The Missing "s" Game. AKA, the post with an anti-lisp and no understanding of plurals.

(The "s" key is no longer working on my keyboard, so I'm pasting it in this intro for your information. I may leave it out a bunch in the post below because it is slowing me down. If a word doesn't make sense, check to see if it is missing an "s." I know you can do it! I've seen how some of you text.)

I learned in Herpetology that if you drop a frog into really hot water, it will realize omething i wrong and jump out, but if you drop it into temperate water which you lowly heat up, you can boil the frog and it won't realize it i dying. Along thee line but in revere, Bill and I often pend many night hivering before we realize it i time to turn on the heat. But, ometimes in Autumn we take a trip and come back to coldness, giving u a clear indication that it i time to make fire. Thi wa one of thoe year. There i a firing burning a I hare the photo with you.

Thi pat weekend we went to Rhinebeck for the NY heep and Wool Fetival. It i the firt year where I've known lot of fetival-goer and had a great time meeting o many lovely, happy knitter.

Of coure, I bought tuff too.

There i ome ock yarn in there and a few kein of heavier-weight longwool for hat. (Now that miing "s" i uddenly noticeable, eh?)

My firt top wa at Into the Whirled for pinning fiber. When I wa holding it all in my hand, thi pound felt like a lot, but now that I'm far away from a purchaing opportunity, it doe't eem like enough.

I alo picked up a fancy pindle. I've been practicing on a "tudent pindle" which i large and brutish. My new one i a Bosworth made of Red Cedar. 17g/.6 ounce. In ampling, I can tell that it i more refined and allow me to pin much finer yarn. I like it. It make me feel more dainty.

It wa a good trip!

Chili and chickens (and goats)

I'm not a very good food blogger and always worry I make things look far less appetizing than they are...but here's what we've been eating this week - local chili:

It's totally time for chili. The beef was purchased directly from the farmer the tomatoes and peppers are from our garden. Bill made the bread and the beer is a home brew. Yummo.

These pumpkins have been dedicated to the highest purpose to which a squash can aspire - pumpkin ale. We bottled it this week and just have to wait a bit while it carbonates. Waiting!!!

This is Minion, the youngest chick we have. He was odd and unexpected and is still totally attached to his mom even though they should really being going their separate ways by now. Basically, he's a big baby.

On the other side of that coin are the Patooties (as in Cutie Patooties), a pair of chickens that were raised by a turkey along with their sister Duck (who clearly has identity issues). The turkey hen is not convinced that her babies are big enough to be on their own yet and is still trying to mother them. The Patooties rather think they are sheep, though, and spend most of their day in the pasture.

The goats are doing well:

Whenever I see these kittens playing or cuddling together it makes me unreasonably happy that we could keep them together. When we went to the Humane Society we knew we wanted "up to two kittens" and  chose these guys because they were the only siblings. I mean, all the kittens were adorable and any that we brought home would have been wonderful, but these guys tug at my heart strings. I'm sure they don't remember, but they had a tough go early in life and whenever I think I of the long, cold night they spent together abandoned outside Animal Control, and the illnesses they battled through as result, I am so glad they still have each other for snuggling. And biting. And squirrel watching.

26-Year-Old Me would never believe this post

One of the side effects of having a farm and only one income is that we travel way less than we did when we had two incomes and zero farms. This is to be expected - and here's the part where the 26 year-old version of me gets skeptical - I don't mind it. I actually rather dig it.

For the first few years of farm ownership (when we had two incomes but were working on our plan to give up one of them), this bothered me a bit and I grudgingly thought about how we used to travel and how we weren't doing that anymore. Consider:

We spent my 29th birthday in St. John snorkeling, drinking rum, and enjoying a tropical paradise even as a plethora of spring break hooligans invaded the campground, including a young gentleman who chose to make monkey noises whenever he laughed. Very loud monkey noises all through the night.

We spent my 30th birthday in New Zealand being amazed at volcanoes, glaciers and wine. In between those birthdays we were fortunate to take two additional short vacations (Vegas and Iceland) and visit with our families in NY. Plus, we lived in DC at the time, so every day held opportunities for local tourism. Except for eating fabulous food, my most fond emotional attachment to living in DC was having the responsibility-free lifestyle and ability to travel to new places.

After my 30th birthday, we took our life in a different direction, and a year later I was shoveling poop out of a barn in Indiana. I don't know if I realized at the time that the barn would eventually hold turkeys...or that I would find turkeys to be a giant pain in the butt...or that I would ever utter the sentence I whispered to Bill earlier this week.

Are you ready?

Bill left work early one day and stopped at the cheese store, a beer store and a cupcakery and brought home these delights.

We spent the evening eating, playing games, and tending to the animals. As we walked out in the twilight to put the farm to bed for the evening, I told Bill I had a delightful evening and it felt like a vacation - just the simple joy in having a couple of extra hours together and sharing food that we don't have often, made the whole day feel special. Also, I was really, really pleased that we could have a vacation where I dressed in pajama pants for dinner and didn't need to interact with TSA.

I realized that I didn't miss the opportunities to travel at all. (That's not to say that I wouldn't take a free trip to Rome if anyone out there wants to offer...)

I think it takes practice and mindfulness to find honest joy and contentment in the really simple things, and to be pleased with where you are and not just where you wish you were. I am so very, very fortunate to know many people who have cultivated this sort of outlook and I thank them for their influence on me (surround yourself with happy people!).

It may look like it was just a few hunks of cheese and some cupcakes, but really, it was a revelation.