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Posts Tagged ‘Sunset’

Diary #717

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on March 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

On Sunday, I moved the pullets into their “playpen” in the henhouse, then cleaned up all their mess in the bathroom.  Of course I then had to check on them a number of times to make sure they knew where their food and water were, and that their pen was secure from intrusion by the adult hens.  I already “trafficked” the two remaining sapphire gems to the farm down the road last week, and none of the remaining ones are nearly as aggressive as they were; still, chickens are chickens so I still worry a bit.  The books say they’re able to maintain their body temperature pretty well by the end of two weeks, but I always wait three and give them a good heat lamp; still, I tend to fret enough that I felt the need to check on them before I go to bed the first night.  I needn’t have worried; when I went out there about 1 AM Sunday night/Monday morning, they were busily running around the pen rather than huddling together for warmth under the lamp, so it’s fine.  And the predicted lows every other night this week are higher than last night, so even better.  Still, it’s funny; after having them inside for three weeks, I’ve gotten so used to them that all day Sunday and yesterday I kept imagining that I heard them peeping.  Oh, and I think it’s obvious now that the little one is of a different breed, apparently a bantam breed.  Well, as long as she lays eggs I’m not concerned about it.

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Diary #716

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on March 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

On Saturday I expanded the chicks’ nursery so they have more room to run around until I move them into the henhouse on Sunday; they always grow like weeds, so it isn’t surprising that they’re trying to fly up to the top of the wall and the food and water dispensers.  What is surprising is the variation in size of these chicks; usually they’re pretty hard to tell apart unless one has some kind of distinguishing mark, but this time the largest is noticeably bigger than the second-largest, which is in turn noticeably bigger than the smallest.  I’m not sure why that might be; it’s of course possible that one of them is male even though I bought pullets, because mistakes can happen.  But that wouldn’t explain why there are three different sizes.  The smallest one has a lot more white markings on her dorsal side, and the largest has almost no white at all; in conjunction with the size differential, I’m wondering if they might actually be related but different breeds which only look alike as chicks.  Oh, well, we’ll know soon enough; it’s interesting to have things be at least somewhat different this time, as long as they’re all female!

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Diary #715

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on March 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Even though I have chicks every year, and intellectually know how fast they grow, I always manage to be surprised by it.  Take a look at last week’s video, then look at this one; they were taken only 8 days apart, on March 1st and March 9th.  And by the time I wrote this post last night, they’ve developed still more and are now fluttering up to the tops of their food and water dispensers.  They’ve begun to throw shavings around, so I now have to clean their water several times a day, and it won’t be much longer before I start finding the thing absolutely clogged with shavings every time I go in there.  This weekend I’m going to expand their enclosure to double their area, then on the 24th they’re scheduled to go into the nursery in the henhouse; it’s a good thing we’re supposed to have a week without rain starting tomorrow, because I need to get the henhouse cleaned and the nursery ready before the 24th.  Oh, and the old blues need to be out before then as well.  I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it’s only once a year.  And totally worth it for a copious supply of fresh eggs.

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Diary #714

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on March 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Some of y’all may remember that since chickens only lay for 2-3 years, I rotate between three different colors (red, white, and dark) so it’s easy to tell which are the oldest (and therefore ready to cull).  This year, it’s the blue troublemakers’ turn; since they’re quite aggressive and not especially good layers, I decided not to get the same breed again.  But these black beauties are supposed to be good layers with a calm temperament, so they may be just right.  I tried several times to get a good video of them, but since this was taken the day after I got them home, they may not have been fully settled in yet; next week y’all get to see how fast they grow, and in the meantime I get to enjoy their cuteness every time I go into the bathroom.

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Four Times Four

Posted in Biography, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , on February 29, 2024| 1 Comment »

This is the fourth leap year since I’ve started the blog; since it doesn’t come around often, I once again looked back at the last one for guidance and was reminded that in that column, I answered some questions I’d asked in 2016 and wrote, “Will I be around to answer these same questions on February 29th, 2024?  Only time will tell.”  Well, obviously I am around to answer them, so let’s look at them again, shall we?

Will I still be posting every day, or will I have wound down somewhat?  How many new books will I have written?  Will I still be living in Seattle?  What will my income be like?  What new experiences will I have had?  How well-known will I be?  Will the “sex trafficking” hysteria be over, as I predicted just before th[e 2012] Leap Day?  Will I even be alive?

I’m still posting every day, but making it easier to decide what to write by now featuring a much larger number of regular weekly or monthly features than in the past, and by re-using older content which long-time readers may have missed or forgotten, and newer readers haven’t seen.  I’m at six books now; I have several more in the works, but I haven’t had the energy to finish them and get them ready for publication; here’s hoping I can find that energy in the near future.  I’m now living full-time at Sunset, and let my Seattle apatment go last year; it was rather sad, but it was the right thing to do.  My income is much lower than it has been for many years, but so are my bills; thanks to a large donation from a generous reader, earlier this month I was able to eliminate an annoying standing debt incurred from finishing the annex project, so now I’m back to the blissful state of “no standing debt” and will do my best to stay there.  I’m probably less well-known now than I was 8 years ago, partly due to blogs being largely replaced by podcasts and YouTube series and partly because everyone has their 15 minutes and it has to end sometime.  The “sex trafficking” hysteria is at last over, though of course the terrible laws it spawned won’t go away for decades, if ever; though politicians and profiteers still use “sex trafficking” as a handy excuse for tyranny, other excuses have become more fashionable and at least the endless stories about idiots with taped mouths parading around to “raise awareness” of cops’ wanking fantasies have largely dried up.  And as for new experiences, I’ve finally had the best one of all:  after so many years of sturm und drang, I’ve at last found peace and a measure of contentment.  And if I’m still writing this blog in another four years, that will be very difficult to top.

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Diary #713

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on February 27, 2024| 1 Comment »

Regular readers know that every year, I look forward to the arrival of baby chicks around the end of February.  Last week the manager at the local Tractor Supply told me they would be arriving on Wednesday, so I made plans to buy mine on the following Monday (yesterday).  I got out the chick corral, brought the heat lamp and a fresh bulb in from the henhouse, and started keeping Speck out of the bathroom (where she often likes to hang out because we keep it warm).  But when I got to the store, they’d already sold out!  It’s not really a big deal; they’ll be getting more tomorrow, and I have to go back to town on Thursday anyhow, so I’ll just buy them then.  It isn’t like it really matters if I get them in the first week of March rather than the last week of February; they’ll be inside for three weeks regardless, and as I’ve been keeping chickens for almost 20 years now, I’m not exactly going to plotz from anxiety if I don’t get them quite as early as expected.  Plus, as a middle-aged-heading-rapidly-toward-old woman, one would hardly expect me to get as excited as I do about a box of baby dinosaurs in my lavatory.  And yet I do; I reckon it’s part of my charm.  Or a symptom that I’m actually a bit of a kook where animals are concerned.

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Diary #712

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on February 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We’ve come to that part of the winter where the monsoons are past, but there’s till too much rain for the paddock to dry up; this means there’s mud everywhere, especially in areas frequented by the animals.  Every day when I go into the chicken yard, Shiloh and the pigs come to the fence to beg for corn; I used to toss it on the north side, but the mud there has now become so bad that I started throwing it on the south side instead.  However, as you can see in this photo, that’s pretty muddy as well, and I don’t foresee it getting much better until the rain slacks off some more and the air warms up.  Once we get into spring, the growing grass sucks up a lot of the rain so the ground isn’t nearly as soft, but until then it’s all muck, and it gets all over everything.  Good thing I got some new Wellies for Christmas; anytime between Halloween and Easter, I don’t dare step off of concrete without them.

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Diary #710

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on February 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

You’d think after doing this blog for more than 13 years that I would remember to take pictures of noteworthy things for my diary columns, but noooope.  It’s not that I’m getting forgetful in my old age; I’ve always been bad about taking pictures.  Well, not bad exactly; it’s just that when I’m doing stuff I generally think about what I’m doing rather than about documenting what I’m doing.  So even though I made gumbo and potato salad and king cake on Friday (because I need to do it at least once in a carnival season), nary a photo did I take.  The cake was gone by Sunday night, and while there’s still leftover gumbo (because my sister’s recipe makes a big pot), cold leftover gumbo in a covered bowl in the fridge does not make a very good picture.  Nor does leftover potato salad, king cake crumbs, or an empty pot.  And it would just be silly to put a picture of something completely unrelated here.  So I’m going to re-use this picture of the last of the gumbo I made two years ago at this time, when I also forgot to take pictures until it was basically too late.  Well, at least I’m consistent.

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Diary #708

Posted in Diary, tagged , on January 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Last Tuesday, I went to town to buy a replacement filter for our heater; Grace checked the websites for Wal-mart, Home Depot, and Ace hardware, and told me all three carried the correct one.  So naturally I assumed I could just pick one up and we’d be back in business.  Silly me; when I got to Wal-mart (where I needed other things anyhow), I was informed that the item was only available online.  So before I went driving all over town looking for it at the other places, I had Grace call them to talk to actual human beings; Ace stopped carrying them several years ago, and Home Depot was out.  We could easily order more filters from Amazon, but I didn’t want to wait until they arrived to take a damned shower, so we decided to simply buy a bolt to use as a plug.  Good idea, but Home Depot had nothing with a coarse thread, nor did the nearby plumbing supply store; fortunately, the guy there suggested a hydraulic parts dealer, and he had it.  Total cost (uncluding the teflon tape) under three bucks, and we got to take hot showers until the filters came in on Friday.  But after we replaced the plug with a new filter, I stowed this inside the pipe housing so the next time a hard freeze is predicted, we can pre-emptively remove the filter until the danger is past.

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Diary #707

Posted in Diary, tagged , on January 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

As you can probably guess from the label, this is a water filter.  Or rather, was a water filter; it’s not supposed to be cracked apart like that.  Propane-fueled on-demand water heaters need to be placed or at least vented outside, so I knew I’d need to insulate the water pipes to and from the heater, and I did.  I just neglected to insulate the damned filter, because I figured being inside an insulated enclosure right next to the heater would be protection enough; obviously, I was wrong.  Now, we had no problem at all last winter or the first part of this one; however, a rather nasty arctic air mass came in on Thursday, which meant the temperature got down to -9o C Friday night and never got above freezing Saturday, which was apparently too much for the insulated box, protective heater notwithstanding.  I left the cold tap dripping overnight, so the cold water line stayed clear; however, paradoxically, the hot line froze up (or more accurately, the filter on the cold feed to the water heater).  That of course means we had no hot water for showers for two days, until yesterday’s thaw revealed the problem.  Now, I left the electric on-demand heater feeding the kitchen and laundry room, so at least we could wash our hands and faces in hot water.  But you can bet I’m going to add heat tape to the pipes for the next time we’re subjected to this Midwest-level cold.  Ah, well; it’s the price one pays for building one’s own country home; it’s just that, as I was saying aloud (liberally spiced with profanity) while crawling around under the floor to make sure there were no other breaks, I am officially Too Old For This Shit.

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