Friday, June 29

Garden. Water. Connection speed

tomatoes_and_beans from our gardenThese are tomatoes and beans from our garden. It's doin' purty well this year. We've got the tomatoes of course (brandywine, show-me, Roma), and the Green-beans, but we're also growing sweet potatoes in a stacked-tire garden, pumpkins, and various other squashes. Also, we have some oregano growing, as well as some wild onions. I'm not a HUGE fan of tomatoes, but the slices that Rain served the other night were quite tasty. I guess I'm still just a little leery about eating too many because of a childhood breakout after eating some at a friend's house, that I tend not to eat them at all. So. I used to like them, so perhaps I can reacquire the taste for them again. Besides, I do like Ketchup! *grin*

This past Saturday we had some friends and their kids visit. We had an absolutely wonderful time. Just hung-out, talked, and messed around with things in the yard. Just enjoyed each other's company since it had been about 6 months since the last time we saw each other. I even got help figuring-out what was wrong with our swimming pool's pump. Turns out it wasn't the pump at all, just the switch that turns it off and on. Unfortunately, since they left, the filter control that sits on top of the sand filter blew it's gaskets. So now we're going to have to go to a place specifically for pool supplies and hope they have them. I tried to make one out of plastic, but the experiment only proved it's better to buy the appropriate washers than build your own.

Other than that, haven't been up to much. Got some rain yesterday afternoon/evening. Enough to fill 20 5-gallon buckets... twice. Well, that's not entirely true, although there was enough rain, I didn't have 20 buckets out until the start of the second round of showers. Filled-up a 20-gallon trash can, and still have several buckets that're full still sittin' out there. Not exactly sure what to do with all of that water. Probably use some fill the chicken waterers. Oh yeah, we are going to try and use some of it in the wash machine to see if the clothes come out softer. Will probably just use it for the rinse cycle... for now, unless it turns-out to be super easy, then we'd use it for the wash cycle as well.

For some reason, whenever it's raining, or has rained, our dial-up connection disconnects more frequently, and we have a hard time maintaining anything over 38-40 Kbps. Don't know if there's a box somewhere along the line that's getting water in it (or ours for that matter, I guess). Or if the road crews damaged a line when they were widening the road before they laid the chip n' seal last year. But it's only been recently that our connection speeds have dropped. You don't think Centurytel is punishing me for pushing them so hard to put repeaters in, do you? Nah, they wouldn't do that. Or WOULD THEY? Anyway, I wrote to them through their website, so we'll see what the scoop is.

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Wednesday, June 27

Baby chicks, and pictures (cats, candy, bugs, food, people)

ANNOUNCEMENT: We have at least 9 more chicken babies! Can't really see them well as their mom is VERY protective. Therefore I've got no pictures... yet.

But I am not w/o pictures. I recently figured-out how to take close-up pictures with my camera, so here are a few of the 'shots' I took.

Bet ya can't guess what this is. *grin*
pretzels-sm.jpg

Pretty self-explanatory.
m&m-small.jpg

This is Dally (short for Dalmatian - she's spotty).
dally.jpg

Kilala
kilala-sm.jpg

This is my wife.
Rain-sm.jpg

These are a couple of beetles that were in the house last night, and thrown back out unharmed.
june-bug.jpg beetle.jpg

The first one is a June-Beetle, and the 2nd I don't know.

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Monday, June 25

Name THIS bug?

Name this bug, please...

We saw this crawling in the grass and can only guess what it is. Baby Cicada (aka: Katydid)?

Click for bigger pic

weird_bug.jpg

weird_bug-2.jpg

weird_bug-1.jpg


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Friday, June 22

Summer Solstice. Doorframe Painting

For those of you who didn't remember, yesterday was The Summer Solstice. Or you could've called it what mainstreamers did... The First Day of Summer :-) We didn't do anything specific to celebrate the day, but we did go to the park for our weekly get-together of homeschool families. There was only 2 families besides us there, but we (the parents) pretty much just sat and talked for a couple of hours, while the kids played. My son and his best friend first played a game each on their Gameboy Advances, then they played on the long slide. My daughter pretty much just hung with we parents and listened, even though there were a couple of girls there pretty close to her age. *sigh* Well, once she gets to know them better, I'm sure she'll open-up, at least I hope so. Other than that we stopped at the store and got a couple more hope tickets, a bag of potato chips, and some wipies. *grin* Then we came home and did the usual (TV, video game, computer, chickens, cats, dog, etc). Since I had a headache, I laid down for a couple of hours with an eye-pillow over my eyes. Unfortunately after I got up I never really did regain any energy to finish painting the door frames (the final coat). I did THAT, this morning. Want to see? I thought maybe you did. *smile*

Front screen door frame before & After
frnt_bef-aft.jpg
Click to enlarge

Back door frame before & after
bk_bef-aft.jpg
Click to enlarge

And we've decided not to repaint the front screen door since the cats scratch on it whenever they want in, and probably won't paint the back door either, but may paint the framing around the window in coral, like some of the poles. *smile*

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Summer Solstice. Doorframe Painting

For those of you who didn't remember, yesterday was The Summer Solstice. Or you could've called it what mainstreamers did... The First Day of Summer :-) We didn't do anything specific to celebrate the day, but we did go to the park for our weekly get-together of homeschool families. There was only 2 families besides us there, but we (the parents) pretty much just sat and talked for a couple of hours, while the kids played. My son and his best friend first played a game each on their Gameboy Advances, then they played on the long slide. My daughter pretty much just hung with we parents and listened, even though there were a couple of girls there pretty close to her age. *sigh* Well, once she gets to know them better, I'm sure she'll open-up, at least I hope so. Other than that we stopped at the store and got a couple more hope tickets, a bag of potato chips, and some wipies. *grin* Then we came home and did the usual (TV, video game, computer, chickens, cats, dog, etc). Since I had a headache, I laid down for a couple of hours with an eye-pillow over my eyes. Unfortunately after I got up I never really did regain any energy to finish painting the door frames (the final coat). I did THAT, this morning. Want to see? I thought maybe you did. *smile*

Front screen door frame before & After
frnt_bef-aft.jpg
Click to enlarge

Back door frame before & after
bk_bef-aft.jpg
Click to enlarge

And we've decided not to repaint the front screen door since the cats scratch on it whenever they want in, and probably won't paint the back door either, but may paint the framing around the window in coral, like some of the poles. *smile*

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Wednesday, June 20

Coloring project continued

As you know we have embarked on a redecorating/repainting project of the outside of our house. We have completely a second color of the poles that hold-up our porch. As always, for a better view, click on the picture and it will almost magically get bigger. *smile*

Here's the 'before' picture
The old colors

Here's the 'during' (coral), after the first color
2nd color during the project

And this is after the final coloring of the poles. We do plan on painting the trim that's above the poles as well, just haven't completely decided what color. We're thinking that some version of yellow might look good. Thoughts?
final_coloring_poles.jpg

That's what I did most of the afternoon yesterday, after we went and did a little shopping for a few things we were low on. It is getting toward the end of the month, so money is running low. We did however manage to come-up with enough to buy another gallon of paint for a little over $5. *smile* Next step? Paint the porch trim, door and window frames (maybe even the doors), the porch freezer, then the actual siding of the house.

Can anyone tell me what the name of this plant is?
plant.jpg

House re-coloring project (before & during pictures)

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Saturday, June 16

Centurytel DSL (yes, again)

I sent an email from the Centurytel site asking if we would EVER get DSL in our area, and why can't they just put a "repeater" in to extend the reach beyond 18,000 feet, that only cost $500-$700 each?

Their response: "Unfortunately, our Engineer was not aware of any repeater device that would extend the range to the 24,000+ feet."

My reply: "What about the "GoLong" technology??

Their 2nd response: "Unfortunately, our Engineers have advised this is not an available option.  As the article that you have referenced states, the equipment is being trialed.  This company did not even plan to put this equipment into production until the 2nd quarter of the year, which is the quarter we are currently in.  That does not make it available to the consumer as of right now.

After you surpass that distance, your DSL still works, but your dial tone starts to degrade. We cannot offer service of this type and there are regulations against it. Until we can implement a technology to "boost" DSL distribution to further lengths, we have no choice but to deny the service to you. We want to provide you with a quality service, not a service that wouldn't work to one's expectations, or even exceed them.

I apologize.

My response to this: Um, the article I linked to was *2001*. Are you saying that there's been *no* advances in technology for over 6 years? In fact, Symmeticom DID release it *successfully* in 2001. I think that Centurytel ISN'T interested in getting rural customers hooked-up but they seemingly don't understand that telecommuting, and other Internet-based home businesses COULD help poor rural people get an education via high-speed that could get them OUT of the country setting if they desired. As always, it's all about the "bottom line", not about customer service!"

2001!
Symmeticom-San Jose, California Symmetricom's GoLong product family extends the distance of broadband over copper enabling universal DSL. Telephone companies currently deploy GoLong repeaters to extending high-speed access to residential and businesses.
GoLong SHDSL (G.shdsl) can be deployed every 10,000 feet (almost 2 miles), extending G.shdsl full rate service - 2.3 Mbps in each direction - to almost six miles using two repeaters on standard 26 gauge telephone cables, and even farther with additional repeaters. http://www.gattigroup.com/experience.htm
=================
2001!
http://tinyurl.com/ynqlya
The GoLong DSL loop extender consists of a repeater, which is installed on the copper loop midway between the customer and the CO, and a CO card that powers and administers it. Once GoLong is installed, the copper loop becomes a data-only line.
Chester started a trial in December [2001], when Starnes installed a GoLong DSL repeater midspan on a 24,000-foot local loop. With the repeater, Chester was able to deliver 3.072 Mbit/s downstream and 406 kbit/s upstream. Another rural provider, Berkshire Telephone Corp. (Kinderhook, N.Y.), installed a GoLong repeater midspan in a 25,000-foot loop, resulting in 2.648 Mbit/s downstream and 382 kbit/s upstream.
=================
Symmetricom Expands the Reach of Business Broadband Through Industry's First G.shdsl Loop Extender Newest GoLongT Family Member Enables Delivery of Access Speeds from 2.3-15 Mbps For Businesses Up to Six Miles From Telephone Company Central Office
SAN JOSE, Calif.-October 22, 2001- Symmetricom®, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYMM ), today announced the availability of its GoLongT G.shdsl loop extender, significantly extending the reach of business-class DSL access services for growing companies. Symmetricom's G.shdsl extender is an industry first, designed to work with the new international broadband standard G.shdsl, which allows 2.3 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) of voice or data to be delivered easier and faster than legacy services like T1 or E1. As a result, global service providers may offer expanded broadband speeds and integrated voice and data services to corporate customers up to six miles from a telephone company central office
.

In closing (for now): So you see, the technology IS there and IS available, it's just that MOST telcos, especially the larger ones, aren't REALLY interested in keeping rural communities up-to-date with technology, but only to make their CEO's even richer. Everything I've read says that whenever a phone company (usually the local mini-telcos) offer DSL to rural customers, every slot fills up almost immediately, making it obvious that the interest and willingness to pay IS there. I guess the problem is as usual "why should (the city people) subsidize the rural people with what taxes we pay?", not understanding that we COULD say, "Well then, why should we continue to subsidize your supermarkets with meat and vegetables from our farms? Unless you believe all the stuff just appears from in back of the store?" Besides, it's not like we don't pay taxes like everyone else! HEAVY SIGH!

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Friday, June 15

Laundry. Mowing. Moving things. Painted window.

I had yet another busy day, got quite a bit done, and I'm not even done yet (still need to bring clothes in off the line and put some up once the wash machine is done). *smile* Started the morning at 7 am, got the chickens fed and watched a little news. Then I started a couple of hamburgers cooking for my daughter and I. While those were cooking I put some clothes in the washer (1st of 3 loads). We ate our burgers, by that time the news was over so I watched an episode of "Charmed". By the time that was over, my wife was up and about. I talked with her for a while, then I went out and hung the clothes on the line.

This is actually the 2nd load

Then I took a break *grin* and then went and got the mower out of the shed and rode it around for a while. We have A LOT of grass that could be mown, and would if the price of a gallon of gas wasn't so expensive, but since we want to save the gas for areas that actually *need* to be mown, we decided that it would be okay and even fun to just mow paths around and through the field to wherever we want to look around in. Like, there's an area over yonder where we want to get rocks for the fire pit from, so I made a path to there. Then theres an area where my wife sowed some oat seeds, so I mowed a path around that so we could get closer to them. Then there's the pond. Can't mow all the way TO the pond, but I got a path to go pretty close to it if we'd like to look at it once in a while (although we haven't been). Then I made yet another path out back by the Walnut trees so that we can walk past them while on a walk for instance. Basically I was thinking the whole time, "If we were to start walking around the place, where would I want to go?", and made the paths accordingly. *smile*

Mowed chicken yardSpeaking of mowing, I also mowed the chicken yard because I got tired of walking through knee-deep grass when I was out feeding them, and risking getting ticks.










guinea-coop.jpgAnd last but not least, I got the old "Guinea coop" mowed from beside the woodshed to beside the chicken coop.














pinkish_win.jpg

This is a picture of the window that Rain painted coral last night. Notice the purple duct tape? That's one of the colors we'd think would be okay to paint the other posts, if we can't get turquoise.

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Blogger comments

Did you know that you can be notified whenever someone, even you, posts a comment on a blog entry? If you don't see the writing beneath the post labeled "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)", then click on the link (left side/column), or the 'title' at the top for the individual entries and you should then see it at the bottom of the entry, *below* "Links to this post".

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Thursday, June 14

Picture of Mai-Mai aledgedly pushing Tayuh

Stop pushing, my face hurts!

I took this because it looks like Mai-Mai is pushing Tayuh's head up against the wall. In reality, they're both sleeping.

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House re-coloring project (before & during pictures)

Due to popular demand, here are the 'before' and 'during' pictures of our painting project that is starting with the posts. I say "during", because we're going to be painting the currently white posts either turquoise or purple (depending on which one is available of the mistinted/cheap paint). Plus we'll be painting the outside of the house itself.

b4paint.jpg

This is what the posts looked like before I got every other one painted today.

during re-paint.jpg

And this is what it looks like right now. You can't really tell, but the posts I painted are actually pink. *grin*

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Wednesday, June 13

The AirCar

I want one of these! I'm guessing the reason we haven't seen any of these in the u.S. is because the oil companies own the government.

http://www.theaircar.com/index.html

After fourteen years of research and development, Guy Negre has developed an engine that could become one of the biggest technological advances of this century. Its application to CAT vehicles gives them significant economical and environmental advantages. With the incorporation of bi-energy (compressed air + fuel) the CAT Vehicles have increased their driving range to close to 2000 km with zero pollution in cities and considerably reduced pollution outside urban areas.
   As well, the application of the MDI engine in other areas, outside the automotive sector, opens a multitude of possibilities in nautical fields, co-generation, auxiliary engines, electric generators groups, etc. Compressed air is a new viable form of power that allows the accumulation and transport of energy. MDI is very close to initiating the production of a series of engines and vehicles. The company is financed by the sale of manufacturing licences and patents all over the world.

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Tuesday, June 12

Roosters, paint, naps, and laundry

Someone finally came and picked up the 5 roosters that we offered on Freecyle. The first day we offered them, someone wrote and said they wanted them, so we caught them and put them in cages. I wrote back but I am pretty sure no one got my reply because it was to a yahoo.com email address. After not hearing back, I posted to the Freecycle list asking for the person who wrote to me to please write back and include a phone number to contact them - no response. I wrote to the person from my yahoo mail account - no response again, so we let them go. Re-posted the offer to the list where I got inquiries from, and had a person write and give me a friends phone number, which I called. They said they'd be here the next day, so we caught the roosters and caged them. The next day we sent emails asking when they'd be picked-up, only to find out that the "friend" obviously wasn't going to pick them up. If the people want to pick them up shortly after arriving, we have to catch the roosters the night before and keep them in cages. While we were trying to contact the 2nd people who wanted them, another person wrote asking if they were still available, so we said yes, and the roosters got to sleep in the cages another night. And today they got to go to a new home where their jobs will be to de-tick someone's property, at least a little (they're only 5 roos, ya know). Why do people say they want something and then never show-up to collect?! Annoying, and especially bad when it's animals they supposedly want. *grr*

As you know, we want to "hippie" the place up with paint of all different colors. *grin* Rain says she's tired of "making it look ready to sell (ie. neutral)", so she wants COLOR. Today we stopped at a Sherwin Williams store and asked about their mis-tinted paint - all of the gallons were 7 $'s. Not bad, but we were hoping for cheaper. So we stopped by Lowes - their's were 5$ a gallon, so we got a red-ish color. While we were at the W-M Supercenter, we asked about their mistints - they were half price, so that made them anywhere between 3$ & up, depending on the paint type. Since we had already bought one gallon at Lowes, we decided to wait until we use it up and hope to find more variety of colors next time. Meanwhile, we can get started painting the poles around the porch in something other than white. YAY!

And now it's about time to wake my wife and daughter from their nap, and go check on the clothes on the line. Ta-ta for now! :-)

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Sunday, June 10

Not very fertile eggs. MO rain. Computer monitors.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that we had three hens that were sitting on their eggs? Don't know if I mentioned it or not (I think I did somewhere... email?) but the one hen didn't have any eggs hatch after 21 days (usual cycle from sit on to hatch is 21 days). We're thinking now that the eggs weren't fertile, rather than that she somehow ruined them. I say that because we had a hen who was sitting on about 10 eggs who hatched one chick from them. Thankful she even got one, so she didn't sit there for almost a month in vain! And there was a third broody, but she got bored and wouldn't sit on her eggs except at night or when she was totally bored. In fact she kept scattering them around the pen. So after a week we decided that because she hadn't been keeping the eggs warm, that she was never going to, so we let her out and discarded the eggs. After three broodies, we got one chick. Better than nothing I guess. That one is getting her wing feathers, and as soon as it (don't know the sex yet) gets some tail feathers, we'll let momma and baby out to hang with the rest of the flock :-) We don't think the hens are having many fertile eggs because we have too many roosters for the amount of hens (7 to 30). I think you normally want a rooster for every 12 hens, so as you can see, we only have about 4 per cock. Speaking of roosters, we offered 5 of them on Freecycle and someone wrote back saying they wanted all 5. But when I wrote back to them with directions, they never emailed me back. But I think the reason they didn't write back is because they have a @yahoo.com email address, and for some reason unknown to us, yahoo considers my addy to be spam. Last night I emailed said wanters from my yahoo mail account, but haven't heard back, so I'm going to repost the offer today, once the thunder stops and I can go back on-line.

For those of you who are getting rain in Missouri who didn't really want it... it's all our fault! I washed a load of towels yesterday and my DD hung them on the clothes line. Plus my wife did a thorough watering of both of her gardens as well. Now, today it's raining heavy! LOL. So heavy as a matter of fact that we lost our satellite signal our televisions. And my DD just got back in from walking in the rain, also known as "rain walking", and loved it. *smile* Ah, to be young! :)

Oh yeah, and guess what! My wife was thinking about turning the computer monitor casings into planters, so a couple of days ago I brought one in to see if I could get it apart... couldn't. Then I decided to bring another one in a see if that one could be taken apart... not that I was able to do it. So I decided to see what would happen if I plugged it in, and after sitting in the shed gathering dust and who knows what else inside of it, I found out IT WORKS!. I was SHOCKED! We thought it was DEAD. Now we're thinking that the reason it stopped working was probably that a wet cat sat or laid on it and the moisture got inside and caused it to quit. So now that it's dried-out, it works again. *smile* Now I need to bring the other 2 17-inch monitors in and see if they will work again. *hmm* I'll tell you what, there's quite a bit of viewing difference between a 13-inch and 17-inch monitor, especially once you get used to the smaller one. :)

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Wednesday, June 6

Tree and Skimmer work

Click the pictures for a larger views :-)

Tree_Work_1.jpg

We had another pretty productive day yesterday. What you see here is the tree that we worked on all afternoon *before* I actually started working on it.

Tree_Work_2.jpg

And this is the second stage, after I got it all cut-up with the chainsaw, before moving the logs to the woodshed for stacking and then eventually splitting.

Tree_Work_3.jpg

The two small logs you see on the other side of Sugar (dog) are going to be seats around the fire pit we're going to make. The two taller logs are going to be a couple of the benches that'll also be by the fire pit. Rain decided that she'd see what they looked like after the bark was taken off, so she spent a couple of hours debarking those four. They turned out really cool, at least we think so. *smile* Eventually I'm going to cut a little off of each side of the tall logs so that they be more comfortable as benches. After I do that, I'll cut notches on the end of each, kind of like log cabin logs and then we'll set them on something (bricks, blocks, maybe even empty gallon paint cans filled with sand or rocks). The thinking of putting them on blocks or whatever, is so that they won't set on the ground, thus making them slower to be weathered (anti-rot idea).


skimmer.jpg skimmer-2.jpg

And this is the other creative thing I did yesterday. The pool skimmer-screen was all shredded, making skimming impossible. I had originally considered just tossing it and buying a new one. Then it hit me! "I have some old window screen in the shed, maybe I can use the 'heavy duty glue' to keep it on the skimmer's plastic!" So that's what I did, thus saving the expense (admittedly not much) of buying a new one by using materials we already had on-hand. Did some skimming today, and it works! *smile*

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Tuesday, June 5

Free-store and curtain rod

curtainrod.jpgWe've had a pretty good day so far as well. I got up earlier than usual this morning so that we could run into Lebanon to the "Free Store" to see if they had any outdoor paint. Sadly for us, they didn't - oh well. Then we went to another store where my DW and DD went in and bought of couple of hope tickets. Then to another store, then to Lowes to see if they had any 8 foot 1/2 inch dowel rods for a window curtain. You see, we *had* a metal rod across the two windows, but those darn cats climb on the curtains, and the rod was looking more and more like a snake with curtains on it. LOL. Anyway, they didn't have any dowel rods that were 1/2 in diameter AND 8 foot long, so we got 2 four foot long ones and connected them together (end to end) using a plastic tube. Now we've got a wooden 8 foot curtain rod! YAY! Then we stopped by Wal-Mart and spent 25 cents each on sodas, then came home via the highway :-)

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Monday, June 4

Yardwork and house work (plus pictures!)

It's been a fairly productive day all around, by everybody :-) I got an area of the front yard mowed, and the entire back yard. Our DD (dear daughter) has washed, hung, folded, and put away two loads of laundry, plus she has emptied & refilled the dishwasher, ran it, has since emptied it again, and has vacuumed. And she did all that without us even asking her. Cool, huh? :-)

The main reason I mowed the back yard was because Rain (dear wife) is going to plant some corn seeds, then once they've came up and grown to about a foot or so high, will plant beans next to the stocks, then she plans on planting some other plant to go with those two things. See, what we're doing by creating a corn/bean/other garden is 3-fold.

  1. Use more of our 10 acres.
  2. Have corn for us AND the chickens because the price of corn is up, and will probably go up more once the Ethanol plants are built and up & running.
  3. Make it so there is less grass to mow, thus saving money on gas, and helping Mother Earth by not using as much petroleum-based/fossil fuel.

I also mowed the grass short in another, smaller area of the back yard because we're planning on building a fire pit. There is a Poplar tree right next to the area we're going to use that will be cut down and turned into a bench (by trimming all the branches off, pealing the bark off using a chisel/screwdriver, and then cutting the top surface flat with the chainsaw). Plus I have to make another bench out of the other Poplar tree I cut down last week, and put it by the fire pit.

We're also planning on getting as much free exterior paint as we can find to paint the outside of the house in all kinds of different colors. Rain calls what we want to do to/with the colors "hippie-ing-up" the place. *smile*

What we're doing by planning on all the aforementioned work is make this place "our own", and also a full-fledged "home". If we end up living here longer than we plan (still want to sell and move closer to one of our family-friends), then we want a place we feel is *truly* ours. Besides, maybe after all the improvements, it'll be more "buyable" when we do want to put it back on the Real estate market. *smile*

Some people say that it's not *really* a blog unless there are pictures, so here is a couple for you to look at. *grin*

passed-out_Celebi.jpgI took this picture because he looked dead, but honest, he's not really! :-)









Gnome_family.jpg

These are the Gnomes that we got when our grandmother left for New Mexico. She and her husband that passed away several years ago, made these from molds and painted them. Grandma will be 99 years old on her next birthday, so you might say we've got some "living history" right here in our home. *smile*


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Saturday, June 2

New wind development illegal until new federal rules

New wind development illegal until new federal rules (Fish & Wildlife from American Wind Energy Assn.)

Wind Energy Works!

A new effort in Washington DC poses a serious threat to wind development - both future and existing. It threatens not only any federal RPS, but also state RPS requirements would be affected if Chairman Nick Rahall, D-WV, has his way. Highlights:

His provision makes new wind development illegal until new federal rules (Fish & Wildlife Service) are established. We know from the Minerals Management Service experience this can take a while - MMS expects theirs to take 2 ½ years, way over the original 270 days prescribed.

Existing facilities must shut down within 6 months of new rules, until certified. Any violation is a criminal offense with a $50,000 fine or a year in prison. Small residential wind turbines, as well as large, are required to cease operating or face criminal penalties.

Once new rules are passed, every single wind turbine will require certification - government staff would have to evaluate each turbine application.

This Bill is moving with Lightning Speed. Although it was made available only last week, a House Committee on Natural Resources mark-up session where the bill will be formally considered has been scheduled for June 6. A hearing is scheduled for this Wednesday.

http://capwiz.com/windenergy/issues/alert/?alertid=9773201&type=CO

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