We were sitting around yesterday talking. I blame the holiday as all this talking and thinking stuff is generally a source of nothing but trouble. You sit on a beach contemplating the sand, then clams to come, then the sound of the waves though the sand and then you don't really think about any thing.

That is when it happens. You start to think new thoughts, unapproved thoughts...thoughts that you have not tested out in the context of your home and work - most dangersous when home and work are as happy as they are. People become ice cream scientists from such thoughts - microbrewers and fifth-rate poets as well. Anabaptisits. You have to watch out for those sorts of thoughts.

But that all being said, I have not had a project for a while. This blog is not really a project - it is an exercise or an itch. Starting the orchard and vineyard I left at my last home was a project but the wisdom of "he who plants pears, plants for his heirs" is equally applicable to successors in title. Getting some letters after my name was one, too, but I don't think I want to get into any of that again. It is this sort of thing - the kind of thing that makes you follow up on that idea whether ice cream would be better on a small scale production level if there was an intermediary semi-ripe cream cheese stage. But even that could lead a man to this or this. Finds you spending weekends in your early 50s driving around in a custom made van, standing in the back surrounded by soft-serve dispenser taps, sugar cones, chocolate shavings and multi-coloured sprinkles in shaker jars, with a big sign on the van's side that says "I Can't Believe This Came Out Of A Goat!"