I prepare the turkey breast and throw it in the oven.  Chop up potatoes and sweet potatoes and onions and garlic and spread them around the base.  Baste the turkey and prepare the stuffing.  Baste the turkey and throw the stuffing in the oven.   Baste the turkey....

...and Mark comes in next to frantic.  Half an inch of rain last night and the creek has risen to mid calf.  The golf cart is mysteriously ill, the footbridge treacherous.  How will my family make it in to enjoy our feast?

I look at him with soapy hands, three different side dishes yet to be begun running through my head.  I don't know.  Can they wear boots and wade through the water?  Read more....

Rain is a perfect season to plant seeds.
When the skies flooded the earth,
We stood strong, out of doors,
Where we could watch the birds swoop
For worms.

Our parents seemed to hibernate in a
Different world completely.
If they lived through us, warm, rain drenched
Soggy haired creatures,
It did not show.

We were immune to thunder,
We repelled lightening.
Mom and Daddy would stand
Out on the porch, barely braving
The roof, shouting,

"Come in if the lightening gets too close!"
The neighbors thought they were cop out parents.
We were glad for it.
We took five gallon buckets,
Filled them with gutter water,

And dumped them on our heads.
We smelled our small southern city
Clean as the water washed off
The cars, the industrial grime,
And our own boredom,

All of which accumulated on roofs,
Ran into the drain pipes,
And journeyed to the gutter,
Where we would race sticks
To the bottom of the hill.

After the sticks circled around over the drain,
And the gushing water pulled them down
into the underworld, after that, neither me,
nor my siblings, could guess where our
Rain day stream must go.

There's always so much work to do on the farm that we never seem to have time to be proactive, only reactive.  Water is a prime example.  Since the summer, we've had "bury water lines" on our to do list, but it never quite made it up onto the tasks we meant to conquer in any given week.  So when the first really cold spell hit, our lines froze and we were out of water.

Over the next week, Mark and I plan to get the water lines buried and the problem solved.  But in the short term, the dishes were piling up a foot above the sink.  So Sunday afternoon Mark and I set out in pursuit of immediate water.  We loaded some buckets into the club car and drove down to the creek through winter mud --- the kind that sits over half frozen ground and lets none of the recent rain drain away from the surface.

Our journey occurred before Mark installed the ice chains, so it was no surprise that we got stuck a few times and had to work our way free.  Mark lifted up the offending portion of the golf cart with the spud bar while I hit the acceleration and also pushed the cart along with one foot --- kinda like in the Flintstones but with my foot sticking out the side of the cart instead of through a hole in the floor.  Soon enough we'd filled up buckets at the creek and strapped them in place for the slipping, sliding journey home.

When we pulled up at the trailer door, both of us splattered with mud and water, our buckets had lost half of the water they'd started out with.  But both of us were laughing and invigorated from the adventure --- our buckets were indeed half full!

We just got back from a quick trip down to South Carolina to visit Daddy and explore all of his gadgets!

Here he is showing off his solar-powered deer repellent light.  (He built the stand himself.)  Despite my gift-resistance, I thanked him profusely when he offered to give me a set for Christmas to try in my own garden.  According to Daddy, as long as you move the lights every few days, the blinking lights scare away deer, who think the lights are predator eyes.  I'm willing to try anything to keep our deer away!

Then there's the automatic chicken feeder he built for his Golden Comets and Rhode Island Reds.  This one I'm less likely to emulate (though I'm including it since I thought others might be interested.)  The automatic feeder is obviously best in a stationary coop and I figure it would be too heavy for our tractors.  Daddy told me that his pullets got in the habit of picking all of the corn out of their mash and leaving the rest of it behind!  Darn teenagers and their junkfood.

Finally, I'll leave you with an eight second video of Daddy and his dog --- low budget entertainment at its best.  More soon on a couple of other highlights of the trip.

I know I shouldn't preach the merits of books --- if you're a believer, you know in your bones that an armful of good books has immeasurable worth, while if you're a disbeliever there's no way I'll change your mind.  So I'll just assume you're a believer.

Being a bibliophile on a budget takes a bit of getting used to.  I went through a book-buying phase, but now I've returned to the (cheap) joys of the library.  I challenge you to try out some of my tips before buying your next book (but if you must buy a book, buy it from Amazon by clicking here and give us a little kickback to keep our "doors" open.)  Read more....

When the stars align, Mark and I like to try to make our day in the big city as busy as possible so that we don't have to go back for several weeks.  Today was that day --- I met with an elected representative and sold some grape vines while Mark recorded some voices for a video he's working on. 

Once our work was done, we met back up on the street where my mother, brother, and sister live for a bit of old fashioned entertainment.  Mom and Maggie had accumulated 31 bags of leaves before the trash folks could get them --- I'd begged and pleaded that they grab some for me to compost in lieu of a Christmas present this year.  We were only able to stuff about 25 bags in the minivan, so we'll have to come back to get another load on our next town trip.  I haven't anticipated a Christmas present with such prolonged excitement since I was in grade school!

After Mark cleaned out Mom's gutters, Joey invited us up the street to try out a new European board game.  For those of you who were raised on American games like Monopoly and Shoots and Ladders, let me be the first to tell you that board games can make for a really entertaining adult gathering.  I like middle-of-the-road games like Settlers of Catan which have enough challenging strategy to keep you coming back for dozens of games but which don't take more than an hour or so to play.  The new game --- Carcassonne:  The Discovery --- met all of my criteria and I actually happily stayed in town after dark to play.  Looks like I've found a new favorite game!

I first subscribed to Sirius satellite radio a little over 3 years ago and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I was doing a fair amount of traveling at the time and it filled an empty place I was having from the deletion of television from my entertainment diet.

In addition to commercial free music Sirius has a nice selection of talk radio choices that allow the listener to participate in national discusions that sometimes involve callers from other countries. In my opinion the problem with these stations is the high level of commercials in between your entertainment.

The real end of my love affair with satellite radio was when we got high speed DSL internet back in the spring. It took me a couple of months to discover the magic of cyber radio, but once I did I was listening to the little Sirius box less and less until one day I decided it just was not worth 13 bucks a month. What really pushed me over the edge was when a friend told me about PublicRadioFan.com. This site takes most of the guess work out of choosing between the many different shows. What I find especially convenient about this method of delivery is the multiple time zone choices.

The real hero of my low budget entertainment world is the good people at Netflix. We spend 14 dollars and some change each month for the 2 movies unlimited option which usually works out to about 2 or 3 films per week. What I like most about their service is the easy to use website and impressive selection of titles.  They have a new on demand feature that lets you watch movies instantly over the internet. It works pretty good, but it only works with Windows XP or Vista and then you are required to use the Explorer web browser. I've heard they are working on a Mac option, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Everybody knows how cheap your local library is, except when you rack up excessive late fees.