Off On A Pheasant Hunt

Still vainly trying to fit in with this country gentleman thing (that was for you, Hammer), I am off on a pheasant hunt this afternoon, an outing I bid on and won at a fund-raising auction at the kittens' school. The leader of the expedition is a friend of mine here in town, and he hunts on a private preserve of a friend of his a bit up the Shore. The chances of actually killing anything are low, as I am told that the snow has beat down much of the cover that pheasants seem to dig. At least this is what I'm told, as I have but once even seen a pheasant in the wild.

Adding also to the unlikelihood that anything will be killed is the fact that Mudge is joining in the fun, driving up from Virginia's sliver of the Eastern Shore. Mudge "hunts" regularly, but based reporting (his and others) he rarely "kills" anything. Kinda like what they call a "cooler" in the gambling business, the guy who sidles up to your blackjack table and kills the run.

I'll try and bring a digital camera along to capture some of the carnage.

On Mud

I have fond memories of watching M*A*S*H as a kid. One of them is how much time Hawkeye spent complaining about the mud of Korea. Well, I think I now know of what he speaks.

Many of you know I live on a farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The farm has a long lane extending up from the street, a lane presumably comprised of gravel. In the summer, the lane is a dusty mess, instantly turning even the cleanest car into a filthy shadow of its former self. Time and inattention has rendered the lane less gravelly and more dusty than it ought to be (the care of the lane is not the Kitten's responsibility nor mine). The incessant snow of this winter, in addition to aggressive plows, has also taken its toll.

We are now left with a lane that is almost totally mud. This includes the once gravel circular drive in front of our house. There is no place for one to park without instantly stepping into several inches of gooey icky mud. It is demoralizing, especially when one has recently purchased a new automobile. The tires are muddy, the wheelwells are muddy, there is mud along the length of the car and there is mud all over the ridiculously expensive rubber mats I purchased to cover the ridiculously expensive plush carpet underneath. I find myself having to aggressively maneuver the car simply to make it through the accumulated muck without getting stuck.

There is, on our farm, an inherited aversion to blacktopped farm lanes. I won't mention any names, but I happen to be one of the very few full-time inhabitants of any of the dwellings on our little peninsula who would like the lane to be blacktop. Some of the others think blacktop is "for
Washington people", those who have gobbled up the old family estates along the water here for their weekend entertainment, much to the chagrin of the locals. One might even speculate that clinging to gravel is a way of clinging to a past long gone by. I don't know why blacktop has such a bad rap here, but I'm all for it.

I've developed a rewarding relationship with a local carwash. Rewarding for the owners of the carwash, at least. For the low, low price of $26.00, I can have a squad of dubiously credentialed "guest workers" (ahem) descend upon my beautiful, but muddy automobile, and in a matter of minutes, she is returned to showroom glory--chrome gleaming, tires Armor-alled, the faint odor of new car smell once again wafting through the cabin. I am made whole by the Wet Dog Car Wash, at least until my next trip down the lane.

Lookin Out My Back Door

Working from home doesn't suck.

UPDATE: Those are decoys--though a huge flock of geese just descended upon them....and then got weirded out by their motionlessness and left....

The View From The Farm

We got at least a foot; really beautiful, but in an area like this, I can only imagine it will bring an already leisurely pace to a crawl. I've got things to do in DC this week, and while the Kitten and the kittens can snugly hunker down (no school), I've got to find a way to get mobile. Perhaps I'll avail myself of the Land Cruiser.....here's the view from my garage mancave--you're looking at a soybean field with the farm lane in the distance.

A Great Autumn Day

I'll get back to Pelosi care tomorrow morning, but for now, I'll just think about the perfect Fall day we had today. Our farmer was out and took down 60 acres of soy beans--when the combine was headed in the other the direction, the girls climbed up on the truck to consider jumping into the carnival-like bean ocean.

We went for our first farm-stomp of the fall, back through the woods and along the stream. Lots of deer out and about, and the fields will be teeming with them over the next few days as they find the soybeans the farmer left behind.

Never fear Mudge, I obtained my Virginia out of state hunting license today, the waterfowl stamp should be in the mail, and I got my HIP number--so hunting trip #2 can proceed to the planning stage.

A good day indeed.

My Blue-Dog Congressman Makes The Right Choice

Representative Frank Kratovil (D-MD1) is apparently not going to vote against the Pelois/ObamaCare Bill that is believed will be voted upon today. I told Tom de Plume yesterday that I believed the bill wouldn't be voted on today--that the election Tuesday night told the Blue Dogs that people like the president but don't like his issues, and that it was safe to go your own way. Without their votes, the Dems would have a tough time getting to 218 votes, and Pelosi won't bring up a bill she can't pass. We'll see.

Kratovil is doing a good job straddling the line of his relatively Republican friendly (for Maryland, that is) district. He voted against the first version of the stimulus, but for the final version and cap and trade (wrapping himself in some utter BS language about it being good for farmers and watermen). Let's see if he can hang tough on this one, and more importantly, when a final bill comes up for a vote.

A Little Bit About My Slice of Paradise in the New York Times

He's lying though...it really is terrible on the Eastern Shore. Horrible. Don't move there.