Here is a quick chick pic...
We got:
2 Auracanas/Easter Eggers
2 Black Australops
1 White Rock
1 Rhode Island Red

We are still due for 1 Buff Orpington and 1 barred rock. They should be hatched by Tuesday or Wednesday. That will bring our chick total to 8. Yay chicks!

We have pretty much decided on a 6X6 walk in coop. We have a lot of scrap lumber and such, we just need to get some plywood. I am still debating over whether or not we should let them free range all the time, or just when we are home on the weekends. We have about 5-6 weeks to figure something out for outdoor housing. Guess we'd better get serious about building something now that the peeps are actually here!

As you may recall, it was only a few short weeks ago that my dear friend, charles_midair so sweetly wished me a happy birthday here.

Given that his birthday is tomorrow, and knowing what a huge "Little Mermaid" fan he is, I thought I'd return the favor with a little birthday surprise...

( Cut to spare the rest of you...and yes it is work safe. )

In honor of our anniversary, Tim and I are the day sponsors of Michigan Public Radio today. Our message will be played at 6:59am, 9:59am, 12:59pm, 2:59pm, 4:59pm, and 7:59pm. Stations are 91.7FM Ann Arbor/Detroit, 91.1FM in Flint, 104.1FM in Grand Rapids.

To make a long story short, my brother's girlfriend's sister rescued a rabbit from a crazy neighbor who no longer wanted it and just through it out in the snow. When confronted about it, the neighbor said it would be all right, and the bunny would just go and "live in the woods" with its wild bretheren. Never mind that this is a domestic rabbit that had lived until a few days prior in a pet store. They felt sorry for her, and figured she would die outside, so they took her in.

They tried to take her back to the pet store from which she came, but they are out of business now. Sigh. My brother took her and kept her at his apartment for a few months, but his landlord found out and told him he could not keep any pets, even caged ones. He checked with the Michigan rabbit rescue, but they are full now.

He begged us to take her, which we at first declined, but his situation grew desperate, so we agreed to take her temporarily until he could find some other place. Well, it has been over a month, and we still have her. Not much of a surprise there.

It is not that I don't like rabbits, but I felt like we were at our pet maximum before she came along (3 cats, 2 dogs, 2 mules ,and a horse). I know one more pet may not seem like a big deal, but having another mouth to feed and cage to clean, not to mention trying to convince the cats and dogs that she is not lunch, is taking up time and energy that I really didn't have in the first place.

So, just throwing this out there, on the offhand chance that somebody out there might be interested in a pet bunny. She is a large Californian (10-12 lbs) and would come with a two level 27 X 55 cage on wheels, food, toys, etc.

...near the Star Trek costume display.

Kid: Mom, who is William Shatner?

Mom: He's that guy that does the Price Line commercials.

Kid: *Blank Stare*

Mom: You know...*Sings* "Price-Line Neg-O-Ti-At-Tor..."

Tim and Nat: *Ugh*

Dipstick took a turn for the worse this past week, and to make things worse, Tim was out of town. I wanted to wait until he got home Sunday night, but by Saturday it was pretty obvious that it was time.

( Read more... )

Disptick was with us for almost 12 years. I remember feeding her with a bottle dropper when she was barely big enough to fit in the palm of my hand (her mother had rejected her litter). She was our sweetest, gentlest cat, and the best mouser we've ever had.

While Tim and I mourn her passing, the mice in the barn will rest easier tonight.

(Please forgive the icon...it is the closest thing I have to a Pro-Democrat political theme.)

I voted at about 8am this morning. No line, and it took about 10 minutes total. Well, I should be more specific that there was no line for my precinct. The other precinct that votes at the same location had a HUGE line.

In talking to one of the inspectors, I found out that there are about 300 registered voters total in our precinct (12), and they had already received 40-60% of that in absentee/early ballots. I thought that was interesting. The clerk believes this is due to the large number of elderly/retired people in our precinct.

The other precinct (5) has 1600 people, so not surprisingly, they had a much longer line. In fact, all the volunteers assigned to precinct 12 had left their posts in order to help the precinct 5 volunteers who were swamped. Tim and I stood at the precinct 12 table for a while, and eventually resorted to loudly clearing our throats to attract someone's atention. It was pretty funny!

Regardless of the outcome, I feel proud and honored to be a part of this historic election. Now I will wait on pins and needles until the results start coming in tonight. It should be fun to watch the daily show coverage!

I'd probably pick Eeyore. Tiger would probably bounce around and make the elevator shake, wihch would freak me out. Eeyore might be depressing, but at least he would be calm about it.

Our poor princess kitty (Dipstick, who is named such because she is white with a black tail) suddenly developed a swollen area on her left jaw over the weekend.

She has been fighting with Stitch a lot lately because they are wanting to spend more time inside as the temperatures drop, which is resulting in some territorial squabbling indoors.

We were hoping it was just an abscess or something from a fight or maybe a tooth problem, but an x-ray revealed that she in fact has a bony cancerous tumor.

Apparently this type of cancer is very aggressive and spreads quickly. We discussed treatment options, which would include surgically removing half of her lower jaw, and chemo, meds, etc. This might buy her a few more months, but the prognosis is grim no matter what. Given her age, I can't see putting her through all that just to buy a little more time. She has always been a bit slow mentally, I am not at all confident she would be able to relearn how to eat and drink with part of her jaw missing, and all she would know is that we put her through a lot of pain. She would not understand that we were trying to help her.

The tumor has grown so large, so quickly that it has fractured her jaw, which has lead to an infection. The vet did not want to risk damaging the jaw further by trying to drain it, so she sent us home with antibiotics and pain meds for ten days.

We are taking it one day at a time at this point and trying to keep her as comfortable as possible. I suspected the tumor is making it hard for her to eat the dry food we usually feed them, so we gave her some wet cat food, which she scarfed down quite cheerfully. The abscess popped during the night and has drained considerably, so I think she is generally feeling a bit better now.

She is still eating, drinking, cleaning herself, etc., and is very affectionate. She is not happy when we touch her face, obviously, but does not appear to be suffering otherwise. We'll just keep petting her, loving on her, and giving her treats and see how things go. She may have a few days or a few weeks left.

She was our best mouser. :(

Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"Substantially as follows or substantially the same as, when used in the prescription and introductory text of a provision or clause, means that authorization is granted to prepare and utilize a variation of that provision or clause to accomodate requirements that are peculiar to an individual acquisition; provided that the variation includes the salient features of the FAR provision or clause, and is not inconsistent with the intent, principle, and substance of the FAR provision or clause or related coverage of the subject matter."

(Federal Acquisition Regulation, CCH Incorporated publication)

Edit: This basically says that if a clause starts with the words "substantially as follows" or "substantially the same as," then the Contracting Officer may, at his or her discretion, tailor the language to better suit the individual contract, so long as the gist remains the same.

As many of you know, I'm am a self-professed "culinarily challenged" person.

After reading a lot recently about the famous 18 hour No-Knead Bread recipe, I decided that this looked so easy, even I could not mess it up. How very wrong I was. I am now the proud owner of a slightly browned, largish hockey puck. My thoughtful husband still thinks it tastes good.

I asked renaude to do a post-mortem. We think the cold yeast straight from the fridge and cold water I used prevented the yeast from activating. also, I used a fancy spelt, buckwheat, and spring wheat blend flour, when I probably should have stuck with white or 50/50 flour. Also, I am not sure I used the right kind of yeast (Rapid Vs. Active- is there a difference? I got what the store had - in a little packet).

Given that Renaude's son just won an A&S tournament with his no-knead bread entry, I guess I can safely say that even the average 4 year old is a better cook than me. Powned!

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

I was given the letter “B” by faheud, and will resist the temptation to choose something from the Tolkien universe.

1: Beatrice and Benedict: Well, this is technically two, but as they are from the same Shakespeare play (“Much Ado About Nothing”), I’ll count them as one. I always find their war with words to be amusing. Even though they pick on each other constantly, they really do have feelings for each other. I know some real life couples like this. At least they both have good senses of humor.

2: Beaker: My favorite Muppet character. Sure, he doesn’t say much, but I love the way his mouth flap opens up when he talks. He is the ever loyal sidekick to Dr. Honeydew; always cheerful lending a hand when needed and never complaining. Kind of like me.

3: Sirius Black: My secret Harry potter universe crush. So noble, and yet so flawed. Why did he have to die? It makes me sad just thinking about it.

4: Benjamin Linus: The uber-creepy bad guy from “Lost.” There is something about his eyes that is truly disturbing. You almost want to trust him, and yet always at the back of your mind is the thought that whatever is coming out of his mouth is a total and complete lie. Very well done bad guy.

5: Black Beauty: Well, I just had to have a horse in here somewhere! I loved this book as a kid. I thought it was cool that the story is told by the horse, from his point of view. It is a nice “feel good” story, except for the sad parts at the end when he is an old, broken down horse. At least it has a fairly happy ending.

Why is the song from the Oreo commercial stuck in my head today?? I should not be eating those things! It does not help that there happen to be some in the nearby vending machine right now.

Some of you may remember the "Court of Love" that was directed/moderated by dukeeliahu several years ago, and starred several members of my f-list, such as unixmule, charles_midair, renaude's lovely wife, elaine_alina, arianna_pheadra; faheud, and me.

Well, I had completely forgotten that we had video taped both the Pennsic rehearsal and the Twelfth Night performance... until, that is, I came across them last week while setting up the video camera to tape our mule's training sessions.

unixmule has burned a DVD, and can make copies as needed. Let me know if you want one!

Update on Mules, Hay, Garden, Classes, & Cedar Point after the cut...

( Read more... )

This weekend we will be the lucky recipients of a truck load of hay (400 bales). Sunday, between 9 to 9:30am to be specific.

If anyone out there in our area is available/willing to help, we'd be very grateful! It will only take 1 to 2 hours to unload it. The truck backs into the barn and the delivery guy throws the bales off, and then it just gets stacked to the side, so it is not much schlepping, mostly just stacking.

We will be providing food, dust masks, horse rides for those interested, and gas money to get here.

Come on out and add this novel form of exercise to your fitness regimen!

...to the talented and wonderful magda_vogelsang!!! Enjoy your day! It is perfect gardening weather too!

A Very Happy Birthday to elaine_alina!!!

I, along with elaine242 and luveday, am walking in the American Heart Association Heart Walk on May 3rd!

If you are interested in donating so I can reach my walker goal (no pressure), you can do so
here. If I get at least $100, I get a T-shirt. Who Hoo!

(I’m still catching up on my reviews of the past weeks’ shows. Technically the Sunday’s show is week 5, and the last program).

Week 3 focused on a “craving buster technique” to help you with those out of control cravings.

( Read more... )