When Knitting Was a Manly Art

For more reasons that I can enumerate right now, I probably won’t be posting here for some time (though, it’s not like I’ve been posting a lot anyway).

The site will stay up, as I support two other separate activities from gaiser.org.

You can still follow day to day activities at twitter jerrygaiser or Facebook Jerry Gaiser.

Later…

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World is *slowly* turning more positive and I’m beginning to feel like starting stuff — photos, knitting, something.

But in the meantime, I’ve done some updates to my twitter account and I intend on using it more often.

See here for updates.

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Four feeders and as many as six at a time vying for a single feeder.

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Yes, I’m still alive…

Major writer’s block, picture taking block, too much work and general lack of interest in most things.

Doing a lot of reading, quite a bit of cooking (besides the restaurant) and mostly trying to get my life back in order.

Other than that my life is pretty boring.

But, Spring is here.. Flowers are blooming, the Hummingbirds are emptying my feeders nearly every day and my attitude is getting better. We’ll see how things go.

Later…..

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It’s been a while since I last posted, but it’s been a rough couple of months.

Along with the snow in December — we ended up with 38″ on the ground and spent 5 hours on Christmas day scraping ice and snow off the greenhouse to prevent it from collapsing — both of the other residents here have had to deal with deaths.

A close friend of Vern’s died in mid-December after a long battle with cancer and then on the 7th of January, I came home after being out all day to find a message from Eileen’s Dad’s neighbor on the phone. She and her boyfriend had found Harold (Eileen’s 92 year old Dad) lying next to the fence separating the two properties. He had committed suicide with a small caliber pistol that Eileen wasn’t able to get out of the house. I had the unfortunate responsibility of telling her when she got home later in the evening.

It came as a shock to everybody. I’ve known Harold for more than 25 years and while I knew he was getting frustrated with the effects of aging and especially the onset of Alzheimer, no one really suspected he would end his own life.

And needless to say it been a busy couple of past weeks. Eileen is mostly dealing with here Dad’s affairs by herself (she was an only child), with Vern and I helping out when she lets us. Fortunately Harold left most of his affairs in pretty good order and except for dealing the Medical Examiner and the mortuary it’s mostly been about closing down his house and removing anything of value from the house, changing mailing addresses and the other little things that need to be done.

Once again, it’s probably going to be awhile before I’m back to anything close to regular posting.

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30 inches of snow on the ground. We haven’t been above freezing for more than a week. This is the most snow I’ve seen at one time since we moved up here in 1985 and it appears to have broken a 40 year old record. I’ve been stuck in the house since Friday night, but I expect to try to get to work tomorrow, if I can dig my truck out of it’s snowbank.

This is a satellite photo from NASA’s Earth Observatory

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We had a visitor this morning browsing on a Winter Hazel bush in the front yard and apparently not very afraid of dogs. Gina, our Great Pyrenees, was lying in the snow about 30-40 yards in front of her.

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Not so cold today, but more than 1 foot of fresh powder on the ground. Another no pay day, but the snow plow just passed and if I can get out the driveway, I should be able to get out tomorrow.

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The crappy weather continues.

I worked yesterday evening, though we closed an hour early. The ride home was slick and icy in the valley, but once I started to climb up to the ridge top the snow got deeper and the driving is much easier.

Today was a day off, but the snow returned full bore and I’m looking at about 6 inches of new powder snow. I’m scheduled to work tomorrow evening, but it look’s likely that I’ll call in early for the day off. The owners son is home from college for winter break and is available to cover the shift.

Some fun links from www.youtube.com

Nora, the piano playing cat

Nora - Part 1
Nora - Part 2

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High today 22.5F
Low last night 14.5F
Current temp 16.0F

I made a command decision last night and closed the restaurant at 8:30PM. The two of us working both had long and slippery drives ahead of us and I couldn’t see staying open for the extra hour. A trip that takes 20 minutes in fair weather became a 45 minute white knuckle drive last night.

I had already got my day shift today covered and spent the day in glorious sunshine but bitter cold getting things done around the farm.

The owner called late this afternoon and told me he had my shift covered tomorrow also. I *hate* losing the hours, but I decided to take another snow day off. Even with 4-wheel drive, it’s becoming one of the longest rides I have had to make.

Tomorrow is predicted to be clear and cold again, but Wednesday has another front coming in with an additional 2-6 inches of snow and it looks like we can expect below freezing weather through at least next Monday.

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