The Geekdom

I know we live outside of a small town, and we have animals, and cut our own firewood, and everything else that goes along with that. But in all reality, my guys are geeks. My family lives for the computer, and the information it gives us. We love fast internet searches for a quirky recipe, or the odd tidbit of information. To say nothing about my hubby actually making a living with his knowledge using a computer. Of course, my youngest son is no different. No, he doesn't make a living using a computer, although at 19, that would be nice! What I'm saying is, David is a total geek. To prove my point? I just got a text from him, (he's at Walmart.) "Holy crap! I just found a 16g flash drive!" Ahhh, I can see it now, the newest, biggest, most beautiful flash drive, as a centerfold in PC magazine!

Checking My Trap, (The Short Story!)

• I've been trying to catch raccoons for a year.
• They've eaten three dozen of my chickens.
• It makes me sad.
• Very sad.
• We put up a hot wire, and added smaller wire around the whole chicken yard, but it still wasn't good enough.
• I bought a trap.
• The only thing I ever caught was our cats.
• Our cats aren't smart. I caught each of them many times.
  
• This is my tripped trap I found on my way out yesterday morning.
• I thought it was one of our cats. Again.
  

And look what I found under the cardboard!


Finally, after a year of trying, off and on, I caught a raccoon!

Happy Halloween!

Guess what? The internet has worked most of the day! Crazyness! I thought I would take this time to wish everyone a safe and Happy Halloween. David and I went to my dad's house to help him give out candy to all the little trick-or-treaters that he had. He lives in town, and always has lots more than us. Tonight he had....... are you ready?? Tonight my dad had....... nine trick-or-treaters. Are you laughing? Yes, I know, but that's nine more than we had tonight. I know this because my hubby stayed home on the off chance that someone would lose their way in the darkness, perhaps following the raccoons, and come upon our house. Not that we've ever given out any Halloween candy before. Ever. In 23 years. Secretly, I think he just wanted to stay home and watch the game. And eat Halloween candy that he bought just in case we had a little goblin knocking on the door.

Soon, But Not Yet!

We live outside of a small town. Just a couple miles. Not far, but far enough. Unfortunately, our internet connection is currently quite fickle, due to us being too far from town, among other things. The whole, "no internet" thing has been getting old, so we had DigitalPath come out to see if we could get a connection from them. A very nice guy climbed our t.v. tower in the hopes we could get decent reception up that high. Just look at him up there. What a guy! Much braver than I am. Nice looking antennae, huh? It also doubles as a roost for the Great Horned Owls that live by us.


Uh, that's way too high for this girl!!

On a side note, I found out that trees weren't the only things my kids climbed around here. Which really surprised me, since neither one was real big on climbing things. Who knows, maybe that's why? Pretty funny now! Anyway, you know what we found out? We can get reception! At least, after we take out a few trees that are in the way.


This one needs to come out, too.

And this one.


And these.
So until we cut down a bunch of trees, we're still dealing with our fickle internet.

I'm Going To Be A Grandma!!!

My oldest son, Michael, is going to be getting a puppy next weekend. He's a black lab, and his name is Hank. Here he is, six weeks ago, when he was one week old. I might be biased, but he's pretty darned cute, don't you think?



Here he is with all his brothers and sisters. He's the cute little black one with the big belly, laying down. See him?

Lawn Boy!

I have a lawn boy. He usually mows once every few weeks. Here he is, mowing in front of the newest hill.


He finished the front of the hill, now he's moved on to the backside of the new hill. Oh, he's pretty fast!


Looks like the hill and the rest of the North side is done, and now he's going to the South side of our not-yet-finished cross fence. That's what will keep my goats in the front part of the property. Uh, that is, when I get goats. They're imaginary now.


He's gotten pretty good, so now it doesn't take him that long, usually less than an hour. Unless he spends lots of time under the deck, untangling what he ran over! I guess that's what he gets paid the big bucks for.

Birch Seeds

Here are my birch trees. Beautiful, aren't they?

This is the first thing I see when I look out my kitchen window, or walk out my kitchen door.

Years ago, we started out with three, but now, thanks to Mother Nature, we have five. And we've transplanted another 5. We've also dug up, pulled up, sprayed, burned and stomped on a multitude of others besides these. Don't get me wrong, I love my birch trees. But the reason we have more now, is simply this:

This pile is made up of a quadzillion birch tree seeds. Yes, I counted them. I had nothing else to do, so I counted them, and came up with a quadzillion seeds. I'm quite good at math, so you can trust me on that number. Anyway, it's that time of year when my birch trees start dropping their seeds. The pile of a quadzillion seeds that I swept up today is what has fallen in three days, right outside my kitchen door. That wouldn't be so bad, except we track them into the house. They tend to stick onto the bottom of shoes. So every few days, we track about a trillion of these things into the house.


Even the cat brings them in. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the seeds out. Until I do, I will keep sweeping every few days. Mother Nature is working overtime. Anybody want some birch seeds?