Autumnal Rumination

Hey there.

Yeah, it has been awhile, hasn't it?

I've been kinda busy hunkering down for the winter so I've been neglecting my blogging duties.


Well...that's part of it.

The other part is...ugh, so many other parts.

Here's a haiku!


Going back to school
Buying more goats, and winter
Keep me from my blog


There. I couldn't find any other way to express it. I find the haiku to be remarkably versatile in daily application of expressing one's thoughts. For instance:

You waste all my time
You will never buy a house
You are an asshole

See, that would apply to my real estate job.

Anyway, back to the first haiku.

So, I am now in the throes of taking classes for my broker and appraiser licenses. That takes up a lot of my time and brain cells. So much so that after class I can barely remember my name sometimes. It's not that the material is especially difficult, it's more that we cover SO MUCH in a day.

The buying goats part. Well, yes, we bought two more goats. So now we have four. The other two are Boer goats which are meat goats. They are both girls and about 6 months old. They look like little tanks. The people we bought them from are into the goat thing big-time and registered our girls with the names Red Hot Oh and Fun With Iron. Yes, I know...it should be Fun With Stainless. Be that as it may, we have decided we would just nickname them with more...girly...names. So now they are Opal and Iris. I think the original names have something to do with keeping part of the dad's name in the name of all his progeny.

I don't have any pictures to upload yet and, since it's dark, you'll just have to wait for another post. Because if I don't finish this post tonight, who knows when I'll write another one.

On to winter.



Oh, winter.

Winter, winter, winter.

It will be here before you know it.


I have been slowly making my way around the house, closing storm windows, making note of which windows need storm windows, cleaning leaves from gutters, etc. It never ever ends.

Take, for instance, the windows. I decided the other day to address the storm window issue for our living room. The living room has three window configured kind of like this \_/. Each window had it's own storm window however the one like this \ had a wooden one that completely rotted away. And the ones like this _ and this / had aluminum ones that were so racked from that part of the house settling that they had big gaping areas.

I went into the basement to see if there were any more of the wood storm windows and I managed to find two that fit. This is remarkable when you stop to consider that almost no two windows in our house are the same size and who knows which of the 80 - yes, that's an 8 in the tens column and a 0 in the ones column and I crap you not when I tell you that is the actual window count for our house - windows in our house any given storm window is going to fit.

So, of course these windows are all covered with dirt and spiders so they have to be cleaned before I put them on. The other thing about these windows are that they are something like 7 feet tall so, you know, they weigh a ton. And a half. A ton and a half.

I had to hoist these bad boys up a set of stairs and around to the back side of the house where the hose is. Since they are at least ten kinds of huge and cumbersome, they would throw me off balance and I had to do the "drunk man walk". You know, bobbing and weaving, with a huge GLASS window.

It was very dangerous and exciting.

So two of the three living room windows are done. I think I am just going to put one of the aluminum storms on the remaining window. We'll see.

I was pretty excited about winter this year which, if you know the house I live in, you know is odd because who would get excited about spending winter in a house with next to no heat? Right?

Well, that was all going to change this year.

For the past, oh I don't know, 8 or so years my darling hubby has been researching outdoor woodburners. When I say research You have no idea. It's not just a matter of picking up the pamphlet from the dealer, ask a few questions and then order the model of your chioce. No, no. This involves YEARS of tedious study on things like carbon vs. stainless steel (stainless, by the way, always wins), burning vs. gassification, water jacket vs. storage tank and my personal favorite, ability to burn biodiesel or waste oil as a backup.

People, you have no idea what it is like to live with this man.

(But I LOVE you hon!)

Anyway, when we finally were almost settled on a particular model, when we were so close I could almost feel my toes again, my hubby has decided We Can Build A Better Burner.


Sigh.


And, you know, I'm sure he can. But, be that as it may, it's starting to get COLD again.



Sigh.


This is what happens when you marry into an engineering family.

So now that we have located the necessary 2 or 3 or whatever thousand gallon stainless steel tank to start the project, things are starting to get underway. But this is such a HUGE project that I don't anticipate being able to scoot around my house in a t-shirt and shorts until sometime next July.

And here would be a good spot to stop and remind everyone that Christmas is only 51 days away and long underwear make a very good gift. hint, hint


And to top all of this off, our battening of the hatches has been further derailed by yet another side project. It's...


...nah, I'm not going to tell yet.

Some of you already know so don't spoil the surprise. But, for those of you who don't...



STAY TUNED TO ALMOST QUINTESSENCE FOR SOMETHING VERY EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!