A dark, dreary day here, with cold weather coming in. The good news is that the days start getting longer in three weeks.
Watching the news today, I don’t see much difference between the two stories, The first, a pup that chased a squirrel and got stuck in an irrigation pipe,
The second, a story about a woman who tried jumping from one roof to another and fell down and got stuck between the two buildings.
Feel sorry for the pup, but not for the woman. She supposedly has more brains than a dog.
I should have just stayed in bed today.
My computer wouldn't start last night, completely dead. Made a Genius Bar appt. at the Apple store down in the cities for this morning. Got there, it's in a busy mall, no parking, tried calling the store to have someone come out and bring the computer in (it's a tower and weighs about as much as a concrete block, and it's a service they offer). Automated phone system, I hate them!!!! I finally gave up, went and found a parking spot, got to the store, which is packed. Told the blue shirt I needed someone to pick the computer up, went back out to the back parking lot, drove the car around to the service door, unloaded the computer, drove around and found another parking spot.
Got back into the store, told a blue shirt I had a Genius Bar appt., she said the appts. were only for 15 minutes, I kind of lost it and told her I was there on time, but wasted too much time on their blasted automated phone system trying to get someone to get the computer. She grabbed a higher up blue shirt, he said, oh, yah, her computer's over by the counter. So I stood around for a half hour waiting, my shoulder is just killing me (it doesn't like driving anymore), a tech got to me, I explained it was dead. She grabbed a power cord, plugged it in, pushed the start button, and the bleep-bleeping thing started up. I was thinking nasty thoughts about my son, because before I left home with the computer, I had suggested trying his cord (we have both the same model computer) and see if it would start up. The nice blue shirt lady ran diagnostics on it, and everything came out fine.
So after a couple of side trips, I got home, miserable drive through the rain, and we went out to do the chores.
No baby calf in sight.
I was going to walk out to the east pasture to look for her, and to get to that pasture, you have to go through the gate by the entrance to the cow barn, which when it’s wet, gets a little mucky. Did I say little? I took a couple of steps through, and got stuck. My foot came out of my boot and I’m flailing in the air, trying to keep my balance. Well, of course, I couldn’t. My foot landed in the muck and sunk down into cold, wet muddy muck. Flailing around, still trying to get my balance, screeching. Christian, on the other side of the barn, yelled to see what was wrong. I’m still flailing, one foot in muck, the other in a stuck boot. Well, the boot stayed stuck, my foot didn’t. Out of the boot, into the muck along with the other one, with me still screeching, trying to keep my balance and hoping if I fall, I land on my butt and not my face. About then Christian came running around the barn and saw what was happening, and grabbed me. He was nice enough to grab first and laugh second.
Hosed my feet off, got back into the boots, went back to the house to get walkie-talkies and the truck. Drove out to search the pasture, and thank goodness Ingrid was pretty easy to find. Trucked her back to the barn and got her locked up with Mama. From here on, we’ll let Daisy May out, but keep Ingrid locked up in the barn.
So, got back into the house and cleaned up, got my computer and plugged it in. It came on!! I had thought I was going to have to order a new cord, since they didn’t have any for sale at the Apple store. So Christian got all my hard drives put back in, got it over to my desk, got all the externals plugged back in, pushed the button to start it up. Nothing. Dead as a doornail. Not quite, though. We notice a red light coming on when we tried plugging it into a different outlet. Googled it, and that red light shows there’s power going to the computer. But it’s not turning on. Sigh. Will be going back to the computer store, but NOT tomorrow! Hopefully a week morning will be less hectic there.
But two positives from the fiasco today, I picked up an adapter so I can plug my laptop into my big monitor, so I can actually see what I’m typing, and when I picked up my computer at the store, I saw a sign by the service door saying that it was a loading and unloaded area, with half hour parking!! Yes!!
When the new MacPros come out, I’m getting one!!!! 9 inches tall, 6 inches in diameter, and it weighs 11 lbs.!! Oh, be still, my heart!
It’s been a long day!! I went down to the cities see my nephew, he’s improving, and sounding more like himself. When I got back, we went out to do chores, and this is what we found,
We weren’t expecting this quite yet. That’s the trouble with having a bull, you never know for sure when to expect the baby.
My cactuses are blooming, and they are just beautiful!!
I get to run back down to the cities tomorrow morning. When I tried turning on my computer, nothing happened! Fortunately, all my data is backed up on an external drive, so I hooked it up to the laptop and am using that. That 13” screen is pretty hard to take, though. Hopefully, it will be just the power supply on the desktop, and will be easy and cheap to repair. I’ll know more tomorrow after I take it to the Apple store.
This is what 800+ lbs of meat looks like,
A sense of satisfaction...
I trimmed a fern the other day and let it drop on the floor for the babies to play with. Chunk was having a grand old time burrowing in them.
Funny Internet picture!!
Finally got out to my vegetable garden yesterday to get the rest of the veggies in. I didn’t keep records of what I planted in there like I did in the greenhouse, so I wasn’t sure what I was digging up, other than that they were some kind of root crop, and they were HUGE!! After I got into the house, I googled different root crops, and figured out they are rutabagas, then remembered talking to my sister about using them in soups and stews, and that’s why I tried growing some this year.
The garden is pretty much wrapped up now, although I still have some hoses to pick up and get into the greenhouse.
I’m just about ready for winter and my recliner by the wood stove. Things need to slow down a bit, my nephew has been in the hospital for the past two weeks with necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria). He’s slowly, slowly getting better.
I have to admit I’m a needle phobic. I hate shots!!!! I still remember in grade school standing in line waiting to get the shot in the arm and the polio sugar cube, just the sheer terror of it. Friday, don’t ask me how I did it, because I don’t know, I punctured my ankle. Christian suggested I get a tetanus shot, but phobic person that I am, I waited until the next morning to go to the doctor, and then only because it was aching. Oh, and my sister told me to! Have to listen to her! So they x-rayed it, gave me the shot (it wasn’t as bad as I had dreaded), and put me on antibiotics. For good measure, I had Christian dig up some comfry root to put on it. It was much better by the next morning. The two plants that I just would not want to be missing is aloe and comfrey.
I finally got some more beads listed. This is one I really like,
A funny Internet pic to end with,
I am just so NOT ready for this,
Just nine more weeks until the days start getting longer.
Canning is all done now. There were still tomatoes left in the greenhouse, but after making a couple of batches of salsa and canning them, I called it quits. We got the chicks out of the greenhouse and into the chicken house, but they still haven’t quite figured out that’s where they need to go at night, so we get to go out after dark and chase them in.
Honey knows where to go to get warm, on my bead kiln,
Some of my latest earrings,
Just got back from the cities with our new van. A big orange exclamation point came on in it Sunday morning on our way to meeting. Christian looked it up in the manual and thought it was the brake override system, so we turned around and came home and made an appointment with the dealer. Sigh, guess what it was… low pressure on one of the tires.
So I made a shopping day of it. I went to Fleet Farm and bought new chores boots, dog and cat food, and various other things, then went to Trader Joe’s (wasn’t really all that impressed with it) and then hit Costco to stock up on a few things.
It’s been horribly drearing the past few days, wet and cloudy and dark. A portent of what’s to come.
Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts…
I did more canning this year than I have for a very long time, I don’t know how many quarts of tomato sauce, 30 pints of grape juice, 20 quarts of grape juice, and 7 of apple juice. I’ve got most of my plants inside now, and next week will start digging up all of the dahlias and other bulbs and tuck them away in the basement. Nick came yesterday and picked up our two steers, and by now they’re hanging in a meat locker. Now we have to get our freezers cleared out and defrosted.
This is a really cool bead that I listed on Etsy, it’s got pink metallic shimmers over the striations. Neat!
Got to end with another snagged silly pet pic,
The Internet is a wonderful tool which can be abused by unscrupulous people. I was on Pinterest searching for horse drawings to pin on one of my boards. It’s a way of getting other artists’ works noticed, and their work is an inspiration to me. Much to my surprise, I came across a very familiar horse drawing, and was not so pleasantly surprised to see a young woman claiming to have done it herself. I filed a copyright complaint with Pinterest and waited until today to see if it would be taken down. In the meantime, a friend left a comment about it not being her drawing. This is the what has transpired,
Horse drawing I’ve drawn :) good?
Here is my drawing on the left, and hers on the right,
My drawing has my name on it, which she erased and replaced with her own. The pin still hasn’t been taken down.
On to better things. Gertrude saying hello to me,
Does she look like she’s bulging out a bit? I think so (she’s the one on the very left).
Dexter, the bull,
And here are the chicks in the greenhouse. I’m going to let them out tomorrow for the first time, since it’s going to be such a nice day.
I’ve been very busy canning the past couple of weeks. I’ve frozen and canned I don’t know how many quarts of tomato sauce, in the area of 30 pints of grape juice, and now I’m making apple cider. I LOVE my steamer juicer, shown below. It’s just the cat’s meow!
And some beads I’ve recently listed,
Life is good…
I’m trying not to read the news, it’s just all so depressing, politicians doing the blame game, new ‘alleged’ chemical attacks in Syria, murders, stupid people committing crimes and thinking they won’t get caught (maybe I’ve been watching too much Discovery ID), and on and on and on.
It’s been a depressing day. Christian took Baxter, our oldest kitty, to the vet and had him put down (he was laying on the floor meowing and couldn’t move). We buried him out by Chester and all of the rest. Instead of my farm being named Greyhaven, maybe it should be named Pet Cemetery. I told Christian that sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the pain, and he said to just look at Suka when we go to bed at night.
Jim, my neighbor’s boy who’s biking to South America to raise money for the Randy Shaver Foundation (http://pedalingforpennies.info/), stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument. There were two older women (63 and 70) missing there, and they found the body of one the day before yesterday. They think the older one was injured and the younger one went to get help, but she went off the pathway and died from exposure. That country is not to be taken lightly, especially at this time of the year, and the lava fields are rough and dangerous at any time of the year. So very sad.
I really need to do something to get out of this funk. I’m going to see if the torch will cooperate and let me make some beads.
I’m trying really hard to get photos done so I can list some beads, but it seems not to be the night for it. Looked out the window and saw a gorgeous rainbow, so I had to grab my camera and get some photos, and of course, the cows had to come see what I was doing, and hoping for some bread, I imagine.
Sorry, Daisy May, none tonight. Go visit Lynn, maybe she has some apples.
Well, that was fun! We finally got some rain, 2.32” in less than an hour. Our entire basement has an inch of water in it. We’ve had flooding in the front half, but never the entire basement. And we had a pond in the back yard, never had that before either.
A video of the wind and rain, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7QXY-Uf_wc
And a couple more videos, one of Christian feeding the chicks a grasshopper,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW4UEXEy1wk
and Suka playing with Squeak, which lasted until he tried grabbing her hind leg,
Cool! I was featured on today’s Glass Beads Daily, http://glassbeadsdaily.blogspot.com/2013/09/big-hole-glass-beads-91813.html?showComment=1379550978155#c1378412209717332115
Now I want to go make beads instead of taking photos and listing!
A fun night ahead if my torch cooperates. I got a new shipment of glass in, with some new colors. I’m done getting them entered into inventory, now I have to label the new rods so I can make some test beads.
We also got our first load of hay in today. He bought a round bale, so when I get my tractor back I’m going to put the bale spear on it to see if my old 8N is got enough horsepower to lift it. If it does, we’ll get the next load in round bales, because then we’ll use the tractor to carry hay as long as we can get to the feeder with it. Once we get decent snow, we have to switch to the snowmobile and sleds to haul flakes out.
I don’t remember such a bee/wasp-busy year before. Christian took down my Baltimore Oriole feeder because there were so many bumblebees and wasps on it, the orioles wouldn’t even come near it. Here’s some bumblebees busy on a flower,
And next year I have to remember to plant more of the four o’clocks and nicotiana up closer to the house. They smell so, so lovely!
And finally, a hummer visiting some of my glads,
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