I've been thinking that I will probably spend a lot of blog time now talking about the differences between Columbia County and Long Island. I've even blogged in my head about it a lot, but now that we've been here for almost two weeks I'm actually getting used to it and don't feel so much like a fish out of water.

One big thing is that upstate there were two health food stores within 15 minutes of our house where I could buy organic produce AND bulk dry goods. Here, with probably 20 times the population density, maybe more, I have to drive 45 minutes for something like that - and that just isn't going to happen. So I find myself making a mental grocery list for when we go upstate.

I noticed the other day that during normal daylight hours when it is not pouring rain you can almost ALWAYS hear the sound of a weedwacker or a lawnmower or an edger or a leaf blower. Aidan commented the other day that he heard an airplane. You hear airplanes here pretty regularly, but I realized that he wasn't used to hearing them all the time.

I don't miss the ticks and how smelly and dirty Wes gets this time of year upstate. He's suburban dog now.

We went back to the barn to get our dressers and futons to bring down here on Tuesday and my landlord had done all of this wacky stuff - trying to get us to fill his oil tank - and then piling and rearranging all of our stuff in this really obnoxious way. Anyhow, it made me not feel nostalgic for the barn when we were there, which is a really good thing.

I went up to check on my compost pile while we were there. Composting pleases me immensely. I had a pile of grass clippings next to the bin and when I was adding them to the pile I uncovered a nest of baby mice, hairless with closed eyes, a whole bunch of them. I was able to bring Steve and Aidan up there to show them without feeling at all conflicted about these mice eventually entering our home and shitting all over my kitchen counter. And Wes wasn't there to gobble them up as is his tendency when he finds a mouse nest.