aaron demonstrates one of the best features of our new porch

off my game

i know, i know, the blog has been horrible lately! matt and i have been engrossed in a vigorous session of packing and moving, and we are finally almost completely contained in the new house, although there is still some cleaning that needs to happen at the old place. and we need to move all matt's christmas cacti. and his bees. but besides that, we are done on the farm.

we don't have the internet at the new house yet, but it is getting hooked up on friday. i will, in the next few days, remember to bring my camera to work so i can download and then upload photos of the move, the mighty mighty helpers, the piles of un-put-away stuff and the dogs meeting horses for the first time.

let me just say that we have a screened-in porch the size of our former apartment and life is looking pretty good right now.

paraphrasing from billy joel

if that's what you had in mind,
if that's what it's all about,
good luck doing chores 'cuz we're moving out.


after a lot of thought and debate, matt and i have decided to leave our caretaker position in natick and move to the horse farm in walpole sooner rather than later. we are looking forward to having our weekends free in the very near future. this will also mean that we will no longer be able to use the excuse, "oh, sorry, we have to do chores," whenever someone invites us to a weekend event that we do not want to attend.

showing my age

matt and i went out to the movies last weekend for the first time since we saw "an inconvenient truth" in the theater. we waited for the perfect movie to come along- something that would make the $9.75 ticket truly worth it. something which could someday be rented from netflix but just wouldn't be the same viewed on our computer as it would viewed on the big screen. we decided on "the bourne ultimatum" so that matt could enjoy the action and i could enjoy matt damon.

as the movie was starting, i took the receipt from our dinner out of my wallet, ripped it in half, twisted the pieces up into a little balls and shoved them in my ears. it was loud in there!

jake hears something behind the door

i brought jake to the vet today for his distemper and rabies vaccines. he tested positive for lyme disease, but our vet does not recommend antibiotics for a number of reasons:
1. the effectiveness of the antibiotics is not known
2. only 10% of dogs actually experience any of the symptoms of lyme
3. they don't want to overuse antibiotics, thus possibly promoting drug-resitant strains of bacteria which would prevent jake from taking any international flights

we are unsure if doing nothing is the right thing to do. i'm going to call dr. lyman, who has treated my parents' dogs for years, but if anyone else has an opinion, please let me know.

thai food at 5:30pm

hannah struts her stuff

long time no see

i went down to gales ferry, connecticut last night to visit my old college roommate becky. she now has a very good dog and a very cute baby girl, two things i didn't get to meet last time i saw her. however, i was disappointed to learn that she lives in a house on whales head road and not on the very close by but yet significantly more entertaining hurlbutt road. why not the hurlbutt, becky?

a greeting

earl is always real happy to see me when i arrive at work in the mornings. typically, it looks a little something like this:

earl the cat and his catnip

earl often seems frustrated by his forced captivity here at oak knoll. i wish i could let him go outside- and i admit that i sometimes turn my back and give him a few minutes when someone else accidentally lets him escape- but his feline leukemia makes him susceptible to disease as well as a danger to other cats in the area, and his black belt-level hunting skills make him a danger to any animal smaller than an adult squirrel (and even adult squirrels may be vulnerable). on those occasions when he gets to make a brief foray outdoors, he normally does one of two things right away: roll in the dirt or eat some green things. i figure the floors at oak knoll are dirty enough for him to revel in indoor rolling as much as he seems to enjoy the outdoor version, and today, i finally purchased some green things for him to eat inside.

the big boy has spent the entire day keeping watch over his new catnip plant.




*note the lovely planter that thomas made in his ceramics class.

flowers on the farm truck

each saturday morning, the natick farm brings produce and flowers to the farmer's market on the natick common. as the entire farm staff was at the northeast organic farming association annual conference this weekend, matt had to drive the truck to market.

an annoying party

we had a few friends over for dinner and a meteor shower viewing last night. the second most annoying thing about the get-together was that of the three guys who were there, three of them were named matt. the third most annoying thing was that it got really cloudy just as the meteor shower was supposed to start. the first most annoying thing was that somehow during the evening, our house became infested with mosquitoes. at around 2am, nina started whining in her crate. when matt went to investigate, he saw a flotilla of mosquitoes around her, just waiting to take the next bite. matt (and by "matt" i mean matt smith, for those of you still confused in the aftermath of the party) went on a mosquito-killing rampage. he and both his left and right slipper were merciless, slapping mosquitoes left and right. the resultant carnage still drips from the walls and ceilings.


the most annoying thing this morning was that a mosquito had bit matt smith on his lip last night and it was all fat and puffy. oh, and we had to do chores.

and back to the bubbles

aj takes a break from all the bubble blowing and cheeto eating

question: did david know i was taking his picture?

answer: yes.

eating cake when you are almost four years old

the family reunion

by my count, 28 members of the bonney family and significant others (i brought nina, as matt was unavailable) and five neighbors from down the street gathered at the lake house(s) in erieville, ny this weekend for a little r&r (where certainly neither of those r's stands for rest or relax, as how could that be possible with 28 members of the bonney family and their significant others on hand? one of the r's stands for "reunion" and the other stands for "luau," which we had in honor of my first-cousin-once-removed paul's birthday). the weather was absolutely perfect, the food and drinks were delicious, and it was great to spend the day with so many fun people. somehow, despite my constant photo-snapping and frequent discussions of the blog, no one even suggested the taking of a group photo.

cheeto bandito

the new baby piggies

our sow gave birth to 12 piglets yesterday afternoon. i bet she is glad to finally have those things out of there. the baby pigs now spend a lot of time nursing and napping.

i have been working at summer camp this week and have not been keeping up with the blog. rest assured that besides the baby pigs and a student uttering the sentence,"oh, that's like that one episode of 'saved by the bell'", there hasn't been all that much of interest to report.