Making up at Christmas

My wife and I have been happily married for almost twelve years now, and we've both been able to roll with the punches pretty well, and balance each other off. Of course, like every successful relationship, there have been many learning curves and compromises along the way, and that brings me to the subject of today's post.

Make-up.

No, not that mutual-apology-followed-by-torrid-kissing-and-other-indoor-games type of make-up, I speak of the kind applied to the face by a fair amount of women and to a lesser, more disturbing degree, some men.

During our first real Christmas together (we had one before that, but it was shortly after I came to my senses and re-united with Jeanne after a three month hiatus, but that's another long story for another day), I did what most respectable mates would do, and asked my lovely fiancee what she would like for christmas. She listed a couple of things, then dropped the real bombshell on me:

"I really like to have make-up in my stocking".

"um, what?"

"You know, mascara, lipstick, foundation... make-up".

"Oh, thank god. For a minute, I thought you meant mascara, lipstick... wait a minute, what? What's going on, where am I, I feel a bit dizzy."

"C'mon, it's not that big of a deal, I just really like it."

"But, my sweet darling, why would you ever think I would know what to pick out for make-up, I'm a 31-year old bachelor. What if I pick out something horrible, and you end up looking like Jack Nicholson as The Joker from the first Batman movie?"

"You'll do just fine."

I could tell that she wanted this quite a bit, and being the giving soul that I am, I reluctantly agreed to do my best.

So, the following Saturday, after a brief spying trip to her make-up bag, off to Wal-Mart I went, because at least I could pretend to be in Wal-Mart for fishing gear or duct tape or something. I went to the 24-hour one, really early in the morning, I did NOT want a big audience.

First, I went and put a fishing pole and duct tape in my cart, then circled my cart around the area of the beauty supply aisles, noticing how many of them had make-up in them. I was in trouble. I straightend myself up, told myself that a lot of guys shopped for make-up for their significant others, especially at Christmas time, and dove right in.

Holy cow!

Maybelline, Cover Girl, Revlon, organic choices, some sort of physician's brand, teeny-bopper sections, each with rows and rows of color and texture choices, yikes! Okay, well I recognize the Maybelline brand, let's start there.

Mascara & eye-lining pencils. Very black, soft black, medium black, not black at all, fine lines, lengthening and defining, non-clumping, free mirror, oh boy!

Foundation. Let's see, is she more of an ivory, classic ivory, natural ivory, tan, blush? Ah, here we go, buff natural, that's kind of like naked, and that can't be bad.

"Excuse me sir, do you need any help?"

Crap. "uh, no, I'm all set, I'm just doing a research project on which companies do animal testing with their products. Thank you though."

She walks away, that strange look on her face. Okay, where was I?

Lipstick. Well, I could go for pink, let me pink, make me pink, pink of me, party pink, pink me up, pink wink or pinkalicious. Here we go, almost nude, another excellent choice!

Nail polish. Red is too devilish, black too depressing, blue, pink, purple, fuschia, glitter all too teeny-bopperish. Is clear a color?

Eye makeup. Okay, that one looks too bland, that one has too many colors, how about this one, four colors, none too flashy, done.

By now, I'm starting to scare myself a bit with how easily I'm making decisions about make-up. Let's see, what else did she want? What the hell is a scrunchi? There better be a video game system in my stocking, that's all I have to say!

So, Christmas morning comes, and I'm more nervous than on the night I proposed, waiting for her to recoil in horror at my choices. It struck me then that this was one of those pre-marital tests I had always heard about, her way of judging what kind of husband and father I'd be. Crap! Maybe I shouldn't have gone for all of those naked choices! To my relief, she is happy with most everthing, even the multi-colored scrunchi's! Christmas is saved!

Well, she's still married to me, and though I still hesitate before heading down the make-up aisle to start my Christmas shopping, I do feel more confident and secure in my manliness.

Oh look, the new line of Luscious Lips colors is out. I've read about that...

Pick one thing

I started this blog back during harvest season at our small produce farm, and at the time I had at least a few things to say and pictures to show. Since then, time has been smaller, and ambition smaller still at times. Now, with the holiday season in full swing, I once again feel compelled to pick up the keyboard (not literally) and say a few words.

I have noticed more and more these past few years that the attitude toward Christmas and the holidays has been not-so-good with some family and friends for various reasons. To be sure, this time of year can be very busy, and with all the various expansions of family that have been created through marriages, divorces, re-marrying, etc... it is hard to schedule all of the people you need to see or buy for and so on. The economy this year certainly doesn't help, and has dragged some of these people down even further. A select few say they just don't like the holidays at all, and can't even think of one reason to like it and celebrate. I really have a hard time with that sort of negativity, as I've always enjoyed this time of year, and the magical feeling that is in the air.

So, I ask everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, or income, or stage in life, or health situation, please look at everything in your life and find that one thing. It doesn't have to be a huge thing, and you don't have to think of a hundred reasons, just pick that one thing to be grateful for, and latch onto it. Why be miserable during the time of year that is supposed to be wondrous and magical? If you can find just one thing to be happy for and go with that, you just may find that the holiday may go a bit better for you.

Here's a list of possibilities to start you out, kind of a Farmer's Cul-de-Sac search engine for you:



1. Do you like listening to or singing holiday music?


2. Do you enjoy the sight of the first snow blanketing the countryside in white? (not all the other daily January snowstorms, or the middle-of-April-holy-crap-will-winter-ever-end type of snowstorms)


3. Has it ever made you smile when you've received a gift from someone that you didn't expect
to, knowing that this person thinks enough of you to make this profound gesture?


4. Have you ever been so excited about a gift that you got someone, knowing how much it would
make them happy when they opened it?


5. Do you look forward to eating delicious foods, some of which only come out during the
holidays, like fruitcake for instance (well, maybe not fruitcake...)?


6. Has that special holiday moment ever happened where you sit back and savor your
surroundings and the contentment just then, and lock that memory away, knowing that
sort of moment just doesn't happen too often?


7. Do you enjoy the Victoria's Secret Christmas ads? Okay, just trying to be sure you're
awake! Just for the record, I think they're okay:):)


8. Have you ever gone to a holiday gathering dreading seeing one person or other and find out that they couldn't make if for some reason? Remember how the rest of the night just flew by, and how much you enjoyed yourself?


9. Do you enjoy sledding, singing, the smell of pine trees, the color red or green, thin mints, cherry cordials, eggnogg (spiked or not), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, snowball fights, the smile on a child's face when they see and then open their gifts, bacon (veggie or not), yankee swaps, wearing fancy clothes one time a year, The Grinch, the sight of holiday decorations on houses as you drive by, Christmas cartoons, going to church, not going to church, The Twelve Things at Christmas That Are Such a Pain to Me song, having a few days off paid from work, the word merry or happy.......



So you see? There are hundreds of examples of just one thing that could make you happy during the holiday season. Isn't it a whole lot easier to concentrate on that one good thing, instead of wasting all of your energy thinking of all those negative reasons why you don't like the holidays? Why not give it a shot, and pass this along to everybody, it just may help.

Remember, there shouldn't be all of this self-built pressure to do so much and spend so much. Let's have a simple good time, and enjoy some laughter and appreciate good health and the fact that we all made it through another year together. The season is about sharing and giving, but that giving need not be monetary in nature, as the best sort of giving rarely is. Finally, find at least one reason to be happy yourself. You'll be, well, happy you did!



Thanks for reading, and may you and yours have a truly happy holiday season!



-Dave

Blessed Honesty

As I said earlier, the little farm stand we run is based on the honor system, and for the most part, it has worked quite well. There is a secure metal box attached to one end of the trailer, with a slot at one end to accept money; people usually leave the appropriate amount for our produce, and we don't have to stay at the stand, leaving us free to do other things. There have been instances where a bunch of pumpkins have been stolen all at once, then others where people haven't quite paid what they should for what they've taken. It is difficult to understand, but such is the risk of honor.

Now, on the other side of the cornfield, there are those that offer something more than mere money for our wares, something... priceless.

The first time it happened, I thought; "well, someone is just well-wishing". Although the crucified Jesus is certainly my least favorite image of him, I figured we were blessed by someone.


When it happened again, I thought "how blessed we are, people really care about our mortal souls, and they like what we are doing here, and this is their seal of approval".

This one even had a prayer on the back!

Okay, so the third and fourth times it happened, I wondered if it was the same people leaving religious tokens, and were they leaving them in leu of money or in addition to it? Did they have a collection of this stuff, and didn't quite know what to do with it, and saw a convenient delivery slot? Maybe their message wasn't that they liked what we were doing, but felt we needed saving, as we are really bad bad people?

Then, like a sign from above, a note reassured us that all was okay.

Honesty really is a great thing, and though we try not to be like Charlie Brown being fooled by Lucy with the football over and over again, it's so important to be able to trust people. Along with love, it really is what makes the world go 'round.

So, keep spreading the love and trust around to everyone you meet, and whatever religion or ideal you believe in, may it guide you to a happy and fulfilling life.

-Dave

The Most Colorful Time of The Year

Okay, so there's something like 78 more shopping days until Christmas, so I thought, why fight it? I may as well embrace that season, even as I try to hold onto and enjoy this season, the season of color!

I'll have to ask you to sing along with this picture montage, to the tune of The Most Wonderful Time of The Year. C'mon, you know it will be fun!


It's the most colorful time of the year.

When the leaves change their hues;

And pumpkins are due;At least we have some this year;

It's the most colorful time of the year.

There'll be witches with bling features;

And wild Frankenstein creatures;

And ghosts that you don't have to fear;

There'll be kids climbing branches;

And posing on branches;

While the "girls" proudly show all their flair;

It's the most colorful time;

The most colorful time;

It's the most colorful time of the year!!!

See? In this age of multi-tasking, you can enjoy two seasons at the same time, and have fun doing it! Thanks for indulging my madness.

My thanks also to Mother Nature, my step-daughters April and Amy, my grandkids Tre and Jada, and especially my wonderful wife Jeanne for all the masterpieces you see here.

Until next time, may your rows be straight, your vines long and your harvest full.

-The Farmer-not-so-extraordinaire.

Remembering the Old Cobb

In 2007, Russell Bussiere, a longtime friend of our family, went missing while hunting in the same woods he had for as long as anyone can remember. A massive search and rescue operation was launched, including the National Guard, N.H. Fish and Game Department, and many volunteers. It was a tough search through snow and cold, and after a couple of weeks, the search was downgraded to a "recovery", instead of "rescue".

Smaller search parties journeyed out periodically, including cadaver-sniffing dogs, but to no avail. The winter of '07 & '08 brought a lot of snow to the area, further hampering efforts. Once the snow melted, small groups once again searched, hoping for closure, and after a couple of weeks, one friend of the family perservered and found Russell's body. Due to circumstances, nobody was able to determine how he died, but at least closure had been attained.

Russell loved the woods where he died, and knew them quite well. He also worked with granite for a major portion of his working life, and passed on his granite curb-setting business to his family, who still carry it on.

One of the most prevalent things I remember when I think of Russell is that he called his close friends "Cobb" a lot, and I always wondered what it meant. It's not a widespread word, and seems to be contained within the boundaries of the Suncook/Allenstown area of New Hampshire for some reason. I have done a little searching on it, and the closest I can come up with is an old Australian word "Cobber", meaning friend. I don't know if Russell ever went to Australia, but he was in the military as a young man, so it could have filtered down and around the world somehow and got shortened to "Cobb".

The reason why so many people turned out to help search for Russell is that he helped a lot of people over his lifetime. He was certainly his own man, and he could be very direct and to the point many times, but you always knew where he stood. Through the hard exterior, you always knew that he cared about people.

A few of his family members and I went to the spot where he was found, and placed this very fitting piece of Swenson Gray granite curbing to memorialize the man who called his friends Cobb. The bottle of Budweiser was left by his son Michael, as Russell did enjoy his refreshments:)

Rest easy, Cobb.

Making a stand

To market or not to market, that is the growing question.

As you may know from my first post, the weeds took over the gardens quite quickly this year, and we weren't sure if we'd have enough produce to set up the old farm stand. Well, it's more like a farm "trailer", but it still works! It's my Dad's old hay wagon, and though it's not as charming as a big farm stand with all the quaint decorations and such, it has an odd quaintness all its own. Usually, I hook up Dad's 1952 Farmall tractor to it, which really adds to the quaint quotient, but I didn't take the time to get the old girl up and running this year.

Well, not all the pumpkins are completely orange, but they have some great shapes:)

The gourds are so cool, we always look forward to all the various shapes and colors every year. Oh, and who doesn't like some yummy squash?!

Corn stalks are always popular, and we always grow nice tall indian corn stalks, they're the best!

Everything is based on the "honor system", and it usually works pretty well, other than a couple of instances in 2007 when somebody stole a bunch of the pumpkins. The world always has a few bad apples in it - or are they the wiry orange worms within the bad apples?

So, we'll keep on working hard and trusting in the common good, and keep our little tradition alive every year if we can.

so, I guess the answer is... to market!

Until then, may your rows be straight, your vines long, and your harvest full.

-the farmer not-so-extraordinaire, Dave

Apple a day

So... we all know about the old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", but what happens when you need to bend over, kneel, and reach to pick up hundreds of apples off the ground?



Can you say chiropractor?



We have four ancient Macintosh apple trees in our backyard, and though we aren't at the point in our young part-time farming careers where we can keep up with the pruning and spraying of the trees (not that we are keen on using all those chemical pesticides anyway) in order to get bountiful tie-the-branches-to-the-tree-or-they'll-break-from-the-weight-of-all-these-apples type harvests, they actually do a tremendous job of growing lots of apples most years. The problem is, though a high percentage of the apples have issues such as worms and other such pleasant things, they grow to a decent size, then follow Isaac Newton's theory and fall to the ground quicker than our schedules allow us to pick them up. This creates quite the obstacle to such things as mowing the lawn and walking without spraining an ankle. So a-pickin we will go!



Now, if we didn't plan on using any of the apples, it would be a fairly straightforward task to just toss the apples into the garden cart and haul them off to the compost pile. Ha ha! Did I tell you I'm a Duford? I come from a loooong line of descendants who believed that just about anything you come across in your life could be used for something, someday, so we don't just throw things away (If you could have seen my departed Memere's basement, you'd find all the evidence you'd ever need to qualify this statement. Behold the five wooden"spaghetti mop" handles, and the cleaned out styrofoam fast food hamburger containers - and you know how long it's been since Mceedees served burgers in those - and you may begin to understand what I mean). No, this apple "picking" is a highly evolved, and involved process, more of an apple "choosing" and must be broken into the following categories:

1. The perfect specimen. This is like an apple you'd see at the market, rich red color, few if any blemishes. It's as if, on its way falling down to the ground, a small flock of swallows swooped in and formed a net to catch it, then floated gently to the ground to place it right-side-up near the tree, all the while a choir of angel voices singing that Carpenter's song about being close to you. Quite rare for our unkempt trees, and believe me I've checked.


2. The eating apple. Still looks pretty good, some "scabs" visible, no noticeable worm holes (doesn't mean they aren't or weren't there, they just aren't noticeable, and hey, what you don't see can't hurt you, right?). Just shine her up and crunch away, carefully.


3. The pie and/or crisp apple. this has a fair amount of scabbing, bruises and potential worm holes, but enough good areas that a skilled person with a paring knife could cut around this nonsense, throw a bunch of cinnamon, sugar, butter and french vanilla ice cream at it and make something quite delectable indeed.


4. The cider apple. This is by far the most common, and depending on your tastes and apple etiquette, could describe just about any apple that hasn't gone back to seed. Rumor has it that my dear departed Dad, Donald, had an extremely wide range of apples that he would plunge into the 'ol cider press, worms and all. mmm.... worms. We still have that old press, and by golly we'll get it out some year to carry on the family tradition to make some nice wormy cider. Just for you Dad!


5. The "oh my god, get it off me!" apple. There is the apple specimen out there that doesn't quite play nice with the other apples. Yes, I speak of the much reputed "bad apple." Picture if you will, daylight is fading, you're in a hurry to get all these #%&*ing apples separated before darkness falls, and you've raised your standards on what to keep or not keep, mostly just grabbing and throwing apples into the compost cart with somewhat reckless abandon. Then it happens, an apple that seems solid turns out to be anything but, and your fingers poke into the slimy, mushy flesh, releasing that fantastic fragrance of slimy mushy apple that the Glade Company has yet to offer the world. Or, you pick up an apple and say "hey, this looks okay... what the...", as six or so wiry orange worms poke out from the bottom, reaching menacingly toward you, like Medusa's fabled head of snakes. Or perhaps, after hours of picking up apples and carefully inspecting each one, your eyes get blurry, and you think that faint buzzing noise must be in your ears, and the flurry of activity near that particular apple is just some sort of mirage brought on by smelling fermented apples all afternoon. So you reach out to grab it, your senses just a click behind your brain screaming "yellow jackets! yellow jackets! abort!", but it's too late, your hand has already entered the fray, ouch! This is the main reason my allergic wife doesn't do the apple picking-up.


6. There is no sixth grade of apple, I just couldn't get out of the auto-formatting here.

Okay, that's better. So, how did I start this whole thing anyway? Oh, yes, an apple a day... Yeeess, just an apple a day is good for you, really.

Thanks for reading, as as always, may your rows be straight, your vines long and your harvest full.

-farmer-not-so-extraordinaire, Dave

The weeds win

Okay, so this is my first blog ever; as part-time farmers get with the times a little slower than some:), so bear with me if this seems dull or boring.

What isn't slow is the progression of weeds in the garden. One day you notice a few weeds starting to reach for the sky, and the next day, you can no longer see the plants that are supposed to be in the garden! How is it that the same soil you think is non-nutritive, due to your pumpkin plants struggling to grow, allows weeds to reach epic proportions in no time at all? It is clearly a cruel joke of some kind, ha, ha, ha, frickin' highlarryous!! So, in addition to the rainy summer stunting all of our good crop growth, I give up! The gardens are what they are, and so be it. Fortunately, we don't depend on the farm stand for substantial income, but it would be nice to at least pay for the seeds!

There is a special satisfaction of being able to have a farm stand and actually sell the produce that you grow, like a contribution to the local economy and well-being of the neighborhood or something. Unlike my Dad, we don't have a fully "circular" farm eco-system, with animals providing natural fertilizer for the gardens, so we need to look at our soil quality a lot closer to get things up to snuff (whatever that means!). At least the grandkids can pick out a pumpkin for themselves!

The sweet corn has just started yielding some of its tender kernals, though there isn't an over-abundance of corn either this year. I'll need to alert my sister Cheryl, as she likes the it a bit more "poppy" than most people, and there should be some she'll like. The tomatoes have produced quite nicely, as well as the green peppers. We had to plant the cucumbers a couple of times, and didn't get too many for our labors, though they were delicious. We will have a good crop of Butternut Squash, which is good, well, for those who like squash anyway:)

So that's it for my initial blog, and I hope to have pictures to include in future blogs. Hey, I'm a rookie, okay? Until then, may your rows be straight, your vines long and your harvest full.

-Dave (graniteman and farmer-not-so-extraordinaire)