All Work and No Play

I am in the middle of a 4 week work stretch of 60 hour weeks.  12 hour shifts plus a 1 1/2 drive each way is leaving little time for anything other than work and sleep.  I feel bad as my daily posts are dwindling down to nothing.  When my posts dwindle down that tells me that I am not living life as I should.  In a couple of weeks things get back to normal thank God.

Today's pic is my micro 4/3's stable.  I started out with the Panasonic G1, then along came the Olympus E-PL1, E-PL2 and finally the OM-D.  The OM-D has completely filled my 'wish list of desires' in a camera and I no longer have any urge for something better.  The original Panasonic was a great camera but I had to have in body stabilization so that prompted my switch to Olympus.  All of the Olympus cameras have been great and I am totally satisfied with the Olympus line.  My lenses are a mishmash consisting of the Panasonic 14/2.5, 20/1.8, 25/1.4, 45-200 zoom, the Olympus 45/1.8 and 14-45 kit lens with wide angle adapter, Nikkor 55/1.8 macro, Minolta 50/1.4 with bellows and last but not least, the Pinwide pinhole lens.   The ability to use just about any lens on the Micro 4/3 cameras, plus the wide quality selection of lenses, is one of the big reasons I switched to the m4/3 world and I don't regret it for a second.

Pray

A pic for my Democrat friends out there.  This is where the 30 Democrats that live in this county go to church. 

Easter Eggs in September

I am averaging 4 eggs per day now.  The Easter Eggers are starting to lay.  Their eggs are a beautiful blue/green color.

CSN

Crosby, Stills and Nash live in Reno Saturday night.  Picture courtesy of Mongo.  I wish I had been there.

Parathyroid

This is my stepson just before going in for Parathyroid surgery today.  I worked all night last night then spent all day at the surgical center so I am whipped.  He went in about 10am and got out at 6pm.  Everything went fine and he is complaining of neck pain right now.  I am going to bed.

Karma

Work has taken over my life for three days which caused a little delay in my story.

Once upon a time there was a prince named Sir Patrick.  Sir Patrick was due to take a long voyage to far away lands (England) in less than a fortnight.  He had all of his papers in line for said voyage.  Before leaving on this voyage Sir Patrick decided to visit Sir Thomas, brave night of the Southern Lands.  Sir Thomas was going to introduce Sir Patrick to a new weapons system that uses iron rods with holes through them and small cylinders encasing a grey powder and a lead ball.

While visiting Sir Thomas, and after practicing with the new weapons which made a terrible roar when a small lever was pulled, the two brave Knights decided to return to the castle of Sir Thomas.  While riding down the road Sir Patrick suddenly slapped his thigh saying, "Thou'st mosquitos are very aggressive.  Slapping this one left a huge blood spot on my leggings."  Back at the castle Sir Patrick put his leggings in the washing tub.  After some time he pulled his leggings out of the wash.  Sir Thomas was then met with a terrible lamentation from Sir Patrick.  It seems that Sir Patrick was carrying his travel papers (passport) in his leggings and that the papers were completely ruined by the wash.  Sir Patrick then sent riders to all ends of the kingdom to ascertain if it would be possible to replace the papers before the upcoming voyage.  The riders returned.  Yea, they said, it can be done but only at great expense.  Rush replacement service will be over 500 gold pieces and will require an inordinate amount of substantiating paperwork.  Sir Patrick then sent messengers to his parents, the King and Queen of York, to ask that they supply some of this paperwork.  The riders returned saying that the King and Queen were displeased at the Knight's careless actions but that they would help out.  Sir Patrick returned home and today is at the head of the governmental offices attempting to get replacement travel papers from the bureaucratic quagmire of the Capital.

Wish brave Sir Patrick the Best of Luck.

The moral of the story.  Don't forget Karma.  The killing of the mosquito sent negative reverberations through Patrick's world which resulted in the destruction of his passport and the cost of many dollars.

The first picture is Sir Patrick at his Castle in York
The second picture is the mosquito that started it all
The third picture is Sir Patrick and his messengers trying to figure out how to replace his papers

Mosquito

Because of one mosquito, this man (not me) is having to spend $500 to get a rush replacement Passport.  More to this story tomorrow.

Breakfast

My first meal from my new influx of eggs.  Yum, yum!  I got three eggs today so three of the eight chickens are now laying.  I can definitively answer the question, 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?'.  The answer for me is the chicken.  No more chicken or egg posts for a while I promise.  I have been so excited that I am actually getting eggs that aren't from the store, I have been overdoing it.

Prayer

My Granddaughter, Elizabeth Carson, who was at 8 months gestation, was stillborn yesterday evening in Houston, Texas.  Please say a prayer for her.

Fall!

Like somebody throwing a light switch, we seem to have moved into fall.  It was hot and rainy every day then yesterday it was cool and dry with a north wind blowing.  Same for today.  Absolutely beautiful weather.  This is a portrait of one of my hens.  I still only have one hen laying an egg a day.  The others should start any time now.  I am getting ready to fry up a couple of the eggs and some bacon for dinner tonight.

Killer Stairs

For the first time in my life, I fell down some stairs.  With all the rain we have had this summer a coating of moss and mildew is trying to grow on everything.  I was going out to check for eggs this morning, threw on some flip flops and opened the screen door.  When my flip flops hit that green moss on the edge of the carpet which was wet from all the rain last night, out went my foot.  I fell on my ass then proceeded to bounce down every step to the bottom step.  It might have been hilarious if it was me watching the event and not being the star of the show.  I thought I was dead for a second.  My butt was on fire, fingers on my left hand felt broken from me trying to grab something on the way down and both heels scraped the concrete.  The sad part is that as I hit the bottom I started looking around to see if somebody had seen me being 'uncool'.  Those stairs and rails are next on the painting list.  I am going to put some kind of non-skid surface down so that doesn't happen again.

Painting

I amazingly managed to get most of the garage and chicken coop painted today even though I was really chancing it.  All morning seabreeze storms were rolling by and there I was painting like and idiot while tempting the Gods.  Those storms settled down but now there is a line of thunderstorms moving in from the west which means heavy rains just like yesterday and almost every other day for the last several months.

Key Lime

I absolutely love Key Lime pies and this place down in Beaufort, NC, makes one of the best.

Today's Egg Hunt

Well, I heard the squawking again today about 11am so I went out to start hunting.  First looked out in the run where she has been laying in the sand.  Nope, not there.  Then I went into the coop and started looking.  Anything in the custom laying boxes I built for them?  Nope.  I then looked behind a bag of bedding pellets and there it was on the floor in the corner.  When they are all laying maybe some of them will use my nest boxes but then, maybe not.  I spent all day today painting the garage and the chicken coop and guess what?  It is storming and pouring rain right now which is about 3 hours after I finished painting.  I sure hope it hasn't messed up any of my paint job.

More Eggs

I am up to 5 eggs now, and all from one chicken as best as I can tell.  I'm going to be swimming in eggs as soon as all eight chickens are laying.  I find the whole process amazing.  I can't believe I am getting daily eggs from a bunch of wacky chickens.  It's like a daily easter egg hunt with me going out mid-day to hunt around the coop and run for eggs.  I know now when a hen is laying by the sounds they make.  She will make several long squawks when laying the egg followed by cackles from the rest of the hens like they are giving their support or approval or something.  When they are all laying it is going to sound like a chicken chorus out there.

"Houston, we have eggs"

I got my first two eggs today which were laid by one of my three Buff Orpingtons (the gold colored chickens).  It didn't even use my fancy egg laying box inside of the coop.  It just found a corner in the sand out in the run.  Another one of the chickens is inside the coop rustling around in a corner so it is probably about to lay, again, disregarding my nesting boxes.  My feelings are hurt.

Land of Skittles

Isn't that what is at the end of a rainbow?  It's either skittles or a pot of gold.  It rained all day here again today and this double rainbow appeared just before sundown.  I would have gone out to look for the treasure but it was raining and I didn't want to get wet.

This is a Spider?

I have been seeing these little spiders for years out here and they are really strange looking.  They are real little, about the size of a large pencil eraser, and they look like a crab with a pointy shell.  Well, I finally decided to look on the internet and they are called 'spiny orb weaver' spiders.