The exercise:
Write about something or someone that is: vicious.
Good lord it is hot here. I think the high was 35 this afternoon, but the house is still sweltering as midnight approaches. All the windows are open and we've got the fan going... but I think it's about time to get the air conditioner in our bedroom window again.
Max's cousin and aunt returned north today, which was sad. But this time is different. This time they'll be back in just over a month. And that time? That'll be the last time.
Any day now the foundations will be laid for their new house on the farm. It's not looking like it'll be completed before they move down, so they'll be joining Kat's brother at their parent's house for what should hopefully be only a few weeks.
And then... then Max will have two houses he'd rather be at than his own.
Mine:
"When I throw them out I don't want them to come back. I hope that the struggle to return here is so long and arduous that they die of starvation. I hope that on their journey back to this place that they fall prey to a predator - preferably one who gifts them with a slow, painful death."
"I'm n-"
"I want them to get so lost that they never find their way back. Death by exposure to the elements? Sounds about right to me. Failing that, I want them to take so long in returning that by the time they do get here no food remains for them to eat."
"That sounds a little... vicious, don't you think? I mean, they're just bugs, after all."
"These bloody little bugs are eating my bloody strawberries!"
Saturday June 6th, 2015
The exercise:
Write a four line poem about: balancing.
So we ended up with 52 pints of strawberries, as Kat's dad was helping us pick yesterday and his pints needed some topping up. We had another 3 set aside for a friend and 2 pints of raspberries set aside for an extremely loyal customer, which left 49 pints of strawberries and 9 pints of raspberries on the table to start the day.
They were all gone by 8:50.
Just a quick reminder: the market opens at 8:30.
Nuts. Utterly nuts. Shame we didn't have more, but I'm hopeful that with a warm week of weather ahead of us we'll have better numbers next Saturday.
The rest of the market was pretty slow (most anything would be after that start) but we did manage to sell some more tomato and pepper plants, along with a few Moroccan mint plants. When we got home from the market we tossed the remaining tomato plants, as we have enough for our garden and there's really no use in continuing to bring them to market at this point.
Plus, you know, next weekend we'll have cherries for the first time and that will keep us plenty busy.
Mine:
Serenely swaying down the street,
A full water jug on her head;
Not a single drop will be spilled,
Or her husband will see red.
Write a four line poem about: balancing.
So we ended up with 52 pints of strawberries, as Kat's dad was helping us pick yesterday and his pints needed some topping up. We had another 3 set aside for a friend and 2 pints of raspberries set aside for an extremely loyal customer, which left 49 pints of strawberries and 9 pints of raspberries on the table to start the day.
They were all gone by 8:50.
Just a quick reminder: the market opens at 8:30.
Nuts. Utterly nuts. Shame we didn't have more, but I'm hopeful that with a warm week of weather ahead of us we'll have better numbers next Saturday.
The rest of the market was pretty slow (most anything would be after that start) but we did manage to sell some more tomato and pepper plants, along with a few Moroccan mint plants. When we got home from the market we tossed the remaining tomato plants, as we have enough for our garden and there's really no use in continuing to bring them to market at this point.
Plus, you know, next weekend we'll have cherries for the first time and that will keep us plenty busy.
Mine:
Serenely swaying down the street,
A full water jug on her head;
Not a single drop will be spilled,
Or her husband will see red.
Friday June 5th, 2015
The exercise:
Write four lines of prose that have something to do with: thrown away.
I guess the rain and cooler weather really slowed things down with the strawberries, as we only got 55 pints out of our patch this morning. Had they been peaking as I was expecting them to (aka warmer weather this week) I would have expected around 100.
Oh well, can't control the weather, blah blah blah.
We also got 11 pints of raspberries, so at least those guys appreciated what Mother Nature tossed our way this week.
Max spent the vast majority of the day running around with Natalie (including literally running around in circles while the rest of us ate dinner) and then cratered after dinner. Hopefully he gets a decent night's sleep, as it's going to be an early morning to get to the market.
Mine:
For years he was your best friend. Trusted with secrets, always there for you through thick and thin, he never let you down. And after all that... you just threw him away?
Sitting atop a throne of rotting food and decaying plastic, the only thing poor King Teddy rules now is the landfill.
Write four lines of prose that have something to do with: thrown away.
I guess the rain and cooler weather really slowed things down with the strawberries, as we only got 55 pints out of our patch this morning. Had they been peaking as I was expecting them to (aka warmer weather this week) I would have expected around 100.
Oh well, can't control the weather, blah blah blah.
We also got 11 pints of raspberries, so at least those guys appreciated what Mother Nature tossed our way this week.
Max spent the vast majority of the day running around with Natalie (including literally running around in circles while the rest of us ate dinner) and then cratered after dinner. Hopefully he gets a decent night's sleep, as it's going to be an early morning to get to the market.
Mine:
For years he was your best friend. Trusted with secrets, always there for you through thick and thin, he never let you down. And after all that... you just threw him away?
Sitting atop a throne of rotting food and decaying plastic, the only thing poor King Teddy rules now is the landfill.
Thursday June 4th, 2015
The exercise:
Write about something or someone that is: timely.
Took Max in for a haircut this afternoon. It's amazing the difference five or ten minutes can make in his appearance.
His cousin Natalie and Aunt Becky arrived this afternoon and it didn't take all that long before the two kids were making an excessive amount of noise while having just the right amount of fun together. So glad they were doing that at Grandma and Papa's house, not ours.
Spent the morning in the garden with Kat (when she wasn't chasing after our son) and Max (when he wasn't wandering off to see Grandma, or seeing what Papa was doing on the tractor, or hitting up the raspberry canes for berries). With all the weeding we managed to get done we're actually at a pretty reasonable point out there.
Not quite on top of things, but pretty darn close.
And we're about to get some help with that.
Mine:
At this point last year we already had two volunteers from the WWOOF organization camping in our backyard and working in the garden with us. I remember feeling fortunate to have found two helpers so quickly, but since it was our first year as a host farm in the organization I really had nothing to compare it to.
Fast forward to this year and we'd had a grand total of two people who had contacted us and we didn't feel like either was a very good fit here. Nothing particularly wrong with them, it's just that with a young child we're prone to being rather picky with who we want living in close quarters with us.
With a major downsize in the garden this season Kat and I had been talking about the feasibility of doing it all on our own. But we still have the same number of berries as previous years. And Max still takes up a lot of time and energy. And it would be nice to take a little more time off from the garden without having the weeds overthrow the entire system.
We don't need a huge amount of help to accomplish this - just a little bit. But was that little bit of help worth having a stranger (initially, anyway) living, eating, and working with us? We were leaning towards no - our volunteers and the work they do for us have always been greatly appreciated, but it has felt on more than one occasion very intrusive.
Enter: Rebecca.
She emailed last night, wondering if she could park her camper on the farm in exchange for maybe a day of work each week. Her camper has a bed and kitchen, all she needed is access to the bathroom. And she didn't want to volunteer too much because she has a student loan debt to pay off (through working in town for the summer).
Holy ideal, Batman.
We asked her if she'd be willing to do another half day of work each week if we gave her access to our veggies, berries, and fruit in order to keep herself fed (and honestly it would have felt wrong having someone helping us out while they bought their produce at the grocery store).
This evening she replied, quite happy with this agreement. A few emails later and... she'll be arriving Monday night.
Who knows how things will end up working out, but we're feeling pretty hopeful at this point. She sounds friendly and interesting and is looking for just the right amount of work on the farm. Combine that with the independence her camper will provide her with and we're off to a promising start.
I'm very much looking forward to meeting and working with her.
Write about something or someone that is: timely.
Took Max in for a haircut this afternoon. It's amazing the difference five or ten minutes can make in his appearance.
His cousin Natalie and Aunt Becky arrived this afternoon and it didn't take all that long before the two kids were making an excessive amount of noise while having just the right amount of fun together. So glad they were doing that at Grandma and Papa's house, not ours.
Spent the morning in the garden with Kat (when she wasn't chasing after our son) and Max (when he wasn't wandering off to see Grandma, or seeing what Papa was doing on the tractor, or hitting up the raspberry canes for berries). With all the weeding we managed to get done we're actually at a pretty reasonable point out there.
Not quite on top of things, but pretty darn close.
And we're about to get some help with that.
Mine:
At this point last year we already had two volunteers from the WWOOF organization camping in our backyard and working in the garden with us. I remember feeling fortunate to have found two helpers so quickly, but since it was our first year as a host farm in the organization I really had nothing to compare it to.
Fast forward to this year and we'd had a grand total of two people who had contacted us and we didn't feel like either was a very good fit here. Nothing particularly wrong with them, it's just that with a young child we're prone to being rather picky with who we want living in close quarters with us.
With a major downsize in the garden this season Kat and I had been talking about the feasibility of doing it all on our own. But we still have the same number of berries as previous years. And Max still takes up a lot of time and energy. And it would be nice to take a little more time off from the garden without having the weeds overthrow the entire system.
We don't need a huge amount of help to accomplish this - just a little bit. But was that little bit of help worth having a stranger (initially, anyway) living, eating, and working with us? We were leaning towards no - our volunteers and the work they do for us have always been greatly appreciated, but it has felt on more than one occasion very intrusive.
Enter: Rebecca.
She emailed last night, wondering if she could park her camper on the farm in exchange for maybe a day of work each week. Her camper has a bed and kitchen, all she needed is access to the bathroom. And she didn't want to volunteer too much because she has a student loan debt to pay off (through working in town for the summer).
Holy ideal, Batman.
We asked her if she'd be willing to do another half day of work each week if we gave her access to our veggies, berries, and fruit in order to keep herself fed (and honestly it would have felt wrong having someone helping us out while they bought their produce at the grocery store).
This evening she replied, quite happy with this agreement. A few emails later and... she'll be arriving Monday night.
Who knows how things will end up working out, but we're feeling pretty hopeful at this point. She sounds friendly and interesting and is looking for just the right amount of work on the farm. Combine that with the independence her camper will provide her with and we're off to a promising start.
I'm very much looking forward to meeting and working with her.
Wednesday June 3rd, 2015
The exercise:
I think that it is time to return to The Colony.
Most because Morganna's post the other day reminded me that a new month means a new entry to our yearlong story. It, uh, may have slipped my mind otherwise.
The rain let up enough for me to get some weeding done in the garden this morning. It was still a pretty cloudy, grey day though, with several periods of light rain. Thankfully tomorrow is expected to feature real, actual sunshine.
Also: Max's cousin Natalie and her mother will be arriving in the afternoon for a weekend visit. Very much looking forward to that.
Mine:
I may have made a mistake. A very, very big mistake.
I was just trying to help, okay? Looking out for everyone's best interests, that's all. The whole crew, the mission, all that good stuff. But now I'm pretty sure I've screwed up.
I can't find Robbie or Melina.
No one else seems to have noticed their absence yet. Should I report to Vassily? Probably. But that would mean admitting I messed up. Huge. And maybe I haven't! I mean, I don't know for sure yet.
All I have to do is find them. And Melina isn't exactly a needle in a haystack, you know. She's practically an Amazon! So it shouldn't be a problem.
Except I can't find them. I just can't. I've looked everywhere.
How was I supposed to know that Robbie's recent behaviour was a symptom of something much more sinister than him going a little loopy out here in space? Nothing I saw him do or say struck me as dangerous.
But now the woman I asked to talk to him, to investigate those mental issues of his, has disappeared. Kidnapped? Held hostage somewhere I can't seem to find? Or... something worse?
God, I can't even say it. I don't even want to think it! The very idea of it is giving me a headache that's threatening to split my head in two. And why does that stupid monitor in the corner of my room keep flashing like that? It's driving me crazier than Robbie!
Wait, what is that it's showing? Is that surveillance footage? Why would I be getting security video in my room... and why is it stuck in some kind of loop?
What... who... oh no. No no no no no.
I think that it is time to return to The Colony.
Most because Morganna's post the other day reminded me that a new month means a new entry to our yearlong story. It, uh, may have slipped my mind otherwise.
The rain let up enough for me to get some weeding done in the garden this morning. It was still a pretty cloudy, grey day though, with several periods of light rain. Thankfully tomorrow is expected to feature real, actual sunshine.
Also: Max's cousin Natalie and her mother will be arriving in the afternoon for a weekend visit. Very much looking forward to that.
Mine:
I may have made a mistake. A very, very big mistake.
I was just trying to help, okay? Looking out for everyone's best interests, that's all. The whole crew, the mission, all that good stuff. But now I'm pretty sure I've screwed up.
I can't find Robbie or Melina.
No one else seems to have noticed their absence yet. Should I report to Vassily? Probably. But that would mean admitting I messed up. Huge. And maybe I haven't! I mean, I don't know for sure yet.
All I have to do is find them. And Melina isn't exactly a needle in a haystack, you know. She's practically an Amazon! So it shouldn't be a problem.
Except I can't find them. I just can't. I've looked everywhere.
How was I supposed to know that Robbie's recent behaviour was a symptom of something much more sinister than him going a little loopy out here in space? Nothing I saw him do or say struck me as dangerous.
But now the woman I asked to talk to him, to investigate those mental issues of his, has disappeared. Kidnapped? Held hostage somewhere I can't seem to find? Or... something worse?
God, I can't even say it. I don't even want to think it! The very idea of it is giving me a headache that's threatening to split my head in two. And why does that stupid monitor in the corner of my room keep flashing like that? It's driving me crazier than Robbie!
Wait, what is that it's showing? Is that surveillance footage? Why would I be getting security video in my room... and why is it stuck in some kind of loop?
What... who... oh no. No no no no no.
Tuesday June 2nd, 2015
The exercise:
Write two haiku about something: soggy.
Yup, we got rained on this morning. All morning. It continued on throughout the day, but the morning was the problematic part as that was when we were out picking strawberries. It's still raining as I type this, actually.
Both Kat and I went through two sets of clothing as we attempted to stay somewhat dry and somewhat warm. It worked long enough to get the majority of the berries picked, but then we both reached a point where we'd had enough.
We got enough to fill our local orders, with another 11 pounds leftover for the bakery. It would have been nice to get a few more (I'm guessing four or five pounds were left out there) for them, but we still did pretty well considering the conditions.
The weather is supposed to get hot and dry again by Thursday, so hopefully the market pick will be a little more... pleasant.
Mine:
A morning in the
rain leads to comparisons
to mad drowning rats
* * *
More Dada. More please.
Just a lit- no! Too much milk!
Need new cereal.
Write two haiku about something: soggy.
Yup, we got rained on this morning. All morning. It continued on throughout the day, but the morning was the problematic part as that was when we were out picking strawberries. It's still raining as I type this, actually.
Both Kat and I went through two sets of clothing as we attempted to stay somewhat dry and somewhat warm. It worked long enough to get the majority of the berries picked, but then we both reached a point where we'd had enough.
We got enough to fill our local orders, with another 11 pounds leftover for the bakery. It would have been nice to get a few more (I'm guessing four or five pounds were left out there) for them, but we still did pretty well considering the conditions.
The weather is supposed to get hot and dry again by Thursday, so hopefully the market pick will be a little more... pleasant.
Mine:
A morning in the
rain leads to comparisons
to mad drowning rats
* * *
More Dada. More please.
Just a lit- no! Too much milk!
Need new cereal.
Monday June 1st, 2015
The exercise:
Apparently it is June now. Hmm.
Write something that has to do with: knives.
Spent the morning with Max, mostly running errands in town. Had to hand in my payroll paperwork at Town Hall, drop off a criminal record check at the police station (because when I'm called into work at the Community Centre I'll be working around/with kids), returned a book to the library, booked Max a haircut for later this week, and bought some groceries. There was a snack and coffee time in there somewhere as well.
After dinner I got started on the next strawberry harvest. Partially because it's going to take a long time to get through them all, but mostly because the forecast seems to be suggesting that tomorrow morning will consist of rain, rain, and more rain.
Also: rain.
So I wanted to get as much done in the not rain as possible.
Wish us luck tomorrow. And warmth.
Mine:
The knives have been sharpened,
They're ready for use.
She's staring out the window,
Tired of the abuse.
She has suffered enough,
There will be no more;
She is feeling so focused
She doesn't hear the door.
He comes up behind her,
His expression hard,
And joins her silent vigil
On the backyard.
They watch their veggie garden
Until it appears,
Then she hurries outside,
Grabs the rabbit by the ears.
Enough carrots have gone missing,
She says with a sigh.
Now play time is over -
The rabbit must die.
Apparently it is June now. Hmm.
Write something that has to do with: knives.
Spent the morning with Max, mostly running errands in town. Had to hand in my payroll paperwork at Town Hall, drop off a criminal record check at the police station (because when I'm called into work at the Community Centre I'll be working around/with kids), returned a book to the library, booked Max a haircut for later this week, and bought some groceries. There was a snack and coffee time in there somewhere as well.
After dinner I got started on the next strawberry harvest. Partially because it's going to take a long time to get through them all, but mostly because the forecast seems to be suggesting that tomorrow morning will consist of rain, rain, and more rain.
Also: rain.
So I wanted to get as much done in the not rain as possible.
Wish us luck tomorrow. And warmth.
Mine:
The knives have been sharpened,
They're ready for use.
She's staring out the window,
Tired of the abuse.
She has suffered enough,
There will be no more;
She is feeling so focused
She doesn't hear the door.
He comes up behind her,
His expression hard,
And joins her silent vigil
On the backyard.
They watch their veggie garden
Until it appears,
Then she hurries outside,
Grabs the rabbit by the ears.
Enough carrots have gone missing,
She says with a sigh.
Now play time is over -
The rabbit must die.
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