new vooties

There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow! The sun is seriously out on the farm and we’ve already hit 7 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit). That’s the warmest it’s been here since December 15th. Our driveway is slowly reappearing. We can now get up and down 2/3rds of it.

Our solar/micro-hydro system has stabilized, freeing up time for Jude and I to prioritize our spring projects. We want to get the place in top shape because ya never know. The sudden death of my childhood friend Gordon in January was a jarring reminder of that. His sister Lara told me he died from a cerebral hemorrhage. My wife Jude told me that it was probably quick and painless.

I met Lara back in the day. She was Gordie’s pesky little sister. He had a younger sibling Arrie, who describes herself as the “bratty” sister. I’m not sure what behaviour in their family qualified them for those adjectives, but Lara has copped to sneaking into her brother’s room to read his Mad magazines.

None of the family has been convicted of any felonies that I’m aware of. However, I can now share what was likely Gordie’s only miscreant act: the Great Watermelon Raid. In our senior year of high school, Gordie, Dennis and I drove to a farm near Shreveport one night and stole a melon. We crawled into a field under the Louisiana moon, grabbed a gourd and beat a hasty retreat when we mistook a scarecrow for a farmer with a shotgun. As always, it was Dennis’s idea.

If Gordie built up any bad karma from the melon grab, he certainly paid it off with his lifetime of service to many health and human services groups, most of it in the Belly of the Beast: the District of Columbia. You never had to prove your courage to me any other way, my friend. Vootie. And fresh vooties to Lara and Arrie.