Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

SO............ My youngest Son moved out of the house and WAY the heck down to Florida about a month ago. It's been weird. We are officially empty nesters now.  No kids around, and we've been just kinda chilling. There's been some stuff being sent down to near Tampa, but other than that, he's supposedly doing well. The last of the kids to leave the house, Alex I've taken a job as a lab tech at a local company that does catalog sales of stuff like sausage and cheese. You probably have heard of them, Swiss Colony.  Well, I'm working in the Microbiology department.  Our team tests the food to make sure they are safe. There are times when I am elbow deep into samples of cheesecakes and cheese and stuff. It's as close to medical lab tech as I'm going to get for now. The pay is less but the schedule is Monday through Friday so that's good. 40 hours a week for now until after the Christmas rush. Then it's layoff time. I'll deal with that...

Newer laptop, forgive me if I scream a few times. I get random glitches when I type for too long. So we've been incubating eggs for a while now and this is the first year that I've had a ton of issues with it. Two sets of eggs  have died within the shell before I could even sneak them under a mama goose. Then there was the chicken, who would not stop being broody, so we stuck a duck egg under her.  So now we have Dobby the duck with a hen as it's mom. It's working out fine right now, even though the Dobby is almost as big as his/her mom and s/he's only 3 weeks old. We honestly didn't think she'd sit long enough to hatch a baby duck. That's at least a week more brooding time than a chicken. But she did and the only assistance we gave her was to move her nest down to the lower level when the duck was hatched so it could get out easily. They wander around and I make sure there are puddles for the little one to drink and wash from. Now the duck is ...

I started working on the year end review like 3 hours ago, but I was distracted. First my nephew came over with his family to get eggs, then he got stuck in the driveway. Our 2nd snow of the year has made most of the driveway a skating rink. I've not been outside of my yard in a week. But then again, I'm on vacation,, so. I'll pick a few random photos to share. Dave shaved. Say that 3 times real fast: dave shaved dave shaved dave shaved. Yep, that's our bathroom and me holding up my cell phone to take the pic. Total time it took me to tell him never to shave again? 30 seconds. He looks like this Brother..........the one I don't like. Miss George and I spend a lot of time together. She has the bum leg,, so she would rather just sit and hang with us. She's a great Mom though, and her two daughters are out and about with her all the time. She will not go into the coop for the night without one of her girls with her. You've seen her in the big blue p...

Everything is going swell here. Busy doing the usual winter things: Slogging through snow, napping, knitting and getting vehicles unstuck from the snow. I've had to rework the sweater I was knitting due to my stubbornness (GAUGE?!?!  We don't need no stinking gauge!) The front turned out big enough for two of me..and that's a whole lotta yarn. So I'll be working on Cozy Cable Hooded Cardigan instead. Ah well. At least this time I'll follow a pattern. Some items were found for frog or finish 15. Some are stewing while I try to figure out what to do. It's difficult because I know they need to be frogged, but so much time has been spent making them that I don't want to. This will be short, as I need to go outside and release the hounds. It's butt-cold out there, but they need outside time. Waiting for a spring that seems to never come around. I swear, if it weren't for the fact that we rent and cannot afford a farm of our own...we'd be living...

oh Hey! that's George saying hi to me. He and Fred like to come up and chew on me a bit while I'm outside. I've been inside now for a few days struggling with a nasty cold. First day was the clogged yet drippy sinuses, Yesterday was the migration to the asthmatic lungs. Today is just meh.  really really meh. I'm tired and glad to be going nowhere. Last weekend was the Sheep and Wool festival in Jefferson, WI. As Dave found a cooking partner this year for his task of cooking the roasts for the Church's Harvest Festival, I got to go! I finally got my hands on one of Adam Mielke 's spindles. I've wanted one since he started making them. I understand he's stopped, but a few can be had. I started spinning with some nice red merino roving in it from the Fairy Yarn Mother. . Susan is a good friend of mine that I enjoy talking with at the fair each time. She has the most wonderful shades of roving around.  It's the one roving I am most trustworthy ...

Grebe. Thing happen around here that are both fascinating and just odd.  Last Friday, Dave was settling down for a good nap. We're getting over our colds slowly. Chores were done, and he had the time... A Coworker of his calls, they have what they say is a juvenile goose that's near their pond. We have geese, come over and get it before their dogs get it. The Coworker has hunting dogs trained for retrieving geese, ducks and pheasant. So there's sort of a rush rush to this scenario.  I wake up Dave, we put the dog kennel in the back of the Jeep and head on out to the other side of town.  What's funny is that there IS another side of town when the town's population is about 1,300 people. The coworker's place is off a dirt road near a creek. He's got a pond, but it's frozen over right now, and some nice work areas to perpetuate his hobby of fixing up old cars.  We get out, he points over near the pond and there sits a bird. It's small enough to b...

So far, the coldest winter on record here in WI, officially.  Each winter there is one article of clothing that I grow sick and tired of wearing. This year, that would be my full-length powder blue goose down coat. Yeah, it's a great coat. It's warm. But if I have to endure that thing for another month, I'm going to scream. About a year ago I purchased some 10 skeins of blue alpaca yarn off of eBay. Last weekend it finally told me what it wanted to be. It's a farose shawl in cables. The pattern is entirely made up in my head. Right now I'm going to get down to a rant, so plug your ears. I'm sitting here with my ipad on my laptop, with photos in my ipad that refuse to be shared with my laptop. I mean, it's on the same flipping network, it's supposed  to be sharing on the icloud but no.  I went to 3 different websites, including Flickr to put this *ONE* photo on so I could share it with my blog. None of the sites would allow sharing with blogger, ...

It's been freezing cold for pretty much the whole month. Today it is a balmy 13° in Wisconsin, but the wind is gusting 30 mph out of the West. It's enough to take what little breath you have away. SO...Sissy's inside again. She's stressed out ..again. She's got a patch about the size of a fifty cent piece plucked to the skin on her chest.  That's some pretty serious stressing going on. Until she can go outside and get away from the flock on a regular basis, she'll spend her days inside with me. I did not pass calculus last semester, so I get to take it again. This semester it is offered at night. I hope that means I can learn better. 8 am was not a good time to learn complex math.  I thought it was a bummer to be gone from my honey nights, but then I thought, 'he's got Friday through Tuesday off all day. In effect, I will have as about as much time as I have now with him.' Only Tuesday - Thursday will I not see him much. And to pick up an extr...

No, they are just so cute! Molly hatched out 6 babies day before yesterday. Like Sissy, she's a first-time Mom and doing a LOT of hissing.  A leaf blows by too close to her and she hisses.  Yesterday was the first time the kids got to go outside. At first, all the goose girls came up to her nest to see the wee little ones.  Mary is very interested  in those girls.  She'll make a great Mom next year, I think. We've compared these goslings to Sissy's since these will be a Toulouse/African cross. Well, we were not sure until they hatched.  If Daddy was Buddy, they'd be straight Toulouse.  The kids would have a grayish beak. These are all black beaks but the chicks themselves are more yellow than Sissy's which are straight Africans.  I've seen pics of the Toulouse/African cross: Big bodies, with that tuft-y neck, dark streak down the back with brown instead of gray coloration. Hey, we're diverse here. Sissy, here in the front of the group, ...

Sissy's babies hatched! She's got 3 Uncles and one Daddy who are her Nannies.  It's hilarious to see them all looking after these 3 little ones.  They are little fluff balls that waddle behind Mama where ever she goes.  As soon as I can, I will get a pic of the babies on her back.  It's cute. At times they are under her wing, but if they are sufficiently warm, they just nap on her back. There's still a lot of hissing and charging from the Uncles, but Daddy has calmed down a lot. Sissy's got them out for a tour of the lilac bush in the picture. This is Molly on her nest. She got a late start. After spending most of the spring running away from the guys, she finally decided to let them near her...which led to mating.  She's got 11 eggs under her.  Dave's been building nests to see what is the optimum dimensions for them.  This one is 3' square by about 8" high.  The concrete block in front helps her get in an out better. We're revam...

Note: Ducklings will eat box elder bugs.  Apparently they do not know better.. We are over run with box elder bugs but not so much with ducks.  Out of the 5 expected, we have 2 living that hatched.  And wow, one of them had a journey! Duckling #2 pipped wrong.  Ok; Pipping: Using their beak to make a hole in their shell to let in air.  Once that is done, then they rotate in their shell and start 'zipping' or opening the top of the shell counter-clockwise.   This little one pipped upside down and way too early.  So on Friday I started to help out but it was entirely too early to even try.  The membranes of eggs are lined with blood vessels.  As they mature out of their egg, these vessels dry up and the blood enters the ducklings through their yolk attached to their umbilical. Now normally, the pipping is done close to hatching.  This ducky spent 3 days with his foot sticking out over his head in this opening of his shell. ...

Sissy likes to chew on my hair, even in winter.  She finds a lock sticking out of my hat and chews on it.  Well, in order to do so she has to be on my lap, so I let her up and she chews and I tell her how she's a good goosie and such. Last night I was telling tall tales of this thing called 'spring'.   When the snow melts and green, tasty grass grows as far as the eye can see.  Where good goosies can go and graze on the fresh grass and even snag those tasty chicory blossoms.  Oh, remember those days, Sissy!? This morning is desolate, windy, freeze-your-ass-off cold and nothing but that flipping snow.  This is a view from the garage which has been turned into a shelter for the animals.  The door is left open, fresh food and water are laid out, and a layer of straw sits on the floor.  It gives a wind break from the freezing flipping wind. It's supposed to be my "Spring Break' here.  Spring Break my ass! It's snowing! It's freezing! I'm...

Hands-down the best commercial of the big game.  Transcript below: And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer. God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer. "I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer. God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a pers...

Now if this were a romantic novel, that would be a good  day to remember.  Yesterday and this morning are ones that I'd rather just not happen. My ducks and geese were ambushed by the two dogs that live next door.                              a bit blurry, but the 4 ducks this morning - injury free but wary.  Now a bit of story on those dogs: they are hunting dogs specifically trained to hunt geese and ducks. The youngest one luvs ducks. I've encountered the youngest one before, and she's very well trained as a hunting dog. So there I stood yesterday, waiting to put peanut butter on my toasted bagel.  That's when I hear a ruckus outside and see the ducks running heads in the air towards the back. I turn to see large birds flying to the Northwest out of the other window.  It was only when I saw Buddy's big white butt flying over that I realize, that OH SHIT, those are my geese flyi...

I have to admit that my last blog post was hideous,  but necessary. My soul has been slowly crushed by all the bile that others force me to bear.  These people think they are doing something awesome, and something that they feel they have a right to do: Treat others like they are less than dirt. All I've been feeling for the last few months is pain.  Oh I hide it well, because showing it will cause distress in those who have not put that pain there. Dave does not deserve it. Alex does not deserve it.  But the pain is there and I'm not willing to walk about this earth carrying it any more. Isn't time I deserve better than to be someone else's dumpster? All I have ever wanted was love, but if that's not possible, then maybe just to be left alone? But no. Your goal is to make me feel unwanted, unloved and undeserving of what you give total strangers. Yes, I know all the psychological bullshit about not letting it get to me and all that, but face it people: It DO...

I've got 6 geese, 4 ducks and 11 chickens wondering what the heck this white stuff on the ground is.  I mean, it tastes  like water, but doesn't work like water.  Snow and cold makes working with animals and outside just that much harder.  The power is out in the garage, probably due to the high winds during that last snowstorm. But that's something that won't be looked at until spring. Oh and my car is dead. I mean dead/dead, not even mostly dead. Dead/dead.  It will need a new battery. Our lone girl goosie, Sissy is laying eggs.  We're so proud! For that continuing education on Geese and such: Girl Goosies lay one egg about every other day in a nest they create by themselves.  Sissy started on one near the house under the hedge during the snowstorm. I took a chance and moved the egg plus some of the nest material into the garage next to their pen. I had a 60% chance she'd reject the nest, but she accepted it! I think that is because she saw th...

Sounds like fun doesn't it? Kicking pools.  Except I've been doing it for a few weeks now because of the ice. The pools are used for the geese and ducks.  They're just kiddy pools, but it gives them a chance to bathe and get clean.  Apparently the pools also play a crucial role in mating for both ducks and geese. That happens in the big pool There's a larger pool that's deeper and more uh...mating friendly over by the house.  In this picture, Buddy is in the blue one, Percy is in the pink one and Ron is in front.  Now wait for it............. Up pops Sissy! Isn't she adorable?!?! The interesting development over the last two weeks is that Sissy and Ron have bonded.  Geese are one of the animals that chooses a mate for life. I checked the forums on this and it's not a hard and set rule that the ganders won't go astray, but they do have their favorite gals. Ron likes Sissy.  Oddly enough, Ron is not our biggest gander and he does bully Percy on ...

Reality is what hits us every day.  Sometimes we accept it, grasp whatever bits of goodness come out and move on. The people who deal with reality every day will tell you that sometimes the hard parts are unbearable, but must be done. We've been dealing with reality a lot here: Alex gets a job, but it's 45 miles away.  $40 bucks every two days to fill up the car so he can go to his job.  Which means $50 to fill up the van every 2 1/2 days to get both Dave and I to work and school.  $180.00 per week IN GAS.  Reality sucks, my friend. And today I get to finish my chem lab early, drive back home, disarticulate a deer and put what large pieces we have in the freezer to butcher later after I drive back to school at $4 in gas  to take an Algebra quiz. If we don't get this deer butchered, the meat will rot and we'll be eating chicken all winter long.   Reality is we cannot afford to waste meat, nor buy it from the store.  My Brother In Law offered u...

Well, Georgie the goose died last Tuesday.  I came home from school to find him collapsed by the lilac bush. I  had him on my lap for about 10 minutes hoping he'd come out of it, but in the end, he convulsed a few times and died.  Dave was a trooper and got him dressed out and  put in the freezer for me. I've put his feathers and down in a bag that I made from pillow ticking and dried it. We learned quite a bit from the process and we'll be using those skills soon.  Cuz you see, Fred's been doing the same thing: Collapsing out of breath...horcking up a lung like he's got asthma.  We've discussed the future of Fred and the ducks, but it will wait until we have the cone. http://meadowcreature.com/poultry/  sells one like we have on order.Ours is on backorder for another week.   Basically it's a galvanized steel cone with a hole in the bottom. Drop your poultry into it, pull out the head and chop it off, or slice the jugular and let them bleed o...

Honestly, I have been knitting! The thing is though, when you're working on a new design, you have to keep it secret.  This is a cowl that I've designed and now I need to write the pattern out and publish it. It's a nice, close knit pattern great for guys. This morning I wore it outside to test it out since it's 41 here in WI. I'm also working on a stranded hat.  There's about 10 skeins of Knit Picks Palette that I scored for 50 cents a piece at Goodwill some time ago.  I've been playing with different stranded designs.  Sometimes I just want to mess around without a real aim.  The Aidez is taking a time out mainly because I am afraid to mess up the bind-off on the sleeve re-design. I know, ...get over it! It's getting colder, so that might be my impetus to get it done. I find that some of my homework reading is done better if I am knitting at the same time.  I concentrate better. Bantam chicken update: we have 10 baby chicks under two hens i...