Saturday Eve, Dec. 6th… The party is over… most missed it!

We had our little appreciation get together this evening at the house and we only had Danny and his friend, Jeff, his girl friend and the kids and that was it. Jeff’s dad, Dick, showed up on his way home from bowling and we made him a plate of chicken parm and stuffed shells to take home and eat in the comfort of his own home. There were a lot of people we appreciated that obviously don’t know it, because they didn’t show up. Oh well, they were invited…… I know it’s the holiday season, but I’d think we were far enough ahead of the holiday to miss a lot of the Christmas parties and such. There was a tray of the chicken parm, a tray of stuffed shells, a tray of anti-pasta with dressing and eight loaves of excellent garlic bread. We had coffee and soda and dessert. We got to meet a new friend and spend the evening with the rest of our old friends. Herman would have been here, but he had some tough breaks this week with his son almost breaking his arm and his wife who is being treated for lyme disease and then we heard from Jeff that everyone in the house was sick with something that is going around, so Herman stayed home so he would not spread it to us. We’ll have everyone including Herman and his wife come by this coming summer for a BBQ picnic.
After a long day, we finished the animals and since they’re all happy and tucked in, we think we’ll give it up for tonight too.
I’ll post pictures of tonight’s get together in the morning.

Fri. Eve, Dec. 5th… Eggs, Eggs, Eggs… Tina lays another also!

Today was a good day for getting ready for the party tomorrow evening at 6:00 PM. I worked all day outside and Vicki worked all day inside, cleaning and straightening up and preparing everything she has planned to do. I worked outside the barn and leveled crusher stone dust where we have to walk to get to the barn. I also cleaned up the inside of the barn and moved all the building tools and supplies to the upstairs front room and emptied the feed room of everything except feed and light bulbs, etc., which are on the shelf anyway. Being outside all day, my sinus’ are inflamed and I have one blasting headache, so I will warm up and retire to watch some TV before bed or work on my biography proof reading……… because it won’t be long until it’s ready to be published, once the re-writing and proof reading is done. I’ll get Vick to do the final editing when I complete the re-write. After I publish or at least have this one ready to publish, I’m going to finish the book of poetry and get it ready to publish too. I have several other novels in the works as soon as I can finish these up.Below are the pictures I promised to take. As usual, I ran out of daylight and remembered I was going to shoot pictures. Oh well… they aren’t too bad.Don’t forget to go to the site I mentioned:
UNLOCKER 1.8.7 BY CEDRICK 'NITCH' COLLOMB

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ Don’t let this slip by without downloading it. If you ever have a spy ware or any file that you want to delete from your computer, but it says “The file cannot be deleted.” you can just right click on the file and use Unlocker to delete the file or just unlock it so you can see what it is. It’s free and just saved me a ton of headaches today! No more Best Buy…… and being held hostage.Download it even if you don’t think you need it. You’ll be glad you did!

Filled outside the chicken house

This is how we winterized the barn

The outside chicken run with nylon in place

Looking toward the chicken coop

Celotex that closes off the loft

Timmy outside the chicken run

The feed room....organized

The Bunnies....under heat lamps

Tina is gonna lay her egg.

Another view of the feed room.

Crates, bulbs and meds

Tina still laying her egg

Timmy patiently waits for Tina

31 dozen chicken eggs & 1 doz duck eggs

Very cozy & very happy bunnies

Sometimes it even surprises her!

Did I do that?

Tina & Timmy's apartment

One dozen turkey eggs here and nine in the incubator.....hopfully to hatch!

Friday, Dec. 5th… Fight a Virus or spyware with this tool.... FREE!!...

Good morning from the Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm…… It’s a cold, crisp 19 degrees outside the window here this morning, but they promise we will see 32 degrees here today as our sunny high. The chickens and ducks won’t care as long as they can get out and peck like chickens do and swim like ducks always want to do. You can see the disappointment in their little eyes when they look at the Pupskill Lake Pond and the water is “hard”. Thank goodness the little duck pond right outside their pen is spring fed and stays open most of the winter, or they wouldn’t have anyplace to wet their feathers, so to speak…… All I know is that, when the weather is nice and they can be out, they lay eggs like they are going out of style…… give us a day of drizzle and rain, (when we usually keep them inside) and they retaliate by not laying eggs!
Oh yeah….EGGS!! The turkey eggs are ready to start hatching on the 7th… in fact, we are moving one egg a day out of the egg turner and placing it on the screened bottom to hatch. We’ll see….if Timmy did his job they will hatch…if not we surely can’t blame Tina…she did her part and laid the eggs. Lets all hope to see some turkey peeps on the 7th………
Today we do some clean-up work around the house and a little back filling around the back side of the barn where the water line ditch has sunken below ground level and is exposing the underside of the barn wall near the hydrant inside. A little dry dirt from the pile and several buckets of stone will fix that. We are getting ready for an appreciation dinner party we are throwing on Saturday evening for the folks from GNH, Hilltop Agway, Brush Construction and a few other friends and of course our family. It is in appreciation for the years service and all the kindness extended to Vicki and I as we built our barn and various other projects over the year. Many people did favors and lent us tools and things necessary to complete our projects and all played a large part in making our work easier to accomplish and we appreciate everything received from all our friends and neighbors. If you read this and you know us…… stop on by and grab a plate…… you’re surely welcome. If we don’t know you and we should……stop on by and say hello, because that’s all it takes become a friend!
Oh yeah…… here is a really valuable bit of free information that you will kiss me for!!!!! Have you ever picked up a spy ware, malware or a virus that takes your computer hostage and wants you to buy their program to get rid of it? It is the oldest trick in the book and can drive you crazy. The last time it happened to me we paid Best Buy $100.00, plus several trips to and from their store with my tower…had weeks of downtime on our blog and websites and finally had to reload everything manually…….. Ever happen to you? Well it just happened to me today again...after opening an email that was infected. I was livid!!!! I thought, here we go again……… I started looking on-line for some kind of help and guess what? I found a God sent web site. It’s called Unlocker. This is from their website: “Unlocker is completely free and will always remain free, which means you can use it free of charge for any purposes.” It goes on to say, “If you are satisfied with Unlocker and want to help Unlocker improve or motivate the development of other quality programs, any amount of donation small or large will be welcome and gratefully appreciated.” I used it and even though the program said it couldn’t see a lock on the file, it stated that they could still help me with my problem and asked what I wanted to do…… repair, delete, etc. etc. Well, I clicked on delete and it immediately removed the virus file that was previously locked. It said I needed to reboot my computer for it to completely delete the file, so I rebooted and when it came back up, my computer was infection free. I looked everywhere and nothing remained. This is a virtual goldmine website! The program name is: Unlocker 1.8.7 by Cedrick 'NITCH' Collomb.
Here is the complete link to get this valuable program:
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ I’ll appreciate every kind thought you have about me every time you use this free tool. Enjoy!!!!!

Thurs. Eve, Dec. 4th… Another long day and we made it through!!….

We were up this morning and out the door at 8:00 AM to get Vicki to an eye doctor’s visit in Albany. We left an hour before her appointment and set the GPS unit for the address and was on our way. It took us in a corkscrew like circle around the city several times and we ended up on a street we were very familiar with. It took us about an hour and forty-five minutes to get to the doctor’s office, which only required a thirty five minute trip to get home again. DON”T ALWAYS TRUST A GPS UNIT!!!!! After leaving the doctor’s office, we went next door and Vick ordered a pair of glasses to wear all the time and another pair, just for reading. They will be ready in a week or less and then we can go pick them up……… and we won’t use the GPS unit to get there. Sheesh…… how stupid! We stopped several other places, with Lowe’s being the last stop after getting a tank full of gas for $1.91 a gallon. We got wire and hinges for the pasture gates and picked up bottled water, which we needed badly. We did find an very friendly person that was interested in helping us with some jewelry items for the Hospice Gift Shop. We will take him up on it when we get a chance to pick up some things to be ready to stock it in the spring when we build the building. We are now making hand-made things to sell, such as scarves and hats or gloves. We are kitting them from bought yarn, but later in the spring, we will have the Alpacas and Angora rabbits here, then we will have our own fleece to knit. Vicki is doing watercolors of our friend’s pets and some photos we’ve taken of wildlife. She will sell Giclée prints, in limited series, of the original watercolor paintings she has done. She will also sell multiple pieces of leaded, stained glass art too. I will make my book. “An Uncommon Journey” and copies of my book of poetry available when published. Anyway, The Jeweler is located on Western Avenue and the name of the shop is Roman’s Jewelry. If you’re ever in the market for fine jewelry, stop in and see him or his wife. They are super people and when someone wants to help us with our hospice project…… I can tell you they are someone you want to meet. I’m sure you would be very satisfied after doing business there. We will be working around the farm tomorrow and I promise to post a bunch of update pictures. I’m sorry for the long delay between pictures, but I get all tied up doing so much and forget to snap pictures until I’m ready to blog in the evening, then it’s too dark to take good pictures. Sometimes I’m so busy, I get sidetracked and end up with a million things started and nothing accomplished, because I try to multi-task and forget everything………Now what was I going to say ……… Ahhhhhh, Probably good night. I hope………

Wednesday, Dec. 3rd… The cub is back in operation………

Hi Everyone, This morning we got off to a slow start, and after feeding and watering the critters and processing the eggs, we went to the bakery at noon for a bowl of broccoli soup and a slice of home made bread. Keren and Reggie serve lunch until 2:00 and use the cute little title on the board, “A reason to eat the bread” and I agree. Their soups are excellent… all natural, with the finest ingredients available………… no junk added…… a very tasty, healthy lunch, no matter what they serve. It’s just the best place in town to eat!!!!! Bar none. Today Keren served our soup and then set a brown bag in front of us and said, “Here is a little gift for you” and to our surprise…… there was a half a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bag. Both she and Reggie know I’m borderline diabetic and they make sure I get a whole grain bread with my soup……… in fact they know that Vick and I are both losing weight and they give us both the whole grain bread. I thanked her today for being so thoughtful, but “Hey Reggie! Thanks too!!! Don’t think we didn’t notice last week when you gave us our soup, that you gave us whole grain bread too.” ( he reads the blog every day….)
When we left there, we went to Cairo (my bestest place in the whole, wide, world…..NOT) ((Reggie is grinning)) and picked up our prescriptions at the CVS pharmacy, then escaped the hell hole town to return home. We then found that the tie rod for the Cub Cadet came in as planned and we took off to pick it up. When we returned, one of our Rhode Island Reds had gotten iced (splattered) on the road in front of the house by one of the vehicles that drive like a lightning bolt past the driveway at warp speed, even though it was the hens fault for being on the road. I took her to the woods and chucked her to the wolves…… or in this case the coyotes or skunks. After disposing of the hen, I quickly put the tie rod on and then spread some crusher stone dust on the side of the new barn where the water lays and freezes or turns to mud. When it got too cold to continue, I put the bags of pellets away that I proped up to dry all day long. They are now in a nice stack in the tractor shed, safe and sound and dry. It was then time to put the critters away and once they were in, we went to Coxsackie and had dinner at Paul’s Pizza & Pasta. Now we are going to put the Christmas tree up and string lights. I believe I will edit and re-write my biography for awhile later……gotta get that baby published soon.

Tuesday, Dec. 2nd… What direction is up ??? Point to it Please!

Hello everyone… What a day this has been. Early to bed……early to rise…… makes a person dumber than most…… because the early bird gets the worm! I hate worms….they taste like dirt!!!!!
I was up at seven this morning…… made a pot of coffee after turning the dogs out…… fed the chicks, turned everyone loose…peddled water and eggs to the frig and came back into the house. Dumped pellets into the stove and sat down to read about Barrack Obama’s latest ouch… at www.wethepeoplefoundation.org
And several others at: http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/misc2008/ChicagoTribune-ObamaLtr-Nov-2008.pdf
And:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2136816/posts
And:
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/Obama/Evidence/HI-Dept-Health-Press-Release-Obama-10-31-08.pdf
Hummmmmm…… pretty compelling…… I’ll need to wait to see what happens……… don’t like it though……… Anyway…. After getting away from the computer, we went to lunch and then home to leave the doggies out for a bit while I unloaded the pellets out of the truck and parked the trailer, to go to the Agway and picked up a truckload of feed for the month. 22- 50# bags of breeder pellets, 6- 50# bags of oat & corn scratch, 4- 50# bags of rabbit pellets and 3- 40# bags of dog food. Whew….I was tired after unloading these into the feed room. It is nice that I can pull the loaded truck right into the barn entry way and step from the back of the truck directly into the feed room. At least this winter when it is snowing or sleeting and the wind is blowing cold as George Bush’s heart…… I can pull in the barn and close the door to unload. We now process the eggs in the barn too…… gathering, cleaning and crating them and placing them directly into the refrigerator without leaving the barn. Before we carried them to the house and then back to the barn. We now also sell out of the barn…… from one dozen to 37 dozen so far…
On another note… I have received several emails congratulating Vicki and I on our weight loss. She is doing it to please herself (and me…although I would love her regardless) and to control her blood pressure. I am losing to satisfy myself, look better for Vicki and to control my blood sugar, as I’ve stated before. I have lost about 25 pounds in the last two months by cutting out several bad items I used to love eating and learning how to make better eating decisions. I haven’t exercised at all, beyond our regular busy schedule, but that will come also with the loss of weight which makes exercising a more realistic venture. Before my knees were so bad that I couldn’t really walk on the treadmill or use the elliptical runner that I tried to use, but now, I think I could do it…… at least for awhile and hopefully get better and better at doing it. My knees are better now than they have been since I retired.
Anyway…… I’ll tell everyone this. Study the information about the glycemic index…… what it is and how to use it. A really good place to read up on it is to go to: http://www.glycemicindex.com/ It is very interesting and when understood and used……… the pounds melt away. The biggest thing is to understand that carb’s are worse than sugar!!!! One teaspoon of sugar is about 4 grams of Carbohydrates and a baked potato is about 54 grams of carbohydrates which changes directly into glucose….or SUGAR in the bloodstream, much of which turns directly to FAT!!
Understand that glycemic index, use it and find things you like to eat…… and watch the pounds melt away! The best part is that you can find food you like and that you can almost eat as much as you like and still lose weight. COOL!!

Monday Eve, Dec. 1st… Doctors, doctors, doctors…… We saw em……

We had our appointment with our physician this morning and we both gave blood to see if we were still alive. Mine was to check the numbers again since I dropped my weight by twenty five pounds, just by swearing off soda, French fries, sugar, candy and most other sources of carbohydrates which turn directly to sugar. My sugar was 109 about three months ago when she pulled a vial of blood out of me, which started this whole change of lifestyle and weight loss.
Vicki has lost weight also and the main concern for her is blood pressure. It’s been a wee bit high sometimes, so we need to get it under control……. Just like my sugar.
After our doctors visit, we took Bear to the vet, because she has been coughing at night, and there is no mistaking it….it is the congestive heart cough, you know that hollow, choking, hack of a cough. The vet took an x-ray and as we figured, Bearie’s heart is quite enlarged and fluid is entering her lungs when it is at it’s worst. He put her on medicine to treat it and we will need to take her back in a few weeks for a recheck to see if the med’s are working and relieving they symptoms. Bearie is 14 years old and still plays with the young pups and can keep up when needed too. That’s the good thing about catching everything early……treat it and go on!!! Vick is working on dinner right now…..and I’m making those silly elf cards you send on emails, when I should really be filling out the sales tax return for the last quarter under Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm, LLC which is not due until Dec. 22nd…… But, if I don’t do it now, I’ll forget for sure, so I better finish here and do it.

Monday, Dec. 1st… Gotta go, gotta go…… blogging later!

I have a doctor’s appointment this morning, so I’ll be a little late blogging this morning. I’ll post when we return. Thanks, see ya later!

Sunday Eve, Nov. 30th… Just gotta tell ya about Julie's recipe…

Julie, of Julia’s New Journal, posted a recipe on Friday, November 21, 2008 for Corned Beef and Cabbage II. Vicki made it this evening and I must admit that it is the very best I’ve ever eaten …… and I’ve had it made by excellent Irish cooks. Thank you Julie from Vicki and I both. We plan to make this a main course for Vick’s family by inviting them here for a dinner soon. I must tell you that you had the winning entry in Linda’s Food Friday, that’s for sure!!
Below is a current picture of the beautiful and ugly side of nature in one photo. The temp is still 32 degrees, yet the air temperature up there is far warmer or this would be snow…… instead it falls as rain and freezes instantly. NEAT…..Not! We will welcome December in four hours! NOT!!!!!

Sunday, Nov. 30th… Ushering in December in style!!! Yuck!!

I checked the weather this morning and it said we would have a few flurries and some rain this afternoon, late…. Well, they missed that, because looking out the window, I see we have been thrust into the clutches of winter and we went unwillingly! It is not raining…… nor is it flurrying…… it is more like giving us one of those all day, easy, steady, accumulating snows that justifies your saying, “Yep….. That’s a really nice six inches of rain showers we got there.” It’s not all that cold as I look at the thermometer on the porch and compare it to the flashing web alert on my computer, which shows 31 degrees and falling. We just got back from Cairo, where we went to pick up a ton of wood pellets to beat the weather. I had seven bags on the porch and another eight in the tractor shed, but that is only enough for two weeks, so now with an additional fifty bags, we can expect to go sixty five more days now. That’s a nice feeling and we can gauge what we will need to get by toward spring and have plenty of time to go get them later. Well, I guess we could find a bite to eat and then spend the rest of the afternoon putting the Christmas tree up. I am looking forward to the Christmas season……am listening to Silent Night by Alan Jackson right now and it has a tendency to put you in a cheery holiday mood. The only thing I dread this year is Casey Mae who will have the tree de-trimmed shortly after we finish putting it up and by tomorrow morning should have it dragged into her crate in the living room for safe keeping! I know she is going to do it, because she is a hyper puppy…. What else can she do? She has to be what a dog has to be!! I guess the worst that could happen is that she would eat the bulbs if we hang any…..other than that, we should be ok. Maybe that is the answer, put the tree up with only lights and nothing else. Then there will be nothing she can strip off and chew. Problem solved. (Unless she DOES put it into her crate!)

And the snow still falls…… uhhh, I mean the rain is sprinkling…… and accumulating…… another 10 hours and 19 minutes and it will be December! If this isn't ushering in the traditional holiday season, I don't know what would!