Fun Fact

FUN FACT!

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most leaves on a single clover was eighteen.

Can You Spot The Difference?

Before:


After:


Can you spot the difference between the two pictures above, hmmm? I'm not referring to the angles at which the pictures were taken at either.

SPOILER ALERT! Okay, here goes - it's the banister, DAH!

Yup, I finally got around to installing our new basement stairs banister. It needed to be sanded and stained and polyurethaned x 3 and looks very nice if I do say so myself. One item of frustration and an item that will forever bother me, is that the banister brackets are different - yup, two different kinds. Of course I didn't notice this when I purchased them but why would I? Live and learn, next time I'll know. They were individually wrapped and came out of the same carton so of course they'd be the same, right? NO! Naturally I noticed this after the packages were opened and I was in the midst of installing the sucker. Fortunately, they're similar, so they'll work. Sumbitch!

I removed our old banister, the original that came with the house, to install at a friends house. She needed the extra support for her treks up and down her basement stairs. So we went without for a little while. However, we had some aged challenged relatives (is this the proper politically correct reference) over the house and not having a banister for them to hold onto really highlighted the need and the danger. Now, if I only had video of them ascending the stairs, I'm certain it would have made Americas Funniest Home Videos and perhaps even qualify for the end of the season hundred-thousand dollar drawing it was that entertaining.

Not Yet Beach Weather In New England

It was a beautiful day last Saturday, so JoAnne, Emilie and I decided to take a drive and headed south. We figured we'd kill two birds with one stone; visit the beach and stop in to see our farmer friend Tim who lives along the way, so we pointed our automobile towards Marshfield, MA - Humarock Beach.



It was chilly once we arrived but nice and peaceful with the sounds of the waves crashing the shore. Come summer time this beach will be absolutely mobbed with hardly a spot sit but as you can see there weren't many people last weekend. This beach is different because there are more rocks than sand, unless you're at the oceans edge, but that doesn't seem to bother the sun bathers come summer.

Below is Miss Emilie engrossed and in her glory collecting rocks. - we left with a bucket full. We hung out for a little while, took some pictures than headed off to see Tim.




Come on summer!

US Census 2010

I got a letter yesterday telling me I’m going to get a census form next week. It asks me to fill it out and mail it in promptly.

WTF?!?! What did that cost the taxpayers?

Couldn’t they have put that on the form itself instead of mailing this letter?

Dig'n and I'm Not Referring to Gardening

So, I'm driving to work this morning and notice this dark green Toyota Camry approaching who then proceeded to pass me. Okay, no big deal most cars are passing me by in the morning. I've got the cruise control set, I'm listening to the radio (WAAF) and I'm relaxing so pass away.

However, this particular car, once it passed me, then got in front of me in the middle lane. Typically, I wouldn't care as most of the times the person scoots on and is gone. But, NOT this Pecker-Head (PH). For some unknown reason, which surprisingly happens more often than not, he slows down; slows down to the point that if I want to maintain my cruise control speed I need to pass him.

So, off I go and pass him.

As I'm passing this PH I realize the issue of which there were two -

#1 - The dude suffers "DWO". There's nothing that can be done to correct this.
#2 - The dude had his index finger, at least knuckle deep up to the middle phalanx, in his nose and was digging away, and I mean digging, really working it, WOW!

Perhaps, the PH suffers from rhinotillexomania, which I believe could be corrected. However, as I stated earlier, there's no fix for DWO. Now, here is it hours later, at the heals of my evening commute home, and I'm still not sure if I was amused or disgusted by what I saw. You know, some things can't be unseen.

I'm Getting the Gardening Itch!

Two new house plants and a hold over from last year:

NEW - Mexican Hat plant, also known as Mother of Thousands (Bryophyllum crenatodaigremontianum). So named because of its unusual production of tiny baby plants all along the edges of its leaves. These baby plants drop to the soil below and easily take root on the surface of the soil. Given to us by our farmer friend Tim.



NEW - Sansevieria or Mother-in-Law's Tongue (Sanseveria trifasciata) not to be confused with the Snake Plant, which is all green, while the Mother-in-Law's tongue features a yellow border. Obtained as a "clipping" from one of the many planted throughout my office.



HOLD OVER - Amaryllis (Hippeastrum). This is the same bulb that we enjoyed from last year. It looks just as striking today as it did last year - two flowers wide open with two more about to burst. I kept this dude outside for much of the summer so it could soak up the sun and feed the bulb. About the August time frame I cut back the leaves and moved it into the basement behind my toolbox where it's dark and cool. Then in November I brought it upstairs, placed it in the window and began watering it. WALLAH!

Spring is Springing Here in New England!

The New England weather is changing (for the better)! The days are longer and the temperatures are warming up. We've had three consecutive days of 50+ temps with the sun shinning away. The critters and bulbs are awakening and the song birds are singing. The chickens and rabbits are also enjoying the warm weather and fresh air now that I can leave their pen doors propped open. The ducks too; I saw them mating this morning for the first time - all signs that Spring is in the air, hooray!

I was out in the yard for a couple hours yesterday picking up sticks, raking and edging. The picture above shows a clutch of our crocuses already a bloom. This itself isn't unusual for this time of year, however, if you look closely you'll see what IS unusual. Do you see them? There are two honeybees busy at work gathering nectar. Now, I don't know if this is unusual to see honeybees out this early but what I can tell you is that I didn't see my first honeybee until July 20th last year! I would say that one of the two events is unusual - you decide.

Anyway, it's reassuring to see these bees so early in the season and hopefully it's an indication of things to come.

Kids Do The Darndest Things

So, my youngest had one of her little friends over the house this past weekend for a play date. Emilie couldn't wait and was SO excited in anticipation. Sadly, the play date didn't really go too well from the get go. Her friend was a bit too bossy and dictative and only wanted to do what she wanted with no concern for what Emilie wanted - this was problem 1.

I guess that's to be expected to some degree at eight years old. However, as it turned out that wasn't the worst part, read on...

This little "friend" was sneaky. She came over toting a backpack with some toys to play with, okay that's fine. I mean after all she wasn't going to the Superbowl for example, just to our place, so we paid no attention to the backpack. What we're we supposed to do search the backpack before letting her enter the house? Mental note to self, check all backpacks and packages before letting them into the house! However, this "friend" wanted to play hide-and-go-seek or rather what she wanted was for Emilie to go hide. When she did guess we saw her do?!?! Well, this little "friend" proceeded to fill her backpack with Emilie's American Girl doll cloths and accessories. Now for those of you who are not familiar with American Girl Dolls and their stuff you're missing out on, well, umm, err, well you're just missing out. The bottom line is that this product and associated accessories are VERY expensive! Nothing like GI Joe and Barbie and Ken back in the day. This was problem 2!

Of course we were in SHOCK and not quite sure how to handle it. So, when the girls went outside to ride bikes we removed all of the stowed items from the backpack and said nothing. Well, guess what? When the girls came back inside and this "friend" noticed that the items had been removed from her backpack she proceeded to pull the same stunt, chase Emilie off, and stuff the goods back into her backpack! "No way" you say and I say "Way"! Can you imagine?! Wouldn't you think that some sort of red flag would go off in her 8 year old melon giving her an idea that someones on to her game? In my humble opinion the answer is yes. Let's hope that she doesn't decide to make this a career, as she's gonna fail and fail hard.

Still shocked and still not sure how to handle this disturbing situation JoAnne just asked her to remove the items the second time, made sure that she did, made sure that they were NOT taken again and left it at that.

Since this would be this particular "friends" last time visiting we decided not raise the issue with her parents and dropped it. You never know how parents are going to react these days and we don't really know these people at all so, we chose to ignore it. I think there's a much BIGGER issue there.

YIKES!

A Chapter Closes

My daughter and team co-captain, Stephanie, played her last high school varsity ice hockey game last night, (BIG sigh) alas :-(

They were ousted in the second round (quarter finals) of the 2010 MIAA tournament. Although the team they faced finished 2nd in division 2 this yead and who are last years defending state champions, Walpole who finished 10th are the better team. You can take that statement as you'd like - from a biased dad who's daughter plays for Walpole or as fact; I'll let you decide.

It was an exciting and fun season. The girls finished 11-5-4 and ended the season in a three-way tie, getting a share of the Bay State Herget title for the first time ever in their brief, five-year existence. However, it's equally as disappointing having it come to an end, even though we all new it was inevitable.

There are seven seniors on the team that are graduating this year but they graduate knowing they were the building blocks that turned the Rebels from another brand new team into a division 2 powerhouse in just a short five years.

The end,
- A Proud Father!

Snowmen Making

Emilie and I made some snowmen, or perhaps snowpeople to be politically correct, yesterday afternoon. The picture above was taken some 15+ hours later, so you can see what the 50+ degree day has done to them. Although, the one on the far left has been named Ghosty and therefore was never decorated. The others, well they're in various states of melt - you can see some of their parts lying on the snow in front of them.

Fun Fact

FUN FACT!

The graham cracker as we know it today was developed in 1829 by Sylvester Graham.

Colored Easter Egg Egg, Our First!

A pleasant surprise was awaiting me when I went out to tend to the animals this morning. There were three beautiful eggs waiting in the nest box. However, more than that was one of them was our long awaited Americana blue-green egg!! Yup, our very first one to date. It only took 162 days from the day I purchased them and they were presumably nine weeks old at that time. Good grief!

We have a total of 7 chickens, 6 different breeds, so we're getting a nice variety of eggs - size, color and shape. It being winter still, the weather has been effecting their production but that should change once it starts to warm up and the days get longer. The pictures below show some of eggs that we've been getting -

500 Piece Jane Wooster Scott

Another one done, boo-yah!

Not KFC...

These are leftover chicken wings that we had the night of the superbowl - you'll just have to trust me on this! We had (2) flavors; spicy buffalo and teriyaki, which are easy to identify in the above photo. They were both very tasty and went down nicely with a cold beer or two.

We didn't want to waste them, so we threw the leftovers in the oven last night to heat them for dinner. Mmmm, the smell was great as they were heating up and we couldn't wait to dig into them.

Now this is where the story takes a turn... You see Emilie was given a Wii for her birthday - thank you grandma! Once the wings were in the oven Emilie and her mom began playing one of the games - tennis or golf or bowling, I'm not sure which and it really has no bearing on this story but I digress. Anyway, they were in the other room playing away and having a good time. I on the other hand was in another room working. You guessed it, who was watching the oven, hmmmmm?!?!?! The answer, no one - doah!

The end result is pictured above, which actually look worse than they really were. We were able to salvage most of them and they were still pretty tasty.

The end.

New Kicks

Emilie's new birthday sneakers; cool, rad, kicks otherwise known as Skechers.

Rock on!

Fun Fact

Fun Fact!

Parents often tell their children that eating too much candy will rot their teeth; however, cacao is said to have antibacterial properties that can actually fight tooth decay!

Klaussner

BC (Before Christmas) 2009 -

AC (After Christmas 2009) -

Out with the old and in with the new.

We finally broke down and purchased a brandy new sofa, chair and a half (similar to a love seat) and ottoman, hooray!

The decision to make this purchase was facilitated by a Christmas gift! Otherwise we'd still be using the old.

We walked through the store, checked out their offerings and mutually agreed upon, in short order too, the set and color, BAM, done deal! In stock and delivered a couple days later.

The old sofa, which has been around for ~15+ years, has been rehomed and being put to very good use.

All's well that ends well! And our ends, well they're well and comfy!

Farm Fresh Hankering

Working from home today. Had a lunch time hankering for some eggs. Put on the ole boots and trekked out to the chicken coop. Needed to shoo the Rhode Island Red pullet off the nest and low and behold, it was like opening a present at Christmas time, two freshly laid and still warm eggs.

Mmmm, mmmm good - BURP!

You just can't beat (again, no pun intended) farm fresh eggs, especially one's just laid! On sale soon...

Chain Link Kennel

Here are a couple pictures of the chain link fencing we're using to house and cage our pair of Muscovy ducks. If you look close enough you should be able to see the ducks too, just beyond the fence.

The duckies doing just fine and seem to be ill effected by the cold, snowy New England weather. They've managed to fly out of their cage, which is really a kennel, twice to date but didn't venture too far. They sat patiently in front of the gate versus behind it like the pictures show until I arrived with their breakfast and willingly in they went. It's about time to cut their flight feathers to prevent this from becoming a habit.



Drake (male) on top and hen (female) on the bottom.

Public Service Announcement

Too much of a good thing isn't alway good!

I'm just saying.