Mailbox bliss

Soon after we moved to November Hill we bought an oversized mailbox to accommodate my online shopping habits. I would rather order just about anything than go to the mall or drive around shopping for something I need. The big mailbox makes a big difference to the rural postal service carriers who otherwise have to hang packages on the mailboxes or leave them at the door.

With the new gate, though, and new fencing soon to be done, our big mailbox, now 13 years old, really looks shabby. The post is wiggly and it's not quite straight and it was time to get something new.

I went online and started searching. I had some ideas, couldn't find exactly what I wanted, but finally found something that came close enough and was priced well enough that I snapped it right up.

It is amazing! And a little bay Hanoverian is on the way to stand in that little shelter. 

Infinity - and spreading manure

With the Newer Spreader I am still enjoying my pattern making as I do the chores around November Hill. On Sunday I created infinity in the front grass paddock.

Most days it feels like that around here. Endlessness, everything, infinity. The times when it doesn't are when I get caught up in what I haven't done, how many things need to be done, all the things that limit the expansiveness of nature and living with animals who never seem thwarted by negative thinking.

Since I made the symbol in front I find myself going to the front porch to look at it, to remind myself. 

Paulo Cuelho has this to say:

Paperhand Puppets - summer 2017, the silencing of science

Paperhand Puppets are always wonderful, but this summer's show was especially beautiful. A few images from the night we went. Something that seems pertinent this week.

Funny cat story

Ever since Pippin was a kitten he has gone hunting and brought his prey home, through the cat door, into the house, where he generally drops it in the middle of the living room floor and yowls low and long to let us know he has something.

He's brought in mice, shrews, black snakes, worm snakes, birds, squirrels, bunnies, and butterflies. Hearing that low groaning sound has come to mean someone is going to have to do a rescue mission. Sometimes he willingly gives up the catch, other times he takes it and makes a mad dash away.

Yesterday I heard him yowling and found him on the deck looking into the sliding glass door. I knew he had something, figured it was a mouse, since he brought one of those in the day before that and let it loose in the laundry room. We still haven't found that mouse, last seen running hither and yonder around the riding boots and washing machine.

So I walked to the door to see what it was he had.

It was a toy mouse.

Somehow it seems a milestone that Pippin, big game hunter, is now bringing home toy mice. What a hoot!

My little secret pleasure: the Breyer barn!

Even as I work on the daily chores and ongoing projects at the big barn, I have a little list that's easy and fun to check every few days. It's my daughter's Breyer barn that she got for Christmas one year and at some point abandoned for the Real Thing. 

This spring as I readied for my first-born to move away, I needed something, just a little thing, to do to occupy some little piece of my brain that was fretting the passage of time. One day I was gazing at the Breyer barn, bemoaning the days when the Breyer horses were cared for and the barn kept up. I don't know what triggered me to go online and look at accessories, but when I did, I discovered there is an entire world out there where Breyer horses compete in model horse shows and apparently other adult women have inspired an entire industry. 

Every few weeks I order a new barn accessory. A padded halter and lead line. Feed supplies. A salt block. Hay nets. A three-step mounting block. These things have all cost under ten dollars and picking the new one item every week or two, and waiting for it to arrive, makes me really happy. 

As you can see, though, even the Breyer barn chores get out of hand. I haven't had time to fill the hay nets yet!

Stay tuned for updates as I upfit this little barn.