Come on, more sun!

A rather gloomy day outside, and here I am-working away inside. Unfortunately, the household chores just don't magically do themselves. Between baking and laundry, I have been working away at filling more flats with little bitty growing things. By the time this is done, I am going to need a chiropractor for my darned neck, haha!

The round pen area has dried enough to use, but snow remains in the shady spots and the berms that are slowly melting. If we could just have a week of sunshine, I think we'd be pretty much dried up.....at least enough to give some attention to the lawn. As it is, we still have rivulets across the drive in several spots-carefully tended to take the excess away as quickly as possible. Every vehicle we've moved is that well known "break up" color, and there isn't much point in washing them either.

While we're waiting to see evidence of buds on the birch trees, I am trying not to pay attention to events in Japan, what's happening in Congress, and what our joke of a legislature is (not) doing. I am trying not to panic over the rapidly increasing freight rates, grocery prices, and of course, fuel. I am trying not to become upset over any of it.....because right now, dealing with those baby plants is doing my teeny tiny bit to help folks cope with inflation. I even amaze myself at the quantity of food those flats represent :)

Over 125 flats delivered, with more to go today!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

While the local goat world awaits Heather Fair's action (if any) about the small claims suit filed against her, life has ramped up into overdrive for me.

Remind me why I do this?

I am up to my elbows in growing mixes, starts, germinating seeds, and shuffling flats as fast as I can to make room for more. Eight different types of cucumbers started-and that's a lot! Summer squashes get seeded this coming weekend, and I have six varieties of those alone. After that it's into the lettuces....and so on and so forth.

I had near complete "crop failure" on a couple things, due to how I attempted to germinate the seeds. Not one to repeat the mistake, I have resorted to broad casting seed thickly, then pricking out the starts and planting those directly. Makes for completely full flats which is what I need to deliver. It actually saves me more time than it takes, which is always helpful.

The garage, kindly serving as my indoor greenhouse, is completely thrashed. Sigh. Flats and boxes and bales of ProMix, seed packets, gloves, watering cans, and so on are piled everywhere. I resolve to straighten it out this weekend, or I will be doomed to overlook something critically important, for sure. My wonderful, tolerant husband is thinking of making a plastic sheeted wall for one side of the garage, so I can use that as well. I've seen it done here before so I know it's possible.

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out how to get a little heat into my own greenhouse, without breaking the bank account. I am not so sure it can be done on my "cheap beer" budget, lol

Fractured, frazzled fairy tales......part 2

As the community knows, "all that" is nothing if not wily. Indeed, one might even say....Machiavellian, a calculating paranoid who maintains copious dossiers on every person she interacts with-and does business with.

Once you are in her sights, you will be researched, Googled, Bing'd, and any and all information is carefully copied and saved, or screen saved, or just filed away for future use. Any comment made anywhere is "fair game" and she'll look up your court records, and any other dirt she can find using her prodigious internet sleuthing skills. The net is not her only source of information, of course...and she'll be combing through your enemies and use friends for snippets of gossip which may or may not have factual basis. It's all ammunition in the guerilla style attack to come.

With reams of information at hand, she waits in ambush for the unsuspecting to make a statement in error. When the occasion presents itself, your past words and deeds are exposed for the world to see, in extensive detail....yet couched in terms that lead others to wrongful conclusions and always puts the prey on the defensive.

All That missed her calling. She'd fit right in, on the Beltway. Or the CIA. Or even in local politics. But no, she is firmly entrenched in state employment and no doubt manipulating those around her with equal ease.

Those she wishes to impress, or make friends of, have no idea of her tactics and the lengths to which she'll stoop to have her way. But at heart, she remains a coward. This blog author watched her nearly fall into apoplexy when asked to explain, in detail, her assertions that certain people were not worthy of joining the club. Of course she was not able to do this. A coward indeed, who could not back up her protestations at all.

And while she beguiles the easily lead, they do not understand their danger.

They do not know that she is nothing but a miserably paranoid person full of hot air and posturing and who is just friendly with you only to gain your trust-and that she has no problems sacrificing that trust by throwing you under the proverbial bus, should that suit her needs.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and as "All That" is wont to type: YMMV.

Please feel free to ask specific questions, and I will be happy to share the facts as I know them :)

A Fairy Tale......

Once upon a time, there came to the Valley, a gal who believed herself to be all that.

"All that" was anything and everything she turned her eyes upon. With a focus unworldly, she zeroed in on the local horse community. Convinced of her inevitable greatness due to serving as a foster home for horses in need, she set about righting wrongs and educating the great unwashed masses. Dipping her toes into the roiling waters of normal people, she became disenchanted with a few notable locals. They just didn't know how to do things properly and even worse, a few were evidently scofflaws in her opinion. And most damning of all, most people did not want to hear her message!


Snubbed, she started a chat group. Which quickly became known as her own personal fiefdom, where a dissenting thought was never welcomed, and all eventually became wary. Many left the group, for safer havens elsewhere, but she was quick to type "good riddance" and move to the next target. It was ever her style to publicly belittle and trounce a persons' reputation-deserved or not.

As time passed, she became enamored of another species. With great enthusiasm she jumped into learning anything and everything goats. In just a few short weeks, she became the "expert" her ego demanded, and shortly thereafter purchased a starter herd from a reputable local breeder.

But as the months passed, of course the breeder could not possibly know as much as "All that" and she began to question her choices. Since she is not capable of making a mistake, any misjudgments had to arise from the breeder, and this caused much dissension over time.

During this, she sought to make a name for her farm. Which meant joining clubs and chat groups, and showing the ignorant the error of their ways. And then of course, running things since she could do things so much better than anyone else. Eventually she became an officer of the local club, and there, proceeded to ramrod the organization to her bidding. With words uncounted and a force of ego amazing to behold, she had her way. Who could stand firm in the flood? No one.

People became fearful in her presence, but outwardly friendly. But when she saw something amiss-correct or not-she ran with it. She ran so hard she propagated damaging lies and misinformation and caused several other farms and breeders much distress and anguish and lost business.

And then I, yes I, the blog author, decided one day to "like" a Facebook page. Silly me, I did not know she was involved with the page-and I was promptly booted from that page, and then another. And then not just booted, but personally ignored. Justifiably upset over the action, I questioned it. Which lit a firestorm on the local email lists.

With much gnashing of teeth and wailing and many blistering walls of text, she defended the indefensible. With the tenacity of a Tasmanian devil, she tore into one person and the next, publicly eviscerating the supposedly guilty right along with the innocent. She refused to let people join the club, refused to acknowledge members, and so on.

So the club went on without her. With excellent legal advice at hand, the club continued its business, and elections and went forward with plans for the future.

But my goodness the discoveries made, my my!

Fractured Fair(y) Tales