Chaz is Stirring the Paint

Charles sends greetings from his "Studio East" in Ann Arbor, MI.

Not The . . .

. . . Sailing Yacht that I fantasize foolishly about, but still I am on the water . . . 

(Ed:  Chaz had the effrontery to send me a photo of him sailing back in Michigan.  I promptly trashed it.)

sTUDIO EaS%t

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cHAz sEZ:  gOttA PAinT!!!!

Visitor

In the morning, I am thirsty for coffee and light.  Standing at my window, coffee cup in hand, I see a visitor.

A Nice Afternoon on Cain's lake

Exploring the "Lost Lagoon" and the "River of No Return" and Eason catches his first fish!

Happy Summer Solstice 2012

Out in the Studio

I wasn't using the studio much, so Eason decided to take over for awhile . . .

Lori's New Hay Raker and Tedder

Well i invested a little of the farm money! the weather will tell pretty   soon if it was a smart way to spend it or not!      

Olive oil from Brac set to conquer Europe

On the Dalmatian island of Brac, in cooperation with the Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb, extensive research and inventory of indigenous varieties of olives has begun. The purpose of the project is to create a basis for branding varietal extra virgin olive oil which can conquer the European market.

The olives need to be of high quality with a distinctive taste and research has already begun on the eastern side of the island, where a rare variety of buhavica is grown, buhavica are considered to be authentic Brac olives, reports daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija.

Brac has more than half a million cultivated trees and almost still unrivaled as the most developed olive grwoing region in Croatia. Brac has Venice to thank for their olive industry. The Venice senate in 1565 made the decision to plant olive trees in all neglected areas on the island. There were fines for those who damaged the plantations and in the case of repeated offending, expolsion from the island for 10 years.

--from Croatian Times
http://www.croatiantimes.com

Lori Writes: Blue flowers and more

Love these blue flowers (ed: in our memorial garden)!  They look so nice. They close up every night real tight and then open each day. The lavender and maple are doing really well. Now I just have to get time to put out some beauty bark.  With only one place to take care of now I already felt a little lost with not as many horses to ride and care for today.  It is weird!  I may actually have some free time once I get in the swing of it! 

The Keyes-Hurd Family Homestead 1956 - 2012

A lot of memories.

Spence, eliot and julia

Just for Fun, See How it's Done

And It's Rolling (Bob) 2

Well, the old mobile home is gone, gone, gone.  It looks kind of nice without it.  Special thanks to our neighbor Dwayne and his big International tractor.

Nice and Tidy and Ready to Roll (Almost)

Shrubs gone, skirting and support gone, electricity disconnected, water and sewer line broken, expansion unit folded back up into trailer, hubs in good shape.  Now we just need someone fast and cheap with an extra set of wheels to get Nanny's trailer out of here.  And the bank to agree to the sale and release the funds!

Santa Fe - Canyon Rd. - 4/23/12

Arizona: Canyon de Chelly

On the hike to White House Ruins.

Guess who got a surprise visit from Africa?

Oh yeah, we were in the neighborhood so we thought we'd stop by!  Chaz meets his granddaughter, Eva.

Melanie wrote on Facebook:

"Yes, Liz and Ben and Eva came to the USA from Africa without me knowing. Their dad made up some crazy story, so crazy I didn't even try to track it, and went to the airport to get someone and came home with these guys!!!!"

((Chaz sez:

I orchestrated the surprise I just kept lying till the kids got here.  Melanie's head just About popped off.))

(Two strikes, JP.)

First Place

Eason gets his first place trophy at BMX "scoot bike" races today!  First in 2 out of 3 races, then crashed in the 3rd race, but got up and finished.
 
(Sorry,  JP, but on the blog you write for grandson tops wit and micro-economics every time!)

JP WoodCock Returns

JP Woodcock Returns

Greetings, everyone from your favorite mini economist JP Woodcock.  It has been a few years since I was last able to send a communiqué out to everyone from the Great Hall of Mini Economics because, quite frankly, our funding has been slight because our donors have been more concerned with other prevailing economic headwinds such as their own wallet.

Well, we now have our Internet turned back on and I no longer have to answer the phones, weed the ever-flowering gardens on our grounds and clean the johns all by myself.  This relief has allowed me time to reflect on my experiences of the last few years here at the great hall of mini economics and I would like to share with you my feelings and thoughts of these times.

First, and I say rather foremost on my mind, has been my reminiscences of my grandfather the eminent maxi economist; he was born too late to be a mini economist such as myself.  Well anyway, Ambrose Woodcock would stride into my study as I prepared for my exams and say loudly, "Some day J.P.", he called me JP even though I was only a teen,  "JP someday the politicians and the financiers will have developed so much greed that the very structures of the maximum economic apparatus will collapse upon itself before we economists can see the light of day."

Grandpa Ambrose would then start muttering about how Grandma Eloise wanted to summer in Greece but Grandpa Ambrose was uncertain if the Greeks would want to take his money as he felt the Greeks didn't really want to work for his money, UK of course,

and that the Greeks would rather just keep borrowing money from the Krauts until the Krauts were tired of owning their Greek vacations.

I was always amused with Grandpa Ambrose but I took a different direction than him and I took up the study of mini-economics and somehow I felt we mini-economists were outsmarting politicians and greedy financiers with cheap bow ties and green visor hats but it turns out Grandpa Ambrose was correct.

All during the last five years of horrific economic conditions here at the great hall of mini economics, while all alone and plugging all of our leaking conditions with my own digits I have been reading a great deal in the evenings by candle light.

The Tao Te Ching has been my solace and as I have been only able to get our accountant to allow me to purchase a pocket edition abridged version of Lao Tzu's masterpiece sometimes my reasoning of the Tao has been short and small minded.

For instance, once, when the utility workers came to shut off our electricity, I said to them, you do not need to take this action because Lao Tzu says:

           

"Free from desire, you realize the mystery

            Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations."

The workers stared at me as if I were some sort of shiny Chinese enigma and then they

said, the only mystery here is when are going to pay."

I was heartened to hear that economic theory really does hold water dueling with the Tao but I was uncomfortable sitting in the dark and cold for days on end and I finally pleaded with our accountant that we actually saved money by having electricity over the opposite.

I did endless spreadsheets that showed that taking no action was more expensive than taking action and paying our bill.  Again it was a relief to see what was going on while I was in the bathroom.

The accountants were happy and relieved as well because we accrued no utility charges while the power was off.  There was the nasty business of paying a turn on fee to the utility company but the accountants were more than happy to have me negotiate this.

Now that order is returning to our Great Hall and we have electricity and a receptionist I am pleased that I am now able to return to my research on the Australian marsupials and their effect on that continents economy rather than pulling weeds and mowing lawns in the great expansive shadows of the Mini Economic Hall and it's magnificent grounds.