Recovering from summer

Just six days after a blanket of snow, Maryland basked in 72-degree temperatures. Everyone in the area crawled out from under their rocks, hurled off their ski jackets and ran around madly screaming "summa-time! summa-time!"

I know it's only March, but it was a two-day taste of seasons to come.

I borrowed a friend's seasoned hunt horse, and went fox hunting for a few hours on Saturday... and now have the sore muscles and aching joints to prove it. It was a great time, but man, I feel like I'm a 100 yrs old. And have been run over by a truck. Dragging myself out of bed this morning, I groaned as I leaned into my jeans. And abandoned all hope of wearing socks. Those toes are just too far away to reach.

So with my (normally) immature brain and my elderly body, I cannot put a cohesive thought to blog. Instead, I offer a few farm photos from Sunday when we began spring cleaning and unleashed the kids on the world after months of indoor dwelling. Back to normal blogging tomorrow. Promise.

On Sunday, first order of business: mow through the Huck's goldy locks. Huck grows a winter coat like a woolly mammoth, which is a grooming nightmare and a sweaty mess when it's warmer outside. So instead of letting him shed out naturally, I decided a buzz cut was in order.

Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind being poked, prodded and nicked. In fact, he enjoys the attention.

An hour and 50 minutes later, I had sheared off enough hair to fill a garbage bag. Secretly I hoped to find a svelte draft horse beneath all that hair.

No dice. He's still a fat guinea pig. Though I must say, this is not a flattering camera angle. Come-on Martin, go easy on the butt shots.

While Huck was at the beauty shop, the kids were plotting an attempt to hijack Chitty.

Next up, the dog, who also wore a winter's worth of mud, muck, and canine grunge, peppered with a few irresistible rolls in deer carcasses along the way. Last year, Martin built an outdoor shower on the side of our house. Initially, he planned to install just the plumbing... and shower under the magnolia tree. Yes, we live in a rural community, but we do share a driveway for Pete's sake. You can't shower naked in a tree. So we added this shower stall, much to Maisie's dismay.

Maisie was stoic, all the while thinking happy thoughts about well-heeled sheep....

About this time, Hadley the Barbarian thought that it would be wise to bathe the cat as well. As much as I would love to de-stenchify that cat, I nixed the idea. Drippy, you can thank me later by not defiling our mudroom.

By end of day, most farm beasts had been ridden, run or otherwise exercised, and scrubbed clean. Hope they enjoyed it. Winter returns next weekend.