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(explicit lyrics)

State of the pantry:

• 9 pints sweet and sour pickles
• 4 quarts hot dill pickles
• 20 quarts tomato sauce
• 3 quarts + 15 pints corn and tomato soup
• 16 half-pints+ 1 pint salsa
• 2 4-oz of hot peppers (mostly jalapenos, some hot cherry, some habanero)
• 2 pints + 2 quarts tomato vegetable soup
• 12 half-pints + 3 cups cinnamon/nutmeg applesauce
• 10 quarts grape juice (refrigerated but not canned–we’ll drink it all pretty quickly :)

This represents about half the total food we canned–my mom took about the same amounts of the tomato sauce, soups, salsa, peppers, and applesauce as are listed above. We also gave a few cans away. We would have had more pickles, but the crock pickles went bad–probably too many cukes for too little brine.

Now I just have to figure out where to store it (small house, no basement, everywhere else freezes in winter). :) Yay, maybe I can get more computer stuff done; we’ve been canning almost every weekend from the beginning of August until now.

You know what day it is!

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr

We’ve been working our way through the archives of the Austin, TX cable access show The Atheist Experience lately. Great stuff and often hilarious. It must be maddening to hear the same questions every week for years: 1) do you believe in any higher power (god/ghosts/angels/jesus), 2) what do you think happens to you after you die, 3) where did we come from, if we weren’t created, 4) how can you be moral without god telling you how to act, 5) do you believe in evolution. My favorite so far was the lady whose belief in god was triggered when her alarm clock beeped differently one day (it never did that before!).

It falls quickly for guinea keets. (meanwhile Blanco/a gets cuter).

The incredible bearded women:

Guess what?

Another canning weekend. My mom and I did 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. With any luck we’ll get that much more from her garden, then maybe we’ll buy tomatoes locally to do salsa.

This is our new rooster, Negra Modelo (or Sr. Modelo, or Macey). He is an Ameraucana, born earlier this year. We got him from the Klossners. He spends a lot of time stalking hens, grabbing them by the tail and then quickly jumping on them before Red comes over and knocks him off. We have him penned separately until Red stops attacking him on sight. He’s a really pretty boy; sure hope he works out OK.

We’ve been spending a lot of time trying to convince the chickens to go home to the new coop at night. They are conditioned to go to the old coop at nightfall, and it’s hard to break habits. Two nights ago we got all but 3 hens and Negra, then today it was just Negra (who had to be lured into the coop storage area using a hen).

At least two of the baby guineas are ker-plonking (hens). Whew. We’re still not sure if the white Ameraucana baby is a pullet or a cockerel; it acts kinda cock-ish.

Moving has not affected egg production. We have over 7 dozen in the fridge. Phil better get his ass over here or I’m going to have to distribute them at work.

The first tomatoes came in this week which means we started canning (although we did do a couple of batches of pickles already). This time it was Corn and Tomato Soup; soon we will be doing tomato sauce, salsa, peppers, and other tomato and pepper variations. Our crock pickles were a disaster; probably too many cucumbers and too little brine, so they went moldy. Oh well, maybe next year. Our cucumber vines had some kind of blight so we didn’t get many anyway.

The little birds made it into the new coop first. See that triangle at the top? They managed to fly up there and escape to the main coop two nights in a row (8 feet up). Today I put some mesh up there, for their own protection.

We had to transfer them one at a time from the old coop to the new one. We’re keeping them in for a few days, until hopefully they won’t go to the empty coop anymore.

Or not so empty, because later this week we’ll be picking up another rooster (and possibly a couple of hens) from jkk. Which will bring the total to 26-28 birds (depending on hens).

NASA wants your pee. Seriously? Urine, for Orion? And it’s part of the constellation program? (This works on a number of levels…the old NASA pee joke as heard in ‘Apollo 13′, and the fact that ‘Orion’ comes from the greek word for ‘urine’).

The keet didn’t make it. Oh well, 5 chicks and 5 keets left.

No, I do *not* need a pillow thankyouverymuch.

When it hatchez I callz it ‘Titleist’.

This little dudette didn’t make it. She never really ate properly and petered out on Friday night.

One of the keets isn’t looking so good, either; is eating ok but having a great deal of trouble at the other end. It spends a lot of time under the heat lamp. The other chicks and keets are quickly outgrowing it. Poor thing is all dirty; we keep cleaning it, it keeps pooping itself. It does seem to like blow driers; after one cleanup effort it stood on the palm of my hand while I dried it, and it didn’t even try to run away. Hopefully it will either correct itself or expire on its own; the alternative is no fun.

I say ‘it’ because keets are not vent sexable and thus ‘it’ to us until they start making ‘buck-wheat!’ noises (or not) in about 7 weeks.

The remaining 5 chicks are 90% certain to be pullets (hens), although I’m having my doubts about the little yellow one.

Invisubul corn plant? Or, chick high by the fourth of July.

all arrived OK, although we think one of the Ameraucanas might not make it (she is not digesting food well). Also, it’s really weird going to the post office and picking up live animals. That image link goes to the gallery where there are like a hojilion new pictures, some of which are video.

It’s not enough that the Japanese make great tractors, they have to make them look Japanese, too. :)

The Pixar folks got Frank the Combine SO right.

• co-ed naked monopolacrosse
• closet lambada
• shik shik
• mcfreshman
• hungry hungry hippoes in the government
• frosted cross puffs
• gwar (whatever happened to eddie munster? I’m lookin’ at him!)
• hairball’s unsuaveness
• nid, the mailbox chinchilla
• is this in color or black and white? (duck for the ‘3d effect’)
• whooooosh

Finished painting. Now if only we could find someone who does blown-in foam insulation and who would actually call back. None of the interior work can start til we get that done.

Unfortunately, we lost Squeak last Friday to unknown causes. She had been under the weather for a few weeks; tried mite dusting, yogurt, and keeping her in a quite spot, but to no avail. I had been just about to start getting her broody to raise the chicks we have coming in 2 weeks. I’m hoping we can get the silkies to do it instead; otherwise it will be heat lamps and the kiddie pool again.

We ordered a new tractor today, a Kubota L5740, a mid-size one. No cab, because we will be attaching a backhoe. Also ordered a front bucket and a 6′ bush hog (larger won’t fit through the woods). 0% financing, although it’s a bit disconcerting taking on debt again, especially as it cost way more than our car. Rather than paying it off fast, we’ll probably make payments and put extra in a high interest savings account every month.

Yet another sign we are hicks. Rusty pickup truck, riding mower, commercial mower, tractor, chickens, guns, and having gone to the emergency room with a chicken-related injury. And we once used an old toilet as a planter in the yard. Window air conditioners (not our fault–no basement, no duct work). OK, not the Subaru. And the fact that our new chicken coop is nicer than most third-world human housing. Not the servers and vanity domains, or the complicated a/v setup. Tacky lawn kitsch…could go either way. But here’s the thing. My boss has a barky dog and he got an anonymous letter from a neighbor in his mailbox about it. Here, nobody can either hear or see whatever annoying or eccentric thing we chose to do. I can no longer even fathom living somewhere where we’d be in a position to annoy neighbors, nor do I want to.

Dude, I can’t wait to drive that tractor around. Seriously.

Also, check out the Squidbillies art! Deerbait and Moon #1.

-epe

We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night. I think I would’ve been happier if they’d gone out with Last Crusade.

I should’ve known when I first listened to the soundtrack earlier in the day; lots of nostalgia there, but I didn’t feel as if there was much new or interesting. The best parts were recycled from Raiders.

The worst part was the relentless action. It was as if they were afraid if any of the characters slowed down for a second they’d realize their only plot function was to get the skull to the lost city, where everything was wrapped up in the most predictable and hackneyed way possible (and the heroes ceased to be useful well before the conclusion). Believe me, you’ll see it coming, and probably be wondering, like I was, how many more Rube Goldberg-machine-like action setpieces it would take before the evil communist villianess’s face was going to melt off (not literally; I mean it felt that much like a rehash of Raiders).

While I’m willing to suspend some disbelief about these characters being able to make it out of any scrape (think the inflatable raft-jump in Temple of Doom), it was unbelievably cartoonish here. You just wanted to laugh because it was so incredibly stupid–from Indy’s nuclear test site escape to the triple waterfall scene.

And aliens? C’mon. My least favorite theory about various ancient civilizations–that the only way they could’ve done it was by copying the answers off someone else’s test paper. I know this is an Indy movie and the supernatural is expected, but jeez. (Incidentally, there’s an article in Archaeology this month about the crystal skulls. Guess what, not elongated, and they’re also fakes. :)

A few of the jokes and reveals worked (Indy’s age, and who didn’t like seeing that little corner of the Ark during the Area 51 scene? And the Marcus Brody references were a nice touch.) but it was mostly just hokey. The Marion character ceased to be interesting just about instantaneously, when the ‘big secret’ (like nobody saw that coming) was revealed and during the subsequent love-fest (conducted on the run, of course, because they couldn’t possibly give up ONE action scene apparently). I felt like the best scenes (like the one where Indy’s packing to leave and discussing the current political environment with the dean of the college) were just rewrites of scenes from Raiders or Last Crusade (with Marcus). The backstabbing colleague seemed a bit too much like Benny from ‘The Mummy’–especially in the treasure scene. Between him and the giant ants (read ‘carnivorous scarab beetles’) you realize that this was Indy ripping off every movie that came after, and ripped off, the previous Indy films. The Mummy was better at it, unfortunately. Maybe the genre is just played out.

Silly, lacking in dramatic suspense, and a tacked-on ending that felt too little too late. Gee, when does it come to blu-ray?

The Spore folks reconsidered after a lot of bad press and complaints. So, our pre-orders are back on!

The new John Williams score for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out. How can an 80’s kid possibly resist?

Not to mention a Richard Cheese-ified version of the Indiana Jones theme on Itunes (Plus, so no DRM, if I read the fine print properly).

Baby chicks–Ameraucanas– (and keets–pied) should be here by June 27th or 28th. With any luck the coop will be mostly done, if we can find someone who can blow in insulation before then. If we’re super super lucky, we will get Squeak and the silkies to raise them.

Icky’s on chemo. So far so good, but he can’t have any doggie visitors for awhile. We still aren’t exactly sure what’s wrong with Cupcake’s liver and lipomas, but she goes in for more work on Thursday.

-epe

News came out this week that EA intends to release spore for the PC with DRM that needs to checkin with the mothership every 10 or so days in order to stay operational. (it will work again once you re-connect no matter how long it’s been). This isn’t the kind of setup I can get behind. There are numerous problems that can creep up with this type of setup not the least of which is what happens to the game in a few years when the “magic servers” go away? Didn’t we just go through this mess with the MSN DRM music fiasco?

Anyway, shame on you EA. Someday you’ll realize that this type DRM only fucks the people doing the right thing in the first place =/. I’ve canceled our two pre-orders from amazon. If they decide to stop doing dumb things we’ll consider picking them up again. If not then we’ll uh.. do something else :).

-pee

Coop II work continues. I feel queasy thinking about all the inside work that has to be done before we can get chickens in (insulation, wallboard, plastic sheeting, nestboxes, chicken dooors…) We’re hoping for more Ameraucanas and some pied Guineas this year.

Icky starts chemotherapy this week. He’ll be on Chlorambucil and Prednisone.

102 years old ;p…

-pee

…sniffles…