Jen goes wireless and the almost patio

I suppose you could say that we had a triple homicide here at the farm this week. I arrived home from work to find a shallow river of water trickling past the Girls' stalls. At first I thought the hose going to the pasture had ruptured, so with an eyeroll worthy of any teenager, I walked through the gate and into the yard to see how bad the damage was. As I rounded the corner of the stalls, however, I noticed that the water was actually coming down the hill from well above the place where the hose lay. Hmmmm, that's odd. With a slight shrug, I made my way up the hill to discover an overflowing water trough and three little bodies floating on their sides atop the water. ACK! MY FISH!! Baffled, I stared slack jawed at the lifeless bodies and struggled to digest the fact that Larry, Moe and Curly were no more. But what the heck happened? Cat? Bird? That didn't make sense at all. Surely if it had been either one, they would have eaten the fish (or at least left some kind of physical evidence behind <-- and who watches too many forensic shows on TV here? Guilty.) Moe was even eating out of my hand, darn it...I liked those fish!!

As I turned to go back down to the house to shut off the water, the hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle. I looked back to see Max standing by the water trough peering at me through the fence with an inscrutable expression on his face. Oh no, surely not. "WHY", I asked him with a baleful stare, "do I feel like you had something to do with this???" At this, Max turned away and stuck his head in the corner, refusing to meet my gaze. It wasn't until the fish had been given a decent burial and I headed back up the hill to try to figure out what was causing the tank to overflow that I got my answer. As I opened the gate, I looked up just in time to see Max lift his foot up and slam it down with great gusto into the water trough sending a huge fountain of water cascading in all directions. In less than three seconds I went from a self satisfied Ohhhhh at finding the answer to this puzzling conundrum to...
ARRRGH!! YOU KILLED MY FISH YOU PINHEAD!!  Ugh. UGH! Putz. Cretin. Dolt. Bockhead. You-you-you-you Heinous heathen horse, you! (hey, nice alliteration Jen ;o) 

I continued muttering under my breath as I stomped my way back up the hill glaring at Max the whole way.
"Well. You'd just better watch yourself young man," I muttered angrily, "lest you wind up in a small white squeeze bottle with an orange twisty cap on it in a Kindergarten classroom 

somewhere." *SNARL*. After several minutes of intense thought and the slow dawning that perhaps I might not be quite as excited about his clever solution to the heat as he was, (and I had the key to the feed room), Max decided to assume a slightly woebegone expression and then offer up an apology. Geeez whatta face. What do you think? Pitiful, isn't he?

As upset as I was about the fish, I just couldn't stay mad. I ended up playing with the horses and the water hose helping them to cool off. It was awfully hot that day (90 - blech!) and as we've not had much rain, the little pond they use to cool off had pretty much dried up. I suppose that's what ultimately led to Max's sudden inspiration. DD snuck into the house and grabbed my camera too...

And just in case you're wondering, the placement of the words on that photograph is absolutely positively 100% on purpose (it would have been nice if DD had taken her photos from *cough* OUR other side, which is slightly less mortifying than this one). Wouldn't you have put them there?? On second thought, I probably should have made them just a teensy bit larger. Yeesh :oP

After the hosing, comes the rolling:

Then the shaking (and WOW look at all that sand!)

And FINALLY [as promised] here is the short video clip of Bella and I practicing with the pedestal. She was most unsure initially, as it was quite a bit different than the much larger and lower version she had learned on (and has not seen for about a year). What cracked me up was her second time; she decided it was pretty awesome up there and used her shoulder to carefully prevent me from getting up there with her *laugh*. It's seems there's only one star of this show (and it definitely isn't me ;o)

Beginning Pedestal (Work?) from Jen on Vimeo.

See you next week and have a wonderful and blessed Resurrection Sunday! [Easter].

A Parody Post

I'm free, I'm free, I'm freeeeeeeeee!

Thirty days may not seem like a long time [if you say it fast], but when you are stuck with something seriously annoying it can feel like FOREVER. I said goodbye (and good riddance) to my little sidekick this week, and have developed a deep appreciation in my new found ease of just changing clothes (among other things ;o) Thankfully, nothing major showed up so that - I hope - will be the end of that.
Look who was hanging out by the back door at feeding time yesterday? I wonder if I need to start leaving a bowl of bunny chow out there for him (and Harvey too) *laugh*. Elwood was nice enough to pause and sit up by the lumber so I could get a good photo; actually, I managed to shoot more than one but I liked the little patch of clover he was sitting in. Hopefully, it will not be there long, as we are almost ready for concrete at long last - WOO!!
My rosebush in the front has gone bloomingly ballistic - I wish I had thought to snap a picture for you the other day (at the height of it). It still looks pretty though, even if some of the blooms are seriously wilted. I'll post another closer shot at the bottom to share with you and for Brenda's Photo Challenge (which I almost never think to do ;o)
I am SO happy to report that the roof is now UP.  I've dubbed it "the almost patio" *grin*. Hopefully, roughing in the plumbing will be on the agenda next weekend, so we can call in someone to do the concrete before too much longer. I have a friend that foolishly graciously volunteered to help me acid wash it so we can give it a nice rustic finish (and after all this time, I can hardly wait to get it done!!! *bounce*bounce*bounce*:o)
Here are some photos of our progress...

We ran out of daylight again, but he did make it to the end of the roof - the last piece is up... hooray! I must say I was pretty impressed that DH was still able to cut out a square in the dark so it would fit over the end post (wow).
While we're on the subject of updates...do you remember how very small Faith and Hope were in comparison to Charity when we got them? They were about 1/4 her size (that post is here) Well I think it's safe to say they have grown a bit. Here's an updated photo, what do you think? It's a little grainy due to the water, but check out Faith's tubby little tummy *laugh*. I'm thinking she needs to cut back on munches and start doing some crunches). Charity looks like she's going to go KABOOM at any moment, but Hope just looks longer (must be that black stripe; stripes are supposed to be slimming, right? *giggle*).
I think that's probably enough of me for now. I've been outside spraying weeds in the pasture for half the day, so I'm pretty much ready for a nap (not that I'm actually going to get one, mind you). Have a fabulous week everyone, and here is that pretty spring bloom I photographed just for you...Enjoy!

Oh, and I am still working on that little video clip (it requires sitting still for large quantities of time and saying many repentable words. I'm a turtle of an editor, and the learning curve is more of a hairpin turn so you see where the holdup is, right? ;o)

Tilly Comes Home and Jen Gets Wired

Ya gotta love groups (and this is eerily accurate ;o)
If you have ever belonged to a discussion group (Yahoo or otherwise) you'll get a kick out of the following post. Actually, if you've ever even worked with a group of folks at all this is a good one. 
I don't usually repost things, but this came through the [Yahoo] BC support group I belong to this morning and totally cracked me up, so I had to share. You have probably seen it already, but just in case you missed it....

The Question: How many group members does it take to change a light bulb?
   
1 to change the light bulb;
  
1 to post that the light bulb has been changed;
   
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently; 

7 to point out spelling and/or grammatical errors in posts about changing light bulbs;
   
18 to flame the spell checkers;
   
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term for "light bulb" is "lamp"; 

15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct; 

5 to email others that the light bulb posters are in violation of the list etiquette;

10 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a light bulb list;
 
12 to demand that cross posting to the hardware list, off-topic list, and light bulb list about changing light bulbs be stopped;
   
17 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this list;
 
25 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, which brands are faulty, and URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs;
 
14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URLs;
 
33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too";
 
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQs;
 
13 to ask what is an "FAQ"?
 
19 to say "do a search on 'light bulbs' before posting questions about light bulbs";
 
27 to complain that "we've already discussed light bulbs."
 
42 to post "if you don't want to read it, skip it."
 
12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy; 
 
1 new list member to respond to the original post 6 months from now so it will start all over again.

Truer words, right? **giggle** (and several of the reasons I so rarely post in any of the group discussions I read ;o)

Hooray for hubby...

and the planets, which must have mysteriously gone into alignment (it only took four little ol' months to make it happen too... isn't that amazing? *rolls eyes*). We FINALLY got DH's work schedule, the neighbors schedule, and the weather to all match up so we could go get Tilly [the tractor]. Because it was right around the corner from us, and we don't have a trailer, DH was going to just drive it down the street, around the corner and down the road to the house (and that sounded SO simple when we said it, too ;o) This is the main reason it took so long; their house is situated on a curve in the road and when you are putt-putting along at 2mph it's always a good idea to have clear weather (you know, so you don't get squashed flat by a ginormous SUV careening around the curve at 40mph).
The girls were more interested in the implements that came with it (and you just know that little Miss Taya made a beeline for the front yard when she heard that tractor motor sputtering up the driveway *laugh*).

DH got some work done on the patio too, and the first piece of metal is up - yipee!! He had to cut a small section out to go around the post on the end; it was getting dark outside so he only did one, but I'll bet you can guess exactly what I did when those sparks started flying...dove for the [Canon] camera, of course! What else? Woo! :o) Is that wild or what?

Like my new sidekick? I don't. It's driving me absolutely dotty (can't wait to mail it back in another week). This is an event monitor and I've been sentenced Er, instructed to wear it for 30 days. It monitors your heart rhythm and records any irregularities. Do not be fooled by the picture that shows only two small wires to be attached (photos can be tricky). There are at least 59 separate wires growing out of that evil little box, and every last one of them has attempted to strangle me at least once (and we're not going to talk about the ones that have been zipped and buttoned into my clothes, either). It's been a royal pain staying wired up 24/7, and I only thought dropping the cell phone in the *ahem* pot-tay was a worry (can you imagine dropping some little $30,000 piece of medial equipment in there? eek!) Hopefully it will explain what's up with the heartbeat hiccups, gallops, thumps and thuds going on in there. We'll see. It is definitely a nifty little piece of technology though. When the alarm goes off, I just call the (800) number on the front, give them my ID number, hold it up to the phone and press "send event". Goes right through the phone lines and pops up on the other end. Then they send it to the doctor's office. Pretty cool, eh?

A baby shower for a friend from church and 5th grade's turn to bring food x2 pretty much annihilated my [post bills] checking account for the month. Sometimes it's awfully handy to be able to make your own gifts; had I not been able to, she might have ended up with a small bag of M&M's (but hey, chocolate, right? Ha). Anyway, I made her a mommy's memory box with a poem I composed last year on the top. There was a cute little coordinated strip wrapped around the divider cards that came in the box and I used it to make a matching tag to put on the bag. I don't think I'll type the whole poem on here, 'cause you just know some rude person is going to steal it and I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to put them in my Etsy shop (I'll share the box with you though ;o)

I'm pretty sure she liked it (hope so, anyway!) Guess that's enough for now. I'm trying to put together a short video clip of what Bella and I did this week (we've been playing *cough* working really hard...honest! ;o) Here's a hint for you...

Just so you don't hurt yourself squinting, the jar says "horse treats" on it. As for the square thing behind it? Well. If you're not sure, I suppose you will just have to wait and see, 'cause we're not talkin' ;o) Have a great week everyone!