Microburst

Last night a storm snuck up on me. The weather folks are classifying it a "microburst", which is is a downdraft that produces straight line winds in a localized area. The localized area was my yard. The closest air field reported 75mph winds. Can you see my truck? Amazingly, the only damage to the vehicles is a dent in the size of the truck, which I think adds character. We are going to have to have a tree guy come out to remove at least one of the trees. Maybe I'll replace it with a red maple. It sure seems like we are losing a lot of trees. We're also losing all of our pine trees to beatles. We spent the evening cutting up and hauling off chucks of tree. Oh... and I got distracted this morning and took some pictures of dewy flowers.

Zoo day

We had a nice trip to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo today. It's one of the best zoos in the country, but you have to go to Omaha to see it. Typicaly Omaha weather today... it's about 125 degrees and 80% humidity. The Madagascar exhibit is new this year. Lots and lots of lemurs... who wouldn't love that? They also have the largest indoor desert. It's under a glass geodesic dome that looks amazing at night. Under the desert is a nocturnal display, which is my favoite part of the zoo. Also of note, the rainforest, aquarium, and gorilla valley. These exhibits are all INSIDE, where there is air conditioning.

Incidentally, chicken eggs should hatch in about 20 days. I recommend removing the eggs after day 23. Apparently the rooster overseeing the flock we got our eggs from is less attentive than he should be. We hatched 5 chicks. One partially hatched then didn't make it. The other six have been sitting in the incubator.... until today. We came home from the zoo to a horrible smell... Apparently if you cook chicken eggs at 100 degrees for 26 days they might just explode. And it's not pretty. And the smell is indescribable. Also, when you remove the remainder of the eggs... do so carefully. They may explode the moment you touch them. This is not good... not good at all.

Summer Slipping Away

As summer slips away, I'm starting to think about that final rush to get things done before winter. It's been hot and humid, making it miserable to get outside and do things that should be done. Lucky for me, the actual needs are significantly less than what is on my todo list. Yesterday I picked up 7 chicks from a friend's place. They are a cross between Americana and Barred Rock. We also have a couple dozen eggs in a borrowed incubator. First hatch is on Aug 5, second is on Aug 8. As you can see from the varied egg colors, we'll have a mix of breeds from this hatch. This is the first time we have hatched out our own chicks!

I've been distracted lately and the pile of books is growing. Current reading list includes C.H. Douglas's Social Credit, which is not as dry as I expected, and Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk.

DC 2010

I'm out in DC picking up the girls. We had a great visit to the Baltimore Aquarium It's amazing. Of course, I find myself thinking about the engineering that must have gone into the multi-story building full of aquariums... Lighting conditions in aquariums are always difficult, leaving me wishing for a higher quality camera. The kids had a great time. Me too.



We enjoyed lunch on the patio overlooking the bay. I've never cared much for cities, but this was a nice way to spend the day. The weather was beautiful. I wish we had time to ride the paddleboats - maybe next time. After lunch we went back to the aquarium to see the Jellyfish Invasion exhibit and the rainforest. Impressive and lots of fun!

Then we hopped up to Hersey, Pennsylvania - the sweetest place on earth. I wasn't aware that there was an entire amusement park based on CHOCOLATE. Like a dream come true... And to top it off the park houses some really great coasters. Fahrenheit is the best coaster I have been on, bar none. We also went to Hersey Gardens and the Story of Hersey. The garden was nice. Lots of interesting things for the kids.

Sleepless nights

With spring storms, extra chaos at work, and the looming due date for a paper for school I'm not getting a lot of sleep. Usually I'm not one to lose sleep - and anymore I really need the sleep! We have had some beautiful days between the stunning thundershowers. A week of on-call for work coming up and only 4 more weeks of school. I can't wait to be free to enjoy the summer! Rather, I'll be spending my free time clearing the upper lot and fencing a corridor to the east lot. What to do about the thorny locust?

Catching up

I awoke one morning to three solid black lambs. All were still wet, so I assigned them to ewes and put them in jugs. (I could have gotten the wrong lambs with the wrong mom - but I don't think anyone minds.) Lily had two black lambs, a ewe and a ram who have been named Chip and Salsa. Tutu gave us a black ewe lamb, dubbed Solo.

A few weeks later, Baagonia surprised me with two black lambs with faery kisses on their foreheads. Melba and Mulligan tipped the scale at a mere four pounds - half the weight of the smallest of the other three lambs. After a few shakey days of both lambs becoming increasingly gaunt in spite of supplemental bottle feeding, they are now active, curious lambs. We are continuing to offer a supplemental bottle, which I enjoy as much as the lambs.

The human daughters are gone for the next couple of weeks on part one of their summer world tour. My son got a trip to the circus today as a consolation prize. The circus has come a long way since I was a kid - although I have to admit I prefer the old fashioned midway.

There weren't any lambs in the circus. Maybe I could train Melba and Mulligan up and hit the road...

Waiting Impatiently

I'm waiting impatiently for this years lambs. Lily and Tutu both look very close. Officially their due date was yesterday. We are expecting a storm tomorrow evening so I was hoping that they would lamb today. But, no dice. I'm on call this week and worked most of last weekend. I didn't even get my homework done. Actually the last two classes I have taken I have given myself permission to skip an assignment. In both classes I ended up with an A- instead of an A, and I considered it worth it. Good enough is good enough, I tell myself in an effort to remain sane.

Spring Readings

I just finished reading Hannah Tinti's novel "The Good Thief". This was an interesting read featuring a orphan raised by Monks and then recruited by hustlers to be a pickpocket and serve as a distraction from their scams. The young boys desperate attempts to determine his own allegiances combine with hard descriptions of gritty yet appealing characters and the ugly situations they find themselves in to create a surprisingly touching story. My school work has limited my reading, but this book was worth losing a little sleep to read.

On the home front, the chickens are laying more eggs than we can eat. The sheep are due any day now and we are excited to meet our new lambs. Aiden and Woolson (the ram) have been moved into the bachelor pad and aren't really happy with being separated from the girls. The weather has been beautiful, but storms are moving in tonight. I have a lot of fencing to do to get the new pasture ready for the sheep.

Winter

As it usually does, winter has broken fast. Despite the 88 days of continuous snow cover and the great expense of feeding 6 little sheep alfalfa all winter, the end of winter is glum and mildly disappointing. I always work myself up making lists and getting ready for spring - and invariably it rains on my parade. The 18 inches of snow that was on the ground a week ago has saturated the ground and our forecast is for five days of rain. We're sequestered in the house for another week. I guess that will give me more time to work on my chore list.

Paying for college

I'm a worrier. I am especially good at worrying about money. I have graphs and charts, paper and digital. I have savings projections, lists of necessary and potential future expenditures, secret stashes and secret-stashes. But how to pay for college for three kids had me utterly baffled. They seem to be smart enough - but that is certainly no guarantee that they will get scholarships. Clearly I needed a different plan, but based on projected college costs it was almost impossible. College savings plans offer little tax relief and putting money in the stock market that will have to be extracted at a particular time is risky.
I found a great little calculator one day at
http://mortgage-x.com/calculators/extra_payment_calculator.asp
and I found out that instead of putting money in a risky investment plan, I could put that money in my house. I can pay off my house and then I'll have money to pay for college as we go! And my house will be paid off. (Some say that you shouldn't pay off your house but I'm all for being completely out of debt. But that's another story entirely.) If you buy a house before you have kids or shortly thereafter, you can pay off your house by just putting a little extra into the house every month. Run some scenarios on the calculator and see what you come up with.

A long winter

We have had snow on the ground since Christmas Eve. The sheep are digging through a half foot of left over slushy snow, but it's been above freezing the past few days and the end of this long winter is in sight. I'm reading Love and Hate in Jamestown by David Price. This is a jewel for anyone with even a passing interest in history. It reads like a novel and is very well researched.

The Problem with Chickens

When we moved to our little bit of land a few miles out of the city we also had to move my daughter to a new school. D was in first grade and had a very close friend and I felt very guilty for pulling them apart. I knew that life out of the suburban gray would be better for all of us, but it's still difficult to watch your baby lose their friend. To highlight the positives, we promised her chickens. Okay, so most 6 year old girls probably wouldn't dare touch a chicken. But she loves chickens like most little girls love kittens. The problem with chickens is that we can't seem to manage to keep them alive very long. I want very much to free range the chickens, but one by one they didn't return to the roost. Every one that went missing brought tears from my little girl. So now, they are locked up. I hate that they can't free range. So, my winter project is to build a better mouse trap... er, chicken palace.

Halloween musing

Our society shies away from making any qualitative judgment and hides behind the ideas of acceptance and tolerance.

Will you stand up for what you believe in?

Simple Cattle Panel Shelter

Ah... it's Fall and love is in the air. Or will be soon, so we need to get seperate quarters for the boys and girls or else we'll have a kitchen full of lambs mid-winter. Last weekend I hauled two dog kennels (the 6 foot tall chain link ones) out to the chosen spot and set them up. That was quite a work out! Today I had planned to put up one of those quick shelters with cattle panels and a tarp. I carted the panels home from TSC, connected them together with plastic zip ties and neatly bowed the panels into a shelter. Except for that last part. Because they are much heavier than they seem at first. I did manage to get myself under the center of the panels, which was pointless because I'm short and even with my arms fully extended I couldn't create a bow in the panels. This is definately a two person job. Putting the tarp on wasn't really easier either. I need to go buy some grommets for the tarp so I can finish up the job. Now I'm wondering if it is all that great of an idea. I was hoping that the ewes could stay in there through the fall and then move back to the wooden shelters with the boys for breeding. We also have a lot of fence to put up and my little cart for the ATV is broken. I drove an hour today to buy a new, bigger one. But when I got home hubby noticed that one of the wheels is wonky, so it needs to go back. And I forgot to turn in my homework yesterday. It's been a long day.

Obama is right

This is a "teachable moment". You see, it's not really relevant to our national situation whether the cop participated in racial profiling or if the black professor was looking for some first hand ammo for his academic argument. The important thing here, which most of the media is ignoring or (worse?) just unable to comprehend, is that our President displayed an honest, heartfelt reaction to a question put to him by a reporter. And that reaction was to condemn the white police officer and accuse him of being a racist, without knowing the situation.
The word racism is hurtled viciously in this country, and it has many people frozen in fear. A conversation or argument is brought to a swift end when this weapon is drawn. The intellectual argument stops and an emotional plea begins. Racism is so powerfully despicable that many won't even dare enter or pursue a discussion that might bring the charge. And in doing so, we stop conversation and feed resentment. We don't come closer to acceptance and understanding. We become prisoners of our skin, regardless of it's color.

A quick trip to DC

I popped on out to DC over the weekend to pick up Child #1 who was visiting with my folks. While I was there we went to Ford's Theater, which as an Illinois native I've always wanted to visit, and the Holocaust museum. Honestly, I didn't know that there was a Holocaust museum until Stephen Johns, a museum guard, was gunned down by a crazy old man last month. The museum is truly powerful. It's wonderfully organized and completely effective. If you go, give yourself a lot of time to read everything and watch all the videos. This is something that we cannot forget.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
-Edmund Burke

The Three Musketeers

Speaking of the realities of life with animals – I must remember that these creatures have all day and night to come up with ways to foil my best laid plans. Today was masterminded by the Three Musketeers – the three black Mini Cheviot – Babydoll crosses. Three days ago I lured the sheep into a chain link dog kennel I had set up months ago as a pre-shearing pen. All the sheep went in and then one by one I released all but the Three Musketeers. It worked beautifully. So they were officially weaned and their mommas wandered off oblivious to their cries. Today, Abby (who is probably on this list now) came out to pick up the little darlings. I took the day off of work, got up at 5, and busted my butt all morning doing things that I can’t really do with three kids (human) crawling all over me. I was exhausted and filthy by 11, so I showered and changed. I spent the next hour tidying the garage until Abby arrived. Everything went fine – some basic sheep talk and I was happy that they would have a great home. Abby had her pickup with a topper, so I tossed Jazzmin up there. Okay, so these lambs are much heavier than they look! And I think Abby ended up getting kicked in the face, but she locked the lamb in and we went back for the next one. This time, Abby just opened the window of the topper and I hoisted Thorn up over the tailgate – and the Jazzmin flew out of the truck and bolted for the sheep fold! Inspired, Chrysanthemum bashed the lower part of the kennel gate and busted out as well. Now there are two wildly scared lambs that are 400 ft away from the truck. Down a rather steep hill. Did I mention that these lambs are heavy? I mean, they look like sweet little puff balls, but they are really made of lead! Chasing, carrying, dragging… And I was dead on my feet before any of this even started. Oh NOT the impression I was hoping to make on the lambs new mom.

Getting Started

Okay, so I'm always a bit behind the times... but I've finally fallen into the blogging world. Our little piece of heaven is in the Loess Hills of Iowa. And tomorrow is a big day for us as our first lambs will be leaving our home to start a flock for their new family. Thorn, Chryanthemum, and Jazzmin will be going to Sugar Creek Farm. That will put us at six sheep in our little flock.

We're half way through the year and we still have a lot planned. We'll be putting up some fencing and new shelters for the sheep. And once the sheep are moved, we'll modify one of the existing sheep pens for the chickens. We also have a couple dozen pine trees that are suffering from pine wilt and at least half of them really must go before winter. Okay, so maybe that doesn't sound like much... but since we both work day jobs, have three children, and I'm going to school at night it's going to keep us busy!