1. Drawing Katrina's long-gone 4-H Breeding Project ewe, Baba, with a couple of her woolie cronies, for donation to a fund-raising auction at the National Columbia Show and Sale upcoming in mid-June.
5. Picking and dealing with vats of wild asparagus--blanching and freezing an ample supply for future use, and roasting, steaming, and souping to creamy perfection the on-going bounty of canal-bank gleanings for immediate gourmet dining, meal after evening meal.
6. Reading--a fabulous fiction by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, as well as an essential non-fiction for oldies and kids who might become their caregivers, Being Mortal, by physician Atul Gawande.
7. Gardening. Our previously decimated inventory of tomatoes and peppers, now augmented by greenhouse additions, is blossoming, and everything else has germinated.
8. Gopher trapping, with requisite twice-a-day checks.
9. The usual AM and PM chores--turning sheep out to graze, bringing them back in for the night, filling troughs . . . plus moving the cows to pasture and hauling the bull to market (good riddance to that fence-crawling peckerhead).
Despite essential routines and temporary distractions, days continue to feel flat and empty without Weed.