Smoked breakfast pork for the next couple of weeks. It still has several hours to smoke.
The garden, except for the winter wheat, is still under a layer of ice. That stuff is slick.
/johnny
Posted on 12/06/2013 12:14:15 PM PST by greeneyes
It's in the 30s, and there is still a couple of inches of slick ice on the ground, but if I want smoked pork product on my plate in the morning.... I don't have much choice. The propane torch was so cold soaked, that I couldn't use the torch to start my fire this morning.
/johnny
He and I both like the “euphoria producing” Amaretto liquor. After he quit working, we drank Amaretto I got from Specs liquor store yesterday as I was out of it. I have a Specs card which takes 10% off your bill and I had an extra card that has the little one that goes on your key ring. I gave him that extra card so now he can get 10% off his purchases.
My Tom Tom GPS was totally screwed up so I got a Garmin and hadn't thrown the Tom Tom away yet. He took the Tom Tom and will fix it and use it. He had put the GPS he had on his car console and later put his elbow on it and broke the screen - he can't fix a broken screen. He will take the Tom Tom apart and it will work. His wife spilled water on her cell phone and it quit working so he took it apart and fixed it.
He was taking an engineering course at a university and the instructor asked him to teach the class the next semester so he did. He has a Ham radio broadcaster license and the local hospital calls him if a hurricane is coming in and he runs their communication during that emergency time. He does that as a volunteer, doesn't get paid for that.
He is a special person.
Did that pig come from your brother? I recall he was hunting wild pigs recently. It is 46 here and it didn’t freeze overnight. I’m thinking it is the high brick walls around my garden putting off heat at night that keeps it from freezing. We had sun all day yesterday and it was lovely. That would have given the brick some heat to put out last night.
Smoked breakfast pork for the next couple of weeks. It still has several hours to smoke.
The garden, except for the winter wheat, is still under a layer of ice. That stuff is slick.
/johnny
Your area ice is like a different world compared to mine. Glad you have some smoking going on. Stay off the ice.
/johnny
I hope your luck is as good as mine has been so far.
I’ve only ordered the big nursery pots from them and the divot seedling start trays. Hopefully we’ll get enough of a tax return to buy a volume of the 6” nursery pots for transplanting and reuse.
I read your post about the engineer fix it man. Send him my way I oodles of stuff he could do. A whole smorgasbord. Hubby can fix almost anything, but he'd rather not, and playing on the computer is his biggest priority these days.
Rightly mentioned birds heading south but today we had a bunch of Robins and wrens hopping around pecking at the bare spots in the ground and drinking from puddles left by some of the melting snow.
Grand Daughter and Hubby have been playing outdoors off and on most of the day. Sledding on makeshift sleds made of trash barrel lids etc. Playing in the ice fort etc.
We are enjoying our little thaw. About 3 degrees above freezing and another beautiful sun shiny day. Warm computer room. Our dog has been napping in the sun most of the afternoon. Thanks be to God for the blessings we enjoy. Life is good here on the One Acre Ranch.
Hope everyone is doing well. God Bless.
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That's excellent! And very exciting!
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Wow! Who is this paragon of virtue? :)
The husband of my sister-in-law. Several years ago, they met in a restaurant. Then, a tropical storm came through and she lived in a house yards away from a lagoon. She lives on the second floor and the bottom used to be a garage which she made into a party room and the washer/dryer is in that space in a little room. The water destroyed the washer/dryer. The engineer who had only known her a few days, showed up with a washer/dryer and installed them. So, she married him. What woman wouldn't?
He is obsessed with fixing things. His father was an inventor and built a car that ran on air and the young son to be engineer, helped him. So, they get in the car that runs on air (no tires you see), and started driving around town. Cops stopped them and didn't know what to do. The car was not touching the road so it wasn't running on the road, it was running on air. The cops told them they couldn't ticket them with anything but please take the air car home.
Engineer's name is Roy and he is a delight to be around but he wears you out because he seldom stops working. He enjoys himself working on things around my house and I keep him supplied with anything he wants to drink and any food he wants to eat. He is slight of build, not heavy and that's probably because he doesn't stop moving very often.
What an amazing man, and what a great story!
Roy’s intellect is on par with Johnny’s. If you put those two together, the world would not be safe - but it would be fun to watch.
/johnny
This week, a friend of ours in the Rogue Valley saw a couple of hummingbirds that should have migrated weeks ago. It was well below freezing, and they were visiting her empty feeder, so she refilled it for them.
A while later, there was a commotion, and she could decide if they were fighting, or trying to mate. When the aggressor started trying to 'rape the wrong end she went out to intervene.
The "victim" was stuck, its tongue frozen to the feeder; the other one had been trying to help get it loose.
She and her hubby used warm water, and freed it, then went online for suggestions on how to keep them fed without a replay.
Poor things. Wonder why they didn’t leave when the others did? Glad your friends were able to get the bird free.
I bought my wife a class on hummingbirds for one of her B-day presents this past year(’13) One of the first things taught was that not all hummingbirds migrate. I had suspected that anyway because I sometimes see them in off season moments feeding or trying to feed around here.
When we moved here a tad over three years ago, I told my wife and friends in Alabama, it sounded like this is where the made the background soundtracks for the Tarzan movies. We live on the very backside of the neighborhood and the Sam Houston National Forrest(220,000+ acres) is directly across our street. All kinds of critter live there from feral hogs, to the biggest woodpeckers that I have ever seen, and copperhead snakes. I can sit outside and hear turkeys, coyotes, woodpeckers, hawks, owls, and lots of animal sounds that are unknown to us. Sometimes the bird sounds are audible in videos that we make for Youtube and people notice them and comment on them.
We notice the various species that pass through eating at the bird buffet outside of our dining room window. Not being avid birders, we cannot name them but can spot the different appearances and habits of the various birds. We have a couple of books now, but it is still difficult to ID birds while we are eating and them too. But we enjoy it and give thanks for the chance to observe God’s beautiful creation, which is the very proof of His existence.
Most in the Rogue Valley are Rufous Hummingbirds, which migrate. However some older individuals that are not strong enough to make the trip may stay behind, but rarely survive the winter.
There is a bare possibility they could be an Anna's Hummingbird, which are mainly coastal/Coast Ranges, and do disperse to the east & NORTH?!? for the winter, as well as down to Texas..
Just as I’ve always said—good genes! (It is so pleasant to hear about the builders accomplishing constructive things that benefit society. I bet I’m not the only one who’s in a better frame of mind after hearing about him.)
Speaking of wild pigs, from what I’ve read, they’re harder on your garden than squirrels. Also rather hard on some of your domestic animals. Our neighbor has four horses. One day, an odd-looking pig appeared in her corral. It has spiky stuff that sticks straight up on its head. The horses tried to get rid of it by kicking it, one of the dogs had its shoulder torn open trying to drive the pig away, but nothing worked. All the other animals gave up, and the pig is still there, running around gaily with the horses. (I’ve also heard that ferals don’t taste very good, but there was a FReeper awhile back that insisted the only good ham is from a feral.)
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