False Spring

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.
The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I have always been one to enjoy first times. I enjoy seeing a new species of bird or animal for the first time. I savor new sights and sometimes sounds.

This year I experienced a couple of occurrences for the first time that maybe I would have preferred to wait.

This past February while winter was still on the calender, I suffered my first tick bite ever in February and my first mosquito bites. I could understand if I was vacationing someplace like the Florida Everglades or in the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica, But bug bites during the last Winter weeks in Connecticut seriously bugs me.

During the first week of spring we enjoyed some beautiful record setting warm, if not hot temperatures, that woke up the creatures that slept through the winter. The sound of frogs filled the nights, insects fluttered about. Turtles basked in the sunlight, and we broke out the shorts.

As the temperatures climbed during the day, I brought out Custard, Pudding, and the Dude, our 3 Sulcata Tortoises so that they could absorb some of the warm sunshine.


It also gave us time to start some warmer weather projects outside, but the reality of living in New England will return tonight, when temperatures drop down to somewhere in the 20s.

We enjoyed our brief bought of Spring, and look forward to its return. But for tonight we will throw some logs on the fire and hope that Jeanne's prediction of snow in April is something we will not see.

Young Entrepreneurs

OK, so Jordan comes to me on a regular basis and will ask, "Do you have any ideas how I can make some money"?

Sure I say, "how about helping me with some chores around the house". She responds, ""OK, how much will you pay me to clean my room""?
"About as much as you pay us to live in your room."

Now I grew up doing chores, and when my father asked us to get our chores done on Saturday morning, before we left with our pals for the local fishing hole, we did not have an option to decline.

Tommy and Jordan are quick to pass on my list of chores and when my older brother Ken's 2 boys were growing up, they would offer him cash to avoid doing chores.
Something Just Ain't Right!

So Jordan wants to earn some money, and one day after school she announces that she would like to collect some of our chicken eggs and hatch them in my incubator herself.

Now I really did not want to hatch any more chickens because we could end up with 42 roosters, and along with the 5 or 6 we have crowing at 2am, forty two more would send me over the edge with no hope for any chance of recovering my sanity.
"But I can't say no!

So I presented Jordan and her friend Miranda a idea, and they came up with the plan.
This is their plan, setup the incubator in Jordan's room this week, let it run a couple of days and regulate the temperature. On march 11Th place 42 eggs into the automatic turner.
The hatch should occur 21 days later on March 31st( they are already planning a sleep over for hatch day). When the chicks hatch on the 31st, they have one week to advertise and sell baby Easter chicks @ $3.00 each.

When I asked about a share of the profits for rental of my incubator, the heat lamps, electricity, 25lbs of feed, and the 42 eggs I won't be able to eat, they have offered me a whopping 1-6 cents per chick.
Who needs a real job!


Maybe she will be able to pay me to do her chores.

National Pig Day

I know most folks think of March 1st and they think, "Lets celebrate National Pig Day."

I kind of dropped the ball on this one, because my first thoughts were "hey its March 1st, only 20 days until the first day of Spring, and maybe I have enough firewood to keep the woodstove going until the weather warms up..

The Handbook For First Year Teachers designates March 1st as "National Pig Day" and recommends teachers (Cook some bacon,make BLTs, discuss where pork chops come from.)

I was born in the Year Of The Pig, and maybe this is why I hold a special place in my heart for pigs.
Maybe this is why I look at my hand painted pig mug as if it was a priceless heirloom from days gone by.

This was painted by Ron's Mom over 30 years ago. And presented to a very select group of us, and I will deny any and all involvement in any and all actions that falsely earned us these mugs.
That was a thousand years ago and a thousand lifetimes.

I put together 10 of the most famous pigs. Do you recognise them all.



And the most famous pig of them all,"NORMAN"