Ann's Blog

4-6-2010

As rough as winter was, we suddenly and incredibly have summer weather! 82 for highs in late March - early April? Unheard of!

3-3-2010

Winter is not so easy when "the north wind doth blow and we will have snow" at least for Charlie, who has to plow all our many driveways. 

Last week was especially challenging when we had the biggest "dump all at once" that we can remember since March of 1993 (when we got over three feet.) This snowfall was bad enough: 30 inches here on our hilltop. Now, that's a lot of snow, but Charlie, with Ben's able help on several occasions, managed to clear a path with his plow truck for everyone, 14 driveways in all, some of them long, steep and difficult to plow under the best of conditions, (which these were not!)  Then he had to go around with our tractor to heave all that snow back enough to make room for future snowfall, reclaiming parking space from under the snow mountains and making it easier for tenants to see out of driveways for oncoming traffic. This all takes hours and hours and hours of work.  Thanks, Charlie!

Our aging plow truck is threatening to fall apart under the workload, however. Today we got an estimate of nearly $2000 to repair several worrisome mechanical tremors.  Our son Shawn, whose specialty is Porsches and VW's, will take a look at his Dad's truck this weekend to see if we should spend so much to save her life, or if it is time to pass the torch to the next generation of mechanical workhorses.  

1-18-2010

Winter is my "rest" time... perhaps more accurately described as "catching up with everything I've neglected over the year" time. Winter provides me with breathing space, time to reflect and clear the decks for spring. I've been busy so far: son Ben married in December, (which meant the house had to be made presentable, and some of it required serious elbow grease!) Christmas is always a last ditch scramble, and then there is the paperwork, which, when shamelessly neglected as mine has been for an entire year, requires a fair amount of effort and dedication to pull together. Now I look forward to all the preparation of two orienteering events for which I am the meet director, a stack of books to read, and a set of horse training videos to watch and commit to memory before spring so I can continue my journey toward becoming the sort of partner that my wonderful horses deserve.