Wayne's Ramblings

And On We Go

2006-03-18T02:36:00.001-05:00

Boy! A lot has been happening since I wrote last.

Our Alpaca have settled in nicely and outside of Majorette spitting at me occasionally we are getting along just fine. I have been breeding animals of one kind or another for over forty years and have never came across animals like these camalids. They are at the same time gentle and calm or aggressive and fierce depending on the situation. Fencing is geared more to keeping others out than the alpacas in. They do not bother the fence or gates but are content to stay behind the flimsiest of restraints. If they perceive a threat from another animal (dog, fox, raccoon or barn cat) they line up facing the threat and stamp their feet, if provoked further they attack. I no longer have a problem with raccoon in my barn.

We plan to take Mikala to the “Alpaca Ontario” show in Orangeville Ont. On April 7 – 9. This has made it a requirement that we halter train her and clean her up. “Honest! I didn’t know there was burdock in the paddock” whined the husband to his glaring wife. After several days we had most of the burs and straw picked out of some of the finest fleece I have ever seen. -----Then came the humidity.---- The floors in the alpaca’s part of our barn became wet. No I do not mean damp, I mean water on the floor wet. To counter this I put three bales of straw in pens that normally require only one bale. This solved most of our problem. I say most of the problem because Mikala started rolling in the one stall pushing the straw away until she was down to bare floor. This bare area got wet again and as Mikala rolled on this spot the dampness and dirt transferred to her fleece. Now this white animal was not only damp but also her color had changed to a dingy gray, almost black in places, and now had straw worked into the fleece we had just picked all of the burs out of.

I was talking to another breeder who has a similar problem with one of her show prospects. We think that we should see if we could get the show committee to open a new class. Along with black, white, tan, etc. we could have a class called mud. I’ll bet that every owner of a white animal would be for it.

I have also finally finished a website featuring the alpacas. It is a little short on content right now but I will be adding information and stories as events transpire and I learn about these unique animals. To this end I will be taking photos at the show and adding them, along with a right up, to the website shortly after the show weekend.

And so it goes chasing the dream.

The Begining

2005-12-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

On Saturday December 10, 2005 our first Alpacas arrived at Wild Rose Alpacas. The girls, as I soon started calling them, were a white Peruvian born female, Majorette, her 2005 daughter, Mikala, also white and a black two year old, Velvet.

Heather and Norris of Brier Run Alpacas delivered the girls for us. Due to a recent snow fall we where unable to get the truck and trailer any place close to the barn. No problem! We’ll just put the halters on the animals and lead them to their new home.

There was no problem putting the halters on, in fact Majorette didn’t even stand up when Norris haltered her. My wife Calista chose to lead Velvet as she had handled her at Brier Run when we visited there. I would take Mikala and Norris would bring Majorette who was still sitting in the trailer placidly chewing her cud.

Mikala made a little fuss after which she was willing to come along with me; the same was true of Calista’s charge, Velvet. Majorette, on the other hand, saw no reason to leave the trailer or for that matter to even get to her feet. She lay there chewing her cud in spite of Norris pushing on her in an attempt to encourage her to rise.

After a great deal of pushing and prodding this seasoned female finally got to her feet and was pulled and shoved out of the trailer. At this point Majorette must have decided that this was some sort of a slaughterhouse where they tortured you to death as she began screaming for her life. She stepped off of the trailer onto solid ground ---- and immediately lay down again.

Now both Norris and Heather were attempting to get Majorette to her feet. They alternated from Norris pulling on the lead and Heather pushing on the animals rump to rocking the reclining Alpaca back and forth side ways. At one point Norris lifted her clear of the ground and she kept all four legs tight against here belly. All of this tugging and rocking no doubt kept the animal from falling asleep as did her screaming, but had little effect on getting her to stand.

Just about the time that I was considering the front end loader Majorette decided that she would get up and head for the barn following her daughter Mikala and Velvet bringing up the rear. Through the gate with no problem we were half way to the barn when this female of the species plopped down on the ground again.

More pushing and shoving and rocking and giving verbal encouragement and we were again moving to the barn.

Eventually we got all three girls into their new accommodations.

This day I learned some thing. There is more than one way to resist doing that which one does not wish to do. You can buck and jump around like Velvet and Mikala or you can just lie down and passively refuse to budge as Majorette did.

Since bucking and jumping around requires that you use a lot of energy you will eventually tire and give in. Just lying down and not moving requires those who wish you to do something to exert their energy. Perhaps I will try this the next time my wife wants me to do something, just lay down on the couch and not move. It is my opinion that this will last about as long as it takes my wife to get the broom---or a pail of ice water.

Of South America and Knitting

2005-11-07T15:45:00.000-05:00

What possible connection could knitting here in Southwestern Ontario have with South America you might ask? Well they both have south in their name. They also both have a thriving fiber industry. Now the question that likely comes to your mind is; what has all of this have to do with a heritage poultry enthusiast? The answer to that is nothing until yesterday.

To explain all of this we need to go back a few weeks to the Canadian thanksgiving weekend. One of the very few family traditions that my wife and I have is a trip to the agricultural fair in Brigden Ont. While touring the live stock exhibitions my wife spotted a display of Alpaca. For those who are unfamiliar with the Alpaca they are native to the Andes Mountains in South America. Size wise they are a little larger than a dairy goat and are related to the LLama only with a better disposition-less spitting more sneezing. Their dense fiber is harvested, spun and made into soft, warm, high quality clothing.

To shorten the story we were soon talking to the friendly folks who owned this group of interesting animals. Since they were starting to load up to go home and their farm, Brier Run Alpaca, was on our way home arrangments materialized for a stop. After spending the intervening time learning as much as we could about Alpacas, their fiber, husbandry and the industry as a whole, we returned to Brier Run yesterday and purchased our first animals.

We chose two animals, Majorette a Chilean born, bred female and her 2005 daughter Brier Run Mikala (See photo). Mikala is an outstanding animal and is headed for the show ring.

this coming spring.

Having finished the fencing I am now free to start preparing accommodations for our new acquisition, which will be arriving at our farm in about thirty days.

And so it Goes

Chasing The Dream

New furnace and old houses

2005-10-25T12:57:00.000-04:00

We now have our new furnace running. This has excited my wife more than I realized. The other day she told me that she had reported to her fellow employees where she works that her new furnace had actually came on at three thirty in the morning. I have no doubt that it did in fact come on at three thirty in the morning but how did she know, Was she waiting up to check on it? Any way I am glad that we have finally been able to do some up-grades on this old house of ours.

Our house started life as a cheese factory that served some of the early settlers in this area. Moved from the next concession through the farm to its present location on the historic Talbot Line AKA Talbot Trail it continued to serve the community as a cheese factory for many more years.

Some time in the 1800’s a 40 ft. by 80 ft bank barn was added. And a two hundred animal dairy herd called the three hundred acre farm home. This farm has now been split up into fifty-acre lots and I own the home fifty.

The factory was turned into a house and some rooms were added.

The original foundation was made from rocks and boulders, likely removed from the fields, and cemented together. This stone varies in size from a few inches to about four feet in diameter. The newer additions have a concrete block foundation. All of the lumber used in the framing is rough cut and a full two inches thick.

The furnace we removed started out as a coal burner that had been converted to burn oil, with a gravity air flow system and huge delivery pipes. At some point someone had added a blower to the airflow system. This furnace and ductwork, except for some of the cold air return, all had to be removed before we could install the new equipment.

We were looking ahead so we had the parts for central air that go in the furnace installed. Then the gentleman that we were buying the furnace from found an Air conditioning unit that was ordered by another customer but due to a money problem was never installed. I purchased a $4500 unit for $3000.

Our next upgrade is to rewire the entire house.

And so it goes - Chasing the dream.

Of fence heat and magazines

2005-10-06T23:28:00.000-04:00

Good news! We finally have a secure pasture for our cattle. After chasing them hither and yon they are finally confined behind some decent fence some new and some repaired. We are now in the process of putting up new fence around another eight or so acres of former hay field. Next year we will take the first cutting off and then let the cattle graze the rest.

We are not spending all of our money for our animal’s comfort. Today we had workmen in to remove our old furnace. By this time next week we will have a new energy efficient heating system complete with new ductwork.

Now about the interesting stuff: By Tuesday the October issue of the Jubilee Acres news magazine will be sent out to all of the subscribed members. This magazine features articles about different breeds of chickens written recently by Hans L Schippers. Hans lives in Holland and has published many books and articles on poultry. I do an article on the principles of poultry housing and of course there is a My Comments section. To receive your quarterly issue free in your e-mail in box subscribe to day from the link at the bottom of this URL; by the way there are links to several other articles on this page.

And so it goes chasing the dream.

The Great Cattle Hunt

2005-09-15T12:32:00.000-04:00

It is a wonderful time saver to have a creak running through the middle of your cow pasture. The one that divides our gully almost in half has water in it almost all year, even in dry years like we are having this year. This water source does have some drawbacks.

Last Sunday my wife, Calista, and I were mending some fences (no, no, the fence in the cow pasture). Being almost done where the creak enters the front part of the property we let the cows into the pasture. They had gotten through the fence that we had just mended so that is where they headed for first. Seeing us still working on the breach they turned and headed for where the watercourse exited the property. Only slowing down enough to go into the creak they were out of our field and heading for the bush at the back part of the concession.

Off my wife and I went in hot pursuit. One of our Black Angus heifers never went trough the fence and Lucy, having gone through the fence, never took her calf Bullette ( See photo in “Cows And Bullets” below.) into the weeds on the other side. Unfortunately the rest of the cattle were now out of site and in the bush by this time. We took the cattle we had back to the barn and confined them there.

Let me tell you about this bush. It belongs to a city gentleman who wishes to return it to its natural state, this seems to mean to let it grow wild. I have lived on my farm for thirteen years and during that time the bush has been left on it’s own. It is now full of undergrowth consisting of wild rose, wild raspberry, some other kind of bush with long thorns plus lots of stinging nettle. Calista was dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved top; I was a little better off in genes and a t-shirt.

After four hours of literally beating the bushes for the $%&U] cattle we emerged tired and bleeding from the scratches inflicted by the many thorns and not having seen or heard hide, hair or moo of the cattle. It was now five PM and time to take my grandson Peter home to London.

Upon returning home we resumed our search for our wayward bovines with flashlights and a full moon.

This was not the first time that these cattle had escaped. In the past they had always made their way back to the closest gate to the barn, which they consider home. Calista went on foot back through the hay field that borders the pasture and runs beyond it along the edge of the bush. I took the pick up truck down the other side of the hay field. It wasn’t long before my wife hollered that she had spotted three of them coming along the fence to the rear of the barn and heading toward the gate. (No big surprise) I circled around the opposite side of the field with the pick up and soon found three more coming along a ways behind the others. I went back and opened the gate and we soon had these wanderers, plus another group, through the gate and into the barn where we closed them in.

After counting our prisoners three times both my wife and I decided that we were one cow short of the nine we should have had. Our next thought was; Why is there no mooing? Lone cows moo for the heard and all was quiet on the home front.

After feeding the cows we had, off we trudged back out to the hay field to search for our one hold out.

We first checked along the route taken by the first cows to return. I was able to back track them along the edge of the field and through some places grown up with Golden Rod as high as my head and depressions in the ground to step into.

At the very back of our property my wife spotted the reflection of eyes in the beam of her flashlight. Darn the eyes were in the bean field. Well nothing for it, off I go wading through the beans. The eyes disappear immediately. After wading through beans and hay for another hour or so we start to wonder aloud if we had miss counted the animals in the barn. But we did both count them thee times and my wife even knew which one we were missing, Frieda, a yearling heifer was the wayward one. We continued to search.

At midnight or a little after we agreed that there was no point in continuing the search in the dark and I would continue the search in the morning and Calista would go to work.

On our way past he barn we went in to make sure that our Houdini cattle were going to stay put. While there we took a quick count. WHAT DO YOU MEEN THERE ARE NINE COWS HERE? We counted them three times earlier and there were only eight. This can't be. We did see the reflection of eyes in the bean field. Then it dawned on us; we had just spent two hours chasing a dear around the bean field and pasture.

The cattle are still confined to the barn until the fence at the creak is made secure.

Cows and Bullets

2005-08-31T11:18:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

Boy has it been busy around Jubilee Acres lately. Since I last posted to this blog we have taken in over a thousand bales of hay and 200 bales of straw, installed a swimming pool, fixed the hydro supply to the new pool, chased the cows around the front yard, replaced some fence, fixed the hay mower, published an e-magazine, and started work on a web site for a client.

On the up side of things, Lucy our matriarch cow, gave birth to a bull calf. (Bullette's photo on right) Peter, my eleven-year-old grandson, was watching our yearling bull trying to mount one of the cows that was in heat, a job that he was way too short for. Of course Peter asked: “Why is he doing that”? My wife told him that the bull seeks out the cows that are in heat and points them out for us. Peter replied: “O like a heat seeking bullet”. When Lucy’s calf turned out to be a bull we explained to Peter that he would be next years bull even though right now he is so tinny. Upon hearing this Peter promptly named Lucy’s calf “Bullette”.

I am having a limited time special for anyone wanting a web site built. For details please visit, Wordsmith On Line.

Also keep in mind that a new issue of the
Jubilee Acres e-magazine will be sent out the first week of October. For those of you that have not subscribed to this on line publication you may sign up for your free subscription at the Jubilee Acres web site.

And so it goes Chasing The Dream.

Special Announcement!

2005-06-02T11:16:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

I have a special announcement to make:

Starting with the next issue of the Jubilee Acres E-magazine I will be featuring articles about different breeds of poultry. So what, you may say, you already have articles about different chicken breeds. These articles are authored by Hans L Schippers. Mr. Schippers is a world-renowned poultry authority and author. Members of he UN have consulted him concerning poultry matters.

The next issue of the magazine will be sent out in the next few days but there is still enough time for you to subscribe. To request your copy go to this URL and fill out the form:

And so it goes Chasing The Dream.

A Problem Solved

2005-05-28T13:15:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

For the past several weeks I have been aware that there was something in my barns hayloft that did not belong there.

I have two cats that more or less live in the hayloft and we feed them a little cat kibble each day especially in the winter when the hunting is poor. In return they keep the rodent numbers under control. Lately (the past 3 or 4 weeks) some thing has been helping themselves to the bag of kibble and eating a tremendous amount of it. I am also missing a bantam hen.

Since that in the past when this sort of thing has happened it was due to Raccoons moving in I started my usual search and destroy tactics. I brought my two German Shepherd dogs to the loft with me. They immediately became excited and started searching all over, noses to the ground. If a Raccoon is present this will get him climbing up the walls to the beam that runs length wise down the peak of the barn. Once on this beam they feel safe and will sit there until they are sure it is safe to come down. This gives me time to go lock the dogs up and get my gun. The rest as they say is history, at least for the Raccoon.

The dogs never failed to get excited and go into search and destroy mode but no Raccoon materialized. Another strange thing is that the cats never moved out as they had in the past when a Raccoon moved in.

Three evenings ago I again went to the loft with the dogs. Right off they started searching but still did not scare up a Raccoon. Then Sassy my female zeroed in on a pile of stuff that my son had stored in the loft. Then Blacky my male zeroed in on the same pile. Soon both dogs were in attack mode. Fearing that they had cornered one of the barn cats but not wanting to scare them off if they had cornered my thief I approached very slowly. They defiantly had some grayish colored animal at their mercy, and then I spotted the long white snout of an Opossum. By this time not only were the barn cats involved but two of my house cats had joined the melee. It seems that no one liked this outsider. All of a sudden to my surprise one of the cats darted out with something dangling from its mouth, then another cat did the same. Moving in closer I seen that the Opossum had young.. I called the dogs off and left the barn. All of the cats had disappeared to enjoy their meals.

I put the dogs back in their run and returned to the barn to find-----nothing. The Opossum had fooled me into thinking she was dead and had escaped. She has not however come back.

I have never lived in a place that had more predators then my present location. I have killed innumerable Raccoons, at least twenty-five, and two or three Opossums since I moved here twelve years ago. Short of building Fort Knox is there a solution to this problem or am I doomed to continual cycle of search and destroy?

And so it goes, Chasing The Dream

O Farm Auctions

2005-05-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

May is here, the grass is growing, and the weather is now warm enough to work outside in your t-shirt.

The tree that blew down in the yard has been cut into bite-sized pieces. After we cut the branches up we cut the trunk in half. This left us with two logs between eighteen inches to two feet across and eight feet long. These were chained be hind the tractor and pulled out of the yard. I will drag them to the crest of the hill behind the barn where they will provide a seating place for us to sit and smell the - ah - ?roses?

We have decided to take our own hay off this year. Last year we contracted the job out to a local farmer. He did a relatively good job but since I had little control over the timing of the cutting it was rained on and the hay was of low quality. The cost of contracting is also high; we calculate that we will be able to hire two teenagers to assist in harvesting at less cost than contracting the work out.

I have purchased a new hay mower so I am busy getting it and the baler set up and running good so we won’t be held up once we go to the field.

The mower was purchased at an auction. I love farm auction sales. At one sale I talked to many people on such subjects as the price of beef cattle, the condition of the various pieces of equipment in the sale, politics, the economy, as well as many other topics. These conversations are made interesting because at a farm auction there are people not only from the immediate area, but also from far and wide. The crowd will be made up mostly of farmers but will include, equipment dealers, antique dealers, house wives, factory workers, in short a good cross section of the entire population all looking for that elusive bargain.

We had another big thunderstorm last night. After going to London to pick up my grandson we returned through dust storm and rain to find that our hydro was not working. Having lived in Ontario all of our lives my wife and we have plenty of candles and flashlights on hand. Since there is little that you can do in the dark we went to bed early.

And so it goes: Chasing the Dream.

The Importance of Following Your Own Advice.

2005-04-29T13:51:00.000-04:00

Hi Again:

I opened my last post to this blog by saying that spring is here. That was on April 5^th. Now it is April 29^th and it seems as though my prediction was accurate. Last weekend we had a three-day storm, rain, snow and then more rain and high winds all the way through. The snow is gone but there is still water lying in the fields a week after the storm. This is typical spring weather for this part of the country, we have a saying here that goes like this: If you don’t like the weather, just be patient for a few minutes, it will change for you.

You know these computers are wonderful things; one click and you can wipe out weeks of work. The other day I was practicing with a new piece of software that changes text documents into PDF files. I selected a file to be converted, clicked the appropriate button and a window popped up asking if I wanted to over right the file. This seemed like a good idea at the time so “click on yes” and all done. Go to the original file and it is empty, so no problem I go to the PDF file and open it. WHAT DO YOU MEEN EMPTY! That was the file with the work I had done on my new book “Poultry Housing”, it can’t be gone just like that. I mean I only clicked once-where’s the warning box that says you are about to do something stupid and do you really want to continue. There should be a book “Clicking For Dummies”. My wife sympathized with me thusly; Aren’t you the one that is always hounding me to back up all files? You need a book called “Clicking For Dummies”.

I never did retrieve the file and had to start over but am now making good head way in duplicate.

I have also been experimenting with a program to create E-Books. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these they are computer files that when opened allow you to read the contents on your monitor much the same way as you read a regular book. When I master this program I will use it to publish both of my books; “Feeding Poultry” and “Poultry Housing”. I can then place these two books on a CD for distribution. In this way I will be able to make both books available at a very reasonable price because I will not have to pay for copying and binding. The best part is that I will be able to make these E-Books self extracting files so the user will not need to have any special programming to read them.

And so it goes “Chasing The Dream”.

Updates Complete

2005-04-05T12:04:00.000-04:00

April 5, 2005 and spring has sprung

What a great time of year, new life is springing all around us here in the northern hemisphere. Perhaps that is why it is called spring.

Spring came to my part of the world in the following order. First: a great huge flock of migrating White Swans landed in the cornfields of the area. So many birds that it looked as though the ground was covered with snow. Second: I spotted my first robin of the season. The return of the robins is a sure sign that winter is over and spring like weather is at hand. Third: Last weekend we had a wind, rain and snowstorm that lasted for three days. This part of Ontario is famous for these spring storms. This on started on Friday afternoon with strong winds. By nightfall the rain had started. On Saturday the temperature dropped, the rain turned to snow and the wind neared gale force velocity. By Saturday night the snow had stopped but the wind continued unabated all through Sunday. Sunday afternoon a tree just outside of my office window gave up its fight with the wind and came crashing down. Fortunately it landed in an open spot so did no other damage.

Both my Wordsmith and Jubilee Acres web sites have been updated. I changed the information on the front page of Wordsmith and gave it a new background. Jubilee Acres now has a completely new look and a better navigation set up. The rabbit site has a tremendous amount of new information in the form of articles. All of the graphics on both sites except for the Jubilee Acres title banner, which was created be Mystical Danes Graphics, are my own creations.

And so it goes chasing the dream.

Up dates coming.

2005-03-13T11:13:00.000-05:00

It appears that at least for now I will be posting to my blog about once a week. This frequency seems to fit my life style the best.

I have finished the upgrade to Jubilee Acres so it will be ready for the announcement in the first week of April. I may make the announcement in two stages-one stage for the new look and the other for the new information. I would do this for two reasons: There is a lot of new information going on the rabbit part of the site, but very little on the poultry part. The new look will affect all three parts of the site.

I think I will announce the new look to everyone first and then announce the new information to the rabbit folks after the traffic slows down again. If done this way I will have an increase in traffic that stretches over a longer period of time.

My Wordsmith site has now had over 1000 hits and is still increasing. I am taking yet another course about web design so you may expect some new updates to this site very soon.

And on we go “Chasing the Dream”

Chasing the Dream

2005-03-06T10:04:00.000-05:00

It’s been over a week since I last posted to this blog but I see no evidence that anyone is reading it yet so no problem.

I’ve had a busy week. The upgrade to Jubilee Acres is still on going. I have received permission to use the information formally on the Busy Bunny web site for Jubilee Acres. This will add a tremendous amount of quality information and some photos to the rabbit part of my site. I think that I will announce the upgrade and then add the new information as part of the next up grade, as it will take me quite a bit of time to reorganize the info so that it dovetails into the rest of my site.

The next Jubilee Acres E-magazine will be sent out the first of April. I am considering increasing the frequency of the issues to every other month. This would require more work on my part but I am getting good results from its publication. I’ll just need to organize my time better. The last time I organized my time I had time to spare so this will likely be a good thing.

And on we go “Chasing the Dream”

Feb. 24, 2005 Site updates and Antiques.

2005-02-24T01:25:00.000-05:00

Hi Again:
I see that no one has left any comments so I guess that every one must either like what I have to say or no one is reading it. No matter, I am going to keep righting anyway.

I finished an upgrade to my
Wordsmith On Line site. It now has a new look, which I made totally by my self. The top banner is yet to be changed and I will be making some new banners for people who wish to link to Wordsmith.

Now I am working on my Jubilee Acres site. I have a new background and a complete new lay out for the pages. Those of you who are regular visitors to
Jubilee Acres will still know where you are but will likely enjoy being there a little more.

I was watching the Canadian Antique Road Show on TV last evening and got to thinking (always dangerous). I have several antique dishes, some over a hundred years old, that were part of my parent’s estate. These pieces are sitting in a china cabinet and some times come out for an hour or so at Christmas. What a shame! Some of these are works of art. So I said to my self, Self! Why don’t you get your digital camera, which is sitting on your desk doing nothing, and take pictures of these wonderful things, then make a web page for them to be displayed on.

I also have a plaque that was given to all of the Public Schools in Ontario. It is wood with a brass plate with an inscription. According to the inscription the brass plate is made from some brass that was part of Lord Nelson's ship at the battle of Trafalgar. This will also go on the web page.

This should keep me busy for a while but I will put links to this new page on all of my web pages and of course in this Blog.

Ramblings for Feb. 18, 2005

2005-02-18T15:29:00.000-05:00

It seems that I have impressed Lisa and Gary Cree of Cree Farms in Washington State. In January I built a
web site for them and since then they have been telling every one how much they like it and how easy I am to work with etc. They then ordered a booklet “Feeding Poultry” which I wrote and are now telling every one about it. THANK YOU Lisa and Gary.

I managed to run myself out of propane last night and since we depend on this gas for most of our heat it got a little cold in the house. We have a kerosene heater but it is not any were near big enough to heat the entire house.

A Mennonite friend of mine once told me that her grandmother once told her that the biggest cause of divorce was central heating. Her theory was that if the house cooled down during the night the man and wife would have to cuddle up to keep warm. She said that there was no way you could stay angry with some one with whom you were sharing body heat. Maybe it is a good thing to run out of fuel once in awhile although I don’t believe I will make a habit of it.

Rambling on I’m Wayne.

My Trip To Computer Repair

2005-02-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

Just to keep the record straight this adventure I am about to describe happened seven or eight years ago. I am no longer quite so naive, I am at times still a little slow on the uptake however.

I was freshly retired from my job with a big three-auto maker where I had my first experiences as a computer user. My wife and I purchased our first personal confuser, an IBM clone with an MMX processor, a 28 K modem, a 500-mega bite hard drive and a whopping 35 Megs of ram, which according to Bill Gates, was all anyone would ever need, this baby was top of the line. Our operating system was the most modern available “Windows 95”. I think it was the next week that the first Pentium processors arrived on the scene and shortly after “Windows 98” arrived making our machine obsolete. We hurried home and hooked our new acquisition to a phone line, called a local ISP and started surfing.

Within a month of purchasing this wonderful machine it started acting funny. Assuming that something had gone wrong with its innards my wife and I loaded it up and headed back to the store where it had come from.

The man in their tech department hooked it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and inserted a CD into the little drawer. After a few minutes he asked us what security we had to protect our computer. I told him that I had two German Shepherds on the farm. He said that this was not the kind of security that he was talking about. Well! The dogs had always done a good job for me and I had no intention of paying him to protect the computer.

Now he really went off the deep end as he looked at the monitor screen. He very seriously proclaimed that our computer had caught a virus. Well just how dumb did this guy think I was? “A virus EH” I said in my best Canadian. But what he heck I figured I would play along with him and see how far this idiocy would go. I put the blame right back on the store, after all it was them that sold me this thing with no resistance to disease and they were going to have to pay for the antibiotics. For some reason the tech guy thought this was humorous. He then called to his buddy in the back to come out as they had another one like last week. I guess they must have a lot of trouble with their sickly computers.

He then told me that it wasn’t the kind of virus that could be cured with medicine but he would have to scrub the hard drive to get rid of it. After this he started talking about what he wanted to do with the motherboards, busses, ports, faster drivers, virus protection and such like.

I then asked him what his personal plans had to do with my computer. For some reason this prompted him to call all of the other staff into the tech department while the other techy went to the door and called people in off of the street. Their shoulders were shaking like they were stifling laughter.

I told them that if they really meant to do what they were talking about I would be glad to be the driver and take them down to the docks on the lake and even help them build the shelters to protect folks waiting for mass transit so that they wouldn’t be catching a cold. I did mention however that if they were to buy their own lumber and leave their mother's boards alone I wouldn’t need to be such a fast driver. All I wanted in return was for him to cure my computer of this terrible disease.

At this point in the conversation my wife for some reason hauled off and gave me a hard kick in the shinbone. Now as I said earlier I’m a little slow on the uptake but when my wife kicks me in the shinbone I shut right up. Yep! Works every time, no more conversation from me.

To shorten this account of a learning experience, my wife took over and we were soon on our way with a healthy computer equipped with what was at that time the latest anti-virus program.

Now you may ask: is this all absolutely true? Well yes---and no. The trip to the shop did take place and most of the technical jargon had to be explained to me. I did embellish the details a bit.

The virus was called “Happy New Year 1998’, you got to look at some fireworks as the blasted thing infected your machine.

Ramblings for Feb. 15, 2005

2005-02-15T02:59:00.000-05:00

Now that I have introduced myself it is time to reveal some of what I do to fend off boredom.

I find that building web sites a very interesting pastime. I do not believe that one can ever learn all there is to know about this amazing occupation. The technology is advancing so rapidly that one cannot begin to keep up with it. There is a whole alphabet of acronyms to describe all of the new languages, applications and software programs used to make web sites ever more useful and interesting.

I have a fairly good grasp of html, am literate in style sheets and am just beginning to learn Java Script. There is no danger of my brain becoming stagnated as long as there is some new way to improve a web site’s functionality.

Right now I have just finished building a web site for
Cree Farms I have two sites of my own,
Jubilee Acres and

Wordsmith On Line. In addition to this I have one booklet in publication and another one on the way and I also author a quarterly
E-Magazine.

Now to explain what some of this does; The Jubilee Acres site is about poultry Rabbits and our Cattle.

The Wordsmith On Line site has information about my site building. The
two booklets are about poultry as is the E-Magazine.

In my next entry to this blog I plan to describe my first visit to the dreaded computer repair shop. I think you will find the problems of a novice personal confuser owner humorously entertaining. .

Ramblings for Feb 13 2005

2005-02-13T23:01:00.000-05:00

I had to lay off over the weekend in order to spend some time with my family.

My 11-year-old grandson (Peter) was out to our farm for the weekend. He has expressed an interest in learning html so I started to teach him.

Our cattle are doing OK but the winter has taken a lot out of them. We’ve had trouble getting them in calf for the last year. Because of this my wife and I have decided to keep the Red Angus bull calf that was born on our farm last summer until next fall by which time he should have bred all of cows. Once the two Black Angus heifers are in calf and checked by the vet they will be offered for sale and the money used to build more fences. More fencing will mean more pasture and in turn means a larger herd. Hopefully the American boarder will soon be opened for our cattle and our prices will go up enough so that we can turn a profit. The last bovine we sold weighed over 2000 lbs and brought just a little over $300.

The Crees had me do an update to their web site. They add the places & dates for some more poultry shows in the American northwest You may visit their site at http://creefarm.fateback.com

Welcome

2005-02-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

Hi and welcome to my blog.

It is my intention to keep my friends and clients, as well as complete strangers, informed, entertained and amused.

On these pages you will find information about a miraide of subjects two of my favorites being the raising of poultry and web design. You the reader may also post your comments and thoughts for every one to enjoy. All outside posts must be approved my me before thay are posted to the blog so you spamers and flamers can go bother some one else. I will be adding more to this introduction later to-day but need to go for now as my wife will soon be home from work and I have to feed her.