More ramblings

We received two or three inches of snow overnight, which drifted on the porches, thanks to the north wind that finally stopped sometime in the wee hours of the morning.  I'm not afraid of cold temperatures except when a north wind is blowing.  Not that there's anything I can do about the weather, but when I see the temperature in single digits, bundle up, step outside, and find there is no wind, I do thank God for that, even though none of my chores these days keeps me outside more than ten minutes or so.  

Cliff and I are spending most of our time reading on the Kindles.  Cliff is reading "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett, and I"m still reading "The Stand".  I will say that it's getting more interesting now.  It's given me food for thought:  What would really happen if the "super-flu" wiped out 95% of the world's population?  A lot of the scenario dreamed up by Stephen King seems like something that could happen, if you took all the witchie, hob-goblin, horror stuff out.  I wonder if anyone has every written a book along those lines, without the imaginary stuff.  Anyhow, I'm 72% of the way through; it will be a long time before I read another King book; I'm ready for some lighter reading. Margeret asked in a recent comment if I ever read any Robert B. Parker books:  I tried one, and didn't get through it because there was too much "he said" and "she said".  His use of language seemed awkward to me, although it could be because I was listening to it in audiobook form in the car with Cliff.  He didn't care for it either.  Maybe if I had actually been reading, it would have gone better.  

As far as Ken Follett, I will leave him to Cliff.  I tried my best to read "Pillars of the Earth" a few years back; Cliff and his sister loved the book, really got into it.  It just wasn't my cup of tea.

Moving on:  We've lived on this property since 1975, but had never had our well water tested, except that it was checked for hardness six years ago when we had a water softener put in.  The grandson called Culligan for a water softener when he finished the main portion of the remodel, and they did a test that showed not a trace of any contaminant in our water.  There is, however, a huge amount of calcium in the water, so much so that they told Arick city laws would not have allowed them to install a softener (I don't know why).  The only element making the water hard is calcium, nothing else.  So we should have strong bones from drinking all that calcium water for forty years.  We never had a softener until the past six years.  Never had air conditioning, either, until then.  

I'm still hoping that midget bull really did breed Grace.  Margaret asked if the fact that the cow didn't come in heat this time meant she could be pregnant:  Yes, Margaret, Usually if a cow has been coming in heat regularly, once every three weeks, and then stops coming in heat, she is bred... just like a woman is usually pregnant if she stops having periods.  If we don't see any activity out of her the weekend after next, we will consider her bred.  I do have another heifer who will be calving in May.  That's the extent of my calf-bearing herd right now.

The cold I had last week was totally gone by Sunday.  Now I'm stuck with 58 decongestant tablets I will probably never use.  

And that's all I have for today.