Christmas News Letters Example 01

This isn't as good as a real letter but it is slightly better than nothing. All a Christmas broadside can really do is keep you updated on the major stuff; I'm still kind of embarrassed about sending a card to a cousin, who had divorced and remarried, to his old address and previous wife.

Linda and I are still at the old address, with slightly more dogs (5) and less horses (7) than last year, Our cat population remains stable (4) but I'm looking to trade a large Siamese or a medium sized "Morris" cat, plus a future draft pick, for a charcoal grey cat with gold eyes.

Heather still has only two speeds; overdrive, for the things she likes to do (this is also known as the "Run until you collapse" mode), and snail's pace, for putting on pajamas, eating vegetables, and going to bed. High points of her year:

• Using a spoon. Her food ratio (in her to on her) crept up above the 50% mark sometime in July, much to our delight.
• Mechanical aptitude. We bought a new car seat for use in Linda's truck, a sort of booster chair with a hinged arm that swings across the child's lap and is secured by the seat belt. The first day of use, Heather climbed in and waited while Linda fooled with the arm for three tries and gave up. "Show Mommy how it works", I said, and Heather swung it into place. Linda says Heather had a better angle of attack and that I had secretly practiced with her; I say we're seeing the results of a non-sexist upbringing.
• Reasonability. When we got home a month ago she and I got out of the car, and she declined to put on her coat. I suggested we could wrap it around her, she wouldn't have to put her arms through the sleeves and she agreed. I zipped it up and said she'd have to knock on the front door with her head, and so she did.

So much for cute kid stories.

Life on the farm continues. The animals didn't break anything major this year and I didn't build them anything to chew on. I got off one practical joke, which requires some background. We used to have a neighbor who raised chickens, and they would sometimes stray into our yard. When the black labs chased these strays, I'd chastise the dogs, once with a shovel handle.

Sometimes, however, the chickens would fly 150 feet across the yard, then up over a chain link fence so they could get into the dog run. Recreational chasing is one thing, but defending home turf is another, so, under the theory any hen who'd fly into a dog run was not contributing to the gene pool, I'd clean up the scattered parts, apologize to the neighbors, and just scowl at the dogs.

Two months ago I snuck home with 3 cow femurs from the butcher shop. (This is a bone 3 inches across and 2 feet long, with a knob the size of an orange on one end.) I scattered them in the dog run and told Linda to come quick, because the dogs had eaten something again. For about 30 seconds she believed me.

Linda was able to go to three endurance rides this summer, while I stayed home with the child and animals. I spent a goodly amount of time sailing at the local reservoirs.

In August a friend and I were out when we saw a sailor in distress. This particular sailor, was 22 and wearing a bikini when she flipped her Hobie cat, so she wasn't alone for long. By the time we got there four power boats had pulled over, and four erstwhile (modern) Sir Galahads had jumped off their bows and swum to her craft.

A Hobie Cat can be righted in 3 minutes, but you need 20 feet of line and have to know how to do it. The power boaters were making a hash of it, and it was obvious that my years of experience (I have my limits, but I've certainly learned how to right a boat after it tips over) were finally going to pay off. I asked my friend to steer right along the downed craft, took my righting line and stepped across to one of her hulls.

It being as slick as highly polished fiberglass covered with a film of water, I slipped off, hit my foot on something, and fell into the lake. Came up, flipped the end of my line around the boat, told one of the power sailors to grab the other end and lean backwards, and we flipped her boat back right as rain; much admiration and grateful thanks. Then I noticed my foot was bleeding onto her deck. Washed it off, swam to my boat, and, later, that day, laughed about it as the doctor put two stitches between my toes.