Two Ought Ought Six

I feel like I have a lot to catch up on with all of you out there in cyberspace, and have this thought somewhere in my mind that I will do so, incrementally, as I get the vibe, now that I am at a computer again.
The full account of my mishap will be posted, I assure you, as well as random reflections on my Texas experience, as well as the customary discharge of whatever idle jetsam I need to expell from my brain.
That being said, it’s New Year’s Day, and what I really feel like doing is a simply diary like post describing the state of being on this tiny little farm.
I woke up late, a little, er, hung over, but fully past any compulsion to celebrate that I may have experienced the day before.
It’s seed ordering season, for there is a season for catalogues and a season for money orders and a season for buying spinach season, or, so sayeth Ecclesiastes. Nice and warm with the morning sun coming down on the house, I went through catalogues, cross-checking against what I ordered last year and anticipating what I would need for this year.
After a few hours of that, and with a comfortably warm sunny day outside, I went for a walk. Up the road behind the farm, is where I went, to the hill that looks out to the south, down the valley. It feels so good to be back in these mountains, amidst the sights and the smells that are familiar to me, amongst the plants that I am so used to. Though they be brown and dried and falling over, they have an association to me with a sense of home and I feel comforted to be back and walking alongside them.
The stuff that lays around, too, welcomes me home. I look down the valley and see broken implements beside the neighbors houses, and tires alongside the creek, and barns about to collapse, and I feel at home.
Back down on my own land, I puttered around a bit near the house. There’s stuff I can do right now and there’s stuff I can’t do right now, and the challenge is knowing which activities fall into which category. Raking is definitely out, for example, which really bugs the hell out of me, ‘cause the last leaves to fall from the trees in November never got raked up, and I can’t do it now. General, light activities I can handle: picking up things in the packing shed, doing general cleaning in the shop, hanging up the laundry. That’s about it for me these days. It’s more than I could do a month ago and less than I’ll be able to do a month from now.
Toward evening my friend T* stopped by and invited me to his house for supper. I brought my nephew with me so he could run around with T*’s son. That’s what happened. There were some sharing issues, inevitably, but by and large they had a wonderful little toddler time. T* and S* and I sat around and chatted and had a bit to eat and they brought me home.
Here’s where things get corny, but it’s New Year’s so perhaps you’ll indulge me. Today represented what it’s all about around here: up to greet the day and having to think a lot about what needs to get done to keep things in order, then outside trying to get a little bit done, all the while feeling happy about the surroundings, and then capping the day off by getting together with close friends and watching the kids grow. Happy New Year.