l.p.'s the bomb

I just got over my obsession with lady gaga.
Now my new obsession is L.P. You can hear a killer song by her called "Kill the Pain" on my myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/182978123
or at youtube (poor audio) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLkTxPooIus
If you're on myspace she has a page at http://www.myspace.com/lprock

My lazy day lends itself to a bit of blogging

Ok here's what's been up around here lately - lots of work, some really good food, critter patrol at all hours. Some of this is documented in the photos posted here. Enjoy.

Critters: the chickens are keeping me quite busy what with their constant needs for food & water, pooping out the eggs, needing free-range time, putting them back in at dark, etc. I love it though.
Dudley - master of the barn yard and only about 7" tall! Isn't he beautiful? If he had a brain to match that attitude we'd all be his servants.

And then there's the duck and that goofy Polish hen! Don't get me started on them.

The aquarium has accumulted a diverse collection of greenery this summer - both plant life and glass decorations. I also added some neon tetras - my favorite fish. It is really hard to photograph an aquarium full of fish.

My garden is going gang-busters. I turned my back for two weeks and the heirloom zucchini sprouted several leg sized fruits. I'm waiting for the tomatoes with great anticipation - Black Cherry and Cherokee Black. I've gotten fascinated with carniverous plants over the past year or so and my most recent aquisitions are a pair of Venus fly traps that surprised me last month with beautiful delicate white blossoms. A recent realization - fly traps love to eat earthworm segments but the worm parts keep wriggling long after the trap closes so they end up half digested in the trap and half dried outside of the trap. That's a little gross come to think of it.
That ornery dog of mine brought a tick into the house last night. I found it climbing the wall beside the bed! Today he got a dose of Advantage and I got a hair cut. I think his next hair cut is coming up soon too.

Is it really that cold, or are you just a weenie?

...uhh, yes on both counts.

So here is my fantastic Saturday (after working):
collecting eggs,

checking and photographing chickens and pigeons,

and going to the orchid show at MoBot. This is a new Dendrobium for me - D. epidendropsis.

This one I have seen in books, but I can't remember seeing it at this show before - D. amethystaglossum.

A beautiful tiny yellow orchid.

Rhy... can't remember this one, but it's beautiful!

Who loves ya baby?

God its cold

Its been a while since my last post. The past year has been a blur of roofs, drywall, masonry, painting, and landscape installs. I was afraid that the economy and housing sector sluggishness would kill my wallet, but so far I am doing no worse than before. If anything, work seems to have picked up a little this winter.

It is incredibly cold this winter, but it probably seems worse than it is because I am just back from two weeks of vacation, one of them spent in warm Texas.

Anyway, what's new? Well...I have been nursing this dream for a long time now. It's actually several dreams or maybe just one complicated dream. I have been working this over for about 8 or 9 years or so. Now I can see it forming into one thing in my mind. It is almost to the stage where I decide to do it, so now I can give voice to it.

Here it is-- live in the country, on a farm, with animals, raise crops, have babies, have a warm place for just us.

Some of the animals will be chickens and milk goats. Some of the crops will be good hay for the goats so I can make some great cheese. This will be in a place that is slightly warmer than St. Louis. There will also be a tree lot for raising shitakes and there will be a stream. Walker will finally get a play mate or two. That is as far as I have got. As it is, the back yard is over run with Morgan's chickens and he may finally be coming around to the idea of kids. He initiated a brief discussion about it while we lay in bed a couple of weeks ago - a good sign.

There are a few loose ends to tie up here in St. Louis first. Pay some bills, save some money, fix up the rental house and sell it, get our house in tip top shape, wait for the housing market to rebound. Let's give it three to five ... if I can wait that long.

Winter has tormented us long enough with its silky white beauty!

We went to the woods today

Latest rantings

Thank God Ron Paul has said that yes, he will keep the $500 donation made to his campaign by a racist white power group.

I know that might sound shocking, but this whole issue of returning campaign contributions has gotten out of hand. I don't remember hearing of this kind of thing before the Clinton years. Now it seems to be a given that in most federal and even many state races, political operatives will ferret out the misdeeds of some campaign donor in an effort to discredit the opposition. As if receiving money in a political campaign is a de facto endorsement of that individual's views or deeds. Well, I guess that works on one level because of the nature of our crappy news coverage. It's easy to make someone look bad when you only have 10 to 15 seconds to sum up the days news about that person.

Back to Ron Paul. Once again Paul is cutting through the bs and political spin games. This action says to the operatives - shut up bitch! I like it.

I just smiled at something Tucker Carlson wrote

Oh My God!

Ron Paul really does bring different kinds of people together. I have always sneared at Tucker Carlson's idiotic knee-jerk neocon ramblings. I have never found anything remotely useful in the crap he used to spout about the Clintons, or actually, anything I have ever heard him say about politics at all. That may be a bit hyperbolic, but I usually do taste a bit of gorge at the back of my throat when I hear him talking.

Surprise, surprise - after reading this article http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=83665295-1de6-4571-af9c-0a90f6d1fde0 and I was really shocked to see his name on the byline. There are also some youtube clips that seem to indicate his support of Ron Paul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vawd1PlTuAs