I would love some new pruning tools and a shed full of salt blocks.

when we first moved here, a block of salt was about $2, now it is almost $10. We go through about 5 to ten blocks a month and that is letting them go without for part of the time.

They can live with out it, but they get obnoxious trying to make up for it, eating wood and chewing anything made of plastic or soft metal apart. It is also good for training them to go to certain places we want them to hang around or move to.

went into a 9 x 9 x 45 inch box and got mailed to my father. If I am lucky I will get the living room clean(ish) this week and do a tree for us. I have been feeling very anti-holidays for several years lately so I tend to procrastinate even more than normal. sigh.

to get into the mood. But, something tells me that we should all dig deep and make it extra special because, for twenty angels, it will be their first Christmas.

coming back to town and i noticed a stand of evergreens on some farmland right by the road.

they didn't look intentionally planted, but 2 or 3 really stood out and looked like beautiful xmas trees.

i thought about it for a millisecond, but no.

I know the local Natural Recourse Conservation District often sells them at cost or even gives them away.

Careful with old farmers though, they are usually armed.

don't go on people's land unless you are invited.

if you go to a BBQ joint @9am for breakfast on a work-trip with your peers and you order tea and oatmeal while everybody else is chasing their pork and eggs with beer and bad coffee...you've just outed yourself as the Yankee and will be referred to as such by the waitress, line-cook and the hostess for the remainder of the meal.

But only in the kindest of ways.

(outside Houston, TX. 1/2005)

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... they put milk and sugar on their grits instead of butter and/or black pepper.
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are those lopping shears I see peeking through the shrubbery?

Nice....

You are way farther along than I am though. My truck brake line went out and my husband's insisting on fixing it himself... for a month now.

I am for damn sure NOT going to try to tie down a tree to the top of my car so I'm waiting til its fixed. That may be... oh sometime next year. Darn! says this old curmudgeon (who also isn't feeling very festive)