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In spite of the forecast, the sun came out this afternoon. First time we've really seen daylight in what seems like a week, and with another storm system coming in tonight, may be the last time in another week. Gary and I went on a shopping trip this afternoon, mostly for groceries but he needed printer paper and some other supplies. We had lunch at Chili's, which was OK but I can't help feeling it isn't quite as good as it was a few years ago. At least they've lowered the volume of the music so you can hear each other talking without having to shout. I made real chili for supper, with black and pinto beans, tomatoes, lots of hot stuff, and kernel corn added. I generally use ground turkey in it, and we like it that way. The chili powder, cumin, and hot peppers overpower any meat that is used in any case. We also had home made cornbread, and a salad that included ripe pears from our tree. I was a bit surprised this year, since we have only one pear tree left. This is the third year it has bloomed, and I was aware of three pears. Gary found six last week when he went looking after the hard freeze. It's a Beurre Bosc, those brown colored pears with a long conical top and sandpapery skin. They seemed pretty hard, so I left them sitting in a basket. Today I noticed that a couple of them were getting soft and oozing sticky juice from the stems, so I sliced them up for salad. Sprinkled with crumbles of gorgonzola cheese, and mixed greens added, they were delicious but incredibly sweet. I like pears, but there's some limit to my tolerance of sugar. ;p I expected Tess to be grumpy after being stuck in the arena pen for so many days, but she was in a pretty good mood. I guess she likes the new hay. Other than that, I was spinning today, yarn from our own sheep. I have a lot of wool stored up and decided I need to do something with it. Tomorrow the big loom gets a warp again. That means I have to put away a bunch of bits and pieces from fursuit construction that are in the way of using it. About time I did that anyway. Tags: cooking, food, gardening, horses, spinning, weather, weaving
Current Location: Soggy oak grove
Mood:  busy
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TGIF. Not that the weekend looks that much more relaxing, but I need the change of pace. Rain today, the cold spattery kind. September's not even gone and it looks like November. Not quite that chilly, but the appearance was right. Tomorrow is the Boone County Pioneer Festival, and Gary and Rob are playing in the afternoon as Bear Creek. I sure hope the weather clears up for them. The festival is pretty interesting. It's supposed to be educational and entertaining, as well as profitable for some folks who sell stuff. Many of the participants aren't selling, but merely demonstrating pioneer skills and trades, such as blacksmithing or broom making. There are voyageurs and revolutionary soldiers, farmers and quilters. Wagon rides for the city folks, traditional music for those who will sit and listen. I particularly like the pioneer gardens, a feature I've never seen anywhere else. The event is held in a large forest preserve that includes some historic buildings like a log cabin and an old schoolhouse that have been disassembled and moved there. And they have a number of fenced garden plots that are kept all summer by volunteers who raise heirloom vegetables and flowers. Each plot contains the plants that would have been favored by a particular immigrant group, so there's a Norwegian garden, a Scottish garden, a French garden, etc. They don't forget the native Americans either, and have a plot with maize, pumpkins, and beans grown in the traditional way. I love reading the descriptions and explanations for each garden. I wonder how well they did this year with the peculiar weather, though. Spinning projects are completed and turned in, but I still have weaving to finish up, and only ten days left to get it done. Right now I'm more ready for bed than anything else. Tags: gardening, spinning, weather, weaving
Current Location: Rainy oak grove
Mood:  tired
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Not much color yet, but dry, cool, with skies of intense blue punctuated with streaks and blobs of white cloud. Tess was glad to go out, reluctant to come back in. There are mosquitoes again, though. We had reached a point where they were almost extinct, and then a few drippy days a couple of weeks ago were enough to bring them back, persistent little demons that they are. Gasoline prices keep dropping. I paid $2.42 this afternoon, which is the lowest in months though certainly not the lowest in the last year. We bottomed out at $1.45 last December, which must have been the lowest price around here in several years. Farther back than any records I have, at least. Days keep ticking off too without my getting the work finished that must be done in the next couple of weeks in order to make it into the Fiber shows in October. Garden lettuce is all gone, or nearly so, but the hot frame yielded mustard greens, arugula, and cilantro for a salad tonight, and added lettuce from the supermarket. It was tasty. Time to think about NaNoWriMo. Since I will not be interrupting November to attend MFF this year, I should be able to exceed the 50K word quota if I plan my time correctly. The question is, do I return to Argos and Fennec, or perhaps to Jake and Chrysios? I've had a couple of people urging me to revisit Menander even, but I'm not sure he ever attracted a lot of interest. There's at least one side story to Argos and Fennec, as well, and that would be Inspector Hammel's story explaining where he was before he came to Westvale, and how he first met Fennec. It's a good story, but I'm not sure it's large enough for a NaNo project. Now I'm going to say something inflammatory. There's been a huge pile of dramatic crap about some trash that happened on television this week apparently. Yet another "slur" on the fandom, etc. etc. Two things about that, folks. First of all, it's television. Television is all pretty much crap. It's like tabloid newspapers, you know, the ones in the supermarket with headlines like "Space Aliens Secretly Control Congress" or "Jesus Appears on Jay Leno"? People who want to believe that junk are going to believe it no matter what you say or do. Secondly, though, before you protest too much, it seems to me that furry fandom really is badly fixated on sexuality and losing sight of the art, literature, and other forms of anthropomorphism that are supposedly the core on which it stands. Yes, going on a television talk show and proclaiming your bizarre sexual fetishes is pretty damned stupid. There's no other word for it. But pointing your paw/muzzle/fin/horn/whatever at someone who did such a stupid thing and blaming them for the bad reputation you think the fandom has? That's equally stupid. The bad reputation would die a deserved death if there were no truth in it. Unfortunately, the is some truth in it and that's enough to keep it alive and make the muck rakers looking for drama and sensational stories come back again and again. What is FA full of? What is YiffStar full of? What are Tapestries and FurryMuck full of? Ask your furry friends why they go to conventions and what they do there. Then tell me there is no truth to the popular perception that furries are obsessed with sexuality. And until you can honestly say that, I will not be impressed with tantrums about "the media" and "stupid spotlight seekers." Tags: fandom, gardening, weather, writing
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood:  awake
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The goldenrod flower (Solidago canadensis and/or S. virgaurea) always stands for the end of summer in my mind. Source of natural dyes, medicinal herb at one time, and falsely accused of causing hay fever (it doesn't,) this brilliant yellow flower is found all over the county here. Along roads, at the edges of woodlands, in fallow fields, and yes, even in some flower gardens. When it blooms, the frost is on the horizon, though not quite with us yet. It's blooming prolifically this year, too.  More to the point, last night, even though it's still August, our temperature got down to almost 41°F, within a stone's toss of freezing. And this afternoon, while driving home, I saw sumac and maple leaves starting to change colors. The weather has been so unexpectedly strange this year that it's hard to believe the summer is nearly over. The equinox is still three weeks away, for pete's sake. But there it is. The vegetable garden is a near bust, one of the worst we've ever had. Other than an early flush of peas and lettuce, it has produced nothing. The heavy rains of June washed away seeds, or drowned the sprouts. Plants started indoors couldn't be set out early enough, and when they finally did get out there, then we had three weeks of cold, gloomy days followed by almost a solid month of no rain. My tomato plants are just starting to blossom now, and are a third the size they normally would be at this time. The eggplants have refused to grow, and though still alive, are the same size as when they were set out at the end of June. Pole beans have refused to climb their supports, and are loafing around at the bottom. Broccoli, okra, and kohlrabi simply disappeared. Either they didn't germinate or something got them shortly afterward. The Japanese beetles weren't quite as bad this year as last, or else it seemed that way because they found nothing to eat. Except of course, the apples. We had a fairly heavy crop this year, but the beetles ate the thin skinned varieties down to the core, just as they did last year. It looks as if we will have a few Spitzenberg, perhaps enough for one pie, and one or two Prairie Spy that survived the drought and the beetle blitz. Next year I'm going to give in and spray those trees. We're still looking for hay, as well. Our supplier of the last ten years has decided to call it quits. He sold his equipment and isn't doing any hay this year. That's his right, but not telling us even after we had called and left repeated messages really wasn't fair. It has been a bad year for hay because of the rain, and I need at least 700 bales yet. No one seems to have any around here. This could be a big problem. Still, the goldenrod is pretty even if it does foretell falling leaves and temperatures. I will enjoy it while it is blooming. Tags: farm, gardening, weather
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood:  contemplative
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By hand. Not because I don't have several sewing machines here, but because I want more precise results than that. So, I'm assembling a new tail for Argos, sewing with blanket stitch overcast seams and doing it by hand. His old tail will be plumped up a bit and given to the story teller to wear. Other costumey things to be completed: repair a torn seam in one boot, loosen the fur under his jaw, improve the neck to head interface joint, and add longer cuffs to the gloves. Most of this is fairly trivial except for the jaw fur. If necessary I'll take half or all of Tuesday off to get it done, since I have vacation and personal days available. In fact, I have an extra day because July 4 came on a Saturday and we did not close the day before. Went to Sam's Club because Gary wanted a filing cabinet. He got that, and we replenished our supply of coffee beans (we like their beans better than the ones at the supermarkets.) Watered plantlets. Took Tess out to the pasture. Made dinner. Mundane stuff. It was sunny and warm. We actually need some more rain: the creek is dry. But it won't do any good if it all comes in one huge deluge, and we need hay more right now than we need rain. Just got a stack of additional photos from the dyeing session yesterday, haven't had time to download or sort through them, but I'll post more if they are interesting enough for non-fiber folk to appreciate them. Chances are at least one or two will measure up. Tags: farm, fursuiting, gardening, weather
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy
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It wained most of the day because it was W-day. I did get out in the early sprinkle to set more plants out into the garden (hot peppers) and plant some beans. Mosquitoes were fierce, but it was cool enough that I was wearing a long sleeve sweatshirt and sweat pants, so only my hands and face were uncovered. Still, it didn't encourage dawdling. Watered everything before going back in, but then it began to rain anyway. Slow, gentle rain, the ideal kind for the garden. On a whim, bought a couple of old slide rules off Ebay. I have a decent one, but it's the student rule that was distributed by the Cleveland Institute of Electronics, and has special scales and a bunch of electronics formulas on the back side. A great tool for doing electronics work, but I wanted a standard log log rule that I could take into an exam with me. The one with all the cheat formulas printed on the back would never do. Settled on a Pickett N-500-ES, the aluminum kind with yellow background instead of white. This one comes with the traditional leather belt holster that all the engineering geeks used to wear when I was in college, and the seller threw in a Dietzgen student rule and case as well. So now I am slide rule "rich." At work I managed to lock up my desktop computer again, second time in a week, from apparent overheating. Except when the case is opened the heat sinks are barely warm. I suspect a faulty temperature sensor. The problem does appear to be related to BOINC software running in the background and ignoring settings to limit CPU usage. When BOINC is stopped, the problem doesn't occur. So I gave in and am draining the remaining work units from that machine, after which I will shut down BOINC on it. Installed Virtual Box so I could compare it with VMware. So far, I'm favorably impressed. I loaded it with Debian since I had the installation CD handy, but I will bring my Solaris CD from home and try that next. VMware makes no claim to support Solaris and I haven't tried it with the product, but since Virtual Box is open source ware sponsored by Sun, it explicitly supports Solaris. (But not FreeBSD? I wonder why that is...) Tags: gardening, geekery, weather, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: sleepy
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...at least somewhat. It was a bit quieter. Weather alternated between gray sky and sun, but wasn't as hot and humid quite. No rain, which we could probably use, but if it stays dry maybe the mosquitoes will die. I went out after dinner to water the newly planted tomatoes and was nearly carried off and eaten by hordes of the nasty little bloodsuckers. Most of the tomatoes look OK, though the cherry tomatoes are a bit wilty. If even half the plants make it, we'll have plenty of tomatoes though. Took the Escape to Ford because the ABS warning light was on. They replaced a broken "tone ring" in the left front brake, which solved the problem. Of course that leaves the question of why it was broken, as I'm a very gentle driver. The repair was covered by warranty, no charge. Now let's see if the other side goes out or if the same side goes again. Tags: car, gardening, weather
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy
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I've said enough before that you know I'm not fond of having internet computers for the public to use. Inevitably we are asked to "teach" people how to use a computer, and they know nothing. Worse, when they can't get something to work, it is always our fault as far as they are concerned. Our machines or software must be defective. Today, two at once. One who "couldn't access his e-mail". That one turned out to be because he didn't know either his user name or password at Yahoo. Sorry, not our fault, no we can't do a thing about that. No, it isn't our machine that's causing this difficulty. Just because your machine at home "knows" your id and password, that doesn't mean that ours would know it. The other was, against repeated advice that we give, purchasing tickets with his credit card on our public access workstation. This is not a secure place to use your credit card or access your financial records. Period. But they will insist on doing it. Once the transaction was completed, he couldn't print the receipt or the tickets. The job kept going to the printer, but would come up with "0" pages. He was sure it was our fault. It was because our stupid machines have Linux instead of Windows and a proper browser (by which he meant IE, duh.) So finally he was allowed to use a staff machine with Windows on it. The tickets still wouldn't print. Same symptoms. Turns out that the website is using Flash (!!!??) to handle the receipt and print operation. Jeez! How stupid can you get. Flash is insecure, unreliable, and bug ridden. This time it wasn't an airline. He was buying tickets for an amusement park. Why he didn't just call their 800 number and buy them, I have no idea. Somehow the computer is "easier" even when it doesn't work and he doesn't know what he's doing. We often have similar problems with airlines though. People buy tickets online and want to print boarding passes, which in some cases just doesn't work. Even on a Windows machine, the things won't print. My only guess is that they assume a printer directly attached to the PC rather than a network device. Or maybe the airlines are using Flash too. How incredibly stupid can they get? Came home, had dinner, hurried out to the garden to get in the last hour before sunset. Mosquitoes out in force. Did get 18 more tomato plants set out for late season crop if it doesn't freeze too early. I love tomatoes. If I can't get anything else from the garden, I want my tomatoes. Blueberries are starting to ripen, I see. Looked around for suitable dye plants to use for a workshop on Saturday. Found large quantities of two that I didn't realize I had: curly dock, which is a noxious weed that produces zillions of seeds that no one seems to eat, so it spreads like mad; and fleabane daisy, which is pretty but can take over huge areas. Cut several ounces of each. According to my sources, the curly dock is in fact edible, seeds, leaves and even root. It's in the buckwheat family. A black dye was once made from the roots, but I'm after a deep yellow from the seed heads. Tags: dyeing, gardening, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy
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