The Latest in Snail Mail Spoofery

I've been receiving some very weird mail lately and I've been getting annoyed. After all I have to dispose of the junk. I throw most of it away unopened and the marketers know this so they disguise the envelope. This piece of mail was particularly clever. Notice the bubble wrap? This was to make me think there was something worthwhile inside. There wasn't.


What clever mail have you gotten lately?

They Can't Write or Spell in New York Schools

Yes this is sad but true. Frequently there are misspellings in our school newsletter (and emails home) because people have become too dependent on spell check, so I think Microsloth needs to come up with some kind of homonym checker in Word. Even our superintendent who writes a front page blurb each issue was guilty of a homonym error.

But this was on the news last night.



It was a school in Syracuse. Let's blurt out for all to see the fact that we can't spell rehersal... um... oops... rehearsal. Isn't it bad enough that the principal was writing herself checks out of the school's checking account? Yikes what kind of students do we turn out here? Embezzling mis-spellers I guess. Scary.

Do you remember any similar teacher or administration errors or even school misdeeds?

Bluebird Fledglings

I am so happy to report that the bluebirds were successful and I watched a bunch of fledgings emerge from the box by the house yesterday. I saw several males with disheveled feathers sitting atop fence posts and the flagpole. It's been so many years since they were last here so I am hoping they will be back every year again. The pics are blurry because they were about 30 yards away and I used the dreaded digital zoom since the 3x optical zoom wasn't enough. But you get the picture.

I had to chuckle when I saw that I had captured one of them dive bombing off the flagpole.

Kitten and Crow Incredible Video

You wouldn't believe this if you didn't see it yourself. It's heart warming and just totally amazing. If you are a cat or bird lover or really anyone who appreciates animals, you will love this video.

A Novel Use For Sheep Poop

Well I couldn't resist this now could I?


So what is it you ask? Well these little hanging delights are air fresheners and you will be happy to know that they are totally eco-friendly as they are made entirely from sheep poop! Should this be a line extension to my wool and breeding stock business ya think? I mean I have plenty of sheep manure in stock, that's for sure. Mountains of it in fact. I can market them as organic air fresheners. It's not what you think. They don't stink. Using traditional paper making processes the manure is made into pulp and then into paper. Check out pics and descriptions here. Did you know you can even make paper at home?

Catnipped!

In an effort to supply the cats with their very own free and fresh supply of catnip I received two mature plant cuttings from a friend in town. No sooner had I planted them than the two outdoor cats devoured them down to their stalks.

I told my friend about this and she graciously supplied me with a container of small seedlings. I "hid" the cuttings on top of the fridge.

In less than an hour, the the indoor cat, Vlad, was all over them. I grabbed the container and went outside and planted several seedlings in various areas of the property,

marking their positions with little red flags so I could find them again. So far so good. All seedlings are in tact and the cats haven't discovered them. I also planted one seedling indoors in a pot that is on top of the tall computer cabinet. There is no way the cat will reach or even find this pot (I hope!).


I planted my zucchini outside finally, along with two cukes and two more store bought seedling cukes of a different variety,


as most of my cuke seedlings got frosted several weeks ago. The tomatoes continue to sulk. I hear rumors of an 80 degree weekend on the horizon. One can only hope.

Dog Loving Knitters

That pair of ravens I mentioned in a previous post came to visit today and created quite a stir. All the birds in the neighborhood came out to chase them away. Even my bluebird mother poked her head out of the bird box nearby. I was on the phone when the birds showed up so I was trying to balance talking on the phone with taking pictures. Unfortunately when I took the pic, no birds were nearby to compare size. They are huge.

Meanwhile my bluebirds seem to be doing well. I thought I heard little chirps yesterday coming from the vicinity of the box.

And for you dog loving knitters out there, check out this neat dog collar that you can knit.



I added this to my Ravelry q as soon as I saw it. I think it would look very fashionable on Rascal. You can get the pattern at Cocoknits.

Super Sandwich

Image by freddy via FlickrI'm not much of a sandwich eater. They just don't excite me. So when my son gave me a tip to spice up the works I figured I'd try it. He adds a little Italian dressing along with mayo to the bread. My modification is to put the dressing in between two pieces of lettuce to keep the sandwich from getting saturated with dressing. I've tried this with turkey and ham and I love it with a few slices of sandwich pickles thrown in. Give it a try. My son tells me that it's very common and they do it at Subway. Well, I never heard of it so I figured if I hadn't then maybe some of you hadn't either. Do you have any other good sandwich modifications to share?

At Least Some Things Go Down in Price

I cannot believe how the price of computer memory has come down and now we have affordable terabyte hard drives from $130 and flash drives that are 30 gigs! It's amazing. Now if only the price of computers would crash. I am itching to get my hands on a fast, big, laptop with an excellent audio and video card. I wonder when the price of gas will start affecting them too.

So what else has gone down in price? Make my day will ya?

There is No Scarier Sound

A few nights ago at around 2 am we were rudely awoken by the shrill and chilling call of a fox. A better description of it is a scream. If you've never heard the haunting sound they make check it out here. You need Quicktime to play it.


It sounds like something from another world and the sound file isn't loud or scary enough. In real life, it's just no way to be woken up, especially when it's right next to the house and the lambs who were alone in the barnyard. I don't think my heart beat returned to normal for about an hour. I think the call was coming from one of the group that has a den 5 yards down the road in a field. If you look at this photo I took from a distance (click to enlarge), you can see the cubs wrestling.

A few years ago when I was riding my horse up a wooded trail I passed what I knew to be a fox den. All was quiet. On the way back, the horse and I were daydreaming when I saw a bunch of fox pups. I enjoyed the scene and forgot about their shrill shrieks. Then all of a sudden they started to scream. I don't know who was scared more, them, me or the horse! It's probably the scariest natural sound I've ever heard and one that is burned in my memory forever.

Stain Recommendations

Back in the days when we owned a wood siding house we decided to paint it ourselves, exterior shutters and all. Thats why I am glad that as I was taking note of what maintenance items need to be done around this house, I was grateful for vinyl siding. However the back deck and front porch need staining. I am looking for recommendations on a good stain that lasts. So far we have yet to find one we are happy with. Any advice anyone?

Gardening?

I forgot to mention yesterday that we also installed a phone at the cabin. I say "we" but I really mean Tom. He just loves it when I say we! The cell service at our location is spotty and the county has a very reasonable seasonal phone rate. We saved ourselves the installation fee of $45 by running the wire into the cabin ourselves.

On the gardening front, honestly this cool weather has been the pits. My tomatoes may not make it. It's hard to tell at this point and I won't embarrass myself by taking a picture. However I could use some advice on this one. This is my bucket tomato and it did very well last year. What's up with the curled leaves? Too much water? Help someone, please....


My, in the cooler cauliflower and zucchinis, continue to thrive. I am hardening them off now. We still have a few more days of cool weather on the horizon, including a frost, so I am keeping them in the cooler a little while longer. They are doing very well in there anyway.


The rhubarb is getting close and the newly transplanted catnip was eaten by the cats! I am told it will come back. I received my second bunch of fresh asparagus from the same gal that gave me the catnip. This stuff is delicious! She has also given us a few bunches of radishes. I never ate them and tried some the other day. Delicious. Thanks Claire!

Here is the couch that I mentioned that George Bush bought us for the family/TV room. Vlad is checking out the recliner section. Obviously I need to move some pictures that are behind it and we need to find another end table.


It is sooooo comfortable. The hours spent checking out all the couches paid off. The key here was adequate lumbar support and a high back so that your head is at the right angle when in the various reclined positions. Many of the sofas had my head at peculiar angles or there was no head support at all. Anyway this couch is as good as any home theater chairs anywhere!

Natural Treatments

My kids are at that age where they and their friends are prone to acne and so we are always on the lookout for an acne treatment that works. I wrote about one natural remedy over at The Other Side of New York but we can't always find that particular one. Does anyone have any suggestions? We prefer less chemicals and more natural formulations.

The Challenge of the Dock

We put the boat into the water finally up at the cabin in Black Lake. If you remember last year, the dock was all set up for us when we bought it. This was to be our first time putting it in, and getting it to the water was going to be the challenge. It was stored on the side of the hill all winter. The steep slope and weight of the dock, we knew, would be obstacles to overcome. But overcome them we did, even if it did take a few hours! Next year we will either rent a winch capable of handling all that weight or get come-alongs with longer cables. OR we may just trailer it down to the nearby launch and float it up which is what the guy who sold us the dock did. There is no market research out there on this particular set of circumstances.

We didn't choose the floating option because we didn't have another trailer. Now we do because we bought another boat! It was too good a deal to pass up. We bought it from our neighbor and we can store it there over the winter. It is a small fishing boat with a 10 horse 4 stroke (good on gas like the pontoon boat motor) and won't need a dock and can be launched off the shore. This is good for lots of reasons. The kids now have a boat and when the water gets too cold to be putting docks in and out of the water, we can still go boating on the lake with this little boat. We had been looking for something like this for awhile. I will have pics next week when we do the deed. In the meantime check out the dock lowering photos.

Dock was stored tied to this tree all winter having winched it up last Labor Day

Attaching come-alongs and s l o w l y lowering it down

lower

Lower still with boards at the ends to aid slippage

Almost there

Yay! paddling a few yards to dock area and we are done!

We got the ceramic firelogs going. Boy did they do the job. The cabin warmed up in a few minutes and it looks pretty too.

Did I mention a few water lines were broken? Yep so we replaced them with PEX which is much better because it expands, decreasing the chances of broken lines next year.

All in all it was a good weekend. The weather could have been about 10 degrees warmer though.

Save Money By Knitting Your Swiffer Refill

I subscribe to my friends feeds over at Ravelry and look at what popped up today! Like most people nowadays, I try to save money where I can and I am a big fan of Swifter type mops. But the refills are very expensive, so apart from devising our own cheaper cleaning solution I think this knit mop refill pattern over at The Fickle Knitter will be perfect! Those refills are not cheap either. The bumps in the stitches should provide the needed friction and now that I think of it, I may modify the pattern to be garter stitch for more friction. When done I can simply wash the wool in the sink or bucket. Has anyone tried this? Do you think making it in garter stitch is a better idea?

Use Your Imagination

And speaking of knitting, I had this crazy idea. Anyone ever knit wind chimes? They are often so pretty but I can't stand that chiming noise. Is this a totally ridiculous idea? I know some people hang them because they look pretty but the noise would drive me batty.


This is close but not quite what I had in mind. I found this over at KnitWriteCookGo.

Some Sold Wool Comes Back as Yarn

Suzanne is a gal that I sold two fleeces to this past April. She has also reserved a few more for next year. She recently sent me some yarn from one of those fleeces. She spun it up with some tencel after she had dyed the fleece with red dye. The wool is a charcoal wool with some white fibers that take up dye to make an interesting heathery look. Isn't it lovely? She also sent a lovely card and wrapped around it was a piece of yarn that she spun from the other fleece she purchased. This was the moorit (brown) colored fleece. This is an excellent fleece, one that I have previously kept for myself. Part of the reason it is of such high quality is that this ewe's grand ram was the Big E Fair champion. I love to see what other spinners have done with my wool and am always thrilled when they send samples. Thank you Susanne!

Make sure you check out her MySpace where she plays a lovely rendition of Danny Boy. She has quite a collection of old instruments at home such as the dulcimer and is a wonderful musician.

My Headphones Bit The Dust

Our wireless headphones bit the dust. Those are the ones pictured with the cat in this photo. They were working just fine and then all of a sudden nada. Does anyone have a good recommendation for wireless headphones that last a little more than a few years? The quality has to be excellent. The lighter the better, kind of like those you use with MP3 players. I think these were only a three years old. Maybe that's a long life?

Alex Tiller's Farm Blog

As anyone knows who reads this blog, I am very interested in agriculture, and my feed reader overflows with many blogs concerned with farming and agriculture. Some are more general and some are more focused. Some are issue oriented and some are just entertaining. I plan on reviewing some of my favorite ones soon.

I was asked to review Alex Tiller's Farm Blog and I have to say it is a most interesting blog. This is an issue oriented blog and I was immediately drawn by a banner that said, "Buy Fresh. Buy Local." This, folks is going to be the wave of the future because it will be the only way we can afford to eat. Trucking food thousands of miles away no longer makes sense with the cost of fuel nowadays. The emphasis on fresh produce is also growing as is the need to see where exactly your food is coming from.

Alex's blog talks about this topic as well as the Farm Bill and other issues and it is clear that he is a strong advocate for the survival of hands on farming. I enjoyed this quote he borrowed from Dwight D. Eisenhower: “ Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field." This blog is an informative, fun and easy read and definitely worth a visit.

Gardening in 40 Degrees!

Ok this weather is just plain silly. It looks like we are making up for some much needed rain but 40 degrees? Puhleeeze! And we had a nice big frost last night. The tomatoes are sulking, but the red lettuce and cabbage appear happy enough. Can't seem to find any sign of the other two varieties of lettuce that I planted. The Black Zucchini's are actually starting to bloom in the house! I don't dare put them out until later this week. I'm told the temps may actually go up into the 70's again. I won't hold my breath.

Usually by this time I have flowers near the patio furniture but after the marigolds froze their little heads off I am waiting to put more flowers out.

Some neat things did happen yesterday despite the cold. A Blue Heron that often visits our pond, stood in a shallow area and wasn't moving a muscle. Obviously he had his eyes on some fish. But there was a Redwinged Blackbird nest nearby and both birds were dive bombing this heron who still didn't move an inch. It was fun to watch and I found myself wishing that I had a huge zoom lens on my camera to share it with all of you. As I went back inside I saw two Ravens in the pasture. They were HUGE.