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I agree completely, Foxtower. It makes no sense. It took me a couple of episodes to really get into it, but then I was hooked.

Where'd you get the ebony? I've never worked with it. Looks like a nice wood to work with from the few bits I've seen, though. Hard, but shines up nice. Have you ever worked with Osage Orange (hedge apple) or Black locust? They're both nice & hard, especially the former. It turns, sands down wonderfully, & shines up with just a bit of wax. Gets a really pretty burnt orange as it ages.

I LOVE the Twilight Zone - the originals, not the new ones - & the Star Treks. Unfortunately, I've seen them a bit too often.

Hey Jim! Most of the Star Trek/ Twilight Zones I haven't seen for years and don't remember so it's all new to me!

When I was making crafts I picked up a variety of woods from a specialty supply company in Portland Maine. Ebony is very dense and very oily. I don't remember all the names of the woods now, but I've worked with orange wood (south american with toxic dust!) zebrawood and purple wood as well as others. I used to do little critters with gem stone eyes and jewelry from wood and stones.

Today it was sunny but the tractor paint I used for the implements wouldn't dry so I only got partway done with painting.

For fun I slapped together a couple bookends, walnut with a steel gear on one and a steel rod with cool designs from inside a hydraulic pump on another.

Add them to the growing pile of stuff that needs painting!

I guess I've seen them often enough over the years & liked them well enough that they're seared into my brain. Some of my fondest, early memories were sitting with my father watching TZ, Star Trek, & the Outer Limits.

I've seen a lot of those exotic woods, but never worked with them. They're pricey! And I found that we have some really pretty woods here at home, so couldn't justify spending the money on them. I also don't want to promote cutting down the rain forest.

The bookends sound neat. You'll get a chance to paint come spring.

Boy were they pricey! I think african Ebony was something like $45 a board foot. I only ever bought scraps of the exotic stuff (orange was padauk), not wanting to encourage rain forest destruction either, but at the same time learning to appreciate exotic woods.

Cloudy and 30 today so the greenhouse never got over 47, but I finished the parts I'd started anyway. Waiting till Spring is no fun... by then I'll be so busy painting will be extra work! Hopefullly next suny day I'll tackle another item on the pile... I only have room for one color at time in the greenhouse, but I'm making progress.

Ouch! That's a lot. Almost $100 to make a decent bowl. One of the other things I hate is that I can never find decent sizes. I get spoiled with local lumber since I can get it most any size I want, make it if I can't buy it.

Local lumber is the way to go! Just find some nice burls....

I had to stop by the feed store on the way home from work & get another water tub heater. The girls let the tub get a bit too low yesterday & the boys played with the other one & broke it. So last night I had to put in the original plug.

Tonight I went out to put it in & everyone was way out in the north field. I turned my back for a minute & the fat goats suddenly appeared. I hope the heater is OK, because I had the receipt stuck in the box & Buttercup ate it. While I was trying to chase her down, Rosie bit the corner of the box & took off with it. By the time I gave up on the receipt & got the box back from Rosie, the horses arrived to help me.

Cutter proceeded to play with the cord of the old heater, jerking it around. I gave up, retreated with my tools & parts into the feed room. Then I called into the house for a referee. With Erin to keep them at bay, I managed to get the heater replaced in just a few minutes.

Never a dull moment!
:-)

My farm critters are much better behaved... (see welding) ,,though probably not as exciting!

Oh, these guys are a laugh a minute, let me tell you. Goat chops were sounding good.
;-)

I've never had goats (plural) although there was one here on the farm when I arrived, but not for long. Chewed the tail off one of my sale yearlings and found another home, promptly!

However, husband has a very funny story he tells about a friend of his who bought half a dozen fainting goats when they were the current fad ... unfortunately they were out in the pasture when a thunderstorm blew through.

Friend discovered that fainting goats 'fainted' every time it thundered ... even when it was pouring rain.

There are quite a few of the fainting goats available locally on Craig's List. I don't see the attraction. It seems creepy to me to breed for something like that.

I keep worrying about our goats chewing on tails. They do occasionally nibble, but I think Marg has trained them not to. Goats don't seem to be particularly trainable, but it gets Marg pretty excited when they do & not in a good way.

I had friends in MT that had Nubians and they were lovely animals ... I've always said if I got a goat for myself it would be a Nubian. For one thing, as an artist, those faces have always fascinated me!

I also had neighbors that had a couple of milk goats and I used to milk for them if they had to be gone to a weekend horse show. They were never a problem and I quite liked them, but I've always had so many other projects going, it wasn't something I wanted to add to the mix.

One nice thing about Nubians is they don't have horns. Mine are Kinder, a Nubian/Pygmy cross. Horns follow the female line, so ours are hornless, but about the size of a large Pygmy - 2'. Nubians are closer to 3'.

The gal we bought them from hadn't been worried about them breeding because of the size difference. Her buck was a small Pygmy, half the size of the doe. Lust will find a way, though. I guess he stood on a hay bale or she laid down.

Molly & Amber got into it again. Molly wound up at the vets tonight to get stitches on the inside of her back thigh. It's good she went as the wound was in a bad place & the skin tore more. Amber probably should have gone to get the side of her face stitched. We'll see what it looks like in the morning. It was hard to see the extent of the damage.

Erin wasn't planning on taking the dogs down with her tomorrow, but this changes things. These two are going to kill each other. Why, after all this time, is beyond me. Unfortunately, this puts a real damper on my offer to a friend at work.

Neal & his wife had a custom house built - their dream home - but it had water issues due to poor construction & they've been after the builder since day 1. Now it has mold really bad, so has been condemned. They're living in the one bedroom apartment he keeps in Louisville where he stays for the 3 days he works with us. It doesn't allow pets & they have an 11 year old Chow/Retriever mix dog. I wanted the dog to stay here for a few weeks until they can get out of the current lease & into a new & bigger place. With Amber being weird, I don't guess that's going to happen. Marg wasn't hot on the idea anyway. An 85 lb dog is a pain, of course.

Worse yet, Erin didn't get a very good night's sleep with the cone-head & she's moving to Nashville today. We're not sure if we're loading the truck or the trailer. The weather is iffy, but driving the trailer through Nashville will suck. She was just going to take the cats down, but now the dogs have to go, too.
:-(

While I had a local builder build the shell of my house, thank goodness I did the rest including waterproofing the basement. It did take till this year to finally get the leaky roof fixed where the builder just totally got the chimney flashing wrong.

Seems like builders just want to make a quick buck these days.. no pride in their work....

You have too many critters Jim!!

We've had dire predictions of massive amounts of heavy wet snow three times in the past week! Of course we got nothin'....

And then yesterday they were predicting 1 to 3 inches of light snow last night... and of course, we got massive amounts of heavy wet snow!

I can't seem to find the channel for this planets weather....

It snowed lightly all day today here. Maybe you tuned into our forecast. None of it stuck. It was 33 - 36 all day. It's just now gone down to 32 & the snow quit. Perfect!

Erin got off this afternoon with the horse trailer loaded with all her stuff & the cab loaded with all her animals. With only 4 dogs & Marg in the house, the place seems almost empty.
;-)

It's snowing again. Sticking this time since it has been in the 20's since the night before last. I hope we don't get too much.
---------
Cutter slid into something & scraped up his near hind from the pastern to hock. It blew up so he & I got to play faces while Marg bandaged him. This is a game where he gets a twitch on him & then he & I play with his lips & tongue to keep his mind off whatever indignities Marg is heaping upon him. We also play bite at each other. He's a good sport & doesn't fight the twitch at all, unlike Blue who just goes ballistic if you get near him with one, but he stands better so we don't need to. We just put a chain shank over his nose.

(Our twitch is a loop of thin rope through an old sledge hammer handle. His upper lip is pulled through the loop & it is twisted until it grips the upper lip firmly. It puts pressure on an acupuncture point that calms them & gives us an important body part that we get to keep for our very own if he moves too far. I've always found it's better not to fight with them about it, but play a bit instead. Cutter agrees.)

He needed some antibiotics & since he'd already eaten, Marg had me dose him. She mixed the antibiotic in warm water & I squirted it up into his mouth with a big syringe - no needle attached. That's always interesting because they pick their head up & move it around. You get the syringe in through the bit path, the area at the side of their mouth between the incisors & molars, then push it up as far as you can & squirt.

Of course their tongue is flopping around & he managed to maneuver his into just the right position so one of my squirts reflect back into my face. I'm pleased to report that the peppermint they mix the antibiotic with doesn't burn the eyes. The splash got the top of my hat & both shoulders, but most of it went right into my face.

I think he laughed at me about that one. Marg certainly did. I had to ask her twice for a towel to wipe off my face. I managed to get most of it down him, though.

Jim wrote: "
I think he laughed at me about that one. Marg certainly did. I had to ask her twice for a towel to wipe off my face. I managed to get most of it down him, though. "

Sorry you're having to doctor horses, but had to laugh at this. Been there, done that ... and it's even more fun when it's the pink stuff you have to dose foals with during foal heat scours.

Book sculptures. Really cool.

Work with horses, get yuckified on a regular basis.
;-)

We took a very short ride today. Marg rode Rascal out into the field for the first time. He was scared at first, but Chip & I were bouncing about, so he figured it was OK. He's doing well.

Hey! Last couple days it's been constant snow showers and rain showers, so after an inch of snow the rain comes and melts it, then repeat ad nauseum! Now everything is one huge slushy mess!

Gee Jim.. I'm glad you got to ride a little rather than spending all your time doctoring them!

Riding them does seem to be what we spend the most time thinking about & the least time actually doing.
;-)

I feel bad for you who have bad weather! It was supposed to snow last night, but it didn't. Today was sunny (deceptively this morning) but it was more or less in the forties all day. That is nice, very nice.

I took a snow day off work today. I guess a few inches came down, but after a day in the 40's with rain, the temp plummeted & we wound up with a sheet of ice all over. If I'd tried to go out my lane this morning, I would have slid right across the road, not to mention 10 miles of 'snow emergency route' that didn't have a car on it until 10am because it was a sheet of ice.

Still gloomy but at least it's colder and has dried out! Sunny weather is forecast.

Hey Alexandria! Send some sun this way! What part of the country are you in? I'm North Central Maine, North of Bangor. I'm dissapointed we haven't even hit our average low of 20 below for two years. Darn Global Warming...

Hey Jim, I take it they don't pretreat the roads near you? Thank goodness we haven't had any ice storms in a few years and no really bad ice storms for about 28 years. I think ice all over everything is very pretty as long as it's not so heavy it breaks everything.

They do pretreat some of the roads, but we had a couple of inches of rain during the day & there was so much run off that it washed off the salt they spread after midnight. Since it had started snowing almost 8 hours earlier, you'd think that would be time enough, but the ground was still warm, so most of the snow melted & ran off, too. It's rare for our gravel drive to turn into a sheet of ice that the car slips on up by the house, but it did.

I keep a huge container of sand mixed with salt as any warm spell here can turn the snow on the gravel driveway into ice.

Don't have to worry about it now! The current sunny warm days and cold nights are not only good for the farmers who make maple sugar but also the snow pack is slowly and steadily receding. (I don't make sugar... too much effort and expense!)

DARN, Winter is almost over! Now I'll have to get to work! It's a good thing I never changed my clock back in the Autumn.. one less less thing to do.

I'm in northern Ohio, Foxtower. And I can't say I like icy roads, but at least they lessen the extremity of the pot holes. Unfortunately, they also create them. With spring on the way we might get permanent fixes, but I doubt that. Because of the crazy weather we've only gotten gravel fillings.

It hit 60 today!!! It was a gorgeous day & I got a fair amount of stuff done. The Purple Martin houses are up & Blue Bird houses all closed. I leave some open if sparrows have been nesting in them. At least 2 closed houses have Blue Birds nesting now, one at the end of the yard.

We went for a ride this evening. Rascal went well for Marg & she did some trotting on him & got him used to the St. Bernard of our neighbors'. Chip was perfect, as always. Lily raced from one end of the farm to the other chasing a low flying buzzard. Perfect fun for a bird dog.

The joys of Spring! (I just ignore the potholes as well as gravel roads turned to muddy ruts... it's the bus drivers problem!) We had equivalent nice weather, 45 and sunny, while bare spots are increasing with the slow melting theres still too much snow to do much of anything outside. Progress continues on the new greenhouse cart in the shop. I'm milking Winter as log as I can!

I lived in Ohio for a few years a long time ago. Last time I was there I blew off a conference for the day and went to the Columbus zoo.. much more fun than lectures!

Sounds like Winter is over in Tennessee Jim!

I did some cleaning of the gardens today with a weedeater. Cut all the liriope off & the older stems that were still left standing from some other stuff. Only cut off one daffodil, a small bush & the phone line. Not too bad. Spliced the phone line & put a better pipe over it. Damn phone company using cheap materials.

The daffodils started blooming today & the crocuses are full out. Yay, Spring!

Went for a nice ride with Marg today. She got Rascal cantering & trotting pretty well. He still steers like a truck, but even went into the woods a bit & he managed pretty well. Here are some pics. Speedy is shedding big time!

Have any of you ever looked at your book stats? I don't do it often, but I did this morning. They're here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/stats...

One of the things I find most interesting is the ability to see my overall star ratings of books. I sometimes feel I'm too negative, but a look at this page shows that I'm actually rating most books pretty high. I think that's where my ratings should be since friends here influence my choices & you all have wonderful taste (like me) of course or you wouldn't be my friends.
;-)

The pie chart that shows where books fall on my shelves is interesting, too. If you click 'Details' for each year, the comparison is interesting. It's interesting to see how big the audio book shelf is & that there's always a large slice that is 'other'.

I don't pay much attention to the number of books & none to pages which are always wrong. While it looks like I'm on a tear right now, I've been able to publicly review almost everything I've read this year & some are probably short stories. Also, it's still winter. My reading time drops considerably from here on as there is more to do outside.

How do you see your book stats?

Go to "My Books" at the top of the page. Then scroll down the left side & you'll see a tiny link below your shelves that says "Stats" in the "Tools" section just above the "Sponsored Links".

Interesting. Thanks!

Do you think looking at your stats might influence how you shelve or rate books or what you read?

Mine were about what I would expect. Very few 1 star ratings, not many 2 star either, as I have an extremely low tolerance for books that do not hold my interest and I don't rate something I can't read/finish.

Most of my 5-star ratings are for books I like well enough to keep and re-read. Most of the ones I did finish but rated very low had some personal 'pet peeve' ... like a cliffhanger ending ... that really annoyed me.

I like the stats that guesstimates how many billions of words you've read! That's Got to be fiction, though it does reveal reading habits... but WHO is looking?

Egads, the publishers are out to get me!

I agree on "cliffhangers". Used to be that for a series an author would put a nice note in front saying that, "while the book is part of a series, is ALSO a complete novel on it's own". I so don't appreciate poor literature that any book that doesn't have an ending gets one star with a letter to the author telling him/her why I'll never read another of their books! Fortunately I've only had to blackball two authors so far.

My garden is still buried in snow and the only Spring flowers in bloom are the ones made of steel! Takes a little longer up this far North, but it's coming!

I think there are three on my list. Seems as if the fantasy authors are the very worst offenders with this. It's gotten so bad, especially with the 'free downloads' which I depend on for most of my new books, that I almost won't try any 'first book of a trilogy' anymore. Very few have an ending with the first book, obviously trying to hook the reader so they will buy the 2nd, 3rd and so on and I'm simply getting tired of it.

The mysteries aren't so bad, they can be set up so that the main character, or cast of major characters, can solve a new mystery with each book, so you aren't left with a 'what happened to xxxx?' when you finish.

But unless I have a very good reason to try new fantasy books, I have gotten to the point where I stay away from the 'first of a series'. And of course the authors are getting a bit shiftier with it as well ... they don't say it's 'first of a series' ... and of course then I get really annoyed.

I've heard that series are something that publishers push for & have for decades. The first of the Parker books byRichard Stark was a stand alone, but the publisher had him make into a series. That was back in the 60's & worked out fine. They were all self contained.

I've found YA, Urban Fantasy, & Paranormal Romances to be the worst for cliff hangers. Most of the regular fantasy I read certainly can go on & do, but enough is usually resolved. Of course, George R.R. Martin Fire & Ice series certainly doesn't & he gets windier by the book. Ugh.

I try to avoid series until they're a few books in. I recently read one by Brent Weeks & just bought the 2d book. It will probably be years before the final book comes out, but in the meantime, it is giving Marg something to read. Part of my husbandly duties are finding books for her to read. I didn't see that in the marriage contract, but seem to do too good of a job of it to get fired.
;-)

Jim wrote: "I've heard that series are something that publishers push for & have for decades. "

I can see that they would and I can see that a popular series is profitable for both publisher and author. I can also see the reasoning behind an indie author writing a series, putting the first one out free and hoping that it will hook an audience to buy the remainder of the series.

However, the first series I remember reading definitely soured me on series that were not complete. First book could be read as a stand-alone and was really good. The second came 10 years later and was, unfortunately, much more of a cliffhanger. At that point the author apparently lost interest and never wrote the third. He's now deceased ... but I'm not responsible, although I did make threats!

I really do tend to try not to start a series by a new to me author unless it is complete. Otherwise, there are a handful of authors that have proven to be reliable and I will start a new series by one of those, but that is pretty much my limit.

Some series never complete & others go bad because they don't end. I'm usually not happy with books or series that have another after a long hiatus. The author's style & attitude changes too much. Again, I'll use the Parker books as an example. They started in the 60's & a new one came out regularly until the mid 70's. Then there was a 20+ year break & he started writing more. I've only read one of those, the last one, & it sucked.

Farmer did the same thing with his World of Tiers series, Dickson with his Deranyi series, etc..

Laurell Hamilton just beat her Anita Blake series into mush after 10 or 12 books. She's now up to 20 & they suck. Murphy did & is doing the same to the Destroyer series once Sapir died & his humorous take on the day's politics was lost. Others, like house series (Hardy Boys, Doc Savage, & such) never seem to die, either.

There's a lot to be said for series with definite ends. I think the author can usually rough out the whole thing & keep it all fresh. Butcher's Dresden series is never ending, although I quit at book 6, but his Furies series was just 5 books & all the better for it.

I just finished Down Among the Dead Men: A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician, a present from Kelly. It was pretty good & I'm glad I got to read it. If you liked Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach or Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales by William M. Bass, you'll probably like this. It's not as good (I think I rated both the others with 5 stars, this with 3.) but is another point of view. Not as authoritative, but a bit more every-man, if that makes sense.

My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/...

I just finished "Dr. Dimension', a science fiction satire that quite intentionally ended with a cliffhanger as part of the satirical treatment! It was funny and as it was quite obvious there would never be a next one I didn't mind the ending at all!

So let me say I don't tolerate cliffhangers... unless it's satirical!

Marg's pony, Rascal, tried to kill me. I was riding him bareback & we were going along fine when he suddenly lunged forward & he's so skinny I wound up catching him with my heels. That caused him to put in a huge buck & I did a flip off of him, landing on my back. Breathing was not an option for a while. My back was already sore right between the shoulder blades. That did it no favors, of course.

Marg said he got all 4 feet off the ground & I could see he almost touched the ground with his nose as I went flying by. He's pretty athletic, at least. I held on to the reins, but the bridle didn't have a throat latch, so I wound up pulling it right off his head & he headed over to his buddies, then wouldn't let me catch him.

I decided I wanted my pony back. He's got a big enough barrel to take up my leg, so we finished up a pretty good ride on our proper mounts. Rascal is only an inch shorter than Chip, but so much skinnier I can't get my entire inner thigh on him much less touch him with my knee or calf. Marg, in her deep saddle says she's OK, but even Erin didn't feel like she had enough leg on him.

He's definitely Marg's mount. I'm too old for a repeat performance!
;-)

There definitely comes a time in your life when you feel like you are no longer up to the wild rides and it usually *arrives* when you are sitting on the ground once again, watching the south end of a horse headed north.

LOL! Good way to put it, Sharon.

There's a long article about why health care is so expensive. Not political, just a good look at what the charges for things are. Well worth reading. It's here:


There's a shorter reaction article to it that is well worth reading, too.


Seriously, even if you just skim this, it might save you a LOT of $$$, especially if you don't have insurance or your insurance doesn't cover an entire bill.