John, while you’re down in Charlottesville visiting the folks … Joel remains here helping to repair our rotting house. It’s very cool, he continues to go places no man has gone before: ripping out those decrepit old load-bearing posts, replacing boards at the foot of the house (no clue what they are called — outdoor baseboards?), and adding extra pieces of wood to prevent tripping as we enter the house. Those little trim-things or moldings (cornices?) are complete and look great! I wish I spoke this old housish. Maybe I’ll get a CD and practice: ‘kor-nes, -nish . Hmm, I’ll put that on my list right after I learn Mandarin from the CD set we already have.I’ve been mowing endlessly and training Grendel to herd (not hurt) the fluffy ones around the yard, which we both do enthusiastically. Spoke with Robin today about finding a good home up in a friend’s Harvard, MA barn for one, maybe two of our seven now-quite-competitive roosters (I may need to throw in a hen or two for companionship).
The tomatoes are wonderful, I harvested our first crop last night and made something that started as a baked tomato tart (very lofty) and wound up a sloppy joe-like (complete with veggie faux meat) mess. The tomato part of it was great, the rest was … well, remember that movie we watched last week: Beyond Borders? It was like that: there were some really good ingredients and great intentions, but what a godawful mess it turned out to be. And yet, just like us watching that whole movie start to finish, I ate the whole thing and sort of liked it in a twisted way while I was eating. And just like the movie, the meal took too long, had no plot, and left me feeling just a little sick afterwards. But at least I ingested something healthy, rather than taking out another pint of coffee ice cream.Enjoy your “fencing” activities!!
