Science

Being such a cold winter this year – it makes me really appreciate the few sunny warmer days we’ve had. I especially appreciate the days when I don’t have to chop ice. Not having a barn or fancy facilities with electricity and running water, I have to carry water out to the Boys twice a day – once before I go to work and once again when I get home. It’s not really that horrible of a job, but when you get used to chopping ice every day, things just seem *so* much easier on those days when I don’t have to… that being said, summer is much better when I can just run a hose over and top off the trough 

Depending on the time of day and how cold it is out, I’ll bring out anywhere from four to nine jugs of warm water out. On the really cold days, I just dump everything out of the buckets and give them all warm water instead of just warming up the cold water that was already left in the bucket. I don’t think the Boys really care one way or the other, but it makes me feel better.

 

I had a bit of an experiment running this winter dealing with their water – I was trying to find a way to keep the water from freezing as fast. In one of the forums I frequent, someone had mentioned that they used tires lined with hay to help insulate the buckets for their animals. As it happened, I had two old tires handy, so I thought I’d give it a try. Olliver and Merllin got the insulated bucket, while the rest of the guys didn’t. I was really amazed at the difference in the amount of ice that accumulated in each of the buckets… granted, the uninsulated bucket was up off the ground, which I am sure helped freeze the water a bit quicker, but there was still a really big difference between the two. When the uninsulated bucket had ½ - ¾” of ice on top, the insulated bucket only had 1/8-1/4” – which is quite a difference. Also, the uninsulated bucket would freeze along the bottom and sides while the insulated bucket never froze anywhere except on the top – and we’ve had multiple week-long stretches of temperatures that were in the single digits… I am definitely going to dig up a couple more tires for the Big Boys’ water for next winter.

 

  

 

I love the soft-sided buckets I use – especially for the uninsulated water. When the ice was getting thick along the sides and bottom, it was really easy to break the ice by tapping on the outside. Being rather rubbery, I didn’t have to worry about the bucket cracking in the cold along with the ice.

Who would guess that you could mix llamas and science?

Brrrrr!

So it’s been a bit chilly here lately.  The weather-people were calling it The Polar Vortex.  I called it winter.  Albeit a wee bit on the nippy side, but it’s winter - it’s supposed to be cold.  However, when I wake up one morning and the first thing I hear on the radio is that the temperature outside is only one degree warmer than the South Pole, I wondered if I should be concerned…

The three ‘normal’ shaggy guys seemed fine – the cold weather didn’t seem to be affecting them much at all.   I did notice Allbus, one of the suri llamas, was shivering a bit, which started me worrying.  I suppose it made sense – he didn’t have the really thick wool that the other guys have, so the cold would affect him more.  Strangely tho’, Olliver didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold, but I kept an eye on him.

What I ended up doing was making coats for the two of them.  Allbus got one made of two polar fleece blankets I picked up at the Salvation Army sewn together for lots of warmy-goodness and Olliver’s coat was made out of an old comforter I had.  Allbus was the first priority and therefore the guinea pig of my initial llama-blanket-making experiment.  Thank you so much to Dragonfly Llama for the pattern to get me started – it was perfect for someone (me!) on a limited budget.

What I learned from my first try:

- I learned that I love Allbus more and more every day    As usual, I was expecting the worse and tried to head off any possible fight/rebellion/resistance…  I let Allbus look at the coat.  He couldn’t care less about it.  I let Allbus smell the coat.  He couldn’t care less about it.  I kind of plopped it on his back so he could feel it on him.  He cared for about three seconds and then ignored it.  I figured at that point I would just go for it and put the thing on him.  He stood still for me the whole time I was figuring it out – I was very pleasantly surprised at how good he was 

- I learned that Velcro just doesn’t cut it with llamas.  I has sewn almost 2-foot strips on each strappy part, thinking that they would great for adjusting and being able to fit different size llamas if needed…  Not.  Even though I picked up the Heavy-Duty-Industrial-Strength Velco, it didn’t hold more than five minutes after Allbus started moving around.  I ended up temporarily using safety pins until I could find something better.  I finally decided on some cam-lock buckle thingies, which I found out are mankind’s greatest invention since the wheel.  They are so easy to thread and adjust – even with gloves on and they hold tight… I love these things!  I am so glad I picked up a bulk bag of them (cheap!) – I’m going to be using them for a lot of things in the future.

- I learned that Allbus must have a longer body than the llamas the pattern was made for.  I had to sew some extra onto the back of the coat so that his butt would be covered.  There’s nothing worse than having a draft on your butt.

The coat definitely helped and I honestly believe that he realized  after a short time that the coat was a really good thing to help keep him warm.

Olliver didn’t get his coat until a day later than Allbus.  Unfortunately, the weather had turned rather nasty and he didn’t get the luxury of having the option to decide if he would like the coat or not.  I pretty much just put it on him – I think I did it so fast, he didn’t even realize what happened 

The weather had warmed up since then (it went up over 30 degrees in two days  ) and the coats came off, which allowed to me make a couple minor adjustments so they would fit a bit better.
The temperatures dropped again the other day (this morning they said on the radio that we were colder than Fairbanks Alaska…) – I was glad that I was prepared this time and I think Allbus and Olliver were glad too.  They almost seemed happy to get their coats on 

Here are my GQ Boys sporting their toasty new look:

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

…And Then There Were Four

I think Pumpkin finally figured it out 

 

The lighter egg is from Pumpkin.  I’ve noticed that when the chickens are new to laying, the first few eggs are a lot lighter in color before they go to the nice rich brown color.

So the only two chickens that aren’t laying yet are Banana and Nugget.  I’ve read that cochins take longer to mature, so I expect that they will probably start up in the spring.

I should now be getting two dozen eggs a week, which is a lot more than my family or I can reasonable go through.  I would love to sell the extra, but I have no idea how to go about it.  I’ve seen people sell them in stands in front of their house, but to me that doesn’t seem very practical for only a couple dozen eggs.  The same goes for putting an ad in the Metro paper like I’ve seen.  I’ll have to figure something out before I get buried in eggs 

Anyway, the Ladies have become One with winter and the cold and snow don’t seem to be a big deal to them anymore.  They do like when I shovel the snow all the way down to the grass for them tho’… I guess cold, frozen grass and clover must still taste good…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For some reason, the Ladies seem to be fascinated with my shoes.  They always have to see if they are good to eat or not – they seem to forget every time they see them 

Crazy

Boy is it cold out! It's weather like this that I don't miss driving a truck for work. The worst part was the mornings. It was bad enough getting up early in the morning and getting into a cold car only to get to work and start over again getting into a cold truck. Brrrr. Nope. Don't miss that at all!

I've been grumbling about what I've been paying for kerosene. Today I picked some up and paid $3.99 a gallon. My sister in Batavia only pays $2.91 a gallon. I thought I was really getting ripped off until I stopped at Home Depot to pick up a few items. Just for the heck of it, I looked to see what they were charging - I almost fell over when I saw that they wanted over $42 for a five gallon container! And that was their 'New Low Price". Yikes!!! Don't get me wrong - I love my Home Depot, but *that* is crazy.

I love that you can really tell that the days are getting longer now. When I get out of work now, it's still very light out. I feel so much more like doing things when I get home now. After my last post, I am really getting the itch to start up my garden again :)

And after my frustration of not being able to find particular pictures I was looking for, I took some time over the past couple of days to organize my picture files. I was sad to see that I did not take very many pictures in 2008 in comparison to previous years. I need to start taking pictures again. I still wasn't able to find the pictures I wanted, but I did find a lot I had forgotten about. I have to say that looking at pictures on my computer just isn't the same as flipping through a photo album. I miss my Mittsy.

Where Does the Time Go?

Has over a month past since my last entry????? Yikes!

I need more hours in the day to get done everything that I would like... ~sigh~

What's been going on over the past few weeks:

• I started a new job. I absolutely hated the old one. I've never really hated a job before. So far, I think the new job is a good fit. I'm still getting used to the schedule.
• With some help, some more work got done on the house - I still have miles to go tho'...
• I learned that it takes less time to fly to (and from) Poland than it does to fly to (and from) Idaho.
• I am totally sick of hearing about Hillary and Obama. And the election isn't until November. God help us all.
• I cannot believe that CBS took Jericho off the air.
• Spring must be here. I saw my first robin last Saturday.
• My Mom and sister outdid themselves for Easter dinner - yum!
  
• My nephew is getting bigger and bigger every time I see. I am pleasantly surprised to see that he is a pretty happy baby - he doesn't cry every time I look at him (like most babies do) :)

It seems like every weekend is filled to the brim. This weekend is going to be a fun weekend instead of a We-Have-To-Get-Stuff-Done weekend. Saturday is the art museum and dinner with some friends and I'm hoping for decent weather on Sunday so that we can participate in Maple Weekend.

I usually don't mind winter, but I am just soooo ready for the warm weather to get here already.

Laura sent me this, and I thought it was absolutely great:

Eco-Shapes???

I've been pretty lucky... I haven't been sick in a long time - probably four or five years at least (not counting my back problems). The past couple of months, it seems like I've been having health issues pop up one after the other. Not feeling good is so not fun. It's even more not fun when you get a long weekend off from work and end up spending most of it home in bed hacking up a storm. Ugh. I think next year, it's time for a booster flu shot.

I am not a water drinker. Everyone I know thinks I'm crazy because I don't like to drink water. I think everyone is crazy because they do like to drink water. I really don't understand why. It tastes awful - and it doesn't matter if it is bottled or from the tap. Yuck. However, that being said, I decided for a little while to try drinking water to see if it would help me feel better health-wise. I couldn't say if it helped or not - my experiment didn't last very long. I repeat: water = yuck.

During my short-lived water drinking trial, I did come across something that aroused my curiosity: Who came up with the term 'Eco-Shape Bottle'? I would understand an 'Ergonomically-Shaped Bottle' or even an 'Eco-Friendly Bottle', but 'Eco-Shape'???? What a dumb name.

One of my chickens has started laying eggs again - I hope that means that spring is around the corner. I usually don't mind winter, but this year is beginning to border on ridiculous. It's the wind that makes everything so miserable - I'm really tired of wind chills constantly in the single digits. What good is winter if you can't go out and enjoy it? I'm ready for spring.

I did get treated to see Stomp over the weekend at Shea's. I haven't been to Shea's in a really long time - the theater was just as fancy as I remembered. And even tho' I wasn't feeling 100%, I still enjoyed the show a lot. I've wanted to see Stomp perform for a quite a while, and I'm glad I finally got to. Thanks again Randy :-)

Even tho' this video is old, I just came across it again. I still find it as funny as I did the first time I saw it.

Anniversaries

Today was the anniversary of the Blizzard of '77. A bunch of emails have been going around with pictures of the storm, but the best composition I've seen is here...



I didn't hear anything about it on TV or on the radio today at all. I thought it was kind of weird. Even tho' it was so long ago, usually someone mentions it somewhere... Maybe everyone is just trying to forget about it already. Right now, I'm just happy that there was finally a break in the cold spell we've been having. I think it was in the 30's today. Yay!

And speaking of anniversaries, Legos turned 50 today. I never got to play much with Legos when I was a kid - they were too expensive for us. I had the knock-offs, tho', and they were a lot of fun. I remember trying to collect enough to build a wall in the middle of my bedroom. I never got too far with that. Anyway, right now the coolest thing Legos have out is the new Indiana Jones Legos. Who wouldn't love to have their very own Lego Indy?

And in case anyone cares: Clothes I can't breathe in didn't change my luck in Killer Bunnies :)