February 23, 2005 – Guiness Book Socks?

We finally had a sunny, calm day. I managed to get one chain saw gas tank of wood cut up but not hauled and piled. Also worked some more on surveys of on-farm stores and local consumers.

Today I finally attacked the mismatched sock pile. Is there a world record for mismatched socks for a household? I managed to reunite 54 pairs of socks with partners. How does a family manage to accumulate 108 socks with partners that are not matched up? Is it matter of good fortune? Dumb Luck? Neglect? And how can the family function with 54 pairs of socks out of the rotation? Indeed, it appears the age of miracles is still with us.

February 22, 2005 – Worlds Colliding

Today was a 12 hour office day. The hours were just a pause in a greater adventure. I started reading Dan Brown’s Deception Point last night about 8:00 and read until I fell asleep, read during breakfast, during lunch and when I got home until the book was finished. I knew the book had took hold when it was more real than the real world. A check of Yahoo! news always left me momentarily surprised that the meteorite discovery and espionage were not headlining the news. Each glance at the TV in the break area left me disappointed that the video feed from the events was not being shown as described in the book.

For anonymous: “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
Pablo Picasso

February 21, 2005 – Dark Walker

Today was too much computer time – continued work on updating web pages (not yet published), working on surveys for the on-farm store, LLC draft documents, and getting the news that a 50 lb bag of organic turkey food jumped from $11 last summer to $17 today. Must be a good time to be an organic grain farmer!

After dinner, I needed to get out, so Claire and Martin and I went out for a walk in the evening darkness. Martin (age 3) was initially bewildered how you could go out for a walk at night without a light. He keeps a light on in his closet, and from his vantage point, looking out the window, it does look pretty dark out there.

We walked to the back pasture, Martin bravely walking behind us. He tired after about 10 minutes of walking, so Claire hoisted him up on her back. He soon tired of holding on, so he walked again. When we decided it was time to go back, we asked Martin to be our “dark walker” and lead us back home. There was a light snowfall, so it was cloudy, but not as dark as it could have been. He took his duty seriously and marched us right back home without delay.

February 20, 2005 – Dead Dogs on the Side of the Road

Another grey, wet/snowy muddy day. After church the “Secret Friends” lunch was held. As Martin is too small to have a secret friend, his secret friend (Dad) took him out to lunch. He was very grown-up sitting across from me, snarfing his beef-broccoli stir fry. As we were driving to the restaurant, we saw a policeman and Martin said the policeman was gong to lunch. When we left, we met a policeman at the door and he stopped and chatted with Martin and handed out some police deputy stickers! Doesn’t get much better than that.

Linda and Claire went for a walk and April took off from them and they had to return later to get her. They also (the dogs) found a dead dog in the ditch. They didn’t recognize it and wondered if it was just dumped there? It must have been a bad week for dogs as two families in church had to put their dogs asleep as well. We also were planned to host a 4-H “dog agility” training today that was canceled. Hmmm.

February 19, 2005 – Catch a Breath

Today allowed some non-task time. The morning was the Growing Your Small Market farm class, followed by an hour of college basketball (Cyclones eking one over #2 Kansas). It was rainy/snowy outside, so no more woodcutting or anything else of consequence, although I did drag the waste boards and Christmas wreathes to the burn pile. Linda missed class because she was showing 4-H kids how to make soap. I was able to start revamping the web site, which as Linda says “is like quilting for me.”