Enough!!!

My poor little Chronicles have been suffering...
And I apologize to those of you who faithfully check in, to catch the latest, scintillating news from Cohagen.

While I was loading the dishwasher this morning, I decided part of the reason is that I've been looking at Facebook a lot more, and posting little blurbs there.  Apparently, I'm not one of those people who can run both a blog AND a Facebook page.  I think there's more value in my blog, and most of the same people read it, so I've decided to check FB only on Sundays and Wednesdays and write about life here, at the Chronicles. 

So.

What's new in Cohagen?

Our new school teacher is here!  Joni and Aaron Carroll arrived last weekend from North Carolina, bringing two U-Hauls of shtuff, 4 dogs (I think) and shocking the heck out of me when they recognized us in the grocery store.  Aaron is a Chronicles reader (who scolded me for the lack of recent posts) and Joni recognized the kids and I from pictures, here.  I was sort of dazed, having driven in from the Dutton Family reunion in Lewistown, and heard this voice down the pasta/beans/juice aisle: "That's Mary!"   And a woman I've never seen in my life came hustling over like we were old friends.  All I could think was, "I missed a cousin, somehow...?!"   Maggie latched onto them, immediately, and started giving all sorts of friendly advice and guidelines, completing her earlier interview and informing both Carrolls that they "could" stay until she went to high school.  (We're having a rough time with this whole "new teacher" thing...)

The Carrolls will be featured in a future Chronicles profile post, with pictures and all that.  (See, Aaron?  You want posts, you got posts...about YOU!) 

The farmers around the area have begun harvest, sort of jerkily, because everything is ripening oddly. I'm headed out to the field today to take some photos, for those of you who like farm-y sorts of posts.  Stay tuned for THAT thrilling, upcoming segment...

The Garfield County Fair is going on this week!  Yesterday, the Farmer and I went in to judge 4H projects.  He judges things like woodworking, metal working and poetry. (I KNOW.  Poetry.  Who knew?!)  I judged 4H foods and photography again. I'm not big on vampire things, but remember how cartoonishly vampires are depicted when faced with garlic?  Pulling their cloaks across their faces and shuddering?  That's how I feel about chocolate chip cookies and brownies after I judge the fair.  I vant to run avay...quvickly...from any baked goods, today.  Lots of good little cooks in Garfield County! 

In other news, our hired hand Dixie left to pursue her dreams in Helena, MT.  (Okay, that was maybe a little romantic for "seeking employment out of Garfield County"...)  We miss her; lunch was always fun, because she was always bringing us the latest gossip and scandal rocking Jordan that week. Now, we've got nothin'.  Even the meatloaf tastes less exciting. (You know....because meatloaf is generally a rocking sort of main dish...)

Football is back!
Another year of character building for a San Fransisco 49ers fan....   Again.  Still.
My consolation is that no matter how awful my 49ers are, the Broncos are consistantly worse! 
Last year, I won a rather glorious bet on the 49ers/Broncos game that was played in London.  My prize was that the LOSER betting for the Broncos had to start every email to me with the score: SF24-DEN16.  It was so, so sweet...mostly because it was a score that will be burned in both our heads for at LEAST two more years.
This year, the 49ers and the Broncos won't face off at all, and I'm not gonna lie...the season sort of pales because of it.  There goes our one chance of winning a game...!

In garden news, I have 109 stubbornly green tomatoes, 6 zucchini that will become fritters tonight, 30-ish carrots without tops (because Angus can pull tops off, but not carrots out of the ground), relentlessly cheerful marigolds, and stems of everything else that the grasshoppers have devoured.  Oh!  And more toads and frogs than we've ever seen.  And you'd think they'd be just completely obese, these amphibians, because of the multitude of grasshoppers, but they are actually modestly trim.  That may be because they're spending all their time hopping away from the kids.

We transported one hapless toad to Lewistown for the family reunion, where he sat for three days in a little old plastic bug case, looking at himself in the motel mirror. He was too depressed to die.  Maggie was completely mystified as to why he refused all the luscious bugs she offered up to him and finally agreed to release him in the wilds of Frank Day Memorial park in the labrynth garden under the daylillies.  The vacuum of the empty container immediately sucked in two skinny earthworms who reside there, still.  Worms are more resiliant, but less interesting.  Further bulletins as events warrant...

We have three kittens for give-away!
Kid trained, mother approved!  All orange and white tiggers...contact us if you are interested at all.  I'll throw in a free bag of zucchini with every sucker....I mean, taker. 

That's all the news that IS news, from my house. 

Stay tuned for more zucchini recipes, a farm girl fashion show, the New Teacher Feature, a startling new Crazy Mary question and answer, bum calf updates, harvest horrors and much, much more...