Vacation

I know. I've been gone. But I had a good reason for it! I went to Vancouver for my Dad's 60th/my sister's wedding party/a family reunion. It was awesome. We had fun. We drank too much, ate too much, slept too little, all had bad colds, and family members that had never met got to meet. It had been a long time since I had been back on the west coast, and needless to say re-entry is proving kind of tough. I miss my family, the west coast, my family, being able to take vacations, and my family.

And now I'm back to the grind - trying to figure out how to make my family and farm here work around a work schedule and juggle every ball I seem to have in the air at the moment.

I have always had a soft spot for the Aquabus

Vancouver...so gray and shiny.

While it was in the mid-80's at home, it was in the 40's there. We had snow flurries... but the plum tree decided to bloom for us anyway.

I made my sister a Red Velvet wedding...hat. It was tasty.

Chicago. I got bored on the plane.

Firsts: Guests at Stoneyhaw!

Woot!!

Sorry. Had to get that out. It's been a rough week or so out here at Lake Cammack, and I was thrilled to get a visit from two dear friends from my beloved Point Arena. While I don't actively miss California often, I do, and always will, have a severe soft spot for Point Arena, CA.

First Guests!! Two people and a doggie. We had a picnic. It was cold, but fun :)

 These two have their own little plot of paradise they've been building a garden and a cabin/house on, and they know what I've managed to pull off here - to the untrained eye it's not much! They were also full of ooh's and ahh's delivered at exactly the right moment, and I'm so tickled they got to see the place now, before it really gets tamed. (ha!)

Even better was the unexpected bonus that their visit brought - the sense of pride and validation in the farm and my mucking about in the mud out there. It gets really rough when you just kind of keep plodding on alone without anyone to show off your accomplishments to, or to have someone to commiserate with you when things just aren't going right.

Did I remember to get them to sign the guest book? No. Oops.

Merry Holidays.

We've got a theme going on here. My newly adopted home state is having weather issues.

I came out to the eastern part of the state for Christmas. We had a lovely time - smaller kids definitely lend an air of magic to the holidays. The whole starry eyes full of wonder and whatnot. I was feeling pretty blue without my family here (especially since my mom just left to go back to Canada... *sniff*), and all of that totally went out the window when I spent the day surrounded by kids opening their wrapped piles of loot.

Zora helped with the Christmas explosion process by making sure the wrapping paper was properly shredded

And then I woke up this morning to 6 inches of snow and giant dog flakes coming down. By lunchtime there was a foot. As I wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway, I actually got to enjoy playing in the snow. Snowball fights, snow angels, traipsing down the road that's become silent with its lack of fields, and muffled with the snow....made my weekend.

This is what a cotton field looks like from across the street


No. Rural eastern North Carolina is not equipped with snowplows. Which is kind of awesome on a Sunday after Christmas.


This was Zora's first foray into a land of snow. She LOVED it.


Traipsing off down the road.

Weekend Update

Holy shnikey. This weekend has been such an EVENT.

The real reason for going to Washington DC? The Rally To Restore Sanity and or Fear. In a nutshell, a cry for reasonableness and moderation in politics and political expectations today. Outside of said nutshell, a whole hell of a lot more people than Comedy Central expected, a whole hell of a lot more people than I expected, and a whole hell of a lot of people acting...well...reasonably. Some of my friends got a bit squished among the masses, but all in all I didn't see anyone acting aggro or uptight or anything other than polite and genuinely happy to be where they were. Which is exactly what you would hope for from a rally purporting to restore sanity. (which it did).

Teabags take Washington


Entertain the masses.

What happened that was more than I expected?

I'm so glad you asked.

My mind was blown in the BEGINNING of this extravaganza. Jon Stewart brought out Cat Stevens (billed again as Yusef. Getting confusing here dude) to play 'Peace Train'. Stephen Colbert became possibly the first person in history to interrupt Yusef (or Joe, if I may) to bring out Ozzy Osbourne to play 'Crazy Train'. The two of them had a sing off. Not even kidding. They hugged and left the stage.

The magnitude of this event is not sinking in, oh lone reader (hi mom!). Cat Stevens hugged Ozzy Osbourne on stage AND I WAS THERE TO SEE IT.

After that, the musical guests just paled in comparison and the grin never left my face.

Little do they know headstands occurred on the other side just the night before....


Yup.


Say it with me "iconic"


Glorious fall, how I missed you!


Duck butt!


These were damn good. Go here.

Another excuse to go to Washington? To see my best friends from CA. Two of them were at the rally with me dressed as teabags, and I got to go sightseeing for a whole afternoon in the glorious fall sunshine with the third. There were headstands on the lawn (pictures of this DO exist, but not on my camera, so I leave it up to your imagination), glorious cupcakes (thanks to a great suggestion by a great friend I FINALLY got to meet in person!), hot tubbing and general debauchery. A great weekend.