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Odin's in trouble!  The poor guy was pretty upset that I stopped to take his picture before freeing him.  He should be used to it, though, as this was the third time he got his horns stuck in the dog feeder!

A rainbow at Gooseberry Falls.  Not on the farm, but still a nice picture of one of my favorite North Shore attractions.

This is Beth with her last kid.  She was killed soon after by large, silent canines.  (Wolf, husky, malamute, or a wolf mix?  I didn't get a good look at them as they fled, but her throat was cut neat as could be.)

This is Cadfael, my little buddy.  An energetic thirty pound bundle of courage.  He is quite offended that my Virgil's puppy is half again his size!

Last year's crop of goat kids.  They look just like this year's pair.  Brandy and Odin are quite reliable, one all white female kid and one white male with a brown stripe down his back each year.

From the

     Well, as most of you know, it's been rather a rough year for us.  At the beginning of September my horse Clyde died, probably of an anurism, way out in the back feilds where we had to bury him by hand.  Within a week, my brother Curt dropped dead while watching television, and because it was a long weekend, wasn't found for 3 days.  5 days after my brother Danny found poor Curt's body, our best freind Barb's sister died, along with the kidney she had donated to her less than a year before.  The day after Thanksgiving my dad went in for a routine endoscopy of his bile duct when they punctured it, and he spent 3 and a half weeks in the ICU at Saint Mary's hospital.  During this time the lease for my business was up, and someone offered more than I could pay for the space, so I had to move to a much smaller space elsewhere in the building at short notice.  My sister Joanne and freind Barb packed it up and moved it for me, as my knees weren't up to that many trips up the stairs.  Just when they'd had my dad off the respirator and dialysis machines and he was heading for a regular hospital bed, he had a heart attack.  As he had specified do not resusitate, there was nothing we could do about it.  So dad died a few days before Christmas, and as he had been the only thing keeping my mother alive in the nursing home these past 3 years, she followed about 3 weeks later.  My best freind Lisa's dad died a week after mine did.  Those two ladies had better stop copying me.  Sorry, some graveside humor there.  And here's another such one.  No-one else is allowed to die before I finish the paper work on these, OK?  Sorry, sorry, all the estate paperwork is starting to wear on me, especially since mom was on medicaid for the nursing home stay, so I'm still a bit nervouse about the house and all, even though as soon as the paperwork and audits were finished they told dad he could sell it and rent an apartment somewhere, he had me transfer everything to my name.  By the end of the week I'll know more on that.  Oh, yeah, did I mention that Curt never filed taxes in his life, and by signing for his last paycheck and savings accounts, I was liable for as far back as the IRS could find records?  Luckily, the reason he'd gotten away with it for so long, even as a government employee, was that the IRS owed him.  Yup, I was liable for 9 years, and possibly fines, too, but the IRS only pays refunds going back 3 years.  Oh, well, at least I don't owe them anything, and I'll get about $350.00 back for my troubles.  I'm really getting my money's worth out of turbotax this year, I'll tell you.  You can't electronically file back taxes or even this year's taxes for dead people, but I could fill it all out with helpful advice and print it out all neat looking.  That's OK, as turbotax only let's you electronically file one return without paying extra.  Life is leveling out OK, though.  I wish my dad had lived another decade or so, as I still can't imagine life without him, even though this is life without him.  After I finish all the paperwork this week, we just have to pick headstones, have mom buried when the groung thaws, and scatter dad on our farm near where Curt is scattered.  It's really pretty back there.  He used to want to be scattered in Mud Lake, up in Thief River falls, but when he saw Curt's ceremony, he asked if we'd find him a place, too.  Virgil's got a spot all picked out, and is getting ready to sandblast a nice peice or two of marble as markers.  He's also going to put a bird feeder and birdbath between Curt and Dad's areas, with nice benches for people to come visit them.  Yes, real headstones will be bought and put up at the graveyard by mom's but Virgil thought he should put something to mark their real last resting places.  He found some really lovely pieces of green marble, too.

Well, this is the most disjointed and run-on peice I've written since I was 8 years old, but I've been doing complicated taxes and accounts all week and am a bit punchy by now.  But since people noticed that I hadn't written anything new here since late last summer, I thought they should know why.

God bless,

Virgil and Kathy Fox and all the critters on the Foxes' Farm.