Rats

I just got back from having surgery done on one of my rat girls,, she had mammary gland tumor and I have a wonderful collegue and fellow OSU graduate (those are the best kind!) over in Chapel Hill who did the honors for me (and yes, the coincidence of beanns having her sx today is not lost on me). It might seem frivolous to pay big bucks for a fifty cent feeder rat (we got her before her eyes were open and hand raised her), but there you go. This board is filled with folks who are nuts in one way or another,, and most of us are harmless.

Announcing

TM Mandolin ear tag 521 White American Sow
TM Gracie ear tag 525 White American Satin Sow

I will try to get motivated and take their pictures.

Bedding

Keeping the animals clean is a big deal. This is approximately how much bedding material I will use in a month; there are 12 more blue bags up in the caviary. I use two products, one is a pelleted pine product that I put on the bottom of the cage and then I top dress with pine shavings. My husband is very tolerant of the pigs as long as he cannot smell them and I need to keep my whites white, so no messy cages. I have a huge compost heap outside that I add to when the two rollaway cans from Waste Industries are full each week. Everything here has been mulched within an inch of its life, and the natural area is six inches deep in shavings. We are slowly turning the red clay into wonderful rich choc brown soil. I went to Tractor Supply yesterday for the bedding; tomorrow ConWay Freight is supposed to have my feed in from Whitley, Indiana. I tried using a freight company this time instead of UPS, minimum order is 500 pounds,, so I got 600 pounds and 50 pounds of toasted wheat flakes- a treat the pigs adore.

An Evening with John Prine

Last night we went to hear John Prine at the Regency Park Amphitheatre- an outdoor venue with some reserved seating and then lawn seating beyond. We were in the very last row of seats and the view was non-existent. It was 95 degrees. They distributed handheld fans to folks to help. Patty Griffin opened and at times was really outstanding and at times pretty,, ho hum. We saw some empty seats in a totally empty section beside us and halfway thru her part of the evening, we got up and moved,, then the view was excellent,, we were in about the 9th row, off to the left. After a forty minute interlude while they reset the stage and we sweltered, out they came,, all wearing sports jackets or suits- John, David Jacques and Jason Wilber. And it was outstanding. We had heard JP either three or four years ago and his voice was pretty tired- we wondered if his health was still bothering him. They were terrific last night and performed for an hour and forty minutes. Stopped by the teeshirt booth on the way out, but all they had were black shirts and I didn't much care for them. At eleven when it ended,, it was 86 degrees. And we're looking to see when he will be this way again.

First Show of the New Season

Went down to Cashiers, NC this weekend for the first pig shows of the fall season. It was unseasonably hot, but we slogged thru and no pigs died from the heat, although many were very hot and tired by the end of the shows. My pigs did OK, I had a few Best of Breeds, but no Best in Shows or Reserves. I was pleased in one class of six white American Sr Boars that the top three animals all came from my caviary. (you can get strange looks in restaurants when folks overhear you talking about breeding white Americans or black Americans) I only owned the number two animal (who was number one in the second show) having given away the number one and number three animals to youth exhibitors (I love kids and I am not afraid to say it here-or there). The national convention is coming up in October in Michigan and I have been having folks as far away as Oregon contact me about getting some stock, so that is a boost to one's ego. Verb said something about turning 50 being liberating and I will second that. I have been a rather shy nerdy person but with a dry sense of humor which I am now not worried about letting folks see. And I am getting over my inferiority complex, always worried that I don't know enough. Well, shoot,,, we all have our areas of expertise and anyhow, I am on the downhill slide of my font of knowledge, but my wisdom is much greater. Me? I would rather have a 30 year old body than the mind of a 30 year old again. Just wait, in a few years you will see where I am coming from. I've had a pretty good mind; I would give quite a bit for a pretty good body :).

The Death of a Computer

At least it happened on tax free weekend. For about six months now, the fan in my computer has been making a strange noise and since it is connected to some other important part that would have to be replaced also, the decision was made for conservative therapy,, that is to say,, let 'er die. Now it seems that the video card is also starting to malfunction. As I sit here, the entire side of my computer case lies flayed open in order to keep the internal workings cool,, but actually, the fan now seems to be working. Go figure. I looked at what I wanted to order from Dell, and then went down to the kiosk in the mall,, where I got exactly what I wanted for two hundred dollars less,, free shipping and handling,, and no tax. Now I sort of wish I had put that savings into 4GB of RAM. I am a wimp and had them install XP. Why? Because my pedigree software for the pigs is best functional it seems with XP-- otherwise I would have to "tweak" the program. I am afraid that my days of tweaking anything are fairly well over. The computer tends to die at unspecified intervals and then may take days to be able to reboot, or minutes,, depending on its whim. I bought an external hard drive to transfer all my good stuff from this computer to the next. Estimated delivery- two weeks. I actually start to get anxious when I start worrying about all the things I have on this computer that I might forget about transferring.

Squirrels and their boxes

In the first picture you can just make out Mama squirrel stretched out on the top of her nest box. I was hoping you could see the other box down farther in the yard in the second picture, but no such luck. We have four boxes in our backyard and have had squirrels, flying squirrels, screech owls and probably other unknowns nest in the boxes. In the top of the tree with the nest box, there is a red-tailed hawk's nest. Been coming back to the same nest for three years. Lord, what screeching goes on from them from the moment that nestling hatches until it fledges (this year only one, last year three). I threaten every year to cut down the tree. They turn the ground around the base of the tree white with their excrement- and let me tell you- we walk a wide swath around it when they are nesting. Those hawks put their little vents up to the edge of the nest and SQUIRT! They might do well in a tobacco spitting contest if allowed to use their rear ends. I tried to get a picture today of a young bluebird. I used the last of our mealworms trying to coax it in to a point where I could get a decent shot. I need to go to the bird store and get some more worms. I think 1000 of them are only 12 bucks or so. Cheap entertainment.