Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

I'm back from the grocery store. We were out of milk. I was out of soda...it was necessary. Oh and HEY! Ice cream was on sale! So I gather milk, soda, pizzas and that awesome ice cream and head to the checkout lane. I'm a tad frustrated because my pen is not in my purse. That means I'll have to wait until I am being checked out to write out the check. Meh, I write fast. The woman in front of me...in her 70's by my reckoning has a whole cart full of stuff. She starts instructing the bag boy (man?) to not crush stuff, keep this to the side etc. Oh goodie! She's going to be one of those people. Others who queue up behind me suddenly realize how slow this line is and in a huff wander off to another line. Whatever, I mean, this can't possibly take TOO long, right? Food's been scanned, the lady hands the cashier a dozen coupons. The two of them go through these coupons, 'did you buy this?' no..that coupon goes in one pile, the other ones that were f...

It's been 3 years since our last vacation, and Dave decided he needed one badly.  We trained up Alex and his friend Cody to watch the flock while we were gone and we headed off to Governor Thompson State Park near Crivitz, WI. It's a new park, situated on the Cauldron Falls impoundment. A very nice park, actually. Except for the rain. Seriously, it hadn't rained in Southern Wisconsin for WEEKS. No rain. the grass was brown, we really needed some! Up North, it rained for 3 days straight. A few hours here and there were dry but it was getting absolutely ridiculous. The first night we were there, we set up and went down to see if we could get cell reception and call home. I took this photo from the boat landing. Nice, eh?  Even the mosquitoes were pretty scarce. We called home, everything was fine and went back to fishing. There's been a fox stalking our flocks. Problem is, we've got a huge flock and the geese are actually bigger than the fox. they'll sto...

That's George, Fred is behind him. They're doing well.  I've put up the enclosure again so they can be protected while outside. They have food, water and a bath in their enclosure. The rest of the flock is still harassing them. I don't know why, nor do I care. I just need time to be inside. Carrie is sitting on the last 2 eggs we have. I've incubated them until yesterday when B5 was internally pipping. B3 and B5 were fertile and have progressed well since I popped them in the incubator. By putting them under a broody goose, she gets to be Mom and I get my life back. This is just a nice photo of part of the flock. I can tell right away this is the flock we term "Ron's Flock" because Buddy is in it. Buddy, Ron, Sweet Pea and Gingi are all part of our original flock sent to us over 2 years ago. Everyone else in the group is Ron's offspring: Ronson, Sissysan, Penny, Nelly, Lumpy and Arthur. It was a cool morning after a good rain. We could u...

Last week, my shoulder decided it did not like shoveling loads of muck out of the mud pit. I had a grumpy arm that wouldn't allow me to move it without griping about the movement. Lovely, eh? It was my left shoulder as well, which makes it oh so much more challenging as a left-handed person. I had gotten the TENS unit that Icy Hot sells for Dave, as his back was hurting. It did wonders for him, but was fiddly: the buttons are on the unit itself and impossible to reach when attached to the back. I tried it on my shoulder. It made it worse. It got to the point where any movement on my upper body sent it to thralls of great pain. The pain itself reached a crescendo Friday night when we wrapped the shoulder. I ended up on the recliner to sleep and spent the next 2 nights there as well. There was just no way to sleep in bed without it hurting. At least in the recliner, I could prop it up and put the heating pad on it.  A regimen of 4 ibuprofen plus the heating pad helped out a lot....

So here I sit, on a Google sponsored site: Blogger. Of course, I have nice photos and videos on Google + because they INSIST! I must put my cell phone photos there...but I cannot share them on blogger...........a Google site without downloading them and then uploading them again. Stupid, moronic and vapid. If you want to compete with places like Facebook, you need to start acting like you can do better than them. It's been a summer of 'meh'. Meh as in I just have not done much except sit on the ground staring  at goslings or taking naps. Yah, sure knitting is going on. This is the photo of my prayer shawl with the pattern I've devised. So far I'm into it for a skein and a 1/3.  I'm thinking it would take about a skein and a half to get about a 6' shawl. It's almost done. Then there's another one in purple that I'm making as well. Each one is from a pattern I've modified from looking at photos of other shawls/baby blankets. The patt...

I'll let you in on a little secret: In my mind, I have like 5 ideas for blog posts every week. Due to age and my schedule, by the time I get to the posting, I forget them. Some ideas: A nice listing of hobbies/interests that I understand, but just don't 'get'.  List of what I've learned from my Grandmother. It boils down to three things: 1, independence 2. frugality, and 3 putting family first. Moments in my life where I've dodged HUGE bullets.  I lead a blessed life, not because it's all been easy, but because there were moments in there where I was given a choice between easy and correct. I chose correct.  If I were to write a book, which story would I choose? Mindless rants about how people drive, stare at their phones or just are assholes. Yeah, like that  hasn't been overdone on other blogs! inane photos of more geese, ducks, chickens and knitting. Oh you know  that will happen anyways, right?  Summer is summer. Tyranny of the shoulds ...

This is Nelly who has a baby gosling nestled under her wing with it's little head sticking out by her butt. Look closely and you'll see. I tucked this pipped egg under her wing 3 days ago and it hatched. Her eggs weren't viable. She's last years' gosling and they really don't get the hang of brooding and such until the 2nd year. We've got a few gals that are really good Moms; Luna is foster Mom to Elsa and she is just loving it. Molly is just a natural Mom who has always had good clutches of goslings. Nelly is slowly picking up what to do. The last 2 days we've had her segregated 98% of the time from the flock so that the gosling can get on it's feet, learn to eat and drink and learn who is Mom. Today they are out on the land checking out stuff. Nelly's got the jist of keeping the kid near her, but does not understand when the baby needs to have mom lay down so it can warm itself under her wing. She's very protective of her; attacked...