Last night we put the clocks forward. Past the equinox, it seems quite late to be doing this.
Holly is today still in the same position as when you last saw her, still waiting for the snow to finish melting.
She is getting quite irritable. You can see the footprints of one of the huge crows that I would dearly love to photograph. They’ve always flown away by the time I’ve fetched the camera.
The snow is still about a foot deep:
Yesterday my daughter asked me to take pictures of her galloping.
Well, I suppose it’s Askur who’s doing most of the galloping.
At the top of the road is next winter’s pile of birch logs waiting to be sawn and split. They are enormous, something you can’t see from this picture.
And then round the next bend are the young cows, who would also probably like to be outside by now. I think I mentioned this greeting, where we yell MOOO! at each other as loud as we can. My daughter pointed out that the one on the right has a 7 on her face.
And then just past the fjøs is where the horses graze, if that’s the right word; they’re eating silage and hay that have been sprinkled on the snow. The Shetland pony is Lisa. Beyond Gimondi, the thoroughbred on the right, is the Oslofjord in the distance.
A Bad Guide 
If we turn the clock back at the end of October, we should be turning it forward in mid February.
I don’t know about Askur but you know what? your daughter grew up since you started your blog a year ago. Just check the pictures.
It could be. In general it’s hard to see them getting older, it’s two steps forward and one step back all the way. Askur looks great now, though. She really takes care of him well.
I can’t see that anything bad could happen to me if I did in fact unilaterally change my clocks in Feb. I read a proposal by one Tim Yeo to put the clocks forward 2 hours in Britain. I thought that was a good idea.
A cow with a 7 on her face: this sounds like something for Moses to interpret. Then from Faeroes dream you go straight to a Shetland pony.
Not Moses, Joseph.
Looks lovely, although I don’t know about you folks, but here in Moscow we are all going a bit nuts. I mean, life on the Ice Planet has lost all appeal, especially that it’s now thawing, the snow is black and grainy, the park is an icy bog (or is that swamp?), and it seems like it was never be warm again.
Argh.
Icy bog-swamp is right. I expect your dog gets filthy too, ours do.
We have an Icelandic horse too, Ø. My daughter traced his great-uncle back in the old country, he has a very long mane and bangs–kind of like Howard Hughes.
I don’t know anything about Howard Hughes’s hair.
The word bangs referred to a way of cutting a horse’s tail before it took on the forehead meaning.
How interesting. He had a long tail too. I may do a post on him.
Howard Hughes had long white hair like a hippy. He was was afraid of germs, I don’t know if there’s a connection.
yes, the pooch gets filthy and I’ve stepped up lessons in “don’t jump up on me in show of doggie pleasure.” Have also perfected the wash-paws-in-bathtub-upon-entering routine.
But Askur is gorgeous, as is your daughter!
As, I’m sure, is the pooch.
Not Moses, Joseph.
Not Faeroes, Pharaoh’s.
It was a pun, you fool. No offense.
Well, your punning has become rather insular.
And sheepish.
No one can hatch puns like Trond, but if you are brooding over it and want to go whole hog, find me a farrow.
I’m not being sheepish. I’m horsing around, telling pony tales. Then again, why just equitate when I could be equitable? Since “pony” is kin to “pullet”, I’ll certainly grant the hatching and brooding. And oh dear, when things are ovoid can they avoid getting ovine? I give in. Here come the sheep.
Let’s visit Fair Isle, since it’s both geographically and phonologically in the neighborhood. Maybe no ponies there? Ah, I find that the “Fair” in Fair Isle is from a Norse word for “sheep”. Here they come again.
Fur long, furlong, furrow, farrow, fair enough, …
*sigh*
If you have to explain it, it’s not punny–that’s pundamental. Trond remains the champ
It’s bad when they sigh instead of groaning. I remain the chump.
And an empty stare is even worse.
The Mia Farrow one might have been a bit of a stretch, but I kind of liked the Faroe/pharaoh/farrow one.
Trond remains the champ
Hardly. I’m struck in awe by other people’s wit. And I think I’ve earned the reputation by failing to adequately explain especially convoluted points. Obscurancy is good substitute for depth.
For those who don’t subscribe to sheepish humour we can offer a pay-per-ewe service.
I’m in awe of both Empty & Trond and their puns and I very much enjoy them. Notice that both of them have a mathematics background (or foreground in Ø’s case). I think they might come from the same brain parts (puns & math might), but I’m no brain surgeon.
Puny stuff.
Go on, then–oh I see, you did.
Mia Farrow? I must have missed that one.
*stare*
Obscurancy is good substitute for depth.
Always a fine line. Over-explain and you risk killing the joke. Under-explain and you risk failing to deliver. Keep ’em guessing, I say.
I justify some of my over-explaining by telling myself that a little lecture on etymology can’t be a bad thing even I do occasionally kick the wastebasket or get covered with chalk dust. (Have I mentioned that chalk and calculus, the names of two tools of my trade, are related?)
Nijma, I’m sorry I called you a fool.
By the way, not punning now but just piling up words together:
I was muddling farrow with furrow yesterday until I looked it up. A furrow is something dug in the ground. A burrow is a different sort of dug-in-the-ground thing. A barrow, when it’s not a wheelbarrow, is a mound, often a burial mound. A harrow makes furrows (or something like that).
burrow/barrow/harrow/furrow/farrow/fallow
It’s all so earthy. I furrow my brows in the frowst of my burrow.
Then there’s a flowering weed called yarrow. And marrow is the British word for a kind of squash that sits on the ground inflating, like a pumpkin. And there’s Clarence Darrow.
No one likes my puns. *snif*
dearieme’s pun just dawned on me.
“Farrow” is a litter of pigs, the verb means “to give birth to a litter”, hence “No one can hatch puns like Trond, but if you are brooding over it and want to go whole hog, find me a farrow.” And there at the end you have Mia Farrow in italics. As I said, a stretch.
So “Then from Faeroes dream you go straight to a Shetland pony” doesn’t seem so much a pun as a homophone, whereas in the description of the Faroes thing, “rather insular” can be taken in the sense of “relating to an island” or “having a narrow or isolated viewpoint”, meaning the joke is obscure.
empty: *stare*
I see I have at least partially redeemed myself.
I used to work in the building where Clarence Darrow had his office. Very nice, all Gothic with walnut paneled elevators.
Empty’s not a homophone, I’m sure he likes everybody.
Nij, I missed your me a. Mea culpa. Who says it’s not a pun if you have to explain it?
Fa(e)roe and pharaoh are (at least nearly) homophones, but the sentence in which I used them is not a homophone. I would not call it a pun, either; I’d put it in the broader category of a play on words.
I didn’t know piglets can be hatched, although I’m sure they can be brooded over.
One person’s malapropism is another person’s heterophone.