Life in the Swamp

Happy Birthday, Ziggy!!

2012-01-14T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today you turn one year old, give or take a few days. I'm not sure exactly what day this month but this is close enough. You're a naughty little, fun loving, bundle of energy and a joy to have around. And your big sister really, really likes you. SO have a biscuit, a long drink of water, and here's lookin' at you, kid!

One Week Later

2011-12-12T15:39:00.001-05:00

On the night of my last post, around 10 pm I started coughing. I thought I had just inhaled a piece of dust but it wouldn't stop and before the night was over I had chills, even though I seemed to be burning up. Somehow, somewhere I caught a bug which has now lasted a week. I've been miserable, the only thing that hasn't happened to me is praying to the porcelain god. Everything else, I got hit with it. I don't remember running into anyone who was ill but I guess I caught this the night of the anniversary party 2 days earlier. Only time I was with a lot of other people.

Fortunately, the fever only lasted the one night as did the sore throat but I've pretty much felt like crap the last 7 days. I guess I'm lucky that other than chasing down Ziggy on occasion and Luna when she was bad, and loading the wood stove, I could pretty much lay about and do nothing. I didn't even feel like eating which is unusual for me even with the stomach flu. I've actually lost 5 pounds though I figure at least 3 of those are just water weight, but at least it's a good thing that came out of this.

Hal took off to camp which was fine with me because I didn't want to cook, could barely function as it was. Plus I hope he does not contract this, it is nasty. I thought I was feeling better yesterday but today I feel worse so I'm still not eating much though I am planning on pizza for dinner. My bred machine even now is madly whipping the dough into shape.

Otherwise, still no snow and no idea when my younger sister is arriving. I figure I have a few days to get back to cleaning up the house, now that I can move about again without feeling as though parts of me wish for non-existence. I wonder if this would have been worse without the flu shot I had in October.

Between the Holidays

2011-12-05T13:36:00.001-05:00

It's 20 days till Christmas, a little over a week since Thanksgiving. Not a lot has been happening around here. Thanksgiving dinner was at the farm, just Hal's parents and one of his brothers. Everyone else stayed downstate. It was nice not to be at a restaurant and have a home cooked turkey instead.

I've plugged all the fence holes and now Luna can't escape but Ziggy still could. Today I watched him sail right over the 30 inch fence in the front yard. So the question now is do I get a taller fence or opt for the easier installation of a transmitter and a zapper collar? I'd prefer the fence, I think he'd be too stubborn for the zapper to work. I also don't like the idea of zapping my little boy, either.

No snow yet. we had about a half inch a few days ago but then rain and temps in the 50s yesterday took care of that. Feels odd not to have any yet. Can't complain though, I hate shoveling the deck.

Decided to keep 5 guineas and 2 ducks through the winter. Hal rebuilt the coop door so it drops down instead of hinges upward. Hopefully this means I won't be chipping ice to close it this year. Since we got rid of the chickens the fox has disappeared too. He'd gotten at least 3 of my chickens this summer. The guineas can fly and the ducks are pretty large. Chickens seem to be easy targets.

Celebrated my neighbor's 50th wedding anniversary Saturday night. I made chicken chili and peach, blueberry trifle. I stayed to help clean up when it was over. My neighbors seemed to have a pretty good time.

Been waging the annual fall battle of the fleas again. I think I am finally getting a handle on it. My ankles are a bitten mess, but the dogs seem to be flea free at the moment and the water traps aren't catching much of anything now. Must vacuum the floors yet again to keep ahead.

Been cleaning the guest room for the arrival of my younger sister, her boy friend and Lyra in less than 2 weeks. Got to clear half the garage for her car. Ought to get back to that now.

Until next time.

A Friend Died Today

2011-10-02T21:37:00.002-04:00

We knew it was coming, just not this weekend. She had Alzheimer's and lung cancer. She was my neighbor and my friend. She loved animals, she was funny. But this last year she became more and more lost, drifting away into that odd half life of Alzheimer's. She really wasn't "there" when another friend and I went to see her and sit by her with her husband.

It really sucks.

My New England Vacation - Part 2

2011-09-30T23:14:00.001-04:00

After getting into the house Tuesday night, (GF was already asleep) we pretty much also went to bed. There was only one guest room and we shared a bed. Suffice to say, I ended up on the sofa after a couple hours, due to various incompatibilities. The next day we went out and had a nice lunch at a place called Brittany's just over the border in Northboro. SIL had a crab meat sandwich wrapped in a tortilla, I had a Monte Cristo sandwich. Very tasty. Then we found an Ocean State Job Lot and bought an air mattress for the empty dining room. That took care of sleeping arrangements. We also bought a few other things, it's a cook store.

After work on Thursday GF, SIL and I left for Cape Cod and her family's beach house. Traffic for the Labor day weekend wasn't too bad though we did run into traffic for the Patriot's game in Foxboro. Now that it's 3 weeks later, I can't remember if we did anything when we got there that night other than watch TV, walk dogs (GF's dog Kimba and her sister's dog Kai were staying there with her dad), perhaps have some dinner? We got there around 9 pm, so who knows what we did?

Kai on the left, Kimba on the right.

But for the next four days we had a blast! There was lobster one night at a friend's house. we brought a Michigan wine. There was lobster at restaurants, there was clam chowder, lots of clam chowder! The best I had was at a place called The Skipper.

Some of the places we went were Dick and Ellie's Flea Market in South Dennis, MA. That was fun, I bought a rubberized rain coat, been wanting a new one of those for years, and there is was, my SIL actually found it for me. I also bought a cool looking straw hat, made me look very beachy, a colorful floor runner for my hall made out of 98% recycled plastic. A pair of earrings, a small costume ring supposedly from the 1940's and a faux Chamilia bracelet with lots of dangly stuff.

Saturday we tried to go to the beach but the winds were gusting to over 25 mph, last vestiges of Irene, so we gave up barely two hours into it, it was warm but not fun getting sand continually blown in our faces.

Sunday we stopped at the National Seashore for a short hike on the way to Provincetown, at the tip of the cape taking my BF's sister with us. Again, a great time with more chowder, lobster, shopping, checking out the sights, etc. On the way back we stopped at the Truro Winery for a tasting, bought a couple bottles, it was rather pricey, definitely a touristy kind of place.

View form hiking trail at the National Seashore

Provincetown with the Pilgrim Tower in the background.

Monday was the day we were leaving but we did a few more touristy things, one was a visit to the Monomoy Wildlife Refuge. Then we climbed an old stone edifice called Sago Tower. But this is enough for now, I'll post more photos another time.

Hell of a Couple Weeks

2011-09-30T21:03:00.001-04:00

Haven't been in the mood to post more vacation stuff. Ended up with massive out ear infections in both ears a few days after my return. Horrible, horrible pain, even Tylenol -3's did not help. A fever closing in on 102 degrees. It came on fast on a Monday and of course, worsened that night. Couldn't see my physician's assistant till Tuesday afternoon. She put me on one antibiotic and ear drops, 10 in each ear twice per day. I ended up going back 2 days later because I had no relief in my left ear. She had to put a wick into that one to get the drops into the canal, it was completely closed up. Plus I got a second antibiotic. That finally did the trick but I was wiped out physically and my energy didn't return till today, almost 2 weeks later.

Then 2 nights ago I was stung by a bee on my ankle while walking back from Uncle Butch's with my dogs. I took 2 allergy pills, cleaned the spot and applied hydro-cortisone. It didn't really swell up or bother me very much till today when my ankle became red, hot, swollen and painful to the touch. So back to the doctor's office, and saw a different PA since mine has Friday's off. She cleaned it, put me back on antibiotics and after checking my ears decided it wouldn't hurt to do more drops for another week.

Do I even want to mention my neighbor's little dog Ernie, who decided to play eat my tire while backing out of his driveway? After rushing him to the vet doing 80 mph on back roads, they determined no broken bones, and the huge swelling in his groin is probably a hernia that will need surgery when he recovers from the initial trauma. I sincerely hope that this will teach Ernie to chase cars no more!

I need another vacation.

Good thing I have one coming up next week, assuming I live that long!

My New England Vacation - Part 1

2011-09-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

I invited my sister-in-law, my husband's favorite sister (yes, she's his only sister but still his favorite) to accompany me to the fair state of Massachusetts, my birthplace, a nice place to visit, but a place I have no wish to live because it's expensive, crowded, over taxed, and I plain like Michigan better! I left northern MI on Monday, the 29th of August and reached SIL's place by 4 pm. We left the next morning in my car at 8 am and were in Ohio by 9am. Beautiful day, sunshine, fluffy white clouds, temperatures in the high 70s, low 80s. Ohio went by swiftly, more swiftly than I remember but that's probably because I usually take this trip alone with my dogs and dogs are neither witty nor talkative.

After we got into New York, had rather sad looking and pricey pita sandwich rolls at a rest area, passed Buffalo and got onto the Thruway we noticed signs stating that US90 was closed between Syracuse and Albany and everyone must exit at 34 A. I thought it odd that there would be that much construction going on to close the entire thruway for such a stretch so as we approached we listened to traffic radio and discovered it was due to flooding from Hurricane Irene. She wasn't that powerful a storm wind-wise but apparently was so full of water there were major floods inland and the Thruway was not immune. However, the detour we were expected to take, US81 south to Binghampton, NY (67 miles) then US87 north to Albany (104 miles) was insane. It would be a 4 hour detour, adding more than 2 hours to the trip that normally takes less than 2. Instead after a little debate and map wrangling we took route 20 which parallels 90 about 10-20 miles to the south. That turned out to be a lovely road and took us through many nice little towns and past lovely scenery. It was also much more enjoyable than the proposed freeway detour. Yes it was slower and in the end the detour did add 2.5 hours to the estimated 12.5 hour trip, but it was shorter and less stressful than the one the highway department recommended.

When we got to the end of the detour and were about to get on 87 just before it joined back up with 90 we saw lots of flood damage. Trailer homes off their foundations, round hay bales scattered and piled up at the edges of the road, one had a wicker chair tossed on top. Trees and brush flattened for many feet beyond still raging rivers, evidence of mud scraped away from the road surface. It even smelled muddy. Very sad.

In the end we got to my GF's house at 11 pm on the nose. She was already asleep since she had to work the next day. We crawled into bed and spent the next day relaxing and hitting a discount store for various sundries until the drive that night to Cape Cod.

Macro Photography

2011-08-01T12:45:00.001-04:00

A little over a week ago the lens on my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8 that I bought in December of 2008. I suspected a grain of sand from the beach the day before may have gotten into the works. Since it was dead it in the water I saw no reason not to try the "drop fix" suggested on the web by numerous sources to jar loose any foreign bodies. Instead of 6 feet though I dropped it on its corner from 3 feet onto a padded carpet. It unstuck. I was able to take 36 pictures the next day before it froze again. I let it sit for a couple days while I began looking on line for a replacement, then took the back off to see if I could get to the moving parts of the lens. But there were too many circuit boards in between so I just blew on it poked it here and there, turned it on and off over and over then, for the hell of it, poked a tiny screwdriver into the hole on top above the lens which happens to be the microphone opening. Lo and behold the lens retracted and things were back to normal.

Not wanting to waste any time I decided to find my manual and start using my camera the way I originally intended. I discovered menus I'd never seen before and techniques I'd never tried. Sepia, black and white, playing with exposure controls and white balance, etc. As I had chosen this camera for it's manual capabilities it only made sense to explore. However, I had used the macro before and because many lovely things were in bloom I started snapping photos. Here are a few of my favorites so far.

1/30 sec ISO 100 f5.6 focal length 36mm shutter priority

This is a hybridized Black Eyed Susan. I planted them from seeds almost 10 years ago and they have spread like weeds. Good thing I like them.

1/200 sec ISO 100 f3.3 fl 32mm aperture priority

Commonly known as tiger lilies, this is actually a common day lily, hemerocallis fulva that grows wild all over the country. I received these plants from a friend and planted them along my pond and the swamp under the power lines in my yard. This was a rather unusual curly speciman that caught my eye.

A different view of a different pair from another day.

1/500 sec ISO 100 f3.3 fl 32mm aperture priority

And below are water droplets on cattail leaves the morning after a rain storm. I really like this one a lot. Those drops are hard to get into focus without a tripod.

1/250 sec ISO 100 f3.3 fl 32mm aperture priority

(edited for redundant phrasing)

A Few Photos

2011-07-18T22:11:00.000-04:00

I have been negligent so thought I'd just post a few photos of the happenings around the swamp for the past 2 and a half months.

I thought I'd show what Ziggy's dinner place looks like every day when he eats. He doesn't pick up the ones on the outside either, but Luna does. I think she looks forward to his rings of Saturn though it doesn't help her waistline.

Ziggy also learned how to swim after watching Luna jump into the pond several times he sort of fell in. A few more times though he began to leap in though he doesn't retrieve sticks. he just jumps in when he feels like it, does a couple circles and climbs back out. usually he tried to climb onto Luna when she is climbing out as well. But now that is swimming he can go to the beach which we did a couple weeks ago to Negwegon State Park where he got to play in the waves and had a blast.

we visited my friend's house this spring and Luna and Tink, both females and only tolerant of each other had some weird sort of pushing context. There didn't seem to be any obvious winner and it lasted more than 5 minutes. Very odd dogs.

I don't know if it's all the rain we had this spring and the super cool weather we had (till lately, it's been dry and in the 90s lately!) but my roses are doing wonderfully this year like they never have before. The pink one is a William Baffin climbing rose and the red one the Morden Fireglow.

And this final picture just happened when Ziggy sat in front of Rocket's grave while the daffodils I planted over him were in bloom. I thought it was a nice picture. It's unbelievable how much I miss that big brown dog but I think Ziggy is doing his best to plug that hole.

Weird Spring

2011-05-24T11:50:00.000-04:00

Playing on the trail during 3 day rain storm.

Between late snow storms, unseasonably cold weather and more rain than the ground can absorb, it's been a nasty spring. everything is 2 to three weeks late, the tree leaves, the daffodils, everything. And the peepers, those little frogs that usually only sound off for a couple weeks have been going non-stop for more than a month. It's insane. I only got to plant my first vegetable seeds; snow peas, spinach and lettuce on May 1st. They finally sprouted a week ago. My daffodils did look great till the hail storm a couple days ago. Still, it could be worse, at least there hasn't been a tornado.

But Luna and the puppyman Ziggy are fine, Luna is here right now snoozing on the sofa after she unceremoniously dumped Ziggy at Uncle Butch's house. She's been doing that a lot lately, runs over there with him and then comes back home after he jumps on the door to their house to be let in. She's a sneaky girl who I think just wants to have some alone time with me.

I took them to Jewell Lake last week on what turned out to be a cold blustery day. Luna chased sticks into the water But Ziggy only waded in a little bit. I don't think he can swim yet.

Ziggy is 30 pounds now and has most of his adult teeth, his canines are finally starting to grow in, too. I'm starting to think he is going to stay on the small side though at only 4 months it's hard to be certain.

But it does look like he's learning not to chase the chickens. I keep a watch over him when they're all out together and he's being a very good boy.

Ziggy watching the chickens.

Spring? I Spoke Too Soon

2011-04-20T20:00:00.005-04:00

Last night we had a winter storm. I am very annoyed. There are 5.5 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground, and more to the north. The electric power went out around 3 am and stayed off until almost 12:30 in the afternoon. I'm beginning to think last year's volcanic eruptions may have something to do with this cold spring. I've not found a smoking gun on line yet but I'm not looking very hard.

Because of the wet snow both my satellite dishes were getting covered and messing with my TV and Internet reception so I got out the metal step ladder, got under the DirecTV dish on the big maple out front and began sweeping the snow off. Then the sky lit up like daylight BOOM, one hell of a crack of thunder. I kept cleaning the dishes though as I didn't get zapped. It boomed and flashed on and off for the next couple of hours.

I'm not sure what Luna thinks of this long winter, Ziggy is still so new to everything he just runs around like a maniac. I'm just sick of the whole thing.

Here are some photos.

It's already melting, probably lost 2 inches perhaps 3, but not fast enough for me. Supposed to go back into the 40s tomorrow and 50 the day after. But will it last?

Spring Has Sprung!

2011-04-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

At long last. The sun came back out yesterday and the daytime temps got back into the 50s. Fifty-five for a high yesterday, almost 55 today. They're predicting into the 60s for Saturday and Sunday. It's by no means permanent, 40s again by next Thursday are forecast but the snow is definitely on its way out now. No sign of any crocuses around here but hopefully it won't be long till they finally pop their heads out of the ground.

I noticed the buds on the maple trees are also swelling today, so in a couple weeks tree pollen should be driving a few people (you paying attention, Hal?) nuts. I am only slightly allergic to trees, it's grass that gets me and that won't get really bad till late June.

Sure am enjoying this weather.

Is Spring Finally Here?

2011-04-05T09:58:00.000-04:00

Hard to say. We keep getting sleet or snow, Inch and a half 2 days ago which finally changed to rain and then melted yesterday though it stayed where old snow still existed. It's slowly creeping back into the low 40s for daytime highs but I swear this is the coldest spring I can remember. It's cloudy and breezy right now and perhaps 35. The forecast is showing 50 for Saturday, I'll believe it when I feel it. Tomorrow they say more snow showers. Not a sign of my crocuses yet, usually I have daffodils popping up by now.

Luna and Ziggy are still getting along well though one night she refuse to come home from Uncle Butch's house so I let her sleep there. Ziggy doesn't protest sleeping in his crate most of the time, but I have to go to sleep by midnight because he is invariably up by 7 am, 7:24 at the latest. He's still not quite house broken. Mostly he pees outside, but I don't know that he realizes he can only pee outside. Accidents are fewer now but I still can't trust him and as he still wants to chew everything in sight, I can't let him out of my sight. There are a couple new holes in the skirt on the sofa, who knows what I haven't discovered.

But he is adorable, check out this photo! He was probably 10 weeks old here, he's closer to 12 now.

And here's a photo of Luna to show she is not forgotten.

I suppose I ought to let the chickens, guineas and ducks outside now, feed them and walk my pups.

TTFN

A Surprise Spring Snow Storm

2011-03-25T18:45:00.000-04:00

It was a surprise to me anyway. I had no idea it was coming till the day I was coming home from the spa. It was a big storm, stretched across several states. But for us it dropped about 10 inches of fluffier than expected snow. Luna and Ziggy seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Since everything is still pretty new to Ziggy I think he enjoys just about everything.

We still managed to take a couple walks while it was snowing and here are some videos to prove it. Both are in my driveway. First one near the house, second one farther up the road.

The day after the storm was nice and sunny (as was today) and we walking some more. Not a lot else to mention so I'll leave it at that.

Went to a Spa

2011-03-23T12:57:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I went to a spa just outside of Petoskey, MI at the Inn at Bay Harbor. First time I'd ever been to a spa or had a professional massage. I must say it was a very nice experience. I also had a facial and a pedicure. A weekend of firsts for me. I went with my mother-in-law and 4 sisters-in-law and a friend. I would say we had a blast. The rooms were great, the food was great and even the local casino was okay though I am not much of a gambler. I lost my $20 complimentary cash from the hotel pretty quickly. The whole trip was a Christmas gift from my father-in-law. Rather nice of him, I'd say.

Aren't those the prettiest toenails? The color is Peruby Ruby by OPI which, of course, has been discontinued so I bought a bottle of It's Greek to Me, which seemed close enough.

While gone I left Ziggy with Hal and Luna with Uncle Butch and his wife. Ziggy has a mild case of kennel cough so he has to stay away from most dogs. Luna had gotten a booster shot last month so she's fine. Every so often I would receive a text message from Hal stating things like "pup still alive." I do believe Hal had no idea what he was in for when he volunteered to look after the puppy by letting me get him before my spa weekend as opposed to after it. When I got back to the farm to drop my MIL off, Ziggy was waiting for me to take home.

Upon getting home I picked up Luna and my two pups acted as though they hadn't seen each other in years. Maybe that's true since dogs have such short lives. But in any case they seemed very happy to see each other again. They bonded so much more quickly than Rocket did with Luna. But then Luna has always been part of a duo except for these past 6 months while Rocket had 8 years of being the sole dog.

So here are a few photos of their reunion.

Such puppy love!

(edited to fix typo)

Here's My New Puppy!!

2011-03-16T13:47:00.001-04:00

Well, after talking with Hal, I emailed the shelter Sunday night and Joe from the shelter called me the next morning. Before 1 pm Aunt Judy, Luna and I headed to Tawas City, MI. First we hit Wal-Mart and bought puppy chow, (same thing the shelter was feeding) then we went to the Iosco County shelter and attempted to figure out which of 7 rambunctious brothers and 1 extra 3 month old lab puppy would be lucky enough to come home with me. I don't think I played with all 7 brothers, I know the first one I pulled out was the 3 month old because he was a full blooded black lab and twice the size of the little ones. Some of them were very yappy so I didn't try too hard to play with them. At one point all 8 got out of the pen and ran up and down the hallway. It was not easy stuffing them back into the kennel.

Generally, I had 2 at a time in the playroom, settled on 2 and brought Luna in to see whom she liked. She didn't want anything to do with any of them, she backed right out of her collar to escape from the mayhem. I think the one I picked was pretty much one of the first I tried. He seemed very friendly and liked to snuggle with Aunt Judy while I was exchanging puppies. I am so glad she came with me because the only worker at the shelter said he had to stay up front so was no help at all.

I paid my $35, then we went to the vet on the way home and Dr King pronounced him a healthy, chunky handsome man. He got wormed and we finally got home around 6 pm. When we finally put him in the crate and went to bed he began howling and yapping so I had to drag the crate into the master bedroom before he would settle down. He then kept us up most of the night hacking and coughing and I suspected kennel cough but last night he was much better so I've got my fingers crossed he'll keep improving.

Luna also seems to be enjoying the new puppy much sooner than Rocket enjoyed being around Luna. Perhaps it's because they're closer in age, 2 months vs 5.5 years instead of 2 months vs 8 years. Or Luna is just less reserved than Rocket was. At any rate, it's good to see them play together.

Since then it's been up and down and in and out hold me, feed me, let me hump your leg. He's a cute little devil. As for his name, I'm still hovering between Comet, Boomer and Ziggy. He was Comet most of yesterday but I'm not feeling it, I think he's too small for Boomer and I'm liking the sound of Ziggy.

And Ziggy played guitar.

Looking for a Dog

2011-03-13T21:26:00.000-04:00

I had actually found a sweet looking 9 year old chocolate lab at the shelter a couple weeks ago that was brought in as a stray but another family got there ahead of me and his photo is no longer on the website.

So I looked around some more and a different shelter has seven 9 week old male black lab/beagle mixes available. They are very cute. I am hoping I can take Luna in to see them later this week. Maybe we can find a new little buddy!

Winter Won't Go Away!

2011-03-08T21:22:00.000-05:00

It's official, I am sick and tired of winter. Yes, I know spring is still 2 weeks away by the calender but we've had a few days of 40 degree temperatures and sunshine and then the cold would snap back into the 20s during the day and minus digits at night. And tomorrow we're expecting another 2-4 inches of snow.

*Heavy sigh*

February had quite a bit of snow. A blizzard in fact at the start of the month dropped about 18 inches of snow. Luna really enjoyd it though and I did too, as I haven't experienced a blizzard in years and I didn't have to do anything about it other than shovel the deck, feed the birds, load the woodstove, walk the dog and stay warm. Luna got lots of exercise leaping through it. Check out the video. She had lept off of the deck into the snow then discovered leaping back up was harder than she thought.

A few days of 40 degree temps a week later really shrank the snow base but then we had a 7 more inches last week and now we're expecting 2-4 tomorrow. I'm ready for spring to appear though. The sooner the better.

Pictures from Christmas 2010

2011-02-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

Pictures of the dogs anyway. I'm late with this entry because I was trying to write some poignant, significant piece but really, who wants to read depressing prose in the midst of a gloomy, gray winter? Last year was depressing enough having lost my mom and Rocket. My sister, her boyfriend, Hal and I managed to have a pretty good time anyway, and our 2 dogs, Luna and her niece Lyra had a blast. So, here's some "dogs having a blast" photos as well as a couple non-dog photos.

Luna giving Lyra a lesson in manners.

Essence of Charlie Brown.

This was the scrawniest Christmas tree ever. It was from the top of a 30 foot balsam that fell over in a wind storm sometime back in October. After Hal cut the top off to clear the trail into the woods, I stood it up in the swamp. Between the cold air and the water it managed to keep until Christmas rolled around. Since it was a volunteer, despite being poorly shaped, I figured it deserved to be our Christmas tree.

A little lazy wrestling beneath the tree.

This is MY plastic cup!

Tug o' war with my neighbor's dogs' toy.

We're very good doggies, may we have a biscuit?

As I said, it wasn't all about the dogs. There were a couple nice dinners as well, one of them being on Christmas day. Muscovy duck with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed corn and wine. Pies for dessert.

The annual duck dinner.
There was raspberry sauce to go with it.

Lyra and her family stayed 3 weeks. The guys spent most of the time hunting, while we gals stayed home and baked cookies, played in the snow and did all the cooking. We also watched a few Christmas movies on the nice big flat screen TV we bought back in November. As a "transitional" holiday it was better than we expected it to be. I'm hoping this year's will be even better.

It's A New Year and a New Oven

2011-01-18T13:42:00.001-05:00

I have been negligent, yet again, in my posting. At this moment I am downstate at Hal's sister's house. Been here for a week. Tomorrow I will go home as she is going back to nursing school. It's raining outside here but up north we got snow and a goodly amount I have heard. That should make it nice for Luna as she does seem to like the snow though not as much as my good boy Rocket did.

Toward the end of 2010 by gas oven, which runs on propane, did not turn off 3 times and I did not find out till the next day. Fortunately, the flame remained on and though it cost me in fuel it did fill my house with gas. I've never liked that range, it was the cheapest GE the previous owner (who bought the whole property and divided it into 7 sections to sell for profit) could put in. It had the broiler drawer on the bottom which is literally a pain in the back to use, the flames were blue tipped yellow instead of solid blue so it was burning inefficiently and the oven temperature was off anywhere from 75 to 150 degrees depending on the required temperature and the mood it was in. It had been adjusted as far as it could be and was just not a joy to use. Plus those old burners did not boil water very fast and it would take 3 hours to get my 17 quart pressure canner pressurized.

My new oven which I bought in a year end sale and is a Frigidaire is a joy to use. It's got sealed burners so no water gets inside, it lights quickly, heats water, oh, so much faster! It has the broiler inside the oven where it should be. I even got it in the "bisque" color to match my dishwasher and refrigerator. I'd have loved to get one with a 5th burner in the middle but that would have cost an extra $300.

First day it came I roasted a chicken. I've baked cookies, boiled noodles, it's been an utter joy to use. I think canning vegetables will be so much easier this year!

(edited to add photo)

Visitors in the House!

2010-12-24T18:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, my Christmas time guests are back again. Lyra and her mom boyfriend. (We'll call them K and M.) They got in Sunday afternoon after leaving Massachusetts pulling a U-Haul trailer stuffed with my mom's living room furniture.

(I forgot to finish this the other day so I'll write something quickly.)

In the few days they've been here Lyra, Luna, K and I have done a lot of walking in the woods. K and I have gone shopping, once for food and once for gifts.

It's Christmas Eve now and in an hour we'll be heading over to Uncle Butch's for a party. I made sweet and sour meatballs.

During this week Hal and M have been hunting and finally late this afternoon one has gotten a deer. They'll show up to the party later after they've hung it in the pole barn.

That's it for now, I am tired, and have to change clothes.

Merry Christmas.

Family Christmas Party Day!!

2010-12-18T09:35:00.000-05:00

Today Hal and I will attend the annual Family Christmas party for his side of the family.I drove down with his mom 2 days ago so she and I and her daughter could just hang out together and bake. I made an egg nog cake I've never tried before, home made applesauce, and I have a pineapple stuffing ready to go into the oven once I retrieve it from my car where it spent the night as the refrigerator is full.

Hal is driving his dad down this morning and have already left. Will take them about 4 hours to get here. We'll all meet up at J & M's home where the party takes place every year as they've got the biggest house in the area. It will be great to see everyone as not all could make it to Thanksgiving up north. Only one family won't be present as they are now in Texas, being a military family and subject to moving about a lot.

Other food that I know will be there are "Mexican chicken", a spiral ham, pumpkin pies, the famous C's cheese ball, cheesy potatoes, and undoubtedly several other desserts. Soda, tonic, pop, coke, whatever you want to call the bubbly, effervescent, fizzy, carbonated beverage will be the drink of the day.

Besides eating there will be a gift grab bag, one for women, one for men, everyone participating provides a gift, this year, the price limit was raised to $10. The children under 18 exchange gifts with another cousin whose name was picked for them at Thanksgiving. And after all this there is a "White Elephant" game where everyone gets to choose a mysterious gift that another family member contributed because he/she didn't want it. Gets rather silly at this point because some of the gifts are really awful or even useless to the one who gets it yet now and then one is pretty cool. those risk being "stolen away" by someone else with a really lame gift. Can be funny.

Well, probably should go get that stuffing out of my car and turn the oven on. One of these days I'll update the blog again.

I Like My HDTV!

2010-12-05T19:53:00.000-05:00

It finally arrived Friday. It has been held hostage since the 17th of November in a warehouse in Taylor, MI. The shipping company claimed they can only deliver to my area on Thursdays, and since last Thursday was a holiday (Happy belated Thanksgiving) they couldn't deliver till the other day. Oddly, they didn't deliver on Thursday, Dec 2nd, but instead Friday, December 3rd. Wonder what their excuse would have been had I asked why not Thursday?

However, what I researched and purchased was an LG 42 inch LCD HDTV 1080p 120 Hz. I must say it looks very, very good. Damn good in fact. Hal also hooked up all our speakers so we're getting Dolby 5.1 surround sound again.

We reoriented our living room to accommodate this set up. Essentially, rotated the furniture 90 degrees. The TV, as it's very thin compared to our cathode ray tube 24" TV is now on the bookcase against the staircase wall between our tall oak cabinets. Stereo remains on the left side and we moved all the TV components to the cabinet on the right. Hal removed the old TV cabinet to his camp and moved his 8 point deer head to that wall. Eventually, it will have a chair beneath it when my younger sister brings the family furniture here in 2 weeks.

Since we had to remove a lot of knick knacks from the shelves to make this rearrangement, I have to put them all back again with fewer shelves as those same components took those shelves over. So, slowly I am dusting and polishing and replacing. Might get it done by the time my sister, her BF and Lyra get here in 2 weeks.

Or not. But the TV will still look good!

Bought a BIG TV and a few Other Things

2010-11-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

At least it's big for me. A 42" LG high definition television. Looks nice, I've seen other LG's in person but not this one. Bought it from Amazon. It's supposed to be here by the end of the week. Bought it for $300 off list price. I was planning to stand outside a store on Black Friday hoping to get something similar, but Amazon has been having some pretty good pre-Black Friday sales. Can't wait for it to get here, our current TV is only a couple years old, and isn't a bad little TV, but it's only 24" and is not high def so can't take advantage of the HD signal we're getting from DirecTV. We'll have to pull the old stand out of the loft to set it on but that's no problem though a little awkward to maneuver down the stairs. The current stand will look very nice at Hal's hunting camp with the little 24" one.

Tonight I'm heading to his camp with a dinner of venison heart, a strawberry cake and a salad. Opening day of rifle season is tomorrow so I'll be out there with my dad's gun looking for dinner. Hal has already given a couple deer away to some of our less fortunate neighbors. They really appreciate it.

Luna will spend tonight and tomorrow at Uncle Butch's with her Uncle Yogi, Tank and whichever other doggie friends happen to drop by. Uncle Butch's granddaughter will feed and left my birds out of their coops in the morning so I don't have to rush back.

Did a little shopping last week, too. Bought Hal a new fleece hoodie. He liked it so much I went back the next day and got him another.

Eleven days till Thanksgiving. Many of Hal's clan will be up here for dinner at the farm, then holiday shopping on Black Friday. I'm looking forward to it. Plus I no longer have to get up at 5 am to wait outside Walmart in hopes of snagging a TV on the cheap.

Good Time Downstate!

2010-10-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

Spent a few days downstate last week with Hal's sister. We'll call her Sal. She was between terms in nursing school and needed a few days to unwind as did I. We had a great time. We went shopping. (Imagine that!) Saw the movie Secretariat which we both enjoyed immensely. I remember watching those races live on TV. I loved that horse. Been a long time since I've really gotten interested in horse racing.

On Friday night we went with one of Sal's friends and one of our sisters-in-law to a mystery wine dinner at the Portofino in Wyandotte, MI right on the Detroit River. The restaurant has had several multiple course dinners before but this was the first one they had where both the food and wines served were a mystery to everyone except the chef and the sommelier. Every thing was fantastic! Five courses were served, first course had a champagne from Spain and a warm watermelon salad. Second course was a white wine from France and curried, grilled prawn. Hickory smoked duck was served with a red wine from Israel, and the 4th and main course was a gorgonzola stuffed filet mignon served with a cabernet sauvignon from Napa Valley, CA. Dessert was a toasted almond creme torte and a sweet white wine from Hungary called a Tokaji. We had the best time with 28 other guests that night. I loved everything.

Of course, the weekend had us shopping some more. Besides clothes, most of which I did not need but the sales were great, I also got more beads for the jewelry I've been making. Haven't made a lot yet, only 3 necklaces, but I enjoy it and they made great gifts.

On Sunday night we had home made Mexican food at yet another SIL's home, the one married to Hal's youngest brother. Their 3 children were there and their dog Bailey, a rat terrier and their newest puppy, Cutty, a 10 week old beagle. I'm afraid I played more with the puppy than the little kids.

The entire time I was there, 5 days and 6 nights we spent little time at home, we were constantly running around. Also wen to "Always Christmas" a holiday store in Lake Orion, as well as several different restaurants to eat. We didn't cook for ourselves at all. I'm hoping we can get together for another one of these visits in the future.

Looked at a Puppy

2010-10-17T23:42:00.000-04:00

And played with him too at an animal shelter in south east Michigan yesterday. He was about 5 months old, black, a probable Labrador mix they called Reggie. He really loved to retrieve. He didn't look me in the eyes but kept coming back to me over an over with his ball or toys. He was undernourished and his back legs were a little splayed which could be from being undernourished. His skin was a little dry and he didn't say much probably due to having kennel cough. But he seemed to be a sweet little boy. I hope he finds a good home, he'd possibly be a nice fit with me and Luna and Hal, but I wasn't "feeling it". Possibly it's too soon since I lost Rocket.

One day.

Out of the Internet Dark Ages

2010-09-25T23:02:00.000-04:00

We bit the bullet this week and as of today had a satellite internet service installed. It's not as fast as cable modem or DSL, as far as I know, but it's much faster than the dial-up we've been using for years. The cost though is 8 times what we were paying for dial-up, but the last few weeks we've been having more and more problems, bad connection speeds, unable to connect at all, it's been very annoying. When it happened now and then no big deal but when this is your major entertainment and it's an hourly problem, time to upgrade.

We went with Hughes Net because it seemed to have the best value. I ordered the Pro plan rather than the cheaper Home plan to get a larger download allowance as well as slightly faster speeds. However, apparently, they still signed me up for the Home version though I had the operator repeat that I wanted the Pro version. Plus my discount seems not to be applied. So I get to call them again and try to straighten things out.

But at least it is faster and I can have more online fun!

Happy Birthday Luna

2010-09-11T23:21:00.000-04:00

Luna turned 5 today. Bittersweet as we lost Rocket yesterday but we went for a couple of long walks and she got lots of special goodies and chicken in her dinners. She went for a swim in Mud Lake, chased sticks, and visited Uncle Butch's house 3 times today and played a little with Yogi. She's doing pretty well I think. We both are. It's hard to stay sad with her bounding around. She is such a sweetheart!

Rocket: August 21, 1997 to September 10, 2010

2010-09-11T23:07:00.000-04:00

He's gone. Friday morning I got a call from Uncle Butch's wife, Rocket couldn't get up, he had an "accident" and was crying because he couldn't get up to go outside in time. I got there in under 10 minutes, I called Hal, we carried him outside on his bed, I helped him up so he could pee. His rear legs kept collapsing, but he managed. We helped him back to his bed then carried him to the car. I called the vet's office while we were on the road. He rode quietly in the back seat, he seemed comfortable now that he had peed. We got there just after 9:30 am. The doctor was amazed that he wasn't jaundiced, that he had gotten into the wading pool the day before. I had spent that afternoon outside with him, it had been a nice day. He seemed to enjoy laying in the sun and sniffing the air.

They brought a gurney out to my car. We lifted the bed onto it, and wheeled him into a room. I signed a form and paid the bill. Then the doctor did it. I held Rocket's head in my hand and then he was gone. It was fast, it seemed too fast. He swallowed. His eyebrow twitched, his nose whiskers quivered. We wrapped him in a blanket and wheeled him back out through the side door and they bundled him into my back seat. We were driving home by 9:55 am.

Hal dug a grave by the lilac bushes near the pond. Uncle Butch and his wife came over, they brought Luna with them. It was all done by noon.

Rocket performing the biscuit dance at Uncle Butch's house.

So Rocket is gone and it seems very unreal. I expect him to appear around the corner and perform his biscuit dance. I'd so love to see it again.

Almost Went to the Vet Today

2010-09-08T21:39:00.000-04:00

Would have been for the final visit for Rocket, last night he was breathing roughly, he was weak, falling over, and everyone agreed it was time. I went over this morning to check on him and he was breathing normally, looking around, being his normal self for a dog who isn't eating. Turns out the pain pills I was giving him for pain I thought he might have, were causing all the symptoms. Fourteen hours after I'd given him the last one he was able to walk outside, get in the pool, have a drink, come back inside and went to bed. He was a different old dog today. He's still not well and won't get better, but he's got a short reprieve.

Beach Party!

2010-09-02T22:49:00.001-04:00

On the last day of August I joined my friend at Jewell Lake with his dogs and mine to celebrate his getting Tink a year earlier. She's Mr Mike's little sister. He acquired Tink while on a trip to South Dakota where he goes every year for field work. Both his dogs are bird dogs of the pointing variety whereas mine are retrievers though untrained in that job. I certainly don't need my dogs to start retrieving chickens.

Luna Retrieving yet again.

It was a hot windy day and the 3 younger dogs had a blast chasing bumpers. They chased them over and over and over. Eventually, they did tire out.

Mr Mike pointing at something....

Tink Leaping

Rocket also seemed to enjoy himself though he did what he usually does which is simply lay in the shallows and just watch everyone else.

Rocket Being Rocket

It was a good day.

It Must be the Water?

2010-08-24T21:54:00.000-04:00

So the last couple of days I haven't seen Rocket drink any water. As far as I could tell the only liquid he was getting was what he was getting whenever I used a 3 ml syringe to give him honey, broth or water. He hasn't really eaten anything since Saturday.

This afternoon while he was sleeping in the driveway Uncle Butch and Mrs Butch came over in their golf cart to see him. After mentioning the water problem, UB decided he was going to set up his water dish near him. So he put out a couple of blocks to raise the level to Rocket height and I got his water dish. Immediately Rocket stood up, walked over and did what I've seen him do the last couple days, smell the water, look around, smell the water, stick out his tongue and taste it and then walk away toward the trailer.

Rocket loves being at Uncle Butch's

We figured he was going to his usual spot to eat grass or lay down where he could be alone as he has always been a loner. I followed him around the trailer expecting to see him go back around the other side but, no Rocket. Mrs Butch got up and we start looking around, then I see his butt disappearing down the power line trail. I keep following, Mrs Butch following further behind and then I hear UB start up the cart to follow.

I see Rocket climb down into his favorite swamp pool/mud hole, lay in it and drink a little swamp water. Then he climbs out, stands in the trail a moment then starts up the hill toward UB's house. The 3 of us follow along strung out in a line, every so often Rocket pauses, looks back to make sure we're still there, and keeps going. We end up at Uncle Butch's house, Rocket walks up the ramp and we let him in where he proceeds to the dog dishes in their kitchen and drinks a lot of water. Then he walks away, let's Yogi have a drink, then drinks some more.

Then he lays on their kitchen floor and decides to take a nap.

I guess he likes their water better.

So I brought his bed over so he can spend the night. I'll take his pill over at 11. I hope he sleeps well.

Happy 13th Birthday Rocket!!

2010-08-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

My little man is still with us and made it to his 13th birthday. I got him to walk home from Uncle Butch's yesterday and he spent the day in various spots in the yard or inside the garage. For a while I sat in my lounge chair reading with him. He actually tried to get into his old mud hole/pool on the walk home but it was empty of water since we've had little rain. I don't see a dog that does something like that is ready to give up.

Today I took him and Luna for a ride to the vet, not so they could be seen by him but so I could pick up the metronidazole I had left there the day of the surgery. Earlier I managed to force a couple tablespoons of ground dog food down his throat and he swallowed it. He hadn't eaten in 2 days so I had to do something to give these pills a chance to work. He had his pills at 10 am then at 2 and 6 I fed him a little more.

He seemed to enjoy the ride, he always did like a nice car ride even if we didn't actually go anywhere in particular. When we got home he wanted to snooze in the back seat so I let him, eventually he got back out and we hung out together, him snoozing or sniffing the air while I read a book in between the rain showers.

I also took a few photos and I think he still is looking pretty good. So Happy Birthday RocketMan. I sure wish you could be around for more.

The Roller Coaster Continues

2010-08-18T22:41:00.002-04:00

Rocket is still with us this evening. It's not been easy. For the most part he doesn't want to eat. I've run through all kinds of foods; cheese, raw chicken necks, hearts and gizzards. All kinds of canned dog food, brown rice, hot dogs, venison sausage, canned mackerel, scrambled egg, cooked chicken, boiled and raw hamburger, ramen and oatmeal. Most of this he isn't interested in, he's completely given up on goodies of any kind. A few days ago he chowed down on 13 chicken hearts after a little canned food. Next day it was 7 hearts and 2 gizzards. Then a chicken neck and a few gizzard pieces. Yesterday all I could get into him was one chicken/pork hot dog. Today I had to force feed most of a chicken neck. I became very despondent today as he eats less and less. I know the outcome is inevitable but he's still alert, still seems interested in watching things around him.

Last night he decided it was time to walk to Uncle Butch's so I followed him and when he got there he performed his biscuit dance for everyone, though, unfortunately, he didn't actually want to eat and biscuits. (I suspect he wouldn't have eaten some if he thought they still tasted good.) I brought his bed over and he spent the night, not on his bed, but in Uncle Butch's room in front of the door. He spent all day there too and apparently, will be spending tonight there as well. I visited several times today and will be walking over at 11 to give him his antibiotics. A little good news is that he did eat a little food tonight, some brand name deli sliced roast beef and turkey. Perhaps a couple ounces. Not enough but better than nothing. it's been almost a week since the surgery. One week of the month the vet gave him. I don't think he has a month, but we're all trying to make his remaining time happy enough.

Rocket is Dying

2010-08-14T08:58:00.000-04:00

There is nothing anyone can do. He has liver cancer and now I feel like a heel for putting him through surgery that accomplished nothing but a diagnosis for me. The doctor doubted there was a blockage, the symptoms weren't right, but because that stupid rawhide donut disappeared from the basement shelf at Rocket's height and right afterward he started refusing food, I like an idiot, latched onto that one hope that he might be fixable. Even though he's almost 13 and it was more and more unlikely.

Now he's in pain on top of the lack of desire to eat and I probably robbed him of his last few good days. I just gave him his antibiotic to prevent infection at the incision and those upset his stomach. After I'm sure he's keeping them down I'll give him his pain pill. Sometime after that he'll get his appetite stimulant. Same drug given to human breast cancer patients.

He spent the night outside. First he collapsed in the patch of black-eyed Susans in the front yard when he went outside to pee. He refused to get back up. Hal said he's been sleeping outside, let him. I placed beds and water bowls outside. Hal checked on him a couple of times, I had to go to bed and try to sleep. Rocket ended up back in front of the garage, where he spent many of the last few days. He drank some water while I sat with him this morning. Luna is now laying near him in a hole she dug in the sand. I'll leave him alone for now, he's always been a loner, never enjoyed anyone hovering around him. He likes to know where you are, but wants his space. Even now. I'll give it to him, it's about all I can do for now. If he doesn't feel better in a couple days, show any sign of enjoyment of life, well.... most of my pet loving friends tell me I'll know when to do the right thing.

Rocket is Ill

2010-08-12T15:31:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in my previous post Rocket wasn't feeling well. He's been losing weight. He's not eating. He slept a lot more than usual. When my neighbors and I really noticed in July he seemed thinner and now and then was turning down his favorite treats. Also, he never really stopped shedding since spring and his fur had become dull. He used to gobble food easily grasping with his front teeth. Now he seemed to be licking the food. So I thought perhaps he had a tooth problem. I took him in to see our vet near the end of July. Not a tooth problem and everything else looked fine although in 3 months he had lost 8 pounds. He's been on an arthritis NSAID for almost 2 years, I took him off of it and within a couple of days his fur stopped falling out in chunks and he became more alert and went for a few short walks.

See how good he looks in this photo taken a few days after going off that pill.

His blood tests came back normal except for one thing, his pancreas enzymes were off the charts. One was doubled and the other was 9 times higher than normal. The vet then had him checked for pancreatitis but that test came back negative. So that left pancreatic cancer but at the time my vet thought against it as other symptoms weren't there.

So we left it there and we would retest his blood in a month. In the meantime I fed him all sorts of canned foods and found some treats he enjoyed, even boiling up burger and rice for him. I also tried to find lower fat foods which are supposed to be better for pancreas problems. A week ago, 2 weeks after his vet visit he seemed to be going downhill again. The canned foods no longer interested him nor did the burger. I took him back to the vet 2 days ago. In just under 3 weeks he'd lost another 6 pounds. He was given a Lower GI test with barium as he'd been straining with every bowel movement. Nothing obvious appeared. So I took him home again and he was put on 2 drugs. One is metronidazole, it's mostly used as an anti-inflammatory and has been known to help digestion problems. The other is an anitbiotic, cephalexin. I'm not sure why he's on that other than to counter a possible unknown infection. But that one is harder on the stomach and after last night's pills he threw them up. Today he kept them down longer before he threw up. Today thus far he's refused chicken, beef and venison burger.

I called the vet again and really the only option seems to be exploratory surgery. I really hate to put Rocket through this but there's a remote possibility the doctor will find something he can fix, although he's really expecting to find a tumor somewhere. If it's on the pancreas it's probably cancer and there won't be anything we can do. Of course, if it's cancer anywhere else that will be it as well. I'm not putting my dog through weeks of chemo or radiation. The only question is then whether I allow him to wake back up after the surgery tomorrow morning. I guess it depends. As of last night he still ate chicken although he threw it up with the pills 90 minutes later. Today he won't eat anything.

Here is a photo taken today. I hope I can take another tomorrow.

It's August!

2010-08-02T17:53:00.000-04:00

I have been negligent in my blogging. But I have been busy. Many things have been going on but I won't go into detail yet, just highlight a few things and come back later to elaborate.

Rocket's been ill, he seems better now but we still aren't sure what's going on for sure. Cancer has been ruled out for now.

Hal is tearing up the front deck to replace the rotted joists and add new deck boards. The original builders did not seem to use pressure treated lumber.

I have picked many cucumbers and zucchini and grean beans. Pickles are forthcoming.

Working on making beaded jewelry on and off.

Reading large books. First one was Drood by Dan Simmons, current one is Raptor by Gary Jennings. Half way through that one now.

Had a couple guineas and a chicken disappear. The guineas while nesting, the chicken in broad daylight, no idea how.

Lost 6 pounds, probably gained back 3.

Been to the beach (Lake Huron) twice with my neighbors, took Luna the second time. She had a blast.

Only kayaked the Au Sable once so far. Lovely day.

Eleven ducklings hatched in June. Moved them to a separate pen from mom, hoping she'll lay some more eggs and do it again.

Waiting for the bread machine to beep so I can spread out the pizza dough for dinner tonight.

I think that's good for now.

More Planting and Miscellaneous Stuff

2010-05-15T12:05:00.001-04:00

I've done a bit more planting since my last post. Three kinds of lettuce, a few more potato pieces and a bunch more snow peas. In peas I have Dwarf gray, Oregon Sugar Pod II and Melting Sugar. The ones I planted have started to emerge.

Rained a lot the other day, I wouldn't be surprised if we got more than half an inch. Good that I got the lettuce in the day before.

Yesterday a friend and I went to the local nursery and I got several varieties of tomatoes; Sweet 100, Goliath, Jelly Bean, Red Cherry and an orange cherry I can't remember, Roma II, 2 peppers; Gypsy and a jalapeno, and a yellow marigold, a pink sensation cosmos and a pink cleome. These were all in 4 packs so the plants weren't any higher than about 6-8 inches. I need to get some potting soil for the veggies as they will mosly go in pots on the deck. As there are 12 packs in a flat, I seem to be missing another plant, probably a tomato. When the weather stays warm I'll plant them outside, probably in 2 weeks.

We also went to the library, the honey store where I got some flavored honeys and BBQ sauce made with honey. The owner said she lost 80% of her bees over winter again. Whatever is killing the honey bees just isn't stopping.

I also went to St Vincent de Paul's and donated quite a few bags of women's clothing. Some of it fairly new, I'm tired of wearing shirts with sleeves that don't reach my wrists.

Had a bit of a scratchy throat yesterday and it hasn't gone away today. I don't feel ver well, hopefully this won't get any worse. I'm supposed to go to a banquet tonight with Hal and just don't feel like it. Doubt he would go alone though and I can't find anyone to take my place. Maybe I'll feel better by then but it's doubtful.

I Was Beginning to Wonder...

2010-05-02T20:10:00.000-04:00

..if I was going to get logged in. I tried both my user names and none of the passwords were working so I reset it for one of them. This one, obviously, don't know about the other one yet, have to see if I can remember how to get into that email account first.

We finally got some much needed rain last night after 2 days of 80 degree weather. Only in the mid 60s today and cloudy. After dinner I planted some more snow peas and spinach. Earlier today I finally got a couple trenches dug and planted 28 pieces of Yukon Gold. Hopefully, they'll grow though the pieces became black and fuzzy from the unexpected humidty overnight after I cut them and left them out to dry.

Today the washing machine pump died while I had a large load of clothes washing. Had to drain the tub with a hose twice (we partially refilled after the clothes were removed) and remove the pump. Its innards are frozen solid. Hal found a generic replacement on line this afternoon after much searching on line and on the machine itself for the model number. It's an old Whirpool Imperial Seventy, at least 24 years old. My parents gave it and its drying mate to us for a wedding present way back in '86. They've worked well for us that whole time. I'd hate to have to buy a new one, they don't last as long. Hal already repaired the dryer a couple years ago.

Had to take that load of wet, somewhat dirty laundry over to Uncle Butch's to finish the rinse cycles. The clothes are all hanging up drying now on the rack in the garage. The part is supposed to arrive by next Wednesday. I've got lots more clothes to wash, too. This is what I get for letting the laundry build up. If I'd washed a load a couple days ago, we'd have ordered the part already and it would have been here before I ran out of clean clothes. I think we will survive.

Yard Work

2010-04-27T12:43:00.001-04:00

The other day I dug 5 holes along the fence in the front yard for the forsythias I am picked up Saturday from the county conservation district people. I think they'll look really nice down there in a few years. I also planted a few flowering bulbs and an aster my sister gave me from her garden. Still have a bunch of what I think are alium to plant. I also have a forsythia as well from her, I planted another on the west side of the house. This time it's surrounded by large rocks and wire mesh to keep the guineas and chickens from destroying it with dust baths. The hollyhocks near the chimney are no more but there are plenty of dusting holes.

Hal turned my old vegetable garden over with the spade shovel, now I just have to dig out the weeds and smooth it out. As usual I am planting snow peas and beans and perhaps a tomato or two though I've been planting them in deck pots. Won't matter where I plant them if we have another lousy wet, cool summer. Right now it's been very dry. Early warmth in the 70s had the morels popping early and the leaves unfurling on the trees 2-3 weeks early. Hopefully, there won't be any severe freezes though the temperature last night did drop to 30 and it's supposed to go a little lower tonight. Not even 50 degrees yet today, and breezy.

My old veggie garden will be 4 feet shorter as the old fence was moved last year to raise young chickens. I've got 25 feet of plastic 42 inch tall snow fence that I am going touse with a piece of 12 foot chain link that Hal supported between two cedar posts. It will give me a roughly 12 by 8 foot enclosure. Should be enough to keep out the rabbits and the deer don't tend to bother me, must be the dogs.

Speaking of morels I managed to find enough for one small dinner of them, sauteed in butter, salt and pepper with some wild leeks also known as ramps around here. Uncle Butch's son showed Hal where to find them. Hal took me there yesterday and dug up a few more, he wants to plant some here. I looked for morels since it's supposed to be a good are found them. In an hour I found 2, a tiny yellow one and a 2 inch black one. We really need some rain up here. The predicted rain for Saturday stayed just south, so all we got was the clouds and gloom.

All Mucked Out!

2010-04-18T17:09:00.000-04:00

The coop, that is. Today I performed the biannual mucking out of my chicken coop. It took about 4 hours with a few breaks to relieve my nose of the stench. Technically, the deep litter method of keeping chickens is supposed to prevent the stench but I had too many chickens over the winter and their droppings overwhelmed the floor. It did not help having the 3 remaining ducks in there with them but it was the only way to still be sure I had live ducks this year.

I shall mitigate this problem soon. Hal will be lopping off the heads of half of my chickens and also half the guineas. We will be moving the ducks into their own pen as soon as we get a fence built around it. Otherwise I may want to muck out the coop a little more often to prevent such back breaking work.

Of course, tomorrow I still have to take all the muck away. It's sitting in a large pile outside the coop. I still need to charge the lawn tractor battery, hook up the small trailer and fork the chicken droppings into the trailer then dump it on the compost pile at the bottom of the driveway, downwind from the house. That should be fun.

At least the birds are enjoying the day. They got to free range while I was cleaning their house. But now for me, a nice trip to the hot tub will do nicely.

Back Home

2010-04-17T13:06:00.000-04:00

I'm back home in Michigan. I had an emergency trip to MA a few weeks ago. Mom was hospitalized and then passed away at age 84. All 4 of her children were there and at one point Lyra as well. My older sister's husband was also there. I told Hal to stay home.

It's very strange. She isn't around to talk to any more. I don't feel as though it's really hit me yet but I'm trying not to think about it too much. She was a very sweet lady and a wonderful mom.

Uncle Butch is Better

2010-03-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late, but UB came home from the hospital last Monday. He's feeling better, looks better and is less tired. He still needs at least 2 more stents, apparently they can't do them all at once, something about the dye in the blood to make the veins visible in X-ray can kill you.

He goes back in about 2 more weeks to get another. One of them needs to be placed in his shoulder. All this time we thought his lack of arm movement and pain was stroke related. Weird. Medical science can do cool things now though.

Uncle Butch is in the Hospital

2010-02-26T22:10:00.000-05:00

My dog sitter, neighbor, friend has been in the hospital the last few days, having some mild heart attacks and a little pneumonia. Found out tonight he's got a 90% blockage in at least one artery and some sort of leak in the heart. I got my information 3rd hand so I don't know what kind of leak they're talking about. I do know they want to insert a stent into the artery and are going to send him across state to Munson Hospital in/near Traverse City. I think that's where he had his quintuple bypass almost 10 years ago. I sure hope everything goes well.

In the meantime I am going over to their house several times a day to take care of Yogi and Tank. They don't know what's going on, only that mom and dad aren't home. It's a waiting game now.

A Beautiful Day

2010-02-20T22:27:00.000-05:00

Another fine, sunny blue sky day today. Temperature reached 39 degrees fahrenheit, a good 7 degrees warmer than the prediction the other day. Took a couple long walks with Luna, a shorter one with Rocket to drop him off at Uncle Butch's, of course. It was such a nice day I closed the gates to the front yard fence and let the chickens and guineas out to free range. Not the ducks though, I'm not sure I can trust them to come back inside yet.

The birds enjoyed their freedom, making a bee-line to the chimney on the west side of the house where they found dry, fluffy dirt and had themselves a bath. Could they pack themselves in any tighter?

They were very well behaved birds and followed me back into the run a few hours later when I shook the food can. For once it wasn't any yelling and chasing and trying to get them off the coop roof to get them inside.

I made a pizza tonight. It had pepperoni and broccoli and venison sausage and mushrooms for toppings. We had some red wine with it.

The birds are now shut into their coop for the night, Luna and Rocket are asleep on their beds, Hal and I are watching a fairly bad scifi movie on the SyFy channel (taking a break from the Olympics tonight). When it's over I may go read my book by Kelley Armstrong, Haunted. Yes, that's what I will do. I think I'll start on the afghan for a twin bed tomorrow. (I have started the chain, but I'm still thinking about what stitches to use.)

Toodles.

It's the Winter Olympics

2010-02-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

Been watching the 2010 Winter Olympics. Been pretty interesting, didn't really paid attention to the last one or the world championships in between. what I've found nice was while it would be cool if an American won an event, I'm enjoying it more just watching athletes perform their best. I thought the Chinese pairs in ice skating who won first and second last night were wonderful. It's too bad the gal in the snowboard cross from the USA got disqualified in the semi-finals, but the winner turned out to be Canadian and since it's in Vancouver, "the crowd went wild"!

Oh, the poor skater from France just fell more than once. He looks devastated. Neat, the third Japanese skater skated to music by Jimi Hendrix. Did a good job, too.

I'm taping the skating events for my neighbor because she doesn't get the channels showing them.

There's been a lot of rain in Vancouver which has been messing up the skiing events. Lack of snow is something we've been having here in Michigan, too. Been a dry warmer than normal winter for here.

Well, so much for the Olympics.

Well, Well, Well Massachusetts!!

2010-01-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

I didn't think it would happen but a Republican beat the Democrat in the special election senate race for the late Ted Kennedy's seat. There hasn't been a Republican senator in that state since Edward Brooke, the first African American in the senate. Hopefully, this will make it a little harder for Reid and Pelosi to ram a health care deal down our throats without actually THINKING about the ramifications. I know that's a lot to ask for from any politician, but I'd like to believe a few of our elected officials actually care more about the public than whether they can have nice cars and planes and perks and pork etc.

Now the question is will they try to ram it down our throats before the new senator is seated? Or play something other than dirty politics?

Yup, I'm jaded against politicians. There ought to be term limits.

After the Holidays

2010-01-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

Christmas and New Years flew right by. ~~whoosh~~

I've had no time to blog, or at least no time to blog intelligently. So let's have a quick synopsis and some photos.

DH's family Christmas party was the afternoon of the 19th. There was food, beverage, Santa, presents, the white Elephant exchange and the guy/gal gift grab bag. DH drove his parents down the day before, I drove down the morning of and then DH drove us home later that night to arrive home just before midnight.

Mom, little sis and her BF and Lyra arrived on the 20th. We proceeded to watch a million Christmas movies, eat too much, drink a lot of egg nog and apple cider, listen to Christmas music, and cut up and process deer whenever the boys showed up with one. Then we made Italian sausage.

Christmas dinner was roast duck and chicken. Sis made cookies, I made pumkin pie.

Sis and I went shopping, I bought myself more sweaters. I think I got myself 5 this year. Thank goodness they were on sale and mom's gift mostly covered it.

Sis also decorated my tree since I didn't even get the lights on till the morning they arrived. In fact the tree is still up as are the outdoor lights, I haven't had the time, energy or desire to get around to taking them down. Its a nice blue spruce Hal found on our hunting land. He'd brought home a different one first that was "in his way" but it was not even worthy of being called a Charlie Brown tree. This one is much nicer. It's also the first year I used LED lights. Six strings and 2 strings of regular mini lights.

It rained like crazy Christmas day, but we still had a white Christmas and very cold temperatures the rest of the time.

New years eve was spent watching Thin Man movies, eating shrimp, scallops, cookies, etc. Champagne was toasted a little after midnight and we all went to bed before 1 am.

Everyone left for home on Jan 2nd. They got home safely despite running into the end of a snow storm. Rather appropriate since they left before the teeth of a different storm.

I think Rocket looks adorable in this photo. As though he's worried someone may take his bone away from him.

It's really easy to torture Lyra. I didn't leave her that way for long. She's a sweet dog, a little rambunctious but she is only 15 months old.

So that's it for my synopsis.

Happy New Year.

Ducks in the Coop!

2009-12-07T21:47:00.000-05:00

I managed to tempt two of the ducks into the coop run today. The other duck was more difficult and flew to the roof of the house. When I went out to close up the coop door after dark I found the duck sitting on the deck. I herded him toward the coop and after a lot of feinting, got him inside, too. Now all my birds are together in a much safer building which has done a lot to give me a feeling of relief. I just checked the temperature outside and it's down to 17.6f! Plus there's a snow storm on the way. I hope they don't mind too much, but they aren't getting out. No point with the pond frozen over.

Today Hal made tire chains for the rear wheels of the mower. It moves so much better through the snow now. We were able to move 3 loads of firewood. Then we had hot chocolate.

I think I may sleep pretty well tonight.

The Spirit isn't Willing

2009-12-06T22:51:00.000-05:00

Or at least the Christmas spirit hasn't arrived yet. Just can't get into the holiday thing this year. My mom, little sister and her boy friend are coming in 2 weeks and the house is barely decorated. By this time last year it was approaching gaudy. Don't know if it's depression, stress, old age, who knows? I know a lot of people who feel the same way though. Probably didn't help that my ducklings got killed a week and a half ago. Even getting that deer on Thanksgiving Day didn't really kick start me. I imagine this might be how I'd feel on lithium. No big "ups" and no big "downs". Just sort of moving forward without any enthusiasm.
I do have the C-7 lights on the outside now, and candles in the living room window. Instead of running them along the gutter I put them along the deck and around the picture window. Easier than dragging the ladder around and no chance of them getting frozen into the yearly ice dam on teh roof. Of course, if we get a ton of snow the ones along the deck will get buried in the snow bank I'll create when I shovel. But we haven't gotten much snow yet, might be an inch total out there. It is cold though.

I forgot to put the wreath up for a week. That never happens. I put up some of my indoor wreaths today. I also started cleaning the loft so sis and BF will have a place to sleep. The loft was big problem but manageable now.

The last couple days I was helping Hal with the firewood. He'd cut and I'd pile it into the trailer and stack it by the house. I tried to do it alone today, but that mere inch of snow made it nearly impossible to get the lawn tractor and trailer into the woods and back. No chains on the tires. I had to detach the trailer 3 times and throw the logs back onto the ground before I could get back to the house. I finally gave up. That's when I started cleaning the loft instead.

A small bit of good news, the hot tub no longer leaks. Hal got some advice from the plumber guy who plumbed the main lines from the heat exchanger and it worked great. Looks like we'll be able to hot tub all winter long. And I won't be emptying the bucket in the basement so often any more and then having to refill the boiler. Now if that plumber would show up and fix his leak that would be perfect.

Well, going to bed soon, hopefully I'll have more spirit tomorrow.

Horrible Duck Disaster

2009-11-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago Mrs Duck disappeared. Then a week later 3 of my ducklings were killed by Yogi and his sister Keisha. Three days later Mr Duck vanished without a trace. While looking for him I found the place Mrs Duck had been dragged to. Nothing left but feathers.
Thursday I had shut the remaining 9 ducklings and their 3 older siblings in the garage while I went to the farm for Thanksgiving dinner and then to Hal's camp to hunt. The next day Hal went home to feed the birds. He found all 9 ducklings dead in the garage, killed by a weasel or mink. The older ducks were alive though the female was blood spattered. The garage is in a shambles from the ducks flying about trying to escape.

Hal released the ducks and slammed the garage door down the extra inch I had accidentally left it open that allowed the mink entrance. I feel lousy about that. I came home today with a live trap baited with venison. (I had gotten a doe Thursday evening). I placed the trap in the garage by the slight opening left under the door. I heard movement in the garage but we have mice and chipmunks due to all the feed. I left to get my dogs from Uncle Butch's house and visted my neighbors. A couple hours later I went into the garage and saw the trap was sprung. There was an awful hissing as I approached and it held a big, ugly brown mink. Hal figured it stayed in the garage even though daylight had arrived because the last ducks were still alive and they kill anything in sight until nothing is left. It's last mistake.

Revenge is bittersweet but that mink isn't going to kill any more of my ducks or any other small critters wild or domestic. I feel a little better now. Not a lot, but a little. It will have to do.

Dead Ducks

2009-11-08T14:57:00.000-05:00

Mrs Duck is dead. She disappeared Friday night. I wasn't sure, I knew she wasn't in the garage with the ducklings Saturday morning. She likes to fly out of the pen during the day and if I'm around before dusk she lets me herd her back inside. But Friday night I was at the farm for dinner and didn't get home till 7:30 pm. She's stayed out before, I assume with her 3 older kids. Mr Duck as usual, snoozes on the deck outside my bedroom sliding door. There were white fluffy feathers at the pond but no other sign. I thought I heard her in the garage, perhaps hiding behind the straw bales, perhaps on a new nest, but I couldn't find her. Today I found real sign about 30 feet from the pond, large black and white feathers with meat attached. Nothing else, but that is pretty telling.

And it gets worse. This week I started letting the ducklings out into the driveway, they love nibbling on the grass, being able to run about. I also filled up the duck pool. They discovered it and merrily splashed around in it for the last 3 days. I got up early yesterday and let them out around 8 am. I went inside to put some pans away, I came out a few minutes later and found Luna running about like a maniac all wet. She never swims without me so I followed her down to the driveway.

Eight of the 12 ducklings were sitting in front of the pen. I looked around, saw the pool water really sloshing about. I went over to look and just down the hill was a pile of ducklings with Yogi, Uncle Butch's labrador standing over them. At first I thought it was his brother, Boo, who killed Auntie duck and a chicken last year, but no, I later determined it was indeed, Yogi. I threw the coffee can I was carrying at him and he ran away. One duckling was already dead, a second died as I carried it into the house. A third was missing, Yogi didn't have it, so I assume it was his sister Keisha, since they had run off together this morning. (This time, no one had thought to call and warn me.)

The 4th duckling was in shock and soaked. They all were wet and muddy, they must have been attacked in their pool. I brought him in and set him in a large paper bag in front of the heater duct to dry off. I force fed him some electrolytes. When he was drier I took him back to his siblings who I had already chased back into the garage. He ran right over to them and sat down. His tail hung limp, but he moved when they moved. I finally saw him drink on his own last night and he's moving around with them this morning. I think he'll be okay but now I have only 9 ducklings and I have no idea if any are female.

I have one female in the first 3.

Mrs Duck was a good duck, an exellent mother. Whether my one known female makes it through till spring to hatch her own eggs is of course, unknown. Without being able to fence in the whole yard and pond, it's debatable whether I should continue with ducks. Time will tell.

Devil Dog

2009-10-31T22:50:00.000-04:00

BOO!

Happy Halloween. Never cared much for the day, and this is purely coincidence but as usual Rocket came home from Uncle Butch's house around 9 pm. Luna comes too, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, sometimes together. Tonight she didn't appear at the door. It took a while but then I thought, maybe she's done it again.

Yes, there she was, inside the chicken coop run. She's done this several times in the past month and she sits there and doesn't say a thing. She's crawling nnder the back fence and can't get back out the same way. One night she must have been in there for 3 hours.

Little idiot! But she got back at me tonight. It's been raining for days and she was sitting in wet chicken poop. I didn't realize it until she came in the house and sat on the beige carpet. Now there are chicken poop butt prints everywhere!

Hal's Going Hunting Tomorrow

2009-10-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

He's off to the wilds of New Hampshire with my younger sister's boyfriend. He's got his SUV packed except for his lunch and over night bag. They were originally heading to Maine but the guy with the cabin had to cancel so the backup plan was the BF's place in NH. They had a good time there last year so I suspect they'll have a good time this year.

While they're gone I plan to read a lot of books, (reading Mailman by J. Robert Lennon at the moment), watching old movies, having some chips and dip, hot dogs, garlic bologna sandwiches, and just lazing about. I still plan on walking my dogs every day, of course, it's not as though I'm going to lay about and eat bonbons all day long.

Perhaps I should get into the spirit of the season and hunt some squirrels while he's gone? Brunswick Stew, yum!

Woodsy Stuff

2009-10-20T21:21:00.000-04:00

I dragged DH off to the woods yesterday morning for a forced march. Okay, it was a walk, but it was before 11 am and it got him off of his butt, out from under his laptop computer and out into nature. The day turned out to be beautiful. Although the foliage was past peak there were still plenty of yellow maples hanging onto their leaves, the sky was blue with fluffy clouds and the temperature did finally reach 60f which it hasn't done for days.

What I thought would be a 20 minute walk, if I was lucky, turned into almost 2 hours of traipsing through the thickest brush looking for and tagging dead or dying trees to cut down for firewood and the north east property line which we re-marked with lime green tape. With the leaves falling off the trees they sure are easy to see.

A week ago we slogged through a very swampy part of the property thatrequired boots while looking for the property line. We found it eventually, most of our old keep out signs were missing or severely deteriorated. That walk was a lot more tiring. Luna was with us on both of those and I do believe we finally bored her or tired her out, too.

I'm not sure when we'll do it again, it's supposed to rain tomorrow plus we have a bunch of chickens and guineas to bring to the Amish. I'll have lots of birds to freeze on Thursday!

Blogger Admin Problems!

2009-10-14T22:51:00.004-04:00

I decided to change some things in my blog today, admin things; layout, gadgets, etc and discovered I couldn't. I tried both accounts but I have no layout tab, no template tab and the settings tab is missing 7 of its 8 sub tabs. I use Firefox normally so I thought maybe something odd happened to my copy of maybe my pc so I tried it in Opera. No luck. Finally I tried it in Internet Explorer and lo and behold there are all my missing administrator tabs.

I searched Google's Blogger help section and forums and wasn't getting any useful info. Finally I straight googled "firefox blogger incompatibility" and discovered that the problem must be in Firefox 3.x. Yes I updated FF 2.x to 3.x and apparently there are many things that don't work any more, Blogger being one of them. Now I have to figure out if I can make FF work or just do the administrative stuff over in IE.

*sigh*

For now I'll stick with IE and hope FF and Blogger get it straightened out without me having to think about it any more.

Miscellany - Or, I can't Think of a Better Title

2009-10-13T22:14:00.005-04:00

Ended up on Alpena today to pick up my new eye glasses at Wal-Mart. Nice bronze colored frames, only 9 bucks. First frames I looked at were $94. I think $9 is a much better deal. I picked up a few other miscellaneous items too including a box of canning jar lids for the potential applesauce sitting on our living room floor disguised as apples inside of plastic bags.

We picked the apples yesterday. They probably would have been better if we'd picked them before 2 nights of freezing temperatures but we may have been able to salvage enough for some tasty applesauce. Hal made some great sauce a couple years ago. I agreed to can it if he made some more. We need to get to these apples tomorrow.

I also popped into the beauty school in Alpena and had a student cut my hair. I really needed it, and she did a nice job. Feels and looks a lot better and Hal thinks it looks shabby chic.

I stopped in at the farm on the way home and helped Hal finish digging the potatoes he, his dad and I planted earlier this summer. Only got about 2 bushels, we really need to plant more next year. Plus it would be nice to learn how to run the old tater digging machine. The old spade fork method gets old fast when the rows get over 50 feet long.

Hal's dad had his ankle surgery last Friday. (Did I mention he broke it the week before when he was run over by a steer? Five hundred pounds of mad steer (he had become a steer about 5 minutes before the attack) generally is going to win in a showdown between man and ex-bull. Consequently, my father-in-law wasn't in any shape to show us how to run the potato digging machine.

All this activity didn't allow me to get home till almost 6 pm so the planned burritos or enchiladas has been rescheduled for tomorrow and tonight's dinner was a hodge podge of left overs, tomato soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. And a beer. A beer is nice to have after a hard day of slogging through stores and potato fields.

But I must log off now because the 4 South Park episodes we were watching have now ended and I feel like getting a good night's sleep. Toodles.

Movie Review: "Megafault" - Mega Stupid

2009-10-10T22:23:00.004-04:00

So once in a while Hal and I have nothing better to do and end up watching the Saturday night Scifi (now SyFy) movie on the same named TV channel. This one stars Eriq LaSalle, of ER fame and some female whose lips seem over botoxed. This movie is BAD. It reeks. it is beyond stupid. And we're not even going to get into the poor CGI.

An earthquake starting in West Virginia devastates Washington D.C. where a botoxed seismologist (BS) is giving a speech while her daughter and husband watch. She races in a helicopter to WVA where Eriq's character is a miner blowing up mountains that look suspiciously like the Rockies and is now buried in a sandy crater. She and the burly copter pilot rescue him.

In the meantime the USAF sends her family home in a C-130 because all commercial planes will be grounded since a new fault is racing west from WVA. All the airport control towers in the midwest are broken so all of the planes are "flying blind!" Apparently, GPS and pilots looking out of windows has been conveniently forgotten by the writers.

Eriq and BS then race in the copter to KY to save his mom, but too late, the new quake has hit and blown up the very gas pipeline in her street and destroys his mom's house. Then the shrapnel somehow hits the wing of the C-130 way up there in the sky and takes it out. Only the dad and daughter survive and are picked up by a trucker driving a gasoline tanker that looks suspiciously like a dirt hauler. Of course, the quake chases them and the Alaska pipeline, which seems now to run through the midwest right next to this trucker's road starts exploding, sets the tanker of fire and dad has to crawl outside and release the tanker from the cab.

While this tense tanker truck action is leaving us breathless, Eriq blows up an outhouse to distract the chopper pilot who rushes to put the fire out with his handy dandy fire extinguisher and Eriq and BS steal the chopper to find her family.

But then the air force forces them to land in Kansas where the general tells her of the super secret ice quake satellite weapon (used to destroy the enemy from beneath) but now will be used to stop the quake at the Grand Canyon. SB must tell them where to fire the ice laser.

But wait, it gets more ludicrous.

The military keeps giving BS priority to find her family so they put her in an Osprey "the world's fastest helicopter" but then, of course, first must rescue a family in an RV, the only people apparently driving across the midwest, and risk being in the laser's line of fire, etc. Of course, they survive, narrowly, but then not only do they not stop the quake, they just sent it north toward Yellowstone's buried super volcano caldera! Now Earth is threatened by an "extinction event"! So now Eriq, the great miner he is, must create a new Grand Canyon between the fault and the caldera to stop all hell breaking lose.

Next, a long, drawn out, bad CGI depiction of 20 million (??) tons of explosive making this new canyon (where the hell is the dirt and rock actually going? I didn't know the Earth was hollow! As Eriq and BS race away in a jeep while yet another helicopter chases them with a rope lowered towards them (that can only save one of them, of course), Eriq sacrifices himself because his rear wheel gets stuck in a rut and is sucked into the "Newer Grand Canyon". BS finally makes it to Denver (by car, apparently, the copter couldn't take her the whole way?) where the quake, has destroyed their home after her husband and daughter get there. After much shouting and crying and gnashing of teeth, they are found unscathed (oh there should have been slow motion when they ran toward each other!) The camera pans away inot orbit showing that the new earthquake fault was just the other side of their yard and crosses 1/3 of the United States.

The End

I forgot to mention the best part! The people near Yellowstone have their feet, hands and heads suddenly erupt into flames from the heat of the caldera. Such stunning visual effects!

Can I stand the wait till next Saturday?!!

23 Years of Wedded Bliss

2009-10-04T22:57:00.004-04:00

That's what you're supposed to say, right? Well Hal and I aren't doing too badly. There's been downs and ups, currently we're on an up and maintaining it fairly well. Because money is tight we ate at home tonight instead of heading out to one of our 3 favorite restaurants. (Dang those vet bills, medical bills, car repair bills, etc!!) I tried something different for me, a flat iron steak on the recommendation of a friend. We did not care much for it. Hal thought it tasted "aged", to me it was just "wrong" as though it had set next to some nasty fat for too long a time. I won't be buying another.

But the pinot noir was good.

A pretty low key day. Hal was at the farm helping with the cattle (his dad is in the hospital after being run down by a new steer on Friday, he needs ankle surgery). Then he cut some trails at his hunting camp. I spend the day cleaning the great room and preparing dinner. At least the sun came out. It's been cloudy, cool and rainy the last 2 days.

I'm still picking fleas off of Luna. Doesn't seem to matter what shampoo I use, which flea medication to apply, or what I bomb the house with, I just can't get rid of these pests this time! I'm considering flea collars next but I never did think they worked.

Well, here's hoping for another 23 plus years of wedded bliss to my favorite man.

It's October

2009-10-01T22:38:00.004-04:00

How's that for a provocative title? Since this is just a short update post there didn't really need to be anything fancy in the title. The temperature last night dropped below 32f. There was frost. My zucchini and cucumbers didn't amount to much this year. First it was too cold and wet then it was too cool and dry.

The 12 ducklings are doing well. They're slightly bigger and eating everything they can. I'm sure mama would love to take them to the pond but there's another 3 weeks to go before I let that happen. They do fine with their little trashcan-lid pond.

Took Rocket to the vet today to be treated for tapeworm. Luna went last month. Plus he's got an ear infection in both ears. I don't know if the flea problem we have caused it or if it's just coincidence.

I had to bomb the house with 7 flea foggers last week. Plus I used 2 kinds of spray, the first did nothing but I think the stuff that had "nylar" in it which is an IGR (growth regulator, I can't remember what the "I" stands for.) Next day I re-bombed the bedroom and washed the sheets again because I was still getting bitten in my sleep. It's very annoying to be allergic to flea bites. Complaining to Hal who isn't affected so consequently isn't as sympathetic or as concerned as he could be is also annoying. I think setting up several flea traps using nightlights to attract them and dishes of water to drown them when they drop in helped show Hal that there was a BIG problem and I wasn't just bitching to hear myself bitch. The trap in the guest room where Luna sleeps held around 25 bodies the first night. I still have a few traps set up and the quantity is not anywhere near as great.

The prescription flea killing topicals I bought from the vet did not kill the fleas on the dogs. I had to use a comb and spend 3 hours one night to clean about 50 fleas off of poor Luna. I tried the same thing on rocket but he being a brown dog and the fleas being brown made it practically impossible. I gave Luna a bath and tomorrow I will give Rocket one assuming Hal can get my poor arthritic boy into the bathtub. He does weigh 95 pounds.

But at least I am finally getting things under control. I need to vacuum the carpets again tomorrow and next week fog/bomb the house once more to get any newly hatched fleas, then hopefully, I'll be mostly done with this insect insanity.

Maybe it will even snow next week.

New Ducklings!

2009-09-23T22:00:00.003-04:00

On Monday the 22nd 12 ducklings hatched from 13 eggs. Unlike last time when the garage was much colder, these guys hatched within a few hours of each other instead of over a few days. Mom has already taken them swimming in the trash can lid I provided. She would prefer to take them to the big pond but last time I allowed that 4 ducklings became 3. If I can manage to keep them in the garage for a month at least they should have a better chance at survival.

This morning after momma duck flew to the pond and back for a swim she couldn't figure out how to get back in so persuaded the panicked little ducklings to escape and make a break for the pond. Fortunately, I caught them in the act before they got 15 feet. They are now safely back in the garage and the holes in the fence blocked.

Eleven Fewer Chickens

2009-09-18T21:28:00.004-04:00

Took 11 chickens to the Amish yesterday, including Mr Chicken. He was a good rooster but he beat up on Mrs Chicken a little too much and I am interested in hatching buckeyes and other brown chickens next year instead of barred rock mutts. I picked up the birds today and all are cleaned and in the freezer except for the 2 smallest ones which will become fried chicken for Sunday dinner. I sort of feel I ought to feel bad for Mr Chicken, but I don't really. Must mean they really aren't considered pets by me. I feel worse for the beta rooster, Mr Buckeye. He hasn't crowed all day. Maybe he's in mourning?

BTW, the Hot Tub Works

2009-09-16T21:20:00.005-04:00

I neglected to mention that the non-functioning spa/hot tub/jacuzzi knock-off works again. It took a lot of re-plumbing and electrical work but Hal got it working just before the end of August. It's hooked in to the new outdoor wood furnace. Hey, I may have neglected to mention that, too! Nope, just checked, it had a short mention in July.

It's sort of weird burning wood in summer but it's heating the domestic hot water and that saves on propane. As soon as the outside temps drop low enough to cause the propane powered basement furnace to come on the heat exchanger installed inside the plenum will heat the forced air with hot water from the wood stove boiler instead of propane flames.

Last year we bought $3000 worth of propane. This winter we've ordered only $500 worth. If propane prices jump again we'll be sitting pretty. Wouldn't it figure that prices would drop after we buy the stove? Just lucky that way. I am sure they'll go back up again, eventually.

But we've been using the hot tub almost daily. It's great for soaking those aching bones and muscles strained from too much firewood cutting and hauling, or other strenuous activities. Or just nice for the fun of it. It's especially nice with a little coffee liqueur and cream, in a glass of course, not to sit in. Tonight though, we just drank cold water. We're not lushes, you know, no matter that we live in a small village with a big bar downtown.

Now if I can just wire some nice outdoor speakers out there.

Romance Novels?

2009-09-16T11:05:00.003-04:00

This is an odd topic for me to bring up since this site is mostly about chickens, dogs, ducks, guineas, kayaking and the occasional hobby, but really, how much can one say about these animals all the time? While I love my dogs and lots of time want to strangle the guineas they just don't lead exciting lives. I also am not one who can pretend my dogs are talking. I have never referred to them as furbabies, that's just too weird for me. I'm weird enough.

So lets talk about something different that I've been toying with all summer (at least since July) and that is romance novels. Hal's sister loaned me a bunch (at my request, I must admit). In fact she'd loaned me 3 in the past, one I had returned years ago. I did read it, the plot was set in medieval times and the hero was some guy named "wolf" or some such thing. It was amusing and the hero was 'hot". I had not read the 2 others that she'd left me, however, because if memory serves they just didn't interest me, and the one I had started left me thinking "how silly"! and I gave up for 2-3 years.

Generally my reading runs to the occasional mystery (I have read quite a few historical ones at my mom's, she loves mysteries), police dramas, the odd Grisham, Jane Austen, etc, but science fiction is my first love, starting way back as a teenager reading my dad's Analogs, galaxy, and F&SF magazines and his small collection of books from Asimov's Foundation to E.E. Smith's Grey Lensmen. Dune by Frank Herbert, of course, goes without saying.

The past few years have seen me reading Dan Simmons (Hyperion, et al are great!), Neal Stephenson, The Killer B's, Vernor Vinge. Currently, I'm reading "In the Courts of the Sun" by Brian D'Amato. It's all about the Mayan calender end of the world thing in Dec 2012. Lots of descriptions on how the Maya may have lived and a little time travel with a twist. Interesting. Much more interesting than my attempt at reading "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. God how verbose! I valiantly kept slogging and got to around page 120 but his descriptions of minor things went on and on ad nauseum! (And the premise is so interesting!) Yes he writes well but get to the point damn it I have things to do in this lifetime! Hal is trying to read it now, he's been reading it for weeks. I take pity on him. Only one other book have I never finished (as far as I remember) and that was "Gone with the Wind."I tried to read it in high school for a book report. The movie was better.

I think it was Pynchon that drove me into the historical romance thing. Now there's an excuse! I needed some light reading. So I acquired several books from my SIL by Stephanie Laurens, some random samplings of the Bastion Club (spies) and the Cynsters, (cousins who look like Greek gods). These all take place in England shortly after Waterloo in the Regency period of the early 1800s for those who are clueless.

These books are laced with sex. Oft times I found myself wishing the sex scenes would just find themselves a quiet room and let me get on with the story, which was usually some mystery that put the heroine in danger by the end of the book. VERY formulaic and once you read the first 2 Cynster novels the rest are pretty much the same. The Bastion club's are a little more interesting as there is this sinister traitor hiding just out of reach of the heroes. But my gosh, why are these guys always so tall and drop dead gorgeous? The women get to be all different heights but they are even more gorgeous! (Still, at least the heroines don't go on and on and on about how handsome their men are as did Bella in those insipid "Twilight" books.)

But I digress. Thinking that there must be better written romance novels out there (you'd think I would have discovered these long ago since I so like old B&W movies with Bette Davis, Kate Hepburn, etc), I googled and found some fun websites. One in particular I loved so much I joined this morning and I don't join many things on line. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. These ladies are hilarious. They and their minions review romance novels and there have been some doozies! My particular favorite review is the "playboy sheik" novel. Just follow the Greatest Hits link under the "Who are We?" section. I can assure you I'll Never read the actual book.

I don't expect that I'll delve any deeper into romance novel discussions on this board, it is a family blog after all, but I thought it important that I update my blog with what's been going on lately and that's pretty much been it.

Time to walk my dogs.

Frost Advisory

2009-08-31T21:50:00.003-04:00

So on top of it being a lousy summer for growing vegetables with too much rain, too cool temperatures, (thanks to global warming) tonight there is a frost advisory! Good thing I checked the zucchini and cucumber and pumpkin plants today to verify that there is nothing to pick. There are a couple 1 inch zukes, I got 4 badly shaped pickling cukes, and there are NO fruit at all of any size on the pumpkin vines. So there is nothing to worry about, nothing to cover.

There was a frost already yesterday in the inland counties but it didn't reach this close to the lake. It's down to 51F already, last night it dropped to 38.8F. I wonder if next summer will be the same or more normal. This is the 3rd cold summer in the 10 years I've lived here and the second in a row.

It's nuts.

Kayaked Today - I'm Exhausted

2009-08-18T20:22:00.005-04:00

For the first time since last summer and Uncle Butch's stroke. Besides myself and Uncle Butch his 2 daughters were there and a granddaughter. Also 6 children. One daughter has a health issue and could not help in getting her dad into and out of the kayak. Things went pretty well for a while then suddenly Uncle Butch went off kilter and into the water he went. Of course, he did this in a mucky bottom deeper section and since he refused to wear his PFD standing him back up in the current and corralling his boat and paddle while keeping ourselves from falling out or losing our paddles was an experiment in managed chaos. His daughter_in_law also tried to help but she was holding her 20 month old baby.

During all this one of the younger boys in his own kayak started crying because he was suddenly alone and floating downstream. We finally convinced his mom to leave us and go "save" him. (Incidentally, all the kids wore their PFDs).

In the end, some tubers came over and helped out by picking up his kayak and his daughter's to empty the water out and re-float them. (Her kayak had filled up when she jumped out to rescue him.)

Other than that little incident the trip itself was nice. The day was hot, blue sky, big clouds, very pretty. We were supposed to leave for the river at 10, didn't get on the road till 11:21, and didn't get to the water's edge till 1:21. We didn't get off the water till 5:30 and not back to the house till a little after 7 pm. Longest kayaking day I've ever had for what is normally a 2.5 hour water trip.

It's possibly the only time I'll be able to get on the water this year though, so I'll try to remember the good parts.

A Few Dogs at the Lake

2009-08-16T18:32:00.005-04:00

Back on July 21 my friend and I took our 3 dogs to Jewell Lake for a swim. Mr Mike, an English Setter, and Luna retrieved a dummy till we got tired of throwing it while Rocket lazed around on the bank or occasionally in the shallows.

I thought it was about time I posted a few photos.

Luna really liked to leap after the thrown dummy, unless she decided Mikey was closer, then she'd just wade off and wait till the next throw.

Now and then Mikey seemed to protest Luna winning most of the races so he'd try to get his own piece.

These photos aren't all from the same retrieve but they might as well have been.

I need to call my friend and set up another lake date. And there may be another dog, he says he got Mikey a little sister.

Mid August Update

2009-08-14T10:30:00.003-04:00

Summer is back again. It's trying to get into the 80s and it hasn't rained in a couple days. The mosquitoes are thick especially at night down at the hutch run. I just hope the birds aren't getting sucked dry. They seem okay every morning.

I'm again using my new laptop. It's very nice. It took a week of trying and one email but the registration process for Windows 7 free upgrade I was promised finally worked. So when it becomes available supposedly I will only have to pay shipping and handling to get my upgrade disk.

We bought a large dehumidifier 2 days ago since last year's died last year. I got tired of buying a new one every year from the big box stores so went to a real appliance store and purchased a heavy duty one. The basement humidity was 75% and things were smelling musty. It's dropped to just over 60% which is much more comfortable. And now things in the basement pantry like flour won't go moldy. Hopefully, that hasn't already happened.

Mrs Duck's 3 ducklings are hanging out on the pond every day. And now Mrs Duck has 8 new eggs as of yesterday. She hasn't started sitting yet but I hope I get some more girls. In this photo you can see Mrs Duck behind the other 3. The smallest white one is the female.

Hal's off to his camp now to finish planting the food plot he started yesterday. I need to mow the lawn before he gets back. Should have dried from the morning dew by now.

My New Laptop is Here!

2009-08-01T20:39:00.002-04:00

Three days earlier than expected! It arrived in a nice little box with a handle. I signed for it, popped it out of the box. plugged it in, turned it on and followed the instructions on the screen for registering, etc. Setting up the wifi network connection was a pice of cake, too. It searched for it, found it, I typed in the password Hal gave me and boom, I'm on the network and then online.

Now if I could only find reasonably priced broadband around here as there isn't any DSL or cablemodem service available. Doesn't look good, either Alltel for $60/month, Directv for $50, or HughesNet for $60. Dial-up is slow but it's only $10/month. I guess we'll be suffering out here in the sticks a while longer.

The Completed Hutch/Run

2009-07-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

Here are a few photos of the run Hal and I built with the old rabbit hutch. He added a ramp and a ledge attached to the front just below the sliding doors. The kennel is 6 feet tall and 12 by 12 feet square. Two inch bird netting covers the top.

The 2 month old chickens are checking out the ledge.

A Silver Laced Wyandotte makes his way down the ramp, while guineas huddle underneath.

The younger guineas and chickens huddling in the corner. This is where we found them after dark tonight. We had to pick them up and stuff them back inside the hutch. The older birds had already found their way into their half of the hutch.

In total there are 18 guineas, 4 that are 10 weeks old, 14 under 8 weeks; and 29 chickens, 20 of them 10 weeks old, the other nine less than 8 weeks. The chickens are mostly mutts; half Barred Rock and half Buckeye or Gold Laced Wyandottes. The Silver Laced Wyandottes I bought, all others I hatched in an incubator.

The Chicken was Tasty

2009-07-27T22:58:00.001-04:00

But not yet perfected. Next time I will try starting it in the pan with the butter and then finish it on broiler to crisp it up. Hal wants me to add extra spices, too.

Oven Fried Chicken

2009-07-27T17:05:00.002-04:00

It's in the oven now. I made it Italian style which only meant putting oregano, basil and onion powder in the bread crumbs. (The crumbs are homemade, btw.) I also added a dash of hot Hungarian paprika. I used 2 of our chickens, cut them up, took me half an hour, one of these days I'll discover the secret to doing that quickly. The pieces were rolled in a flour, salt and pepper mix, then dipped in beaten eggs and then into the seasoned crumbs. Instead of sitting them in a pan with butter like Hal's mom does I have them on a broiler pan and basting with butter and olive oil. I did the sitting in butter trick the last time and thought them too soggy. Tasty, but damp. They seem to be cooking fasters this way, I hope they aren't too dry. I may take them out before the hour is up.

Sure smells great though. A white wine. mashed potatoes and gravy will be served with them along with some of my own green tomato pickles.

Making a New Chicken Run

2009-07-26T17:53:00.003-04:00

Hal and I started the new 3 season run/coop today. First we moved the rabbit hutch we had acquired from his dad a month ago in front of the old vegetable garden. We used a combination of the riding mower on one end and a wheelbarrow on the other to slowly move it approximately 35 feet. The hutch is very heavy. Then Hal took apart the fence surrounding the garden and we moved the 12 foot long pieces to the opposite side of the hutch. (The garden is pretty much done at this point, between bunnies and bad weather.) He reattached everything into a square while I stapled chicken wire along the back wall under the hutch. Eventually the one whole side of the hutch will be accessible to the inside of the run and the chickens won't be able to sneak out through any holes.

Numerous showers and thunder storms moved in and out so we had to take breaks. Another storm is coming in now so we have to postpone the rest till tomorrow. He did manage to string 2 ropes corner to corner to support overhead netting, he'll have to install that tomorrow.

When it's done the birds currently in the hutch, the silver laced wyandottes, guineas and the mutts as well as the birds still in the brooder in the garage will be able to free range inside a little 12 by 12 foot section. They should be much happier while they get bigger and we decide who we're keeping and who will end up in the freezer.

Bought a Laptop!

2009-07-23T10:34:00.004-04:00

Around midnight this morning, after 3.5 days of research I ordered a Dell Inspiron 15 laptop. This has been one of the quickest decisions I've ever made on a big ticket item, but after days of being frustrated by random, frequent freeze-ups on a used laptop, plus the fact I can't really use my 9 year old Dell desktop with only 256 MB of RAM for anything other than email, blogging (I'm using my old Dell for this right now), etc, and other wimpy, older applications, Hal decided it was time to put me out of his suffering. I guess I complained a little. Okay, a lot, but not without reason.

The final decision was between a Dell and a Lenovo. I sort of regret not getting the Lenovo because it has a high definition display and Dolby surround sound speakers, but the Dell allowed me to change the processor for a better one and in the end there was only a $40 difference. Except for taxes, I met Hal's requirement of keeping it below $600. This old desktop cost me $1069 back in 2001 and the power of the new one is far superior. Four (4!!) GB of RAM, a fast processor, wide screen display, dvd/cd burner, web cam and a 320 GB hard drive. I can hardly wait. But I'll have to since they said August 7th was the estimated delivery date. That's the problem when you don't buy off the shelf. They have to build this one for me.

In other news it's raining. A torrential downpour and we need it. I've been watering the veggie garden at Hal's camp with a water barrel on his tractor. Not very effective and only enough to keep the little plants form completely shriveling up. This will help tremendously. It may be a week or more before I have to resort to manual labor. The zucchini, cucumbers and pumpkins will survive. It's probably too late for the beans though.

With all this rain the dogs escaped early to Uncle Butch's so they can stay there for now. I may read my book after this, another Harry Dresden by Jim Butcher, "Turncoat". It's due at the library tomorrow, I shouldn't have any trouble finishing tonight.

Bird Fight

2009-07-17T16:13:00.002-04:00

Mr Duck and the 2 roosters went at it today. Mr Duck clearly winning but then he is bigger. The roosters both had their feathers fluffed out around their necks to look bigger. But Mr Duck lunged after them unafraid. Hal said he saw the guineas harassing Mrs Duck and apparently Mr Duck came to defend her honor! Of course, as soon as Mr Duck plunged in, the guineas disappeared, they weren't crazy enough to harass a duck that big!

Been a While

2009-07-15T20:31:00.003-04:00

I sort of got caught up in FaceBook but now that the newness is wearing off I figure I ought to get back to the important things in life, like blogging.

We watched Endeavour launch on NASA TV today. Nice launch.

Hal and I went to Alpena today on another hot tub parts run. We didn't find what we needed and only returned a piece that was the wrong side. Hard to find schedule 40 unions in 1.5 inch diameter out here.

The weather has been abnormally cool all summer so my snow peas hadn't grown enough to be picked till last week. Spinach bolted while still tiny, so we didn't get any of that. Lettuce is still small, probably due to the 90 degree temperatures we had early. We have zucchini and cucumbers and pumpkins planted over on the hunting land, we've had to water by hand with buckets or using a hose from a 55 gallon drum of water on the tractor for over a week now because it hasn't rained.

The new outdoor wood stove is installed. Of course, Hal dug the trench running the water hoses from the furnace to the garage on the opposite side of the driveway during the heat wave. Mid 90 degree weather is not the time to fire it up and test it.

The hot tub parts are for heating the tub with wood instead of electricity. Much cheaper. He's been cutting down a lot of dead trees for firewood, too.

I've got lots of guineas and chickens.

Some hatched here in the incubator and some were bought through the feed store. I hatched mutt chickens, half barred rock, half buckeye or gold laced wyandottes. The chicks were all black and white, the barred rock is apparently dominant. A couple of them look to be purebred BRs since they have single combs instead of the flat pea combs of the wyandottes, and buckeyes. I also bought 10 silver laced wyandottes. They are also black and white but the barring runs front to back instead of across the feathers.

Momma Duck also had 4 ducklings hatch but one disappeared at the pond while very small. Since then I've kept the ducklings in the garage. Momma can fly in and out of the fence while they stay there safe and sound. I'm hoping she'll hatch one more batch but though Mr Duck seems willing, Momma is not interested.

I also watched the local fireworks on the 4th and took photos with my new camera but they didn't come out very well. There didn't seem to be as many as last year but the weather was dry for once.

That's about all I can think of for now.

Real Farming

2009-06-06T13:35:00.002-04:00

At least real enough for me and more than I 'm used to. Hal had plowed and disced a quarter acre of old farm land that had been in nothing but weeds for years last fall and planted winter wheat. This year he tilled that under and yesterday I planted 61 hills of various varieties of zucchini and cucumbers. Later we went to his dad's farm and helped him plant 7 rows of corn, 20 pounds of Chieftain potatoes (red), and a row and a half of tenderette green bush beans. It may not sound like a lot to real farmers but for 4 people it should be more than enough assuming the critters don't eat it all before we can harvest some.

My muscles are tired today but it feels good to have something like this accomplished. Now if I can just get the 4 tomato plants I bought into their pots. The ones I grew from seed are barely 3 inches tall.

All Gone

2009-06-05T21:29:00.002-04:00

The ducks that were sent to the farm last fall because of the killer mink in my pond are all gone. As is Squash the Barred Rock rooster and his 2 hens. Something got into the chicken yard, we suspect raccoon and killed everything except the 3 guineas. No one there even noticed. Hal and I went there today to plant some corn and I went over to the bird yard and found nothing but white feathers from the Pekin, l'Orange and the carcass of the rooster. Poor guys. What an awful way to go.

More On-Line Social Stuff

2009-05-25T21:51:00.003-04:00

Hal convinced me to join Facebook this weekend. I'm still figuring out what it's all about but I did get one of my sister's to join and found a cousin already on it. Plus I found some old college buddies and some email buddies, too. It's been kind of fun but sure takes up a lot of time if you don't watch yourself. But since I haven't been feeling well all weekend it's given me something to do other than moan and groan while watching old war movies. Still, nothing like a good WWII war movie on Memorial Day.

Here's to the memories of our war veterans.

Chick Update

2009-05-22T22:43:00.001-04:00

There are 8 black and yellow fluffy chicks in the hatcher with the meaties and 2 more in the hatcher. Hal and I had to help one of them out of it shell and pick more pieces off him two more times before he could stand up. Poor thing was really stuck. It looks like that will be all for these 24 eggs. Ten out of 24, about a 41% hatch rate. That's better than I feared we would get. Hopefully these two will be ready to add to the brooder tomorrow.

Keet Found!

2009-05-21T09:09:00.003-04:00

This morning Hal thought he heard peeping coming from the garage which is under the bedroom. I didn't hear anything but he went to investigate. He told me he checked the 3 still in the brooder and they weren't peeping so just stood there quietly till he heard it again. He quietly walked over to the door directly under the bedroom and there he was a foot away from it. He tried to escape as Hal got closer but walked toward the back wall where there was less light and sat there till Hal grabbed him and popped him back into the brooder. He's going to rig something to make the spaces narrower to prevent further escapes.

I think I neglected to mention my lone Muscovy duck is setting on a nest of 7 eggs also in the garage. She hisses dramatically if you get too close, but she's been there for over a week now. I hope these hatch because having only one pair is not enough in case of future accidents. The eggs hatch after 35 days so it will be well into June before I know.

And today there are now 5 hatched chicks and another pipped. Fingers still crossed that I'll get some more before we open the hatcher tomorrow.

More Chicks

2009-05-20T21:38:00.003-04:00

Hatching is happening! Around 6:15 pm I realized there was peeping coming from the hatcher and I saw 2 freshly hatched chicks still damp. They look like pure bred barred rocks, black down, and the one I could easily see had a big yellow spot on its head. One more egg has pipped, have to see what comes out of that, hopefully by tomorrow morning.

Can't find the keet that jumped out of the brooder and ran away. He's long gone and more than likely will not survive the night. Too bad, now I'm down to 3 and they could try to run any time. I've got the garage doors closed now so if they do get out it will be inside.

New Chicks

2009-05-20T15:08:00.004-04:00

I went to my feed store to get my new chicks this afternoon. They only had my Cornish Xs. The Wyandottes won't be in for another week. But I took these little guys home and put them in the brooder, made sure each had a drink and pointed out the food. They're going to town now. In 3 days they won't look this cute and fluffy, these guys grow fast!

I was hoping to have some hatched chicks to put in with them but though this is day 21 there hasn't been a peep from the 24 eggs remaining. I just added 12 fresh eggs to the incubator. Maybe those will have better luck in 21 more days.

Found one of the guinea keets on the garage floor, too. They can squeeze out through the bars of the brooder. I put him back in, hopefully they all learned a lesson.

Temperature outside hit 88.5 today, this after a frost and a freeze 2 and 3 nights ago. Nutty weather. (Final temperature his 96.4 today!)

The Nothing Much to Say Post

2009-05-14T22:05:00.005-04:00

I can't think of anything to say. I feel I ought to say something since it's been 2 weeks since my last post and still I haven't even filled out the one about my Florida trip. I did finally download the photos to my computer but that's as far as I got.

My 4 guinea keets are doing well, they've been moved into the brooder in the garage. They were unsure what to do with all the space. Next week my eggs in the incubator should hatch, hopefully with more success than last time. There are 36 chicken eggs and 6 guinea eggs. I candled 3 this morning, one chicken egg was clear, 2 others were dark. It was really hard to tell if anything was alive, I need a stronger flashlight.

I also will be picking up 20 chicks at the feed store next week, 10 meat birds and 10 silver laced wyandottes. So if nothing of mine hatches I'll still have some new chicks.

I've sort of started a weight loss program. I haven't stopped overeating quite yet but I have started walking longer and lifting free weights this week. I gained 14 pounds on my vacation.. That's what happens when one spends 10 days eating without exercising! I hope to lose 2 pounds by my birthday in 2 mnore weeks.

The weather has inmproved finally, too. Mostly 60s and some sun. Some days it's hit the upper 70s. Not a lot of rain, don't know if that's why I haven't found many morels. I'd heard it was supposed to be a bumper year for them. Haven't seen that around here. No idea where those who predict such things get their information. The one batch I cooked up tasted really great though.

Went to Florida

2009-04-29T21:10:00.001-04:00

Earlier this month I went to Florida with my MIL, SIL and one of her friends. Had a great time. One of these days I'll fill the rest of this post in, but not today.

Four Little Guinea Keets

2009-04-29T20:59:00.002-04:00

I hatched 4 keets out of 42 eggs. Two of them Hal and I had to help out of their shells and were weak for the first 2 days but as of this afternoon all 4 seem to be well and happy. I candled the remaining eggs: 21 were clear (infertile) and 16 had some growth but then died for unknown reasons, we're thinking perhaps too humid. We can never be absolutely sure.

The four survivors are either pied or purple, the keets look similar so we also won't know which they are till they feather out. My guineas all run together so unless they are pure purple there is no guaranteeing what the parentage is. Whatever they are, they sure are cute at this age.

Today I put 36 chicken eggs and 6 more guinea eggs in the incubator, Hopefully, I will have better success with these.

Almost April

2009-03-31T23:11:00.002-04:00

Less than an hour to go in the eastern time zone. Not that it means anything other than flipping the calender. Another nice, sunny day, let the birds free range again. Only hit 41f for a high today. Still a little more snow melted making up for the inch we got the other night. A few more days and I'll be heading to Florida with my a couple of Hal's relatives, his mom and sister. I've never been there, hoping to see some manatees and Kennedy Space Center. That would be cool.

Robins!!!

2009-03-28T16:57:00.002-04:00

I just saw my first 2 robins of the season this afternoon. Not in my yard but one street over. Hope they don't mind what's left of the Texas/Kansas snowstorm that's coming through tonight and tomorrow. Still now spring has officially arrived.

Another Sunny Day

2009-03-28T11:53:00.003-04:00

It may be chilly outside, only in the mid 30s but the sun is still melting a little of the ice and snow. Just got back from walking the pups in the woods, I'll take them out again in a couple hours. The chickens and guineas are wandering around the yard having a good time scratching in the dead leaves. They make more holes to take dust baths in than Luna ever did just for the joy of digging. I fear for my flower beds this year.

I set up voice mail on my cell phone today. Worked like a charm. Now anyone who calls me can hear my melodious voice and leave me a message even if my phone is turned off. Eats my minutes listening to them though.

Yesterday Hal and I met with a man who sells and installs outdoor wood furnaces. After the propane prices more than doubled last fall we decided we needed to do something else to heat our house and water. I have no desire to get into the global warming thing with people who think this is inefficient (I could get into the carbon footprint thing between wood and oil and coal, but I'm sure it's better explained already elsewhere.) We can't afford propane if it keeps rising and even though petroleum prices came down, propane didn't, at least not very much. Petroleum prices aren't going to stay down either. Gas pump prices are already $2.15 per gallon for regular unleaded around here. And these furnaces are much more efficient than the open fireplaces that still get used. It will be nice to have a warmer house in the winter, too.

Hamburgers for dinner tonight. With potato chips and homemade dill pickles. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Time to go do some more useless stuff.

Net10 -- AT LAST!!!!

2009-03-25T19:40:00.003-04:00

My 3rd phone was delivered yesterday afternoon via FedEx. I was not in the mood to deal with it then so I called the Net10 people this afternoon. This was a refurbished phone, I guess they were tired of sending me new ones? But it seems to be in good condition, no noticeable scratches or anything annoying.

But I called, talked to "Michael" who was understandable and explained yet again what had been going on (you'd think it would be documented somewhere in their database?!) We repeated numbers back and forth which I typed into the "Code Entry Mode" section of the phone and my phone number that was attached to the second phone was moved over. He tried calling and it did not ring. Then gave me the standard spiel of waiting an hour and testing. I said "sure, okay, yeah right" or something similar, and we said good bye. Then I called my cell phone from my home phone.

It RANG!!! I nearly fell out of my chair. At least I didn't drop the phone on the floor. I then called my home phone from the cell phone and it rang, too!! Whoa! Who'd a thunk it?! I called my neighbor's phone and got a busy signal. I walked over there and we called back and forth. It really does work!

I left a message on my mom's answering machine and later in the day she called me back on it. I still can't believe it! This must be a dream. To think a repaired phone works when 2 new ones did not. This is the way technology is supposed to work!

WOOT!

Screwed Boots

2009-03-22T09:46:00.002-04:00

A year ago I slipped on the ice in the driveway and cracked my head on the ground. I required 2 stitches, there was blood everywhere and I had a nasty concussion. I did not lose consciousness so I assume that was the reason I did not get an MRI or CT scan. It took weeks for the bump to go away, in fact even after the stitches came out the skin didn't heal for weeks either, too much old blood buried underneath.

This winter I haven't had any such scares because Hal took matters into his own hands and doctored my boots with #6 3/8" long hex head screws. There are 11 in each sole and they have done wonders for keeping me upright and steady on my feet. They do slip a little if the ice is really smooth but there aren't a lot of patches like that around here and eventually the heads do grip the surface.

It feels good to have confidence walking again.

The Net10 Saga Continues

2009-03-19T20:52:00.004-04:00

After spending an hour and 12 minutes on the phone Monday they suggested I wait 24-48 hours. I waited 75. Today I spent 2 hours 11 minutes on the phone and although at one point we got new and "interesting" results on the phone, still no working number.

So they're sending me another new phone. Same model as the second one, an LG200 flip phone, but I don't see how it's going to help. I asked him, he thinks the phone must be defective, otherwise, why didn't anything he did work? I'm still guessing that maybe Alltel just hasn't released the phone number to them? Not much I can do about it though. So I'll just wait till this one comes and make another phone call to their customer service reps.

But on a happy note, tomorrow is the first day of spring! Now if it would warm up again like it did earlier this week. Lots of good snow melt. Only reached 31.8f today though.

Believe it or Not....

2009-03-13T20:14:00.004-04:00

That tracking number for the Net10 phone worked this morning and half an hour later FedEx delivered the new phone. Now, after spending more time with 2 different reps on the land-line phone for an hour at least, I do have a local phone number. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Yet. I've been reading a lot of complaints on line this evening, about Net10 problems and I am not alone. I have hopes that perhaps in a few more hours, (or even a week) this number might actually activate for real (not as their website claims that it already is activated). Some of the complaints I have read about have actually been resolved. I also noticed a lot of people who didn't get their problems fixed seemed to have been rude to the poor reps who are really only trying to do their jobs with a minimal amount of training.

It seems to be a nice enough phone although the original one seemed to get better reception. At least they increased my end date to June 1st and added the old minutes to the new one. Now if it just starts working everything will be great. It's possible it's a "porting" issue, I'm not going to try to explain that because I'm still unclear exactly what it means. Suffice to say, as Net10 rents cell towers from other providers, e.g. Cingular, and Alltel, and the message Hal gets when trying to call my cell from our land-line says "this number is not in service, Alltel 188", maybe it's just a matter of Net10 and Alltel getting together and finishing the activation.

But I'm not holding my breath.

(edited for typos)

The Net10 Fiasco Continues

2009-03-12T18:53:00.003-04:00

So my new SIM card arrives yesterday and after replacing the old one in my phone I call Net10 to get the new local number this SIM is supposed to give me. After talking to 3 people again, and spending 90 minutes on the phone the last guy determines it's not a SIM card problem but the fact my LG300G phone is using GSM technology and I really need a phone with CDMA technology. So when I suggest I just return this phone (which they won't let me do because it's more than 30 days old, but hey, it doesn't WORK people!!) "Alan" says they will send me a new phone, free of charge that will allow me to get a local phone number. He gives me a "ticket number" has me repeat it back to him, and takes my email address. I should get the phone within 3-5 days.

This afternoon, 24 hours later, I decide to check the status of this "ticket number" online (I did this the other day with the number for the SIM card and it worked fine). Their website tells me this number does not exist. So obviously, this "Alan" screwed up. I have now sent them a short yet detailed email about this non-existent ticket number and what is supposed to occur and got an email back saying someone will check my complaint out within 48 hours.

I need to strangle something.

In the meantime, I have a mostly useless cell phone with 288.5 minutes and it is running out of days. I have to renew it before March 23rd or I lose the minutes I paid for when I bought it. Want to bet how I get screwed next?!!

Driven Nuts by Net10

2009-03-09T17:00:00.005-04:00

I bought my very own prepaid cell phone in January. When I was assigned my number I called technical support because the prefix (those first 3 digits after the area code) were for a town that would be a long distance call for me. I was told I had to verify that first by making a test call and checking my phone bill. Sure enough, I was charged 35 cents for 1 minute on top of the 10 cents per minute that my cell phone deducts.

This morning I called back and made my case. The girl, for whom English was not her first language, but still was understandable, gave me a new phone number after about 30 minutes of back and forthing. I then had to wait an hour to test it. It didn't work. I went online to their website and plugged in a bunch of numbers provided for reactivating my phone. When I tried again I still could not use the number. So I called them back.

Person number two, a little harder to understand had me type many numbers into my phone again, kept asking me to be put on hold while he checked with his supervisor, etc. After about an hour of this I was told everything should work after waiting another hour which I did. Again, no joy.

Now I asked both these people about changing my zipcode, but the first gal said I couldn't do that unless I actually moved away. Person number two had similar difficulties.

The third time I called I got a third person and after explaining my problem yet again, he finally informed me that the new number would not work for me. After typing in more strings of digits a new phone number appeared which had the same 657 prefix of my original phone number. I again mentioned that that number is a long distance call from my home phone to my cell phone and made no sense. However, this person had little trouble being persuaded to try different zipcodes for me. Finally, we hit one that still had local prefix numbers available for my phone. The only problem was I would need a new SIM card which could take up to a week to be delivered. Then I will have to go through the reactivation process again. Still, if this is what it takes to get me a local number, that is fine with me.

My only question now is why don't their zipcodes and access numbers actually match as they do for the old landline phones. It sure would make things operate a lot more smoothly! Spending 3 hours on the phone for something that ought to be simple makes little sense.

Dead Poultry

2009-02-26T20:47:00.003-05:00

I've lost a buckeye hen and one of my female muscovy ducks to rampaging dogs today. The owners don't seem very concerned that their dogs escaped yet again and this time, though I was home, they attacked my free ranging chickens and killed my duck. The male duck is severely wounded and is in the garage. The other female flew away but eventually came back and she is in the garage tonight as well. My buckeye rooster has a couple nasty gashes in his back and lost a lot of feathers. He's in a crate in the house where I can feed him and watch him for shock. I'll be lucky if both these males survive. Four of the guineas refused to go back in the coop tonight and are sitting on the fence. It is snowing. It's been a lousy afternoon.

A Little Snow Storm

2009-02-21T19:32:00.003-05:00

Winter is back. A snow storm snuck up on us yesterday. There was nary a flake falling from the sky at 11 am but afterward it snowed steadily till after midnight. There's at least 10 inches of fluffy snow out there, I measured it, plus drifting. I shoveled the deck once last night and again today, exhausting work. Then I shoveled a path to the coop and inside the chicken run. Those little beasties hate getting snow on their feet. When I opened the pop door this morning they fell all over each other to keep from getting any snow on them. The sun came out a little today which was nice, too.

I took Rocket and Luna to the vet Thursday for their heartworm tests and got some medicine for a yeast infection in Luna's ear. I have to treat her for 10 days, already she isn't scratching or shaking her head as much. Currently, she is sleeping while Rocket is at Uncle Butch's. He may be staying there for supper as I am too tired to go get him, walking through all that snow is hard. I should have worn my snow shoes this morning on our walk. Left to his own devices he won't come back by himself till 9 pm but I know he's happy there.

The Thaw Continues

2009-02-10T21:37:00.005-05:00

Today was the warmest day of our February Thaw. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder and rainy. The temperature reached 53F today and the sun came out in the afternoon after the fog cleared from the sublimating snow. I was able to empty the duck pool and add fresh water which I am sure the ducks will appreciate for the rest of the winter which is returning on Thursday.

The guineas and chickens had a chance to run around all day, too. They still try to stay off the snow, they like the deck and the ground around the bird feeder since it's covered with seed husks and therefore not quite so intimidating as all that strange cold white stuff. They even went into the coop tonight without any prodding by me. I'm getting 1 or 2 eggs a day which is pretty good for young birds in winter. One of these days I'll put in the order for the other birds I want, assuming I ever make a decision.

I've been taking mini movies of my dogs and the birds outside today. I haven't tried to download them to the computer yet, but they look pretty good on the camera. It's amazing how much better these digital cameras are than the old VHS-C camera we bought years ago. I don't even need to supply extra lighting, another good point of this Panasonic. So far it's been just the perfect camera for me! Perhaps I'll download some photos for this blog tomorrow.

The February Thaw

2009-02-09T08:54:00.003-05:00

Usually, the thaw happens in January. This year it stayed very cold (doesn't say much for the so-called global warming now called "climate change" by some in order to cover their asses, but let's not get me started on that). Saturday the temps here reached 50.1 and yesterday 40.1 Fahrenheit. We've had a lot of snow melt but fortunately it hasn't rained so we didn't get any flooding. I was able to let the chickens and guineas out to free range which they seemed to enjoy immensely. They especially liked the seed scattered under the bird feeder. Looks like the temps may reach 50 tomorrow, too. By Thursday though things will be back to normal with snow. Oh joy!

Still, it's February, we expect snow and I try to enjoy it because there ain't nothing I can do about it anyway. My neighbor, Mikey's owner, called from Florida last night and even they have been hit by 50 degree temps. Florida isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm hoping I may get to visit there for a couple weeks this winter with one of my sisters-in-law but things beyond my control may keep that from happening. I'd like to visit Kennedy Space Center.

Luna is pacing about, she can't get anyone to play her, poor thing. I think she misses that annoying little puppy, Lyra at times. Rocket is still snoozing though he's already been outside. Yesterday I was able to clear a path to the lower gate in the fence and open it so he no longer has to walk up and down the stairs which is hard on his hips. Soon I will feed the birds and perhaps let them out to run around. It's only 23 at the moment but the sun is shining so I suspect the temps will rise soon. It's already risen 5 degrees since I got up at 8.

I Rediscovered Sudoku

2009-01-30T19:16:00.003-05:00

I'd tried the number game before but never could solve even the easy puzzles. Yesterday I discovered I'd been playing it wrong. I thought besides having to keep the 9 digits from repeating in each row, column and square that I also had to keep them from repeating in the long diagonals. Once that premise is thrown out it's a heck of a lot easier. So yesterday I plowed through 7 puzzles, all 3 levels, easy, medium and hard till 12:30 am. These are in my local newspaper. It seems to me that they have a poor rating system since some of the "medium" ones are harder than some of the "hard" ones which were a breeze. The one I'm working on now is labeled correctly, though. It's labeled "hard", and I've been at it on and off for a couple hours. I really don't need another addiction taking my time.