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This has been a year of trials and transitions -- blood, sweat, and tears. Moved from old house to new. Bereaved by the passing of a cherished pet. Trying to move a mountain with a shovel. And still a long way to go before I sleep. As most of you know-- We are building a house, CoWeb West, in Pawhuska on 40 acres of rocks, ticks, and incessant virulent winds. We started in Spring 2004 and it's still a work in progress. If someone had told me at the first of the year we'd only be this far along I'd have called them crazy. Actually, there were some extenuating circumstances this year. We spent a large part of the summer in Bartlesville fixing up and moving out of CoWeb East. Then quite a bit of September and October was taken up with our musical activities. Trish finally realized her dream of going to Winfield for the duration. Winfield is the Big Annual Festival for amateur acoustic musicians. Thousands of people come in thousands of campers, tents, RVs, motor homes, and pack the park to the gills. We were there for a week and a half. It was good to get away for awhile. Winfield is unique. Trish enjoyed herself thoroughly. A couple weeks later we also spent several days at a much smaller festival in Guthrie. And a few more days at other festivals, various gigs, pickings, parties, etc. Hobbies can be a real time killer. Fortunately, we did get CoWeb West in livable (an extremely relative term) condition before winter struck. Doubly fortunate because we'd already sold CoWeb East in Bartlesville. Triply fortunate because Trish was getting awfully tired of living in our Waldorf on Wheels. We have a roof over our heads, the openings are closed, the siding's mostly on, we have heat and air, hot and cold running water, a real flush toilette, the appliances are hooked up, internet, phone, and satellite TV. And at the moment, we have a marvelously open floor plan. Who could ask for more? Trish retired from teaching in the Spring of 2004 and loves retirement. And I love building this house. Trish is in charge of landscaping -- has planted lots of trees and shrubs, and is creating a large rock garden in back of the house. We lost Perot, our ersatz child, this December. The end was very sudden and unexpected. We miss him. We hope you all are doing well. We wish you Merry Christmas, a joyous Holiday Season, and all the best for the coming year.

Farm Report

Didn't do much on the farm this year except build the house and a few of the other usual things. Enjoy occasional wildlife. Baled some hay. Raised gardens East and West. Couldn't live without fresh tomatoes and okra. Prayed for rain and were generally disappointed. Etc.

Home Report

We put CoWeb East on the market in April. And when the offers did not come flying in, we decided we'd better spruce it up a bit. So we spent several weeks cleaning, scraping, painting, fixing, cleaning, repairing, replacing, cleaning etc. And once it sold, another few weeks moving. Thank heavens we had a good sized basement to store all our decent stuff in (all our indecent stuff got stored in the barn) since the house wasn't ready. Also special thanks to the good friends who helped us move: Jim & Lois Harris, and Dave, Jo Ann, and Hannah Smith. Especially to Dave, who's about as big as all the rest of us put together! We were also fortunate in having our good friend, Galen Brown, as a realtor. He put forth a lot of effort to get our house sold and we greatly appreciate it.

It's seems strange that I could have lived in that house for 25 years and miss it so little. It's the house that never became a home. I could never figure out how to change it to suit me, inside or out. It's already half forgotten and now simply history and good riddance. Thank God the days of East/West everything have come to an end. Being always in transit was increasingly wearying.

Perot Report

Perot has passed on to a better place. We do like to think that all dogs go to heaven. He was my first true dog, i.e --one that I raised from a puppy and enjoyed his entire life cycle. Growing up, my family had several dogs for a few months at a time. But they never worked out. Perot was a good pet, an excellent watch dog, and it was sure fun having him around. He was only 11 1/2. We expected him to be with us a few more years. We miss him.

Anyone passing this way is always welcome to drop in and sit a spell. Hope you all have a merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season and we wish you all the best for the coming year.

Allan	a7t@swbell.net
Trish	paweb46@yahoo.com
Perot	Heaven. All dogs do go -- don't they?