Our broken media

I ran across this on Facebook this morning:

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And I realized that I don’t recall seeing a single news story on the crash that stated the pilot’s name.  The co-pilot’s name is all over.  Admittedly I’ve not gone out of my way to dig out news stories, but still…..


Yarn!

So, for the last couple years I’ve been saving Apollo’s shed fur with an eye towards having it spun into yarn.  

At this point in the conversation most people who’ve never had interactions with a Tibetan Mastiff cringe at the thought of making smelly dog fur into yarn.  But TMs aren’t smelly dogs.  Right now Apollo hasn’t had a bath since the Nov show and I can only smell an odor on him if I get my nose right down into his fur.  And even then its not a “doggy odor”.  

Two years of collecting fur, trying to avoid the short stuff from his legs and shoulders (and missing out on the fluff that floated free while he was outside), got me a bit over two pounds of fluff to be spun.  Folks, if you ever run into someone who tells you their (non-giant breed short coated) dog loses pounds and pounds of fur every year feel free to laugh at them.

Over the weekend the lady who’s spinning for me (and yes, I’m paying her) let me know that she had five skeins done, and that she’d done not quite half of what I’d given her.

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Wow.  I wasn’t expecting to get that much yarn TOTAL out of that bag of fluff, never mind over two times that.  Admittedly its not a particularly bulky yarn, but it is two ply, so still…..

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A closeup in better light.  It turned out very pretty.

I might have to learn how to spin, if thats how much yarn I can get out of a single year’s shed.  Not sure my hands are up to it, but I think I’m going to have to try.

Since I’m going to have alot more yarn than I expected I decided to knit the first scarf on my double knit Knitting Board.

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Working on a loom of any kind is much easier on my hands than trying to knit using needles, even big chunky ones, so its going fairly quickly.  Can’t wait to see the finished product!


Well that was fun…..

Two days ago I attempted my first try at making home-made velveeta cheese.  Turned out pretty decent though I’ll be rethinking my cheese choices for next time.  Had a couple slices with supper.  Yum.

Yesterday for (a very late) breakfast I had an egg & cheese sandwich.  The cheese was my home-made velveeta.  The egg was a duck egg from a farm down the road.  I’ve used duck eggs in baking before, but this was my first time just eating one.  In case anyone asks I really didn’t notice much flavor difference between it and chicken eggs.  Though I added salt, pepper, and garlic to it so that might have hidden any flavor differences.

About half an hour later I started to experience stomach upset.  A large quantity of gas mostly, though there was some bowel upset too.  I thought it was my acid reflex acting up, as I get gas and not acid burning when I get it.  Except that taking an acid reflux pill only helped a little.

About an hour later I’m still moving carefully to avoid upsetting my stomach further (hoping to avoid puking) and my husband suggested I take a Lactaid pill, on the theory that somehow the modifications made to the cheese were affecting me.  I figured even if that was the case it was probably too late, but hell, it won’t hurt.  Almost puked just getting it down, but once it was down it did seem to help a bit.  Not as much as I’d have liked, but I no longer felt like I was going to spew if I moved wrong at least.  About 3pm or so I took another Lactaid pill, on the theory that it can’t hurt.  And again, it helped some.  I was finally able to sip water without my stomach threatening to return it immediately.

By about 10pm I was actually starting to feel a little hungry, I grabbed a handfull of walnuts on the theory that they were fairly bland but reasonably healthy, and they stayed down with little fuss.  And this morning I’m back to normal, though I took a lactaid pill before eating or drinking anything.

I’ve had flair ups of what appear to be lactose intolerance before, but nothing like this.  This was excessively bad, even considering that I didn’t take a lactaid pill till way after the fact.  I’ve never had a reaction last more than a couple hours.  So was I reacting to the duck egg?  It was the first time I’ve ever just eaten one and not had it as part of a baked good.  Both maybe??  

I figure I’ll give my system a couple more days to recover and then eat some more of the cheese and see how that goes, and then maybe repeat the process with another duck egg…..


Killer dog…..

Most recent article HERE.

Lets change this scenario around just a bit.  

Lets say Mr Wallace answered a knock on his front door, when he opened it the person on the other side swings at Mr Wallace, knocking him to the ground where the impact on his head knocks him out.  The intruder then continues to pummel Mr Wallace, kneeling over him.  If the dog had killed that intruder would it have been such a big upset?  Or would we be praising the dog for saving her owners life?

Not one of the articles I’ve seen on this situation give even a hint that this dog has caused problems before.  Usually when there’s a “dog attack” there’s SOMEONE who comes out of the woodwork to tell you how the dog threatened them last year.  But I’ve not seen a single comment to that effect.

This isn’t a case of a human aggressive dog who attacked a random visitor to her owners home.

This isn’t a case of bite inhibition gone wrong.

This is a case of a well bonded dog who saw her owner down, and then someone comes in and starts beating on the owners chest, likely kneeling over or even straddling the torso.  Not one account makes it sound like the dog attacked the neighbor the instant he walked in the door.  Everyone agrees that the neighbor had started CPR before the dog bit him.  Infact, based on every article I’ve read on it, I’ll bet the dog didn’t even go for the neighbor’s throat.  The death was most likely from blood loss from multiple attempts by the dog to grab and drag the neighbor away from her owner (which would look ALOT like a mauling by an unstable dog unfortunately).

This isn’t a killer dog.  And she won’t require much rehab to make her a stellar pet.

Unfortunately finding her a new home will likely be virtually impossible.


Its MELTING!!!!

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The tracks are my snowshoe tracks from where I went back to (finally!) change out the batteries and card in the trail cam.  Not that it would have caught much this last month or so.  I saw one set of coyote tracks (probly from the previous day based on how they’d set in the crust), and that was pretty much it.  No deer tracks.  No sign the deer have been at the fruit trees, nothing.  Here’s to hoping SOME of them survived the winter!


Dear Software Companies

I understand that advertising your software is pretty much required these days.  And I have come to terms with the fact that if I’m using one piece of software from a company, while I’m using it, I’m going to see advertisements for other pieces of software by the same company.  Thats pretty much life these days.

However.

If I am not currently using your software.  Haven’t been using your software.  And your software shouldn’t even be running in the background.  And you start flashing popups on my screen advertising your other pieces of software.  And then make it impossible to turn off those popups (never mind the malware that drives them)…..

….you have just ensured that not only will I be uninstalling the one piece by you that I paid for.  I am also never ever again buying a piece of software by you and will be very aggressively recommending against your software to anyone who asks.

 


Melt?

Today’s predicted high was 40(F) as of a couple days ago.  Today’s forecast says we’re not actually going to see that, but might see 35 a bit later today.  Since it was above the freezing mark when I got up this morning I’m just thrilled.  The snow is melting!!  I can see where the garden containers are!  Ok, barely, but still…..

Course, the downside to that is that all the ice and snow thats been collecting on the roof is ALSO melting.  Unfortunately our attic space isn’t well sealed, insulated or vented (its on our list of things to fix).  Especially the space where the woodstove chimney goes up through.  We roof-rake, but apparently not as much as we should.  And we have ice dams close to a foot tall.  Or we did as of the weekend.  When temps finally hit above 20 for the first time in forever.  The leak over the vent in the 2nd bathroom was an easy fix.  But the ice caps over the water in the valleys where the living room addition attaches to the main structure were more difficult to deal with.  Monday we (me, my husband and my father-in-law) spent several hours on ladders hacking at ice, clearing the collected water, and creating channels for the melt water from the rest of the roof to go through.  But I think we’re going to have to pull down at least part of the ceiling in the living room and replace at least some of the insulation and drywall…..

Course, Thursday night-Friday morning temps are going to dip below 0 again…..