Day after Christmas

Sometimes I forget that this blog is about the chickens, as well as the dogs and me.  Of course not much changes in the lives of the girls, but last week I gave them a treat.  I enlarged their pen to include the narrow space between my house and the one next door.  From there they could go into the piece of fenced-in area I've made outside the back door.  They were quite intrigued by the new space and have enjoyed investigating it.  They can come up to the back door and poop  on the step........a factor I failed to consider in advance.  Still, it will snow soon and their world will become much smaller.  They may as well have a little time to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather.  I managed to get them all together for the picture by offering them pieces of apple, a big treat.




Today is the day after Christmas, which I celebrated in grand style.  Now we will be settling into winter.  It's late this year.  We've had not a flake of snow.  The weather report today is that snow is headed our way, but most of it will be north of us.  In fact, we may have only rain here along the coast.  The longer the snow stays away, the better as far as I'm concerned.  The memory of last winter's record-setting snowfall is still too fresh.  Kendall and I took advantage of the sunshine to visit her horse Charlie.  We groomed him and took him for a walk down a dirt road near the place where he is now being boarded.  People who don't relate to horses can't understand the pleasure we get from just being around them.  I don't understand it myself, but I was so happy for the opportunity to spend an hour or so in their company. 

Practice

Practicing loading with my new camera.....the other one gave up the ghost finally, and I can't say that I blame it.  I had tortured it to the point that it refused to work at all.  I had to buy a new one, which I hope will be at least relatively free of problems.  I still can't download pictures as easily as I could from Picasa, but at least I can do it in three steps.

This is a picture I just took from my seat at the computer.  I didn't edit it to make everything look nicer, but it's looking from the end of the dining room down the hall to the front door.  My current knitting project is on the floor........a complicated sweater pattern that will probably take me all winter to complete.  The piano seems to dominate the room, though that's not so true in reality.  I have made a pledge to practice the piano every day and so far have pretty much kept it.  I've chosen two pieces from the movie "The Piano."  They are not easy for me by any means, but neither are they impossible.  I love the music, so I don't mind hearing it over and over again.  It took me more than a week to manage the first two lines of the first piece, but I kept at it with dogged determination. In the past I have jumped from piece to piece, never really doing a very good job on any of them.  I stumble over the notes and give up.  I feel I owe it to the piano as much as to myself to dig in and really accomplish some degree of expertise.  It's been a humbling experience over my lifetime that I can't really do it very well.  I taught myself as a pre-teen, then began to take lessons after I started high school.  I have not to this day been able to overcome the bad habits I learned before I knew what I was doing.  Well, it's never too late.........or so I hope.

There is still no snow on the ground, and I actually didn't need a coat when I went out today.  I have to keep in mind, though, that the horrendous winter we had last year didn't really gather steam until after Christmas.   We all appreciate every day that we look out our windows and still see grass and dry ground.

New Pyrography

I
I couldn't resist posting this bigger than usual, just because it is so big in reality.....about 2 1/2 by 3 !/2 feet.  I've been working away at it for several days.  I don't get sick of spending hours at a time burning tiny holes into wood.  Go figure.