Okay, I didn’t lose my password, I’ve just been slacking here. Busy elsewhere, but slacking here. Let’s see what’s happened since I last posted:

• We worked and planted Fort Bountiful, which is now certainly living up to its name. Squash or tomatoes, anyone?
• I put pavers in the chicken run. Summer and fall with 20 chickens, not too bad. Winter, notsomuch. I had been using hay as litter in the run, but combine that with days of rain and forty stomping birds and it gets ugly real quick. I still have drainage issues, but it’s a mile better than before.
• We bought (in cooperation with Dr. Evil’s folks) a walk behind tractor. Dr. Evil’s dad has a regular tractor, but it’s too large for Fort Bountiful. It’s very cool, but it took forever to ship. Covid, man.
• Oh yeah, covid. Everyone here is fully injected, which made for a nice couplafew weeks of masklessness, but of course that ended. Thanks, vaccine-refusing assholes!
• To celebrate being vaccinated, we dined out a few times. Pizza, good; Chinese, real good (But we apparently have no idea how much to order now.) Burgers, good; Mexican, goooooooood God did I get sick. Thankfully it was lunch so I was back on my feet by the next morning, but brother was that afternoon and evening the worst. I used to have a strong stomach, but like everything else, it’s faded with time. But other times when I’ve had a bad dining experience, it’s been fairly benign. This time was brutal. I’m bummed, because the Mexican joint was my favorite place to eat, now I’m scared to death of it.
• Speaking of eating, Dr. Evil and her folks have been eating a keto diet for a couple months now. Not me. They seem to like it.
• At the end of May, Dr. Evil managed to drag me off the farm, out of the county, out of the state, and even out of Appalachia. We went to Florida for a week. I will save the details on this story for a proper post, but here’s a teaser: I haven’t flown since before 9/11.
• We had our house painted. When it was built, it was painted kind of an oatmeal tan, but later was repainted, umm . . . black. Only one person liked that tint; not naming any names, but he owns a tractor. We went with a light gray and it looks tremendously better.
• We also had the old two story deck/porch torn off. It was showing its age and was in fact getting dangerous. We are replacing it with a one level, but larger deck. Great time to be buying wood! Thanks, covid. We are using composite decking, with the builder tells us will arrive someday. Now we just have the framing up, the promise of a deck, if you will.
• Dr. Evil’s plans don’t end at the exterior of the house either, no siree Bob (who’s Bob anyway?). She also demanded a kitchen rehab, because, and get this, “I want cabinets and counters!” What a princess. Covid bit us there, too. Has anyone tried to buy a large appliance lately? There are none. Lowe’s? Out. Menard’s? Out. Home Depot? Out. Best Buy? Out. And HD and BB would require us to go to Columbus or Charleston because they don’t deliver here. Even our local appliance store doesn’t have any, mostly because Athens does not have a local appliance store. I finally found one at Costco, which makes me love Costco even more. By autumn, we will be an induction cooking household.
• At the beginning of this week, we hosted some extended family for a get together. I’m still recovering.

I’m sure I’ve left some things out, but I think that brings everyone substantially up to date on the goings on here on the farm. I’ll be back soon. Until then, does anyone have any wild food poisoning stories they’d like to relate? Hit up the comments section