back off and start flicking them off, hoping they haven't suicided on me yet and might get back to their hive before they freeze to death.

So it's been a lively week...

The Firebird is getting enquires from colleges about soccer recruitement, just not the colleges he has applied/been accepted to.  So I hope wheerever he settles he will be able to continue with soccer.

The Willow has had artwork accepted to hang at the capital.

My freezer is filled with turkeys @ 59 cents a pound.

Turkey turkey turkey.

Almost September

Things have been mostly quiet on the predator front.  I finally gave up and cleaned out the accumulation of guinea eggs after the willow complained about the odor the other day.  I dumped them on the compost pile, which I had been avoiding because I didn't want to draw any egg loving critters.

Later that night we heard some screaming before midnight, and I think it might have been coons fighting over eggs or maybe a skunk and a coon having a disagreement over them.  But the predatory mammals seem to have learned there is a hot line here after dark and have left the live ones alone.

Not so our friend the barred owl.  The Firebird takes care of the geese, and he likes to wait until near dark to lock them in at night.  Deepening dusk night before last, I heard a god awful goose yell followed by a loud "HOO!" and bolted out the back door.

A very large owl took flight from the edge of the goose fence, over the pen into the woods.  I sent the Firebird right out to lock up the geese. I directed the Willow to look up barred owls in the Audobon Field Guide, and it seemed they preferred smaller prey than full grown ganders.  So I assume that the owl was waiting for the mice and whatnot that come out at night to clean up the spilled goose grain...(geese are sloppy feeders)

I have seen small sparrows in the goose pen pecking at the spilled grain, with the geese a few feet away, and it is a funny sight to see a bird a few inches long  feeding almost at the feet of a large gander,.

***

We rented Noah a week or so ago.  Right as the movie started, the heavens opened up and it rained buckets.  The sun stayed out.  I ran from one window to the next expecting to see a rainbow, but one never appeared.  The rainbow is supposed to be God's promise that he will not destroy life with flood again and the origins are from Noah and the Flood.

So I was very taken aback but the torrential rain and sun and no rainbow just as the movie Noah was starting!  (I didn't think much of the movie, btw.)

Here is a pic that doesn't really capture what I was seeing out the window:

 ***

The Willow and I were able to catch one of the Firebird's soccer games yesterday.  The team played very well, Firebird as stopper all but 10 minutes of the game.  We saw the JV game for a few minutes, and it emphasized how far the varsity has come along, almost looking like a pro team in comparison to the JV.

***

The Willow doesn't start school until next week, so we have been trying to make the most of the last few days .  Tonight we fired up the old wood cookstove out back, the Willow loading and lighting and maintaining it on her own.  I made the burgers yum!

The Ass end of August

wow that was summer?

Two separate sign thermometers flashed 86F at 430 pm today, and I was clad in a long sleeved shirt and jeans.

The house has been cold and damp, temps at night have been kissing 40 and the sun dipping lower with each day passing just does not give the house enough recovery time.

Mold has been starting to creep in the ground level.

The weathermen seem oblivious, claiming that we are below normal for August in temps-having spent 35 Augusts here I will be the first to tell you that Maine is wet and chilly in August.  If you don't get your summer in by the end of July you better be ready to wait a year.

We do have micro climates here-our location at the end of the pond with a stream for frontage does give us a lot more moisture this time of year.  We also have snow on the ground long past the neighbors, since snow blows off the pond all winter and dumps in our front yard.

The garden is really floundering.  The last few years I have sworn that I am going to give up attempting to grow vegetables.  We have been harvesting a few purple beans.  And a single zuccini.  You know things are bad when you have one zuccini by August 20 and no signs of more.  The beans and zuccini were very tasty in a homemade pasta alfredo last night.

We have one early girl tomato turning red.  No pumpkins setting fruit.  The acorn squash look good.  One nice stretch of days I made my way into the garden to find the acorn squash had gone nuts and climbed over the early girls and two rows of beans.  I waded in and pinched the grasping tendrils of their clutches and hauled the squash vines back in their assigned places.

Yeah, I have been busy and not finishing anything,  started trying to repair the torn building paper on the side of the house and went as high as I dared on the ladder and called it off until I could build or beg staging or a higher ladder.  The house is 23 feet on that side.

Been working on the subbie, spent 5 hours digging out a clogged EGR pipe thinking for sure that was the cause of the trouble, and had it run worse than ever afterwards.  Have some spark plug wires on order since it is not firing at all on number one and barely on number 3 and the coil pack is good,  Could be a head gasket, a death knoll for Betsy.

Summer soccer came and went, The Firebird performing well.  Tryouts just ended, Captain of the Varsity team.  :)  And a senior!  The college brochures have been pouring in.  We are both suffering separation anxiety already. 

his senior pictures are coming due,  We went across to the dam and down the stream and I took about 50 pictures over two days, and I think we finally found a keeper.  I decided to have the Willow snap one of the two of use, rather impromptu, but I knew I would want to hold the moment in my heart.

Tempus Fugit.

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!

sometime in the middle of summer

I know the middle of summer is upon me here in Maine when the goldenrod starts to bloom. I mark that as my half point, and I was rather aghast this morning to see the heavy, ripe heads ready to burst into bloom roadside.

Because I have thoroughly blown half the summer away with none of my summer projects even past the concept stage.

But< I have been putting extra days in at the farm; the bosses having gone to Europe for ten days, and one of my co-workers who was covering nights is taking two weeks on the heels of that. And my other co-worker took time off over the holiday.

So I am enjoying spoiling the crap out of the animals under my care. :)

The day begins at the main barn, with all the does and wethers and kids not weaned or sold. And those does are on a time frame! I walk into the barn and they hustle into their places eyes watching me. Except little Lori, who I have alway obliged and spoiled rotten and fed first since the birth of her first born. The only trouble is, her buckling went away for weaning hot on the heels of her mother having triplets, so her Momma became the priority.

Tuesday Little Lori had enough, and inserted herself between me and her mother's pen, which I was trying to clean around her yelling Momma and three tiny siblings. Lori wanted her grain, across the aisle, first. I scooted her over and locked her up and fed her after her Momma.

Today I had a co-worker, and I was running a bit late. He chuckled later as he confided that Lori ran into her pen as soon as I entered the barn. Goats are too darn smart. She knew I would get to her and she was to wait in her pen. LOL.

ok, that's my cute goat story for tonight.

Guess you had to be there to see little Lori trying to shoulder me away from her mother's pen and look me in the eye and say, "you're late! feed me first!"

***


Summer soccer is really something else. At least we had two refs tonight, but that didn't prevent at least three of our guys getting hurt. Our goalie lunged for a ball and took a knee to the back as an opposing team member somersaulted over him, and our goalie ended up limping off the field clutching his lower back. I later learned he has a history of back trouble.

Our number one player ended up flat on the back after being kicked in the stomach and the other team snickered in their huddle while he recovered and hobbled off the field. The refs called a face off on that one, and our team urged the sub coach to get the hurt player back in so he could get revenge.

Another player took a face plant on the turf and took a moment to recover and no one even looked twice. He should have been pulled and checked for concussion.

Plus many trips, kicks, slams, etc, dirty playing after middle school...

Our regular coach has been on vacation; the sub coaches are recently graduated seniors who are heavily playing the older players. Now I am one of the parents that gets to watch their kid in for 10 minutes the whole game.

The Firebird is learning a lot by observing, however, and considering how balls-to-the-walls rough those teenage American boys get on the soccer field with minimum supervision, that may be a good thing.

Persistence

How many times can you blue screen a PC trying to connect online and still keep trying? :D

I have my wheels situation taken care of: in three years I ought to be able to afford to address the PC issue. ;)

I am actually the proud owner and insured of two vehicles at the moment. In my true pessimistic fashion, I kept the old beater registered and insured just in case. Good thing, since I lost the only set of keys to the "new" one in the grass plugging in the electric fence and had to dash to the farm, saplings in tow, in the, currently known as, "the Death Trap."

And she was old faithful-plugging down the dirt roads in forward and reverse (doing fence work up a narrow road). Until we pulled in the end of the drive, and she became once again, "Bessie" when she coughed and stalled just as we returned home.

I glanced at the saplings, wondering if the three of us would be able to push it out of the way, before she fired up in a belch of running-too-rich fumes and made it safely back to her spot out back.

Gawd, how can you send that to the crusher?

196,000 and the body has rotted out around the frame, gotta love Maine winters...

****

The Firebird is kicking some serious summer soccer butt. Now an incoming Freshman, summer soccer is a take all comers game with a range of 13-17 year olds. And only the hard cores, of course.

A couple of the incoming Freshman were star players at schools he was playing against last year in middle school. Now they are his teamates, the cream of the crop. The varsity players are something to watch,strong young men that have years of soccer under their belts.

But the Firebird is tall for his age, and fearless, running right up to steal the ball or fall flat on his face trying, and not afraid to head bump or body block. He's getting some valuable experience playing with and against varsity players. And I have to admit, I love hearing other Moms cheering him on for a move well played.

Yeah, we get serious in High School :D



One of the few blue players with white socks, I call him white legs. :D

Wednesday

Don't I have original titles? LOL

We went to the sports awards ceremony tonight. Cross country and Girl's soccer went first. Both coaches said a little bit about each team member before awarding their certificates. Then each coach selected three players on their team for trophies. The girl's soccer coach awarded the principal the championship trophy.

It was a nice opportunity to hear about the other athletes.

Then it was our turn. Our coach is such a softie he welled up, crumpled up his speech, and, behind his box of tissues, quickly called each of the team for their certificate. He then turned to the trophies, and called Phoenix first! We were very happy!

I did get some of my test results back. Definitely serious thyroid issues. My TSH was <.01. The good news is that my sugar, electrolytes, kidney and liver were all normal. I am worried about my heart though, my resting pulse is 100 and blood pressure 128/48.

I am being referred to an endocrinologist. I can't wait to feel better!

Was a good fight

but we lost our semi-final game. Our opponents were undefeated and playing on their home turf. The frost had kicked back the thick turf, but last night's downpour left the field a marsh. Everyone on our team had mud on them, some worse than others.

I'm looking forward to basketball season. :D

Monday

Water's back in the well, yay, and more rain coming.

We've had our hard frost, so all the tender annuals are gone. The foliage is still blazing. The Beech and Red Oak have come on strong with the cold- bright orange and red and gold.

I have been having some nagging health issues; racing pulse, short of breath, weight (and strength) loss, trembling. I bottomed out at 112 pounds, and eventually called in for a checkup. They took me in that afternoon.

After telling me that my size was the envy of all in the clinic and quickly changing it to I looked like a concentration camp victim, (shows where today's fashion leads us)
and noting that I am off the bottom of the BMI chart, hyperactive thyroid was diagnosed as the likely culprit. Basically the result is that your metabolism speeds up.

I go for loads of bloodwork tomorrow and a yet to be scheduled thyroid ultrasound in the near future.

Please say a prayer for me, I could use a little strength right now!

Another playoff soccer game tomorrow. We play an, as yet, undefeated team on their home field. Our star forward is out on academic suspension. The coach told the Firebird at practice today he is going to play him as forward and told him to shoot as much as he can.

I took my goats out for a walk on the property today for a little back to nature. The didn't act too ravished-obviously they've been topping off with all the falling leaves. We had a great walk down to the stream. I enjoyed watching their reaction when they saw the water moving.

Cricket has turned out to be the leader, and Badger the lagger. We went up and around the electric fence. I could tell they were happy to get to some of that stuff on the other side! I found a couple beautiful pieces of quartz. One of them was pretty big. I could barely lift it, but I insisted on carrying it to the fenceline.

Then I had one of those nasty short of breath spells where I felt like I was hyperventilating and tried to meditate to calm myself. The same thing happened loading at Home Depot a couple weeks ago and both times I thought "Ok, I going to black out and they are going to find me here."

*draws a little image of a toppled tree*

Thursday

I had an enlightening moment at the farm this morning.

There are two does visiting from New york for breeding. The three are down by the road in a horse corral. When I arrived, there was a nun in full habit. She was from New York, and had brought the does. We had a nice conversation, then I went about my usual routine.

Later, at break time, I had some grain left from the hill, and since the pen was by our break spot, I stuck my hand into the fence with some grain to make friends with the new does.

I had personally installed two strands of three inch electric horse tape over the 3 foot woven sire fencing to prevent the horses from leaning over the fence and destroying it.

Today I was wearing a pair of jeans that had the knee ripped out, and the bare knee was touching the wire fence, and then my chin touched the electric line. I was hit with 10,000 volts from my chin grounding out my knee, and was thrown several feet flat on my back, with a shouted swear. I laid there for several moments wondering if my heart was going to start beating again.

P and R came off the hill and thought the buck was out because they thought I shouted "buck!" ok, you get the idea. I took such a hit, there are three small burn marks on my knee and a good sized swelling along with some bruising.

The Firebirds soccer team made the playoffs and won their game today 4-1 in the rain.

I finally remembered to pull out my cam, but I had the speed settings off so anything moving fast is a little blurry. I sure don't see a future in sports photography! LOL

We are in all blue, the Firebird deetermined to keep the ball on the opposing team's side.


Here he gets some help from our ace forward.



On the way back from a goal! But why are their heads down?



Oh, they're a little winded!

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!

Sunday

Lazy lazy Sunday! I'm house sitting for K, so I did manage to be slightly productive when I tucked the five does and two German Shepherds in for the night. The K family is at Fryeburg Fair this week.

Bosses were away this weekend as well; a show in Vermont. Mr Boss took two weanling does in the back of the Subaru; Boss took four bucks in the truck. Three wild ones and a rubbing pissy pest! lmao. (Chris, though I love him, once urinated on a handler at a show. Willow loves to tell that story! You also can't get a collar on Chris without him vigorously rubbing whatever part of you he can reach with his stinky face.) Saturday buck chores were a lot easier with only eleven and the trouble makers out of state. I do favor the yearling Bo out of Bonnie and Zeus. His bright blue eyes and white accents are so charming. He was reticent to go in the truck-I leaned forward and said, "don't worry Bo, you're going to a show, you'll have fun," while he looked at me with those bright blues, lol.

***

Three soccer games this week. Our last game was away and we kicked some serious soccer butt. We won 5-1. The first time we played the team, we lost 3-1, and our one was almost a mercy goal twenty feet from the goal on a hard foul free kick. (ok, obviously don't know proper soccer lingo...lol)

The Firebird was talking about the last game:

"Once I reached out and flicked the ball away as he(the opposing team player) was going to kick it and he kicked my foot instead and went over backwards."

"Another time I put my foot on the ball and stopped the ball and the kid flew right over it."

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"They started to get afraid of me after that."

The team was on fire! They needed a good win! Yeah!

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Well's STILL dry. The ground water table is very low! Don't let all those weather reports of torrential rains on the east coast fool you...we had a lot of wind, enough to knock out the power briefly early Friday morning and leaving me stranded on the downstairs couch in the uttermost blackness you can imagine...fumbling my way to bathroom and bedroom absolutely blind, hands out ready to crack a shin or step on a cat...but only a bit of rain late Friday-not nearly enough! Maybe rain tomorrow!

Color is high, although the wind took care of a lot of the early maple and ash.Beech is turning, looks like early color this year. Frost warnings up tonight.

Praying Mantis

R and I were walking the bucks at Prescott and saw three praying mantis hanging upside down on the old clapboards. I thought the bucks might have scared them up to safety, and then R saw this one catch a spider. So perhaps it was just good hunting!

The farm took in 6 bucklings from another farm. They are all sons of our beloved Zeus,who was killed (now the word is perhaps by a BEAR) protecting the herd of does he was breeding. Three of the weanling bucklings are from the same doe! One is a black and white badger with short guard hair. The other two are brown badgers with lighter enormous droopy ears! What a cute trio!

Then there are two white boys with wattles and blue eyes! And the last is a dark brown that looks the most like his sire. Counting recuperating Homer, there are 17 bucks on the hill. 15 mature ones at Prescott. That's a lot of buck!

I am looking for a replacement vehicle. The bank has agreed to loan me some used car money...for 10% interest! I think that's pretty steep for a bank loan considering how low interest rates are supposed to be! But I'll take it and be glad of it!

Haven't had a frost yet, but the tomato plants have expired. Waiting for our pumpkins to turn orange. Praying for a foot of rain. Enjoying being a soccer Mom!

The Firebird saved the goalie at tonight's game. The goalie came out to grab the ball, and it got away from him. The goal was wide open and one of the opposing team was almost in with the ball. The Firebird dashed in, stole the ball, and got it out of there! The goalie was so happy he hugged The Firebird and said, "Thanks, I love you!"

Willow and I were on the bleachers tonight with some other home team parents, and the Firebird came right up to our sidelines trying to steal the ball. He is so tall he was running behind the kid with the ball and reaching his feet around to get the ball. We had a big chuckle out of that!

Our big football type defense player, D, was on the sidelines when we got to yesterday's game, holding an icepack to his face. I later learned that he had collided with a kid from the other team and chipped his tooth into the kid's head. OUCH! I am glad we missed that! D was back in the game today, but he looked a little off and kept taking his mouthguard out.

They don't have another game until Wednesday, so D ought to be healed by then. Yeah, I'm hooked, soccer is a blast!

Missing Post

I posted yesterday and it's gone. Mercury retrograde!

I am officially a soccer Mom. The Firebird had his first game Friday. They lost 1-3. Our team has a lot of potential! I had a great time watching the game! At his age the kids are really starting to show some serious talent! Go team!!!

I finally cleaned the chimney and touched up the roof yesterday. The nights here are down in the forties. I went from having every window in my room wide open 24/7 to BRRR!

Lots to do today but nothing carved in stone. I love those days!