Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas to all! I have been remiss in my postings. I tend not to post unless I have some pictures. I worry that if I don't have something bright and colorful that I won't keep your attention. My apologies. Thanksgiving went well. The food was great and all of it hit the table hot. Everyone had a good time and no fights broke out. The farm proceeds, if not as planned. The calves are still growing, we've butchered the big chickens and ducks and have a lamb in the freezer so we're eating extremely well. The sheep are still on pasture but I'll probably have to switch hay by February. That's going to suck because the hay crop wasn't good this year. I tried planting sunflowers and oats this year. I need a better oat seed and planting sunflowers in a major bird migration route is futile. I'd like to try some Einkorn, a primitive grain, next year but I haven't found a worthwhile source. I still want to plant some feed corn and buckwheat. Much of those wants will be controlled by my paying job and it's demands. It's still 3+ years to full time farming. My Ford 8N tractor is reaching half of new price. It was squealing on the left side rear whenever I moved it. $600 later and I had a new left rear axle, bearings and seals. I finished the mowing and noticed that I had a radiator leak so I decided to pull it while it's winter. I got it repaired and am putting it back on. Oh yes, the right rear axle is starting to make scraping sounds. I'm still saving up to buy lumber for the barn. How I do will be determined by my taxes. Ohio has instituted something called CAUV. I haven't figured out how it works yet. It appears to be designed to screw small landowners out of more tax money. I guess I'll need a lawyer at some point. It may just be practical to pay the extra extortion. It's Christmas Day and it is cold out. That's it. No snow and the grass is pretty green. It's harder to get in the Christmas spirit when it's so green out. I want to garden. It has been a Christmas more focused on spirit than gifts. We can't afford much in gifts. There seems to be a discrepancy between the .gov reported inflation rate and what things really cost. Imagine that. We got food and a new house roof. We're good. Well that's it for now. I'll try and do better next year. I'll try and scrape up a photo or two.

There's an old story from Burton's 1000 and One Nights about a guy in the market in Mecca who sees Death. Death sees him, looks really surprised and heads toward him. The guy jumps on his horse and rides 3 days to Medina. He jumps off his horse figuring he's beaten Death when Death taps him on the shoulder. The guy says” I beat you for 3 days. I saw you in the market and knew you were coming for me. At least I slowed you down.” Death said” I was surprised to see you in the market in Mecca since I knew you'd be here in 3 days. I was coming over to ask you how you planned to get here so quickly.” Death catches us all . You can run all you want, fight all you want; Death still gets you. He got my friend John Burcham this last weekend. John fought for over 2 years but Death got him anyway. John found humor in his situation. He had dutifully gone for a colonoscopy when he turned 50. That's when the doc found the Stage 4 colo-rectal cancer. The doc said” You've probably had that for 20 years.” So much for that medical theory. John did have a strong belief in Christ and the Resurrection so I hope to see him and some of you again. Of course, it could be very warm where I end up in which case, I'll see the rest of you. Don't hassle Death when he comes. Remember, he's just the ticket agent. You bought the ticket.

Catching Up

I've been away too long. I never finished our vacation story. On our way back from Florida, we stopped to visit with our friends John and Janet Burcham. John has Stage 4 colorectal cancer. He's still making the docs laugh at last report but he seems tired now. John and J

anet, you are continually in our prayers. Winston-Salem , NC has changed so much over the years. It's much more built up than when I was first there. Economically depressed now, it's still much nicer than 1978. The old architecture is nice, the new could be better. Of note is the Wachovia ( now Wells Fargo) office building known locally as the Penis. If only they had added a spray of white lights flowing from the top. The symbolism would be perfect. We arrived home and everything was fine. Our orange tree is growing in our window, we've thrown away our tourist grade marmalade ( Oh that was bad.) and Stacey still hasn't eaten all the pecans. So much for vacation. Now for the farm update. It was a good lamb crop this year with many twins. I attribute this to pasturing the sheep through the winter. Of course, it could be just luck. We planted a large garden as usual and mostly it died or never came up. We kept the tomatoes alive with mulch and irrigation but it was costly. I plan on sinking a well point for a small well just to water the garden with. The temperatures were so high that after a day of work, I just couldn't bring myself to go out and work. We had to buy tomatoes to can. The tomatoes are starting to produce but not very much. We had some of our own corn. The wheat field that was all I could get in last year produced a whole 20 bushels per acre, less than half of an average year. I tried planting oats and sunflowers this year. The oats is worthless. The sunflowers are doing well. It turns out that they are a good crop for drought. If I can get my combine running, I'll have some chicken and cattle feed. We got 50 chickens. 25 are Turkens for the freezer and 25 mixed Bantams just for fun. We bought 14 baby ducks from the county fair. Stacey likes to go out to sit and watch the ducks and chickens. I suspect that with the ducks, she's sorting them by recipes. Dumbass the steer is now in the freezer. He was a good steer and would have made a good pet but he makes an even better hamburger. I bought 2 more Jersey calves to show in the baby animals at the fair. When I asked the lady I bought them from how much they were, she said “ Ten bucks each.” I almost said” I'll take a dozen.” but realized that I'd have to feed them and only bought 2. I've named them Carter and Reagan because when I first got them, Reagan would take the bottle and drain it right down. Carter was too dumb to suck. I'm in the process of weaning them now and they're doing well. We paid a professional painter to paint our house. He did a magnificent job but we're still paying it off. We got new gutters at the same time. The house looks far better than it has in a long time. Next big expense will be the roof and I'm going for metal. That should last the rest of my life. We've cut back on the fairs a bit. We'll hit the Fulton Co. Fair this weekend. We couldn't miss that as it's the best in Ohio. One more chance to eat fried cheese curds and Belgian waffles before winter. I don't have much more right now. Take care of yourselves.

Non Plastic Flamingos

It's not Venus

Dancing Mammals

Garden with Stacey

Orcas at work

Joe, Amy and Cole

Sea World

Since we were tired, we got a late start on Tuesday. We went looking for a museum. The Morse Museum in Winter Park has a massive collection of L.C.Tiffany works along with other Arts and Crafts items. The Morse part comes from the Fairbanks Morse Co. who made hit and miss engines, ignition systems, aircraft engines and lots of other stuff. He had much money and was friends with L.C.Tiffany so after Tiffany died and his house (mansion) burned, Tiffany's daughter asked the Morses to help preserve the things that they could salvage. They must have needed a freight train to get it to Florida. That's a lot of Tiffany. It's a good museum and we recommend it
Winter Park looks like a good place to hang out if you had the money. We didn't have the time as we were meeting Cousin Joe and family for dinner. A bit of rest and off to Landry's again. It was a very enjoyable meal. Young Cole , about a year old, was already trying to pick up girls at the next table. Joe and Amy informed us that they spent a lot of time at Sea World and they recommended it. We decided to take them up on it.
Sea World was absolutely worth it. It was open with plenty of room, shade and unusual gardens. There were shops and vendors but not jammed in your face. The shows were abundant and very good. The Cirque-type show wasn't as good as the animal shows but still good. I did come to the conclusion that seals are much more independent thinkers than orcas or dolphins.
There's no credit in the animal world. There's no do some tricks and I'll pay you at the end of the week. It's do a trick, get some fish. Do a trick, get some fish. This may be where folks get the idea that dolphins are smarter than people. They may be right.
The jokes in the sea lion show weren't as lame as they could have been. The props were. The swordfight degenerated quickly after the blade fell off the sword.
The food was quite good and fairly priced for a theme park. We ate at a barbarcue joint and the beef brisket was a bit dry but tasty. Stacey had some fair short ribs and chicken. it was a lot less than a meal pass.
There are a number of rides at Sea World but only 2 coasters of note. There's the Manta where you ride facing down as if skimming along as a manta ray and the Kraken. Ah the Kraken, now there's a coaster that could hold its head high at Cedar Point. I decided I needed to ride at least one coaster at Sea World and the Kraken is a nice steel coaster that should be easy on my back. It's big so I figured it would be a longer ride than most. It did seem strange that there wasn't a line.
The restraints were quite snug , barely allowing any movement. The floor dropping away was disturbing but it wasn't until halfway through the ride that I really wanted my mommy. I'm sure there are standards on how many gees can be pulled and how fast a coaster can go and someone really should check that damn thing. I can't remember another coaster where my cheeks tried to move to the back of my neck and my stomach tried to pop out of my butt. After a very long and exciting ride, I was able to leave the park, go back to the resort and rest.
We did eat at Tabla's again that night and then packed for the next phase of our trip. So ends Orlando.

Toon Town

Really doesn't need a title

The Line, lower level

The Lost Continent

Welcome to Universal

Welcome to Universals Islands of Adventure.
Once Yacky the GPS finally found the place, the parking was quite efficient. The trip from the parking garage was made easier by moving walkways occasionally broken by kiosks to relieve the excited of money Before they could get in the park. Finally, one enters the Walk lined with bars and restaurants to relieve one of money Before one gets in the park and After the park closes. Reaching the entrance of the park, one presents ones ticket and has a thumbprint electronically taken so that identifying the body is easier.
Ah, we have entered the park. It’s the Monday after Easter, Spring Break is in full swing and we’re packed in like NAZI prisoners in a cattle car. As we enter the park, we see………more stores. Dozens of them beckoning for your wallet. We bought a meal pass that a harried mom said was a good deal. It wasn’t but we learned that later. Forcing our way through the crush of humanity, we made our way to Dr. Seuss Land.
Most people there were just passing through. We rode the Who Trolley. It was nice.
Leaving there, we went to the Lost Continent. After standing in line for an hour or so, we went through Posieden’s Adventure. Sorry, not worth it. The actors in the Sinbad show tried but failed. Stacey did find a guy with a Lenny Da Vinci designed coin press that made her a nice medallion. Saying farewell to the imaginary Continent , we entered ………
HARRY POTTER WORLD
And more shops. It’s hard to suspend belief effectively when it’s 80+ degrees and Hogsmeade has snow covered roofs. It just wasn’t working for me. I admit the scenery and layout were good. The representation of Hogwarts was very well done.
Forcing our way through the walls of human flesh, we found ourselves in a line. It was a very long line. It was moving fairly quickly so we kept with it. After an hour or so, we found it was the Harry Potter ride. I admit it was excellent. It did a better job of suspending belief than anything else in the park. I was also glad to get off.
Escaping the gift shop, we left Potterworld behind for Jurassic Park and fewer shops. Jurassic Park isn’t bad. My one complaint is that the best ride there is in Camp Jurassic and only available to children. We did go on the water ride. Stacey asked the attendant to put her in the most splash free part of the boat. For future information, there is no splash free part of the boat. The animatronic dinos were pretty good.
We left the dinos behind and made it to Toon Town. This was composed almost totally of shops. It was good artwork and a fun-looking place but everything we found was either Betty Boop merchandise or the Simpsons. There was a water ride and some type of boat ride but neither interested us.
On to Marvel Comics world and more shops. If we hadn’t been exhausted, we might have gone to the Spiderman show or ridden the coaster but neither really appealed to us by that point. We made our way out, bought some t-shirts and went to our rooms to rest.
Some notes on Universal: The ticket is $90 per person not including parking. The meal pass was $22 a piece and this let you eat at 4 different food service facilities. Drinks are extra and we really needed the liquid more. The food wasn’t that good. Cedar Points coasters could eat Universals coasters and crap out bumper cars. It wasn’t worth it to us and turned us off of going to Disney. I'll have to post pictures one at a time due to bandwidth limitations.

The Resort

Ok, let's get in to the resort we're at. Many years ago, through bad judgment and being married; I bought into this _____ Vacation Club. It's a great idea, actually. Instead of a fixed timeshare where you have to go to the same place every year at the same time, you can theoretically go to any of their properties at any time of the year. I say theoretically because after more than 10 years, this is the first vacation we've had with them. When we had time and money to go somewhere, there was never an available property where we would want to go. As you can imagine, this has left me rather pissed off. There's something about paying $131 a month and $600 in fees year after year without receiving anything in return that's irritating.
I'd given up. I'd signed and I'm paying it off but I figured on donating it to the Wisconsin Attorney Generals office ( the state our theoretical property is in) and let _________ tell them they can't have a vacation. Let's see how that works for them. Stacey hadn't given up and when ___________ called to offer 3 days in Orlando, she got them to tack on a few days of our time as well. Here we are.
In theory, an owners meeting is where the company informs you of it's new properties and procedural changes. In practice, it's a sales attempt. First, your “representative” tells you about all the new goodies in the Club and tells you how expensive it is to join now. Then her boss shows up with this great offer. For only $8k more, you get even more points and can do ever so many more things. What a deal! That didn't work so Corporate shoes up with somewhat less points for less money. That didn't work either. Perhaps it is dawning on them that you actually have to let people have vacations in order to sell them more vacation time.
Really, you should be proud of me. The sales staff is alive and unharmed and the police were not called.
The resort is actually beautiful. We have what amounts to a fair sized 2 bedroom apartment with jacuzzi, kitchen, washer-dryer and a screened in balcony where I'm writing this now. There are multiple swimming pools, gyms, fishing spots and minor restaurants a short walk away. It's a great place to veg out. It's only a few miles from Disney, Universal, many fine restaurants and all the other tourist traps. It's a good place if you can get here.
Sunday, it was off to visit Uncle Willys and Mame in Largo. It's a straight shot over to there inhibited only by the Florida highway system of magically appearing and disappearing lanes. The speed limit is 70 but that just slows up folks and makes them mad. The rest stops had many pictures of missing people and descriptions of poisonous snakes.
Uncle Willys is 87 and in pretty good shape. He uses a walker now but he's getting around ok. Mame is too skinny but doing well too. We got them to act as local guides to show us the area. We headed over to Tarpon Springs to eat Greek food. Stacey remembered being there as a kid. We had a fine meal with Uncle Willys and Stacey sharing a whole baked Red Snapper, Mame a hamburger wrap and myself a lamb shank with Greek spargetti. I sampled the fish bones and picked at the head. The waiter chided me for not eating the eyes.
We finished with great pastries and then Stacey and I walked around a bit and shopped. Uncle Willys and Mame moved to a bench where he could spend some time talking to complete strangers. It was then back to Largo and then Orlando. The visit was way too short.
I shall attempt to include some relevant photos. Next time , the theme park.

We're on vacation

We're on vacation. My friend, Mikey Cousino, is watching the home place and we've come south to Orlando. I'm supposed to rest. That's probably a good idea as we have been working long hours of physically demanding work. It's been taking it's toll on me. Any vacation with Stacey is rarely quiet and peaceful, usually overbooked and hectic but it should be a little better than usual.
We started at the crack of dark on Thursday and drove to Fairfield, Ohio to Jungle Jim's. Imagine a grocery store the size of a Super Walmart designed by a madman with truly excellent taste. Now imagine that he does LSD every day. That's how it feels to me. It is a wondrous place . We spent an hour and $100 there and came away with a small basket. Stacey is still griping about my not letting her buy the Squingeelly ( sp.approx.). Thank God that we don't live closer.
After JJ's, it was on to Atlanta. Passing through Kentucky and Tennessee was beautiful. The fog rolled through the hills and then the rain cleared it. We traveled on to Georgia with clear blue skies and just enough white little cloud puffs to accent it. We arrived in daylight to the Renaissance Waverly hotel in the middle of Atlanta.
The Renaissance Waverly is part of a convention complex. When we arrived, we found the lobby filled with suits and evening dresses wrapped around the other guests of the hotel. This made quite a contrast to my ripped jeans and t-shirt. We got a room on the 12th floor and changed into more suitable clothes for dinner.
The meal was good. The wait staff was professional and the menu was a bit simple. It did seem to be prepared on site and not the frozen gourmet stuff that has replaced real cooking in so many restaurants.
The room was visually pleasing but the bed was far too soft. I doubt if I got more than 4 hours sleep. In the morning , the water was a meaty brown color which explains why the hotel could charge $5 for a bottle of water and get away with it. I was not bitten by bed bugs. For all of this we were charged around $180 of which $40 was taxes. I don't think we'll be back.
We left Atlanta at about 6am when only half of the town is on the road. The ride through Georgia was uneventful. It is pretty countryside though broken up by alternating religious billboards and advertisements for strip clubs. Mind you, that wasn't the only subjects on billboards. It appears pecans, peaches and anti-Obama messages abounded as well. Nice place.
We were coming to the end of Georgia when we spotted a sign for Agrirama. This is an old farm museum similar to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. It's a bit more spread out and manned by folks old enough to have come with the buildings. They were helpful and dedicated but we got away from them anyway. The lady in the doctors office was an enthusiastic herbalist who supplied us with mullein seeds. Evidently, mullein poultices will heal brown recluse spider bites.
We've arrived at our destination as seen from our porch. More to follow.

Where's my winter?

Where is my winter? It snowed about 2” then melted off again. It keeps raining. I'm really tired of rain. I've got work to do on the farm that requires either dry ground or frozen ground and both have been in short supply since last spring.
This sort of weather is devastating to the bees. When it's this warm, they're too active and burn through their stored honey far too fast. We've ordered 3 new nucs but they're expensive. Just to be clear, nucs are started hives with the queen already laying eggs on frames and young being raised. They give better results for us than package bees. With package bees, you get a queen in a cage and a couple of pounds of random bees. It takes them a while to straighten themselves out that way.
We have a farmers market in Oak Harbor now and it's pretty good. I made it to the last one of the season, sold a bunch of honey and only had 2 complaints about price. $5 for 8 ounces and they flew off the table. If I can remember how to cast candles in my tin molds, I can take another product next spring. I've got some wax that's extra sticky that I can cast sewing buttons from. Those are small bits of wax to run your thread through to keep it from tangling and to reduce friction in the cloth.
I've been traveling a lot for work. Not the cool kind of travel flying business class but driving 3 to 5 hours to do a 15 minute service call alongside a busy freeway. The worst are in Detroit. It's not the bombed out Mad Max landscapes that I end up in but the road design and drivers. In some places, one can barely get off the road with this little Chevy Uplander the company has me using and Detroit drivers only care about orange cones to the extent that they might mess up their car. I've escaped becoming road trash so far.
On long trips like this, I try to make the best of my breaks . In Columbus is the Franklin Conservatory. I spent an hour or so there on one of the trips. That's far too short a time to really appreciate it but it's all I had. In Detroit, it's usually possible to reach a fine Mexican bakery where they sell tamales by the dozen and darn good tamales too. Just north of Cincinnati is Jungle Jim's, which can be considered a supermarket if a supermarket were built by a demented hoarder with superb taste. I finally found my Budda's Hand citron there. I've been looking for ten years for it just to see what it's like. they were a whole dollar a fruit. I hope to candy some later today. I bought some other delicacies but was very tired and moving in a fog. It turns out the fog was viral in origin and that's why I'm home on a workday writing this. I should be ok tomorrow if it's not a repeater.
The sheep are still mostly on pasture. I have to admit I'm pleased with this permanent pasturage idea. It's a lot less work for me . I hope they burn through the pasture by the end of February so I can lock them up in March. Then I can shear them, have them lamb inside where I can keep an eye on them and let the pastures recover. This won't work if I increase the flock much but it's working now.
The steer continues to grow. He looks tasty.
We hope to raise a bunch of chickens this year. Stacey wants Turkens as she feels they're easier to clean. They're a good chicken so ok. I'm fond of Buff Orphingtons myself. We might end up with some ducks at some point but they're a bit of a pain to raise without a pond. We've decided against turkeys, they're just too expensive and we don't eat that much.
I'm trying to buy a 5 foot bush hog. That's a mower designed to mow anything including small trees. I missed the first one when I couldn't get free from work before someone else bought it. This time, I was sick over the weekend. I might be able to look at one tonight if I feel ok and the guy is available. I really need to flatten the pastures and the back of the farm before plowing. Did I mention it has to freeze up or dry up first?
Do to some pain -in-the-backside changes in tax laws, I'm going to try planting more of the back of the farm to recognizable crops.. The auditor sent some keyboard artist around to look at fields and said I didn't have any crops. They have no concept of pasture or hayfields. If it's not corn or beans, they don't recognize it. It's not like I didn't try this year but the tractor kept sinking whenever I tried to plow. I finally got about 4 acres of winter wheat in. Did I mention it rained?
Stacey and I are fine within normal parameters, there's a cardinal teasing Bootsy the cat from the lilac bush and I'm listening to old 1960's tunes on Youtube. I'll write again when I have something to say.