Free Lunch and Red Cross

Today at work I had my annual re-certification training class for Adult CPR and AED (automatic external defibrillator).

For lunch I drove into Oak Ridge and got a salad at Chick-fil-a. For free. Every hundredth customer gets a free meal. Wooo hooo!

Batchin' it

My blog post frequency rate dropped a little this week. Things are rather quiet on the home front, Dad (moi) is mostly working and attempting to keep up with farm chores. Debby and the kids left last weekend for a two week trip to visit family and friends in Virginia. John will be staying with Mamaw and Papa in White Stone and going to camp for a week.

John is very much looking forward to camp and spending time in White Stone with his grandparents, he did this last year and had a great time. Plus, for the last week he's not had any boy time, he's been with his mom, his nanny, his aunt, his sister, and his girl cousins.

Most of all though the kids miss Pup-pup. When I talk to them on the phone and try to engage them in witty kid conversation such as "which pokemon do you think is Hannah Montana's favorite?" they cut me off and say "I really miss Pup-pup, can I talk to him". So I put the phone on speaker and they talk to Pup-pup who wags his tail and sniffs the phone.

You'll note a distinct lack of pictures lately on the blog, I must explain and apologize. I know that the blog is boring without pictures and that no one really wants to read the text. Debby has the digital camera and in a money saving move I removed internet access from our cell phones. Hey, with gas at $4/gallon you gotta cut back somewhere. But don't fret, pictures o' plenty will soon be back. In the meantime I'll provide some ASCII art, it's a tree OK?:

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I don't watch much TV, or sports, but I do like the Tour de France. So, I've been keeping up with the tour by watching the versus channel on DirecTV. Today was the final time trial and Carlos Sastre did well and was able to retain the yellow jersey with a 1 minute lead in the race. Sastre should be the race winner tomorrow in Paris.

DirecTV: A few weeks ago we had a thunderstorm that wiped out our DVR receiver. A technician came and replaced it, however that receiver had a problem where every 30 minutes or so it would basically reboot. So the nice folks at DirecTV sent us a new replacement DVR. I installed the new DVR last night and everything appears to work well except for the remote. The remote only works from distances up to about 3 feet. The remote works great on our other receiver at long distances so the problem is not the remote but likely the IR detector circuit in the DVR. DirecTV is sending out a technician again next week.

One comment about all this, the DirecTV customer service has really been excellent. When I call them I get a real person very quickly and they have been very polite, knowledgeable, and helpful. I think we've just had a bit of bad luck with hardware.

One other note, we've found that once you experience DVR, which allows you to record, pause, fast forward, etc. that you don't want to watch TV without it.

It rained here last night and it's been cloudy and drizzling most of the day. I think we are in a cloud. The new barn roof appears to be performing well.

A few days ago it was 54 degrees here in the morning, very refreshing. The weather has been generally nice, we are not in a drought like last year but I think our rainfall total for the year is still 4 or 5 inches below normal.

Squab-ble and more

Squab-ble: I have a pair of baby pigeons, squabs, in a floor nest in the stock loft (see recent post "New Arrivals" for a picture). My oldest pigeon, a nine year old hen, has a floor nest about a foot away from the nest with the babies. The nine year old hen really really wants to be a Momma pigeon, so she stole one of the babies yesterday morning. Later in the day when the cocks took over the nests both babies were back together in their original nest. This morning however the nine year old hen had both babies in her nest. She's determined! And the babies are being fed very well.

Bzzz: Our fields consist mostly of fescue and clover, with a few weeds/wildflowers/native grasses thrown in. Clover improves the soil and is good forage material, I think it's a legume. Bees love clover and we have tons and tons of wild bees. Honey bees and bumble bees mostly. I wish I knew where the hives were. In the future we will definitely have some bee hives.

Roof: Last weekend and this week in the evenings we worked to install a new roof on the barn. That was hard work! We've now got a new bright and shiny silver metal roof that measures 36' x 30'. I still need to put up some flashing on the sides but the barn is "in the dry" (and the precious hay contents).

Yellow: Debby reports victory against the vicious yellow jackets that made a nest in the ground near the house. It took two pots of boiling water and one pot of soapy water poured into the nest over a couple of days but the yellow jackets are now gone.

Cancel the Election

Janet (wife of Greg, SuperGreg, preventer of crime) sent in the following:

Irish Puzzlement:
An email from Ireland to their brethren in the States...a point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

We, in Ireland, can't figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.

On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can't keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now...On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc' terminology married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What in the world are you lads thinking over there in the colonies??

Tour de Greg

My brother Greg (aka Uncle Greg, Greg Piller, SuperGreg, preventer of crime) is planning to ride his bike from San Francisco to LA in about three days at the beginning of August. Through the wildfire zones. I think you need special tires for that. He's also training for the Marine Corps marathon. And I didn't even know he had joined up. Just amazing. You go Greg.

Skunk Song

Puppy got a bath last night, I mentioned a couple of posts ago that he had an encounter with a skunk. He smells better now but still exudes a little bit of eau de skunk.

A few years ago we got a CD with children's songs that we would listen to in the car and there was one song on the CD that we all enjoyed and would sing along with. Every time we smell a skunk we will sing this song. The first part of the song goes like this:

"There's a skunk,
he's in our trunk,
and he's stinking up
our automobile.
He's got a terrible aroma,
he'll put you in a coma,
he'll peel the paint,
off your car
PEEEEUUUUU!"

Bird Bath

I usually try to give the birds a bath on the weekends. The birds just love to get a bath. Anytime that it rains the birds will sit in the aviary or on the roof and lift up one wing at a time to bathe in the rain. Plain water is fine, however I usually add something to their bath. This weekend I added a little bit of natural borax, a little natural apple cider vinegar, and a little bit of bath salts. Very good for plumage and supposed to help with parasites too. Highly recommended!

Pepe Le Peu

I was working on the barn roof earlier today and Pup-pup was barking excitedly in the woods. I told John to go find out what he was barking at, perhaps it was a bear. John declined the suggestion.

The DirecTV guy is now here, apparently the thunderstorm a few days ago killed one of the receivers. We now have a new receiver but unfortunately we've lost all of our recorded programs. On Thursday the Dell guy came out and put a new motherboard in the computer, another storm casualty.

Pup-pup is now back, and quite odoriferous. He got skunked.

Yellow Jackets 3, Pillers 0

Yesterday Mary was stung 3 times by a yellow jacket, today John was stung twice by a yellow jacket, and I was stung 3 times by one about ten days ago. We know where two of their nests are located and are planning offensive maneuvers. To be continued ....

Foggy Flight

Heavy fog at the farm this morning. Decided to open the loft and the birds did not hesitate to fly. The birds quickly disappeared from sight. Apparently the fog mutes or softens sound because the birds zoomed by and I could barely hear them.

New arrivals

Took a picture of a pair of baby pigeons this morning. This is a floor nest in the breeder loft. I put a felt pad underneath the babies yesterday. They should be ready for banding in a few days.

Home school update

We are just about finished with our first year of home schooling.

Debby has been using the Abeka (http://www.abeka.com) kindergarten and third grade programs this year, along with the Abeka DVD program. They also were part of two home school co-op groups and did gymnastics, karate, boy scouts, field trips, etc. They were actually doing a little too much and plan to scale back some next year.

Overall the home schooling thing is working out great for our family. John's standardized test scores were up and the kids were healthier this year too.

Home schooling is not easy, Debby did a fantastic job this last year!

We all learned quite a bit this year and Debby has already ordered the home school materials for next year.

Needle in a ....

Loaded about 180 bales of hay in the barn on the afternoon of Friday July 4th. After loading up the hay Buzz could not locate his keys. He thought he might have dropped them in one of three possible places. Over the weekend he returned with a metal detector but was not able to find them. As we unload hay from the barn we might come across the keys.

July 4th: After we got the hay loaded in the barn I cleaned up and we went to Kingston for a party at the McKenna's new place. Wow! The McKenna's are renting an incredible 10,000 square foot waterfront home in Kingston exactly 10 miles from our place.

Debby made Outrageous Brownies (Barefoot Contessa recipe) and a pasta salad which we brought to the party. We had an excellent time and there were a few other friends at the party. A big thunderstorm blew through the area at about 8:00 pm. We were fine in the house and could watch the storm and the whitecaps on the water. The weather cleared up quickly and the fireworks started over the water just before 10pm. We watched fireworks from the second story deck.

When we got home we could see that a deluge had hit our farm. The driveway was washed out in a few places. We left a bucket on the porch and it had 2" of water in it from the storm. We like rain on the farm, but much prefer gentle soaking rains to the fast hard rains which wash things out and cause erosion.

On Sunday Peanut was in his pasture with his halter. When it was time to take him back to the barn he was no longer wearing his halter. So, there's a halter in the pasture somewhere, we've not been able to find it yet.

The vet came out Monday and gave Peanut a checkup. Said he was one of the best ponies she's ever seen. Perfect health, excellent feet, etc. Peanut got all of his shots, worming, west nile, coggins test, etc.

On Tuesday afternoon there was another thunderstorm and Debby called to say that the power was out and that there had been a lightning strike somewhere near the house. Power was restored about four hours later but the DirecTV and the computer did not work. We're sorting those issues out now.

Today I ordered metal roofing for the hay shed, it should be delivered tomorrow. The old roof has a few leaks and needs to be replaced. I have a tarp covering part of the roof temporarily. If the weather cooperates I'll be working on the roof this weekend. Oh Joy!

Blog, Interrupted.

This morning we lost our internet connection. We have a DSL line to the house and we have a DSL wireless router in the living room. The router has two wired connections, a power cable that plugs into the wall, and a two wire phone jack connection for DSL/internet.

This morning our bunny named Lucky was hopping around the living room and he decided to chew on the DSL/internet cable. He did this once before, it must be a yummy cable.

No harm, no foul. We cut out the damaged section of cable and spliced the two pieces together and are now back online.

Oh, by the way, Happy Fourth of July! Be safe, have fun!

Two Years

Exactly two years ago today Debby called me at work to let me know that the homeowner's association president came to our house in West Knoxville and banged on our door and told Debby that some of our pigeons were on his house and in his back yard and he wanted to know what we were going to do about it. He claimed that the pigeons at his house were wearing leg bands and were too beautiful to be wild pigeons.

Debby called me and I came home and checked and found that all of our pigeons were present and accounted for in our backyard loft (we were not flying our birds at that time).

I went and visited the homeowner's association president at his house and brought my son John with me. There were two pigeons on the man's roof and one pigeon on the railing of his backyard deck. These pigeons did not have any bands on their legs and were wild birds that most likely lived about a half mile away near/under the Pellissippi Parkway bridge.

The man had a beautiful backyard garden with a fountain which was obviously appealing to the wild birds on a hot day in July. The man realized his mistake, he apologized to us, and he never bothered us again about the pigeons.

This incident however was very good for us because it pushed us to accelerate our plan to get some acreage or a farm. And now we are living happily at the Rock Dove Farm. A lot has happened in two years.

Tooth Fairy visits again

Last night Mary lost another tooth and she placed it in the tooth fairy pillow pocket. This morning there was $5 in the pocket, as well as the tooth!

Coyotes!

Last night was just beautiful, the weather was cool, the sky was clear. So we had a nice bonfire, cooked hotdogs, roasted marshmallows, made smores for the kids, looked at the stars, told stories, and listened to the wildlife sounds. Everyone was having a great time and then we started to tell a few scary stories for the kids.

While doing this we heard an animal start to howl, and then another, and another, until we heard what sounded like a pack of coyotes howling, and they sounded quite close. Pup-pup, our super dog, all fifteen pounds of him, tore off into the darkness barking, so I said to the gathering that he was probably going to be a coyote snack.

Well, that did not go over well, everyone was very scared indeed, except for myself and Debby, as we were used to this and knew that there was nothing to worry about. The timing of the coyotes could not have been better either as we were all settling into our chairs around the fire, wrapped in blankets, and had just started to tell some scary stories.

The kids were terrified at the thought of a pack of wild coyotes nearby, and John was especially upset at the thought of Pup-pup getting eaten by the coyotes. A certain guest of ours, a certain sister-in-law of mine, reacted by asking if we had some guns and then she went to her car and beeped the horn and then went inside the house with the children.

Pup-pup returned in about a minute, as we knew he would, and the kids settled down and came back outside to enjoy the bonfire. The kids then had a slumber party and all slept together in the living room last night and had a great time.

This morning, July 1, the temperature was 52 degrees outside, with dew and some fog. Very nice.

We've got tons of blackberries growing around the farm, yesterday morning the kids picked a bucket full of ripe blackberries. This morning Debby made some homemade blackberry muffins, yum!