Kindling

Once upon a time I was at the forefront of computer typesetting. I worked for a very high class type shop. We got beta versions of hardware and software. First we used mainframe computers and typed in code. Then Macs came out and everything changed.

For the first 10 years I had a Mac, I knew everything about it. Then Jonathan came along. He was maybe 12 when he got a Mac. A week after he got it, he'd taken it apart and called me with a question I couldn't begin to answer. Shortly thereafter I stopped worrying about hardware - I had Jon for reliable tech support - and only concentrated on software.

For two years I moonlighted by typesetting math assessments at home. That involved knowing every small detail of 4 programs and how to coax them to work together. I loved the people I worked with, but working until the wee hours of many mornings, then getting up and going to my day job for many months finally pushed me over the edge.

I still go to work every day and have to know a lot about several programs, but I don't have to be the first to know everything. Mostly I'm happy to just get along and do a good job and try to produce a good product. "New" is not my favorite word. Anything with the name "Microsoft" on it is the epitome of nastiness, to be avoided at all costs.

This extends to gadgets. I have an iPhone and I've learned to use it for a few things, but I don't care about all its potential uses. I got my Kindle a couple of years ago, browsed the instruction manual quickly, and have used it successfully since then. But that does not make me an expert.

When Merlene was here a couple of months ago she brought her Kindle so I could help her figure it out. Once I set mine up, I forgot how I did it. I wasn't much help.

Today one of my coworkers came knocking on my door because she needed Kindle help. I told her I'd try, but not to expect too much. Kristen is the support person for an academic program with 30 participants. (Just for the record, these participants pay their own way, your tax dollars are not an issue.) Instead of buying a bunch of expensive books, each participant is being given the use of a Kindle with all the required reading material on it. It was Kristen's job to put all the books on 30 Kindles.

We spent at least an hour overanalyzing how to accomplish this task, and came up with 2 possible ways to do it. Kristen called Amazon's tech support to see what their recommendation was. I was soon reminded why I looooove my Kindle. The 30 Kindles were registered as a group. We downloaded the books to one of them through the Amazon store, then we simply woke up the other 29, and they synched with the first one. In about 30 minutes everything was ready to go and Kristen and I were singing Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?"

Kristen had intended to write a little "cheat sheet" for the participants to tell them how to operate their Kindles. We thought about what she should say and finally decided all she needs to do is pass out the machines, stand at the front of the room and hold up her own Kindle, pointing to the "on" switch, and say "this is how you turn it on." From there it's a no-brainer. Even Kristen and I figured it out.

Tomorrow I'm going to experiment with uploading pdfs from my computer to the Kindle. This will save the cost of printing and buying binders. Everyone in education is overloaded with binders full of training materials.

The Kindles that Kristen ordered are the $139 wifi only version. They are thinner and lighter than mine, very svelte, and I don't think that not having 3G access will be a problem at all. One improvement on the new ones that mine does not have is the capability to categorize the books I have stored on it. Mine are listed in alphabetical order, but I can't tell which ones I've read and which I haven't. I kept thinking, if I just had a couple of folders I could put those files in, life would be perfect. I might even get online now and see if there's a software upgrade for mine.

If you've been thinking about getting a Kindle, I'd like to put in another good word for these dandy little devices.

Gourd Gallery

The Sacramento Bee took some pictures at the Gourd Festival. Click here.

I wasn't there very long, but it sounded like everyone was having a good time. I can still hear kids hollering out in the Corn Maze. Hope their parents don't leave them there.

I spent my weekend cleaning and putting things under cover because it's supposed to rain tonight. Got a lot done, but one of the really wild roosters got loose and I can't catch it. I'll have to wait until Bob gets home from work, he's the brains of this outfit when it comes to animals.

The leghorn hen is doing very well. I had her out in the sun for a while this weekend. She's standing on her leg regularly, and it appears to be straight. I tried to do the best I could when I put the splint on it, but I have to admit seeing her leg just flopping around was pretty stressful, and I wrapped it as fast as I could. I'll try to ease her back in with her sister and friends in a couple of weeks.

The baby fuzzbutts have been in the mutt pen for a while now, but haven't figured out how to fly up to the perch every night. I have to pick them up off the ground and put them up on it. This is either a case of the animals training the human, or the animals learning the wrong sequence: "First we huddle on the ground right next to the gate, then the lady comes in and picks us up and puts us on the perch."

Blue Top, one of our horses, learned a wrong sequence when he was being trained to load in the trailer. He would walk up to the door, stand, turn his head around and watch and wait for someone to pop his butt with a broom, then he would walk in the trailer. The broom was Step #3 and he couldn't master the sequence by skipping a step. You didn't have to hit him hard, there was no fear involved, it was just Step #3.

I've been reading one of Temple Grandin's books about animals, so this week I find myself analyzing everything the critters do around here. I haven't got to the part about cats yet. I'm hoping for some insight into cat management. The Feliway had a good effect. For a while. But last week Charley jumped right up on the desk next to my computer and pissed a mighty puddle right before my eyes. ?? Was he on a suicide mission?

Gourd Festival This Weekend

At the Corn Stand, Saturday and Sunday.

There are lots and lots of blank gourds to buy, but also vendors with gourds that are already painted, burned, decorated, etc. Last year this was a lot of fun. Stop by and see me if you come to the festival.

Trying to Catch Up

I'm sure I've used this title in my blog before, it seems like I'm always trying to catch up.

The internet has been back on for a couple of days, but I had to go buy a new phone yesterday. The power surge fried the old one. I guess I should be glad that all we lost was a modem and a phone. It could have been something more expensive, like the refrigerator. The computers are all on surge protectors, but not the refrigerator. In comparison to the gas explosion in the bay area, our little power surge was nothing. I'll take SMUD (our local publicly-owned power company) over PG&E any day.

I had to take my new glasses back to Lenscrafters yesterday. They had switched the lenses. One pair is for driving and one for reading the computer screen. Melanie picked them out for me, so they are both very trendy and tasteful. The computer glasses, however, have big dark sides that block my view. They totally do not work for driving, which is what I ended up with. I went for almost 20 years with no prescription change. In the past 3 years my eyes have changed drastically, they just keep getting better and better, so the prescription I used to have for reading the computer screen is now for driving. ?? I don't know, I just say "thank you."

While I was at the mall I had to walk around and look at things. Not only are there shops along both sides on two levels, but there are booths down the middle of the walkway. At one booth there were some sort of cute little middle-eastern girls selling beauty products made from Dead Sea minerals. Yuck, that name is not a great selling point. The girls were very pesky, like gypsies. They'd reach out and grab a person by the wrist and drag them back to the booth, buffing the person's nails and yammering away with their sales pitch at the same time. They had two pitches: "I see you have your nails done..." for the women with nice nails; and "I see you do your own nails..." for the women without.

I've been using mine to dig in the garden. They look like little spades, with the dirt still under the nail. But the salesgirl just kept buffing them and talking away, until I had the shiniest filthy nails you've ever seen. She wanted me to buy a packet of care products for $105. Pleeeeease. Do you know how many garden spades I could buy for that much money?

Those of you who know me well will appreciate this picture:

The white truck is home! It was at a repair shop for 3 or 4 years (I've forgotten). I bought this truck new in 1978. It has only 120,000 miles. That's because for at least the past 10 years it only ran occasionally. My brother is going to take a look at it and make an official diagnosis. I only need it to pull the trailer and haul hay. Compared to the ranch trucks, many of which have 500,000 miles on them, mine still looks pretty good.

This morning I sat outside drinking a cup of coffee, though, and this is what I saw overhead.

The flock of local buzzards was buzzing around. It seemed like they were checking out the truck, I hope that's not prophetic. Or maybe something had expired in the fabulous corn maze.

Later, I found this cutie poking its little head up from a crack in the concrete.

A pavement petunia.

Technology Tanked

We've had no phone or internet service at our house for 3 days now.

I have to admit I didn't know the phone was inoperable until we tried to call the phone company about the internet and discovered there was no dial tone. Bob and I each have cell phones, the only reason I have the land line is that it's been there for over 50 years with the same number. And so I can get a sales call at least once a week from the guy who starts out, "Are your carpets dirty?"

Living without the phone was no big deal, but it was very hard to live without the internet connection. It makes you wonder what's going to happen if it ever goes out - worldwide. You just know someone's going to try that someday.

I was amazed at what I accomplished with no internet. I cleaned up junk, I cleaned out chicken pens, baked a batch of peanut butter cookies for the boys, trimmed trees, brushed the old cat for a whole hour, did the wash, and read a book.

The boys had a "Bad Movie Night" on Sunday. They have a screen (like a movie screen) that takes up a whole wall of the game room. Usually they route movies through the wifi from Netflix, using a laptop computer. This time they had to "tether" a cell phone to the system. I have no idea how that worked, but they were all out there howling in laughter until well past midnight, so they must have succeeded.

The book I read was book 3 of the "Girl" series by Stieg Larsson. A coworker loaned me book 1, darn her. I can't say these are the best books I've ever read, parts were even trying, but I still couldn't put them down. I was always worried about what was going to happen next to the girl. At one point Bob and his friends had gone camping in the mountains and I heard it might snow. But I didn't have time to be worried about THEM. I was worried until 3 or 4 a.m. about Lisbeth, a fictional character in a book.

Here are some things that are happening at home. I moved pigeon babies #3 and #4 into the Pigeon Inn again. This time they were fine and I've left them there. The fuzzbutt trio has been moved into the mutt pen, where they seem to be OK. I had to move 3 mean little bantam hens out of the mutt pen to accomplish this, however, which meant musical pens with almost every other chicken on the place. This morning they all woke up in different pens, and none of them were happy about it.

The pair of Taganrogs that reunited instantly when I put all the pigeons in the Pigeon Inn a month ago had one egg that hatched. The baby died, it looks like it was only a few hours old. This pair had not successfully raised a single baby in the 2 years they were together previously. I don't care if they don't have babies, it's not like I need more pigeons, but I HATE finding anything dead. Roger and his new wife have 2 eggs that should be hatching this week. Maybe that will be a happier story. In general, though, I have to wonder why anyone would develop a breed of pigeon that can't even raise its own babies.

One of the Texas Mountain Laurel seeds sprouted this weekend! I brought them home in March. I think this one finally sprouted because Merlene came to visit from Texas last month and it heard the Texas twang of her voice and felt more at home. Or maybe because it's hurricane season in south Texas and this is the time when seeds there are usually watered and encouraged to grow. Whatever, I'm so thrilled one has sprouted.

OK, I'm going to go now. I'm working on borrowed computer time. Hope my own network will be up this afternoon when I get home.

Emmy Lou or Joan?

In September, two of my favorites - Emmy Lou Harris and Joan Baez - will be performing in Napa. (For you furriners, that's about 90 minutes away from where I live.) Joan is Tuesday night and Emmy Lou is Wednesday night.

What to do? I'd like to see them both, but I hate that drive. How would you vote?

Emmy Lou?

Joan?

The only thing that could make this more difficult would be Linda Ronstadt on Thursday at the same place.

Katherine wants to go see Emmy Lou also. Anyone else before I buy the tickets?

Playing Bird Doctor/Psychiatrist

It was one of those trying weekends with the birds. I thought baby pigeons #3 and #4 were old enough to put in with the rest of the pigeons. I wanted to move the 3 brown fuzzbutt bantams that have been sharing the Pigeon Inn into the mutt pen at the same time, in case the baby pigeons needed to spend time on the ground. The fuzzbutts have been fine with the adult pigeons, they squabble a little, but nothing serious. And I also wanted to move the pen of young Leghorns and Anconas into the big Ancona pen. Of course Bob had left to go camping, so I had to do this (attempt to do this) by myself.

I caught the fuzzbutts, that's no problem, they fly into my lap. I put them in the mutt pen. They were there all day, but by evening they were getting fairly stressed. Alan (their daddy) didn't bother them at all, it was one of the bantam Dom females (one that used to terrorize her own chicks) who was pushing them around. 

By this time it was evident that the baby pigeons weren't happy in the big pen, either. Actual #3 was doing fine, but the little one, #4, came flying to me and perched on my head every time I went in to check on them. It's a very small bird, even though it's practically full grown.

Soooo, I put the pidgies back in their little pen. Had to put #3 back too, so #4 wouldn't be lonely. Then I let the fuzzbutts out of the mutt pen and they ran straight back to the pigeon pen. I let them in.

I had not moved the other youngsters into the Ancona pen. It was about dark when I went out to feed them and noticed one of the Leghorns was on her side. I reached in and picked her up and could see that one leg was flopping. It had been broken. Once I had hold of the pullet, I could not set her down. So, with her in one hand I went out to the storage shed and got the wire cage, dragged it across the yard and filled it full of soft shavings, then dragged it back into the house. It barely fits through the back door when I'm I can use both hands. The trash can by the door was full, the cage caught the edge of it and knocked it all over the floor.

I was trying to maintain a calm attitude and cheery voice so the pullet wouldn't just give up and die. Bob would you tell that care does not extend to injured humans, who are simply told to "get a grip."

I put the cage where it needed to be, and then with the pullet still tucked under my arm I stumbled off to find all my vet supplies and drag them into the kitchen. I got the leg splinted with old popsicle sticks and wrapped very nicely. Luckily the pullet had spent a lot of time in this same cage in the kitchen when she was a chick. She knows to look for mealworms and egg yolks and other good treats. So she's been very calm. She has spent most of her time on her stomach, but I've seen her standing a little bit, evidently she has figured out how to use the splinted leg.

Today I took off the outer layer of wrapping and added a finger splint that I got from Rite Aid. I extended the bottom of it past her foot, so she can maybe put weight on it. She's still pretty cheery.

I've only had Leghorns once before, and even though they were perfectly healthy, they always sounded mournful. I gave them to someone else because it just depressed me to have them around. Those were from a really good commercial layer line. This one is just from the feed store.

Couldn't I take the pullet to a vet? Sure. Our cat vet fixed a broken duck leg for me once. It was $600, he put a pin in the leg just like he would for a cat or a poodle. The vet at Wildlife Care later showed us how to use popsicle sticks, so I decided to give that a try.

What's the worst thing that could happen? The chicken might die? No, that's not the worst thing. What's worse is she would live but have some serious problem and need to be euthanized. I already have 3 of those in the backyard: one with a severely crossed beak from a raccoon injury, one with a twisted back and wry tail, and another that's blind. Any decent farmer would have put them down. Bob and I are not farmers, we're mushy animal lovers who live on farm land. We can kill vegetables and raccoons, and that's about it.

(NOTE: The 3 crimpled birds in the back yard are in no pain, they eat and function fine with some extra care. It's not like we'd leave an animal to suffer. But we'd argue hot and heavy about whose job it was to put them down, and then be totally creeped out for a few days after.)

Busy Wednesday

I finally made good use of a day off, and I didn't even have a plan, it just happened that way.

This morning I dropped by Katherine's to give her some books on CD. I got to meet her older brother and his friend from England. I read brother Doug's blog, so it was fun meeting him. Doug's friend Robin is the botanist who identified my weed, even though it's not native to England.

I left Katherine's on my way to the feed store. As I went through Wilton I suddenly realized it was Wednesday and that Wilton Garage would be open. Guess what? After 4 years (5 years? I forget) my truck will be coming home next Wednesday. It still doesn't work, they just parked it in a corner and there it's stayed all this time. That's OK, I didn't need it and couldn't have driven it until recently anyway. I'm hoping my brother is still interested in seeing what he can do with it. If Jerry can't fix it, it can't be fixed.

There's a new little feed store in Wilton. I stopped there to see what was going on. I already go to 2 really good feed stores, but like to encourage new businesses like this. We've lost so much to urbanization in this county, it's good to see something that's not another video store or pizza place. It was really fun talking to the owners. They have a 10 year old son who might be interested in showing poultry.

I stopped at the gas station on the corner and filled my tank, then decided to go inside to the Subway sandwich shop and get a spinach salad. While I was eating my salad, I noticed that the very good looking young fellow sitting next to me (where were you Katherine?) was wearing Vibram toe shoes. So I pulled my chair to his table and we talked shoes. He has exactly the same problem I've had: it takes a long time just to get the shoes pulled on. I was happy to hear that a strong young fellow has that problem. I thought I just couldn't get the shoes on because I'm old and feeble and my hands don't work very well.

This afternoon Bob helped me move the young Anconas into the big Ancona pen. They seem to be doing OK, but it just got dark and I'll need to go out and make sure they're on a perch and not all curled up next to the fence, where a raccoon could grab them.

My last chore of the afternoon was to wash all my bedding. The wind blew last week, I left the window open when I went to work in the morning and by that afternoon there was a fine layer of dust all over everything. I had put all the bedding in a corner until I had time to deal with it. I love my Hampton House comforter, but it has a white duvet cover that's hard for me to handle by myself. I don't know how the hotel maids do it. Maybe I should stop by a Hampton Inn and ask. By the time I get it put back together tonight, I'll be ready to climb right into that bed and sleep like a log.

Hope your Wednesday was a good one.

Hope

Farming is Messy

Lots of people do not realize that. One article I read yesterday about the salmonella problem with eggs reported that on the egg ranch, inspectors found large piles of chicken poo, rats, and maggots. I thought to myself, "yeah, so what?"

I don't like the way chickens are raised commercially for eggs. It's what happens in a free economy - the public demands cheap food, so it's supplied as cheaply as possible. Smaller farmers, who are often wiser and more careful about their products, can't compete. But if you really want better control over your food source, you are always welcome to grow your own.

I guarantee that when you do – when you build your little chicken tractor and put your 4 little hens in it, which I heartily approve of because I think chickens are WONDERFUL, you will soon discover the reality of chicken poo, rats, and maggots. Well, maybe not maggots because if the chickens can get to them, they will eat the maggots.

If you've grown your own tomatoes, you've already learned about tomato worms and had to make your own personal decision about pesticides. Do you spray? or do you pluck the creepy worms off the vines and eliminate them? (If you have chickens, you pluck the worms off the vines and give them to the chickens, you don't have to squish them yourself.)

I'm thinking these things this morning because yesterday was turkey hauling day. There is a turkey ranch nearby in Wilton. It's big, but not by factory farm standards, and it seems like a decent operation to me. I have heard that some of the turkeys raised there are sold at the standard market age of 18 weeks and others are kept and raised to the bigger market size. I have seen a similar "small" turkey ranch also in our area, and can report that the birds are well taken care of. Do they run free? No. Commercial turkeys don't run. But they are raised in large, light buildings where they have free run on the floors, with ample clean food and water. There are fans to keep them cool on really hot days.

When shipping time comes, it's my observation that this is done at night. First, it's cooler then. But it's also dark and the birds will be less stressed. They are caught and put into small shipping crates, it looks to me like maybe 6 smaller birds or 3 large ones, which are then put on a truck and trailer.

We can always tell the morning after the turkeys are shipped because there are white feathers along the highway. Sometimes there is other evidence. Sometimes the cage doors aren't properly fastened - or perhaps they work loose - and when the trucks come to the first turn from Wilton onto Hwy. 16, birds fall out of the cages.

If the birds are 18 weeks old, they're likely to still be small enough that their wings can break their fall somewhat. So you'll see confused birds wandering around near the highway, perhaps with a broken wing or leg.

But the BIG birds can't begin to fly. They hit the ground like turkey bombs. Splat! (Relax, I didn't take pictures.)

Yesterday I saw the first splat just beyond the corn stand. I always pay attention to road kill, it's how you find out what predators have been out and about, or who just lost a family pet. This time there was lots of blood, a few feathers, and nothing else. I pondered that for a few seconds, but just around the turn there was a huge mound of feathers still attached to a turkey bomb next to the road.

What's my point in telling you this? I know the turkey farmer takes good care of his birds. The profit margin is small, and every bird lost is profit lost, especially when you've invested time and feed for many months. But even when care is taken, bad things happen. It's bad enough to lose animals like that, but it's made 10 times worse when most of the people using the highway - city people who transplanted themselves out here - only see turkey splat and immediately come to wrong conclusions.

The turkeys, by the way, don't go to waste. It was early Thanksgiving for our resident coyotes and the family of vultures that lives in the trees near the highway.

You might be thinking about alternatives to commercially-raised turkey right now. Maybe you'll just do tofu instead. Maybe you'll raise your own. Good luck with that. Turkeys are not as hardy as chickens, especially the breeds that are raised commercially. If you raise a more traditional breed it won't have as much meat, and may take longer to grow. That would be OK, except that when you've raised a turkey for that long, you may get attached to it. Contrary to popular belief, turkeys are smart, and they can be fun to have around.

I haven't checked with Marta lately, but she can sometimes provide another alternative. She raises a small bunch of turkeys sometimes and will custom process them for people. You can be sure the turkey had a great life. It will cost you, and you may have trouble fitting it all into your oven, but I've heard Marta's birds are exquisite. Marta, let me know if you have birds to sell this year.

OK, it's my day off and I'm off to new adventures in the back yard. It's sure to involve dirt, bugs, and more work than it's worth, and I'm not even a farmer.