Ooops!

A soapy hand, a slippery pot,

a crash...

and so I have a bottomless teapot.

The Wind Blew...

and it blew the head right off.

Poor decapitated light post!

So about that foot...

You noticed in the last post the bit about going home to ice my foot? You wondered about that?

Well, in the process of putting the horse in his new stall somehow my foot got under his.

He weighs about 1200 pounds.

He stood there wondering why his person was shrieking at him. He was being good. He was standing still. He didn't notice that there was a foot under his. He didn't understand why he had to back out of the stall when he hadn't properly gotten into it, but finally he did.

The person stopped shrieking.

But she sure was walking funny. Not as bad as it could be - just cracked.

Thank you for not making that comment that just flashed through your mind.

Decked, without holly

The Christmas tree arrived yesterday. It is a demure little tree with a slender trunk, unlike our usual robust and rotund trees with their thick stumps. The tree holder is made for big trees, but we managed to tighten it enough for this small one.

I mixed a brew said to preserve pines and lengthen the time before they dry out - it features corn syrup, bleach and vinegar.

It was late by the time the tree was satisfactorily set in the stand and watered with the special concoction. So we left it standing on its own and went to bed.

Early this morning I followed the dog into the dark living room and there was the tree flat out on the floor. There was that awful sticky and stainy stuff all over. There was me wailing while the dog, uninterested in the disaster of the tree, danced around ready to run outside.

I am trying not to regard this as an omen.

That's the breaks

Holding the pinkie finger out while drinking my tea? That's not affectation... just a fractured finger.

O Tannen-boom

The tree was perfect. We set it up by the fireplace and I began to decorate. It took me one whole day to get the lights on, each one carefully positioned. Yesterday morning I began putting on the ornaments. I started with the large golden balls towards the inside. I put little glass tidbits under the dove on top. I took out the sweet handpainted glass balls and the ones with sequins from my childhood. I hung the slightly tarnished clear ball with tinsel inside from T's childhood. I put on the seriously tarnished silver ball from my mother's childhood. I smiled at the funny ornaments that have joined the collection over the years - the turnip, the pickle, the garlic, the blue hippopotamus.

Then I started to hang the little "finishers" on the tips of the branches.
And, with a horrible smashing sound, the tree flung itself down and threw all those delicate things across the floor.
I sobbed a little.
Then collected....
the shards of Christmas.

What next?

I remember filling out job applications that asked for my interests....and I always considered myself hopelessly unadventurous and tame when I listed "gardening, bird watching, horseback riding, reading".
Little did I know.
First a tree falls on me while gardening and bird watching, and now the gentle horse I ride has deliberately bucked me off. Spectacularly, like a rodeo horse, so that I flew over his head and did a backflip in the air, landing with a whump at his feet. I did not get up and get back on as I know one is supposed to do. This was partly because the ground was a lot harder than it looked and partly because I couldn't lift my arm up to mount.
Luckily, nothing is broken and today I am full of a medicine that makes everything seem just fine, as long as I don't move. You'd be surprised how easy it is not to move.
But I am worried...reading is next. What potentially life-threatening thing is going to happen while I'm peacefully lost in a book?

All clear

The tree that fell on me is gone. Once the machines started working it didn't take long for the huge tree to become chips and logs. And what does the yard look like without the tree?
It just goes on straight to the trees at the fence line.

If a tree falls....

If a tree falls, and you're standing right underneath it, will you hear a sound? As the survivor of an early morning tree attack, I can tell you the answer - yes.

This mighty maple was brought low by a small hanging pot of nasturtiums. I'd hung the pot out on one of the closer limbs. As I was filling the hummingbird feeder that dangled just a little further up the limb, I saw that the nasturtiums were dry. I filled the watering can and soaked the little pot and noticed that it sank lower and lower as the water weighed it down. Then I heard a tremendous CRAACK behind me, and thinking that just the limb was coming down, I stepped to the side -
See the red hummingbird feeder? This is the limb I was standing under, and the little bit of open area is where I luckily stood as the whole half of the tree came down. I came away with a bruised elbow, a couple of scrapes, and a small case of the shakes. The nasturtiums were not so lucky.

Although I do not recommend this as a regular start to a day, I will say that I was thereafter WIDE AWAKE.