Autumn Raspberries

Today’s postcard is a producing raspberry cane. We grow three varieties of raspberries, Heritage, Latham and Kilarney. This is Heritage on October 16.

Firewood and Maples

A busy day

It’s amazing how much you can accomplish by 9:15 am when you’re out of bed by 4:30 am.  Other than vacuuming, washing floors and baking an apple crisp, the house work is done.  I need to do a few farm chores but I’ve stalled because of the wind chill. The sun is high enough to melt the very heavy frost from the roof and steps so I’ll go out soon.

Our firewood was finally delivered yesterday. It’s tree length and not dry enough. The logs aren’t freshly cut but still, they haven’t been cut into stove length to let them dry faster. I’ll have to knock some bark off to speed up the process.

I made a critical error in my last writing assignment. I’m writing from the protagonist’s point of view and slipped in someone else’s pov. Darn it I have a hard time keeping that straight. I’ll fix this today and try to keep it in mind.  I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo next month. I said last year that I wouldn’t but I will. I’m starting to think of ideas so that I can get the bios and outline together.

For those of you who make Christmas gifts, what are you planning for this year? Steve’s family will get the usual food baskets but I want to put something new in them. I haven’t decided what that new thing is yet.

Steve pried open a window that has been painted shut for years. I need to take the storm window off it today and wash it well. Over the years, spiders have made webs between the windows. The webs eventually stick to a window and it becomes cloudy. There must be a thousand years of webs on these windows now. I’ll remove the screen while I’m at it and put it away for the winter.  I’d like to be able to take nice photos of birds through this clean window this winter.

Speaking of winter, it snowed a little  yesterday. It melted when it hit the ground here but accumulated in the hills 25 miles from here.

Taylor still has her braces after yesterday’s ortho appointment. It didn’t go well. We’ll leave it at that.

Have a good day!

Rainy Sunday

It’s raining today.  I thought we needed it more than we apparently do. Steve thinks yesterday’s water problem was related to the pump, not the water level.  I don’t mind a rain day today either way. After I take Taylor to work and pick up a few things like cream for coffee and coffee for the cream, I’ll build a small fire to take the chill out of the house. That will make it cozy and warm while I read and write.  I’ve finished the assignment so I’m a few days ahead of the ball for a change.

Wanna read part of the current assignment?  I had to describe the protagonist. She’s married to a millionaire, on the verge of turning 50, has a newly emptied nest and she’s on her way to figure out what she wants to do next. She married when she and her husband were college students and she got pregnant quickly. She withdrew from school and didn’t return.  She isn’t having a midlife crisis. The description gives an idea of her social status. True Religion jeans run around $240 a pair for the ones I like. Cosabella is also pricey.

This conversation continued off and on for two weeks.  Libby packed the night before leaving. She wasn’t sure what she needed for a month in the Maine woods. She had brand new True Religion jeans, tags still on them. True Religion seemed sacrilegious. She hadn’t been in a church in a long time.  Regardless, they made her ass and 34” long legs look great and were worth every penny. She didn’t look like a woman turning 50 soon. Her blond hair hung below her shoulders in a simple, smart cut. It pulled up easily into a sophisticated updo for corporate parties. When nobody was looking she pulled it into a ponytail and didn’t mess with it. Bangs covered the small wrinkle on her forehead as long as she dried them just right. Botox would have been easier but her needle phobia wasn’t allowing that. The wrinkle wasn’t that bad.  Small crow’s feet around her blue eyes were old time friends. When didn’t she have them? They stopped upsetting her when she turned 40.  Her size six form was betrayed by only one flaw not related to her age – her father’s wide football player shoulders. They weren’t that big a deal until she had to find a dress for a summer function. She grabbed all of the Cosabella lingerie from its drawer and tossed it into a suitcase. Cosabella suited her. She didn’t need fancy underwear; it only had to cover her. Her 34B bras didn’t have to work hard. She didn’t get the C-sized boobs she wanted with any of her pregnancies. That was a little disappointing but boobs that stood up on their own at her age were great. Cosabella was comfortable; no seams, no lace…nobody else saw it anyway. Oh sure, Martin briefly saw her in lingerie but at those moments he wasn’t paying attention to her.  She was blessed with gorgeous skin so the need for make up was minimal. She slid mascara and an eyeliner into the side pocket of her bag. When the suitcases were filled she zipped them and left them outside the bedroom door. Oscar would take them to the Escalade.

What you don’t get from this description is that although Libby wears $240 jeans, she’s as down to earth as me in my $20 jeans with ripped out knees and stains from working on the farm.  This is my first try at fiction. It’s a lot more fun than I expected.

Time to dry my hair and take Taylor to work.

October

October – my favorite month. It’s time to do the last minute outdoor things before it gets very cold.  The meat chickens are gone now so I’ll clean up the waterer and feeder and put them away for next year. The garden they’ve been running in can be plowed under now. They cleaned it up well.

This week’s class assignment, Bringing Characters To Life, is interesting. I’m rewriting three sections of the book I’m currently writing.  I’ll move on to next week’s class tomorrow.  I’ll be reading and reviewing books for a Maine publishing house! I’m excited about this. I started with one book and am now up to three.  Winter plans are shaping up nicely. After a good break and time away from this disastrous year of farming I think I’ll be ready to start again in February or March.

Taylor has the day off so all three of us are home. It’s quiet. Steve’s watching tv, I’m going to be working on rewrites and T’s working on her college history course. It’s started to rain. After seven weeks of rain I didn’t think I’d be wishing for more rain this year. I ran the well dry doing dishes, one load of laundry and filling a cooler to cool down the chickens. That’s a very small amount of water. It’s fine now but until we get a few inches of rain we’ll be more careful than usual.

My missing tooth saga is over.  I had an implant put in yesterday and love it love it love it!  The worst part of the implant is the drill that creates the space for the titanium screw. That lasted all of three seconds. It was so much worse in my imagination than in reality.  We started with impressions, moved to drilling while the new tooth was being made in another room, on to starting the screw and x-raying to be sure it’s in the right spot, finished the screw and putting the tooth in place (run on sentence anyone?).   Having a 200+ pound man cranking on a thumb wrench to twist a screw into my extremely dense jaw bone was odd but not at all painful thanks to Novocaine. Two hygienists came in to see the end product and had to ask which tooth is new. How’s that for excellent work! I put this off for too long and now that it’s over, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Kristin has a boyfriend (he’s 27, hardly a boy). His name is Matt. I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about him yet. Ooops.

Thanksgiving is here on the farm this year! Yeah! I love feeding a house full of people.

BRINGING CHARACTERS TO LIFE

Postcards From Robin

I don’t feel much like blogging about farming these days.  I do feel like writing though so I’ve created a new blog separate from blogging.  “Why separate them?” some will wonder.  I’m not the farm. The farm is not me. I own the farm, work the farm, love the farm, but I am not the farm.

Writing class started a few days ago. I need to be working on an assignment so I’ll stop here and get back to work.  Welcome to Postcards From Robin.