Poop

Good morning! Actually, I’ll let you know how good it is in about six minutes when I know if Amena and Cedric both got on the bus. Actually, I’ll let you know if it is good at that point. If it isn’t, I’ll be catching up with the bus. Or at least if they don’t get on the bus, I’d better be catching up because I’m not making three trips to Barre today.

Yesterday was okay. Saturday was okay. Friday was okay.

I like this picture.

Friday Seth, Joseph and I went to Barre Falls Dam to plant Joanna’s Wild Child letterbox. I was expecting to do a loop but when we were at about the 1.7 mile mark I realized I should have looked at the maps more closely because there is a gap in the trail when it comes to a river. A gap where there used to be a bridge that is no longer there.

I like this one, too.Except that there are obvious issues with the "stitching" that took place. You should let me know if you find one or more. One thing for sure--Massachusetts isn't all that green right now.

So, Covered River Road is no longer appropriately named. We could have gone on a different loop but with just my phone it was hard to know for sure how long it was.

There might be something hiding on the other side of this tree/these trees if you happen to go letterboxing.

It looked longer than the one I’d been hoping to take and I knew that if we took too long we’d be dealing with the sun setting so we just went back the way we’d come and found a place to plant Joanna’s box. I think we found a good spot and in the future sometime, I want to take that other loop.

Just hanging out.

Saturday involved collecting food for Scouting for Food and planting garlic and cleaning out one room for the goats. (Amena made the bus but at the other end of the driveway.) Collecting food was easy. Cleaning out the goat part of the barn was easy. Planting garlic was easy. Cedric was supposed to empty the manure out of the truck into the last two beds I currently have in the garden and took all day. Joseph helped with garlic. We had to pull some grass out of the bed first and it was the stuff with the really long roots.

The garlic bed before working on it.

When I had the garlic in but not covered he thought one of the cloves was some of the grass and pulled it up. His expression was priceless but of course I didn’t catch it with the camera. He did a fine job of returning it to the dirt.

The garlic bed ready for garlic.

The main reason I wanted to clean out the goat barn was to mulch the garlic and Egyptian walking onions (they were planted Saturday as well). That was accomplished and I covered two other beds with mulchy stuff as well. I’m not sure when I’ll get to the rest of the barn but I’ll cover as many beds as possible with what I get from it. I need to fix the two beds behind the house and decide where I want them so that they can be filled, hopefully before snow flies.

Yesterday was just Sunday. Other than Paul, Seth and Joseph taking the collected food to Rutland, it was a pretty typically average Sunday.

One thing I thought interesting which I don’t really want to elaborate on much, Dan talks to Joanna and tells her that the reason he isn’t smiling in any of her wedding pictures is because of me and he has nothing good to say about anyone and thought that none of us wanted him there (which may have been true). He called two Sundays ago and the boys weren’t here so he wanted to talk to me and he’s all just the same as usual; somewhat awkward and telling me that he thinks we all need counselling and then making a big point of telling me that Laura said goodbye when he left. Great. Interestingly, Cedric and Amena had the biggest problems they’ve had for some time within 48 hours of this conversation. Yesterday, he told Cedric that the reason he called back at 9:00 the previous Sunday (which call was not answered because I didn’t hear my phone ringing because someone turned the volume off) was to see if perhaps Cedric had wanted to ask if he could go live with Dan. Really? He still has nothing good to say about me or any of the rest of us even after going on rather extensively when he came out for the wedding telling me how he’d been working on forgiving everyone. I don’t think he has. I think he is an interesting mix of a narcissist and something else and the only feeling I have for him now is pity that he must stay in the past and is not able to move on. Well, that’s not entirely true but I’ve spent more time on the subject than I was going to.

And, I’m sorry to say, I’m not done. I did not spend any time writing anything between October 5 and about the 15^th. I picked Dan up from the train station in Fitchburg on the Thursday before the wedding which happened to be my and Paul’s anniversary. I gave Dan, Seth and Joseph a ride to Dunn Park later that day. I gave them a ride to Walmart the next day. Saturday I picked Dan up and took him to the wedding. I may not have particularly enjoyed my time with him but I think that Joanna did the right thing in inviting him and I was doing my best to do the right thing as well. It is true that Paul did not want him to be there. He didn’t want to sit at the same table as Dan and I can understand that. Joanna had her reasons for putting him at the table with us and I happen to agree with them. It annoys the heck out of me that I went out of my way to do things for this man and all he can do is say that it is because of me he didn’t smile for the pictures. Get over it.

Now I’m done. For today.

Up for today are fairly typical Monday-type activities.  I am going to make an apple pie with dried apples later today and see how much pumpkin I have in the basement for pumpkin pie. I’m not feeling any particular urge to make any other pies so I probably won’t. I think Paul said yesterday he’d cook the turkey. Honestly, that’s the least of my worries. It’s super easy to take care of the turkey; it’s everything else that is time consuming and I usually hate doing. Thanksgiving is fine and we should be thankful for our blessings but I think we overdo it and I honestly hate having to make all this food so we can behave in a gluttonous manner for a few minutes. Seriously. Where else do people spend days cooking and baking for a meal that takes about fifteen minutes to consume? Really. I timed us a year or two ago. Everyone was done eating in about fifteen minutes. That didn’t include pie because, unlike Paul, I like to have my pie later, but still. Fifteen minutes and it’s done.

Have a wonderful day.