nature and the flu

We were recently smacked with a crazy windstorm on the mountain. Sustained winds of 25-40 mph with 50-60 mph gusts quickly grates on ones nerves. Luckily, all families, animals, and homes on the mountain made it through unharmed. But our sweet little bath house did get quite a wallop from the top of a poplar tree. No significant damage, really...just some cracked plaster inside the bath house and the loss of one of Kelcey's paintings that used to grace the wall. Many of the plants on the land look a bit "windburned" with curled black leaves. Hopefully a beautiful, rainy spring will bring everything back to life!

After an awesome weekend at LEAF, I started feeling nauseous. It only took a day torn between my bed and the bath house (tree-top safely removed by this time) to realize I had come down with a stomach bug, not just a tummy ache from eating festival food all weekend. One adventure outside to, mmm, how do we say it, toss my cookies, I looked up at the Spice Bush I had been kneeling in front of, and right in my face was this beautiful black snake soaking up the sun on a branches. We love the black snakes around here because they help keep the rodent population under control, but even better for me, they munch on other poisonous snakes!

A few days of feeling awful and I'm back to my not-awful-feeling self. We purchased a new, budget lap top computer last week (thank you, Economic Stimulus check). Now we just need the ol' phone company to provide us with DSL (they keep promising it will be here any day) and we will be in techno heaven!

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