Christmas Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas 2010?? Can it really be the end of the year 2010? I’m feeling like the calendar is racing from one year to the next. It’s not the days that go by so fast, but the months and years (gulp). It seems like it was just yesterday that I was hurriedly putting Christmas cards in the mail and here it is déjà vu all over again. The New Year arrived and then summer came and went and we rolled up the garden hoses and put away the lawn mower, fired up the fireplace and in the blink of an eye – it’s Christmas and the end of another year! Whew. Time’s just going too fast.

I’m not planning any new year’s resolutions this year; I’m still working on last year’s and the year before. Time is just going too fast. I guess it doesn’t matter – just keep on peddling and if you lose your place, just start over. You know the story of the turtle and the hare. Let’s see what was that? Oh, yeah. The moral is that the early worm get’s the apple or something like that, but you know what I mean, time’s just going too fast. Have I said that already.

We’re all fine here at our house. There’s just the two of us (real people) and then the four / five dog people. We made it through the first six months of Bob’s retirement (AKA – twice as much husband and half the income - ha ha). We’re planning to live off the land with our big garden. Training the dogs to like vegetables as much as hamburger will be a real trick.

We stay busy with eating, sleeping, running and playing and “Bark, bark, Look, it’s a UPS truck.” says the husky yellow lab to the multicolored Walker Coonhound. “Bark, bark” choruses the other BIG black dog sleeping in the corner. He slowly lowers his head back into snooze position deciding to let the others take care of this matter. He’ll save his energy for the next feeding frenzy. He remembers fondly those tasty dog biscuits the cook made – liver and whole wheat. Ummm.

A highlight of the 2010 garden year was to see Bob’s ’71 John Deere combine chugging through the field to bring in a bounty of buckwheat seeds for future planting. Due to minor mechanical difficulty, the trusty ole combine will need a few more hours of intensive labor to participate in another harvest, but we’re hopeful.

This holiday greeting and my cards are somewhat post Christmas, but like I said, it’s a calendar thing – it’s just going too fast. I know I’m among people who understand this time challenge. One year we received a Christmas card in April (you know who you are) and we were glad to get it (better late than never).