Wordless Wednesday

A to Z Meme

I got this from Stephanie 

A. Attached or single? Single

B. Best friend? My sister

C. Cake or pie? Pie!

D. Day of choice? Saturday

E. Essential item? Hope and humor

F. Favorite color? Green

G. Gummy bears or worms? Swedish Fish  :)

H. Hometown? Cheektowaga, NY

I. Favorite indulgence? Staying in bed until noon

J. January or July? July

K. Kids? Nope

L. Life isn’t complete without? Chickens!

M. Marriage date? A long, long time ago…

N. Number of brothers and sisters? Two

O. Oranges or apples? Apples

P. Phobias? Is fearing bad health a phobia?

Q. Quotes? … Because the alternative is unthinkable

R. Reasons to smile? Completed projects

S. Season of choice? Autumn!

T. Tag 5 people. Ummm… no.

U. Unknown fact about me? Nobody knows!  (it’s unknown – get it?)

V. Vegetable? If you consider tomatoes a vegetable, then tomatoes; if not, then corn

W. Worst habits? Procrastination

X. X-ray or ultrasound? X-ray I guess – I never had an ultrasound

Y. Your favorite food? Either fettuccini alfredo with broccoli or coleslaw

Z. Zodiac sign? Scorpio

Day of Failed Experiments

Today was the day I decided to try and hypnotize one of my chickens.  I wasn’t very successful -  they make it look a lot easier in the video than it actually is. 

I chose to use Cinnamon for the experiment…

…and it is a whole lot harder than you would think to get a chicken to put her head under her wing.  After trying for a few minutes, I gave up – I didn’t want to stress her out too much.   But I did ‘swing’ her a bit before letting her go and she didn’t seem to mind that at all.  Either that, or she didn’t fuss because she was scared out of her mind 

I’ll try again, but with a different chicken and see if I can get it to work…

 

And last week, a friend sent me this video:

 

I thought it was pretty cool and wanted to give it a try, so today I did.

It doesn’t work 

This ‘n That Thursday

• So Tuesday evening I sent an email to my antivirus company, AVG, asking for help figuring out why it was blocking my blog…  When I got home Wednesday, I was very happy to see a reply from them (sent at noon!) informing me that they had fixed the problem.  How great is that?  That was the first time I ever had a problem with my AVG Antivirus and Internet Security software and I couldn’t be happier with how quickly it was handled and resolved.  What a difference from Norton or McAfee – I always had issues when I was using either of those programs.  I’ve been using AVG for over five years now and plan to keep on using it – way to go guys! 

 

• Also on the subject of blogs, Becky from Clarence Grad 72 found out that both our blogs will be safe from whatever services that Blogger will be ending as of tomorrow.  What a relief!  Thanks Becky 

 

• Looking at the calendar, the second-most expensive time of year (after Christmas, of course) is coming up…   Over the next bunch of weeks I have three birthdays coming along with a Communion party.  I really need to find a decent paying job 

 

• I found another use for my eggs 

 

Wordless Wednesday

Irony?

245 years ago yesterday, the Stamp Act was passed.

They say that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it…

Not Happy

Today was not a happy day.

I was not happy about the health care bill passing.

I was not happy to see that I must have spilled bleach on my favorite pair of jeans.

I was not happy to see that I must have spilled it on one of my favorite sweat jackets, too.

I was not happy about the weather.

I am not happy about the fact that my antivirus software seems to think that my blog is some kind of threat to the world…  I can’t find anything about what ‘type 760’ means.  After I got my page opened, I check all my links for all the postings that come up on  the main page and they are all fine.  The only ones that give me a problem are the ones that link back to older entries.  Feh.  I’ll try and figure it out tomorrow.

 

I’m going to talk about something that is not not happy.

Did you know that there is a world-wide seed repository?

There is and it’s located in Norway, 810 miles from the North Pole – it’s called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.  It’s supposed to provide insurance against the loss of plant genetics in the case of any kind of catastrophe. 

 

I guess there is some controversy behind the facility and it’s real purpose, but I think it’s a great idea – but I was very surprised to learn that it existed.  It’s really interesting to read about the construction of the facility and the precautions taken to protect the valuable contents.

Hoops

Every year I always get my garden going a lot later than I hope.  This year is going to be different – I’m going to be ahead of the game!

This past week I put together a small mini-hoop house in one of my garden beds.  My plan is to start some seeds this coming week, and when the plants get big enough, keep them out in the hoop house until it’s safe to plant them in the ground.

 

Easy peasy - I kept it really simple…  I used some scraps of PEX tubing I had leftover from installing my radiant heat system, some pieces of rebar and some zip ties.   I pounded the rebar into the ground and just slipped the PEX over them.  By using the zip ties for the brace on the top, it’s going to be really easy to take down and apart when it’s not needed anymore.  I have leftover heavy weight plastic from another project, so my only cost was for the rebar (10 x .87).

I have all the seeds I want to plant except for two… I know where I want to order them from, but I am waiting to see if I can can a free shipping deal first.

The other project I want to get done this week will then be getting a fence around the garden area to keep out the Stupid-Evil-Garden-Eating rabbits out this year.  The most inexpensive thing I could find was plastic garden fencing, so that’s what I’m going to have to use.  It won’t be the prettiest thing, but hopefully it will do the job    I’m hoping the weather will cooperate this week…

This ‘n That Thursday

• Six!  It’s official – all of my chickens are laying eggs now… today was the first time I collected six eggs in the nesting box. 

 

• Has anyone heard any of the speak that Blogger will not be supporting some blogs as of March 26th?  I saw a few blurbs mentioning it here, here and here, but I have no idea if any of what they say applies to me.  Not that my blog is anything earth-shattering, but it’s mine and I’d really hate to lose it.  It’s fun going back and seeing how things have changed over the couple of years since I started.  Being uncertain of what’s going to happen, I made a blog over at WordPress and copied everything there – as a kind of backup.  I haven’t done anything to make it pretty over there, but I don’t really plan on using that site for anything except as a backup.  At least for now.  Maybe someday when I am bored, I’ll work on that site – but I don’t really expect any traffic over there, so I’m not too worried about it.  Unless something happens to my Blogger account…

 

• What if you were the last person on earth?  What would you do?  Realistically.  Wow 

 

• I got my Census questionnaire  in the mail yesterday - a week after I got my notice from the Census Bureau telling me that they will be sending me a Census questionnaire.  What a waste of taxpayer dollars.  I guess if you don’t want someone knocking on your door, you’d better send it in…

 

• This weekend is the first Maple Weekend!  There is nothing better on pancakes or French toast than real maple syrup.  Not to mention maple candy – YUM!  Support the local Maple producers and visit a farm or two this weekend or next… the weather is supposed to be good Saturday  

 

• And speaking of trees, did you know that thirsty trees make noise?  I’ve heard of plants screaming before, but never this 

Wordless Wednesday

Teeny

My chickens are messing with me for sure…

Remember Super Ginormous Egg?

Well this week I got it’s counterpart:  Teeny Egg

The egg on the left is a normal size egg for contrast…

   

 

 

It’s so cute, I really don’t want to break it open 

Boring?

So I visited Wordle, and this is what it thought of my blog:

I’m not sure what to think about it… 

It’s not really that exciting.  

I suppose that’s a reflection of what I post here.  Although with all the posts I have about my chickens, I don’t know why they didn’t show up in there somewhere 

Maybe I should start blogging about more exciting things like sex, drugs and alcohol and see what comes up…

That would make me seem more exciting, wouldn’t it?  

Too bad that’s just not me…

Pi Day

Happy Pi Day to everyone!  Today is Pi Day…

I was introduced to Pi Day a couple of years ago, and I think it’s a really fun idea.  I got to go to a Pi Day party, which was pretty much just a really fun night of friends, games and lots of pies (everyone was supposed to bring one).  I wouldn’t mind going to a Pi Day party again.  Maybe someday when I get my house fixed up, I could host one of my own 

 

It’s been a pretty busy week.  Not a lot of interesting things going on, but just a lot of running-around-need-to-take-care-of-stuff busy which didn’t leave a whole lot of time for fun things like blogging.  I am sooooo far behind on my reader – it’s going to take a while to get caught up again.  A little more extra running around to do next week, but then hopefully things will get back to the normal old boring routine…

 

The Ladies are soooo happy that the snow is gone and can they can now wander the yard at their leisure looking for tasty treats to eat.  They figured out that worms are very easily found in and around the biggest puddles in the yard.  I watched one of them chomp down a worm that was way bigger than any I would have expected to see this time of year…

 

As my friends and family all know, I am a big fan of OK Go.   I love their innovativeness and quirkiness.  I love their first two albums.  I discovered them years ago when I came across their Backyard Video of A Million Ways, which became viral (this was a video of the band practicing for a concert that was never meant to be seen by anyone but themselves, but somehow made it out on the internet – people all over copied the routine for talent shows and weddings and stuff like that).  Their famous Treadmill Video was supposed to be something that could top that, and top it, it did!

OK Go has a new CD out, but I’m not so sure if I really like their new stuff.  I haven’t been crazy about what I’ve heard so far, but we’ll see.  However - they have a couple new videos out with their new songs, and I have to say that the one for This Too Shall Pass is pretty impressive.  I don’t think I would have liked the song without the video, but the video is making me like the song – if that makes any sense.  I know it took months to put their contraption together, but it was worth it - it is AWESOME! 

 

Wordless Wednesday

150,000

Last week the Jillmobile hit the 150,000 mark.  Whenever my truck hits a milestone, something is always bound to go wrong – and go wrong it did.

Over the weekend, one of the pulleys on the engine broke.  Of course the shop didn’t have the part and had to order it.  Hopefully it will be in tomorrow like they said it would be and I will have my truck back in the afternoon 

I’m figuring that between the repair and the car rental, I’m going to be dishing out about $500.

Yippee! 

Not.

R.I.P. Kitty

I mentioned a while ago about a couple cats I had hanging out on my property.  I pretty much decided that I would let them be, but I did want to get them fixed so that I won’t have to worry about a million kittens all over the place.

I had noticed over the past few snowfalls, only one set of cat prints around.  I figured that one of them had decided to move on to greener pastures in someone else’s yard…

Today I found one of the cats – the smaller/younger one.  It was tangled up in an old tarp I had outside.  I really feel horrible about the sad fate of the kitty.  It was a very pretty cat too – a gray tiger stripe…

I’m sorry kitty.  Rest in peace. 

Peeved

I like to watch Bravo TV, but I’d like to know what’s up with the foreign hosts they’ve been using for the shows lately?

When Project Runway was on Bravo, they had Heidi Klum (she still hosts the show on Lifetime).  I like her as a host – she has a heavy German accent, but she is still perfectly understandable… and she’s pretty.

Then they have Tabatha’s Salon Takeover hosted by – well, Tabatha.  From Australia, she too has a big accent but is still very intelligible.

But then they bring along Chef Academy with Jean Christophe Novelli, who had a thick French accent… while I liked the show, I had a hard time understanding anything the guy was saying – thank goodness for the subtitles.  And the people on Shear Genius – I have no idea where they are from, but they speak English like they have marbles in their mouths.  They couldn’t find someone that speaks clear English for the host?  Fortunately none of these, except maybe Project Runway, is “must see TV” for me, but I sure hope this won’t be a continuing trend.

 

And while I’m complaining about TV – I hate Verizon’s ‘Big Red’ commercial…

 

It illustrates perfectly why I hate texting.  Everyone I know who texts, does exactly what you see in the commercial – ignoring the real people around them while they are busy tapping away at their phones texting to lord-only-knows-who.  Texting is one rudeness I have no tolerance for.  While I may not say anything directly to the person who’s texting while they should be paying attention to something/someone else, they drop way down on my Respect List.  My blood pressure goes up every time I see this commercial.

Super Ginormous

Every once in a while (as I’ve mentioned before) one of my ladies will lay a really huge egg.  This week I got the monster of monster eggs – I have no idea how such a big egg could possibly come out of one of my chickens 

Here is the ginormous egg I shared last time:

     

 

This is the one I got this week:

   

 

This one is over 1/2-inch bigger than the last Monster Egg!

The color of it makes me think that either Banana or Nugget laid it.

All I can say is “Wow!”     And “Yum!” 

 

This ‘n That Thursday

• Today is Parade Day.  (March forth (fourth) – get it?  )

 

• I had the chance to attend an event at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in downtown Buffalo.  I haven’t been there before and it was really nice.

 

• What’s up with the move to get governor Patterson out?  I’m not a fan, but sheesh – he’s not being accused of anything that every other politician isn’t guilty of.  Let the guy stay in office until December…  nothing more or less will get done if he’s there or someone else.

 

• Chickens prefer to walk in squishy mud than on crisp, clean snow.

 

• I haven’t tried the chicken hypnotizing thing yet – I want to wait for nicer weather…

 

• Got my taxes done.

 

• Spring must be getting close – I’m smelling a lot of skunk while driving around the past few days and I’ve been seeing a lot more lady bugs around the house…

 

• This was on Jennifer’s site and I feel soooo bad for Misery Bear 

 

Wordless Wednesday