What Bow Did Over Thanksgiving Break

Bow's favorite thing at the Thanksgiving dinner is the sparkling red grape juice.

His second favorite thing is the cranberry sauce.

His third favorite thing this year was the apple pie. He had so many servings of these delicacies that he hardly touched the turkey or the stuffing. But he did like the sweet potatoes, too. We had so much going on, though, that I did not take that many pictures of Bow eating.

A day or two before the guests began to arrive, we had an internet outage, so Bow and I got very engrossed in a book I ordered about Monarchs and Milkweed.

The first of our guests to arrive was my Sword. There was much jubilation!

My mother arrived shortly after. She really admired my old gnarled oak tree, so I took a photo of her in front of it.

That evening, we had the most beautiful sunset.

I love that old oak tree, but it died this year, and people say it must be chopped down. I am hoping to find some other way. But I am glad it was still here this year for my mother to pose with.

Besides all that was going on, Bow and I continued to work on the trailer for the release of Audible Vacuum County.

The trailer was published late on Thanksgiving day. I sent a link to Sword a few days later, and she sent me back this screenshot.

I am glad that videos of Bow grooming me are doing so well, but I would also like people to pay attention to the book trailers. By the way, Bow helps me to edit all my videos. In the one embedded below, you can see how he grooms me, and then he attends to the process of rendering the video.

Bow is involved with everything I do, and he is not as unsophisticated as some people assume. He knows he is being filmed, and he cooperates with the entire process. He is a bit of a ham.

Bow dislikes clothes, but he even agreed to put on the Vacuum County T-shirt this morning, when I told him it was for a good cause.  Here's the back side.

No, he doesn't have any pants on, but he did put on the shirt all by himself. By the way, Bow and I wear the same size of shirt. It's a women's medium. But that shirt comes in many other sizes.

If you would like to make a contribution to Project Bow this year, consider buying a T-shirt or one of the books I have published. 

Books and Shirts

There is also a chance to win a free T-shirt, if you follow the link below:

http://artshirtdesigns.com/2017/11/24/seven-trivia-questions-to-win-a-vacuum-county-t-shirt-of-your-choice/

Thanksgiving was great. But this is Cyber Monday. Even Bow understands. Let the buying begin!

Bow the Conservationist

The logging continues, but Bow and I are finding ways to ignore it and get on with our lives.

Bow leafs through an issue of the Missouri Consevationist

Yesterday, for instance, Bow watched the loggers for a while without getting too upset. and then he led me in an exercise session indoors.

The loggers are here in the morning, but they leave long before noon. So when I go for my afternoon walk, all is calm, and I can enjoy the wildlife. 

Yesterday, I got to watch a leaf fall from the sky, a common buckeye butterfly resting on my path, and two different groups of deer.

Some deer bound away at the first sight of me, and others stare at me long and hard.

This morning, Bow was so accustomed to having the loggers around that he let me go to the post office to mail off some bills and to buy new stamps. I chose the stamps featuring Monarch butterflies.

When I got home, Bow had been good. No accidents, no mess. So I showed him the stamps I had bought. Later he asked me to go out, saying he'd heard the loggers had food. (שמעתי שיש להם אוכל). I went out expecting to see the loggers eating sandwiches. But instead I spotted the twin fawns, nearly grown, taking shelter near the house. 

The Logging Continues

For the past three days, the loggers have been cutting down trees close to our property line. They start at seven in the morning, when we are not quite done with breakfast, but they are gone by noon. This has been tough on Bow, but I have tried to let him know that since the logging was taking place outside our borders. the people cutting down the trees have every right to do so.

What makes this especially hard on us is that the house does not sit in the center of our ten acres. It sits far back from the road and very close to the woods. The woods were a buffer for us, and they helped to give us that secluded feeling that characterizes our corner of the world .

Of course, I realized when I bought the property that my part of the woods was very shallow, and I inquired who owned the rest of the woods, and whether there might be a possibility of buying a part of the woods adjoining mine, so as to have a bigger buffer. At the time, the property was owned by the venerable matriarch of a well established local family. She explained to me that the woods were not for sale, as they had been in her family for a long time, and she was leaving them to her grandchildren. She also reassured me that there was nothing to worry about, because while the family would cut down some trees occasionally, to thin out the forest, avoid wild fires, cull out dead wood, and so on, they were not planning to substantially alter the woods.

I hope that is still the case, but she has since passed on, and it is now the new generation who is in charge. I remember her fondly. She was very kind to me and to Bow and Sword.

The neighboring woods used to extend all the way to our fence line, but as early as 2013 I had observed that a clearing had been created between the two properties, and now a dirt road was there just outside our border. This road is now being used to carry the logs out of the woods.

Bow keeps asking to go outside so that he can observe the loggers.

However, since he seems so upset by what is happening, I have asked him to stay indoors today. Yesterday, I baked lemon poppy seed muffins as part of my effort to distract Bow.

Poppy seed Muffins and Books by Aya Katz

We were reminded of The Lorax, and we reread a small part of it. No, I am not a tree hugger. Yes, I realize we live in a timber town, and I know trees are logged for a living and regrown. I am hoping, though, that the basic layout of the woods here will not change drastically, because it would leave Bow exposed to a lot of noise if there were no woods there any longer. Bow's outer pen is behind the house, and it faces the woods. That's why the current activity back there is such a concern for Bow and me.

The Loggers Next Door

This morning, things have not been so peaceful. Ever since breakfast, the neighbors next door have been logging on their section of the woods next to ours. They have every right to do this, but Bow has been very upset about it.

Bow asked me to go outside to see what was going on. I came back with this picture.

Bow would periodically go outside, display at the loggers, then come in and  ask me to go out in the front yard to spy on them.

He kept asking me to go check what they were doing out there, even though I assured him it was not on our property. "It's okay, Bow. They have the right to do that."

Bow spelled: "זה רק שזה רע"  Meaning: "It's just that it's bad."

I didn't know what to say. Maybe I read him The Lorax once too many times when he was little.

The Fifth of November

Today the clock was set back, and Bow was annoyed with me for not getting up at the usual time. By 5:30 am he was vocalizing loudly, even though it was still dark.

The day was warm. Somebody online reminded me that it was Guy Fawkes Day. Bow wore no mask, although a few days earlier, just before Halloween, when we had our first big freeze, he had  looked a little like jedi master when he greeted me that morning.

Today, we spent a lot of time outside in the outer pen. Bow groomed me, and then I groomed him.

Then we went indoors, but Bow did not want to groom anymore. He just asked for a drink of water, which I promptly provided. It's all so undramatic at our house. Elsewhere in the universe, somebody shot a church full of people -- in Texas! But that's not what happened for Bow and me in the pens.

Sometimes we do hear the neighbors shooting, but that's to do with deer season. However, no one is shooting at the deer on our land, and, for the time being, they are perfectly safe to graze on the front lawn, in plain view.

If only the rest of the world could be as calm and peaceful as our little corner!