I'm away from the horses for a bit and house pets have to satisfy for a while. It works, but the mix of the bigger and the smaller critters will feel good when I am recovered from the fall I took and able to shovel horse poop again.
In the meantime I have had a chance to think about where I want to go with my violin playing, and I well may opt for a change of direction. The woman who has been holding down my seat in front of the second violins in one of my orchestras has again started to get odd about the conductor. Thus far it feels very similar to what happened the last time I was out of action for a bit and she filled the seat. The conductor is easily influenced by someone with a certain type of manipulative behavior, and as a result I felt like chopped liver for a while when I returned to the seat. There was little to no communication and he was downright rude several times in the first couple of performance cycles.
I am resolved that I don't want to go through that again, and I've been thinking of doing some different things in my playing than before. I well may let her have that seat, move to the back, and not get into the fray. This time of being unable to play is helpful in my coming to a decision about that.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Things to remember
The pair of goats at the farm, leaning out over the top of their enclosure hoping that one of us coming by to pick up our box of vegies will go over and scratch their head. The male nuzzling the doe while thay waited.
The ever-annoying Siamese patting at my leg to get some attention, so he can climb in front of me as I type.
The ever-annoying Siamese patting at my leg to get some attention, so he can climb in front of me as I type.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
From the Farm, Animals Too
The last week has been spent processing vegetables that arrive in copious quantities from the CSA, but my husband doesn't eat. This last week turned up a red beet coulis, which worked great as a sauce over cheese ravioli and for pork chops. The second batch of beets got turned into that and hit the freezer today, with the garlic and ramped up from the original version. Some of the collard greens were hidden in a kimchi soup, and the rest may find their way to tonight's fish.
Today's recipe was to use something that he does like, but Ma Nature tends to pre-package in a quantity that is harder for two people to kill in a single meal - butternut squash. Aside from having overshot the mark a little on the curry, which will not be an issue when I add the cream tonight, it came out well.
I was struck by how much of what I used came from a local farm, including animals. All of the vegetables as well as the pears came from this last week's visit to pick up our farm share. The stock came out of the freezer, made a few months ago from the backs of the whole chickens from another local farm. I buy them fresh and cut them up for our purposes. The vegetables that went into that stock came from the same farm as the squash and the pears.
The only things that did not come from a local farm were the butter and the curry. The cream I'll add later is also from a local cooperative.
Some years ago, I'd have thought that this kind of habit required that I live in a very rural area. But we live in a cluster of small cities with over a dozen colleges and the seat of state government under our noses, in a traditionally industrial valley. The produce and animals that contributed to this soup all came from smaller family farms, tucked into the rolling hills north and east of here. The local food movement is alive and well around here.
Today's recipe was to use something that he does like, but Ma Nature tends to pre-package in a quantity that is harder for two people to kill in a single meal - butternut squash. Aside from having overshot the mark a little on the curry, which will not be an issue when I add the cream tonight, it came out well.
I was struck by how much of what I used came from a local farm, including animals. All of the vegetables as well as the pears came from this last week's visit to pick up our farm share. The stock came out of the freezer, made a few months ago from the backs of the whole chickens from another local farm. I buy them fresh and cut them up for our purposes. The vegetables that went into that stock came from the same farm as the squash and the pears.
The only things that did not come from a local farm were the butter and the curry. The cream I'll add later is also from a local cooperative.
Some years ago, I'd have thought that this kind of habit required that I live in a very rural area. But we live in a cluster of small cities with over a dozen colleges and the seat of state government under our noses, in a traditionally industrial valley. The produce and animals that contributed to this soup all came from smaller family farms, tucked into the rolling hills north and east of here. The local food movement is alive and well around here.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Can We Help You?
I called up a web hosting service to have them refresh the site at their end. My index page wasn't being seen. It took a about 4 minutes and things were fine. I got a customer survey call back.
I called up an insurance company to ask them to send another bill, one that I tend to lose in the house. I got the bill two days later. I got a customer survey one day later.
I got an oil change done on the car. I got a call back with a customer survey.
I get a paper or automated survey after almost every doctor's visit these days, no matter how routine.
It took 7 days, three visits including two times of adjusting the phone line so it wasn't too low and many phone calls to get our land line and DSL moved and functioning at a different address this last spring. I got a call back with an automated customer survey after every call and visit. Some of these came through while I was on hold trying to get to Verizon to find out what had gone wrong this time.
I appreciate that people who provide services want to know how well they are doing. But their needs for feedback are getting to be pretty high maintenance.
I called up an insurance company to ask them to send another bill, one that I tend to lose in the house. I got the bill two days later. I got a customer survey one day later.
I got an oil change done on the car. I got a call back with a customer survey.
I get a paper or automated survey after almost every doctor's visit these days, no matter how routine.
It took 7 days, three visits including two times of adjusting the phone line so it wasn't too low and many phone calls to get our land line and DSL moved and functioning at a different address this last spring. I got a call back with an automated customer survey after every call and visit. Some of these came through while I was on hold trying to get to Verizon to find out what had gone wrong this time.
I appreciate that people who provide services want to know how well they are doing. But their needs for feedback are getting to be pretty high maintenance.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Two Makes?
We are well settled into two cats now, though not the two we would have chosen. The only similarity between these two is that they are both very large cats. In terms of disposition, they couldn't be more different.
Atlas the Siamese sleeps curled up against the large, fuzzy Andy, except when he is making godawful meeser yowls at the him. The time spent yowling has fallen, but there are still several bouts a day. Andy just looks at this behavior in confusion unless he is bored. Then he swats at Atlas because he has found it makes Atlas jump interestingly.
They have a competition if we lie down, each trying to get closer to our face. This will work out better as the temperatures fall. It is quite uncomfortable in the summer.
Atlas the Siamese sleeps curled up against the large, fuzzy Andy, except when he is making godawful meeser yowls at the him. The time spent yowling has fallen, but there are still several bouts a day. Andy just looks at this behavior in confusion unless he is bored. Then he swats at Atlas because he has found it makes Atlas jump interestingly.
They have a competition if we lie down, each trying to get closer to our face. This will work out better as the temperatures fall. It is quite uncomfortable in the summer.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Irene and Lee
This not so charming couple caused record breaking flooding inland in the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys of New York state and trashed much of southern Vermont and the Susquehanna Valley from New York into Pennsylvania before leaving. Irene was bad, unfortunately Lee came through a week latrer and doubled down the damages. It is taking some time to get a gauge of the full impact.
The water was particularly unkind to the major roads through villages in Greene, Montgomery and Schenectady counties and places like Wilmington Vermont. Some villages have condemned signs on the dangling front doors of a third of the properties along their main street. Places that have not flooded in many decades found themselves under 10 feet of water, and places that usually just flood turned into violent, brown rapids.
Lee spawned a small tornado or two as well, one of which was filmed crossing the NYS Thruway near Amsterdam by a panicked young woman sat in her car. The other, a probable but short-lived tornado near Glenville, landed near the therapeutic riding bar. Happily that didn't so more than scare the heck out of the horses for a moment - but stall guards all held and the horses got some extra hay to help calm their nerves as the storm abated.
Farms have had all of their crop fields destroyed, hitting the final crop of hay that was to keep their horses and cattle in feed over the winter. Of course estimates are that there are over 2000 cows that got caught in the rising waters in the Schoharie Valley alone, smaller farmers losing half their herd, and tragic stories such as the horse breeder who failed to heed warnings to move 21 broodmares and colts to higher ground. Smaller animals like pigs got caught with no recourse. There will be fewer mouths to feed this year. But the hay that has been going from this area to Texas, because of the drought there, has stopped moving.
Share farms like the one to which we belong lost some or all of their crop fields holding the harvest that should have made for bulging, heavy boxes of produce we get in this harvest season. Many CSA's like ours are managing to supply something in a box each week, but the owners are probably raiding their own winter food to do that. The dollar value of the losses is significant for operations that barely stay above water to start with. There is talk of some kind of targeted aid for farmers from our elected representatives.
Locks 8 through 11 on the Mohawk, on the Canal, are down until spring with damaged flood walls, power stations out and the river cutting a new channel beside the lock itself.
Our house never had the water nearer than a couple of blocks away. We were quite lucky.
The water was particularly unkind to the major roads through villages in Greene, Montgomery and Schenectady counties and places like Wilmington Vermont. Some villages have condemned signs on the dangling front doors of a third of the properties along their main street. Places that have not flooded in many decades found themselves under 10 feet of water, and places that usually just flood turned into violent, brown rapids.
Lee spawned a small tornado or two as well, one of which was filmed crossing the NYS Thruway near Amsterdam by a panicked young woman sat in her car. The other, a probable but short-lived tornado near Glenville, landed near the therapeutic riding bar. Happily that didn't so more than scare the heck out of the horses for a moment - but stall guards all held and the horses got some extra hay to help calm their nerves as the storm abated.
Farms have had all of their crop fields destroyed, hitting the final crop of hay that was to keep their horses and cattle in feed over the winter. Of course estimates are that there are over 2000 cows that got caught in the rising waters in the Schoharie Valley alone, smaller farmers losing half their herd, and tragic stories such as the horse breeder who failed to heed warnings to move 21 broodmares and colts to higher ground. Smaller animals like pigs got caught with no recourse. There will be fewer mouths to feed this year. But the hay that has been going from this area to Texas, because of the drought there, has stopped moving.
Share farms like the one to which we belong lost some or all of their crop fields holding the harvest that should have made for bulging, heavy boxes of produce we get in this harvest season. Many CSA's like ours are managing to supply something in a box each week, but the owners are probably raiding their own winter food to do that. The dollar value of the losses is significant for operations that barely stay above water to start with. There is talk of some kind of targeted aid for farmers from our elected representatives.
Locks 8 through 11 on the Mohawk, on the Canal, are down until spring with damaged flood walls, power stations out and the river cutting a new channel beside the lock itself.
Our house never had the water nearer than a couple of blocks away. We were quite lucky.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
No Eggplant for You
Like most in the area, our CSA had a goodly portion of their fields flooded or severely damaged from Irene. The flooded parts are of no use for the rest of this season. It will take a lot of remediation to clean them of the diesel oil and sewage that was part of the floodwater, especially for an organic farm. The nearly finished crops in other fields - the tomatoes, the eggplants and the squash were fatally damaged by wind and rain. The farm will be finishing the season by breaking into their late season crops - greens and cole crops - sooner than planned. Those crops were knocked around but not destroyed.
But they are the lucky ones, compared to the dairy farmers who have just several weeks to rebuild barns for the winter. Most were able to move their cows and other livestock to higher ground, but they couldn't move the barns or the milking parlors. And they lost much of the current hay and silage that was being stored for the winter. They have a short time to make very big decisions.
But they are the lucky ones, compared to the dairy farmers who have just several weeks to rebuild barns for the winter. Most were able to move their cows and other livestock to higher ground, but they couldn't move the barns or the milking parlors. And they lost much of the current hay and silage that was being stored for the winter. They have a short time to make very big decisions.
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