USMB Coffee Shop IV

[gallantwarrior]

oh no. Killing baby bunnies? Say it aint so!

Cats do it. Besides, it's much more pleasant than listening to how things progress otherwise. Plus, bunnies can do some serious damage if left alive. Snakes aren't cheap. You also have to feed them using tongs, or risk having them seize you hand, which is quite painful and can do lots of damage to the feeder. I much preferred thawing frozen rats (just never do this in a microwave!)

 

[gallantwarrior]

Okay, we have the date for the wife's face to face interview in Gardnersville, 2 weeks away. Setting up a feeding service for the cats, have a car rented for a week and a hotel booked near Gardnersville. Decided to drive as the cost is a fraction of air fare, almost $1800 round trip for both of us flying. It'll take 2 days up and 2 days back. The money they're offering is pretty nice also, hopefully this will work out.

Good luck to you and the Mrs., Ringel! Gardnerville is so much nicer than El Paso. I've been to both places and have relatives in both, as well.

Gardenerville is also more expensive and the rentals appear to be few and far between. Note that she hasn't been offered the position yet but they claim to have difficulty finding people willing to move there, their patients are the Washoe Indians.

You would find lots more housing in Carson City, certainly, and it's a short commute to Gardnerville. I wonder how much like Alaskan Natives Washoe Indians are?

 

[gallantwarrior]

Middle daughter's school in Denver on lockdown, think good thoughts.

Good thoughts to you and your daughter and her classmates. Why are they on lock down?

 

[saveliberty]

Middle daughter's school in Denver on lockdown, think good thoughts.

Good thoughts to you and your daughter and her classmates. Why are they on lock down?

Reported gunman near the building. Afterwards all I read on FB was how parents were pissed the school didn't tell them their kid was safe faster.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Foxy, You can take me off the watch list for the professorship at the university. I got a call from one of my colleagues this morning because he thought it would be a bit "nicer" for me to hear from one of them before my rejection letter arrived. They offered to position to another candidate, who accepted it. He assured me I was definitely one of those who made the "short" list for consideration. But don't you guys feel sorry for me. I had pretty much decided that I am better off with the job I have now. A day job commuting from my "country" place would leave me 8-9 hours a day at home. I also found out that these guys have to work most weekends, too, in order to keep up with the paperwork. And I really do like my 4/10 graveyard shift.
I applied for my permanent hunting and fishing license this morning, too. Once you reach 60, a full-time resident of Alaska can apply for this PID and we don't have to buy licenses any more. We also don't have to buy some of the tags and stamps required for certain species, either! So there's at least one silver lining to become more...mature.
Spring Break next week! I've arranged with my partner to come out and care for the goats while I decamp to the Willow place to get some things done. I need to mark out and measure the areas I want to fence in for the animals. I have to have the fences in place before I can more them out. I'm also going to inventory the piles of materials I sorted and stacked last Fall. We have a lot of lumber and hardware and I'm tired of the partner always buying more stuff we really don't need. I'm also going to kick back in the evenings and try to finish "A Dragonfly in Amber", which I started when I was up there in December.
Well, I hope NoSmo's eye issues can be resolved for the better, Foxy's shoulder continues to mend, Gracie finds a home, and everyone has a great weekend. Take care of yourselves and you loved ones.

 

[saveliberty]

Too bad your potential students and current goats and family will not appreciate how close they came to different lives. Hope you enjoyed the idea of a new beginning.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Too bad your potential students and current goats and family will not appreciate how close they came to different lives. Hope you enjoyed the idea of a new beginning.

Actually, new beginnings make me nervous and stressed. Since I am moving this summer, starting a "new" job might have been a bit much. I also got a raise at my current job! Maybe the professorship will open again in a year, or so. Unfortunately, state budget woes are hitting the University system pretty hard up here. While the budget has allowances for this position for a two-year contract, the job may expire after the contract is up. They are no longer allowing professors to establish tenure, they are offered contracts for various terms.

 

[Gracie]

Things always happen for a reason, GW. I think you have some good plans and now that that is out of the way, you can forge forward! And, this means we here at the CS will be able to keep you cuz if the other thing came to be...you may have been MIA more often than not and we would all miss you.

 

[Montrovant]

Too bad your potential students and current goats and family will not appreciate how close they came to different lives. Hope you enjoyed the idea of a new beginning.

Actually, new beginnings make me nervous and stressed. Since I am moving this summer, starting a "new" job might have been a bit much. I also got a raise at my current job! Maybe the professorship will open again in a year, or so. Unfortunately, state budget woes are hitting the University system pretty hard up here. While the budget has allowances for this position for a two-year contract, the job may expire after the contract is up. They are no longer allowing professors to establish tenure, they are offered contracts for various terms.

Nervous and stressed is an understatement for how new beginnings make me feel.

 

[Gracie]

I get horrible flareups but it is lessening now. Yay. Almost yay. Sorta yay. Tomorrow I'll know.

 

[Ringel05]

Okay, we have the date for the wife's face to face interview in Gardnersville, 2 weeks away. Setting up a feeding service for the cats, have a car rented for a week and a hotel booked near Gardnersville. Decided to drive as the cost is a fraction of air fare, almost $1800 round trip for both of us flying. It'll take 2 days up and 2 days back. The money they're offering is pretty nice also, hopefully this will work out.

Good luck to you and the Mrs., Ringel! Gardnerville is so much nicer than El Paso. I've been to both places and have relatives in both, as well.

Gardenerville is also more expensive and the rentals appear to be few and far between. Note that she hasn't been offered the position yet but they claim to have difficulty finding people willing to move there, their patients are the Washoe Indians.

You would find lots more housing in Carson City, certainly, and it's a short commute to Gardnerville. I wonder how much like Alaskan Natives Washoe Indians are?

I was including Carson City in my search and no, there is not a lot of inexpensive housing there either, even the apartments are expensive and we don't do apartments. We're actually thinking this may not be a good move for us, maybe it's an over abundance of caution, maybe we really prefer New Mexico, she's going to feel them out a little more next week, we'll see.

 

[Gracie]

It is really pretty in that area. I was looking in the Carson City/Truckee area for rentals. Not a whole lot. But I found a lot of really nice mobile homes for sale on zillow in the 70K range. Not that I have that kind of money, but still.....

 

[SixFoot]

One acre of new fencing installed, weathered/damaged spots all patched up.
Garden soil mixed and cooking until April.
16 lambs ready for the auction.
Filled the first egg carton of the year.
Barn roof wind damage repaired.

Was gonna plant two Apple trees today, but since I slipped another disc in my back, I think I'll head on over to the urgent care clinic in a few hours instead...

View attachment 66460

Oh ouch. We better put you in the bad back division on the vigil list. Hope you can get relief quickly.
You've been a busy fellow Six. But filled the first egg carton? It has been so long since we had chickens it never occurred to me that they didn't lay during the winter. Somehow I recall ours did. But can't be sure now as I was a kid at the time.

You can force chickens to lay throughout the winter. All it takes is one light bulb to alter their natural light cycle.

Ah, yeah...define "natural" light cycle. In Alaska it's a bit different than in some other southern clime.

I do not add any artificial light to their coop in the winter time, so they can concentrate their nutrients on growing warmer feathers instead of eggs. Not only are they 100% Organic, but they are also 100% natural in every aspect. They lay their eggs only when Nature intends them to.

Lighting: Layers

What part of Alaska? I used to live in Chugiak.

 

[SixFoot]

A miracle happened this morning. I woke up just in time to see a fox taking my alpha tom off into the woods by his face for breakfast. By the time I could get my rifle, they were gone.... I just lost my damn silky rooster yesterday to a chicken hawk...

And then a half hour later, Grover showed back up on the porch, covered in slobber, with a large gash over his eye and one down to the bone on his forehead. I ******* love Grover. Kills mice/rats/shrews/moles/rabbits, fights off other tom cats, and now fights off hungry foxes!

He's still enjoying half of my ribeye at the moment.

I'm gonna kill that fox eventually, and feed his flesh to my outdoor cats.

 

[Ringel05]

It is really pretty in that area. I was looking in the Carson City/Truckee area for rentals. Not a whole lot. But I found a lot of really nice mobile homes for sale on zillow in the 70K range. Not that I have that kind of money, but still.....

Don't have that kind of money either, yet.

 

[ChrisL]

Happy Saturday!

 

[Nosmo King]

I had a chance to inspect a building on Vernia Street last week. The building was an old welding shop that stands right next door to my Grandpa' home. Grandpa's place was razed several years ago. But the old crab apple tree in his backyard was still there. The backyard always had the aroma of vinegar because grandpa had a nasty tendency to not rake up and clear the fallen crab apples. Rather, he would mow over them rendering them into an apple sauce that would ferment under the summer heat.

Grandpa built a bomb shelter in the back yard. My brother and I were forbidden to play in or around the shelter, and that's what made it so enticing. We had civil defense here that, in my day, scared the hell out of impressionable kids. My school, Westgate Elementary, stood a few hundred yards from the north bank of the Ohio River. We were taught to 'duck and cover' as if our little school desks would provide safety after a thermonuclear blast. Each class diligently practiced evacuation to the General Purpose room where we were supposed to live through the Apocolypse.

My second grade teacher, the matronly Mrs. Welsh, explained that there was a map on a wall of the Kremlin in Moscow that had our area covered by a Soviet bullseye. Because of our heavy industrialization, my town was marked as Ground Zero for an atomic attack. Mrs. Welsh had a teaching method that made both long division and impending doom thoroughly understandable.

Meanwhile, I would gaze out the window that looked west and south toward the river. I could easily imagine the Russian MiGs flying low across the ridge tops, banking to their right and diving to straffe the football field and then the west side of our school. I could imagine the red stars adorning the attacking jets. I could imagine the mushroom cloud over the ridges to the east that meant Pittsburgh was already aglow in atomic destruction.

By the time I was in fourth grade, the notion of civil defense shelters and Conalrad radio markers on the car radio and the olive green colored barrels of drinking water and cases survival crackers stacked up in the General Purpose room were mysteriously gone. Disappeared. Passé.

And that's also the year Grandpa's bomb shelter became a playhouse for me and my brother.

 

[Foxfyre]

I had a chance to inspect a building on Vernia Street last week. The building was an old welding shop that stands right next door to my Grandpa' home. Grandpa's place was razed several years ago. But the old crab apple tree in his backyard was still there. The backyard always had the aroma of vinegar because grandpa had a nasty tendency to not rake up and clear the fallen crab apples. Rather, he would mow over them rendering them into an apple sauce that would ferment under the summer heat.

Grandpa built a bomb shelter in the back yard. My brother and I were forbidden to play in or around the shelter, and that's what made it so enticing. We had civil defense here that, in my day, scared the hell out of impressionable kids. My school, Westgate Elementary, stood a few hundred yards from the north bank of the Ohio River. We were taught to 'duck and cover' as if our little school desks would provide safety after a thermonuclear blast. Each class diligently practiced evacuation to the General Purpose room where we were supposed to live through the Apocolypse.

My second grade teacher, the matronly Mrs. Welsh, explained that there was a map on a wall of the Kremlin in Moscow that had our area covered by a Soviet bullseye. Because of our heavy industrialization, my town was marked as Ground Zero for an atomic attack. Mrs. Welsh had a teaching method that made both long division and impending doom thoroughly understandable.

Meanwhile, I would gaze out the window that looked west and south toward the river. I could easily imagine the Russian MiGs flying low across the ridge tops, banking to their right and diving to straffe the football field and then the west side of our school. I could imagine the red stars adorning the attacking jets. I could imagine the mushroom cloud over the ridges to the east that meant Pittsburgh was already aglow in atomic destruction.

By the time I was in fourth grade, the notion of civil defense shelters and Conalrad radio markers on the car radio and the olive green colored barrels of drinking water and cases survival crackers stacked up in the General Purpose room were mysteriously gone. Disappeared. Passé.

And that's also the year Grandpa's bomb shelter became a playhouse for me and my brother.

I remember the 'duck and cover' days too, but we weren't near a ground zero area so they were more fun than scary for us kids. We didn't imagine nuclear attack or Russian migs all that much. Most towns had one designated community bomb shelter but we just noted the symbols on those buildings and didn't think much about it. But my grandmother's graphic description of the angry bomb shelterless neighbors left outside and pouring rat poison down our air vent into our private bomb shelter made me pretty sure I didn't want one.

 

[Nosmo King]

I had a chance to inspect a building on Vernia Street last week. The building was an old welding shop that stands right next door to my Grandpa' home. Grandpa's place was razed several years ago. But the old crab apple tree in his backyard was still there. The backyard always had the aroma of vinegar because grandpa had a nasty tendency to not rake up and clear the fallen crab apples. Rather, he would mow over them rendering them into an apple sauce that would ferment under the summer heat.

Grandpa built a bomb shelter in the back yard. My brother and I were forbidden to play in or around the shelter, and that's what made it so enticing. We had civil defense here that, in my day, scared the hell out of impressionable kids. My school, Westgate Elementary, stood a few hundred yards from the north bank of the Ohio River. We were taught to 'duck and cover' as if our little school desks would provide safety after a thermonuclear blast. Each class diligently practiced evacuation to the General Purpose room where we were supposed to live through the Apocolypse.

My second grade teacher, the matronly Mrs. Welsh, explained that there was a map on a wall of the Kremlin in Moscow that had our area covered by a Soviet bullseye. Because of our heavy industrialization, my town was marked as Ground Zero for an atomic attack. Mrs. Welsh had a teaching method that made both long division and impending doom thoroughly understandable.

Meanwhile, I would gaze out the window that looked west and south toward the river. I could easily imagine the Russian MiGs flying low across the ridge tops, banking to their right and diving to straffe the football field and then the west side of our school. I could imagine the red stars adorning the attacking jets. I could imagine the mushroom cloud over the ridges to the east that meant Pittsburgh was already aglow in atomic destruction.

By the time I was in fourth grade, the notion of civil defense shelters and Conalrad radio markers on the car radio and the olive green colored barrels of drinking water and cases survival crackers stacked up in the General Purpose room were mysteriously gone. Disappeared. Passé.

And that's also the year Grandpa's bomb shelter became a playhouse for me and my brother.

I remember the 'duck and cover' days too, but we weren't near a ground zero area so they were more fun than scary for us kids. We didn't imagine nuclear attack or Russian migs all that much. Most towns had one designated community bomb shelter but we just noted the symbols on those buildings and didn't think much about it. But my grandmother's graphic description of the angry bomb shelterless neighbors left outside and pouring rat poison down our air vent into our private bomb shelter made me pretty sure I didn't want one.

There were those orange and black Civil Defense placards on nearly every bank building, school and church in our town. We knew that those pesky Russians meant to bomb us first to take out the steel mills and chemical plants and power generators that flanked the river banks.

But what I never imagined was hordes of angry townsfolk poisoning someone else's bomb shelters. Heck! They had one of their own!

 

[Foxfyre]

I had a chance to inspect a building on Vernia Street last week. The building was an old welding shop that stands right next door to my Grandpa' home. Grandpa's place was razed several years ago. But the old crab apple tree in his backyard was still there. The backyard always had the aroma of vinegar because grandpa had a nasty tendency to not rake up and clear the fallen crab apples. Rather, he would mow over them rendering them into an apple sauce that would ferment under the summer heat.

Grandpa built a bomb shelter in the back yard. My brother and I were forbidden to play in or around the shelter, and that's what made it so enticing. We had civil defense here that, in my day, scared the hell out of impressionable kids. My school, Westgate Elementary, stood a few hundred yards from the north bank of the Ohio River. We were taught to 'duck and cover' as if our little school desks would provide safety after a thermonuclear blast. Each class diligently practiced evacuation to the General Purpose room where we were supposed to live through the Apocolypse.

My second grade teacher, the matronly Mrs. Welsh, explained that there was a map on a wall of the Kremlin in Moscow that had our area covered by a Soviet bullseye. Because of our heavy industrialization, my town was marked as Ground Zero for an atomic attack. Mrs. Welsh had a teaching method that made both long division and impending doom thoroughly understandable.

Meanwhile, I would gaze out the window that looked west and south toward the river. I could easily imagine the Russian MiGs flying low across the ridge tops, banking to their right and diving to straffe the football field and then the west side of our school. I could imagine the red stars adorning the attacking jets. I could imagine the mushroom cloud over the ridges to the east that meant Pittsburgh was already aglow in atomic destruction.

By the time I was in fourth grade, the notion of civil defense shelters and Conalrad radio markers on the car radio and the olive green colored barrels of drinking water and cases survival crackers stacked up in the General Purpose room were mysteriously gone. Disappeared. Passé.

And that's also the year Grandpa's bomb shelter became a playhouse for me and my brother.

I remember the 'duck and cover' days too, but we weren't near a ground zero area so they were more fun than scary for us kids. We didn't imagine nuclear attack or Russian migs all that much. Most towns had one designated community bomb shelter but we just noted the symbols on those buildings and didn't think much about it. But my grandmother's graphic description of the angry bomb shelterless neighbors left outside and pouring rat poison down our air vent into our private bomb shelter made me pretty sure I didn't want one.

There were those orange and black Civil Defense placards on nearly every bank building, school and church in our town. We knew that those pesky Russians meant to bomb us first to take out the steel mills and chemical plants and power generators that flanked the river banks.

But what I never imagined was hordes of angry townsfolk poisoning someone else's bomb shelters. Heck! They had one of their own!

Well you were in the middle of the industrial belt so I am sure it was some different. I grew up in a teensy little town in the New Mexico oil patch surrounded by other teensy little towns. The nearest big town to us was Lubbock TX, about 100 miles away, with a whopping 50,000 or so people back then.