And then Bloggers mobile blogging failed. I had to delete two posts (not sure where the 2nd came from, it was supposed to be one post) that were nothing more than numbers and ??. Arg.
Nothing Much
Hah, internet junkie that I am……fricking powers out again!
Hello blogger……
Deer!
A couple months ago we set up a trail camera on one of the trails off the back of our property. We’d seen wild turkeys in the yard, and lots of deer tracks all winter. We were rather frustrated when week after week there were no photos of turkey or deer on the camera. Lots of random photos of the trees though, don’t know if waving branches set it off, or a bird flew by fast enough to avoid the photo or what. Twas rather annoying.
In the last couple weeks I’d seen the turkeys (or a bunch anyway) off one of the other trails in the back, which in retrospect wasn’t a huge surprise as there’s a small stream right there that stays wet in all but the driest weather. So I decided that after I checked the camera this week I’d move it to THAT trail and see what I got. What I wasn’t expecting was what was on my camera memory card when I checked it this afternoon!
First picture off the card! Cool! Wish it had gotten a bit more detail, but its a cheap camera, so I can’t complain.
Then I looked further…..
This young buck spent most of a half hour or so wandering back and forth in front of the camera. This is by far the best of the shots. The apple trees are only about 20ft behind the camera so I assume he was snatching bites.
How cool is that?
(now I want two cameras, one for each trail…..)
No pictures of the turkeys, but I’ll share this one from last fall instead:
They striked.
Yah I know thats bad grammer.
Guess I wasn’t over reacting. On the plus side my husband now has lots of time to do all the odds and ends yard work and the like that we’ve been putting off (and that don’t require any extra materials that we don’t already have). Guess those trees we’ve been waiting to take down will be coming down shortly….he’s already got two co-workers lined up to help. To bad they’re pines and as such the wood won’t be good for the indoor fireplaces anytime soon. Maybe I should suggest its time to take down some of the younger maples in the back we were looking at too……
Gripe, Grumble…..
This post will be basically a “why me” whine, don’t read if that bothers you…..I’m hoping to get it out of my system.
This post will contain discussion on unions. Do not turn the comments into a political discussion on “those evil unions,” I don’t have the energy to deal right now, I’ll delete them.
The job my husband does, for the company he works for, requires him to belong to a union. Their contract is up as of Midnight August 6th, tonight.
Now, neither of us was entirely thrilled about being part of a union when he got the job in the first place as its not really possible to tell from the outside whether the (private, not public) union in question is decently run or badly run, but the pay and position was a massive step up from where he was so we decided he’d take it. Barely a year after he took the job the contact came up for renewal, and all things considered the renewal was relatively painless. The union threatened to strike, but didn’t cause they reached an agreement without to much fuss or bother.
Fast forward 3 years. We’ve known since January that this contract renewal was probably not going to go nearly as smoothly. With general public opinion running against unions in general the company decided it was going to stand its ground, and started issuing proclamations as early as January as to what it was going to do in the coming year, regardless of the union stance on those things.
We started setting aside some extra money, basically the puppy was our only big splurge, we’ve bought a couple new books, and a couple new games, and other than that most “extra” money (is there really such a thing when you own a house and have pets?) went into savings. This has meant delaying several projects on the house that we’d planned to do this spring/summer. It meant that the grand we had to spend on my root canal and crown after I broke a tooth hurt. It meant when Apollo turned out to be a much more social dog than is usual for the breed, and his breeder recommended we consider getting a 2nd dog as a companion for him to help with some of his issues (and then offered us a 2yr old bitch that had been just returned to her due to the owner’s health, at no cost to us other than transportation), it was something that we couldn’t even consider. And when just in the last two weeks I had the opportunity to possibly consider 3 other dogs (from three different sources, all either rescues, or otherwise in need of a “forever home” asap) as possible companions for him I had to close my eyes and explain that I couldn’t seriously consider it till we knew what was going on with my husband’s job.
Now unless they end up striking for an extreme length of time we’re not in any danger of loosing the house, though if they end up striking for more than a week my husband already has a temp position lined up to supplement our savings. My job is not capable of supporting us alone, though its possible I could pick up a 2nd job if needed (I’ve done the two job thing before though, it sucks and if I can avoid it I’d prefer too), but managing such a schedule around the puppy’s needs would be a bit problematic. It does mean that my application for a pistol license is going on hold till further notice. That $100 isn’t much, but in the event of the extreme side of things it’ll pay for a couple weeks of groceries, or several weeks of animal food. And even if it had already been spent spending the money on a gun would be out of the question.
The union has made it clear it plans to strike, but can still call of off any time between now and midnight, so maybe I’m over reacting, but maybe I’m not. Arg.
Power outage
Just got power back after our 4th power outage since we moved here in September of last year. 4 in less than a year. Admittedly the causes of each has been different and none lasted more than 5 hrs, but thats not a good way to start out the first year of living here. We’d been planning on putting in some kind of solar/wind/battery backup system, but costs are a bit prohibitive so its something we’ve been setting aside moneys for (as well as keeping a close eye on Clarian Power). But we may have to look into putting in a generator of some kind sooner than that. Heat in the winter (and potentially some basic cooking) isn’t a problem thanks to the wood burning stove, but powering the basics is.
Sigh, yet another expense we weren’t planning on this year!
Anyone reading this have any suggestions as to brands, styles, types, etc?
Droid, GPS, and Voice
So a couple weeks ago I upgraded my cell phone to a Droid 2 Global, I didn’t really care about the “global” part, but I did want the slide out keyboard and Android OS, so that limited my choices.
So the other day I was headed for the house of an acquaintance, who’s residence I’d never actually been to, I knew vaguely where it was, but that was it. So I figured instead of printing out directions from online I’d just use the nify GPS directions thingy on my new phone to guide me there. Not that I followed its directions exactly (much to its apparent annoyance….), but that’s besides the point. I did however have to pull over till I stopped laughing at one point. Seems the programming that handles the voice over part of the directions has some area’s that were neglected. In this case: Syracuse. Traditionally pronounced “Sear-a-kuuz” the phone pronounced it “Sigh-rack-use.” It took me a minute to stop laughing.
Visitors to this blog
I’ve had fun the last couple weeks watching the visitors to this blog via SiteMeter. I’ve gotten to “know” the regulars, but its always interesting to see where the remainder of folks wander through, from and to. I have to admit to some surprise when I checked today and discovered that over the last couple days I’ve had hits from two different military establishments (the one from the Army Corp of Engineers actually spend some time too!) which I’ll admit is cool, but then this afternoon someone from a Law firm in MI stopped in briefly! Well, I guess someone’s been following links!
Request for info….
So, I ran across the Sottevest products the other day. I gotta say I like the concept, I already carry the smallest purse I can find, the only reason I haven’t ditched it enirely is that at some point I’ll forget to move stuff between pants pockets(the cops don’t like it when you tell them you don’t have your license on you cause yesterdays pants are in the dirty laundry). They’ve got lotsa reviews linked to from a bunch of sites….but anyone out there acually used any of this? Specifcally the coats and vests and the like? I’m hard on my clothes…..and it gets cold up here in the winter!