Sat. Aug 22nd... Wholly Poop... Summer is Almost Over...The Trees Are Turning!!!

I got up this morning and worked on a web page proposal again for our friend and personal Chiropractor in Guilderland. After working at it for an hour or so, I went out and left the critters loose to run and sold a few dozen eggs, cleaned, candled, boxed and refrigerated the morning eggs, then sat down to an egg sandwich and a coffee. When Vick was ready, we took off for Agway to get some chicken feed and crushed corn. After getting half a load of feed, we returned to the farm and parked the truck under the overhang so we can get the feed out later.

Summer is all but over! We saw maple trees at the Agway store that are starting to turn amber and red, indicating that fall is just around the corner... AROUND THE CORNER....... simply another nine days and we will be into September. Now that’s about as close to fall as you can get!!! We wanted so badly to finish the hospice gift shop before fall, so we could have a big open house with it completed and stocked full of art related items. We wanted to have the media here to cover the event so we would get some added exposure making our donations to The Columbia-Greene Hospice and Palliative Care program as much as possible. We’ll have it, but it may not be as soon as we’d hoped for with me being laid up and on crutches with the torn hamstring for awhile longer yet. After I get off the crutches, we’ll jump back into the building mode and get it done pretty quickly.

When we get into fall, we plan on attending some of the fall events this year. There is the Wool & Fiber Show at the Rhinebeck fair grounds, the Dutchess County fair, the Washington County fair, the Apple Festival at Altamont fair grounds, just to mention a few. There are a lot of fall foliage festivals in northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire we could attend also. We missed a bunch last year, but this year we plan to attend as many as we can.

I had a meeting this afternoon with the new patient coordinator from the chiropractic office about developing their web site for them. It looks as though Jim liked the sample pages I did for them, so it looks as though I will be securing a domain for them from the web client I use and I’ll be developing a site for them as quickly as they want it. I can complete a customized site in less than a week if I can get the data from their office as needed. It will be fun and a good way to generate a few extra bucks......

Friday Aug 21st... A New Day and I’m On The Mend... Just have to continue easy...

I got up this morning feeling finer than usual. That Cortisone shot has worked wonders for the pain...in fact, I virtually have no pain at all...anywhere!!!!!
Now, being a retired EMT and being married to a Registered Nurse, I’m smart enough to know that Cortisone is a steroid that simply reduces inflammation and tricks your body into thinking there is no pain...so I am smart enough to remain steadfast in not using it and using the crutch they provided me to walk with until I get at least two more weeks under my belt and the pain of pulling my heal back against my thigh quits. I just went out and let the critters out, then gathered eggs on one crutch and did well. Vicki still has to tend the cats up in the loft, but I played with them a little on the steps this morning. I should have fed them on the steps since I didn’t want to climb the stairs......but I didn’t. That’s ok, Vick will want to go out to feed them and look at the chickens anyway.
It again looks as if we have some chickens with colds. Several are walking around shaking their heads, and gasping for air. The extreme heat doesn’t help either. We will get them on some additives for their water to see if it can give them a little relief. If not, we will go into a shutdown in egg sales and give them antibiotics. During the 2 weeks of medication, we will gather eggs to cartons and place them in the brooding house. After week one, we will put them into the one incubator...and after the second week is gathered in the brooding house, we will put them into the other incubator. That way we will not sell eggs during the medication treatments and the eggs will not be wasted, but hatched. New chicks are always fed medicated feed so it won’t matter when the chicks are hatched.
We will only treat our flock with antibiotics for a week and then allow a week for the meds to clear the birds system before resuming egg sales.
I worked on my third book this morning called “Life in the Barren World”, which is a book about me growing up as a youth of twelve years old in central Pennsylvania, right next to the massive acreage of the Scotia Mines, opened in 1881 by Carnegie Bros. & Co, who also built a railroad to haul the ore. Andrew Carnegie named them Scotia after his native Scotland. A Bellefonte company bought the property in 1899 and worked it to 1912. Mining ended when the much-superior ores of the Lake Superior region were developed. In all, 1.7 million tons of ore were taken out of Scotia, at a grade of about 10-15% Fe, which amounted to only 11,333,333.33 pounds of raw iron. To gain such a small amount of raw iron, they had to deface a large area with a maximum working depth of 75 to 100 feet in the major mine pit. When this venture was abandoned around WWII, the land started to recover, but not before we, as growing kids were able to claim this 6,400 acre playground as our own and enjoy the many interesting things created there. We spent many a day exploring and playing anywhere and everywhere throughout this vast area. I have many memories of childhood shenanigans committed there and lots of funny and interesting tales to tell. This book is actually another great pleasure to write. Just like my second book, “It All Began with a Puppy...Our Uncommon Journey”, which is now in publishing’s second writing. I work on it for awhile and then this one.

Thurs Eve Aug 20th.... What a Mixed Up Day..... Good & Bad News Abounds.....

Wow... even when my news is good and bad, I actually gotta admit it is good and not so good. I’m really a fortunate kinda guy, because no matter what they tell me I can rebound and come back feeling more fortunate than most.
First of all, I ruptured (tore) my hamstring of the right leg and it will take six weeks to heal... Bad news.... YET......I already have a good four weeks of healing already done since I injured it......GOOD NEWS...
Next, after several blood tests and monitoring my elevated CPK enzymes, they are falling and now we know it was caused by the muscle damage of the torn hamstring. GOOD NEWS.....
They also did a bunch of X-rays of my knees to see about the pain and burning in front and above and below the knees..... These showed significant arthritic deterioration of the hooscidooter stuff in the knee joints.... and that I will definitely need both knees replaced.... BAD NEWS..... However, I don't have to have my knees replaced until I am ready to do it......Good NEWS. The funny thing is that I don’t ever have any pain directly in the knee joint itself.....GOOD NEWS.....And I only have anterior pain, above and below.... BAD NEWS...... Sooooooo, I guess one fine day I will have enough pain that I will not have any problem scheduling for replacements. At that point, I will check in at a repair station, have the old parts cut out and new ones hammered into place, have a road test and be back under way. (After a short break-in period or re-hab)
Now...I don’t know if that is good or bad news...or where one stops and the other begins, BUT.....
Just before we left for all this to take place, I digitally sent my PDF files of my poetry book and the JPG file of the wrap-a-round cover to the printer and they replied that everything was correct and received into their FTP file correctly. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for a FedEx truck to bring the hard copy addition to us for approve and then it’s off to the printer, soon after that, a truck will drop ship cartons of books here and I’ll be a published author....
NOW THAT’S SOME GOOD NEWS................ Don’t ya know?
Now all we need to do is start buying matt material and cut matts for Vicki's artwork, get Giclee prints made of all her originals made and frame them so we can do a public display and sale of her works in the banks or the library gallery.
She has already sold pieces of commissioned pet portraits, so she is already my farm artist Laureate (and sweetie)
NOW that's GREAT NEWS.....Don't ya also know???

Thurs Aug 20th... Wow....Been busy with egg sales and Alpaca poop...and SLOW...

We're off to the Doctors Office!


Everybody and their brother were here this morning early... I got up and worked on some web page data and they started showing up, looking for eggs. I sold a bunch and then went out to shovel the Alpaca doo doo for guy that is supposed to come for it today. While out there Mike and his grandchildren came for eggs and to see the duck they gave us. He brought a friend by the name of Arthur along for eggs, but all we had was duck eggs and he didn’t think he would like them.
I assured him that they were my pick and he took two dozen to try. Now I won’t have as many duck eggs for me, because I gave Jack four to try too. Now that’s two more people that will be buying them rather than chicken eggs.
That said, I’m now heading for the shower to get ready for my emergency appointment to have my knee or leg checked out. It’s a good thing, because I was moving in super slow gear this morning with a pulling sciatic pain up the back of my leg to the butt cheek. Boy that has you tip-toeing along .......really slow.
More later.

Wed Eve Aug 19th... Got an emergency appointment at the Bone & Joint Center...

Today was a fun day... did nothing... saw much... enjoyed immensely.....and came home to a recorded phone message. I got up this morning at 6:30 to work on web pages for a little while. I might be making a special web page for a friend which will serve his business far better than the one he now has and for a much more reasonable monthly cost. All that is necessary is that I can obtain files and video from the other site to personalize this one for him. We’ll see. I have captured the embedded flash videos that couldn’t be gotten before, so we’ll see if he’s interested in going through with it. I also have another friend that wants me to help her with her art, on a personal domain web site that can be accessed by search engines. Joan is an excellent artist from the Schoharie area and unless you know her site address, you can’t find her site. Her name is not recognized by any of the search engines, so her site is rarely visited. What she didn’t know was that engines search the parent page and if you are a .com/JoanJones... it is next to impossible for you to get many hits.....if any. We will put her up front with JoanJonesArt.com and give her the proper tags and she will begin to get traffic unlike before. We can also place her artwork in a few more strategic areas and pick up more and more traffic daily. We’ll compliment each other nicely, since I want to learn about Pastel painting and she needs help with web pages... Vick will learn from us both, just for being a nice, friendly person. (Although she has no interest in web pages....especially with me as her admiring, loving husband and top promoter of her artwork!!!)

We have an egg customer coming back tomorrow to pick up a load of Alpaca beans for his garden. He wanted to take a plastic bag full in his SUV this morning with a load of family members, but I finally discouraged throwing a garbage bag of doo-doo in his vehicle.....especially a flimsy plastic bag. I talked him into coming back with proper containers or a trailer tomorrow. He is coming in the morning so I am here to hold the bag as he shovels the poop into a bag lined container. I should be selling the manure, but he can have it for free if he comes for it and shovels it up.
Ohhh yeah... The recorded phone message we returned home to this afternoon....it was my doctor. She made me an emergency appointment.... so after the guy comes tomorrow for the poop, we will make our way to the Albany Bone and Joint Center, where my doctor made an emergency appointment for my knee or leg, thigh, sciatic, hamstring, tendon, ligament or whatever injury suffered to my right anterior patella area, when I fell off of the rear bumper of the truck several weeks ago. There is a knot which comes and goes behind the knee and when I rotate it just right, it feels like it locks up and I can’t move it without forcing it, and then it feels like it pops loose and then I can relax it. If I pick my foot up and my toe catches under the brake pedal in the car....... that does it too. BIG TIME... only it doesn’t lock up... it just hurts like hell. A chair that cuts into the back of your leg agitates it too...... Oh well, anyway......after tomorrow, we’ll know if it will heal on its own or whether I have to go under the knife..... I hope not, I had the other knee cut for a torn meniscus in 1999 or 2000. I didn’t much like that and I’m sure this wouldn’t be any better. This crap takes too long to heal and I have things to do.

Wed. Aug 19th... A little rain helps... but all too little. The pond is dangerously low!

Last evening the dark clouds rolled in just at dusk. A little later, as we were sitting at the table enjoying corn on the cob, the heavens opened and it rained hard for several minutes. After that, it rained scantly, if at all most of the time, up until the time we went to bed and perhaps a few more times throughout the night. Through all this, there was not a noticeable dent put into the low condition of the Pupskill bay lake pond......... I’m glad that when we repaired the pond, we had it dredged to a depth of sixteen feet in the center or the fish would have to walk right now. It is really low.

The critters fight daily to find cool spots to wait out the sunny day. Some chickens flock near the railing at the back deck, some have found they can go in under the deck and bed down in the cool dirt there. Some of the ducks nest against every tree along the edge of the pond, because the water is about as hot as coffee in the mid-day sun. The kittens lay near the bottom of the door to the hay loft, on the steps, because cool air flows down the steps and filters under the door and that is their air conditioning in the barn until the evening hours when breezes purge the hot air out, replaced with evening breezes. We have installed a fan in the loft to aid in this exchange of air and it does effectively send air out the roof eves and allow cooler air from within the barn to replace it.

The angora bunnies are cooler than one would expect, because their hair (fiber) keeps them cool in the summer, as well as warm in the winter. We still instituted another two fans into the room to assist them though. Now the original fan removes air and the two new 20” box fans draw air in from the entryway of the barn and the shaded porch area outside the alpaca’s stalls. This helps replace the hot air from the room with cool air from shaded areas in and outside the barn. We also place a few frozen plastic water bottles in beside them several times a day. They enjoy lying against them and licking the condensation off of the outside of the bottle.

I finished the lawn mowing yesterday, late in the afternoon, just before the dark rain clouds came rolling in. I was glad I started a little earlier than I originally intended, but I knew the rain was coming and I didn’t want to get stuck. It wasn’t to start until midnight, but started around 8:15, which is when I like to mow. Mowing in the dark is much cooler and you can see every little blade of grass sticking up in the headlights, which can be missed in the daylight. Also, I prefer mowing around the pond in the daylight hours due to the lack of lighting if backing up is necessary, because around the pond edge, one false move and you’re “swimmin’ wit da fishes”. Now a dip in the pond wouldn’t be that bad, but losing the tractor in there......now dats a nudder song I dun wanna sing!

Oh yeah... the Doctor gave me another back treatment and wants me to go to my primary care physician for a complete physical including the digital prostate exam.
Now ain’t that a pain in the butt! I have an appointment pending at the bone and joint center in Albany for the future sometime too. They are going to look at my major problem which is the hamstring or whatever I screwed up when I fell off of the back of the truck that day a month ago. And that’s about all there is about that too.......

Now then.... we notice that there are a bunch of you folks that follow us religiously, every day. Would you please click on the spot under followers that says, "follow with Google friend connect", it will allow you to quickly sign up for a free Google account so you can leave a comment about our blog. We sure would like to hear from you and it's so simple to sign up. Try it... we like having followers.

Tues Aug 18th... Yowl... 80° in the shade on the rear deck @ 10:15... Gonna Be Hot...

It’s early yet and already the temperature in the shade is 80°. I hate leaving the chickens out this early, because hawks are grocery shopping until around noon and the new chicks are a prime finger food for ol’ Mister Hawk...but we can’t leave everything closed up in this heat. I need to get them out and open up the buildings and turn on the fans in the doorways to move air about.
I guess since I’m out there and will be soaked by the time I open up and get everything going, I might as well finish the mowing I started last evening. I mowed about an hour after dark, which finished up the area west of the house, now the area east of the house needs finished, I did the northern and southern sections before dark. After I finish the mowing, I’ll check back and give updates.
I’m also waiting on my printer to contact me with instructions for data transfer for the book. Be back later...


Say it isn't sooooooo..... Vicki just reminded me that we hacve a doctors appointment at 11:00 in Guilderland... roughly 35 minutes from here and it's now 11:14......Sheeeesem.

Mon Eve, Aug 17th... Super hot days Usually End in Thunder Storms...But...

Wow... I’m really surprised at this weather. Usually when you have two days in a row with stifling brutal heat and humidity, the skies open up in the evening, as soon as the temperature drops a few degrees and we’re drowned in a downpour. We haven’t even seen a hint of a dribble nor is there anything forecast to occur until early Wednesday morning, when they are calling for thunder showers around midnight and then steady rain all day Wednesday. We need it, so it probably won’t materialize until this hurricane comes ashore and drives rain up along the coast. Perhaps that might occur by Wednesday...who knows, but I wouldn’t count on filling my canteen on their predictions.

Well after going to get our utility trailer welded by the guy down the road, we asked what we owed him for the repair and he replied that we could stop at the Green Hill Café and buy him a lunch...... then before we could say “Ok, Great” he rethought his statement and said, “Ya know, that was probably a $2.00 repair, just forget the lunch... in fact, why don’t you folks just go on home and forget it.” We were flabbergasted...we were more than happy to buy him lunch and figured the repair to be worth far more than $2.00 or a lunch and we told him that we wanted to pay him for his time and materials on such a hot day. He said no... So we left for home. When we got here, we unhooked the trailer and let the dogs out to do their business before heading out to eat lunch. We went to Green Hill Café and got a $20.00 gift certificate in the welders name and had Frank hold it until Tommy came in for his next meal. They said he was single and ate there all the time, so we know he will enjoy the better part of two meals on Vick and I. The important thing to Vicki and me was that we got the trailer hinge fixed AND... We made a new friend. A generous friend; now that’s worth more than we could ever pay in dollars and cents.

When we got home, we vacuumed the pool again and Vicki took a test of the water and added everything we needed to make it right. Later, she went in and swam for awhile. I cannot go in without suffering immensely with the psoriasis getting soft and opening up. Maybe if I get the nerve, I’ll go in and let it open up. Maybe the healing time will be worth it if the chlorine kills it and it dries up like it used to. It is sore as can be until it dries up though, so I want my work caught up if I try it.

When the sun went down, I mowed the grass until long after dark, when I stopped to eat. That was around 9:00 or so... a good hour after dark. I’ll finish the other side yard tomorrow.

Mon Aug 17th... Skip & Vick – 1, Hornets – 0, We Win...

There a hundreds of hornets lying on the ground under the nest on the eve of the barn. The spraying did it’s job! More later......going to clean pool before it gets any hotter outside.

Sun Eve, Aug. 16th... The Situation is finally stabilizing... No Government Control...

It sounds like Obama is going to fold under the pressure of Americans who are willing to stand toe to toe with him and fight. I’m satisfied that we can finally stand for something. End of rant!!

We just returned from the barn, where Vicki and I went on the offensive with wasps and hornets. Today we opened the loft doors to allow the heat to escape and wasps dive bombed Vicki until we had to close the doors with a shovel from the ground. That was their turn to be offensive and we took the defensive route by closing the doors and leaving them to rule the loft for the time being. Now was our turn and we used our offensive maneuver to eliminate the enemy. We stood outside and listened to the hornets drop out of their 12” round paper nest under the eve of the roof, and hit the little metal roof below, that shelters the entry way...ting, ting, ting...was the sound as they fell to the ground. I hope tomorrow morning, they are all in a big dead pile under the nest. There must have been hundreds in that nest, and if something had spooked them when we were out there near the barn door, they could have dealt a lethal attack. I was riddled by hornets once as a boy of seven, when the older neighborhood boys threw a stone directly through the center of a nest of hornets about the size of this nest. OUCH! I received at least 7 to 10 stings as I ran.... receiving those stings for at least 300 or 400 yards, before they quit chasing me. The bigger kids ran faster than me and I was the one that sustained all the stings. (Lucky me...) Anyway, I learned to never mess with them until after dark and to never shine the beam of a light on them when you spray, because they will follow the light beam...... even a long distance, in the dark to attack the holder of the light, if their nest is disturbed. I sprayed from the inside of the loft and as soon as I saw a bee emerge, (either falling or flying; I don’t know) I turned off the light and pulled the door closed and we went out the back door of the barn in the darkness. We’ll see how successful our attack was tomorrow morning. The wasps were easy. I just used a foaming spray and waited for them to drop off of the nests and stepped on them. SQUISH... gone. Ha, Ha, Ha. I know honey bees and bumble bees serve a very important function with pollination, but I can’t see the need for hornets, wasps or yellow jackets. They need to be eradicated as far as I’m concerned.

Tomorrow we are going to be visited by George, a nice gentleman farmer from Westerlo. We met George at the farmers market, where he was helping his grandson sell his produce and after talking a bit, found he was about six chickens short after his grand-daughter’s dog killed them. He wanted to know if we would sell him six to replace them and of course we said yes, so he is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning and pick six out.

After that, we are going to take the utility trailer to the shop to have the tailgate hinge welded back in place. This is the second one to break off since we had the trailer. After that, we will try to keep cool and keep the animals cool.

Sunday, Aug. 16th... Oh Jeeze...Will this crap ever end or will they lie forever?

Here we go again... Now the President is trying the “Waa-Waa routine” about his ailing, dying Grandmother and his health plan. Come on Mr. President...do you think we’re that gullible? While we all feel sorry that your Grandmother died, we all have realitives that have died at one time or another. That's not the point of sale here... Do you think we don’t know that every one of those lying, cheating, selfish politicians involved in this "alleged underhanded" medical re-make, hasn’t also had a dying Grandmother they had to watch somewhere along the line, as they passed away? Come on... We all know that you and the other politicians, know what it feels like to see a family member slowly fade away, but most of you still continue to take more and more away from everyone... and not just the elderly. You continue to take medical benefits from Veterans and reduce social security benefits for everyone as you continue to promote care and benefits for illegal aliens. We’re positively tired of no account illegal’s getting everything free, as you take from the elderly and Veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms. We all think it’s about time crooked legislators become true voices of the people they represent.
The thing that bothers me and every one else in this proposed plan is that there are no buffers or protection against the alleged pitfalls mentioned by millions of angry American tax payers. All you say is that "We wouldn't do that." Not one of you, including Obama has told us that there will be guaranteed written statements in the program to keep the alleged nighmares from happening. It is surely possible that there are some politicians that are sincere about their intentions to make a better health care system for all without screwing over the majority of subscribers, but come on guys...just how good is your track records?
If you want the public to buy into your plans for the future and making America like it used to be or the way it should be, start by giving up your outrageously ludicrous benefits which only you guys get.
1. We cannot decide for ourselves what our pay will be for any given year. Why should you. Your pay should be decided by a ballot decision yearly.
2. Why do you have the right to decide what our health plan will be when you do not have to use it? Your health plan should be the same as ours, and then you all will make sure we have the best available for the money.
3. You should work a full forty hour week, every week except for holidays when there is no federal mail delivered.....all year long.
4. Our retirement is based on years of service with an employer... don’t work many years...you get very little... nothing free. You only have to serve one term and you are set for life. GIVE IT UP BUSTER.... NOT FAIR and we pay for it yearly out of our skimpy wages, the retirement we will get or are now getting...and your programs are continually making these incomes smaller and smaller.

If you and your family are not willing to live at the same low level that most of us are required to, under federal programs, you should not be the ones deciding what our programs will be, and when we had to roll over and accept whatever you decided in the past............we slowly began to become another country..... Not the America our forefathers died to defend.... Not the America that so many immigrants longed to come to and worked so hard to become citizens of.... Not the America that was once fair and feared no other nation on earth. Sadly....we are no longer that America....and our ancestors weep in heaven.

If we have to lie down or choose to lie down and accept these things, then this is no longer an America!!!!! Certainly not the land of the brave either!
Well, I will not live that way in silence......I’d rather die than live that way........