I've uploaded 2 more videos to YouTube. The first one is Chickens in the garden and Suicune on the fence and the other one is More chickens and another cat.
If you'd like to earn me some points towards a gift certificate, watch them on Gather and then rate and/or comment.
Because I'm such a nice guy, I'll even make it possible for you to see them right here on Blogspot. *smile*
Our van has a radiator fluid leak, but hopefully it's JUST a radiator hose. When we got home this afternoon there was steam coming out from under the hood, and the temp gage in the van was close to maxed out. After opening the hood I could hear hissing like there is a leak, but it's overcast and I don't have a very strong flashlight. I put some fluid and water in the radiator and started the van, and it didn't overheat. However, there is radiator fluid dripping in a steady stream underneath, but I can't see if it's a hose (which I'm assuming) or a gasket to know what's leaking. And even if I could, I don't know how the hell I could get to it :-( So I need to call and talk to our mechanic/friend and see if he can come up this weekend and help me fix it. If not, we'll be vehicle-less for a while.
This is Galux in a box that's obviously too small for her, but she don't care... IT'S A BOX!
Since the last one worked, here is yet another short video. This time it's of Sugar grooming herself.
Don't know if this is going to work, as I've never embedded a video using an off-line blogging program. If it does, then the video you'll see is our dog, Sugar, going from the sofa to my wife's hand to be petted.
I don't know if I need to tell you this or not (prolly not), but just in case I do, just remember that in order to see a bigger, more detailed picture, you can just click on said picture(s) to enlarge them.
This is Rocky in his box that is on the kitchen table, that we rarely eat at/on as a family.
This is Creature-Peacher sitting on the table in front of Rocky in his box.
This is Moon in the box on the table. One when she was sleeping, the other as her peeking.
And the above is Slash in a box, from the top, with Spot sitting beside her. Spot is the bonus in this one, as I didn't even see her there until I saw the picture. Yes, those are my feet.
Last and least, this is me watching TV with Rocky. Well, he's not watching, but I was before this picture was taken.
If pictures of cats aren't enough, you can see a few of our 21, live in my very first video on YouTube by going here. I'll also be posting these on my Gather page(s). So if you want to help me earn some points towards a gift certificate, check them and others out, comment and/or rate them.
All those being shown, and I've got more but I don't feel like putting them ALL in this entry because I feel like I should do some actual "writing". I have been unable to think of anything that I feel important enough TO write. Yeah, I'm in a holiday funk and I don't know why :-( I haven't watched the news in over a week (although I have read a couple of articles on-line), and so far it hasn't helped cheer me up. What's wrong with me?! How long do I need to be news free before I snap out of this? Maybe if the weather is nice enough this coming Thursday and we get to see some other friends in Springfield, MO, that'll finally cheer me up. One can hope anyway.
All that be said (and shown), we've had a decent Yule holiday. A family of friends came and visited on this passed Friday. We sat, talked, ate brownies, drank wine, and they even brought a few presents. The main ones were for Eldin. He got a whole box of video games for his GameCube system. Which he's been playing every waking hour since. He also got the latest Zelda game (Four Swords Adventures), which he has already beaten. For us they brought some movies. They are Pirates of The Caribbean - At World's End, Transformers, and Spider-man 3, which we've watched none of because I've been watching NFL football when there was nothing else on TV that anyone else wanted to watch. Speaking of which, there's a game on tonight featuring The Denver Broncos vs. The San Diego Chargers. I hope the Broncos win!
Other than that (yeah, I like saying that. Why? Don't know, not really), just enjoying (as much as possible) the cold but sunny days of the lengthening days after Yule.
Today, so far, I cleaned 6 litter boxes, burned some trash outside, started a nice, warm fire in the woodstove, cleaned-up some cat-gak, made and am drinking my morning coffee.
And now you know why I am starting to wonder what the whole fucking point of writing in my blogspot blog is... Because VERY FEW people even read it. And who can blame them, it's not like I write on a regular basis, or when I do, it's not all that fucking well done/exciting :-(
This (above) is Moon laying on me wife's mouse-hand. Seems that our cats know when we want to do something besides pay attention to them.
These (above) are/were our twin cats, before Trippy passed on. Dragoon did NOT want to accept that Trippy was dead and tried to wake him up before we got him buried - poor guy. It was heartbreaking.
Anyway, we have our Yule shopping all done. My son and I wrapped the presents we got for my wife and daughter. Now he just needs to wrap the one he got for me, and then my wife and daughter need to wrap those that they are going to give on the 21st.
The weather is cold. It's about 35 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and that's probably going to be our high for the day. I can barely wait for spring to get here. We're happily surprised at how well heating with Poplar wood is going. It catches fire well, burns pretty hot, and I don't even need kindling to start the fire in the woodstove. 'course I have my special way of getting it started if anyone wants to know how I do it. As for snow that we're supposed to get during the day today and this morning, we only have enough to coat the ground with a thin layer, and I'm not complaining. Was hoping it would miss us all together like most storms do, but just not as lucky this time.
Let's see. Oh yeah, and the woodstove/computer game room has been re-arranged. Well, really we just put the love-seat out on the porch. Seems that a cat (probably Creature) had been using it to pee on and the room (not to mention the love-seat) were stinking. Of course we'll most likely try and find another sofa, if we can find one for very cheap or even free. Would just throw her out at night, which we were doing because she was peeing on the counter (she stopped doing that, thankfully), but we're softies and don't want her to get too cold outside. If she keeps this crap up though, she may get tossed out anyway! There are hay bales in the big shed that she could snuggle up on if necessary, just like other cats do.
I am taking a sabbatical from any hard-core news for a few days (maybe longer if I feel it's improving my depression). Just started getting too angry and depressed at "the war" news. Feel really bad for the people in Afghanistan and Iraq, but feel totally helpless to actually get our freaking, corrupt government to pull-out of either, or even one. So for a while I've got to just chill and step back, because I can't seem to do anything to get the U.S. government to be accountable to "the people" (which in my opinion means the higher-ups in the Bush-Cheney administration NEED to be impeached, but...).
Lastly, yesterday we finally brought in the clothes that had been hanging on the clothes line for four days. See, I hung them out on a day when the sun did break through the clouds, so I thought they'd dry before it got all cloudy again. I was wrong. We put some in "the smoking house" to finish drying, and hung other clothes on stuff in our bedroom. The stuff in our bedroom has been hung-up and put away, but the stuff in the smoking room still needs to be brought over and dealt with... eventually.
Trippy_Dec_07
Trippy: May 2005-Dec. 13, 2007
This is my baby, Trippy, on his death bed this morning. When we got back from our Yule shopping this afternoon, his spirit was one with the rainbow bridge. We're going to miss him! :-(
Technorati : best friend, cat, death, passing, rainbow bridge, sadness, trippy
Message I sent to the following recipients, pertaining to an energy bill 6: The bill that FAILED in the Senate :-(
Representative Skelton, Senator Bond, Senator McCaskill, President
Here's what I wrote:
December 11, 2007
I KNOW that the Bush-Cheney whitehouse are NOT going to approve anything that takes money away from their "bases" (oil, coal, corporations), but... there's technology NOW that could get people's cars to run on vegetable oil, hydrogen, steam, AIR (air for god's sake), that there's NO REASON not to EASILY reduce CO 2 and have cars getting MUCH, MUCH better gas mileage.
Like I said though, too many kickbacks from the oil and coal industries!
Sincerely,
Todd
Tags: congress, coporationism, officials, energy bill hr 6, reusable, waste, resources, house, fraud, failed bill, government, senate, energy, greed, war, corruption, governors
** Correction... It was actually the NOV. storm that we weren't prepared as much for. Jan's storm was at the beginning of the month, so we were okay.
See, this is just not good. It was supposed to be in the 50s today, according to the forecast we saw on Thursday. Yeah, I know, "But it's not Thursday, IS IT?!" *grin*
Luckily this is happening closer to the beginning of the month than January's ice-storm, which happened TWO DAYS before payday and we're were almost out of 'the necessities of life', which sadly included cat food. We were THIS close to being their cat food. LOL. Anyway, we we're pretty much ready for this storm, just hope it's not as bad/severe as is the forecast. Heard yesterday that a 1/2" to 1" of ICE is possible. *sigh* Not many branches left to break off, although I'm sure if some were missed in Jan, those'll be the ones to break. We WERE planning on cutting some down today, but the weather isn't cooperating. We don't WANT to go out in the cold (40 deg), drizzly weather and "do" the branches. Of course we WILL if we HAVE to, but we don't think we will. *smile* So without further adieu, here's the forecast from today...
ALERT 1 - Freezing Rain Advisory
FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST SUNDAY, WINTER STORM WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Event Start: 6:00PM CST, Saturday Dec 8, 2007
Event End: 6:00PM CST, Sunday Dec 9, 2007
DetailsFREEZING RAIN ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST SUNDAY, WINTER STORM WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY AFTERNOONALERT 2 - Winter Storm Watch
Event Start: 12:00AM CST, Sunday Dec 9, 2007
Event End: 1:00PM CST, Tuesday Dec 11, 2007
DetailsWINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE SATURDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY AFTERNOONALERT 3 - Winter Storm Watch
Event Start: 12:00AM CST, Sunday Dec 9, 2007
Event End: 1:00PM CST, Tuesday Dec 11, 2007
DetailsTags: Missouri ice storm, ice-storm, MO weather, December precipitation
Well, not a hell of a lot going on. The weather has been interesting, but not all that dramatic. Windy most times it seems, which is giving us a good excuse NOT to go around removing dead branches from the oak trees or other non-Poplars. It's not like it's an absolute "must do" yet. However, within the next couple of days the weather is supposed to mellow out and we're planning on doing it then.
Other than that, just been hanging around inside. Daughter, wife, and me spend most of our time on the computers, and my son spends quite a bit of his free time playing video games. Not to mention that he's gotten into this routine of staying up most of the morning watching on-line videos and then sleeping till sometime in the afternoon. I guess a lot of families have at least one person who's an extreme night owl and/or doesn't need much sleep.
We've decided to try enclosing our chickens in their yard around their coop to see if we can increase the number of eggs we find. That was assuming the when they were 'out' they were laying in hard to find places. Well, it hasn't made any difference so far. Yes, some of them do fly over the fence and mill around the yard. Usually a rooster flies out and then hens start one by one. Usually not more that 5-10 hens get out though, so there should be plenty of eggs, but there isn't. Eventually this year, towards Spring, we're going to look into/strongly consider getting more of a dual purpose flock together. That'd be good meat birds that are semi-good to good egg layers. If you know of such a breed, clue us in please. In order to prepare for that eventuality, we're thinking of start the cull (culling?) with the ones that're regularly getting out of the yard.
And that's life on the homestead! :-)
Just so you know, I do have some pictures of sleeping/comfortable cats and the dog, so check back soon for those.
So here were are on the second day of December in the year 2007 and it's almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Does that sound like 'typical' weather in the Missouri Ozarks to you? Well, for the last couple of years it is. Not only that, but it's raining instead of snowing or sleeting, which is a great. My wife told me that when her and my DD got up at 7 this morning, it was over 60 degrees. According to Weatherbug though, tomorrow morning it's supposed to drop down to around 26. However, that was from a weather station in a city that's typically 5 degrees cooler than us, which means we'll only drop to 31-ish, which is quite cold enough. Thank you very much! Since it's not my week to get up in the mornings, I should be getting up to a warm house if Rain starts a fire pretty much first thing, and she probably will. We really should be working on getting branches that've been hanging broken since last January's ice storm, and cut into pieces that can be used in the wood stove. Currently it's mostly Poplar in there. Although it lights easily and burns well, it also burns quickly. Hopefully when the lasting cold weather arrives, it won't last very long and we'll have enough wood cut into logs. I guess whether we do or not, we will be working on it, lest we freeze. I'm not going to let that happen!
