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March 31, 2008

Weather

I am beginning to understand why farmers worry so much about the weather. I planted about 250 Walla Walla onions yesterday afternoon in a raised bed because it was supposed to rain last night.

You guessed it, no rain. So this morning, I started a chore I had been putting off - unreeling about 600 feet of hose from the barn, down the field almost to the creek, and then across the road to the field that I am turning into a garden. I got about 300 feet unreeled and it started raining, so I walked back up the (very steep) hill, and trotted to the barn for shelter.

In five minutes, it was over - and it was just a splattering of rain, not enough. But, the clouds are threatening enough that I prefer to stay inside rather than risk a lightning strike. So, I started working on straightening out the barn. We have never gotten it organized so far as tools, etc.

So I built a shelf under the workbench, and now I'm attempting to move everything off the bench to the shelf so I can clean it and get rid of the darn rippled plastic roof thing that is on top of the bench but under all the stuff!

I'm trying to figure out how to keep the baby chicks' water from draining out in a matter of hours - they keep getting into it, and splashing it around and making a mess. Gosh, I can't wait until they are big enough to be outside in their own coop.

Coop. Oh, shit. I have to build a coop for the 24 hens to live in!!! Maybe I can just do an addition to the present guinea/chicken coop and make a bunch of nest boxes. The darn wind blew the door off of my coop today - the coop, not the run, and I'm so disappointed - it took me hours and hours to build it, and now it is broken.

Posted by Beth at 1:33 PM | Comments (2)

March 29, 2008

Country Living

Yesterday turned out to be a much prettier day than forecast. I spent a lot of time on Satchmo's new living quarters and on building my raised beds.

Last night, around 8 pm, I thought I'd walk out onto the deck to see what it was like outside. I startled two tiny birds who were hanging out in the rafters of the deck ceiling, and one of them started flying into the window out of fright and confusion.

I reached my hand out, and somehow caught the tiny bird. He was very calm as I held him and walked over to the railing, so I could release him out in the yard, so he would not get confused and try to fly into the window pane.

I have never felt so close to nature as I do now that we live out here. Every morning, I wake up and look out and thank God for making such a beautiful Earth.

Posted by Beth at 8:31 AM | Comments (4)

Death Threats to Live Leak staff by "religion of peace"

caused them to pull Fitna from their servers. It is still available at Michelle Malkin's place and many other spots around the web.

These Muslims who call for "tolerance" must have extreme cognitive dissonance. These same people who rail against Jews and Christians on a 5 times daily basis get their panties all in a bunch if anyone points out that their "prophet" treated women as sex slaves and was a pedophile.

Say what you like about other religions - I can't think of one where it's okay to have sex with girls and in-laws because the "good" book of that faith says so, except for Islam.

As a Catholic, I hear my faith criticized almost daily on the radio, tv or the web. It's okay. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, no matter how stupidly those opinions are formed. But you are not going to see the Pope declare war on society because Catholicism is disliked by people. Editorial cartoonists are free to mock my religion in any way they can, and they do not need to fear for their lives from Catholics.

Again, freedom of speech is what is important here. If we try to mollify Islamists by refraining from valid criticism of their faith, we are giving away our freedoms.

Posted by Beth at 6:43 AM | Comments (1)

March 28, 2008

Listening in on Hill and Bill

Grouchy Old Cripple has managed to tap Mrs. Clinton's phone line. He was able to record a conversation between her and Bill. Here is a small excerpt, but gosh, you really need to go read the entire thing!!!

BJ: How's it goin' Hillary?

TRT: Goddammit Bill! WTF do the MFCS's at CBS think they're doing? Jesus H. Christ! They've always let us lie like rugs before. WTF is going on here? Have you seen my poll numbers? 37 fucking percent! (Crash!)

BJ: What was that sound?

TRT: WTF do you think it was? You've heard it often enough. I threw a fucking lamp against the wall. But back to CBS. They've always loved us. Why are they turning on me?

BJ: Hillary, you're just not as good of a liar as I am. I've tried to teach you.

TRT: But it shouldn't matter. Those bastards have always covered for us before. I mean CBS used to be the Clinton Broadcasting System. This shit wouldn't be happening if that idiot Dan Rather were still around. He worshiped the ground we walked on. I bet it's that little bitch Katie Couric. Can't you get her to give you a blowjob or something?

BJ: Hillary, you're just not very likable. Maybe you should start crying again. It saved you in New Hampshire.

Posted by Beth at 6:00 AM | Comments (2)

March 27, 2008

Fitna

This movie has some seriously shocking images. It is a movie about the Koran, by Geert Wilders. I could not watch the entire thing, but I'll keep trying. If you have forgotten what terrorism is about, you need to watch this. Then you will remember.

Wilders releases controversial film on Islam

(EUX.TV) -- Dutch member of parliament and outspoken Islam critic Geert Wilders on Thursday night posted on the Internet his long-awaited movie 'Fitna'. The movie is a controversial critique of Islam as a 'fascist' religion.

An English version of the movie can be seen via the liveleak.com website. The original version is in Dutch. Within the first two hours after the movie was posted, more than 200,000 people had watched it.

Source


By the way, Right Girl gets the hat tip for this one!

Posted by Beth at 3:47 PM | Comments (2)

Workplace Bullying

Workplace Bullying is in the news(Forbes) these days.

As I'm building coops for my new chickens and ducklings, I listen to talk radio. Last evening, two talk show hosts at KMBZ radio laughed off the very idea of work-place bullying. After all, you can always go find another job, don't you know!

Well, it is no laughing matter. In fact, it can absolutely ruin your life. I have been the object of bullying on more than one occasion, from the time I was a child until my last job.

I don't know what it is, but I seem to attract bullies. That is why I hope and pray that being a farmer and selling at the farmer's market and raising and showing Angora Goats will be my perfect job! My blood pressure is already down and I have lost a fair amount of weight. I no longer get dizzy spells or feel like I might pass out (happened almost daily when I worked at Cerner - I can't tell you how many times I thought I would black out between the car and my cubicle - this never happened when I was traveling and working with clients - it was just some of the people I worked with and/or for at Cerner).

I no longer get panic attacks when I'm driving. I am not on edge all the time. This is good.

The first time I ran into bullying on the job was when I first graduated from college way back in 1975. I worked for the Missouri Division of Family Services, and my supervisor and her boss did not care for me. The other people in the small group I worked with went to lunch with Karen and her boss pretty regularly. They all sat around together and if I tried to join them, they would all leave.

And then, there was the day when my boss, Karen, called me in and told me that she didn't care for my wardrobe. I only had 5 outfits for work, which involved going to the awful parts of the County and helping out people who needed food, shelter, etc - I went to a lot of not so nice places. One of the other women I worked with lived at home with her parents in Leawood, Kansas. A very pricey suburb of Kansas City. She looked like a model and dressed like one, too.

I was a newlywed with a crappy, low paying job as a caseworker (started at $550 a month) and I have never looked like a model or dressed like one - LOL).

Anyway, I was terribly embarrassed that Karen didn't think I dressed well enough to venture out and go to the projects, etc. They started shunning me - I transferred to a different group as quickly as I could, and things were much better there.

I never ran into any bullying at QuikTrip - that was a very good company to work for, even if I was the only woman working in any of their stores at the time. The guys were good to work for, the supervisors were good, but the 64 hour work weeks got old after a few years.

In fact, I didn't run into any bullying again until I worked for Sprint. The worst bullying occurred when I worked in a billing group with a bunch of other women. It involved getting billing out using a software program called CASS. It also involved provisioning special lines for businesses.

Anyway, I picked up how to do the billing pretty easily, and I was pretty fast and didn't make mistakes. I was usually finished a couple of hours before the day was over, so I'd ask for more work. Big mistake.

It seems that the women I worked with resented my competence. One day, I was told there was a special meeting. I walked to the meeting room, and my supervisor, Cindy, was there with the entire department. She said that they had brought me into the meeting to tell me that I was a problem in the group. All of my co-workers spoke one-by-one about how I made them feel bad about themselves because I did so much work. They all hated me and wanted to let me know that.

I was stunned and heartbroken. I was crying, they kept on telling me that I was upsetting them because they could not keep up with me.

Holy Shit! I was being berated for being too good. I stood up to leave, and Cindy, my idiot supervisor, shoved me back down in my chair. I stood up again, and told her she cannot touch me and I left the room, in tears. It was much worse than I can describe.

Our manager was out of town, so I went to our acting director. He was rather stunned at what I told him, and told me that I could just stay home and they would pay me until I found another job at Sprint to move to. Well, I told him that I wanted to work, that it would not be right for Sprint to pay me to do nothing.

When my manager (not supervisor), got back into town, she called me into her office and said it was all my fault because I was too smart.She suggested that I play dumb, because the other women would feel better then. She said I did my job too well.

I got into the IT department at Sprint and did well for several years there, until I got another rotten supervisor. A man who was so inept that he sent me his emails to edit before he would send them out. The guy could not write a complete sentence. Ever.
Another guy I worked with, Bob, got pissed off at me one day because I made a mistake with our internal web. Bob chased me through the department, yelling at me. I cryed. The damn boss, whose name I have hidden away deep into my subconscious, got all pissed off at me for crying. After getting excellent reviews for several years previously, in the same job, this asshole gave me a needs improvement rating because I cried.

So, I left Sprint and went to Birch Telecom, which was an awful mistake. That company had purchased all kinds of software and really didn't need all they had.

Naturally, there was another supervisor who was awful. He would stand behind me and yell at me that he wanted a new report written and run right now! He would tell me I was incompetent and worse. He humiliated me in front of contractors. He lied about me. He was not even my boss. He was director in the department. Eventually, he was fired. I went to HR and complained, and they went straight to Rob and told him that I had complained - gee, thanks, HR! Until he was fired, I was subjected to an incredibly abusive tirade coming out of his mouth for hours each day. Ulcer anyone?

I thought I was saved when Cerner hired me. They called me after seeing my resume on Monster. I loved what I did. I loved the job. At that time, there were very few women in the group of 100 + people I was in - 4 or 5, I think. In the particular sub-group I was in, there was one other woman, who screamed at me a lot - because I had not been there as long as she had and I should not be able to understand the software better than she did. Once again, I was bullied because I was smart. She left the company, two of the guys I worked with started on me.

Once, when I was talking to a client - a paying customer, I turned around and asked Brian to please keep his voice down as I could not hear the client on the phone - he was talking to another guy in our little cubicle farm from hell. He yelled at me - honestly, called me honey, said I would be better off listening to him so I could learn something.

And then, there was Kurt - brilliant kid, brilliant, but he should never be allowed to train any employee, because he was just plain mean.

Eventually, I got to be the best person in the group who did what I did. I got Outstanding ratings from two different bosses. The clients loved me. I trained new people coming into our group, and watched as these guys went out to lunch regularly with the bosses, and I was rarely invited. Then I watched as the guys I trained and continued to help get promoted to positions above me.

There was another bully - a short guy - Napoleon Complex, maybe? Who needed a lot of help. I suspect Michael had ADD or something, as he would ask the same questions day after day after day.

One day, I wrote out an outline of how to find out from the clients what the problem was and the steps to fix the issues. I gave it to him, and he took one look at it, walked over to our boss, threw the several pages to the ground and yelled - you call these instructions? I suspect he didn't understand all the words I used. Several of the guys I worked with would swear I was making words up because they had a crappy vocabulary.

Anyway, I told him to never ask for help from me again, and of course, I got in trouble for not being nice to the little jerk after he insulted me.

Sigh. I should have realized that I was not going to fit in at Cerner. I'm older than the great majority of the employees, and I'm not a pretty, skinny, little girl wearing high heels every day and sleeping around. What a soap opera that place is.

After 6 years there, I was laid off. Why? Because I complained to my boss and manager about how my new manager, a pregnant blond woman, treated me. She was almost the worst of the bunch. She completely ignored me, refused to help me, and really set me up to fail.

I'm so glad that I have this opportunity to be self-employed. I can decide which project to work on, and I get to spend a lot of time outdoors with the horses and chickens and guineas, and soon, the angora goats.

I am able to garden all I want. It's heaven. I just hope I can actually make some money doing this, because I'm putting in a lot of hours.

So if you find that you have co-workers or bosses bullying you, get a different job just as fast as you can and do not go through the 100 pound weight gain and high blood pressure that I did at Cerner. The first time some one tells you that they make you feel bad because you are too smart, get the hell out of that company, or at least the group you are working in. Because no matter what you do, how hard you try, the bullies do not change. Ever.

I used to lay awake at night worried about my job because of the incredible stress of being mocked, ignored, shunned and otherwise treated like a leper.

My performance has always been very good. I won awards for my performance. But it doesn't matter if people are so mean that you get dizzy walking from the car to the cubicle farm.

I freely admit that I am the cause of the bullying. There is something about my personality that seems to encourage that behaviour. And being smart makes it worse, I guess.

I was taught to work hard, and that working hard would be rewarded.

How I wish this was true in the corporate world. But it isn't.

Posted by Beth at 6:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 25, 2008

The weather is good, I'm a farmer

And I've been too busy to blog!

Today, I painted the chicken coop and cut the wood necessary for building a pen for John's two ducklings. I was painting all that wood after I cut it, and had enough left over to paint most of the chicken coop/house.

I hope to get the two ducks out into their own space tomorrow, as they make a humongous mess in the brooder with the baby chicks.

Speaking of baby chicks, I was trying to clean the brooder and a large piece of wood fell on them and broke the back of one of the chicks. Boy, do I feel awful! I held her until she died, and she is in a box waiting for burial. Sigh. I'm learning that birds are kinda fragile, but this is the first time I was personally responsible for the death of a critter. Sigh.

Willie and Petey are doing fine - they still have their winter coats so they are very fuzzy. Both of them lost weight during the winter - it was harder than what they are used to, so I pull them out of the pasture most mornings, and feed them beet pulp and Purina Equine Senior and hay.

I am really dying to ride Willy or Petey around the farm. I suppose Willy would be the safer ride - Petey is likely to dump me LOL.

Tomorrow, I have to put together the duck home and get them set up. I also need to get 6 grape vines planted, and get my raised beds started.

I also want to plant my seed potatoes sometime this week. And I have to start some of my flower seeds - poppies and larkspur and violas, etc.

I'm spending so much time outside that I'm neglecting the house. I've been waiting so long for spring, and I have tons and tons of things to get done.

I'm loving it!

Posted by Beth at 6:21 PM | Comments (2)

March 18, 2008

Obama, gad, I'm so sick of Obama

Obama is trying to become our president by preaching to us. He says nothing at all. And now, despite what he has been saying all along, he has brought race into it.

He is going to heal us. Obama, the Messiah?

I think not.

I think he is duplicitous. I fear he is a Marxist. I know he is a con artist.

Vote for Obama? Only if you want to be preached at day in and day out by a man who thinks he knows more than we dumb citizens.

Posted by Beth at 10:54 AM | Comments (2)

March 17, 2008

A picture of the little buck-kid I'm buying

Isis%26buckkid08.jpg

Is he not the cutest little thing? He will need a name. His mama's name is Isis.

Posted by Beth at 12:56 PM | Comments (7)

March 15, 2008

Getting closer to spring time!

First of all, I am so happy that John is back home after being gone all week long (including being gone for my birthday!). We went to Outback yesterday evening for dinner and had some wonderful food. Yum. It has been a while since I've had a steak.

Today, we went to the Train Show in Kansas City at Bartle Hall. It was rather expensive for what it was. $10 a ticket and $10 for parking. There were about 1/2 as many exhibitors this year than the last time we made it to that show, some years ago. But I did see some neat ideas in our scale (1:20.3).

We went to Sams Club both yesterday and today - it is rare we go there at all, but with starting a business and all, there are things we have to buy. We bought a cash register and a battery converter that will convert a car battery to AC for the cash register when I am at the Market. I needed it because I will have to pay sales tax, and it's easiest to figure it with the cash register - plus, it will be a good way to determine what sells when and what does not, with the PLU and Department keys.

We went back to Sam's today to get some tables for the Farmer's Market and some other things. My dad would call some of the stuff we got "basic provisions" (In other words, booze!).

And then, on our way home, John stopped at Grass Pad (a very interesting garden and seed supply store - their ads say "Grass Pad, high on grass!").

I bought seed potatoes to plant on St. Patrick's Day - Yukon Gold and two other types. I also bought some green onion sets and about 100 Gladiola bulbs (they had a great price).

The bulbs were 12 cents each. I should be able to sell the flowers for $1 a stem - I think that's a good return, plus, if I am really ambitious, I can dig up the bulbs in the fall and store them until next spring and then plant them again - which would give me a really, really, really good return on my money!

Our 25 baby chicks and two ducklings are doing well. They are in what used to be the milk-pasteurizing room in the barn. I set them up in a brooder with heat lamps and I'm heating the room itself with a space heater. It is kinda nice to go into the barn, open the door to that room and be warm!

The room next to it will be my pottery studio. It will also be the place where I shear my Angora Goats. It needs some work, and we will have to have an electrician out to install the power outlet for my kiln. I have running water in the barn, and in the spring, summer and fall, it will be great - next winter, though, I think I'll just use the studio at the Carnegie Arts Center in Leavenworth - for $55 a month, I can use their wheels and get all my stuff fired.

I have mixed feeling about starting seeds under lights. They seem much more fragile that way. I talked to Rodney Parsons (the farmer who sharecrops our hay fields for us) and his wife just got a 6 ft. x 6 ft. polycarbonate greenhouse to start her seeds in, and she likes it better because it is natural light. The drawback, though, is that they need to heat it or it can still freeze at night. I think I'll look into that possibility for next year, assuming I survive this year!

Well, I'm fixing my handsome husband dinner now. Gotta go!

Posted by Beth at 5:43 PM | Comments (1)

March 13, 2008

I increased our critter count today

I got my 25 all pullet heavy breed chicks today. It's kind of a surprise package - these chicks are to be layers, and they are all different colors. All I know is that they are all the big chickens - the ones the hawks can't pick up and run off with!

Oh, and I got two ducklings, too. I figured, what the heck, ducks are nice birds.

And it appears that a handsome mallard duck and his lady have taken up residence in our large pond. They are pretty tough little birds, as I watched them chase off a pair of geese this afternoon. I much prefer the ducks to the geese - the geese just have parties that are way too big and messy, if you know what I mean.

I also put a down payment on 3 lovely Angora goats. Serafina is the name of the nanny goat, but her daughter, just a few weeks old, has no name. The third goat is a little kid - he will be our billy goat. The two girls are "colored" Angoras and the little boy goat is all white, nice coat.

When we go to get them, we will be able to transport Serafina in a large dog carrier and the other two in smaller dog carriers. Hope we can borrow them, as we don't really need them once we get the goats home.

I'll take baby chick and duckling pictures tomorrow. Darn, they are cute!

John will be happy that I built their brooder in the barn, so there will not be any mess in the garage! Well, from the chicks, anyway - lol!

Posted by Beth at 7:56 PM | Comments (9)

March 12, 2008

Will you still love me when I'm 55?

And of course, John does still love me, even if I am 55! Unfortunately, he is traveling for work this week. So, I'm having my birthday here at home with all the critters.

I went to the clinic to get a tetanus shot this afternoon, because of that silly scissoring myself thing yesterday. The doc complimented me on my fine use of a butterfly bandaid thingie - which apparently closed the wound quite well.

Then I went to get a better chicken brooder lamp and bulb for the baby chicks that will come either tomorrow or the day after. I figured out a much better design for the brooder itself, and for about $15.00 (not counting the lights) I'll have a 4 ft. x 4 ft brooder that is 2 feet tall and will have a 1/4 inch hardware wire top for the 25 babies. I found out today that they are also getting some ducklings in - oh, I'm so tempted to get a couple of Muscovies for John!

Since today is my birthday, I have been really lazy. I have not completed any of the projects I had set for myself this week, well, except for laundry, that is pretty well caught up.

I've been spending more time with Willy and Petey - my horses, and really getting good feedback from them.

There was a close call yesterday with the chickens - one of the red-tailed hawks swooped down and tried to pick up Pebbles - but Rocky attacked the hawk, and he let go of her - there was much shrieking by the hawk and Pebbles, but she survived, except for the spot where his talons broke her skin and tore away some feathers.

A good rooster is worth his weight in gold!.

I'm working hard on getting a lot of seeds started in the basement, under light. It is important to get the tomatoes well-started so I can have actual tomatoes before the normal 4th of July home-grown tomato time, when everyone has them!

I am experimenting this year, my first as a market grower. I bought more varieties of tomatoes than I probably need, but I want to figure out what grows best, tastes best and sells best so I can be pickier next year.

I am not growing any hybridized tomatoes. That way, I can collect and save the seeds from the best-producing plants and know that I have a good seed for next year.

I'm also starting a lot of different varieties of hot peppers. One of the ladies at the farmer's market suggested that you put together a package of tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic and spices with recipes for salsas - not sure I'll go that for, but I think Robin has a great idea.

Oh, politics - I have to mention politics. How can the women in the Democratic Party stand to watch as yet another wife of a politician who has grievously hurt her by cheating, stand by her man?

To me, these women - Hillary on down the line - are all very bad examples of how women should allow themselves to be treated!!!

And to all of you who have emailed me or left me messages on FaceBook - thanks for the birthday wishes!! I really appreciate it.

Posted by Beth at 7:55 PM | Comments (5)

March 11, 2008

Don't tell John

But . . . I cut my left index finger earlier today - and I suspect it probably needed a couple of stitches, but I don't have time to go to the hospital and do that, so I washed it, put on neosporin and I butterflied it and then put a bandage over it. Damn thing hurts.

And yes, just like John, I did it using the wrong tool for the wrong task. I was trying to figure out if I could knock out a hole in some plastic, and I used my small, very sharp scissors.

Ow.

Oh, you can tell I'm a farmer because I am going to a meeting tonight to learn how to maintain ponds.

I get to learn about aeration and all kinds of stuff.

Woo Hoo!

[Dont' tell her, but Beth is about to become #1 in Google for... "I scissored myself today!"]

Posted by Beth at 4:08 PM | Comments (9)

March 6, 2008

Just call me . . . The Poop Patrol

I realized today that at least 60% of my time is invested in discovering and dealing with poop. There is horse poop, chicken poop, dog poop and kitty poop.

Soon there will be more chicken poop and goat poop. ( I have 25 chicks that should be delivered to the feed store on March 15th, and 2 baby angora goats that should be born into this world sometime this month).

All the different kinds of poop need different treatment. The horse and chicken poop are composted with any non-meat kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, straw, whatever. The horse poop that is out in the pasture will be hopefully mixed into the earth with my drag harrow, as soon as the ground thaws!

The horse poop in the stalls in the barn has to be taken out and thrown on the compost pile daily. The chicken poop in the chicken coop only has to be cleaned out when the weather thaws - when it starts to smell - well, except for under the roosts - that needs to be cleaned at least once a week, depending . . .

It makes me not even want to think about people poop and the cleaning of toilets.

Gah.

Kitty poop - well, we have 5 litter boxes, and they need to be cleaned daily. I must admit, sometimes I only get them every 2 days, but with 7 kitties, that is a lot of poop.

And, we have one kitty who is somewhat elderly, and has some tummy problems with the resulting icky kitty poops, often close to a litter box, but not in it.

Then, of course we have the two dogs - they are very well house broken, so we mostly have to avoid stepping into any of their poop outside.

Posted by Beth at 7:24 PM | Comments (8)

March 5, 2008

Commercials I really hate!

Naturally, any commercial starring Billy Mayes, the guy who screams at the camera about one cleaning supply or another, is a commercial that I mute.

Another commercial I hate is the Progressive Insurance Commercial that has the weirdly made up girl behind a counter yelling. Here is a link to the page of commercials - it was the top one, when I checked.: Advertising — Watch the Progressive Commercials(This link I have to add in order to direct you to the awful commercials, I do not endorse progressive!
Visit progressive.com for additional information on car insurance.)

And then, locally, there are the horrible commercials for the KU Medical Center.
Actor Tom Skerritt is the narrator, and after hearing it once, his voice started really grating on me. A little big snobbish, a lot bit nasal. Ugh. And to make it worse, KU Med is airing these commercials on TV and radio all the time!

There are so many more bad and annoying commercials. No wonder I find myself turning off the TV and/or the radio at least once a day due to the commercial annoyance.

Good thing I like to read!

Posted by Beth at 7:04 AM | Comments (5)

March 2, 2008

I once swore I would never shoot an animal

But that was before I realized that there are animals which will kill my chickens and guineas or steal their eggs.

.... Or spray our dogs with a scent that can make you pass out - yes, skunks. I am going to have to start practicing with my Christmas gift from John. And then, I'm swear, I am going to start hunting skunks in the woods. They are vermin worse than mice - they are probably too big for the Red-Tailed Hawks to go for, and they often carry rabies.

Never in my life did I ever think that shooting a critter, other than a human threatening my family, would be an ok thing in my mind.

Never in my life were my dogs repeatedly skunked!!!

And no live traps, people! I want these skunks GONE!!!!!!!

Posted by Beth at 4:55 PM | Comments (14)

Time to sow

At least in the basement! But first, I am going to take a notebook, camera and my 4-way soil analyzer kit to check out some areas I want to use for planting various things. Like some grapes and blackberries and raspberries and veggies and flowers.

I need to see what kind of improvement the soil needs so far as PH and fertilizer, as well as determine if the spot is likely to get the right amount of moisture and sunlight to support the plants.

It is actually 59 degrees right now. There is still snow on the hills that face north, and the ponds still have a lot of ice on them, but I need to go and take advantage of this weather now, as this afternoon, a front will move in with great huge thunderstorms and tomorrow it will snow.

Don't ya love March?

Posted by Beth at 8:09 AM | Comments (1)