Hold onto your Phillies hat! (credit to Little Sis for this title)

Here comes Hurricane Sandy! I am more worried about NJ with the renters in our old house and Little Sis down there too, but even central NY is supposed to get high winds and a lot of rain. The house here at Lester's Flat is on a high and dry spot, so the wind is more of a concern than the flooding, but we have more critters and more buildings up here to worry about. We are hoping the 3 sheds and our little satellite coop by the garage will protect all the little ones...

Speaking of critters to worry about, the Wood Man made his way across the highway again to go and visit with the horses. I really need to work on keeping him on the back 40, where he can't get into any trouble. In fact, we did start our walk down by the creek, and he stayed with me the whole time down there, but when he got back, he put the ear-lock on. He stared me right in the eyes when I called, and then he ran across the busy road.

He is actually more interested in the kittens inside the barn than the horses. Tiny as they are, they stand up to him, inches away from his big barking mean-boy face. I think that's why they are so interesting—he doesn't know what to make of them. I truly hope that one of them scratches him so that he finally learns that cats are not toys…or dinner. I wish he could learn that lesson in here, but our cats are still hiding on the second floor.

Trouble is his middle name, or maybe we need to call him Hurricane Woody. I thought he might have settled down a bit by now, but every time I think we are making progress, he gets wacky all over again.

This little video will give you a good idea of how much Sophie appreciates her new wack-a-doodle family member! At least this old girl can still give him what-for, just like the kittens.

A typical wild night at Lester's Flat

 

These were taken a few days ago, but will give you an idea of how wild and crazy we regularly are here at Lester's Flat. I'm not sure who wins the "Strike a Pose for the Camera Contest", but let's just say that no one put a lot of effort into it...

Sophie probably put in the least effort, but at least she managed to include the Super Timothy feed bag/seat cover, The Hometown Oneonta newspaper (my new place of employment) and a copy of Dwell Magazine. Apparently reading makes her sleepy.

After a dry summer, the beginning of fall has been wet and grey. I tried to finish painting the goat shed before the weather got nasty, but was barely able to finish the front of it. Prime time for staining is at least 48 hours after rain, AND when rain is not expected for 24-48 hours after the stain is applied, AND it has to be above 50° long enough for the stain to dry completely...I think another 24 hours...

Unless an Indian summer kicks in soon, the shed won't get finished until April or May!

Frank Sinatra comes to Lester's Flat!

Old Blue Eyes (his eyes really are lighter than the others!) joined Steve and Eydie in the pig pen today. After a conversation with Cousin Greg, who said he and Cousin Chris want in on the pig project, we decided to get a third piggie, same age as the others, about 9 weeks old.

The people who sold us Frank said he had the biggest personality of the 13 that survived in the litter of 17. He grunted the whole way home in the car telling us the very interesting story of his short life thus far.

Pigs are the least amount of work, and probably need less feed than the goats because they love the table scraps and garden leftovers. You can see they are quite happy chowing down on tomatoes and corn, although with the freezing temperatures expected tonight, those garden leftovers won't be edible for too much longer.

You might also notice that Eydie isn't camera shy. That's her with a big chunka tomato hanging out of her mouth.

Got the woodstove fired up in here today for the first time this season. Poor little Frank has a less hairy coat than the others, he might be a bit chilly out there tonight! Let's pray they welcome him into the pig pile to keep him warm!

Have you seen the little piggies?

Piggies, round 2: Eydie, the gilt (female), and her smaller brother, Steve, the barrow (castrated male). It will be interesting to see if Steve outweighs Eydie after a few months of good eats. He was one of the runts of the litter.

The second pic is the beauty shot of Eydie. We picked them up on Sunday from the same guy who gave us Rick and Michelle. They were good healthy pigs the last time around, and we expect the same this time.

I will get better photos when they are finally allowed out of the new goat shed and into the sunlight. Until I get the goat shed painted, at least in the front that faces the pen, and until we finish putting up the rest of the fence, the goats have to stay in the old pig shed, and the little piggies get the whole huge goat shed to themselves. As they are still in shock from being taken from their Mama and siblings, they don't know what they are missing and are quite happy where they are.

Check it out large (click on the photos) they both have long red eyelashes/eyebrows! Very cute, although hard to see with all the hay in the way!

One little tornado, too many tomatoes and just enough chickens

September weather has been just perfect. Except for a little tornado that swept through our little town, just skirting the far side of our property and taking down several trees, we've been having the warm sun and cool temperatures that make Fall so pretty up here. The leaves are just beginning to change color, which usually doesn't start until October.

The Husband's garden has been enjoying the perfect weather as well. Even though he has been battling the groundhogs for control, the garden still produced about 4 times as many tomatoes as the ones shown here, a large crop of sweet corn, plenty of pumpkins, squash, peppers... Thankfully the freezer full of pork is no longer full, so we have been making and freezing tomato sauce, tomato/corn salsa, gazpacho, and sometimes just peeled tomatoes when I get too lazy to do the rest of the work.

There are only 3 eggs left under the broody hen. She started with 5 or 6, then the other hens started laying eggs on top of hers, then they (or she) broke some of them... I had to close her up in a crate by herself to keep track of what is going on in there. I have no idea if the 3 remaining eggs are going to hatch, or if they are just rotten by now. If they do hatch, it should happen soon.

Either way, we still have 13 hens and the original Rotten Roo. You can see him proudly protecting his little women in the photo. Not sure what will happen when winter comes and they can no longer easily make their way from the coop back to the house. Lately all they do is sleep in the coop, but that is probably why there have not been any more Jack Russell attacks. Smart chickens are hiding as far away from the road as possible!

The view from above

On Sunday afternoon, The Husband and I took the WoodMan and Sophie to visit our nearest neighbor, Don on the Hill. His dog Bandit is the long-lost, long-haired twin of Woody. Being way up on the hill, we can let the dogs run free with no danger of them finding their way back to the busy road, or to the chickens down below. In the last photo, that's Don mowing a path to the creek (behind his house, the same creek that runs behind us). Bandit is leading the way back to see his visitors.

The Husband found himself settling in for a beer with the boys watching football, while I had a beer and all 3 pooches outside on a perfect Sunday afternoon with the best view of everything: Canadarago Lake, Panther Mountain, and the pretty little blue-grey house down below. If you click on the second photo to make it larger, you can just barely see our house, right in the middle, Charlie's barn to the left.

Don is a great neighbor, and we time our visits to the Post Office so that we can chat with Sherry the Postmistress as often as possible, but I must say it is a nice change to have my closest neighbors this far away. At the house in NJ, everyone was tucked in so close that you couldn't avoid the neighbors if you wanted to. For the 20 years that we lived there, all my neighbors were good ones, but times have changed. The latest addition to my quiet little street is really stirring things up, including venturing onto my property with his pruning shears and ruining my not-so-perfect landscaping. Even if we didn't still own the house, I would be horrified. I couldn't even bring myself to drive down that quiet little street when I was back there last week. I might have had to cry...

New Jersey and the new job

This past weekend, I made a little trip back to the old homestead in NJ—truly the old homestead—the house where I grew up. I took the Wood Man with me to meet Little Sis, and OR Sis and her husband; and to visit with his foster mom, Dawn, and Lorraine from BCAA, the organization that rescued him from a shelter in VA.

Dawn had told me that he was a terrible passenger in the car, and she wasn't lying. He howls and barks, and jumps from one seat to another, including trying to sit in my lap while I am driving. With that in mind, and because there is also a new law in NJ that says dogs have to be restrained in the car, I loaded his crate into the back of the CR-V, and I am glad I did. He whined only for the first 2 minutes, and then settled down and slept for almost the entire 4.5-hour drive, up and back! Good boy, Wood Man!

He was also better behaved with Jersey Girl than he was with Sophie in the beginning. I think because Jersey doesn't give him as much sass as the Sopher, and also because they are the same age. The large photo is Jersey and Woody relaxing while Little Sis was at church on Sunday morning. (You can almost see her blue chow tongue in her smiley face!) The other is a close-up of Woody, with his favorite pose for the camera. Although the cats were happy that Woody was on vacation for the weekend, Sophie seemed happy to have him back.

The other big story on Action News is that I started working part-time for The Freeman's Journal, the weekly newspaper in Cooperstown. I've been there about 3 weeks, and I am still figuring out the mysteries of working on a PC after being a Mac girl for so many years...like since the beginning of (computer) time. For all those people who told me PCs are faster than Macs, better than Macs, easier to use...I say you are all wrong.

I miss my Mac!!! but it's nice to have some cash flowing back into the old bank account. I'll suffer through the PC nightmare for the cash.

Eggs to hatch and the Schuyler Lake Truck Pull

One of our Silver-Laced Wyandotte hens decided that she wanted to hatch some eggs. She is not very good at the egg-sitting part—sometimes she moves to the other nest box and sits on the eggs in there—but for the most part she is sitting pretty and hoping for some young ones to come along. I have been taking out the extra eggs that are laid there when she leaves the box, and leaving the original 5 for her to hatch. With any luck we will have chicks in another week or so, although we're not sure that  they are being properly maintained by the new momma.

Today The Husband and I witnessed a bit of Schuyler Lake excitement—the annual Truck Pull to benefit the Schuyler Lake Fire Department. The Fireman's Field is our next-door neighbor, so we have actually witnessed this before, but from a distance. This year, Alan, our favorite mechanic, got us free pit passes figuring that we deserved them for putting up with the noise, dirt, and general commotion. We would not have gone otherwise, but it was definitely interesting, and we met several of our neighbors, all Seamons...

Alan's assistant, Tom, is apparently the star of the truck pulls. That is Tom's purple Jeep truck (who even knew there were Jeep trucks, much less purple ones?) in the photo. The Fire Department is responsible for wetting down the track with water from our shared creek, but even so, the dust was flying. And the beer was flowing...still is at 10:30 in the evening...

The family has left the building, and the Wild Wood

We had a great week of family visits with my mother-in-law Rita staying the weekend, and then 14YO Claire and 11YO Ella staying the rest of the week. That is Ella above, a self-portrait. The girls cooked for us, and entertained the crazy new dog and Sophie during their stay. Sophie and Dave the Cat slept with them on the night of the ugly thunderstorms. Everyone left us on Friday last week and none of us wanted them to go.

Wildwood is a crazy place to be on the beach ("at the shore") in the summer in NJ. The wild Woody dog is not quite as crazy as all that, but close to it. He is perfectly calm, willing to stay in his crate while I am gone (new job!) for 9 hours during the day, but then he gets this crazy look in his eyes and, with no warning, he jumps on the sofa, throws off all the pillows and cushions, and turns into the real WildWood. (pictures to follow)

And then he has these wonderfully quiet moments with Sophie, where you would think they had been buddies forever.

Surprisingly he is a perfectly well behaved boy off-leash. He always comes back when you call him, and he loves to run off excess energy at full speed, blasting through the creek and our wildly overgrown property. His belly is all scratched up from his wild romps through the weeds. On the leash however, he quickly learned to free himself no matter how tight I made his collar. That's why he's wearing the blue harness in these photos. I hope to lose that eventually...

Note to Dawn and Larry (Woody's foster parents): He is staying here forever—you are not getting him back. We love him too much! (even Sophie does)

Wild Woody calms down, and Ell's Kitchen

The Wood Man has been doing a good job of fitting in at Lester's Flat (yes, I am always going to call it Lester's Flat). He survived a party on Saturday with about a dozen people including the 2 nieces and a 4-year-old little lady named Lauren. He is getting along better with Sophie, as you can see in this blurry photo, and he even had some face time with Dave the Cat yesterday. Out on the screen porch, Brave Dave put up with the Wood Man's antics for about 2 hours while we were practicing our new commands: Be Nice!, Gentle!, Come Here!, and Leave it!

Claire and Ella have been entertaining Woody and Sophie, and also cooking for Aunt Kathy and Uncle Timmy. Ella made us some shrimp and swiss chard (in the photo) and then last night Claire made us some garlic and lemon panko-breaded chicken with broccoli and mashed potatoes. Right this very minute Ella is serving up some vanilla mousse that she made last night, but it didn't freeze in time for dessert. We are saving some for Uncle Timmy who is at work.

Ella also got a good start on her new blog—Ell's Kitchen. At age 11, she is going to be reviewing all of the meals that she eats in restaurants. A big fan of shows like Chopped, and with a father who is a chef, she is quite the little connoisseur of fine dining. Uncle Timmy gets kudos for helping her come up with the name. Once she gets it up and running, I will give you all a link to the blog.

Piggies and visitors

 Today we saw the most adorable creatures alive. We saw one-day-old piglets. In all, there were nine of them, all cute in their own precious way. Two of the nine were little runts, that barely squeezed into feeding time. We chose Carrot Top (lying down in the front with the red head and a black eye?) and the blackest one (far right) but we haven't chosen a name just yet for either of them.

Through all the chaos of the feeding, the pigs flipped and flew. If you ever doubted the phrase when pigs fly you'd think twice about using it the following time you get asked a ridiculous question. The mother feeding them was over 600 pounds! The three of us even held the littlest spotted one. It was great being able to see such a small creature up close, because I have only seen a small piglet as such in Charlotte's Web.

(written by Ella, the Visitor)      

This other photo is the Wood Man, who made himself at home on Rita's bed yesterday—from 10 am to 3 pm. Rita the Visitor sat and read the New Yorker to him. She even threatened to take him home, but at age 91, and looking like she weighs less than he does, we talked her out of it.