Here’s half of next year’s heat. It’s 60 feet long, 4.5 feet high (average), and 15″ deep or so, and that pencils out to 2.5 cord, or about half of what I’ll need next winter. It looks like a lot of wood, but last year we started burning in September and we burned a long …

Here’s our greenhouse with the surviving warm-weather plants that will remain there all season—peppers, watermelon, anything that can’t live outside. At the bottom center you can just make out the chipmunk trap. chipmunk (chip’ munk) n. Any of several small striped terrestrial squirrels of the genera Tamias and Eutamias; has cheek pouches and a light …

By the way, for all those I may have offended with my unflattering portait of television, I am sorry only that I didn’t show more tact. Some of you may actually like television. But my true opinion of the medium is that it’s offensive, unclean, obnoxious, contemptible, odious, invidious, revolting, distasteful, low, foul, corrupt, bad, …

Read the following out loud. An overly dramatic voice is helpful, and your imagination can supply the frenetic video footage: FOLLOW the HARROWING SAGA of the FLUKINGIJIGiGJER’S CHICKENS as they RAISE SEVEN CHICKS to ADULTHOOD. WILL THEY SURVIVE? WHAT about the FLOCK of BIZARRE DUCKS SPOTTED among PEACEFUL NEIGHBORHOOD HENS? WHY did the HENS SUDDENLY …

I went down with Jess this morning to take some pictures with our camera which is just begging to be put out of its misery. Jess let out all 23 poultry, fed and watered them, and gathered eggs, while I wandered around taking pictures. Usually I’m upstairs studying scriptures at this time in the morning, …

Natalie used to do this dramatic thing where she’d hiss the word “Fiaaaaah!” (“Fire!”) while scrunching up her face and framing it with hands (which were formed into claws). Well, the effect is lost in transcription. You had to be there, especially when she was a cute little 4-year-old towhead with blue eyes. I like …

Well, here are some of the newest crop: seven Buff Orpington chicks purchased the other day at the local co-op. (Wait, there’s a pun in there somewhere …) Are they hens? Roosters? We don’t know, and probably won’t until fall, when they’re mostly grown up. Then, may the best rooster win. The rest will end …

I think Ford is not terribly excited about consumers working on their (our) vehicles. They hide the oil filter between the front driver’s tire and the bumper, and don’t tell you where it is. (Don’t you think the oil filter belongs, oh, I don’t know, somewhere near the oil pan?) They scramble the engine layout, …

Our dogs will stop at nothing!!!! to destroy Jessica’s plantings. Flowerbed? Dig it up. New lawn? Dig it up. Newer lawn? Refuse to play anywhere else; chase each other relentlessly for eight hours a day until the grass seed is ground to powder. Fence? What fence? Doggie repellent? That’s for city dogs. Flowerbeds strewn with …

Last week I brought my chain saw out of hibernation and walked around downhill of the house, snipping off sundry little dead trees to tidy up the property. I worked my way down the trail to the garden, and then I found myself looking up at this tree. It’s a lodgepole pine, 70 feet tall …