Time for Other Pursuits

No longer being  a productive member of society, The Fuzz has more time for other pursuits, like the Laundromat! 

With His Sweetie occupied elsewhere, it fell to Our Fuzz to haul the rugs into town for their periodic bath. Things went amazingly well in that unaccustomed environment.  But once he had them back in the woods, the rain set in.

It took about a week, and numerous "rinse cycles", but they finally made it back to their home in the Rug Place.  These days The Fuzz is enjoying all kinds of new experiences.

Set The Clock!

The Fuzz, His Sweetie, and the Young Daughter recently took a trip to our nation's capital. Whist there, they stayed at a hotel located on the campus of Gallaudet University. It was pretty interesting. Being from the backwoods as they is, they didn't realize this was a school for deaf students until they got there. But The Fuzz is half deaf himself now days.
His Sweetie and he were out one morning and saw this going on. All he can figure is they had to set the clock.

Whiners

The Fuzz apologizes for not getting back here sooner. Sometimes things just don't work out.
Since there was no school Friday, he asked his boss man if he could take it off. The idea of sleeping in had a certain attraction, and he was hoping to get a start on a project he had in mind. But we'll discuss that later.
It worked out that the Young Daughter was visiting a friend. So The Fuzz decided to take His Sweetie for a visit to a Local Winery. He was trying to be sneaky, and not let her know where they were going, but at the last turn, she figured it out. Above, you can see the Wine Lady giving them the Wine Tour. The first pix is where they chop up the grapes.
Next, is the squisher, where they smoosh them. I guess doing it by foot is passe.
Then we move on to the place where the wine works off. Here's some of the barrels for aging the wine. They also have some stainless steel tanks in here. This room is all insulated so it can be kept cool.
This is a fairly small operation. They grow a lot of their own grapes, but they do have to buy some locally as well.
And then came the most important part of the tour, the Tasting Room. The wine was pretty good, and suckers that they are, The Fuzz and His Sweetie did pick up a few bottles.All in all, The Fuzz and His Sweetie had a pleasant visit here in North Carolina Wine Country.

Sheepdog Trials

We went over to see a bit of the Sheepdog Trials Saturday.
It was pretty interesting. The Fuzz's Sweetie saw something about it in the local paper. We had heard of it before, but never thought to go.
As you can see in the picture above, there were a lot of these black and white dogs there.
This was a first for us. The Fuzz's Sweetie brought along a friend who was interested also. The folks out there seemed nice enough. They were willing to answer The Fuzz's pretty basic questions about what was going on out there. We enjoyed it.
First the dog has to run all the way across the field to get the sheep. These shots were taken with a zoomy-type lens so the distance is a bit distorted. It was really a pretty good ways across.
The dog has to herd the 4 sheep back across the field to the handler, who I guess is a sheepherder. On the way they are supposed to pass though a gate out there in the middle of the middle. You can see that happening in that 2nd pix. After they get to the handler, he/she sends them back out to pass though a couple more gates out in the field. The handler is using a whistle to tell the dog where to take the sheep. When they get back again, the dog and handler have to separate the sheep into two groups. This seems to be a bit tricky as the sheep don't seem to like it. That's what they're doing in those next couple pix. After that, they put them in a small pen. All this has to happen in 9 min. The dog in that next pix looks just a little different than the others. The woman said it has a bit of Bearded Collie in it. What ever it was, it seemed to do the best out of the few we saw.And here's a couple of the spectators taking it easy in the shade.

R 2

In a reply to one of our recent posts, maria asks..."What are the other R's?" Well, the 2nd is of course, 'riting.
In this The Fuzz has been somewhat less successful. Back in the days, there was a class called Penmanship. As can be seen from the example here, The Fuzz was not what one would consider an Honor Student. In fact, by the time he reached the 7th grade, he was ordered to abandon cursive writing altogether. This was not too big a sacrifice since he couldn't read it himself.
Now it seems to be possible to read his writin' if he draws the letters rather than attempts to write them, as can be seen here.
But there are other aspects to this writin' stuff besides neatness, stuff like grammar and spelling. Now that grammar stuff can get confusing, so well not get into that here. But that spelling business deserves a word or two. It has been said that the English language is 80% phonetic. The obvious problem here is that 20% is not! If this wasn't enough, how does one know if a mystery word is in the 80% or the 20%? I mean, is this fair? And just who decided what's what here?
The fact is, if not for "spell check" you probably couldn't even read this.
So now we've dealt with two of these "R's". One of these days we may get to the next.

One Out Of Three

While The Fuzz could never be considered a fanatic regarding "higher education", he does see the necessity for the basics (like those 3 R's). In his long career as a garbageman he has worked with a number of folks who were unable to read. Since The Fuzz, himself, did somehow manage to pick up this useful skill, it has not always been easy to empathize. Perhaps it was a bit like trying to read a foreign language like Français or Español. But no, in these cases one can actually read the words, he just has no idea what they mean. But knowing a few people involved with Chinese Calligraphy makes it easier to understand.
But, as has been mentioned, The Fuzz can, and does on occasion, read books. And here is an artist's rendition* of just one such occasion.

*By a little know local artist

Acorns

We've been staying out at the trailer a lot lately. There's no internet (or computer for that matter) so The Fuzz is finding it hard to post consistently. Of course, there are always those feet! And now the Young Daughter claims she needs the mac for school work!
So here's a quick pix of this year's crop of acorns.We are making progress out there, in fact staying quite busy. The Fuzz has been able to hit a lick now and again in spite of his back problems. We are also happy to report that he is doing much better, and even expects to return to work in the morning. He hopes to get some pix up of all the latest improvements sometime soon.

A Pre-Dawn Departure

Here's a shot of the Sunrise, looking across the road from the front yard.

Even if the sky had been clear this morning, The Fuzz would have missed this view, since he was on the road way before dawn. He hit the road early to bring home that Scholarly Son for the Holidays. We are happy to report that he (Scholarly Son) is doing well out there in that Big City.
The Fuzz's Sweetie recommended an early start for the avoidance of nasty traffic. As usual, her advice was excellent, and except for a bit passing though the Other Big City, he had the roads pretty much to himself. I'm not saying he broke any laws, but he did seem to be just a bit ahead of schedule.
Tomorrow, it is back to work. This week is "the lull before the storm" as it were. Next week we only work 3 days, but of course all the work still must be done. Then after that, another "short" week, with super garbage. The Fuzz has been doing this stuff for going on 30 years now. He used to let it get to him, thinking of all that extra Christmas Trash. But eventually he realized the best thing was just to forget about it all, and enjoy life and all these Good Holidays. As the Good Book says, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof".

State Capital

The Fuzz had to make a trip involving several Big Cities last week, including the State Capital. Unfortunately it wasn't to collect a big pay off from the "Education" lottery, but it did involve Education.

He had to take that Academic Son off to school.

So he got some time off work and they loaded up the truck and set off in search of Education and Adventure.

Along the way they had to make a stop in that other Big City we seem to end up in from time to time. This is the one with that Brand New Light Rail Line we rode on for fun. But this was a business trip to obtain a new bicycle lock that seemed to be unavailable at home.

And then it was back on the road.

When they got to the State Capital, The Fuzz had to leave that Academic Son here.
Of course his stuff had to stay also.

So it was time to climb the stairs. Academic Son had brought lots of stuff, or so it seemed, but his new room mate was there and they had help with this arduous task. This was greatly appreciated.

Those Big City People always seem to be up to something, especially in the State Capital where they have tax money to spend. But that old Tree Hugging Fuzz was glad to see that they were looking out for our Arborical Friends, although there doesn't seem to be many there to be protected.