Houndsmoocherson

Why I love to farm, Part II

2012-01-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

Another incredible benefit of a farm lifestyle is of course the healthy (fresh, unprocessed, organic, local, non-gmo, heritage variety, seasonal...) food!

Though I've never have never had particularly robust health, in the last eight years I've struggled with a variety of stubborn chronic conditions. Horse-related head injuries led to several years of migraines which, despite a staggering assortment of expensive treatments (thank you Mom and Dad for your unflinching generosity), relented to no cure other than time.

After an initial infection in college, I also became susceptible to frequent and frustrating relapses of mono, the virus springing into action any time stress or sickness weakened my system. I was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a label I was less than excited to assume. As a syndrome with no known causes or cures, and thus a common association with feeble mental health, CFS humbled my lingering optimism with its dark outlook.

This summer I was incredibly lucky to happen upon (google upon?) a specialist with decades of experience and very good news - I simply had a a nasty case of GI candida. With this doctor's help, I've learned to re-balance my body with a completely new diet. No gluten, still no dairy, nothing processed, and - most daunting of all - nothing containing sugar or sweeteners of any kind. The persistent sweet tooth that had led me down a treacherous path of bi-weekly baking made those first few months a fierce battle of wills!

Thankfully, yeast overgrowth creates almost immediate and very noticeable negative feedback, helping me overcome temptations and fight my way into good health! Candida, the nasty bastard, produces and releases into the body (via "leaky gut syndrome" which is caused by the fungal hyphae physically tearing apart the cells of the intestinal walls) at least 75 known toxins, including immune suppressants and neurotoxins. In fact, the neurotoxins released by candida have been linked in some studies to nervous system disorders including seizures, autism, and ADHD. Some of the substances candida employs to weaken it's host immune resistance include: canditoxin (causes unsettled behavior, paralisis, and death), tartaric acid (causes fatigue and cognitive problems), arabinose (hypoglycemia and protein dysfunction), acetaldehyde (damages brain structure and function), ethanol, and opiate mimics.

I've been asked in many different ways and three times by one very skeptical individual, "So is this a real condition? I mean, do other people have it?" Though I do fabricate the majority of my medical complaints (come on - how else am I gonna get any attention around here?), I'm pretty convinced this one is for reals. Candida overgrowth remains weirdly unknown in conventional medicine, although I believe it probably has a widespread and devastating effect on many people eating conventional western diets (sugar and gluten and dairy, oh my!), and probably on society at large as well (health care costs, grumpy and exhausted citizens, and hey, has anyone else noticed the unexplained uptick in autism/depression/attention deficit?). Most women, and certainly most doctors, understand the concept of microbial balance in the female reproductive system, but somehow few are able to translate the idea to the intestinal tract where the same bacteria and fungi are competing for nutrients. And just as is the case with your nether regions, this delicate balancing act might be a great reason not to put strange and unnatural things in there (like processed food, or you know, Listerine douches - shudder).

Anyway, after seven months, I feel pretty darn awesome for the first time in a long time and am so grateful to have my spirits undampened by fungal chemicals! My immune system is still recovering, and the candida is always lurking (the specialist told me a human has enough surface area in the GI tract to cover a foot ball field, so there's lots of space for renegade candida colonies to hide out), so I'm not out of the woods yet. Intense cravings pop up here and there, sometimes for days or weeks at a time, and I try to quiet them with alternative foods that won't feed the candida. I scarfed a few handfuls of uncooked steel cut oats the other day when overcome with a sugar/gluten craving, and it somehow helped just a little. I've started using seltzer water as an oral distraction, and had pretty good luck with that. For some reason I crave peanuts almost all the time, but try to avoid them as they're thought to contain lots of mould. I suppose my candida are trying to trick me into ingesting some fresh troops for their campaign. Acidic foods like corn and coffee are also hard to avoid because they are so damn delicious and not as obviously associated with imbalance as sugar or wheat. I get frustrated and whiny, balanced so precariously between sickness and health, but how lucky am I to have a body that is telling me how to feed it at 25 when most Americans won't hear that message until cancer or diabetes tells them much too late?

And, to cheer you up a bit, a sow in the snow:

Well, as long as you asked...

2012-01-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

I was just signing up to join a web community of young farmers and was asked on the survey, Why do you farm? Those four little words really opened up the flood gates, and I thought I might as well share my answer here as well :) Don't worry, I did not include most of this in the survey!

Farming is a natural evolution of my first career in animal welfare. Instead of making life a bit more tolerable for animals in humane societies, I now get to foster partnerships between livestock and the local ecosystem that improve the land's resiliancy while giving the animals fulfilling lives. I love the daily opportunities for creativity and innovation and am so grateful for the strong bonds that quickly form between new and experienced farmers in our local agricultural community. My schedule and duties are never predictable, giving me an incredible freedom to take advantage of perfect afternoon running weather and yet a deep sense of responsibility to meet the needs of the livestock at any hour (and they do like the midnight hour for their urgent needs!). Accomplishments are measured on both a much larger and a much smaller scale than in our mainstream society, continually keeping me both challenged and satisfied. Most importantly, I don't have to leave my dog sitting at home as I trudge off to another day on the job, but open the door each morning to a calling that is hardly a job at all, with coworkers who only wear carhardts and smiles, and many more who sport suits of fur and feathers. This type of farming is a dynamic, frustrating, loving, co-dependant relationship - though I couldn't tell you if the farmer is the parent or the child.

2011-12-22T21:06:00.001-08:00

I just got an email from a wonderful older gentleman who took my class letting me know he picked up his meat share. Of all the wonderful and interesting people in the classes, Rick's the one person I connected with most, and was incredibly kind, helpful, and light-hearted. In the email he told me I'm a "class act," and so were my classes. Earning the respect of someone like Rick makes me feel that - at least in this one way and at this one moment - I arrived at where I've wanted to be as a person.

So often I feel like a million people could do my job better than I am. Some days it seems that if I just worked harder, organized better, or didn't waste so much time on stupid mistakes, I could get this place looking great, making ends meet, and walking the permaculture talk. But I'm inexperienced and not a natural leader, and I seem to have no idea where to even begin. I make bad decisions hourly and get the big picture mixed up with simple details.

Admittedly, because of all those mistakes I'm learning lessons that will probably come in handy someday. Like: don't park your trailer in a muddy field over night, don't underestimate livestocks' determination to eat expensive trees, and - the one lesson that's really determined to stick - check your f#*@ing tires before you go anywhere hauling anything! These things might save my ass someday. Then again, if there was some experienced farmer/rancher around to say, "hey, young lady, check those f#*@ing tires, park that trailer on the road, and chicken wire doesn't do shit up against a steer," maybe I could learn those lessons AND skip ahead a few (hundred) grades on all the other things I need to know out here instead of slogging along in the dark.

I frequently day dream about a career where I'm able to do an excellent job every day by simply working hard, thinking clearly, and caring deeply. I've been secretly wondering if vet school is feasible because it sounds so nice to show up at work and actually know how to do what you need to do. There's only one right way to spay a cat. (This is ridiculous. I realize that being a vet involves plenty of scary responsibility and murky decisions, but grass is always greener...) I'm in a maze where the questions aren't distinguishable from the answers, and the moment I come upon definitive reasons to make one choice, I find I should be asking a completely different question. I miss the feeling of really clear and indisputable success. Of accomplishing definitive goals.

Christmas break will involve planning and prioritizing, and maybe even setting some grand yet reasonable goals. This work is stressful, but it's challenging, exciting, liberating, and is preparing me for something good, maybe better. Maybe I'll leave here able to better balance creativity and idealism with a tight schedule and budget. Maybe I'll be a class act a little more often.

Ruby Mae!

2011-12-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Our beautiful new duroc gilt is all settled in and doing wonderfully! I was trying to get a nice profile of her to show off her amazing muscling and solid bone structure, but she was sure I had food and wouldn't stop chasing me! She tried nibbling my boot and tugging on my pants, but I was dispointingly inedible. Yesterday was the first time she didn't run off when I scratched her back. It was an exciting moment :) She had a good childhood compared to most pigs, but her 2 acre pasture with shade and mud and lots of human attention is a huge upgrade from the little, crowded dirt pens at Jones Farm. She's still getting used to all the ammenities, but I've seen her doing a good bit of grazing and even some romping on sunny afternoons! Now that I've been visiting a lot more than usual to heat check them, the large black gals have gotten pretty excited about their regular back scratches, and Sammie's started squealing and leaning into me as soon as I touch her! They're such delightful creatures! Pepe will be coming down this next week from his nearby home in Javier the chef's yard. Javier's gilt is Peggy's sister Ramona, and will probably be pretty excited to have her food bowl to herself for a few weeks. Hopefully we'll have two litters of LBH piglets in four months, and a litter of duroc crosses once Ruby Mae gets a little older! That with four litters of goat kids will make for an exciting spring! I'm also hoping my turkeys start laying and hopefully brooding/hatching/rearing soon, and we'll be getting a new batch of laying hen chicks in January. I never did hear how that Aspen lady liked her 8lb, very scrawny looking turkey, but maybe that's for the best lol

2011-11-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

It's been lovely here (weird!) but we are expecting snow tonight. Phew, global warming was getting a little too up close and personal for a moment there. In anticipation of the snow, and also b/c I was just on a roll, I picked up all the absent farm animals today and brought them home! Got our two bred alpine does from Olathe, and I was pleasantly surprised when they acutally seemed excited to see me. Delilah and Pom are such sweethearts and are convincing me that goats are fun and easy and way more delightful than cattle. Too bad milk's so much harder to sell than beef. Of course the profit margin might be better, hmmm. Anyway, their baby daddy is a very handsome gentleman named Danny, who has a rich dark brown coat and should make really gorgeous babies. I guess they were both very good sports and came into heat right on schedule. Right on schedule AND 2 days apart which should make kidding season just that much easier! Such good girls. As I do not have a stock trailer, and decided after my adventure two weeks ago that stuffing two goats in the back seat of a small pickup is unplesant, I made a goat box in the back of the F 250 out of pallets and plywood and tarps and screws and bungies. It's pretty ugly, but very sturdy, and the ladies seemed to find it much more comfortable that the tiny Dodge Durango. I also enjoyed not having to dodge bickering goats while driving or smell them peeing all over the upholstery.

I'm also so excited to report that I picked up a new piggie on the way home! She's such a beauty - built like a weight lifter, but just gorgeous in a hog way! She's a Duroc, which is a good pasture breed like the Large Black, but she (and her babies) will grow a little quicker and produce a leaner meat - in other words, more appealing to modern Americans. She's red, and we're working on a good name for her. Her adopted sisters are named PeggySue and SammieJoe, so a double name might be cool, but I'm also liking Ruby. Maybe RubyMae? Ross suggested MaryJane, which I love, but then we all realized that on a farm run by a bunch of young hippies, everyone would assume we were honoring the drug and not the red-headed girlfriend of Peter Parker.

I also picked up our fat little pigmy goat from her (month long) date today. She's so hilarious! When she doesn't want to go somewhere (she's very willful, so that's everywhere that wasn't her idea to go to), she just drops her heft low over her haunches and digs in her little hooves, aka "pegs." It's completely incredible how much traction that critter can get. She can't weight over 100lbs, yet... Cait and I ended up picking her up and carrying her from her boyfriend's pen all the way up the hill to the truck, lifting her into the truck, pushing her into the pen in the truck, lifting her out of the truck, and carrying her all the way to her stall at the ranch! She didn't move a single inch on her own four feet the whole trip. I had the front, and Cait had the back; I kept getting horns in my face, and Cait kept getting farted on b/c we were squeezing her belly - lol! For all her struggling on the ground, Rosie goes pretty limp and seems to genuinely enjoy being carried. I could see her making a mental commitment to never walk anywhere again when there were humans available to chauffeur her bulk around! That is one strange goat, but her kids are going to be freaking adorable! We bred her to a nigerian dwarf buck who's pretty goofy looking :)

Pumpkin Quinoa Cookie recipe that i think would be good w/out stevia

2011-11-16T20:12:00.000-08:00

Adapted off of glutenfreegoddess:

1 c quinoa flakes
1 c sorgum flour
1/2 c millet flour
1 T tapioca/potato starch
1 t xanthan gum
1 c sweetener
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t ground cloves

1/2 c coconut oil
1 c canned pumpkin
1 T vanilla
1 T maple syrup
1/2 t lemon juice

Evolving GF bread recipe

2011-11-13T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is adapted from glutenfreegoddess with six or seven changes/additions. It's pretty dang good!

Whisk together dry ingredients:
2/3 cup sorghum flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup millet flour
1/3 cup corn starch
2/3 cup tapioca starch/flour
1/3 cup ground flax seeds
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
2/3 cup quick oats
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp kelp granules
2 tsp rosemary

Proof yeast-
1 1/4 cup warm liquid
1 packet yeast
1 tsp maple syrup

Add to wet ingredients:
2 eggs
3 Tbs coconut oil
1 tsp lemon juice

The more I learn, the harder this candida diet gets!

2011-11-12T06:47:00.001-08:00

Just read on the comments of a blog: "Sugar free does not mean candida safe; sorbitol, maltitol, etc still feed the candida. Xylitol, however, does not but is extremely expensive. Aspartame and other full synthetic sweeteners are also “candida safe” but should be avoided for other reasons."* There goes my sugar-free syrup (sorbitol) and candy (maltitol)! I suppose it's really good news, because it might explain why I'm still so freaking sensitive to relapses; here I've been feeding my candida unknowingly all this time! *I had to change 7 punctuation marks in the above quote to make it sharable! I wonder if grammar sensitivity is genetic or just a learned behavior? Thank goodness I just have a mild case :)

According to the foods list I got from the specialist I saw yesterday, my sweetener options are: stevia, chicolin chicory extract, vegetable glycerine, and yacon syrup. I couldn't find any of those things at Vitamin Cottage other than stevia, which tastes pretty gross to me. Internet research is telling me that the Herbal Advantage brand has a less-gross version, but I'm guessing that also means a crazy expensive version. I'm also learning that most candida patients do the strict candida diet for only a couple weeks or months and not their entire lives, which makes me a little hopeful and also makes me wonder if that's why there aren't better sugar alternatives out there. I could do fine with nothing sweet for a few weeks or months, but for years? I was raised on way too many delicious baked goods to not feel deeply desperate every time my roommate makes muffins! The search continues, and will surely result in some neat nutritional discoveries!

Right now I'm drinking my hot garlic/ginger/cheyenne water and learned about 2 ingredients which make it even more candidacidal (which definitely should be a real word if it isn't one). I switched out the Tbs of olive oil for coconut oil and added vital mineral blend sea salt instead of kosher salt - double yum! I also started adding delicious kelp granuels to food for more minerals as the candida causes some degree of leaky gut, making mineral deficiencies a common problem with yeasty people. Yeast makes me very grumpy, and the hormonal changes around menstruation increases yeast populations, so I have to wonder if much of PMS for many people is simply those yeast toxins screwing with their neurotransmitters. I just put a book called, "The Second Brain" on my reading list. It explains how the enteric nervous system affects our mood and state of mind. Here's an article from Scientific American on it: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain. One really intersting fact which stood out: 95% of the body's seratonin is found in the large intestine!

Which reminds me, I told my mom I would send her my favorite Ted Talk, so here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-iGZPtWXzE. It's the same guy who wrote Born to Run, and it is delightfully entertaining and inspiring! Every time I watch it I get such a kick out of, "Usain Bolt can get his ass kicked by a squirrel," "One thing is remarkable about all women sprinters: they all suck." I now think of my ancestors chasing down antelope when ever a run gets hard. Mom, maybe you should imagine chasing down arboricidal* elk for extra inspriation! *I'm really introducing some gems to the English language today.

Spanish and Protein cookies

2011-11-09T19:05:00.001-08:00

More latina locals came today to buy live chickens today! It's such an easy way to sell chickens! Some of them are really sweet, and some of them so obviously think I'm an idiot which is a bit frustrating. I realize that my Spanish sucks, but some Spanish speakers seem far more offended that I'm not fluent than appreciative that I'm trying really hard. I did learn how to tie their feet together better today. I had just been double knotting twine around their ankles, but those sneaky gallinas are really good at wiggling out while your back is turned. These experienced ladies have a technique of tying in between the feet that somehow holds it better.

We started Spanish classes this Monday, which should help with my chicken selling issues. Ex-educator Alli is teaching and is rocking it! She planned a fantastic lesson that was super basic but somehow still really interesting and helpful at my rusty intermediate level. I also got a few children's books in Spanish at the library yesterday. I was considering some teen fiction (crepusculo maybe?), but decided that was way too ambitious and picked a few picture books instead. Right now I'm working my way through "Cuidado con las Mujeres Astutas!," Watch out for Clever Women!, which has full page pictures every other page. With that hilarious title I was surprised to see it was published in 1994, long after the feminist movement taught most people not to openly declare that intelligent women are dangerous.

The first story was about an impovrished viejita who saves all her pennies to buy a special ham. She then welcomes some lost travelers into her home and cooks them dinner (with ham!) from her meager supplies. After dinner, the rascals plot to steal the ham and hide it in their traveling bag thinking she somehow won't notice. But she is clever, and steals it back before the morning, replacing it with a big brick. The scoundrels then hike into the wilderness carrying a brick, and go hungry for days. So there! I'm pretty excited to see what the next chapter has in store :)

I also found a pretty good cookie recipe from dietdessertndogs.com! Considering the ingredients, it's more of a delicious chocolate protein bar recipe:

1+ Tbs olive oil

3 Tbs water

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 c xylitol

1/4 c stevia

1 c almonds

1/4 c hemp prot powder

2+ Tbs cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c GF flour

2011-11-08T18:04:00.001-08:00

My brain is really tired at the moment from balancing so many farm thoughts all day, so this may not be very well composed! I managed to be really productive but am always surprised at how many things there are to figure out and how complicated every step often turns out to be! It's amazing to think about how entirely different my job is from what most people consider farming. Or maybe most people are still under the mistaken impression that conventional farmers aren't tractor/combine jockies?

Had an awesome cross fit workout tonight! I've been going for almost two months now (other than that two week sinus infection break) and am definitely getting a little better! I'm still amazed by all the women there who are whipping out over a hundred unassisted pullups and push ups in a work out though! I'm using a stretchy band to help with the pullups and am doing the pushups on my knees just so I can complete the workouts. It's somehow amazingly fun and is a great combo of lifting and cardio. Can't recommend it highly enough!

Today we did the "Cindy" workout. There are 20 or so benchmark workouts with women's names that everyone who does crossfit does! The Cindy is 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats in a row as many times as you can in 20 minutes. I only got to thirteen even with my stretchy band, but did a little better than last time. The push ups were really killing me, and after the first seven or so sets I was having to take a pretty good break between the first and second 5! The coach cranks up the music and gives you form tips and encouragement. It's just a little bit competitive, but you can't really tell what set everyone else is on after the first few, so there's not too much pressure to go a crazy pace.

Aaaand randomly, here a Mouse Hamlet, a recent present from Cecil:

Lard!

2011-11-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

I rendered my first leaf lard last night which was exceptionally satisfying, although I'm not quite sure why! I didn't get it quite right. Although it's almost "snow white" as is desirable, it is not totally odorless, and thus will not be used in all those super fancy pastries I make, alas. I made it specifically for tamales though, so I think it will serve it's purpose admirably. I'd better get cracking on tamales...2.5 quarts of lard worth! Of course, each batch of eight tamales uses 2/3 cup, so all that lard isn't so daunting. That 1/2 quart jar remained separated with the yellow liquid at the bottom even after it set up and the top 3/4 turned white. I have no idea what that means, and will have to consult a lard expert!

Googling "rendering lard recipe" brought me to this very cool website http://www.spain-in-iowa.com/ which I highly recommend! There's lots to explore on it about things like the nutritional science behind sprouting grains and other homesteading-themed stuff. Rendering lard could not have been easier, and I highly recommend trying it! Here's what I did:

- Pour 1/4 inch of water in crock pot (to keep the lard on the bottom from burning before the rest melts), set on low (but not "warm")
- Add defrosted lump of ground leaf lard, chop into smaller and smaller chunks as it warms to help with even melting. I guess you need to chop the lard if it's not ground, which my next batch isn't so I'll try out.
- Keep the lid off so the water cooks off, and wait two hours, stirring and de-clumping occasionally
- Pour into colander lined with cheese cloth and sift out chunks (aka crackle)
- Pour beautiful golden liquid into jars
- Do NOT eat the crackle! Ignore directions which tell you it's delicious and tastes like bacon bits. It tastes like pig ear wax, and will make you gag unless you have four legs and a long, furry tail (maybe I cooked it incorrectly? maybe my palete is too americanized?)

On a side note - leaf lard (aka "kidney lard") is the more desirable type of lard which comes from in amongst the internal organs rather than beneath the skin (aka "fatback"). Wish the fat in the below picture was easier to see! It is beautiful, glistening pure white when it is pulled off the carcass (the back fat is more opaque and yellowish). There's a third kind of lard called the "caul fat" which is a lacy membrane that surrounds the GI tract and is really gorgeous! Apparently it's not good for rendering, but can be used to wrap meat or (I just read) as a "covering for pate." Not sure why you'd want your pate covered in a lacy layer of fat, but I've also never had pate so I'm clearly out of the loop. I have a few bags in the freezer, but i'm not planning on any wrapped meats or covered pates, so maybe I'll just drape cecil's evening meal in fancy fat now and then. It's all about the presentation with these dignified felines afterall.

Evolving pancake recipe

2011-11-06T09:06:00.001-08:00

The ladies behind glutenfreegoddess@blogspot.com and http://www.dietdessertndogs.com/ have inspired me by making my gluten + sugar free living so much more tasty! So I thought I'd start sharing the recipies I've adapted on chance someone else can't eat cows' dairy, wheat, or sweeteners, but is NOT vegan! Since there probably are six other humans following my diet out there, and they definitely aren't the humans reading my blog, this is really a recipe index for myself (lots of room for notes and changes)!

Right now I'm working on a PANCAKE recipe off dietdessertndogs, but it was pretty dang bland, so I've been adding to each batch. Here's what I've come up with, though it still needs something...

1/2 c almonds
1/4 c flax seed meal
1 c unsweetened almond/coconut milk
1.5 Tbs xylitol
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1 small egg
Small dash almond extract
1 tbs vanilla extract
1.5 tsp olive oil

Gind almonds, combine above ingredients. Combine below dry ingredients, then add:
1/3 cup GF flour mix
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Cook on lower heat than normal pancakes. Usually I'm a tick above medium, but I ended up giong a tick under because they were browning too fast.

I love that this recipe is really high protein and fiber. Unfortunately, you can taste that it's missing fat and sugar and delicious processed grains. Next time I'm going to try butter rather than olive oil, and more of it! Cows' milk butter doesn't bother me, because (i think) the casein proteins and lactose are in the whey not cream when they're separated? Whatever the reason, thank god! I'm excited to try glutenfreegoddess's pancake recipe but it requires a bunch of flours that I don't have. Having 8-10 different kinds of flours on hand is just a pain in the ass!! I cooked the final pancake in lard rather than oil (first batch, bla), or butter (second batch, better), and it added a nice savory richness to it, but certianly did not cure it of it's blandness. Maybe next week I should attempt a combination mom's awesome buttery pancake recipe with this one and try to make a more nutritious and less glutenous version of mom's without abandoning the deliciousness!

Here's a cute picture of LJ, who supplied the one and only locally raised ingredient in my breakfast. Oh wait there was an egg. Anyway, she was such a cutie! Which makes me think how excited I am to try raising some grains (not wheat! buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, rice in the wetlands?) next season and how much I want one of Dad's fancy zero carbon greenhouses so I can raise some nut trees!

2011-07-22T06:25:00.001-07:00

(Fair warning: this whole post may be fragments and run-ons; my syntax supply tank is empty) I stayed up late last night....... finishing up my grad school paper!! which turned out to be such a delightfully exciting accomplishment that I then couldn't fall asleep till even later despite looming morning chores. with the end result of hickory smoked almonds in my oatmeal instead of walnuts. But hopefully I didn't forget anybody's breakfast on chores. only eight hours till the weekend! I had been thinking I was down to the last three or four hours on the damn thing, but found out yesterday I had more like ten. How did I get to the ripe age of 25 and still not learn to finish my paper before the day it's due? oh well, done done done! now i can focus on studying for my permaculture teacher training!! Yipeee. Happy Friday :)

In other news... the turkeys have started roosting on our porch which is pretty dang cute (though how they can sleep balanced that far off the ground...). Also, it's been so hot that Cecil has been showing off some really awesome sleeping positions, including this one (with all four feet twitching in a dream):
And a couple hours later, this one (which I thought was a pretty good dead possum impression!):

A few quick critter updates!

2011-07-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Burdock is growing up to be completely gorgeous! I think dad must've been a red angus b/c I was expecting a black calf, but instead he's sporting this this handsome deep rust!

The pigs really need to be moved to a larger area of pasture, but in the mean time we've been giving them some weeds from the garden and thinned turnips which they're loving. I love this angle of Laura Jean. Not very flattering I suppose! What silly looking creatures :) We grilled up a smoked ham steak from her previous litter, and OMG I think I shall always keep a pig or two around. Ham is just amazing.

My wonderful little turkeys had their first day of freedom this weekend as I opened up their chicken tractor and let them go exploring! They stay in the tightest little flock, keeping up a constant commentary of peeping as they encounter exciting new things like chickens and the peacock and lots and lots of tasty things to peck at.

I also thought I'd add this pic of Eve the peacock trying to seduce some of the laying hens with his impressive display. He's so fun to watch and seems to be everywhere you look! He's always peeking in a window, sitting on a gable, or strutting in unexpected places. I think I may always keep a peacock around just for shits and giggles.

Cecil McLovin

2011-07-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd better dedicate a post to my one and only pet since he's uncontrollably cute! Admittedly I've recently come in second for his attention, but I'm pretty delighted he's so damn happy and busy with interesting activities that he doesn't have time for me! He did come in last night (after a five days of independence!) for some snuggling and raw meat - probably not in that order though :)

Cecil cat's not sure about his first rocky mtn oyster (complements of Burdock the calf). Well, I did forget to batter and deep fry it!

(rant warning)

2011-07-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

While I realize I'm not seeing a representative slice of the pop'n up here near Aspen, the state of America's children is none-the-less giving me some serious qualms about our future as a species. I can't tell you how many children are terrified of mud and manure. Since when do kids care about getting their shoes dirty?? On Saturday I was helping a 4 year old girl wash her hands and told her we were trying to save the trees by not using paper towels, and she started cry-screaming because her hands were intolerably wet. WTF? Luckily she wasn't tall enough to reach the paper towels herself, though she did take some leaps at it (not headed for the NBA, this one). She eventually recovered when her tiny little brain was distracted by the shrieking of her horrid compatriots as they detected incoming cake. Turns out I really can't stand entitled Aspen children, especially if they come for their farm-themed birthday party in sparkley sandels and frilly frocks.

On top of this rampant germaphobia, most of our young visitors also seem to suffer from a complete inability to work. I kid you not, it took three 12 year olds ten minutes to move one bale of straw (not hay, this is less than 50lbs) into the goat pen, and the whining was epic. When (I would say "if," but I'm pretty commited to the peak oil theory) the economy changes and cushy jobs are few and far between, our society may very well be fracked. Where are the kids who want to fall in creeks, would give their right leg for the chance to pet a cute animal, and can happily muck some shit-filled stalls?

Growing Season!

2011-07-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

Everybody out at Rock Bottom seems to be growing at a breakneck pace! These chickens were insubstantial fluff balls just eight weeks ago, and now they're almost six pounds! We have three batches of chickens going at the moment, and luckily we've had a little practice by this point because there's great potential for chaos. We accidentally spaced the batches a little too tightly on this last group, and the new chicks were ordered to come in the same day the three week old group was headed out to pasture. Unfortunately that Friday was the one rainy and cold day in weeks, and we ended up losing 40 of our freedom ranger chicks to cold. Well, we technically lost them to smothering from the overzealous "huddle for warmth" efforts of of their siblings. Alas! We seem to have a 40/batch trend going here. My favorite old man rancher friend suggested I make a head stone for the chicks reading: "40 Freedom Chicks. Ranching Lesson #106." He's great at putting things in perspective for us, being exceptionally encouraging, and treating us like compentent buisness partners despite some evidence to the contrary :) Too bad none of his good looking sons are single!

In addition to the chickens, the piglets are growing like mad, and I'm hoping all my fence repair will mean larger, greener pastures for them as soon as they're weaned. Burdock the calf is also growing (no longer heft-over-the-fence-able), and is as handsome as can be! We vaccinated him in my home-made livestock chute, and he was the only victim who didn't even flinch. His two older siblings put up such a dramatic fight one nearly gave Caitlin a concussion while she was closing the butt gate! Such spoiled critters.

The laying hen chicks are almost chickens now, though still significantly smaller than their meaty counterparts. As the peacock was recently widowed (some predator was delighted the peahen decided not to roost safely in the hen house that night), he's started making moves on the laying hen chicks. Unfortuntely they don't even bat an eye at his impressive strutting - which I have yet to capture on camera. To most everyone's surprise, "Eve" the peacock has become a well-loved member of the menagerie and visits every corner of the ranch to deliver his eerie calls and class up the place with his good looks. My (mostly-suppressed) animal hoarding tendancies may have been partially responsible for his (unwelcome) arrival at the ranch as I OKed the avian donation. Luckily, instead of becoming yet another unproductive burden for the staff, Eve requires no care and bequeaths us with a great deal of entertainment. Yay!

One of the rabbits gave birth, but I couldn't see them way back in their nest box so I'll just have to take Peter's word for it. So excited for them to become furry, ambulatory, and adorable! We'll have to fix up one of the chicken "tractors" for them soon, and I need to get the third one all ready for my turkeys who are slowly but steadily getting pretty big! A little boy told me the other day that one of the six week old turkeys was the momma bird for it's much smaller siblings, which made me think of how far they have to go before they're actually mom-turkey size. They currently couldn't look much less like their adult counter part, King Louie.

Caitlin and I are finally making some changes to the goat herd which before last week had one productive member out of eight. Charlotte (Delilah's bitchy daughter) is headed for the rainbow bridge (and stewpot) this week, and the two pigmies will hopefully find a new home on craigslist. Deb has some dedicated fans (my sister included), so we're giving her yet another chance at breeding which goes against most everything I learned in grad school about herd management. Grandma Corona is also well loved, so she will be kept as a pet, fed and doctored through her geriatric years. Charlotte, Gray, and Rosie have been replaced with mother-daughter milking team Pomegranate and Persimmon who are far more cuddly (and polite) than anyone else in the herd. They also enjoy my singing (Firework was a big hit on the milking stand this week).

Adorable Poults!

2011-06-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here are my new turkeys, my first personal animal project here at the ranch! Not only is there a fantastic market for turkeys, but they are supposed to be exceptionally personable and much smarter than chickens (not saying much!). Since I get to keep some of the females to start a small breeding flock, I get to name them and get attached - Yay! In this pic you can see the six bourbon red poults, and the one (darker) bourbon red/royal palm cross. They are so cute, but very skittish for now. My mom claims that they are rather ugly, but she clearly doesn't have good taste in baby poultry! One of the smallest of the burbon reds was mysteriously dead several mornings ago, but all the rest are doing great! In fact, one of the youngest ones is so full of energy and mischief that I've had to chase her around the farm twice. She snuck out a crack in the wall into the goat stall and made her escape, ending up in the hay barn the first adventure and over by the hen house the second. Not sure where she was headed or what she was searching for (maybe mom?), but she appeared to be strolling around and peeping rather aimlessly. She led me on quite a chase, showing off her swimming skills and getting me muddy half way up the thighs.

Here are the two new-borns (new-hatches?). In this pic they're two days old. I've named them Clarice and Fava, though I can't tell them apart yet! I like how the one up front is looking over her shoulder all pin-up style :) They're much more gawky than the chicks and less heart-meltingly cute, but have a great deal of character. They were so exhausted when I pulled them out of their box after their ride from Grand Junction but not sure about their surroundings and actually fell asleep standing up! Neither seemed overly steady to begin with, but pretty soon their heads started drooping until their beaks were resting on the straw. Their little butts were up in the air, swaying and twitching while they fought with their heavy eyelids. Ridiculous looking! Finally, one after the other they lost the battle and their knees gave way, plunking them onto their bellies for a good sleep.

It was a great weekend showing my new home off to my parents and getting a lot of wonderful food out of the bargain! I thought I had eaten enough in those two brunches and two dinners to last me the week, but I was so hungry today I had two lunches! I'm cooking up spagetti squash from last year's garden and an old laying hen who was no longer laying eggs and pecking holes in everyone else's - what a nasty old bird! Eight hours in the crock pot made her pretty fantastic though! Much more flavorful than the cornish crosses. I've got two more old hens in the "prison" cage in the hen house for suspected egg eating. They haven't laid any eggs in the three days they've been in there, so that's also cause for culling them I suppose. I'll have to get out my broom and scalding pot tomorrow!

I just looked over because I heard Cecil smacking his lips, apparently in the middle of a very vivid dream. He's all curled up in a ball with his eyes rolling around and his face twitching like crazy! Must be tired from wrestling that big vole he brought me this morning! You'd think I'd be saturated with animal care out here, but I still desperately miss sharing life with a dog, especially this dog. Her death seemed so irrationally early and pointless, but if she was still here I wouldn't be at Rock Bottom and would perhaps be headed in a very different direction. If there's a plan behind all this stuff, I hope there's also a chance she'll be back to share in another chapter of my life.

2011-06-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

Oh, I almost forgot! I also had an adventure this evening with this little munchkin! He somehow got suck on the wrong side of the fence, and since it's 4' high post and board he was having a heck of a time getting back in to mom. I popped over thinking maybe I could help him out, but he was super wary of me and wasn't letting me get too close. I slowly crept up to him over the course of twenty minutes or so, and he finally let me touch him and, without even flinching, let me get my arms under him. My initial heave to get him over the fence was highly unsuccessful. Got him eye level with the top rail, but didn't have the umph to get him actually over it. He weighed a heck of a lot more than I expected! Must be over a hundred, which is great, unless of course you're me and aren't quite of a rancher physique yet. I tried to squeeze him through the middle, but his chest wouldn't fit. Oddly, he just went kind of limp and let me try to manuver him through. Not sure why he went from fleeing from me to letting me heft him around. So back over the top, but I got a knee up this time so was able to prop him while I inched up the fence myself. Once his front feet and nose were over he got the idea and started helping a bit so it was easy from there. He aced the landing too! I think we're friends now :) But who knows! Any name suggestions? "The calf" just doesn't suit him

2011-06-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

So far this week has been delightfully productive and full of exciting experiential learning :)

The hoop house is actually getting vertical, which is admittedly a total surprise. We have bypassed things like leveling and uh, well, measuring for the most part. It's just a fifteen foot high 24'x48' structure, so I'm pretty sure planning and measuring would be overkill, right Dad? We don't have a transit or a skid steer or (until today) a tape measure longer than 25', but we do have a very wealthy board member with zero building experience on site daily and demanding progress. In fact, when he gets frustrated with all our measuring and planning, he just starts digging holes (abiet slowly and crookedly from behind that financier spare tire). So we have the ground posts in, and although they're not plumb or lined up, today they stuck two of the ridgelines up. They weren't bolted on straight, so one of them shoved out the ground post to a frightening angle. Frightening mostly because the ground posts are so easily pushed around! They were supposed to be set in concrete, but instead it was decided that we would dig a 2' hole (the top foot of which is freshly added compost and sand) with a post hole digger, plop the ground posts in, and pack a little dirt/compost in around the edges. Oh my god. As much as I like to bitch about Agriburbia, I was completely convinced our hoop houses weren't going to flop over, or look like hell for that matter. So, I guess the hoop house part wasn't delightfully productive, but on the other hand, it is nice to have the damn thing out of the box finally.

This week I've also learned how to set curtains for flood irrigation, mostly through trial and error. It was extremely wet, somewhat frustrating, but all in all pretty darn fun! It's pretty great to mess around in a ditch with a shovel and some tarps and then watch the pasture getting watered or drained just like that. Part of the west pasture has been under 4-8" of water since I moved here (> a month!), so I blockaded a box dam, unblocked a culvert, added a tarp curtain, and thirty minutes later that poor oxygen-starved (and increasingly stinky) patch of pasture was emerging from the depths! I drained another section simply with a few chunks of mud - yipee! Turns out rudimentary ditch/flood irrigation is not rocket science, so a shovel, some tarps, and a basic grasp of the theory of gravity got me pretty far out there! It's still far from perfect of course, and I need to get the tractor out there to redo some ditches. Grading would be great too, but I don't want to go down the plowing/sowing road when we've got a pretty healthy population of perennial grasses. 50 cows come tomorrow for a 1-2 week vaca in our lovely back 50. They should do wonders on that neglected land, and will give us a rough idea of the property's hay potential as well.

Other exciting news - today I cooked one of our chickens for dinner, which was a satisfying first! They're 16 days from slaughter still, but this one broke a leg (and dislocated a hip?) and needed an early retirement. We haven't yet set up any proper facilities, but there's a cone or two in the shed and the 350's tailgate made a great processing table - with a clean cutting board of course. Finding a sharp knife proved tricky (mine's been cutting electric fencing and twine for too many weeks), so I ended up using a box cutter blade for the important part. Plucking really was easier with this mutant half-naked breed, and I nailed the evisceration for once (Shannon, you'd be so proud!). Anyway, the chicken turned out pretty good, but not as tender as I was hoping. Cecil certainly didn't complain about his giblets though!

2011-06-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy to report that after their first night of traumatic freedom, the cornish cross chicks are now enjoying a delightful quality of life in the pasture. The 200 remaining almost-chickens are exploring the grass, pecking around, and definitely having a lovely time. The above chick is clearly reveling in the distant beauty of Basalt Mountain (that's an awestruck expression if ever I've seen one!)

Here's some of the flock relaxing by the snack bar in their shady cabana. We're having a heck of a time keeping that snack bar fully stocked though; these guys are going through forty pounds of feed a day! Still, they're definitely much cuter when not accompanied by the stench of their chick stalls, and they have grown into their gangly feet and filled out with feathers a bit so they're nearly pretty.

To save time and labor filling their waterers twice a day (gorging on chick feed makes 'um thirsty), I created a water gap when I moved the electric fencing by repositioning the pen over a wet ditch. These chicks are nothing if not brainless (I'm certain they've long since shit out any intelligence), and were threatening to dehydrate and die as not a one followed my trail of waterers to the fourth one floating in the ditch. I attempted some training with the carrot and stick method by slowly walking a waterer to the ditch and leading a small group of thirsty chicks (foolishly thinking they had capacity for connecting the journey to the drink and later leading their comrades - hah!). When this was clearly failing, I got a tad frustrated and began grabbing any chicks trying to drink out of a waterer and tossing them into the ditch. Still, not a trace of learning, and a not a sole returning to the ditch after their initial drink. Arrrrgh! Their stupidity would be the death of them. Then - Aha! - I realized that if I simply removed all waterers (they were just standing by the empty ones waiting for Poseidon to refill them rather than hunting for a better source), and lifted one on a stump to make it easily visible in the middle of the ditch, they would head in the right direction, find they were standing in the water, and come to the correct conclusion that water now comes from the ground and not a galvanized cylinder...

TaDa!

2011-05-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here's the bear's surprisingly small hole in my once beautiful chicken tractor:

The remaining chicks seem to be fully recovered and thankfully much less blood-splattered. The few with scrapes and punctures aren't letting it interrupt their ravenous morning attack on the feed trough. Perhaps their freakish rate of growth allows them to heal unnaturally fast as well! Luckily they appear to be too stupid to be emotionally scarred from their horribly violent brush with death. Many were already back to eating and drinking before we'd finished separating the dead and wounded last night - strange!

On a much lighter note, the twin kids were cuddled up in mom's feeder this morning. Ever so cute:

And here's the new goat hay feeder I built saturday to reduce feed waste (huge problem around here). It's really fun to have a woodshop, even if it's very ill-equipted, and like any self-respecting farm/ranch we have a huge assortment of building materials, aka junk. I sure miss Olaf's awesome wood and metal shops when I'm swapping our one feeble battery from the screw gun to the chop saw and back again. Or when I'm picking through the screw bucket!

In other exciting news, Peter brought three new rabbits to the ranch yesterday to start up our meat bunny enterprise! He built them really cool hutches (which now seem not very bear-proof), and they're stationed in our garden for weed disposal and cuteness. Currently the buns have a view of this new wacko community gardener who showed up this morning with her latino gardener and is ordering him around to set up her tiny plot - Bizarre!

Massacre at Rock Bottom!

2011-05-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

I had just gotten into bed Sunday night and was flopping around trying to get my back in a comfortable position without sending Cecil flying. I heard a few chirps out my open window, but ignored it. Then a few more chirps, but I was just starting to get comfortable, so stayed in my happily horizontal position after a long week. I perked my ears and listened for chickens.

More chirps. I started thinking about bobcats and mountain lions and coyotes, but I had compeleted the chicken tractors just hours before and knew every inch was securely covered in wire. The bottom two feet was bolstered with a second layer of thicker wire because possums and coons are known to reach in and pull legs and heads off birds sleeping within paws' reach. The chicks were so quickly outgrowing their pens in the barn, and the stentch and heat from all of them packed in had become not only uncomfortable but deadly. I'd found three birds, flat as pancakes and featherless from post-mortem trampling, in the last two days and had made completing the chicken tractors my first priority. As often as we mucked, we just couldn't keep up with the pace of the eating and shitting, and the ammonium and bacteria and rising temperatures created a dangerous combination. At long last the pens were ready, and we herded the birds into dog kennels for their trip across the farmyard. They seemed so content in their new home with a fresh breeze ruffling their feathers and sping grass under their feet for the first time. We released the last kennel late in the evening, and I left them with a great feeling of satisfaction, pleased to have vastly improved the quality of life for these strange little meat makers. This picture shows the barn, yuck:

The chirps became a chorus, and something was definitely wrong out there. This wasn't just a bird complaining about getting squished by his siblings. I slid into my crocs on the way out the door and grabbed the coleman lantern. Once I got out the door, I could hear the chickens clearly and there was distinct pain and panic in their screams. I started running and fumbled hastily with the gate, one of many on the ranch that dangles from it's twine-reinforced hinges and has to be wrestled open. As I closed in on the pens my lantern lit a large hole torn through the wire side of one and a ribcage lying in bloody feathers. A brown furry something was moving in the pen, and chicks were flying through the air. My lantern was not putting out much light, and I started hollering "OUT OUT OUT YOU!" but the predator didn't turn or seem to notice me. I got close enough for my light to reach inside the pen, and the brown butt turned around and it was a bear with a chicken in it's mouth and paws sweeping through the hudding, screaming flock. It looked at me for just a moment, then turned away and continued the slaughter.

Bear! I hadn't even considered a bear, and I staggered back, feeling so unprepared in my pajamas and crocs. I ran back for the subaru, and raced to the pasture. The bear kept up his killing despite the headlights pouring in and my hollering, but began trying to escape when I laid on the horn (not in the middle of the steering wheel I finally figured out). He squoze himself through the hole he'd torn and loped off towards the river.

Corpses were stewn in every part of the pen, none eaten but many disemboweled. Every single chick had blood somewhere on it's body, and as I went for gloves Caitlin and Peter came running out to help.We triaged the birds and drowned the fifteen who seemed "unrehabilitatable" (a euphamism they employed at the animal shelters). Forty birds died tonight, and we'll probably loose a few more by morning to overlooked and internal injuries. We still have two hundred and five, and they're back in the barn on fresh straw to wait for their electric poultry netting to reinforce the pens (and I hope I fry that bastard when he comes back for seconds). Three o'clock and I'm off to bed but the adreneline is still fading from seeing that bear and the devastation he wrecked on our helpless chicks. I can't imagine why they kill so ruthlessly and needlessly, but I've read it's not uncommon with other predators like dogs and possums and weasels either. I'll have to talk to the ranchers who told us this pen design was predator proof and see if we left out the razor wire or something! I'll post pics of the surviors and the hole in the pen tomorrow. Phew!

Sampling and Monitoring!

2011-05-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

It's so exciting to use my grad school knowledge! Due to immune nonsense (EBV, now CFS?), I've taken a break from dashing around feeding/planting/cleaning/fixing/watering/weeding things to plan some rotational grazing for Noah's Arc. I clipped some forage samples to measure pasture productivity by making a sq ft wire hoop and throwing it around the pasture to attempt randomness (it was also exciting to use geometry!).

These two pictures are taken less than ten meters apart, and the difference in plant height, species composition, and amount of litter really shows what happens in continual grazing...PATCHES! Not great for productivity because the areas with lots of litter get essentially choked out, and the areas getting constantly nibbled kill off the desirable species by preventing them from storing energy in their roots. With some portable electric fencing I can concentrate the animals on a small area for a short time so they graze it evenly and then move on before over stressing the plants. Currently this pasture has only ~1500lbs of forage production per acre, and it should have over 4000! Despite the poor/nonexistant management, the ranch still has excellent production (thanks to subirrigation from the Roaring Fork) compared to the northern front range where 300-700lbs/ac is typical.

Anyway, on a more interesting note, our 2 week old cornish cross chicks are growing like crazy (freakish), and eating and shitting like crazy (nasty), and are crazy lopsided from their bizarrely huge breasts (pretty gross). Pictures to come. Their much cuter heritage breed counterparts are less than half the size at the same age, which is completely amazing. We get to put everybody out on pasture at the end of next week which will smell a lot better, but means I have to order fencing Tomorrow! Which means lots of decisions in a very short time. How much? What kind? eeek!

We had two twins arrive yesterday just before lunch from our Alpine goat Deliah. A boy and a girl, both very healthy and cute. I'll have to take some more pictures now that they're a little more lively and fluffy, because they're unbelievably adorable! I got to towel them off, betadine their umbilical chords, and help them nurse. I guess it's important that they get a good drink in the first hour, but they're so adorably bad at finding a teat and pretty much tried sucking on everything from mom's elbows to eachothers ears. I guided a nose to the right area while holding up a very wobbly chest, and after tasting every other part of Deliah's udder and upper thighs nursing was a success!

Awesome new job, Awesome new location!!!

2011-05-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Cecil was so excited to get out of the car after our five hour drive! He immediately jumped on the bed and took a looong look out the window. He was standing like this for at least five trips up and down the stairs with boxes. Mules and miniture cows must be fascinating enough to break through the sedatives for some intense tail-twitching observation.

Big Willie just before I dusted him for mites...in his pits and buttcrack. also ears, inner thighs, and second chin. Laura-jean's week old piglets :)

Cecil surveying the view from the porch roof outside our window

Progress thwarted

2009-07-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

Joy has been doing decently on her resource guarding (thanks published works of Jean Donaldson!), but lost a lot of ground last night. We were lounging in bed while she was getting the last morsels of dinner out of her kong. I must not have latched the door completely, and Tess nosed her way in. The Law and Order folks were hollering at the escaping criminal, so I didn't notice the door bump open, but Joy did and gave a warning growl over those last three kibbles. Tess was not about to take that sort of lip, so leapt onto the bed ready for business. The growling turned into a great deal of horrible noises, hideous faces, and lunging fangs, one set on each side of my head. With a show of buddha-like calm I began yelling ShitShitShit as loudly as I could and alternating between shoving one dog and tackling the other. Adrenaline is supposed to give you great powers of strength and reasoning, but instead turned me into a screaming, crouching windmill of arms, with no hint of either my first hand experience handling dog fights or my remaining knowledge of karate. The event ended somehow, without a moment of dog-dog contact. Perhaps Joy is just that intimidating, or my actions were bizarre enough to induce retreat, or, hopefully, Tess is making progress in her own training.

The unfortunate outcome: a few hours later Chaco walked by the now food-less room, and Joy overreacted horribly with a growl-snarl-bark-lunge in his general direction. Not just back at the beginning, but quite a bit worse. Damnit.

Separation Anxiety

2009-07-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Every night my roomie comes home to a huge puddle of splinters and paint chips floating in drool. And if you're lucky enough be be home with the dogs when she is not, you have to pick between whining and pounding inside or barking outside. Exercise, Discipline, Affection anyone? (Said, it should be noted, with a great deal of hypocrisy...)

2009-07-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

People always seem to bring their spouse when they come to adopt and animal, so I've gotten a great feel for who pairs up with who in Boulder. Sometimes it's really surprising, but usually people date/marry close to their level the hotness scale. Two hippies, two CU econ majors, or the most common combo, scrawny nerd + chubby spouse (the chubby one always wears the pants). When they come with children it makes for extra surprises. Sometimes the kids match, sometimes they miraculously escape their parents' vices, and sometimes they amplify the one drop of weirdness in a great gene pool. Yesterday I worked with an exceptionally chubby/nerdy couple and their two gross children. The six year old was a puppy-chucking bastard (the puppy landed just right and was fine, phew), and the four year old looked just like gollum from LOTR.

He had the ears, the pointy teeth, bulgy eyes, white complexion with red spots, even the limp and scraggly hair. Just add a double chin, a beer gut, and a mutant ninja turtles t-shirt and you've got this kid. He was not only hideous, but also terribly behaved. His parents' unsubstantiated scolding was no match for his desire to stomp in the fresh puddle of urine every time he passed as he ran shrieking in circles of the patio (because really, why prevent your child from splattering himself, you, and nearby strangers in dog pee?). They did manage, with stellar parental techniques like distraction and begging, to keep him from licking the urine puddle. The puddle was finally drying up when the puppy let loose some wicked diarrhea. I kid you not, this toddler made a bee-line and got his tongue within inches of the shit before his parents intervened. The older kid picked up and threw the puppy while his parents were asking me how to tell that the puppy wouldn't get very big or be energetic. I was just telling them that this catahoula/hound mix will most likely be both when the puppy yelped behind me and they waddled over to their child and explained how it wasn't nice to throw puppies. And yes, they adopted the adorable, beautifully brindled, and very good-natured puppy. And no, they've never owned a dog and haven't done a scrap of research.

2009-07-12T11:27:00.001-07:00

Wentworth

Lady Bird

2009-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why everyone doesn't have a dog (or two), and then I come home from work (cleaning up dog shit) to piles of diarrhea splattered all over my bedroom carpet (and onto my blue fluffy slippers). Many hours after the initial scrubbing session I'm finally crawling into bed. Wondering why the stink persists (I scoop diarrhea all day, and this is exceptionally horrible), I look under the bed to find three more piles with impressively dispersed splatters. My bed is only eight inches off the ground, requiring Joy to army crawl underneath in order to create this surprise. Furthermore, my room is not large enough for me to move my bed more than half its width in any direction, requiring several attempts to get at all the diarrhea, smearing some piles and collecting others in goopy rings around the bed legs. Finally able to access the most offensive deposit, I find it hardening into the rug's once thick and fluffy fringe. At this point I'd have to pole vault in order to get from one side of my room to the other without stepping in the massive wet spot. You'd think an elephant vomited a gut full of sewage on my carpet.

Also, why in god's name don't they put carpet cleaner in bottles capable of spraying at an angle other than vertical? Are all these "spot and stain removers" for fucking tapestries?

The Prince of my dreams

2009-05-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

...is a primieval animal physic with ferret sidekicks. Ah, BeastMaster, my favorite show of the 90s. So popular in it's three glorious seasons that it's website is no longer functional, alas.

Luckily, the Austrailians have more appreciation for the primieval blond highlights, suspiciously orange-tinged tan, obvious green screens, shameless shirtless opportunities, and repetitive plotlines. Here's their synopsis: "Dar, the Beastmaster and last survivor of his tribe, wanders the ancient lands, seeking out his beloved Kira, defending the animals he controls, and pitting his might against various sorcerers and tyrants. He protect those he care for and all the animals."

I think his ferrets travel in the loin cloth. Totally rocked when I was 13.

As long as I'm being picky, I'd also like a prince who never gets sick, loves to go swimming, and is a man among men with a beard who is kind to little people.

Oo, good one

2009-05-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Mine oh mine

2009-05-05T19:11:00.001-07:00

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/photos/60237671_zpid/

also cool...

2009-05-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewuFIlsZ1Q&feature=related

Show jumping without the head injuries!!

2009-05-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewuFIlsZ1Q&feature=related

What are your career goals for life?

2009-04-28T12:11:00.001-07:00

Who knew that filling out a million and a half applications could lead to increased self-awareness? Forced to answer, I kinda dug up some reasonably focused ambition.

"I would like to work in sustainable agriculture in some capacity and hope to contribute to the pool of ideas that will bring us into a better relationship with our planet. I would like to spread my passion for healthy and ethical consumption to others and help to change the materialistic and damaging patterns of our culture. With farming and ranching I would like to find ways to make sustainable and humane production profitable, especially concerning animal welfare."

Cuddly Noodle

2009-04-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

What the Hell?

2009-04-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

First, I found this button in my breakfast cereal. I guess now I know what the "Plus" is in Fiber Plus!

And then I was looking for jobs in the Boulder Pet Directory and came across this ad (three times).

Thanks, but no thanks?

Magical Moleculars

2009-04-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

I had a mad crazy last week. I had a job interview at a natural vet clinic in the mountains, got the job, and started at 7 the next day. I was really excited because it seemed like I was going to learn a lot and get quite a bit of responsibility as well (doing dentals, helping in surgery, etc). Also the lady who hired me told me she thought I was a "beautiful person" and was so excited to work with me, which was such a delightful contrast from my last piece of shit, condescending, completely incompetent boss. yippee i thought.

So I come in at 6:30 after my hour commute, bright and happy, well-caffeinated and energetic. I jumped in to help with the morning cleaning, and this is when I began to have misgivings. For starters, the place has four resident cats, one of which is severely handicapped - admittedly a very nice gesture of animal rescuing. On the other hand, four cats in a high stress and very busy clinic is a rather unsanitary scheme, involving, it turns out, a minimum of four kitty craps and three vomit piles distributed outside the litter boxes and around the clinic on a daily basis. I originally assumed the early morning fecal odor permeating the clinic was a unique occurrence, perhaps involving an ill patient, but was informed by a unfazed staff member that this charming smell was characteristic of the morning routine. Ack.

Furthermore, the place is covered in carpet. An animal HOSPITAL. CARPET. BAD. The carpet is vacuumed every morning. Which of course makes it sterile. Luckily the carpet is a nice dark color with a mottled pattern, so the many layers of blood, vomit, diarrhea, and death stains become indistinguishable from the brownish/greenish glory of the carpet itself.

Sinks. At least one in every exam room - that's gotta be in a health code somewhere, am I right? Aspen Park Vet Hospital has one sink. Three exam rooms, a surgery, two labs, a pharmacy, the lobby, and an office. One sink. It's small, it's skanky, and it has no surrounding counter space. Fill your cup-o-soup? Clean the blood off your rib spreader? Scrub out the ghiardia kitten's litter box? Uno. Seems inconvenient if nothing else, which perhaps explains why the vet and his staff never wash hands between patients, or ever for that matter (no gloves to be found either). To be fair, there is another sink in one of the bathrooms (the other bathroom is a toilet in the laundry closet, and with all that clean laundry around who needs a sink anyway?). Holy Jesus, thought I.

More later, I must go apply for a new job!!!

A New Hope

2009-04-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

After Hope's sudden death, Darrel bore his grief with great resiliency and accepted Judy into his nest and, it seems, into his heart as well. She has become quite pretty in her larger and lower stress environment, has grown all her feathers back, and has even laid two eggs in her beautifully engineered double-decker nest.

Feet are food too

2009-03-22T15:41:00.001-07:00

It was strange to find one rotting coon foot, with no carcass or other coon bits to be found, but to find another lone foot a half a mile away and several days later - what luck (in Rosie's opinion)! I didn't have the balls to retrieve the first coon foot from between Rosie's molars, especially as I would have had to carry it a good ways until I found a tree or suitable bush. It was much too squishy and horrible feeling for that amount of contact, and I thought it'd be better disposed of by a labrador. Although a lab's digestion is amazing - Lily's stomach stripped the foot of fur and thouroughly mangled it - it none-the-less rejected this particular foot as uneatable and sent it back up, new and improved with a powerful and untique odor. After dealing with the first, I thought I'd rather not see or smell the second foot after Rosie was done with it. I grabbed it by it's protruding tibia, wiggled it out of Rosie's jaws, and hung it in a scrub oak.

My only guess is that this particular raccoon's feet were just too repulsive to be consumed with the rest of the carcass, though god knows how they got so widely distributed across the landscape. Perhaps some bird attempted to carry the feet off, and then caught a whiff and dropped them mid-flight. Point being, this proves that of all scavengers, there is no palate less discriminating than that of a labrador retriever.

A Low blow, but so familiar that I couldn't resist

2009-03-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1771895
The Seven Girls You'll Date In College:
1.

The Beginning:
Maybe you were good at sports, maybe you always sucked, but a semester of 4am burritos hasn't helped either way. She'll be cute, blonde, and look better in track shorts than she does make-up. Through careful deception, you'll convince her you can still play intramural soccer sans heart attacks.

The End:
This, of course, is a lie, and you'll both discover that, in the strictest animal-eating/shelf-building sense, she's more of a man than you. You'll have fun, but as soon as you try to keep up with her on the field (and elsewhere), she'll be forever left with an image of you, wheezing, doughy, and begging her to slow down.

I know it's ridiculous

2009-03-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

because he's gay and into himself and not particularly amazing.... but i'm totally in love with Nick Pitera when he's singing disney classics to me. He's totally working the happy childhood memory angle, and he just looks so darn sweet, and I know I'm not too demented b/c no girl in my pod could resist him either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-CS2v8wcc

Stranger Danger

2009-03-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

As we came down the hill towards the creek today a coyote came into view, calmly watching us from a little knoll. Once he satisfied his curiosity, he trotted off towards the west. Joy picked up on the movement and couldn't resist giving chase. He loped away, not particularly concerned until she put on a real turn of speed and started gaining on him. He took off, looking over his shoulder (in disbelief at her amazing athleticism of course), but she kept gaining. Almost to the top of barrel cactus hill, he pulled up and turned. Still as tree stumps, they stood for several seconds eye to eye.

Mr. Coyote (in a dangerous drawl), "Well you got yourself a real fast set of legs there, sweetheart. It'd be a such a shame if they were torn off and eaten by some wild animal."
Joy, "EEEEKKK!!! MOMMY!!!"

Joy's tail dropped and disappeared between her legs, and she was bolting back down the hill, lacking any hint of predatory poise. We were unpleasantly surprised when the coyote followed her, effortlessly proving his superior speed while nipping her backside, ankles, and tail. Joy began shrieking in utter horror, and the coyote, his point made, turned aside and (smugly?) watched her streak back to the safety of the pack.

Hopefully this experience will make more of an impression on Joy than our many discussions on coyotes, their sneakiness, and their willingness to eat even the most beautiful of labrador mixes.

Not So Nudie Ned

2009-03-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

2009-02-28T12:19:00.001-08:00

terrified of vaccums

2009-02-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

but inexplicably confident with half-ton horses. She's tired from being a mountian dog, but not tired enough to resist nomming Mr Sheepie.

oops

2009-02-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

I wasn't supposed to end up unemployed... That's ok - Metal-smithing fun starts tomorrow, so who needs a pay check? I am so psyched to do some art and create something other than paperwork and death !!

My room has been filled with the cutest noises lately (probably because I've been sitting in it more than usual). Whenever the birds are nest building they talk to each other in these little tiny birdy mumbles and coos. It's really adorable and romantic. Ned's been contributing with these itsy bitsy coughs and sneezes that are completely incongruous with his giant, tubby body. He sounds like a baby chipmunk being tickled, it's just ridiculous.

Today I'm stewing some g. pig poops in warm water to make fertilizer because I'm growing this sunflower, and its bottom leaves are looking kind of yellow. I was trying to grow a peace lily, but it got fried in the south window, and then some seeds snuck into the pot and took over, and thus the sunflower was an excellent accident which I'd like to prolong with poo stew.

Speaking of poo, did you know that 99% of plastic bags have at least one hole, usually right there in the bottom?? It's really irritating trying to scoop using the side of the bag and then holding it all awkwardly so it doesn't leak. Also, Joy's poo is so potent that it will stink right through a sealed baggie. If there's not a nearby trash can, I might as well be walking around with her poop on a plate for the way the stench permeates the bag.

2009-02-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

Rambo VII: The War With Alzheimers

2009-02-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

we've all done it..

2009-01-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajXT9ER7WFo&eurl=http://failblog.org/page/2/&feature=player_embedded

just not with an iron, thank god.

SMAM Newsflash!!!!

2009-01-08T20:31:00.001-08:00

Phil and Nearly Nudie Ned are out of the closet (still under the bed)! Their shared dietary interests have spurred a beatiful friendship between pig and bunny, and I honestly think Phil is happier and less evil for the first time since Harriet. I think this means I have a new resident, but Ned's pretty low maintinence and I don't miss feeling all guilty about Phil's depression.

As for avian reproductive news - the second batch of eggs has arrived! I was feeling suspicious - I think their cooing changed in tenor a bit - so I checked the elaborate (and stinky) nest ...

There are some well placed dog hairs in that third picture for scale. So tiny! I was going to just crack the eggs into Joy's bowl and leave it at that, but I started imagining opening a fertilized egg, and if the little fetus was old enough it might be really uncomfortable to be dumped into the cold air and then eaten. So I put them in the fridge, which seemed like a better way to meet your end. I replaced the eggs with some wooden beads to stave off grief, but considering they kicked their first batch out of the nest (clumsy or infanticidal?), I think they'll be fine.

Hematoma day

2009-01-01T11:18:00.001-08:00

Wednesday at work was Hematoma day. It royally sucked, and I feel superbly inadequate at kitty blood draws. Cats have these leg veins that are right on the surface underneath their papery thin skin and what with them kicking and hissing and generally trying to kill you, it's super hard not to poke right through that little vessel. Piercing the vessel is apparently pretty painful, because they always kick extra hard when you do that, pulling away from the needle, ripping the vein further, creating a goliath hematoma, king of all hematomas. And since I shave the area before I poke, the kitty has a giant and very visible bruise for adopters to admire. And then I have to put in a note so patrons and staff know just who is beating up these helpless, homeless, tiny little bundles of love.

5 things...

2008-12-31T19:01:00.000-08:00

You didn't know! Except you probably already know these things because I don't have many secrets.

1. I dated - past tense, phew - a certian someone with a tattoo that reads, "Trust No Bitch." It was tattooed in ink made out of a suspension of lotion ashes and god knows what else. Amy's taste in men? Questionable apparently.

2. I love grocery shopping! You find the randomest things on sale and you get creative and the possibilities open up before you...it's like creating a new painting!

3. I once spent the night sleeping in an outhouse because I was too scared to sleep on top of it, and I sure as hell wasn't lying out like a cat poop in a dog park with grizzles around.

4. The first time I saw a moose, it ambled out (ever so suddenly) from behind a nearby tree and I peed my pants. Unfortunately I had a UTI so I didn't just pee a little, I drenched my pants, the only pants for many miles, and had to break through ice to wash off in the river. In retrospect, I'm not sure what the point of washing off was - warm pee seems better than cold water when winter backpacking.

5. If I were a therapist, I would be like Cesar Millan and have one solution for every problem: Get a dog. I would not have survived highschool (socially at least) without those walks with Po and Pill, I attribute much of my headache healing to Iggy, and since I've had Joy I've been able to cut my prozac dose in half! Ponies are good too.

2008-12-31T18:53:00.000-08:00

At work with my cat friend Chief - He has already been adopted!

And this is a fuzz ball that I was really fascinated by...

When we shave cat's bellies to look for spay scars, sometimes the fur comes off and forms a perfect little fuzz worm. They're hard to capture on camera, but quite striking in their natural habitat. It's pretty cool the way they stick together when you poke them.

FAIL date

2008-12-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

But not EPIC. Phil and Scooter did not hit it off, but to his credit, she totally started it. They were doing well - he was letting her come sniff his litter box, and they were eying each other romantically. Then he hopped over to her litter box for a sniff, and she responded inhospitably with a mock lunge. He gave up on her immediately, testimony to the hurtful relationships of his past, and bit a big chunk of fur out of her forehead. Whenever I'm having romance troubles, I just thank God I'm not a little bunny.

We're now trying some intraspecies dating. I'm fostering Nudie, a guinea pig that needed some TLC and Vitamin C before he's ready to go up for adoption. He's mostly hairless and has giant sweaty balls (seriously, they're always strangely moist), but I'm hoping Phil will fall for his inner beauty... So far I don't think they've noticed each other. Joy thinks he's facinating though, especially when he wheeks.

Joy is eating stick bits, helping me with the room cleanup that is so desperately needed. Rosie punched a good little hole in her lip (trying to help her with her punk image no doubt), but Joy opted not to put in a sexy lip stud and has healed up unbelievably fast. She hasn't been as combative with the puppy since she got home, so I'm hoping getting thrashed by much larger and more snaggle-fanged Rosie and Lily cooled her hot head a little.

Four Paws and Very Pesky

2008-12-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

I found out what would happen if Joy got inadequate exercise. Between me being a sickie and the weather being below zero all weekend, Joy's only been only getting out for short potty breaks, with the exception of one very nice walk with her granddad. She's neatly proving Cesar's Exercise, Discipline, Affection mantra true by being an obnoxious pillbox despite unlimited cuddling and belly rubs. Actually, she's being really wonderful, I'm just comparing her to normal, nearly perfect Joy. As bored as she must be, she hasn't destroyed anything or eaten any household pets, she just won't stop poking me and every time I wake up she's right there, breathing heavily on my face and staring with tragically hopeful eyes.

2008-12-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

My feet have suffered a barrage of insults throughout the years, among them "homeless" and "masculine." In a valiant effort to prove these cruel and superficial hoobie-skanks wrong, I've painted my toenails "Teak Rose." It's irresistibly sexy.

Not so irresistably sexy that the BF noticed, but then again he is a boy and also didn't notice when I cut 6in off my hair (also incredibly sexy).

2008-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

the apartment is a mess right now. it's disgusting. only one man can solve this problem, and that man is tim mcgraw. yeah, i'm getting in the mode, just a little more coffee and I'm gonna have this place lookin like new. I'd like to do my laundry as well, but Joy is much to comfortable on top of the pile to be disturbed.

i officially adopted Joy on Thursday. i had been thinking she was from a Northern CO shelter, but she was actually from the other transfer that day - KY! Her Kentucky name was Sherry. Per the KY shelter folks, her best qualities are: Loving and Playful. I would have to agree, though I'd add: Crazy Smart, Athletic, and Well-Mannered to the list.

The birds are doing great. Don't know if they did the math and figured out that they're siblings, but whatever the motivation they've elected to hold off on making eggs. They still like putting nests together, but then they just sit in them, seemingly quite content with selfless genes. They've now each had a narrow brush with murder. Hope fled the room at one point while I was changing her water. She immediately became disoriented and landed on the carpet to get her bearings. The cat was apparently not in a sporting mood, and took advantage of this disadvantaged prey. Hope somewhat got the idea that she was being hunted after she was pounced on a time or two, and made some effort to fly around but kept choosing vulnerable spots to land in, chiefly the floor. By the time I caught the cat, Hope was in her mouth. I shook the cat and Hope emerged miraculously unharmed. Darrel repeated the performance with Joy, but I caught him in a pillow case before he got chomped. Looking at their survival skills, you'd think they'd been raised in captivity or something. If nothing else, they have provided some pretty fantastic stimulation for the predators in the house.

2008-12-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

Although this technically makes me a bad person, I may have found a new home for Phil! One of the investigators at the League is looking for an older male rabbit to keep her female company, so we're gonna try a date (This is why I say maybe. We all know how phil does on dates.).

I'm justifying betraying my promises to Phil by focusing on how much happier he would be with a lady friend. I'm also assuaging the guilt by remembering my dear horsie Drummer, who - I swear to God - had completely forgotten me after three months apart. Ouch. On the other hand, there's nothing like a good kick in your anthropomorphising pants to get you back down there in reality. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to euthanize animals right now if Drummer had been as touched by our nightly ritual of ear snuffles as I had been. The jury's still out on whether or not that's a good thing.

2008-12-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

2008-12-07T19:30:00.001-08:00

Works gotten a lot better since I stopped trying so hard. I've started frolicking, slacking, and generally taking my sweet freakin time. So far I've been getting all good feedback. Yeah my efficiency has dropped like a rock, but I do have some fantastic attention to detail. Amazingly, you hardly make any "mistakes" if you triple check anything that's not blatently obvious. Technically I'm getting paid to make decisions, but it's become apparent that certian authority figures want to be the only ones making decisions. Now that I'm no longer putting pressure on myself, I have all this time for things like photography...

We named him Yeti. My coworker and I put this kitten in different poses for about half an hour. It was pretty hilarious, and I think Yeti benefited from the socialization and the dance practice (he does a pretty good jig).

2008-11-24T18:51:00.000-08:00

Although certian experts suggested that Joy was a impulse adoption, gave off a bad vibe, and was mostly likely a chow *gasp*, she seems to be proving all that hype pleasantly wrong. I either had some wicked good luck or a benevolent angel helping out with my critter pick on this gal. I just taught her to shake, which tallies up to TWO tricks if you count sit (clearly Joy is a genius AND I'm a progedy of a dog trainer). As long as I'm capitalizing on her talents, I should teach her to fart on command. Don't know what's the deal, but we've got some chronic pollution troubles.

2008-11-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

Joy!

2008-11-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

eyelash crisis!!!

2008-09-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

My ambition for removing unwanted hair has gone too far! I was waxing my eyebrows to ward off their rectangular growth pattern when a hot blob got all caught up in the moment and went after my poor unsuspecting eyelashes! Hot wax on your eyelid is not pleasant. Nor is having your eye glued shut while you try to come up with a solution other than ripping out your lashes. Two tragic tugs later, my right eye is looking a little naked. I lost the inner half. Surprisingly, plucking lashes isn't nearly as painful as you'd expect. Not only do i look strange and have a stinging and swollen lid, but I lost the four dollars I spent dying that half an eye of lashes. Ah, woe is me.

I used to buy One-A-Day "Active Women" vitamins, but now they're making a "Mentally and Physically Active Women" version. Can you really walk out of the store with the plain old "Active" version without advertizing to the world that you're a mental slob? This leaves me in a tough spot, because now that I'm out of college I really don't use my brain enough to warrent those extra dimes for the mental variety. Once I get off work (pretty much walking around and petting things) I read novels and pet more creatures and workout and generally loaf around. I don't even play soduku on the toilet anymore, I just read my Rabbits USA magazines.

This looks uncomfortably familiar...

2008-09-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the rabbit saga continues. Darling Phil got a new girlfriend, an actual girl this time named Ginger/Boop. Very pretty and very sassy, just the way he likes 'um. The brawl-to-lovin' ratio hadn't yet dropped to healthy relationship level, and there was still a lot of fur flying, but I got my hopes up. Then I woke up one morning and found Phil all sick looking. I took his temp - 106.5! Yikes. So he spent an entire paycheck getting better, and his girlfriend died suddenly and mysteriously in the meantime. All alone again, and lookin to stay that way. Having medicine shoved beteen his fuzzy lips made phil one very angry fellow, ending in a brutal attack...

Although having your pet bunny charge your face can be a bit disturbing, my rabbit book put a positive spin on the problem: "Many aggressive bunnies are on the high end of the IQ range for rabbits!" Oh thank God, because there is nothing worse than a rabbit that's not smart enough to become bitter and plot revenge.

Anyway, now that he's a healthy bachelor again, he's redirecting those viscious inclinations towards parsely (and the occasional computer cord). He's even being sweet provided I don't get out of line and rearrange his things or pet him in his ticklish spots.

NOM

NOM

NOM

Global Weirding

2008-09-12T10:00:00.001-07:00

noun: an increase in severe or unusual environmental activity often attributed to global warming.

Guess who?

2008-09-10T17:04:00.001-07:00

has internet?!? YeeHaw! It was hell to install, and I had to talk to several Indian tech support fellows, but i have fancy smanchy wireless internet, AND a computer to use it with!!! Still don't have sound, alas.

Lolcats has added a new page called "Engrish," full of strange and offensive translation errors. Almost as fun as the failblog!

2008-09-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Live Free or Die Hard is fantastic. I won't give away the ending for you, but wow! Rambo would be proud. Bruce is almost the sexiest old bad ass out there, except... he gets his medical care from a hospital. Clearly he is unaware that you can clean a gunshot wound by dumping gun powder in it and lighting it on fire. Get with the program, Bruce.

My bunny's molting. The mass of fur clumps escaping his person is actually disturbing. I had to do some google research to make sure he wasn't dying of a horrible hair-loss disease. I guess bunnies just do this. What weirdos. I'd take a picture of the fluff-ball, but he's being antisocial and won't come out from under the bed. I don't think he approves of my attempts to train him. Or he's sick of the cat sneezing at him. It is kinda gross. I've discovered that cats, like horses, tend to aim their sneezes at the face. Just makes cuddling more exciting I suppose.

Phil and I've just started in on a regimen of bunny dominance. Phil was getting a little full of himself, attacking helpless cats, hapless dogs, and even my roommate if she entered "his" terriority (my bed and everything under and next to it). I did some reading and have started clicker training him so he has to work for his food and attention. Does this seem ridiculous? Yes, I think so too. Most people just stick their bunnies in cages and avoid these problems entirely. Well, hopefully I'll end up with a content and obedient rabbit... we'll see. Maybe I'll just get him a girlfriend to settle him down (apparently being neutered doesn't exempt you from having needs).

Yesterday the weather completely winterized! My entire self was having a dark and terrifying flip-out. I'm starting to get intense pangs of desire for studying and stress and having professors claim every second of my free time. HALP! I love my job, and I thought that maybe the DDFL was my professional soulmate, but I think getting promoted would mean working management, gag. Who wants to boss people around and make sure to order enough dog food?

An update from my ongoing olfactory research: a GI bleed out is still the worst smell ever... but cat diarrhea comes in a close second! Wow, those beasts can create a stench. I got the opportunity to deep clean the lost and found cat rooms on shelter-wide cleaning day. Yummy.

Now in Denver...

2008-08-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

And only one mile from work! Sir Phillip loves his new apartment. His house-rabbit lifestyle puts him in such a good mood that he often lets me share the bed...

.. as long as I don't snore or wake him up from an afternoon nap. Disapproving rabbit? I should say so!!Phil birdwatching with the ladies (Mugene's the tortie on the left and Marley's the calico on the right). Foley emerging from Phil's subterranean rabbitat.

Darrell and Joy do their best to keep the animals entertained by flapping around and chirping. The cats are mesmerized by the birds, the rabbit by the cats, and the dog by the rabbit - a beautiful example of interspecies environmental enrichment. There are occasional rabbit-kitty, kitty-kitty, and dog-kitty spats, but everyone's about evenly matched in weight/ weaponry/ grumpiness, so no one gets bullied.

I'm going to have internet once we get a router hooked up. We have a deck too. It's the shit.

Most Exciting Optical Illusion Ever!!

2008-08-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of MY boobs looking like they actually exist. I'm thinking about changing my facebook profile picture to this here closeup. Usually, they're much more camera shy...

2008-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

So, Harriet died. Phil and I were pretty distraught. She was just dead one day when i got home from work. i was gonna get a necropsy, but it was too expensive, and the vet said that she was old enough that i shouldn't be surprised. sigh. i miss the bitch. she was a blast.

anyway, that seg-ways into the story of Lola. I went to the animal shelter (aka i went to work) and found the most feminine and calm female rabbit in the place, and adopted her. i was about to carry her out of the building, when they rechecked their papers, which had conflicting info, and decided, WAIT, NO! she wasn't spayed. So i left her there for her surgery and recovery. a week later, i'm about to pick her up, and they ask, DIDN'T YOU GET THE CALL? well, no, because you didn't call my phone number, just some random stranger. And what they had told that random stranger was that they sliced open my bunny, poked around for a good long while, could not for the life of them find ovaries, and had an AH HA moment. Neutered male! (retarded vet? yes, i wondered that too). To give them credit, it is really hard to sex rabbits, esp if they're not intact. Lola was originally named for Bugs Bunny's girlfriend, but you can't say that s/he doesn't remind you of this classic...

Well, I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walks like a woman and talks like a man
Oh my Lola, lo lo lo Lola, lo lo lo Lola

Yeah, so s/he's still named Lola, and Phil is slowly converting to homosexuality, although he's taking his sweet time with it. They cuddled for the first time today! big breakthrough. Just so you know how hard sexing bunnies is, below is a picture of their tiny junk, pushed out of it's furry crevice by a finger. the left one is a buck, and the right one is a doe.

It feels so good...

2008-08-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

but it looks so bad...Why can't I look like this with short hair? Unfair!

Or this? How much is this woman saving on shampoo? ahh - damn my whiteness!!

Urban Sprawl

2008-08-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

A picture I took from Bluff Park in Highlands Ranch. But now I live here...
upgrade much? me thinks so.

Yes, I know this is getting ridiculous

2008-07-18T15:57:00.001-07:00

...but it's my day off, and I haven't gotten to talk about myself nearly enough ; )

My dogs are cuter and more wonderful than any other dogs ever, and I can prove it too...

EXHIBIT A:

EXHIBIT B:

Birdies!

2008-07-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

I made my finches a bea-ut-tiful cage out of snap-together shelving and wire and coroplast (has nothing to do with photosynthesis). I'm feeling very proud of myself. And I have lots of holes poked through my exoderm. And I accidentally stabbed my leg with a exacto-knife. So worth it.

Here's the happy couple. They're siblings, but I'm not going to tell them that. It might complicate the romance. They're fawn zebra finches (from australia's grasslands).

Joy gazing out the window (what a beauty). Longing for freedom? Unappreciative little snot; I almost want to tell her about owls and malnutrition, but we'll let her dream.

Darrell striking a handsome pose. Isn't he a looker? And his mating call is getting pretty good too. He practices every morning between 4:30 and 8. Uff da. Dedicated much?

Bunnies and Their Hobbies

2008-07-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

2008-07-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

COOL FACTS ABOUT MY NEW EMPLOYER
We adopt out 17,000 animals every year!
Several of our vets can spay a dog in under 12 minutes (at a normal clinic the surgery might take an hour or more)
We have over six hundred regular volunteers, who contribute as much time and work as would 80 full time employees.
20% of animals in American homes are from animal shelters
Ironically, right next door is a puppy mill outlet
Also next door is a porn store with a giant billboard that says "It's cheaper than dating!"
A small mammal is referred to as a "smam"
A 314 is bad
Breed bans suck

Friends with Benefits, a helpful chart... http://i30.tinypic.com/34j3rzm.jpg
My favorite part is the Flexible Spending pie chart. Listening is an obligation of dating apparently not required in casual relationships - narcissists rejoice!

When coffee hits your stomach... http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1758754
Yeah, you know what that's talking about. Usually a good thing, sometimes...

You know how there's that little action hero in the back of your head who gets worked up and says inappropriately dramatic things like, "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, Professor." Yeah, that one. To prevent dangerous outbursts when in traffic, it's good to do some weeding (with a big shovel; none of that pansy-ass dandelion plucking). My cranial gun-slinger particularly likes, "DIE MOTHERFUCKER!" and "I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING WEEDS ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLAIN!" The cheat grass will uproot itself in terror, I promise.

Captain Awkward Crotch

2008-07-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

My weird friend Dan coined this phrase referring to emo kids who wear their girl jeans super tight on the thighs and really baggy up top. Professor Santurri suffers from Captain Awkward Ass, as he chooses to do his bunching in the back. Also highly attractive.

The library stairwell smells like hamster cage today. mmmm. think i might stock up on sunflower seeds and settle in for a nap.

If this doesn't make you smile, you may have forgotten your prozac this morning: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/eat-your-heart.html

Speaking of prozac, why does everyone in the Midwest still think that Jesus can even out your serotonin levels? Clearly (cough) depression is a figment of your imagination, psychologists are for crazy people, and antidepressants will turn you into a mindless zombie, but forgetting the science (cough) for just one minute, which one of us is nearly intolerable b/c she's a bipolar moody bitch? Hmm, not me.

FAIL

2008-06-30T17:50:00.001-07:00

http://failblog.org/

Escalators

2008-06-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

from xkcd.com.

Snuggling Wols

2008-06-24T12:51:00.001-07:00

Took the words right out of my mouth...

2008-06-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

"Religion says: Do this! --- Think like that!--- but it cannot justify it, and if it tries to, it becomes repellent, because for every reason it offers there is a valid counter reason...you feel you were being cheated, that someone [a sneaky theodicist] was trying to convince you by trickery."
-Wittgenstein

"And neither shall we tolerate that swindle which the believers are guilty of when they call and act 'a most shameful crime,' 'a most irreparable infamy,' as long as it is done by a man, but an 'act of inscrutable love' if God is its author. Either one or the other: the same law and the same sentence, but not the same law and different sentences." (no half-assed anthropomorphising people!)
-Tennessen

On a completely unrelated note...always good to check in at dailycoyote.blogspot.com!

Do you realize...

2008-06-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

...there's a really large rabbit by your head?

Yes I do. I don't think he's going to attack, but just in case I'll hold very still. So far he seems satisfied with nibbling my hair.

I found a walled in patio out behind the dorm and was lying in the sun while the bunnies "ran" about in the fresh air. Sometimes I don't know why I bother getting them out for "exercise." They each hop about three feet and then settle in for a nap and some ear twitching. Oh well. got to keep them stimulated so their neuronal connections don't shrivel up.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1819977
I'm not sure why this is so hilarious, but it just is.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1713334
This is also funny. But i think i'm in a mood where everything is.

It Feels So Good

2008-06-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

I find this song really satisfying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TAtNjdQ9fM

Just a tip: Always make sure you have concrete plans with your interviewer before you fly 1000 miles for a job interview. CRAP.

Wow, these are fantastic mojitos. I think rum is good for paper writing.

Also, look how cute this slug..er..puppy is!

Procrastination pays off

2008-06-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

One of my captioned pics got chosen for ihasahotdog - Yay!

Library Emergency

2008-06-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

A whole new kind of emergency.

I was working on my paper yesterday when one of the librarians rushed into the reference room, crossing the carpet in a rustling hustle that only a librarian could pull off. She whispered to the gentleman librarian at the desk, "THERE'S BEEN AN EMERGENCY!!" I pricked my ears, thinking by the panic in her voice that perhaps the fourth floor had been conquered by hostile forces, or valuable tomes were bursting into flames and shrieking satanic verses, or maybe one of the printers had achieved self awareness and was destroying humanity. The librarian continued breathlessly, "Tom's dropped a book on his foot. GET SOME ICE!!!" Stat.

If you think ketsup is spicy...

2008-06-11T06:34:00.001-07:00

you might be a Minnesotan.

Too much to do..

2008-06-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

..need more slacking off... ack! at least i have bunnies to pet, and it's been sunny for a few days! nearly cuts the humidity down below 100%. Why do peops live in the midwest? yeesh.

Puzzles! oh dorky yay!

2008-06-01T11:00:00.001-07:00

Although this blog is already a show case for my nerdiness, i thought i'd just add to the pile. MN Companion Rabbit Society (from which I adopted my lovelies) now has a game page with bunny jigsaw puzzles. I find this fun. Here's the link if you are also procrastinating: http://www.mnhouserabbit.org/fun/jigsaws.html
While you're there...lots of good bunnies needing homes...eh?

I like dogs just a little

2008-05-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't made it to the humane society in a while because I've been wasting my time on crap like finals and being sick. When I first started going to the shelter I would come up with names for every pup I met, but I guess I've gotten lazy, because now I just call them by their breed or some defining characteristic (this method is usually foolproof, but can cause awkward nicknames, like for Cocker spaniels.)

To your right here is Poopy Feet, aka "Poopie." He's a happy fluffy wonderful puppy, but had been slipping around in his kennel in his own diarrhea for the better part of the afternoon. And to make it even yummier, he had bad manners about jumping all over you. My satin evening gown destroyed, des-troy-ed I tell you! (Lab/akita mix)

And below is "Long Jane." If I had to define "athletic" in a video, I would show you one of her in an extended trot. Gor-freakin-or-geous! If this girl was a horse, she'd be worth a million. A wonderful stride, but not very into people and very drooly. Like eww. (Lab/pointer mix)

Below is "Sneaky!" She likes to back out of collars and apparently harnesses too (i'm impressed). Luckily she's boy-crazy, and after escaping she ran over to a group of men and let me catch her while she was flirting. Strangely her official name is Akita, but she doesn't have a drop of akita in her; all pit bull, shar pei and shepherd. She's a great buddy once she figures out you've got a slip lead.

Below is "Weimie." She's a pretty ho-hum, tad chubby, middle-aged girl. She was delighted when I took that gentle leader off. They had it on way too tight, and apparently decided she should wear it 24-7. Ooo, she loved getting that face scratched. She's not even much of a puller (once she gets off some steam).

This yellow lab is Mr. Crazy. you can kinda see it in his eyes. Yeah, total nut ball, but pretty out of shape so it didn't take too long to get him behavin'. He wanted to go swimming! He's one of those leap off the banks regardless of depth types. He was soo proud of himself for fetching an old soda bottle. Just needed a job, this one. Well, and maybe a little bit of tranquilizer.

I cleverly knighted the fellow "Beaglie." He's kinda tubby, but oh so cute. It was hilarious when he'd get on a bunny scent because he'd start yowling. I got some wierd looks running behind a dog who was yowling at mysterious intervals. His sniffing noises brought to mind a very hungry Jabba the Hut eating borscht. This dude has more than a little hound dog in him. Gotta love him. (beagle/dachshund)

You know it's too humid when

2008-05-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

...you come in from a run someone takes one look at you and asks if it's raining, and the answer is no.

The Rand computer lab is soooo far away, but it has lots of windows and they're looking out at the gorgeous forest. Good trade off. Also, there are no Apples. You can't right click with Apples. That just pisses me off.

I got an amazing Dust Buster today at Target! 9.6 volts baby! Unfortunately I have to wait for it to charge... I biked all my errands today, because it got perfectly warm and sunny. I always catch myself singing "I want to ride my bicycle" while I ride. I need to put an end to that. Tess is feeling much better with her new shifter, but Ruby's still having some derailer troubles. Alas.

I got really hungry and went ape shit on the banana chips, whoops. Now i feel kinda yucky and I'm gonna have to put off that run for a bit. Banana chips are delicious unless you eat more than 7 of them, and then there's this weird aftertaste. They're the first food I've found that Phil shows more enthusiasm for than Harriet does (she's usually a labrador about food). Maybe I can fatten Phil up a bit.

I've been sleeping waaay too much. Yesterday I woke up at ten after 8 hours, then I took two 3 hour naps, bringing my total sleep up to 14 hours. Didn't have a bit of trouble falling asleep, and then I was planning on getting up "early" this morning, but instead I slept 9 more hours and completely ignored my alarm. Hopefully I'm not doing myself any damage, but it's probably a horrible way to prepare for the upcoming weeks of late nights, early mornings, and lots of homework.

I ate at Perkins last night, where everything is seasoned with butter and comes with a side (or two) of butter. Uff da. One would think that grilled tilapia, rice, and broccoli wouldn't set you too far back in the saturated fats, but Perkins begs to differ. And yes, I know it's disgusting to order fish at a Perkins in the Midwest. It wasn't fishy tasting. Well, I couldn't taste anything except butter, so who knows. Maybe Perkins' refrigerators are broken, and they were trying to get rid of a huge stockpile of butter before it went bad. Or maybe butter's just a great way to disguise the low quality of ingredients. Point being - gross (and a little delicious. shh, don't tell).

I've officially made friends with the previously terrifying parking lady. She's kinda like Claw, purple-hair lady at the cafeteria. Seems evil, bitter, and brooding, but if you reach out to them, this secret Minnesota Nice sunshine comes busting out.

The Face of Worship:

2008-05-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is a rottie pup named Portia. Awww, mushy-squishy-so-freakin-cute!

Merry Merry Merry Christmas

2008-05-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

HALL HEAP SHOPPING SPREE!! All my beloved peers have left the premises, leaving in their wake wonderfully FREE rejected crap strewn around the halls! I am now the proud owner of several really cute shirts (two in pink, my god!), a fantastic sweater, a top-notch TYR swim suit, two awesome skirts (one sporty pencil and one flirty denim), a gorgeous pea coat, and a great pair of salmon (fav color) boyshort undies! All washed and ready for a wearin'! Yee Haw! There were tons of nice t-shirts, but I showed great restraint as I already have a butt load. Oh, I got a pair of fuzzy-on-the-inside clogs too, which I was lusting after all winter. And some more coat hangers so I don't have to fold any nice shirts. And THREE great storage tubs. And a trash can for my recycling so I don't have to use that old paper bag. How fun is this?

I definitely drank too much water yesterday. I had to get up four times during the night for pee breaks, and had way too many dreams about bathrooms. The entire day was dedicated to packing, hydration... and nothing else. Which was absolutely awesome, and I loved it, but I'm really glad most of my days have a bit more on the agenda. I went through all my stuff and gleaned out the things I haven't used all year - one of the most spiritually cleansing processes I know of! I have a big box for Good Will of too-short shirts, pants with creepy wax or paint stains, impractical dress shoes, and that lumpy pillow with bubble-lens puppies pictures on it. AHHHH. Satisfaction.

Phil and Har went on their first walk today. Not a total disaster, but pretty stressful nonetheless. I'm covered in fur from their thrashing about, and the buns are sitting under the bed glowering at me. They flip out when i pick them up and harness them; i guess being pinned down and dressed doesn't come naturally to a rabbit : ) Although there were no wild rabbits around to make fun of them in their hot pink and green attire, I'm guessing their pride is deeply wounded regardless. As soon as I get my camera fix-ed, I'll take some pics. It's adorable, yet ridiculous at the same time. Next time I'm gonna walk them one at a time. They don't get that when the leash tightens they can't keep going that direction; instead they just lean against the harness and give me looks filled with malice. Sigh. Hopefully, someday, they'll appreciate outside time.

All the chaos of celebration weekend has driven away, leaving some wonderful peace and quiet. Phew. I walked down to pick some alfalfa this afternoon, and it was perfectly bucolic. I'm sorta gradumuated, sorta not, but definitely feeling tragic anyway.

Bella McHappy

2008-05-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

i finished my studying early and was milling around online. found this pic of Bella at the Rice County humane. What a smile!

Make you happy they will

2008-05-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

My two favorite undies brands are Patagonia and Tilt. Patagonia's ventilate like nobody's business, and Tilt's hug your bottom oh so sweetly. You should get some too.

Happy B-day Water Lily!

2008-05-18T11:38:00.001-07:00

I wanna honor your mother. I wanna learn from your pa. I wanna steal your heart, Like a bad outlaw.
Yes please, Kieth Urban. Yes please.

I was sitting at breakfast today, and the realization came over me! My two favorite junk foods are... powdered sugar mini doughnuts and mac-and-cheese (from a box)! Thank god i finally narrowed that down to two, b/c you never know when you're gonna be desert islanded.

My wonderful pod "helped" me write my artist statement for color design, which is to say they told me to write a hykoo (sp?) and then shouted out phrases to put into it. hehehe. oh, i feel devilish shrugging off the yoke of authority so very blatantly! a beautiful group effort produced the following (in a grueling 2.5 minutes)...

Loose in lucid night

Petals fall the fractured calm

Breathless seasons bend.

Ahhh... Sooo deeply meaningful it brings tears to my eyes! Wendell will love it. The only contribution I made was a little word swapping to improve alliteration. How fantastic is bullshitting? Very fantastic! I whuv you whillwee!

There Was a Fire Fight!

2008-05-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

Or there will be if I have to chop up any more paper. Some animals are driven into a rage by the scent of a rival male. Rubber cement now has this effect on me. I hope my distress manifests itself as ingenious artistic angst in these piece-of-shit paper collages. Probably not. I'm feeling super-duper burned out. Thank god I can take bunny-petting breaks. Nothing sweeter.

Harriet makes me laugh every day. She's pretty much a bitch, and I'm loving it. If I stop petting her to pet Phil she growls, and if I don't immediately return to her service she'll glower and bat at my hand with an adorably fluffy paw. When she wants breakfast (seven sharp!), she'll jump on my bed and hop circles on my feet until I feed her. And nothing makes her madder than a fresh litter box, oh boy. Worked all night to get that thing in order, hay bits over here, poopies over there, newspapers shredded just so, and then I have the nerve to dump it out and make her start over... every day! If she's sitting under the desk when I return the litter box she'll shove it back out at me, disgusted. Sometimes I push it back just to get her goat, and oo doggie does that get her grumbling. There's a website called "Disapproving Rabbits" on which this girl has a future. Here's a pic of a bun with a face much like Harriet's disgusted with humans face.

Bunny farts smell like cucumbers

2008-05-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

In case any hot dudes are reading this, here's is an excellent summary of my marriageable skills. A preview of the potential amazingness:

A. I am so good at nagging! So good. I'm kinda like a personal nagging assistant. (Areas of expertise: have you eaten your protein today? did you call your mother? did you put away your dishes?)

B. I'm nearly totally socially uninhibited! Give me a couple of beers and every personal detail will become public knowledge! In fact, sometimes this doesn't require beers. The benefit? Everyone will know how awesome you are in bed (or that your ears are smelly, and you talk about waffles in your sleep...)

C. I give fantastic lectures on important life issues like dog food, prostate health, and pus content in American milk. If you spend enough time with me, you can hear these lectures over and over as I inform everyone I meet, and you can revel in the subtle variations.

D. I do great rants, especially when caffeinated. Here's a sample: I hate how some profs get shamelessly nonobjective when grading papers. arbitrary! illogical! harumph! They tell you that attendance will not effect your grade, and so you're like, "well super, now I can skip these horribly organized, waste-of time lectures, and sleep in an extra two hours." But then, oh the reckoning! They give you a crappy grade on a fantabulous paper! Sometimes college makes me want to vomit. Damnit, I only like to suck up to nice people. Argh!