Monthly Archives: January 2004

Updates and rambling talk

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I had trouble with something on the server, so my sites have been partially to totally down due to dependence on the thing I had trouble with. It’s back up and working now. :)

I found what happened to our pullet. The puppies got her. I have a page I constructed for that occassion here. [It'll open in a new window if you just click from a normal browser, unless you've over-ruled page behavior with your browser settings!]

It was a very sad find. I only found the evidence once I decided to stop looking for a whole chicken.

It’s been cold again lately. We ran out of firewood by the close of the evening last night, and Frank has business to attend to all day that didn’t get him home with more wood until early evening. A day late and a dollar short for any help today ;)

When it’s cold at night, the downstairs area really chills down heavily. The morning brings promise with the sun rising. As long as it’s clear, the kitchen and dining room are tolerable to some degree, depending on the outside temperature. But if it happens like it did today, the promise of good sunshine began, but was quickly snuffed out by heavy gray overcast by mid-morning. My feet were so cold I had to take off my shoes and go sit in bed with my computer or a book. If we’d had wood, I could have tended a fire in the dining room and it would have taken the edge off of anything the gray cold kitchen could throw at me. Ho hum. Tomorrow I have wood at least!

Accuweather said that “today” it’d be Mostly Sunny. It sure was NOT! Tomorrow is supposed to be Partly Sunny. Based on today, that’s not good news. :) As I said above, at least we have wood for tomorrow.

I have dinner going all day for tomorrow. Pulled Barbeque Pork. I’m just letting it go in the crock pot all day and night, and I’ll pull it in the morning. I’m using a bottled sauce this time, it’s Vidalia Barbecue sauce, a natural, no preservatives product we picked up at Harry’s. (It smells so good! I think it’d be best on grilled chicken, but it’ll be fine with pork too.) They are now owned by Whole Foods Market, but retain their original good food, broad ethnic varieties, fresh veggies galore, and grand selections of wine, cheese, etc. It’s just a better place now that there is some Whole Foods Market stuff going into Harry’s, a very good wedding of services and foods. We used to go to Whole Foods Market some times, but find Harry’s ultimately better now. Before it was occassional Harry’s, and more Whole Foods, but WF’s has made Harry’s the one-stop place for us the last year or more.

Well, apparently things are going on politically that I’ve not had first hand attention paid to. The D. Caucaus, and the State of the Union address. I’ve mostly heard other people talking about them, read commentary of regular folk, etc.

I don’t usually talk about politics here, but I will say a few things now. For years we were staunch conservative Republicans, and proud of it. In 2000 we voted for Bush, and by the time the inauguaration rolled around, we were not so proudly Republican. We’d bandied about with some folks on the internet over third party vs. Republican. We found that we had changed our position a bit to incrementalism, choose the best of the worst. So it wasn’t too much further we had to go, that last Presidential election did it for us. For me in particular, I was sick of it all, and pretty much said I’d not vote anymore “unless” …

Unless what? I don’t know. It’s not out there yet. I haven’t determined that any third party actually deserves a vote. My NOT voting is perhaps the most stewardship acting of all, to me. It’s not a message, it’s what’s right as opposed to what’s wrong.

A label for me is “Paleo-conservative” I have no possible party affiliation. No group stands but the “Constitution Party” but they aren’t it, in my estimation. I believe in grass-roots, not trickle down.

Frank and I are debating whether to get an absentee ballot or not this year. Hedging toward doing so. That way we can mull it over in the comfort of our home. Why not just get the ballot info ahead of time, and vote IRL? Because it’s just not the same. I want the actual ballot and me knowing that I am voting correctly or not. Internet and phone at hand with an at home ballot, one will find the answers one is seeking, and not overlook something and goof up as I would be privy to doing in a public anxious setting.

One thing about this is the way this State handles politics. In Florida you were registered to vote as whatever you were. You declared, basically, Republican, or Democrat, or Indepenent, others as well I suppose. We moved to Georgia, and you register to vote, that’s it. It was that evil “Motor Voter” program that signed us up too. Urg. We’d have sought out the right place to do it, we do believe that only those who desire to vote, and understand it should vote. Motor Voter is too easy. ;)

So then on voting day, the precincts are just voting places, not particularly partisan. Weird.

That probably played a part in the toning down of our politics. We are fervent still, just in a better way. What the difference between Dems and Reps? Not much. Maybe 10 to 20 years. Or a way of dressing or talking. We are not inbetween those two. We are outside of the established political environs. We listen to Hannity on the radio sometimes, and it’s funny, he’s so, well, that’s enough.

It’s hard to be able to describe this. I’m more conservative than ever, yet more liberal than that. You know it’s really a true right and middle position all at the same time. It’s something that is not Libertarian, but somewhat similar in SOME ways. It’s just not so simple anymore. And THAT is alright. More black and white, less gray, some darker grays than lighter grays.

So a grass-roots method is what is best. That means doing the right thing right where you live. Local elections, local buying, selling, living, supporting. Our communitites breed the next leaders. Grass roots. Raising a family to God’s standards is exactly that. :)

Our new pullet is missing

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My new chicken, the pullet I got a week ago, got out of the pen today, while we were at church. The wind blew the top metal panel off of the pen, the four hens that were in there with the new pullet were still in the pen, but new pullet was missing. She did not like being in there, so I guess she got out as soon as the roof blew off. Where she went I don’t know, she wasn’t in the yard when we got home in the early afternoon, and we didn’t see her anywhere, or evidence of her anywhere.

We went out, and got home after dark, but she wasn’t in the yard anyhwere that I could find then. I had the dog crate out there opened for her to go in if she came back. Well, I hope she does come back. I hope a hawk did not get her. I feel so bad about her missing. I was going to keep her inside in the dog crate for a few weeks, but just put her in the pen the other day, and figured she’d be fine … the roof only has come off in the past with very high winds. We had some wind today, but nothing THAT strong as far as we know, in any case, the one panel was on the other side of the pen a few feet out, so it blew fairly far. In the past the hens that got out in such times stayed in the yard and we only had to catch them and put them back in the pen. I am figuring this henny just hates being “locked up” and “flew the coop” so to speak, at her first chance. :(

Our back yard is about a 1/4+ acre with a 6ft. wooden fence all around. I am just so mad that the pullet left … or that any old hawk that took her didn’t leave a calling card. So if she doesn’t show up ever, I have no clue if she left and is alive elsewhere, or if she got eaten. :(

Mild Weather and trees

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We’ve hit another mild spell in the weather. It was in the high 50′s to low 60′s on Monday (I say today, since I’ve yet to fall asleep :) ) Tomorrow (really “Today” Tuesday) it’s supposed to reach 63 degrees F. The low overnight tonigh should be down to 38, and that is so much nicer than 32 or thereabouts. It will be similar to this through Thursday, then back in the 40′s for highs, which if sunny out, are mild enough generally, in the back yard especially, where we get full sun all day. Our property is diagonally positioned so the sun rises at our back (when looking out the back door) left corner of the property (we have a straight-lined rectangular property.)

Our trees are all still too young to give any shade that amounts to much of anything. (We planted them in the front and back in Spring 2002) Our property was treeless, minus the one “weed tree” (what I called it before I knew what it was) that is on our SW property line at the point that our backyard fence meets the back of the front yard just behind the garage. It looked like an overgrown weird tree. I saw no glory in it that first year, then the second year as well. The third year we had a landscape designer come out to survey the property and draw up a plan. He asked some questions about it’s habits (that weedy tree) and he said it was a honey locust … that it had little white flowers in the Spring and a high fragrance … right? We said “No”. So well it was a Locust tree of some kind, but not a honey. So we thought.

After that, that tree grew more and more and finally turned into a lovely mid to late afternoon shade tree. Giving shade at the front West corner of the backyard. That hot sun plus that tree at least give a small space for the children to play in on afternoons.

We were in official drought the whole time we lived here, until 2003. In early 2003 we had enough rain. That weed tree BLOSSOMED! Whoa! It was the smell that made me notice it, never had it blossomed in our time living there. Tell tale things I’d learned before that blossom time were met with actual visual truth during the summer. The blossoms fertilized, green leather strips of seed pods were being formed and grew to long lengths. Autumn brought change to leaves, and the leaves all fell, and the seed pods began to dry out.

We had found traces of old seed pods in the yard the previous years, old ones from before we saw the house first in September of 1997. The mystery was solved, this tree DID produce them. It was a hard few years of drought. So the good rain we finally got gave good results. Enough good life to make a joyful blossoming tree. We had super thick pods on it this Autumn, and a few windy days blew them all off minus a few. Believe me, a decent blossom makes for massive pods which if not disposed of will be everywhere thickly for a long time.

It’s a tree I can appreciate, it grows fairly fast. And does give great shade, though it’s not a straight up and down tree, it usually has a few “trees” that sort of grow together in a clump, in it’s natural setting. It, of course, has thorns, big thorns. But it’s a great shader.

We planted 3 apple trees in March of 1998, and moved them Spring of 2003 before they started to blossom. We also planted several maple trees, Autumn Flame, October Glory, and Japanese Bloodgood. We had some sticks that we planted from “Arbor Day Foundation” (I call them sticks, they look like that, bare root sticks) Well one of them, only one, began to grow very well in 2002 so we moved it to nearer to the house, not knowing what it was, since I lost all ID of the seedlings. Well, all those are suppose to flower, but not so far. This tree is is incredible though, it was many inches shorter than me in Spring 2003 and is taller than me by several inches now. It has thorns too. It’s a nice thick, full tree.

We also now have two Paperbark Maples and a Weeping Willow. I checked several of these trees today, and the buds are getting rather prominent. We still have half of January, all of February, and half of March to get through before it’s nominally safe for the trees to start blooming. But there is no controling nature. So many mild spells are hopefully not going to spoil a beautiful spring KABOOM bloom this year.

I enjoy the temps warming though. This month is going fast, it’s the 13th already, and since it’s been rather sunny and not so bitter it seems like Spring is truly around the corner, but it’s really way to early even so. I’m still looking for nasty weather in the forcasts. I just checked and we have some below freezing temperature forcast for over a week away, no snow or anything though.

That’s what things are like mid-January. Just really odd.