We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
My girls spent the weekend practicing skeet and trap at a friend's club (they like guns), then they had a jolly overnight in NYC gallivanting around wherever young folks gallivant these days.
Do they know the NYC subways? Do fish pee in your reservoir? Well, they know the Manhattan and Brooklyn trains anyway. I think they know the cool clubs too.
It's a pleasure to a Dad when your kids get along, because you want them there for eachother when you're gone. My lad is preoccupied with his own pleasant chores, although I could use some spare young muscle.
I spent the weekend doing what I enjoy most: heavy manual labor around the farm's decorative grounds (the decorative parts, not the rough parts). I dedicate a weekend each late Spring (and one day in March) to these seasonal jobs, before it gets too warm and all you want to do is to sit on a Farmall tractor with a cold one. First the chain saw work, then the clipper work, then the hedge-trimming, then the major weeding. Mrs. BD does the less-heavy weeding and pruning, being more obsessional than I am. And she likes to tell me where to move plants. Not a bad deal to be my wife despite my occasional crankiness.
Then the damn clean-up. It's the work Americans supposedly won't do. Well, I could use some immigrant help to get everything done on my list...
So what's for Father's Day supper? My favorite meal, or close to it - Vitello Tonnato - cold sliced veal with tuna sauce (with arborio rice and salad - arborio rice isn't just for risotto. You cook it in chicken broth). Great, strong flavors in the sauce - capers, anchovy, tuna. Need to make it hours, or a day, in advance. Mrs. BD likes to make it.
--having burnt up one Stihl too many, i went to an Echo 370 last chain saw purch --and it's the best damn chain saw made, i do believe. A trifle heavier --or i guess should say, lower power-to-weight ratio --than the vaunted Scandinavian and German lines, but as it turns out, that's because there's steel where the others have plastic. The 370 is a good deal cheaper per unit of power --and it lasts longer, never needs much adjusting, cuts like a bastid, and always starts easily. Made in Japan, like the once upon a time revolutionary autos that didn't wear out in their third year, as did at the time the iron from the now late great former city of Detroit.
