Today was finally warmer—I think we’ve been having blackberry winter—-the cold snap we get when the blackberries are blooming. And boy, are they blooming! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a heavy bloom. The multiflora roses, too; although they’re the scourge of the countryside, this time of year I love them. They’re covered with trusses of white (sometimes pink) flowers that are heavily scented. The air smells like roses and cinnamon, plus the privet is blooming with its musky, suggestive scent, and the honeysuckle is so sweet. So lovely.

Our Middle Eastern do was so much fun the other night. We had a full house, plenty of good food, and a great performance by Onca, our glamorous and exotic instructor. We raised the money we set out to raise, and a good time was had by all. The Hot Springs community center was transformed; we were all astonished that it could look like that! (Thanks to S* the Amazing, and her crew of Very Helpful Girls!) We would all love to do something like that about once a month—it was great fun!

The girls and I spent the day getting ready for tomorrow’s Middle Eastern gala. Our bellydancing class has had too few people sign up this time, and in order to pay our instructor’s fees (plus some, I hope), we’ve been selling tickets to a dinner and a performance. I think we’re sold out, so we should have quite a crowd in the little H.S. community center!

So this morning Bernard started by making date balls: dates, bread crumbs, honey, walnuts, almonds, and butter. We put all those things through my fabulous Cuisinart, and then Bernard rolled the mixture in little balls, and then rolled them in sugar. They are very yummy.

ED made a gargantuan batch of pita bread: we started by grinding the wheat, and she mixed up a semi-scary batch of dough, and while that was rising she roasted some eggplant and made a bowl of baba ghanouj. We just finished the pitas a few minutes ago—at around 10 pm!

And at the same time that all this was going on, I was making a very large bowl of tabouleh. And the ingredients for spanakopita, which I will assemble tomorrow morning. I’ve made a couple of batches of yogurt over the last couple of days, and in the morning I will mix in some cucumbers and garlic and mint for a Lebanese yoghurt salad.

ED is shooting me dirty looks because I grounded her from reading until her (and Bernard’s) room is clean. They also can’t watch any movies. ED seems to be pretty furious at me: neither of them have ever been grounded before. Actually they’ve never really been punished in any way before; there’s never been any reason to. But now I’m at my wit’s end—their room is scary! I had to go in there at 3:00 this morning to open the window for them, and I could’ve gotten hurt! Put my eye out at the very least. Anyway, I’m not really into the whole punitive scene, but I figure that if they don’t have time to clean up their room, they certainly don’t have time for reading and watching movies. Mean old me.

Bronwen did indeed turn out to be in heat yesterday, as I discovered when I went rushing out of here to get to the Post Office before it closed at 10:30 yesterday morning. I was sliding down the slimy, clay, 45 degree angle driveway, trying my best to not total the car in the vertical mine shaft of a ditch, when I ran up on the rear end of Bronwen, running and yelling, obviously making a break for it. There was nothing I could do except continue to follow her down the “driveway”, because there was no way I was going to be able to stop the car—-not safely, anyway—so I chased her to the bottom, jumped out of the car—-in my flip flops, and have I mentioned mud?—and ran her back up to our place, where DH helped me get her back in the pasture.

By now, Bernard was up and wanted to go with me to town, so—with 15 minutes to make a 20 minute drive—we sprinted down the driveway to the car, and took off for town. I was trying to make a little time on the straightaways (that means I got up to 40 a few times), and we were doing pretty well until I came up behind a carload of tourists in a big, ugly Oldsmobile station wagon. Going 20-ish, except for when they had to slow down for the curves. I’m sorry to say it took five miles of “applying pressure” (otherwise known as moderate tailgating) before they would pull over and let me by. We got to the P.O. just in time to hear the deadbolt slide home. Grrr. Tourism, huh?

So now both cows are in the pasture together, and all is quiet. Another heat cycle come and gone, and so far, no satisfaction for anybody.

Rosemary bellowed all night, often directly under our (open) bedroom window. Poor girl was in heat, and I wasn’t sure on the protocol of calling the AI guy—-I forgot to ask him when I can call, and when I can’t. Somehow, I was thinking it would not be appropriate to call at midnight! So I got up this morning at 6:30 and sat with the phone in my hand until 7:00, when some vague idea of rural politeness allowed me to call. I think I woke him up. Anyway, he couldn’t come out today, and Rosemary doesn’t seem to be in heat any longer; did you know that a cow’s heat cycle only lasts twelve hours? Is that a pain, or what? He’s going to come out next week and give her an injection of lutelase (sp?), so that she’ll go into heat in the following few days, and we’ll try breeding her then.

So, today I’m going to take her out of the yard, and let her go back in the pasture with Bronwen until Mr. AI is ready for her. The yard is amazing—one cow makes a lot of poop!

OK, now Bronwen’s yelling—I wonder if she’s in heat, too?

Between my elderly computer, my dial-up modem, and my antique phone lines—and let’s not forget the rain—everything I do on the computer takes so long! Just reading all the blogs that I enjoy so much, especially if they are picture-heavy, is such an exercise in frustration that, lately, I haven’t been doing it. And now look—over a week has passed since my last post! Shameful.

In the last eight days we have looked at several properties. I feel like we’re getting a better idea of what’s available out there; however, our two favorite places so far aren’t currently for sale, but, according to their owners, could be. If….what? If we prove ourselves worthy? If we make it worth their while? What?

Anyway, I have a strange, obscure sense that we’re getting closer. To something.

The clearcutting of the farm where we live has begun. Huge logging trucks are up and down the driveway all day; conversation is punctuated by the sound of trees crashing to the ground. The first day they were up here, I had gone to work with DH down the road for a little while. The loggers were on the upper driveway, trimming trees and branches, so they could get by; ED marched up there to find out if they were actually stupid enough to be planning to cut the pie-cherry tree that’s on the side of the driveway! They assured her that they wouldn’t; that they just needed to cut a couple of limbs back. She said later that they were real nice, but she pointed out that they cut the only two branches that we could reach to pick cherries from. Sigh. Thank goodness we’ve got our cherries down here.

Yesterday I rode with DH to town, just so we could visit for a little while; he dropped me off at the bottom of the driveway (the scary, scary driveway) on his way back to work. I walked up to the house just in time to see three new baby goslings come out from under the barn! So cute—they may be the cutest animal we get on the farm. These three are half Toulouse, half White Chinese; the others will be all Toulouse, assuming they hatch. When we got our Toulouse as goslings, they were a funny shade of olive green. These half Toulouse are yellow with olive green patches. The White Chinese goose has been a half-assed mother so far—she gave up on setting the eggs early on—but the Toulouse is still on the nest, hoping for the rest of those eggs to hatch. The three ganders are taking care of the babies.

Scary driveway update: M* came to pick J* up the other night—we knew she wouldn’t make it all the way up to the house, but DH had made it to the turnaround spot in his two-wheel-drive truck, so we thought for sure M* would be able to make it that far, too. Well, she did make it up that far, but the little tiny sprinkling of gravel the guys had put down was swallowed by the mud when it rained, and M* durn near didn’t make it back out. Nothing like a little tow truck action at 10 o’clock at night with scared kids and a lot of stick-to-your-feet mud. Whoohoo! Sorry, M*—do you still love me?

I’m looking forward to not getting an intense adrenalin rush every time I leave or come home!

Today I helped DH on the job he’s been working on; cruelly, he made me paint for five straight hours. Actually, it was quite nice to work together—we used to a lot, but what with kids, and farming—well, it just gets harder. So today was fun, and productive.

Rosemary te cow is living in the yard, I guess until her next heat. The yard is a mess. The sheep are in the upper garden, and they keep jumping the fence and coming in the yard, so not only do we have a yard full of very wet cowpies, but none of my flowers are surviving the onslaught of the sheep. They love iris buds. Especially iris buds that are ready to open any minute. They’re like sheep candy. Oh, well. I’m trying to not be too awfully attached.

So—the sheep-jumping-the-fence-thing? I think Shetlands may not be the perfect sheep for us. I’ve heard that Cotswolds don’t jump fences. Or climb them, or knock them down and stomp on them. Cotswolds, huh?

What an exhausting weekend! Fun, though, and certainly necessary: we forced the girls into the car both yesterday and today and drove around the county for hours at a time, following realtor’s signs, or any back road that looked promising. We saw some gorgeous places, and even some possibilities, so I guess we’re on the right track, though I’m so glad we won’t be doing it again tomorrow!

Yesterday, on the way home, we stopped and picked many, many locust flowers: long creamy-white umbels that smell heartbreakingly sweet. This morning we pulled them off their stems and separated them from all leaves and twigs, and packed down, they filled a five-gallon pot. So then we boiled a pot of water with a gallon of honey, some Irish moss (1/4 tsp), a tablespoon of gypsum, and a teaspoon or two of yeast nutrient. Oh, and three limes, thinly sliced. We let all that sort of simmer, or maybe gently boil, meanwhile skimming off any foam or scum that came to the surface, for 15 or 20 minutes. Then we cooled that mixture, removed the limes, and poured it over the flowers in the big pot, and finally added a packet of champagne yeast. Now it’s sitting on the kitchen table, covered tightly with cheesecloth, smelling wonderful, but looking as if it might escape at some point! I’ll let it sit there for maybe a week, or until I can’t take it anymore, and then I’ll strain the flowers out and put the liquid in a five-gallon glass carboy fitted with a fermentation lock.

We (sadly) missed dandelions this spring—the first time in a very long time! Something about the cold and wet—they just never really happened up here. So—-locust flowers are the first wine of the year this year.

In other news, our neighbors got a FEMA grant to fix the driveway, which got destroyed by the hurricanes last year. It’s always been bad, but lately has been much worse. So, now the driveway is under construction, and instead of just being a damn nuisance and hell on the cars, it’s now dangerous! I’m somewhat terrified to drive up or down now, what with a steep and crumbling cliff that falls to the highway below on one side, and a four-foot-deep ditch on the other, and a very narrow driveway in between. Sheesh.

Other things in our lives seem to sort of be falling apart one by one: the hot water in the kitchen is currently not working (that’s convenient!) , the part of the driveway where we park is a mud bog, and seems to be getting worse by the day, and I can’t figure out where the water is coming from; and the rope swing in the maple tree finally broke. Do you ever get the feeling that there’s something telling you what to do? I do, and right now I’m being told to find a place and move!