Life – Page 27 – Five Acres with a View

Worst Day of the Winter Award

The Worst Day of the Winter award goes to this morning with its blizzard conditions. Lily was visibly shivering and wet when I went out to the barn to feed. I felt more exasperation than pity since she was standing out in the storm, but had to find a wool cooler and blanket for her anyway after I chased Smoke out of her stall and put her in it. (The barn stalls are open except for when I actually feed the horses their concentrate.) She looked much more comfortable once I got her blanket on her, using the cooler as a liner.

The storm is blowing from the north, so Smoke’s stall in the old shed was useless as shelter. I ended by putting him in the hay aisle in the new barn to eat his pellets, but had to spend some time first arranging things so he couldn’t get into too much trouble. I left him with plenty of hay, even though he can’t really eat it, in hopes he will be entertained by the hay instead of getting bored and demolishing the hay aisle once he gets done with his concentrate. I decided not to blanket Smoke because, although he was plastered with snow, he looked comfortable and his coat is a lot denser than Lily’s.

It looks like the storm is due to last until tomorrow, unfortunately.

Driving with Jack

I’ve always thought that Jack had a good sense of direction, but this account of his drive to Texas this weekend makes me wonder.

Writing Fix: Random Daily Prompt Generator

The Writing Fix: Random Daily Prompt Generator not only has a random writing prompt generator, but has links to other daily writing prompts.

Bunny Lacing

Everyone over the age of four or so knows how to tie shoes, right? However, a few days ago I learned about Bunny Lacing from Marn at Marn’s Big Adventure. This is a way of tieing the laces on athletic shoes so that the heel is better anchored within the shoe. I tried it, and it works. It isn’t even particularly difficult. (Read down a bit in the entry to find complete illustrated instructions.)

The New Dr. Who

But she’s a girl reviews the new the new Dr. Who and it sounds promising. I was never a big fan, but have enjoyed the occasional episode. She warns that there are spoilers in the review, but I found them to be minor.

Define Thunder Snow

Guess what prompted me to look up the Google definition of thunder snow? Although Google defines it as a winter storm, we seem to encounter it most often in spring here in Colorado.

Too Much Data?

I’ve hankered after a DVD burner for some time. Sunday, Jack installed one in my PC that he had ordered for me as a surprise. I burned a CD using it right away, but had to wait to test out the DVD burning until I picked up some DVD-Rs, which I did yesterday.

Since I was already used to using the K3b application to burn CDs, I was pleased to find that the process was exactly the same to burn DVDs: it just took longer. I usually expect to burn a CD in four or five minutes, and the DVD took about fourteen minutes. What surprised me was how much stuff I have in my /home directory. (For non-Linux users, the /home directory is where all the user files go.) I had more than would fit in 4.2 Gigabytes, which is the amount a DVD will hold. After a little trimming, I was able to back up all my music and digital photo files, as well as my spreadsheets and text files. It just astonishes me that I need a DVD to back up my important files when I can remember the days when all of my data would fit on a 20 meg fixed drive. You know, back when we were using carrier pigeons to exchange email.

I hate Crazy Glue

Since I am the Official Keeper of the Household Adhesives, I have a small stash of Crazy Glue in my office. I seem to be Crazy Glue Challenged, so I rarely use it. Jack doesn’t seem to have the problems that I do with it. Each time I try to crazy glue something, I end up with it all over my fingers, and frequently without even having fixed the item that I was attempting to repair.

This time, my goal was to stick a pin back to a pedometer since the clip had broken. The contents of the tube exploded as I punched a hole in the end. (This may have been a result of the altitude. A lot of things packaged at sea-level expand at 7200 feet.) I frantically wiped the glue off the items on my desk with a paper towel, and transferred a great deal of it to my hands. I then attempted to fix the pin back to the pedometer, and succeeded in gluing the item to the desktop instead. At that point, I gave up, and went and sat in the corner. I would have sucked on my thumb but it was covered with Crazy Glue.

I knew from past experience (lots) that Crazy Glue would wear off in a day or two, as the skin cells shed off my fingers, but decided to use Google and see if there was a quicker way to rid myself of it. At How to Clean Anything, I learned that Crazy Glue can be removed by finger nail polish remover or acetone, its active ingredient. I keep acetone on hand to transfer laser jet printing for my eraser carving, and sure enough, it works like a charm to get rid of that unique dead skin feeling.

I threw away the pedometer after I pried it off the desktop. I can’t face taking its mangled little corpse back for a refund at this point.

The Colorado Quarter

The Colorado Quarter is scheduled to be released in June 2006. I like all of the five finalist designs shown on this page, but “Colorful Colorado” is probably my favorite. (via Colorado Luis.)

Twelve Miles

A few weeks ago, I mentioned to Jack that it would be nice if some Saturday we could take the bikes and check out the Santa Fe Trail. We pass the trail head every time we leave our valley, but I have only walked on it a few times.

We took the bikes in the truck to the Baptist Road trail head, and decided to ride north, toward Monument. I figured we would get to Monument if we were lucky, because it had been a long time since I had been on a bicycle.

The stretch between Baptist Road and Monument is probably one of the least pretty sections of the trail. When we got to Monument, I told Jack I thought I could go a little further. There is a very gradual climb after Monument, but it didn’t seem to be bothering me. After a mile or so, Jack and I realized that we weren’t more than two miles from Palmer Lake. We knew there were several places to eat there, so we decided to press on. The section between Monument and Palmer Lake is quite scenic, and I wished I had brought my camera. Aside from the lake, Palmer Lake has a number of places to eat, many of which seem to be frequented by motorcycle riders.

We ate at a small restaurant called the Depot. We didn’t have anything to lock our bikes with, but they are so old (and in my case, decrepit) that we didn’t worry about leaving them outside tucked out of the way. From the window, we could see the tiny Palmer Lake, which is more mud than water at this point. (Not only is it suffering from the years long drought, but there are evidently engineering problems that are decades old.)

When we left the restaurant, the wind had come up, but it was still fairly pleasant. By the time we got back to Monument it was even windier, and I realized to my chagrin that the trail was flat between Monument and Baptist Road. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except we were cycling into a fifteen to twenty miles per hour wind, and there was no coasting. If I had been in a gym, I would have turned down the intensity on the machine. As it was, I stopped and rested in one of the little shelters provided along the way, just so I could face away from the wind for a few minutes. I was very happy to see our trail head.

Altogether, we cycled about twelve miles today: not much for real cyclists, but good for someone who hasn’t been on a bike in over a year.