The expansions of living space and living occupants of Cooter Hollow have thwarted any attempts at regular updates, as waddling and face-stuffing, as it happens, takes many precious hours of the ticking stuff.
The winter in these parts has been a strange one, leaving us without our expected several feet of snow and instead with a glacier coating the road all the way up the hill. It’s been months of long, slow treks on various inadequate ice crampons, with considerable time spent fretting over spills and relief that my own ass is padded enough to handle the fall.
We bought a snowmobile in the thick of what was supposed to be winter, thinking it the next useful vehicle for daily transport of supplies (as my back has been deemed temporarily out-of-service by the lovely hippie midwives, leaving only one remaining set of shoulders for a considerable burden). But the absence of snow has kept the thing in a state of disuse until just a few weeks ago, when winter finally decided to do as it should and shower us with the fluffy stuff.
And so, after a long day’s work, we hopped on and decided to give it a spin, My Native driving and me riding cowgirl behind. Only I’m still unused to my increased girth, so we didn’t quite fit, and at the first bend, my knee jammed his knee into the throttle, and we took off, flooring it straight into the first ditch, which unceremoniously bucked me and The Grit into his hard back, and tore his knee to a place of bleeding dissatisfaction. All was well, though, except for my confidence in anything resembling the ability to take care of another living creature when she makes her appearance in the outside world. If this kid survives having us as parents, she’ll be sure achieve unprecedented amounts of knowledge and success. Which is not an “if” I’d recommend betting on, given our history.
As it happens, the snowmachine is much easier to ride while I’m driving, with spacious room in front for The Grit.
Two weeks later and the snow’s again gone, but it’s a fickle lover, so we’ll wait for its return. In the meantime, sugaring season has arrived. Our first batch was boiled down today into a nice dark quart of the good stuff and filtered through our patent-pending Old Panty technique, with this year’s sacrifice an aptly-named brand:
