Vacation

I recently accepted a new job, which is a good thing. I worked out a starting date of December 2, 2009 with my new employer. I figured that I would give two weeks notice and then take a little time off. To my surprise, when I gave notice, my employer declined the opportunity to have me continue to work for two more weeks. Thus, I am thrilled to say that I will be on vacation for the next month.

I have not taken a vacation in five years, so this is really quite an event for me. To say that I have been a bit giddy with excitement would be an understatement. As I was dancing with HT the other day and singing about the joys of a month without work, my long-suffering wife commented that I was going to be unbearable during my time off. I'm not sure what she meant by this, but I will assume that she was making note of my strong work ethic and desire to protect my family. Since I will have so much time, surely I will be getting a lot done around the farm and amongst other things, keeping everyone safe from bears. I assume that's what she was implying.

Now, this morning, despite the fact that I am on vacation (did I mention that it's for a month?), I woke up at 5:30 and went downstairs for my morning cup of coffee. I went about my morning farm chores and then came back inside to a pair a sleeping pups. I figured that I would treat myself to a nice breakfast since I would obviously need the energy for all of the work I was going to do. Beatrix started laying this past week, and she is producing some small brown eggs. Since we are getting two eggs a day, we can't quite keep up with the egg production. I decided that I would make myself some scrambled eggs. I looked in the fridge and realized that we had some leftover pesto so I added some pesto and goat cheese to the scrambled eggs.


It seemed like a pretty good combination of fresh ingredients. My cousin is a chef in New York. He came down to visit last weekend, so I have been thinking a bit more about cooking. (Generally, I just think a lot about eating).

I mixed everything up and threw it into the frying pan and started cooking. Evidently it smelled good enough to get the attention of a sleeping HT. She came into the kitchen a bit bleary-eyed with her nose in the air.

I plated the scrambled eggs with some whole wheat toast and then retired to the couch to watch a bit of Sports Center.

Frankly, the addition of pesto to scrambled eggs made the whole thing look a bit green and slightly unappetizing. It didn't taste all that great either. I'm not a very good cook it turns out.

Since I was full, I figured it was time to start getting unbearable. The problem is that I don't really know all that much about bears. A little internet research informed me that bears have not lived in my neck-o-the-woods for quite some time. Of note, I visited a wolf sanctuary this weekend with my wife and in-laws. The sanctuary was a little less sophisticated than I would have imagined, and I'm not really sure that the tour guide knew much about wolves or animals in general. We were treated to interesting tidbits of information such as the fact that wolves will not each skunks, possums, or cats because "they are made of the same meat." I have no idea what that means, but I guess that's why I don't give the tours. Regardless, it was still really interesting to watch the wolves interact, and they seemed healthy and happy.

Now, I'm well aware that I was supposed to walk away with the knowledge that these are wild and potentially dangerous animals that should not be kept as pets, but they just seemed like big dogs to me. I think that I could get pretty far training these guys because they were obviously quite smart. Still, I learned that wolves want nothing to to do with humans, and thus the training would be difficult. Indeed, wolves, despite their reputation, will not attack healthy humans... maybe we are also made of the same meat, I'm not sure. Whatever the case, I'm pretty sure that I could protect my family from any animal that is not inclined to attack. I guess I am not just unbearable but also unwolfable.