Things Go Moo In The Night…

The Bishop of the Dicose… Diosec…hmmm. How do you spell that word?? The Bishop of the Die-oh-cease o’ Aberdeen is coming up here to Orkney to visit our parish. Yay!! Hell be at mass on Sunday.

In honour of His Excelen…Excellenc… i before e except after c…

Ok, I give up. You say: “But just look it up in the dictionary!” Welp, the dictionary (and the phone book, as well as alphabetizing files…) is this dyslexic’s worst nightmare.

So, we’re having a buffet after mass and we were told to bring “finger foods” ~ something I’ve never tried to make before. I thought I’d be clever and make little mini-tarts using short crust pastery, sprinkled with cinn… oh for heaven’s sake!!! Short crust pastery sprinkled with that broon poodery spice that goes really well with broon sugar, and filled with blueberry jam.

I put said mini-tarts in the oven and set them for 15 minutes and when I opened the oven 15 minutes later… I discovered that the tarts had not only turned inside-out but they had exploded the blueberry jam all over the universe.

I think we’ll just buy some grapes or something. **Sigh**

That’s Rat-Tail in the foreground.

Husband brought the sheep in to the byres so we can feed them a mix of grains in order to keep them healthy as they prepare to lamb. We have 96 yows (ewes) now and a surprising number of them are only carrying single lambs! 35 singles, 55 with twins, 3 with triplets, and 3 not in lamb.

When I walked into the sheep byre all of the tame yows rushed over to the gate for scratches and they were sniffing at Elspeth as if to say, “WHAT is THAT?” There was Inga, one of our pure Texels, there for a scratch, then #13, then Ingabor, Rat Tail… they all came for a hello!  When shy #22 crept over for a sniff of the baby she ended up getting her nose kicked by a happy wean flinging her legs about. “This is my lamb.” I told the flock.

Huge #13 is carrying triplets! She’s a good yow and she’ll raise at leat two of them. Sadly Mathilda died of pnuemonia at the beginning of fall and Madaline, #16, and #8 had to be culled because of a very bad case of mastitis. #7 had to go as well because she never took her lambs. Ten-Ten, another pure Texel, had to be culled as well because her body would not open up to let the lambs out and birth was going to kill her one of these days. It was sad to see so many of the original flock having to go.

I like it when the sheep come in because then I have plenty of wooly head to scratch. Soon enough we’ll be exploding with lambs! And one of these years Elspeth will begin to learn to be a shepherdess!

I thought I’d give this a try. It looks interesting!

The Simple Woman’s Daybook

 will be posted each Monday.

Here’s how to take part:

1. Write up and publish your journal page using the questions/picture ideas I have listed below into your blog entry. Be as descriptive as you can! (You may cut and paste them for the purpose to participate in The Simple Woman’s Daybook.) Please add your”picture thought” photo at the end of your daybook entry because all we love pictures!
~*~*~*~*~
(Add The Simple Woman button HERE)

FOR TODAY February 16, 2009…
Outside my window… the snow is gone and the world is green again.
I am thinking… of the snowdrops in the garden.

I am thankful for… hot water.

From the kitchen…I am heating stew.

I am wearing…work clothes.

I am creating…another baby perhaps?

I am going…into the byre to see the sheep.

I am reading… I’m not reading, I’m working on writing my book.

I am hoping…to finish several pages before bed time.

I am hearing…the sound of the wind outside.

Around the house…running the carpet sweeper over the floors, doing laundry, amusing the baby.

One of my favorite things…is a hot cup of coffee!

A few plans for the rest of the week: get at least this one chapter finished with my book before the muse leaves.
Here is picture thought I am sharing…

A newborn Angus calf. It

It’s calving season on the farm!

Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers–they will know where to join in the fun, too.

2. Copy the “permalink” ONLY from your “The Simple Woman’s Daybook” post, not the link to the front page of your blog. This will make it much easier for others to find it instead of looking through the entire list of entries at your blog for your “daybook”. Anyone not posting ONLY the daybook entry permalink will have their link removed.

3. Come back here and add your permalink to the Mister Linky box. This is the second box. In the first box where it lists “YOUR NAME”…please only place up to 3 words. The reason being is if it gets too long it pushes the html code off the page .

PLEASE NOTE: Inappropriate links, links to things you sell, etc. will be removed at my discretion.

Tags: A Simple Woman's Daybook

Hmmm. I thought that I wouldn’t have to approve comments from those of you that have already commented here on my blog. So I haven’t been keeping an eye on things.

I appreciate the fact that folk take the time to not only read my blitherings but you also leave comments. Thanks for that!

If you’ve noticed a delay in your comments being approved I’ve just been busy and haven’t gotten to it yet. Mia culpa.

…Just flew by the livingroom window! Wow. I guess the corridors Erlend put in-between the fields for the Hen Harriers to hunt voles is really working! Mr. Harrier was a goregous lad but I wonder if he was having any luck with his hunt?

Tags: Life On The Farm

I’m a major dental wimp. My teeth don’t like to numb and of course I totally forgot to warn the dentist of this ahead of time. “Oh hey, dentists the world over have had extreme difficulty numbing my weird teeth…” One time I had  dentist pump so much juice into me that my earlobe went numb. Did you read that!? My earlobe!! Then and only then could they continue drilling.

I don’t get it. Why won’t my crazy teeth numb up like everyone elses?! A good dentist believes me. A wretched dentist gives me a bunch of crap and behaves as if I’m faking it. Thankfully I had a great dentist today!

The major downside is that you don’t know if the teeth are numb until the dentist starts to drill which makes the experience all the more terrifying. You lie there thinking… any minute now… And so the dentist drilled and a moment later I felt that awful sour-pain spring through my jaw and “AAG!!” I was promptly given a second jag and then the drilling began and… “AAAAG!!” But lucky luck lucky for me, the cavity was gone. It was over and done with! **Whew** But after that I was totally paranoid and so I cringed every single time the dentist moved anything towards my mouth. AAAH! Cotton wads! AAAAH! The suction thingy! AAAAH! Whatever-that-is!!!!

My face (but not my teeth) sufficiently numb I was soon free to escape the dental chair and carry on drooling all over myself for the next several hours. I was starving (of course!!) but could not touch my fish and chips so when we arrived home I placed them on the aga. For some reason I had begun to feel very ill about halfway home ~ my head ached over my right eye, my eyes didn’t want to focus properly, and I felt really fainty-nasty like I was going to be sick and keel over. (Was this due to my hours of terror prior to visiting the dentist??) I ended up having to lie down for two hours and I woke up even more starving and somehow managed to eat my dried-out fish and chips with a numb lower lip.

I still feel rather ill so I hope the baby decides to go to sleep at 9pm because I need to go back to bed. But at least I’ll do so knowing that it’s OVER! I’ve faced the drill and it’s all over with! YES!!

The Orkney weather is once again whipping my hide.

It’s bad enough our forks are migrating around the hoose but now I can’t even go for a walk without losing feeling in my face!

After being trapped indoors for two days because of gale force winds I decided to make a dash for the great outdoors during this spell of not-so-gale-force weather after Elspeth had a feed. I needed to get my blood moving and we both craved fresh air. So I bundled the wean up in one of her adorable snow suits given by friends and tucked her under the patchwork quilt made by my friend in Alaska ~ baby was nice and tosty in her pram!

Well!! We made it about halfway through our walk when I had to tuck tail and zoom back home due to the fact that I could no longer feel my head! And that’s with “wind proof” ploar fleece, a wool shawl, a shnazzy neon-yellow reflective vest, and my jacket hood pulled up over my bonnet. I was bundled head-to-toe but not face to toe.  Oops.  I used to wear the Arabian veil thing back home in Alaska during the coldest of winter days and it worked perfectly! I can’t stand regular winter hats with their close hair-hugging way that makes my head itch like crazy. So you can imagine how I feel about those bank-robber ski masks with the eye and mouth holes. UGH.

So if you see a woman walking around in the cold biting wind whilst peering through the eye slit of a teal coloured veil just give me a wave and say, “Hi, Moo!” I’ll wave back with a numb hand.

Hopefully this will work because I’ve had to ditch my walk and come yelping home several times now due to Orkney’s razor-sharp winter winds!

And I thought I was tough coming from Alaska…

Time for some hot coffee! I’m starting to feel my cheeks but my ears are still frozen solid!

This morning I set the table before heading to kirk. Upon our return I happened to notice that my fork was missing. Huh?! A search ensued but no fork turned up in the kitchen. “I know I put a fork there.” I kept saying while husband made noncommital noises and tried to humor me.

Then he found my fork on the sofa in the livingroom.

um… how did my fork get from the kitchen table to the sofa?

It’s a mystery!!