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Monday, September 28th, 2009
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2:06 pm - Wildlife
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So, Saturday night I ran into the Big Guy's office with exciting news.
"You'll never believe it! A colony of wild Elvis Impersonators has settled in across the way!"
So the Big Guy comes out on the deck with me, and we listen a moment. And the Big Guys says, "OK, obviously that is one Elvis Impersonator with a Karaoke machine, and they're celebrating a birthday or something."
Well, yeah. But my version of reality would be cooler.
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
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8:35 am - What Every Dog Needs
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| Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
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12:41 pm - A Random Confluence of Events
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Newsflash: Monday night I came home to two of the most attentive, obedient and well mannered dogs you ever met.
In an completely unrelated story, the Big Guy spent the day smoking 15 lbs of meat in the backyard.
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| Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
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7:48 am - Rusty and His Sense of Comedic Timing
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So, I'm reading a comic book about Terrible Murders and we've just found out the Murderer is in fact not a human being, but instead a Horrible Monster from Another World Lurking In The City's Sewer System.
The Almost-Victim says: It came up from the drains! Up from the drains!
At which point Rusty chooses to pop up from beneath my comic and into my lap.
Oh sure, I hear you scoff, it was just a coincidence, it's not like he knew what you were reading.
Really? Then explain to me why a little bit later when I am reading the lines "and the world was given over to the Devil" he pops up again and says, "Hi, I'm the Devil. Whatcha reading?"
Explain that, Skeptics!
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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10:00 am - Old Dog, New Trick
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This weekend, at age 11, Harlan discovered the game of Fetch.
Once again, jealousy was a motivating factor.
The Big Guy, who has been converted to a Total Dog Person since the arrival of New Dog, came home with some new dog toys. They were these colorful, plush sort of squeaky soccer-ball type things.
I suggested he probably should have just purchased one toy, as Harlan has never had any real interest in non-edible toys. We've tried frisbees, and balls, fake bones, you name it. And sure enough, when he was handed the toy, he tasted it, found it Not Edible, and spit it out.
But then a bit later he was watching Big Guy and Rusty play with the other toy, and it was like a light went on in his head. So he brought me his toy. And I threw it, and he pounced on it. And the light went on big time. "Oh! THAT'S what these things are for!"
So the rest of the weekend I spent having a soggy, muddy, chewed on, soccer ball shoved at me so I could throw it. Over and over and over. He has 11 years to make up for, after all.
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| Monday, April 27th, 2009
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10:28 am - Dawgs Is Nutz Part 497
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So this weekend we let the horses into the backyard to munch on tasty, tasty clover, because that way we can put off mowing the back yard. One of the many benefits of being Zoned for Agriculture.
Most of the weekend I spent hanging out on the deck with the pups, with occasional escorts to the backyard (to make sure no one got harassed or stomped).
So Saturday, my supposedly bred-to-herd-stock-animal Rusty-dog barely registered that there were horses present. "Meh, horses, I got stuff to pee on."
Same deal Sunday morning. Sunday evening, however, the horses came up into the yard again, and Rusty was all "ZOMG! THERE ARE HORSES IN THE YARD! LOOK! HORSES! HERE! IN THE YARD!"
And he kept it up for quite a bit. Harlan slept through all that, and in fact snoozed away most of the afternoon, until the Strange Cat In The Yard Crises of 2009, which you may have caught some footage of on CNN.
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| Monday, April 13th, 2009
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7:43 am - Bricks!
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So, we actually made three bricks this weekend, testing out the new kiln. Three ugly, half-black burnt bricks, but by golly they are very brick-like, all the same. Right now we are leaving them out in the rain to make sure they really fused into ceramic, but I'm pretty sure they did.
We also established that our kiln gets hot enough to melt glass, but we're not sure how hot exactly, just that we were over 2000 degrees (because that's as far as our thermometer goes).
We also cooked weiners. It was just that kind of jam-packed exciting weekend.
P.S. You don't actually need a 2000 degree oven to cook weiners.
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| Monday, April 6th, 2009
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12:05 pm - Project Greenhouse: Phase I
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So... the local Habitat Restore was giving away windows. Many, many, many windows. Which are now at my house. Except for some that were too big to tie to the top of the Big Guy's car.
Actually, now that I think about it, this may technically be Phase Ib, as when we had one of our outbuildings built, we had the south side painted silver, so it would be nice and reflective when we stuck a greenhouse onto it.
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| Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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12:54 pm - Still Not Laid Off
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Amazing in itself, but also found out I am getting a small raise. Which wouldn't be all that amazing except that there was a possibility of no raises, or even salary reductions.
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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9:08 pm - Return of the Farm Report
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Time to start planning for this year's projects.
Some of least year's experiments went well, Sweet Potatoes were especially prolific, and we ended up liking the Jerusalem Artichokes quite a bit. So definitely going to try to grow more of those, although I need to figure out how to cure and preserve the sweet potatoes a bit better, we didn't get to eat all of last year's crop.
I was less successful with regular potatoes, so I'm going to try some different approaches this year. I spent part of today nailing up some potato beds; I think I didn't have enough loose soil in the bed I tried to grow last year. Too much clay here, and for root crops you really have to compensate for it. I have tons (probably literally) of horse manure compost available, it's just a matter of getting it hauled up to the garden area. We're thinking of making a dog cart for Rusty and letting him help. That little beast is pretty darn strong; I think he would enjoy having a job. Harlan would too, but I think at his age I probably going to just let him think he is working. Although he still is pretty good at digging where I point; Rusty doesn't get what I'm asking for.
One idea I read about today that I think I shall try is growing potatoes in stackable containers. Basically, you start with a tire and some dirt (well, horse manure compost, in our case). You start the potatoes, and as they grow you keep adding tires and compost. At the end of the season you disassemble your Tower of Potato Power and collect all of your spuds. And, wouldn't you know, I have access to many old tires because Himself has trouble throwing stuff out. So I think this shall be this years Grand Experiment, in addition to the more traditional potato beds.
Last year's Grand Experiment was upside-tomatoes, hung off the deck, but those didn't work well for me, because I am bad about watering ever day. The tomatoes I had in various beds lined with soaker hoses that I ran every couple of days did much better.
Also going to try my hand a growing leeks this year, as I have recently discovered that I like them. Basically, leeks and potatoes will be this years new crops. Perhaps by the end of the season I will be able to make soup.
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| Monday, February 2nd, 2009
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12:02 pm - Having A Dog That Disobeys and Chases Deer is Annoying
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Although, when the dog is 11 years old, and you weren't sure if he could even see the deer anymore, let alone chase them, there's a small part of you that goes "yay!"
He made it mid way to our back pasture before stopping, and I was able to catch up to him. The deer were over the hills and gone.
When he stopped, his body language reminded me a lot of the senior cop in an action movie that says "I'm getting to old for this."
I'm not sure if New Dog ever figured out why Old Dog was running, which is just as well.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, January 23rd, 2009
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12:29 pm - Happy Birthday To Someone Who Is Slightly More Elderly Today
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| Monday, January 19th, 2009
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9:42 pm - Hypothetical
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| Monday, January 12th, 2009
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10:49 pm - Here
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I was recently reminded of one of my favorite comic book stories and thought I'd see if I could find some info on it.
It's a bit hard to search for, as the title of the comic was "Here".
But, I remembered that I read it in Raw magazine, and wikipedia got me the rest.
Here
One I had the author's name (Richard McGuire), I was able to find:
http://www.entrecomics.com/?p=9431
Which has gifs of the original 6-page story, plus a bonus you tube video adaptation of same. Thought maybe some of you bozos would enjoy it as well.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, December 27th, 2008
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9:07 am - A Truly "Mom" Kind of Gift
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My sister came up with a cool gift idea for my Mom -- we got her one of those Digital Photo Frames. It was a big hit, as she made sure it was preloaded with lots of old family pics. We spent a good part of Christmas day watching it on the randomized setting, which I thought was great way to look at this sort of photo record. One thing that was really cool was seeing the same sorts of poses crop up in different generations; we all got a kick out of that. One sequence that popped up was my little brother when he was six, next it's him at his graduation, next it's my mom at her graduation, and so on. It was a really neat way to visit the past, plus my husband got to see lots of photos of me when I was still sweet and nice.
At one point he asked, why do you always do that squinty eye thing when you get your photo taken? And right about then my newborn photo popped up and... yep, squinty eye thing.
Oh, and 2wanda... lots of the pics you took at our wedding ended up in this thing, and amazingly, I wasn't always doing the squinty eye thing in those!
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, December 15th, 2008
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7:46 am - Yesterday's High was 60 F, the Low was 8 F.
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| Saturday, November 29th, 2008
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9:06 am - Thanksgiving: Flawless Victory
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Well, almost flawless.
A bit of background: I am not much of a cook, though I have been working on that lately. When we have a family get together, my assignments run along the lines of "paper plates and napkins" or "ice". So when I told the family I was bringing a sweet potato casserole, response was polite, but less than totally enthusiastic. Also, the one person in our group who is nuts about sweet potatoes was not going to be in attendance.
But I found this recipe on cooks.com, which is basically a casserole made up of boiled sweet potato mixes with sauteed onions, covered with a ginger bechamel sauce.
Actually, I have this kind of weird food thing about regular onions, so I used a mix of leeks and green onions instead of following the recipe exactly. Also, I used cream instead of milk for the sauce, and it was a bit thicker than it ought to be, and ended up a weird color.
But no matter! It tasted fabulous and made up for the fact that the broccoli dish I bought was pretty meh.
Here's the recipe in case you are interested: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1946,134187-240195,00.html
The end result was more savory than traditional brown-sugar and marshmallow casserole, so if that type is too sweet for you, you might enjoy this.
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| Saturday, November 1st, 2008
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11:53 pm - The Purple Hand Gang Rides Again
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So, needed some freezer space so it was time to process the leftover pulp from the berry cider process. The pulp was mostly mulberry and blackberry, with some wild grapes and a handful of wild black cherries toss in.
Tally so far:
21 pints + 8 oz berry jam
20 8 oz jars of berry jam + raspberry liqueur
Also a bunch of strained juice that shall be turned to jelly at a later date. Not today, because now it is midnight.
Plus the horsies get a bit of the pulp from the grapes and cherries because that has pits in it.
Tomorrow will be a similar deal, except with the pear and crab apple pulp. Whee!
And I don't know when I am going to do the green tomato pickles. They may all be ripe by the time I get to them.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
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8:11 am - Advance Voting A-Go-Go
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I was doing my usual thing of worrying about stuff going wrong when it was time to vote (What if I have the wrong sort of ID? What if I'm not on the list? What if a meteor hits the polling place? etc) even though in my almost 25 years of voting, there has never ever been an issue, but tell my stupid brain that. (Have I mentioned that I haven't been taking any anxiety brain pills for the past few months? Going well, mostly, but occasionally life is interesting in annoying ways.)
ANYWAY, I figured Early Voting would alleviate this; if there were a problem with my registration, I would have a chance to fix it. So then my brain only had to worry about finding the election office (850 State Ave in KCK, google-map it, stupid brain, and SHUT UP) (Oh, but what about parking?) (SHUT UP, BRAIN!! SHEESH!) (OK, fine, but you just annoyed a BUNCH of Livejournal people for using "google-map" as a verb.)
So, yesterday I left work a bit early to do this very thing. And I'm glad I did, as when I got there at 4:00, the was a line halfway down the block. Luckily, it was a fine autumn day, so waiting outside was not a huge problem.
The line actually moved fairly well. They had guys at the door managing everything. Everyone, workers and voters, seemed pretty excited and upbeat. A few people were on cell phones telling family members about the line, but mostly it was in terms of "Wow, can you believe this?" rather then "Crap, this line sucks!".
I think it took about 20 minutes to get to the door, but as the line moved quickly and people were pleasant, this was not a hardship. Once you got in, there was a wrap-around line they maybe took another 20 minutes to get through. But again, it was moving quickly and people were still excited and upbeat, so no biggee there.
I thought the election workers had a pretty efficient set up going. They had 5 or 6 clerk stations set up, and one of the door guys watched for stations that were free and sent you on. You showed them your ID (I used my driver's liscense, having lost my voter card at some point), signed your name, and then they asked you if you wanted to use paper or touch screen. Being an old person, I chose paper. Younger people in line were more likely to choose touch screen. But I LIKE filling in those little ovals. Plus, you might get Other Voter Fingerprint Cooties from touch screens.*
I meant to ask if the touch screen gave you a paper printout, but didn't want to hold up the line with chatter (they were really doing a terrific job of keeping things moving and I didn't want to screw up the rhythm) and of course forgot afterwards. I am in favor of automation, but would also like there to be a physical record in case of problems afterward.
So I then walked to "the lady in blue over there" with my signed form, and she went and got the ballot for my precinct. It looked exactly like the sample ballot I found on-line. There weren't actually that many things to vote on; most candidates were running unopposed, aside from the federal level guys. There were also the usual "retain this judge?" yes/no questions. I didn't know much about the judges, but it turns out that Kansas has a judicial performance website (http://kansasjudicialperformance.org/) that lets you look up judges. I didn't find any judges that the recommended not retaining, so I'm not sure how useful the site is. But it's all I found to go on.
Speaking of judges, while I had been waiting in the outside line, I overheard a fellow that had just finished voting complaining that he didn't know anything about the judges so how should he know how to vote: "I was SUED and I LOST and I couldn't tell you that judge's name, so how am I gonna know these guys?"
Uh, yeah. OK then.
After doing the oval thing (which always reminds me of taking the Iowa Basic tests back in grade school, and which I always enjoyed liked because I am a big goofy nerd who likes multiple choice test and having a break in the routine of boring classes) I went to where the scanner machines were. They had three set up, for each of the different precincts. We fed my ballot to the machine, and I was done. Just needed to grab my "I Voted" sticker and off I went off. I was back to my car a bit before 5:00.
Anyway, that's how Advance Voting worked in Wyandotte County, Kansas. I'm glad I tried it, and will probably do it again. Yes, it took a bit of time, but I think the attitude and efficiency of the election workers did a lot to make it a fairly painless experience. And also my fellow voters were upbeat and cool, so that helped too, so, yay Wyandotte County people. Go Dottes!
*Hmm, in the interests of full disclosure, while my brain does worry about a lot of stupid things, germ phobia is not one of them. This sentence was just included for a cheap laugh.
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| Monday, October 27th, 2008
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9:53 am - Dogtoberfest Pics
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