grinding it out

You know that stage you hit in any major writing project where you start wondering what the heck it is you're doing, and has anybody ever written anything this boring, and why did I ever think this was a good topic to write about?  Yeah, that stage.  I'm there.  This thesis is the worst thesis anyone has ever written, I'm sure of it.  But I'm doing it.  It's getting there.  It might even get done on time.  I never, ever missed a deadline when I was in school the first time around, but this time my record is not so good.  I've needed extensions on half a dozen of the papers I've written since I've been here.  So that on-time thing isn't as automatic as it used to be.

We got about 4" of snow last night, and we're supposed to get 2-3" more tonight.  It's not at all uncommon for us to have a dusting of snow in October that melts away by 10 o'clock the next morning, but it is unusual to have several inches.  I am not happy about this.  My kids, on the other hand, are thrilled.  MadMax and a couple of his friends got out their skis and skiied down the hill onto his homemade ramp all afternoon.  Nell and Dean went cross-country skiing tonight.  I am the lone grump.

The chickens are on my side, though.  I went down to check on them about 9 this morning, and the clean, untrampled snow inside their area showed that they had no interest in finding out about this mysterious cold white stuff on the ground (usually they are out and about by 7:30 or 8).  I refilled their water and left them alone.  When I went back down this afternoon around 3:30, they were still sitting inside the coop, and about 10% of the insulation inside the coop had been shredded.  They are bored.  Those silly birds.  I managed to coax them out with some scratch, but it didn't last very long. 

Sadie is much improved.  She even scratched (gently) on the door today to go out.  She still has accidents, but they are down to 1-2 per day, instead of 4-6.  And actually, come to think of it, she didn't have any today.  She's still chewing everything in sight, but that's normal.  She'll still be doing that for several months.  Maybe years.  We had black labs when I was growing up and they chewed everything, all the time, until they were about two.

And that's it for me.  Hope it is still warm and sunny where you are.  Send me thesis-writing-vibes if you can.  Here is a picture of Jazz and Sadie in the snow: