Foolish little backwards planet....

I was sore when Pluto, unfairly (my humble opinion) was banned from the planetary line-up. I, personally, would have rather seen these science people take Mercury out behind the wood shed and poke him with sharp, cold, cheap aluminum knitting needles. No, wait, sock needles, and let's strip him naked first and put little droplets of flesh-eating acids on him - yeah. Oh, sorry, I don't usually permit you to enter the tight inner-workings of my perverse and tormented mind. Witness the reason for my hostility.

Last week was a danged cold week. We were operating on a ridiculous amount of sleep (damn, we should have finished the addition on the house and had the 2nd wood stove hooked up but summer packed her bags while we weren't looking and left us with a bunch of green tomatoes) what with the working of hubster's full-time job, the chopping of wood, the insanity of the farm, and the sheer desire to have another adult to converse with WITHOUT the ever-observant eyes of the THING/spies. We were coping. Then, my llama died. He was rather weak when we got him. Thankfully, I had the sense to 'quarantine' them because a few days after their arrival, I discovered that he was COVERED in lice. I mean, big, biting, healthy bugs. That would explain the patches of hair he was losing. We thought it might be the stress of a new home. No problem, we treated it and he did get stronger. Then, after three weeks of really danged cold temps and many weather shifts - we went down one morning and he was gone - pneumonia. Tears. Sorrow. Will something like this ever happen and my reaction not to be feeling like the lowest human form for not 'saving' him? Vet says, bad, bad year for pnuemonia. But he was up and earting and looking good just the afternoon before. Yes, yes, he was aged. Yes, yes, he was weakly and slightly neurotic and had many 'issues'. But, I loved him. And that means pain at the moment. But, I am strong, I will get through this interminable 'winter blue' I've been feeling, right?

Hey, you want snow? How about oodles of it? No problem, that's why we live it Maine. It is also why we took the time to stop by and visit our plow guy the day before the storm, offering to pay in advance to have him plow our road. No, no, he says, put your money away - I'll be there as soon as the snow lets up. We waited. No plow guy. Hubster had to go to work so he just took my truck and hoped the four wheel drive would be enough. It wasn't, apparently, and now we have damaged the oil place and oil squirts out to the tune of environmental disaster and the mechanic is 'backed up' so it will be Monday before we can get it looked at. Hubster's truck needs a new door, especially now that the old one has no window (god, I love duck tape) and it doesn't stay shut - an interesting additive to driving in Maine winters. Two days later, still no plow guy, no call, no answer the forty times we called. Hmmm. So, ever working hubster rents a skid-steer machine to haul all the snow away (our road is almost a mile long so a snowblower would have been the move of a suicidal man). It breaks down at noon, half way down the road. It takes three hours for the company man to fix it. It is now dark, hubster has been outside since he woke up, and dinner finally arrives in his hungry, cold hands at 7ish. No problem, we will persevere. Okay, okay, I did look at mobile homes with land packages during my internet time - dreaming of running water, garden tubs, and oil heating. You might say, why a mobile. For this I have an answer - guess who the sweet buzzeekers ain't building another house EVER again? No, like a good pair of shoes, I want it boxed, delivered, and not a box of nails to ever reach within my vision span, again! But, I snapped out of it over a cuppa with Hubster Sat. a.m. No, we trade those comforts because we love our little home....we wouldn't change a thing, except to ask the electric company not to charge us 25,000 dollars to run wires back here. Still, we persevere.

Hey, do you smell something? Thing 3 is yelling, 'smoke, mama, smoke'. We run, we scream, we virtually freak right the hell out because the charge controller (an essential part of a solar set-up) has smoke billowing out of it and the wires are melting their safe plastic coating which is about to drip into the inverter (THE ESSENTIAL COMPONENT NEXT TO THE PANELS) and just who the hell cursed me, anyway? Fortunately, the gadgets did their job and the fuses broke like they are supposed to to prevent the whole system being harmed. Unfortunately, it was a 'freak' occurence, (stop it, now, that term just isn't funny anymore) in that a large block of ice melted on our metal roof and slid off while barely catching the wire on the panels, ripping said wires out and shorting out our whole system. We called our 'solar' guy and he told us how to fix it and how to wire smarter next time. We were lucky, if we'd been at the library like we were supposed to be, we would have come home to ashes....a sobering thing for sure.

Mercury hear this...I don't really give a rat's hairy crack who you think you are and how pissed off you might be that our planet thinks your planet is going the wrong way. I want you to stop this sh*t this instant and PLAY NICE! You, you....bully!