Farm Report

Well-to paraphrase a silver screen sage-gardening is like a box of chocolates-you just never know what you'll get.  This year was a complete reverse of last year's banner crop.  The early stuff did all right, but the summer produce yield was way down and died off early.  We had a hellacious drought and couldn't get enough water on things.   Last year we had (stored) tomatoes until Christmas and peppers well into January.   This year everything was gone before Halloween.  You just never know.  We did get a decent hay crop, all things considered.

Trish introduced a couple of bass to reality this year.  They were delicious.  Her bluebirds continue to multiply and prosper and one box actually produced three broods.  In addition to her other chores, she's now raising lifestock-meal worms to be exact-and has become a dedicated Worm Rancher.  Bluebirds are supposed to love them-but no one seems to have informed ours of this fact.  We've declared war on the armadillos.

The bees were frustrating again.  The hive I should have let starve last year starved anyway-with gallons of honey in the hive-they just couldn't find it.  Insect mentality is strange.  So I split the remaining hive in the spring and got a decent honey harvest.  Then the older hive died again.  Wax moths got it-and they are absolutely godawful.  Bees-bah humbug!

We had a storage barn built last summer.  Now maybe finally we'll have enough room to store all of our stuff.  It was an interesting experience.  Just after it was finished we had another fire come through the Osage Range.  I had the pleasure of staying up all night watching, with hose in hand, the flames slowly creeping up through the hills to the south.  Fortunately, or unfortunately-depending on your point of view-some feller with a dozer went down and carved a fire break along our back boundary line.  Left a horrible scar and ravished the landscape worse than the fire.   Such are the pleasures of life in the Osage.

Perot Report

Our one and only ersatz child, Perot, continues to be - Perot.  Mr. Sweetie around his parents, maternal grandma, and Aunt Ginny, obnoxious and unpredictable around casual acquaintances, a terror to the neighborhood children, and distinctly and decidedly unfriendly towards strangers.  And he doesn't seem to be mellowing with age.

Home Report

Cowell's Classic Stout was a big hit at our Christmas party.  All who were present praised its hearty robust flavor containing subtle hints of blackberry, oak,  and toasted grain and nuances of spice, fruit, and coffee that entice and titillate the discerning palate.  Bold but not impertinent, agressive but well tempered, powefully potent  but with a silky smooth mouthfeel that warms and sparkles as it slides down the gullet.  It was voted hands down the best stout at the party.

We had an unusually heavy pre-Christmas snow this year, about 12" worth.  It closed school for three days and made things a general mess.  But it was kind of pretty.  And since we usually only get one, we try and savor it.  Fall was strange, and probably was a result of the weird dry summer.  We had a brief fall early on-which went into suspension-and resumed only late in November.  When the snow hit we still had lots of trees in autumn color and even with green leaves still on.   This is the first time in my life that I can recall seeing fallen leaves piled on top of the snow.

Now it is time for everyone to celebrate the new millennium, the dawning of the digital age, the grand exploration of cyberspace, etc.   It all boils down to bits and bytes and binary.  0/1, +/-, hi/low-- man/woman?  Maybe we're truly meant to be binary.  Perhaps the discovery of base 10 set us back thousands of years.  What if Adam and Eve had recognized the significance of binary from the start?  We might be lightyears ahead!  Do try not to let this realization spoil your Christmas.

I'm still slowly learning  HTML.  I had great plans for Cowell's Corner this year past and somehow they never happened.  If you find yourself lonely, bored, without a date on Saturday night, or otherwise unoccupied, check http://www2.mmind.net/a7t occasionally. I just might possibly perhaps maybe start doing various holiday pages for fun.