I’m doing this in installments!
☆ September 26, 2012
OK, jaw-dropping response to my Q&A! Here’s installment #1 of answers, in no particular order. If I skipped yours, that does not mean I’m ignoring it, more to come…..
Shoes or barefoot?
When you pal around with beasts that weigh in well over 1000 pounds, it’s best you wear boots.
Your life seems so ideal and wholesome, do you have any “guilty pleasures”?
I read gossip blogs. It’s social research! Naw, it’s just a guilty pleasure….
As for wholesome, in real life I have the vocab of a sailor, I just try to keep it off the blog. In fact, that was the scariest part of being a substitute teacher ~ I was absolutely petrified I’d let a few f-bombs fly in front of a class full of innocent small-town fifth graders….
Are you content with having solely animal companions? Do you ever wish there were more humans in your activities? Or is internet contact fulfilling enough?
O.O And there I type my first bug-eye emoticon. I have wonderful humans in my life ~ I just don’t blog about them, respect for their privacy and all that.
I have a coyote howl question. I’ve lived in coyote areas all my life, heard and seen them passing through, taking up residence, pups and all, I have heard them howl and yowl and yap and scream, but one night i heard one say the weirdest thing and i have always wondered what that was about! It was one of those silent dark nights, there wasn’t any noise from wind or barn animals or dogs, cars or people. i stopped just to soak in the stillness. Suddenly from nearby there was a monotoned note, a long low coyote howl. It was just one note and it sounded very forced, not frolicky or excited like they usual sound. No other coyotes answered or joined in. i knew it was not a dog because it started with a tiny bit of the coyote high squeal they usually do. It sure puzzled me as to what was going on. It sounded a bit menacing but also a bit sad. After it stopped there was a long silence….and then all at once all the dogs in the area began to bark!! So often they never bark at coyote howlings, so they too recognized it as something different. My husband gave me your book when it first came out, it was so wonderful to read about your dear sweet Charlie!!! I thought, you of all people might know what emotion, activity or event might have been marked by that expression!
I think you heard a wolf. I’ve only heard a wolf howl once but it was exactly as you describe, and coyotes won’t answer a wolf.
What aspects, if any, of living in a more urban setting do you miss?
Restaurants ~ the diverse menus, the little low-light haunts. A hundred different bars to suit whatever mood you happen to be in, all non-smoking. The anonymity, being able to go somewhere where nobody knows your name. Art openings. Riding in elevators. I get to ride an elevator maybe once every 2 or 3 years.
Have you been doing any more medium format work? Any experiences with the equipment to share?
I haven’t ~ I don’t have anywhere to print, so I haven’t felt driven to shoot negs because it would drive me crazy to just loupe them! I have a Mamiya RZ67 and I love it so much.
Are yeh freezen yer arse off up there yet?
It’s coming….
How much wood do you lay by for winter – two cords or more?
ha ha ho ho…. about 11 cords between Mike and me.
Catch me up on your total critter count.
15: Eli, Charlie, Ranger, Chloe, Daisy, Sir Baby, Rue, Kettle, Mushy, Frisco, Flicka, Star, Fiona, Star Baby, Maia. And Fiona and Daisy are both pregnant, so two more on the way, in March and June, respectively!
Is there anything you still wish to have/accomplish in your life or are you content now as is?
I am content but not content in that way! There’s tons more I want to do and am working on and tons I haven’t thought of yet.
Weren’t you promising us a pic of your short hair? :-)
Yes! But then I realized I liked the fact that no one “out there” could really conjure my head since my hair changed so drastically. So I haven’t. Sorry!
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September 26th, 2012 @ 10:42 am
I love that you have the vocab of a sailor. Being from the east coast of Canada, I do too. :) But living here, very few of my US friends curse, so I feel very conspicuous when I do! I was just home for a couple of weeks and it was nice to feel normal if I dropped an F-bomb or two ;)
September 26th, 2012 @ 10:58 am
Thanks!
September 26th, 2012 @ 11:31 am
I too have a vocabulary that I tend to keep off the internet. :) Although recently I had a weak moment in a response to a post that I thought was on a private page. It was not on the private page but I decided to leave it up.
September 26th, 2012 @ 12:14 pm
Vocab of a sailor….. LOL…. This week – I was on the phone with the CEO’s admin when my computer that had 10 or 12 month end files for work open and in process of changing (not saved) decided to REBOOT all of a suddend. I spelled out C-R-A-P and I think she almost fell out of her chair laughing at me. She said “Pat, I have never herd you say something like that!” :) We have worked together 23+ years…. She doesn’t come to my desk often I guess.
Aw – Fiona is ‘with’ child… how sweet. Now I know Fiona is a cross – but is she more ‘milk’ cow like Daisy or ‘beef’ like her father? In other words – are you going to have so much milk you get to have nightly milk baths? (green with envy on that thought!)
And elevators are overrated unless you have a honey pie to kiss while on one. ;)
September 26th, 2012 @ 12:32 pm
so good to hear updates on so many fronts. Thank you, looking forward to the next one!
September 26th, 2012 @ 1:38 pm
You are amazing, as always :) And short hair??!!! I have been out of the loop so long!!
xoxox,
Sunny
September 26th, 2012 @ 2:02 pm
Ohhh this is so exciting… I love the answers!! Can’t wait for the next installment! Fiona and Daisy are with babies!!! Who are the daddys!!!
September 26th, 2012 @ 3:51 pm
funny that my heart is happier knowing you also are a fan of swearing. i think i couldn’t speak out loud if i had to remove fun words from my communication skills!
September 26th, 2012 @ 4:19 pm
I have no problem with other people using the F-word although personally I don’t say it – I DO think it occasionally, though – and it REALLY bugged me some time ago when my niece’s son threw it and other curses onto his Facebook page. I guess the Facebook people banned him after that. So, keep up the great blog, curses or not, and now I must ask – Fiona is pregnant? I didn’t think she was old enough to start having calves.
(My S.O. and I plan to start cross-country trips next year so if we end up in Ten Sleep can I call you to invite you to a meal?
September 26th, 2012 @ 4:53 pm
Re: Short Hair – Do you look anything like your picture on the back cover of “Eating Gluten Free”?
September 26th, 2012 @ 5:29 pm
Collateral vocabulary damage: my daughter-in-law: “what would your grandmother say if she saw your room like this? Grandkid “She’d probably call me a little shit.”
September 26th, 2012 @ 6:25 pm
N ~ ha, no. it’s way shorter
September 26th, 2012 @ 7:30 pm
addendum to ‘things i miss about living in the city’ you get to wear your fleuvogs? (although i will probably get in trouble again for answering for you)
September 26th, 2012 @ 7:43 pm
cracking up
September 26th, 2012 @ 8:24 pm
Wow, Daisy is preggers again!! She just calved didn’t she, how can she get k’d up again so soon?
September 26th, 2012 @ 10:13 pm
Daisy and Fiona?
Is Sir Baby the Baby Daddy?
Boy, are you going to be waist deep in milk!
Or are you planning on a small boutique milk or cheese production supply to the locals too?
September 27th, 2012 @ 2:29 pm
Wonderful questions. Wonderful answers.
My congrats to Fiona and Daisy. May their calves grow nice and healthy inside them and may the births be smooth as silk!
Interesting about the wolf howl. I don’t think I’d ever have thought of a wolf; maybe because we only have coyotes in the New York metro area (not many, but more every year).
And I forgot all about the promised photo of the short haircut. I’l bet it’s not that short any more though – unless you’ve kept clipping it. ;o)
Hugs to you and Mike and all the farmily!
T.
September 27th, 2012 @ 3:10 pm
To answer the mournful tune, yes was probably a wolf. I have heard wolves on Isle Royale MI. My favorite was my dog Ursa after hearing “The Wolves of Yellowstone” on PBS went out into the yard, climbed a snowbank and let loose with the sweetest and heart enduring howl. Now Ursa was a Chow x Lab mix, not given to barks or noise, growls, grunts, and sighs were her noises. That was the only time in her life for the howl. Afterword she came back in and climbed on the couch as if to say “There I got rid of my angst” and went promptly to sleep.
September 27th, 2012 @ 8:16 pm
to I Hermit…Aww, a lone howl for Ursa! Cute story to always remember, her call to the wild via PBS.
and to Shreve thank you for the wolf answer! i didn’t even think of that i guess because i hear so many coyotes here and was trying to figure out why a coyote would sound so solemn. I got chills when you said that (the good kind). Same chills we probably all feel each time you post a photo of Charlie looking right into your eyes. ((sigh))
September 28th, 2012 @ 4:38 am
Vocab of a sailor – me too! And now I am married to a son of retired missionaries. Do you have any idea how hard it is not NEVER let anything slip out even a “G D it” or worse? There was a situation once when we were all out of the country and almost hit a standing foreign cop whilst being barrelled down on by a huge bus. I yelled the S word. I just about died on the spot.
September 29th, 2012 @ 11:07 am
11 cords of wood!!?? holy crap. and i bitch about purchasing the 1.5 cords I burn…
and that number made me pause and consider the pioneers, when they came out, or even back east when the country was still young, all those houses having to heat themselves. That is a ton of wood! and a ton of work to turn it from trees into firewood. now we have all this fancy equipment, log-spliters and the like, for hacking up firewood, but back then… it was straight up hard work.
crazy. sorry, just a atngent…
October 3rd, 2012 @ 5:35 pm
I love that Sir Baby is counted twice… But then, he probably needs to be counted twice! LOL!
October 4th, 2012 @ 10:13 am
CH ~ nope, there’s Sir Baby and Star Baby :)
October 5th, 2012 @ 7:30 pm
I also watched Downton Abby, on Amazon Prime, season two is there also!
October 12th, 2012 @ 5:41 pm
I’ve been reading about rocket stove mass heaters recently, which can reduce the amount of wood you need. Sadly I don’t have anywhere to build one myself since I’m a renter. But if you’re interested in looking into it yourself, there’s more info on the forums at permies.com or an article at http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp
October 15th, 2012 @ 7:05 am
MMU ~ THAT IS AWESOME! Thank you so much for the link!!!
October 16th, 2012 @ 10:40 am
Just found another forum with lots of info and math about RSMHs: http://donkey32.proboards.com/index.cgi
One of the things that interest me about them is that the fire is tucked away while the heat comes from the barrel and cob/masonry. My 1.5yr old dog hasn’t yet learned to fear fire (since he sees me calmly stick my hand right in to place logs) and keeps trying to get close to the warm fireplace at my extended family’s cottage. With a RSMH he’d be happily & safely sleeping on a warm bench.
…If you end up building one of these for yourself, please be sure to use carbon monoxide & fire detectors! Things can go wrong when people build their own firey devices and from the sounds of it, designing proper air flow can be a bit tricky in RSMHs.