Over the weekend, I got the pleasure (Not) of learning to solder. I think I mentioned the headlights went out on my truck. Well, the switch and pigtail it plugs into were burnt up. In order to replace the pigtail, you have to cut wires and solder the new one to the wires. It took me a long time and it’s not pretty but it’s done and I have lights.
While I did that, DH was bushhogging a fence line. He manage to bend up the bushhog and linkage. We spent a while getting that straightened out. He also put the Knoxx Recoil Reducing Stock on my shotgun.
He swabbed the new barrel for me and I shot a few shells through it. I love it. But, it needs new sights. That little gold bead and the end of the barrel with the Knoxx stock does not work. It doesn’t help that I’m still attempting to learn to shoot a shotgun right-handed. I have an easier time with rifles and pistols.
Cricket and Bugaboo were cleaning up some leaf litter around the deck and found the biggest walking stick.
To give you size reference, it’s in the bottom of a 33 gallon trash can. It was way longer than my hand and liked spitting at us. Didn’t know they got that big around here and I’m not sure what the spitting was. I didn’t sit at the computer long enough this weekend to find out.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 and is filed under Children, Guns, Life, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (5)
Over the weekend, we rescued a tiny Anole from a spider’s web. He was hanging from his tail. I thought he was dead and had starved. Then he wiggled. He was in no danger from the spider as he was long gone. But, I’m not sure he’d have been able to free himself. We also rescued a praying mantis as he was headed right up a pole to a very large Anole.
Then later, the snake in the picture was perched in my rose bush surveying all to be seen. He’s kinda small. I wonder if he was after the beautiful spider that has a huge web over the rose bush. It’s spider season, you know.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 and is filed under Life, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
We have had guinea pigs now for 9 years. We love them very much and I think they are excellent pets for children. They generally don’t bite. They love to be held and can be taught to do minimal tricks. They won’t ignore you like cats do and take up much less space than a dog. They can get expensive though. Food can run 4 lbs for $10 for the good stuff. Then they need hay daily. We have to get expensive hay because Cricket is highly allergic to what you usually feed them. For the cage we have, bedding runs us about $10 to $14 every 10 days. Then they love veggie scraps from the kitchen. Cilantro is our piggy’s favorite. Luckily it’s cheap because they will often get the whole bunch.
Unfortunately, ours are getting old. One is losing weight. She appears happy. She is very alert. But, she reminds me of a little old woman, withering to nothing. I imagine she won’t be with us much longer. We’ll all miss her very much. I imagine her companion will miss her the most. We are going to put him in a smaller cage in the den so he can be around us all the time once she’s gone.
Now that we have the kittens, we won’t be getting any more piggies. Seeing as I am not fond of cats, that may change. Kittens I like. The verdict is yet to be determine with cats. They have to be well-behaved by my standards. Many things are off limits.
Anyway, I love guinea piggies.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 and is filed under wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
We live in a rural area. It’s not uncommon to have mice around. I do not like them in the house. Well, one has been in my closet for the last couple of days. I finally got it trapped in a box and got it outside. The girls then put the kittens in the box. Kittens caught mouse. No more mouse.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 and is filed under Children, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
Last night was Gun Nuts Radio time. DH and 1 sat on the deck and listened while we enjoyed ribs and libations. I really enjoyed the topics, especially the question about what about our government is making us mad right now. I agree with LawDog that it would be much easier and time efficient to list what’s not making me mad. Someone mentioned the fact that Congress is no longer listening to the people they represent. That frustrates me so much. But, I am also lucky in that respect as Bobby Bright, who represents my district, visits here often, just about weekly. He listens and talks to us. He’s a democrat that’s pro-gun. While mayor of our local big city, he encourage the citizens to arm themselves. He’s pretty middle-of-the-road.
DH said that the federal government seems to have forgotten that the Constitution limits their power, not empowers them. The size of our government has been out of control for years — generations perhaps. But the liberties they are taking now is scary to say the least. Everyone keeps talking about the 2010 elections and how we can make changes then. Unfortunately, I see very few running that would actually effect change. I really don’t think career politicians from either side are going to help us at this point.
As things were winding down for the evening, we were noticing some of the bugs that had joined us in listening. One was a huge roach - Genus Parcoblatta - Wood Cockroaches. I absolutely hate those things. Thanks to the large trees around my grandmother’s house, she always had a bunch of them inside during the summers I spent there. She kept a very clean house but it doesn’t matter with these. Another of the bugs that was around was the stag beetle. There wasn’t just two of these but four. The two in the picture were none to happy about being together. I tried and tried to get a picture of the bigger one with his wings up. They look fierce like that. But, I missed the picture when he finally did decide to fly. I made the mistake of commenting to DH that I’d much rather have one of those on me than the roach. So he tried to put one on me and joked about taking it to bed. That’s not my idea of bedroom fun.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 and is filed under Fundemental Rights, Guns, Life, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
I love living away from civilization. I’d love to live further out but that’s another post. While cleaning up the woods the other day, DH came across a little snake taking a break on a branch in a tree.
It ran when we tried to touch it. We see one of these in varying sizes about once a year or so. Last year, it was on Bugaboo’s birthday and it was on the deck. It wasn’t even as big as this one. Cricket and Bugaboo would love to keep one but I think we have plenty as it is.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 and is filed under Children, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
The lovely little woodpecker did not make it through the night. He seemed so much better yesterday afternoon. I know it’s nature’s way, that if all the young born each year lived we’d be overrun. But it’s hard to see your children try so hard and it not work out.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 and is filed under Children, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
Yesterday, a little baby woodpecker fell from its nest 30 ft up in the tree. There’s no way we can get it up there. So, we now have a baby woodpecker with the two kittens, and the two guinea pigs and dog we had before all this started. Did I mention we are working on a chicken coop. Cricket also found an egg while fishing. Not sure if it’s a duck egg or what. I was just sitting on the dock down at the pond.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 and is filed under wildlife.
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Yesterday was a day for a lot of work around the old homestead that has not been getting done with all the shooting related stuff we’ve been doing. With all this rain, the mosquitoes were getting awful. So, we spent a lot of the day cleaning the woods of extra brush. This helps by eliminating places for mosquitoes to spend time hiding the in the shade during the heat of the day. Also eliminates places for a lot of creatures to hide. Since Alabama is know for a number of nasty poisonous creatures, this is a good thing. The only one we saw yesterday was a huge black widow spider. She was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen and we’ve had more than our fair share around our place. For a period of about five years, you could not leave anything lying around for more than about 48 hours without finding a black widow in it. This was rough because this was when Cricket was little. We had toys all over. Picking them up didn’t help much unless we brought them all in. So, each day, I’d have to check everything in the yard. Kick it over, etc.
Anyway, we got a lot of work done yesterday. We also got the pool put up. It’s still not full but it’s getting there. Cricket and Bugaboo spent a fair amount of time cooling off in it. Yesterday was probably the warmest day we’ve had so far. It got to about 92*F. Not bad for the last day of May in Alabama.
While cleaning out a bush with me, Bugaboo found a nest. Upon inspection, she found a walking stick in the nest. A very tiny walking stick.
That is Bugaboo’s hand. She’s 8. (Though she is quick to tell you she’ll be 9 in two weeks.) She kept it long enough to show Daddy then let it crawl back in the nest and put the nest in some brush we weren’t going to be bothering this go round.
Sometimes it’s hard to look at cleaning out all that brush. Woodland Sunflowers are blooming now. Luckily, we left a lot of them.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 and is filed under Children, Gardening, Life, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
Thursday was a very busy day at work. It was also the last day of school. And . . . we had to finish getting the camper and truck packed. We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Things were moving along until I look out the camper window. Something black is slinking through the grass in front of the house. I comment to DH that there’s the mama cat that it was the black one we’ve seen. He says it’s too little. He heads out and sure enough, it’s not the mama. It’s another kitten. He was not happy to be seen and much less happy to be picked up. It took two barbeque gloves to keep from being mauled. He was all hiss, teeth and nails. He’s not solid black. He has a white V on his tummy and his coat is tone on tone with the black looking like tiger stripes on dark charcoal. We put him in a cage and called my parents because we could not take a wild cat on our trip. They ended up keeping both kittens. By the time we got home last night, they were friends and, while the little guy is skittish, you can hold and love on him.
The little girl’s name is Bullet. I suggested WC for wild child for the little brother but that didn’t fly. We are still working on a name. Needless to say, after our adventure with the kitten, we were up very late Thursday night finishing stuff. We were up at 5 a.m. to leave for our trip on Friday. More on that adventure later.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Life, Work, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)