Sandy is an avian American found street walking at night in a lesser part of Sanford Maine. Now she is the grande dame of a small but productive multi-ethnic flock, doing her part to encourage the other hens as they labor.
Let me go back to the beginning: Over a year ago I was visiting my brand new pair of mothers I had just gotten when I found Sandy trying to cross the street at night. No that’s not far enough, let me go back to the VERY beginning . . . there once was an egg, who met a sperm, and they made a zygote. But the egg and sperm were still in high school and the zygote became a blastocyst that would need shoes for the next 225 months. As this was the dark ages of Camelot, the Catholic church got to draw a name of of a hat of a pious yet childless couple and present them with a bouncing demon puddle splasher whose first and only word was NO. Are we far enough back yet?
Flip forward through 53 years punctuated by death, detention, depression and divorce until the Catholics finally offer up my address for an outrageous price to my only non-mother blood relation. Using their outdated and inaccurate mother-data provided me and my incredible stalking superpowers, I managed to locate my biomoms address in less than an hour. Of all the US states in all the world, my biomom had married a woman from Maine and they had moved to less than an hour away from where I would eventually make landfall. Being the instant gratification brat that I am, in lieu of sending them a cablegram, I drove to their house and rang the doorbell. <insert family reunion montage here> Very quickly my dance card went from zero to sixty, with biosiblings and aunts and non bio siblings and other extended relations yielding a Marvel universe worthy family tree.
Back to Sandy…remember Sandy? Every few weeks I take a run over to my mothers’ house to bang some yarn and stock up on eggs. One night coming back I find Sandy wandering around in the bike lane at an intersection. After corraling her into a collapsible cat carrier, I brought her back to my mother’s hen house. With her trimmed beak and wing feathers, she had obviously escaped from a truck taking her to no place good. It took a few weeks of rest and ‘recooperation’ for her to join her new flock where there are no expectations for her to take part in the production aside from moral support. Although every so often she pops out an egg just to prove she still has what it takes.
I need to start using up more of the yarn I already have, I am just not a creative knitter. I’m a subsistence knitter, I just create usable things. I know I can never create things that are as beautiful or complicated as the ones I can buy. I am very happy with the sweaters that I own and right now I don’t feel the urge to waste a lot of yarn trying to make one. But if I can turn out a few plain scarves, shawls, handwarmers and socks, then I will never need to buy those things. After I master handwarmers, I am going to do some hats, that should keep me busy. The first thing I will need to do is repair the one I bought that my dog found pretty tasty.
I kept trying used hiking clothing made of all the new and improved fabrics for hiking clothing and finally threw in the towel and redonated the entire lot. I just can’t wear anything made of polyester next to my skin. I bit the bullet and bought a merino t-shirt (although I found a $50 shirt for $20!) I can’t wear it in summer as they claim, but it’s fine for the rest of the year. I will usually only buy clothes on ebay after I have failed to find something I really want in thrift shops. At $50 this Aran Merino hoodie was probably the most expensive item of clothing I bought this year, I also picked up some merino lounge pants and a lightweight merino hoodie at $20 each, both needing light repairs – I write all the woolen purchases off as ‘heating’ expenses. I didn’t buy as MUCH yarn this year as other years, though I did stop knitting in the summer when the weather got sticky. I am going to TRY to use up the yarn cache under the bed, including sweaters I bought specifically to unravel for their yarn. I wasted at least $60 buying ‘hiking’ socks which I loathe, so I finally mastered knitting my own socks. I may have to add to my needle collection next year, and move onto other things.
After going 5 days without power I FINALLY ordered the Mr Heater, which had been sitting on my wishlist for like 3 years. It would have been $20 cheaper if I had picked it up in summer, but I was playing chicken with the climate. Hopefully I won’t actually NEED to unbox it . . . ever. I also picked up a butane stove which I am using regularly instead of the hotplate. It takes way less energy and fits nicely in the cupboard. 
The Subaru Forester was probably the biggest expense of the year, though selling the truck covered the actual cost. It does free us up to go traveling, we managed to hike a lot of different places this year. I have intentions of doing a bit of camping or at least CAR camping so I can see the rest of the state. Her K9-SportSak was probably the most used purchase this year..and one of the most expensive at $79, well worth every penny. I did drop a significant amount on a Ultra lightweight backpack that I had my heart set on, though I did some horse trading to get it paid for; it should last me a good long while.
For a long time I never realized that other people remember their childhood, I do not. I guess there are a lot of people who have missing memories, for a lot of reasons. Since I acquired a new set of parents and a new family last year I have spent a lot more time trying to remember my childhood. Those memories aren’t coming back. But images pop back now and then, like snapshots, nearly always associated with a thing or a place.
ok ok ok i made a huge effing mistake when i stopped blathering consistently a year and half ago. sometimes you just you get lost inside your own ennui and don’t feel like writing uninspiring words 
Until this last weekend I had not done much of anything at all…worked and watched a lot of tv and knitted 2 more pairs of red merino socks, third pair in process…i’m stuck in a red phase. I felt the weather change coming and I culled my clothes down to what actually fits and what SHOULD fit if i loose more weight. I wanted to get out of the winter at the same weight i went in at… alas i reacquired a couple of pounds..i blame the guy next to me at work who snacks all day.. I finally threw open the windows, (and washed them), started a good spring clear out, and made huge pile of lawn debris for a dump run. I was working through a head cold and this gave me a chance to sweat it out. I did FINALLY get new glasses, though I am not in love with them I can’t blame everything on the lack of new glasses anymore. The new job pays enough to afford my first pair of bifocals, though the rest of my body has health coverage, my teeth and eyes, do not, GEE THANKS OBAMA…
I was on the fence about getting a new dog for a long time. Once winter set in and I was in the house a lot more, it became much more apparent something was missing. The other fuzzy roommates are fine for having life in the house, but seriously they don’t care about your day and you can’t take them to the beach or to the park. They have their limitations.
er but not for long, she was only up for about a day and the rescue already had enough applications to remove her listing. I had figured I would apply just to get my feet wet. Luckily I was first in line… that never happens. Then I figured I would just go look, can’t hurt to look right? Of course once I saw her, i wasn’t leaving without her.
