Ah, yes. Violet the gum chewer who did something stupid at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
While I might not have a three course meal with blueberry pie in gum form, I do have blueberries here at the ranch. Well, potential blueberries.
One of the blueberry bushes is taller than me.
That’s fine, though. I’ll haul a ladder out to pick them if I have to.
We’ll be awash in berries in the very near future. They freeze extremely well, so we won’t lose any of the harvest. I need to prune these back in the fall. They’ve had a wee bit of lack of management over the past few years, for obvious reasons. The same goes for the blackberries and raspberries: their canes need to be cut back after this season. I also need to run another trellis wire on my posts to train those. one more thing on the todo list!
Speaking of todo lists, I have been putting a dent in mine. I transferred all the “work” work stuff into a journal, and I’m working on getting the other items transferred over.
The only thing on my lists I have not gotten to is the reading. By the time I finish doing the normal daily things and some of the items on the lists, I am dog tired. i’m falling asleep at my desk as I try to get this done, so time to wrap it up. Tomorrow is another day filled with possibility. Until next time, peeps: be well.
After a pretty heavy storm back in July, we got a nifty double rainbow at the ranch: sharp, full colors, courtesy of Mother Nature.
I had been doing really well both with the daily blog posts and with the writing toward the novel, but got derailed because (as usual) I shift a ton of energy to all the things that are on the todo list – which of course never ends – for the business. By the end of the day, between the chickens, bees, and work on the property/in the gardens, and the work work added on top of that, I’m usually falling asleep at my desk.
So, I have to rein in the “everything has to be checked off every day!” portion of the brain and divert that energy into writing. I’ve recruited one of my sisters to act as an accountability person for me, just to ask me if I got my writing done each day around her bedtime hour.
I keep having specific scenes for books other than the one I’m working on primarily, and ideas for other books come zipping into my brain all the time. I suppose this is a good problem to have, Focus. Focus. Focus. Get the first one done. Then you’ll know you can do it, and the next one should be easier in reducing that gut-wrenching worry about finishing something. Anything.
True story about the arrival of the chicks (ten layer chickens, plus an additional free layer thanks to the hatchery, and ten for meat, if you have forgotten or are new – and if you’re new, hi!).
It’s kind of the same story about the bees and UPS, really, except the USPS tracking updates really, really suck sometimes.
I ordered the birds on the 30th. They hatched that very day, and McMurray Hatchery (see them for all your baby chicken needs!) packed the chicks and sent them out via the USPS priority mail. They kindly sent a tracking number, and on the 31st, the tracking indicated the package of peepers was at St Paul (McMurray is in Iowa), and “pending acceptance”. I have no idea what the hell that means, USPS. So, I checked throughout the day on the 31st, waiting for some kind of change to the status – like they’d been sent on to the next fulfillment center, for instance. Nope, nothing beyond the package being in St Paul.
Now, chicks can survive for several days, as they absorb the yolk from the egg and that sustains them. But if they get lost in the byzantine maze of the USPS centers, they’ll probably die.
On the 1st, I got up, did the usual morning things, and at about 9 AM I checked the tracking again. The status said: out for delivery, with a time on that status of 8:34 AM.
Believe me, gentle reader, when I say such statuses are complete and utter bullshit.
If you are getting livestock through the mail or via UPS, it’s highly likely that you will have to go to your local post office or the UPS facility to pick them up. It’s been true for the bees I’ve ordered over the years, and I was certain it would be true this time as well. I told several people I thought it was a lie.
At about 10:30 AM, we got a call from our tiny, rural post office, saying they had our chicks and please come get them. I hate to be the one who says “I told you so” but….
I made my way to the PO – which, by the way, closes for lunch for an hour at 11:30 AM most days – and got stuck at a train crossing as a freight train rumbled and clanked its way to wherever it was going. By the time I reached that point, it was a bit after 11 AM. As much as I love trains (I do love almost everything transportation-wise except cars) I was hoping it would get itself finished so I could get across the tracks to the main road to the PO – which is the second right after the tracks.
They got themselves moved along and I made it to the PO with time to spare. I checked in the box to make everyone was alive (they were), then secured them and headed back to the ranch. My sister and her kids had arrived at the ranch to do a little work before I made it back, so while it was not a surprise I was bringing back chicks, it was a surprise for my niece, who was not even born the last time we had chickens at the ranch. And this is how she reacted.
I don’t think there’s much in this world cuter than a kid meeting baby animals for the first time.
Also, for the record, the chick she put back in the box was just fine. It went into the brooder with the rest and they are all doing well.
Chick prep day whatever: today I braved Tractor Supply to lay in some stores for the chicks, due to arrive (probably) Tuesday. I’m sure the USPS will be much happier with a box of peeping chicks than packages of humming bees.
Anyhow, the local place was hopping today: I counted over a dozen other people there, including the stereotypical grizzled old cowboy, boots, hat, and a belt buckle that was rather impressive. He had a head full of white that nicely set off his deep tan – what could be seen of it, since he was also decked out in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. People may wonder about working outdoors, in Florida, in summer, wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts, but if you’re doing certain types of work (especially during mosquito season) it’s better to have more cover than less. He was not, alas, there to buy a new hay corral or have Big Jim (in my mind, there is always a “Big Jim” at a feed store or Tractor Supply) load up some heavy ass posts and giant rolls of cattle fencing because he was finally closing in that big piece of pasture, you know the one, on down past that new pond, right?
Nope.
Just a single item, maybe two, that I couldn’t even see from where I was in the line with my 50 pound bag of chick starter feed, some chick grit, and a new trough at the other register they finally opened to relieve Elaine (that was her name, actually), who originally had us about ten deep waiting to check out.
I also had to hit up Target today, looking for a couple of adapters. It wasn’t a horrible experience, completely, but that is one soulless, non-interactive place to be. I imagine it’s only a half step up from Wal-Mart, which I have not visited in well over 15 years at this point, thankfully. Not a single person talked to me – which is fine, I don’t exactly crave human contact – and as I went toward the checkout, the air smelled curdled somehow, as if someone had dropped a jug of milk that splattered everywhere but didn’t it get cleaned up all the way. Five days ago. Or it could have been the guy in line in front of me. Either way.
To top off my day, I had to go to Best Buy, which is now a riot of sound and gigantic active tv screens. They really, really, would like you to buy various appliances. At least the people are friendly enough, but the checkout takes forever because they want to see if you are in their system already. Whatever happened to the days of just buying the crap you need and getting out?
Also, I have to say that moving all the electronic detritus you’ve accumulated from one machine to another has to rank up there with the most tedious, annoying things you have to do. Even more annoying is when you realize you copied some of the outlook-related files, but not the actual PST file that you need to go on the new system. Argh.
Funny stuff from the folks who made the hanging waterers I bought (instead of making them myself because my time is money and I’ve got enough capital tied up in other things at this moment): they would like you to know they also sell nesting boxes – for the non-chicken initiated, these are where the chickens will lay their eggs, typically, although they will also lay them on the floor or, even more fun, under bushes/plants, where you won’t find them until much, much later, and one wrong move translates into a very big mistake involving the sulfuric aroma of rotten eggs. Anyhow, their illustrations just made me laugh, and perhaps you’ll get a chuckle, too.
It is true that chickens, once they start eating their own eggs, will often continue to do so unless they are physically prevented from doing it. There are solutions for that, but the best thing is to prevent them from doing it in the first place. Giving them good nesting boxes and collecting the eggs on a regular basis tends to do the trick. More importantly: no poop on the eggs! (In reality, with good nesting boxes of any sort, the eggs will generally be poop-free.)
As of yesterday, I had posted to the blog nine days in a row. Today makes ten. Go me.
At first, I thought I might just do something short and silly, like type the date and call it done. Interesting enough, I’ve found something to talk about, even if it’s of interest only to me. And even if it is only me interested, I’m okay with that.
I’ve also written – actual writing on the novel front – for five days in a row. As with the blog, at first I thought I might not have a whole lot to write toward the story – or at least, nothing that I’d be proud to point to and say, “This is not total shit.”
As with this here blog, though, it seems to be not terrible – the act of getting the words down or the words themselves. There will be things to fix, of course, and I can handle that. But if you never write it, it can never be really fixed, even if you think it’s perfect in your head. Excelsior!
I’ll leave you with two pics of a mystery bird my mom caught in the top of one of the trees in the rear of the property. It’s obviously some kind of heron, with that neck extension.
And here is the mystery bird leaving the ranch, neck retracted.
I’m not sure what it is about Tuesdays in tech. They are absolutely the worst day of the week, with weirdo requests and people not bothering to take in anything you’re telling them. For instance: we’ve just told someone how to set his email client so he can actually, you know, GET HIS MAIL. He’s decided to leave everything alone and only change if it becomes a problem. Sir, it already is a problem, so perhaps taking our instructions would be beneficial to your email operations completing properly. These things don’t magically cure themselves.
I have a theory about this phenomenon: I think people get back to work on Monday, blow through whatever it is they have to do, and by Tuesday are once again slacking off and leeching off their employers’ internet connections to do stuff related to their sites. It’s the only thing that makes sense given the sheer number of tickets on Tuesday versus other days of the week. Not that I’m knocking slacking off – if whatever you have to do is done, slack away. I have a suspicion that some people have not completed their work when they indulge their slackiness. Shame on them.
I don’t recall ever seeing this specific issue in the non-tech, in real life jobs I’ve had in the past. It may be that those jobs were just hellish all the time. Certainly the retail jobs I’ve held were pure hell, every day.
If this is as bad as it gets, user-wise, on otherwise normal days (no server crashes, network issues, etc.) then I guess it isn’t too terribly bad on this end. We could still dowith a little relief from the folks who are not inclined to take instructions to heart, though, regardless of the day.
I’ve tried a couple of times this year to post to the blog daily. It hasn’t always worked out, mainly because I didn’t put it too high on the priority list. That goes for my writing, too. That’s changing, though. This stuff needs to become a habit in the same way the other things I do are habits, and like some upcoming things (that I’ll details later) will be.
So here we are, trailing toward the end of the day, and here’s a post. Maybe it will just be a picture. Maybe it will just be text. Maybe it will be a combination of the two.
I’m editing a video of part of the hive inspections I did Friday and Saturday, and hopefully I’ll get that done before I completely run out of gas here tonight.
For now, I’ll sign off with this bit of brilliance, courtesy of Mother Nature.
I’ve never liked the “am I right” thing tagged on to stuff people say. It’s annoying and I think it should be retired along with “that’s what she said”, “I know, right?”, and the one I find the most annoying of all, “because (something).” We have the gift of words people. Surely you can come up with a “because” that illustrates what it is exactly, you’re trying to say.
Now, on to other business, and when I say slow up there in the title of this post, I mean the type of slow that happens when you’re waiting for time to pass in anticipation of an event. Like eating.
According to researchers, there are various benefits to fasting, and the latest one is that fasting – even for 24 hours – can help your body regenerate intestinal stem cells more quickly than it would otherwise.
Normally – and those of you who took anatomy and physiology may remember this – the cells in your intestines, just like in other parts of your body, but apparently fasting creates some kind of signal to hurry along the process.
So what’s the slow part of all this? Watching that clock, I bet, for most people, to see when that 24 hours of fasting is up so they can go right back to whatever it is they eat.
For me, I’m not going to be fasting any time soon. Not by choice, anyhow. My body gives me enough grief and times when I can’t eat as it is. I don’t need to help it along.
Here’s the first day of my “holiday weekend”. For those of you outside the US, today is Memorial Day here. Some years ago, it would signal the official beginning of summer for us here, and we’d have a giant party and feed a bunch of people. The kids (and some of the adults) would go swimming and everyone else would just be visiting with one another. That hasn’t happened in years now because we had a falling out with one group of relatives, and of course I’ve been sick on and off for over two years.
But here’s my day.
0730 Up, take care of the dogs, check their food and water, check the weather
0800 Breakfast and work
0915 Out to gather grass clippings from the beeyard and septic mound to add to my new compost pile
0945 Break for hydration and “work” work
1015 Out to sow the second round of green bean seed
1040 Break for hydration and work
1045 Weeding
1310 Break for lunch and work
1520 Wake up from falling asleep in my chair
1540 Feed bees and do inspections
1800 Bring in empty bottles and pulled hive bodies, put away tractor, detach wagon, close up shed, make shake with skyr added, meds
1815 Sit down at desk for feeding and work, empty camera memory card to computer
1825 Actually start feeding after playing with the dogs
1838 ACTUALLY start feeding after taking pictures and video of the dogs
1840 Realize just how much my back hurts now that I’m sitting down
1930 Back outside to bag weeds I turned up earlier today, before Alberto pays us a visit
2100 Back inside, treats for the dogs, refill their food and water
2110 Back to the beeyard to close the hive where I left the top propped open a bit, so there’s no chance of getting rain in there
2120 Make a shake, mix my meds, and taking care of business
2221 Power goes out, right when I’m making a response to a ticket, and Alberto hasn’t even arrived yet. Read on my amazon fire to wait it out
2249 Power comes back. Start the tedious task of booting up my system and then getting all my apps started once more, my screen layout in place, and get back to work
At some point doze off in my chair again
2340 Wake up, get some formula and some kefir, set up for another feed, do some more work
Doze off here and there
0130 Have an itching episode on the left side of my neck. Desperately try to scratch an itch that can’t be scratched; down a slug of benadryl before I wind up drawing blood.
0200 Bed
In other news, Alberto may be paying us a visit. Not in person, but from some of his hangers-on, the outer bands and what moisture he draws up from south of his center.
What a mess
We’re going to get some of it tomorrow, and possibly Monday, as well.
This is why I needed to take care of things I took care of today. Wandering around not doing anything in particular is a recipe for disaster here: you have to focus on what needs to be done (a TON of stuff) and how to prioritize it (take care of the bees before anything). And that’s how it went. It was a VERY productive day at the ranch. Tiring, but worth it.
I have a mound of horse poop (courtesy of a neighbor) in the southeastern area of the property that is heating and composting itself, but I wanted something nearer to the front (north) area gardens, so I started a compost pile there as well. It started off with kitchen scraps, paper, some leaves, downed branches I broke down. But now, it also has the grass clipping I mentioned up above, to get a better mix of green/brown material. This is how it looked after that work yesterday.
How the weeded row where the shelling peas and lettuces were, after getting through another weeding session – I literally worked until dark today, which was almost 9 PM.
How it looked in the dark after I had to stop because it was getting too hard to see, so I had to head in.
Another long, busy day in the books. Until next time, peeps: be well.
