Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Helped my neighbor Tim move his hand line this morning.  He needed to leave for an hour long drive to his granddaughter's baseball game, and he was out at the crack of dawn to move those pipes.  I spotted him starting on it when I took the dogs out for our morning walk.  I could tell Tim was feeling a bit anxious about the time, so the two of us just went right to work and moved those pipe lickety-split.  It was quite amiable, working side-by-side, and chatting a bit.  Tim was greatly relieved to have that done so quickly, and he practically ran back to his house to get ready to leave :)

I made a run to Home Depot to pick up a few parts for the great stake-bed trailer project.  Yesterday I finished up the assembly of the floor, except for the stake pockets which I'm going to paint before I mount them.  So this morning I hoisted the floor assembly up onto sawhorses, upside down.  The weight was right at the limit of what I can do by myself!  Then I spent the next three hours putting a coat of primer on the bottom of the floor assembly.  This is quite a tedious process because of the style of construction I employed (2 x 6s mounted an inch apart).  I want the somewhat porous floor so that dirt, leaves, etc. will fall through, but that slatted style sure does make for a lot of awkward surfaces to paint!  I will probably put two coats of paint on top of the primer, so I think the floor is going to take roughly 20 hours of work to paint.  That's more than everything else put together!  I'm not done at that point, either, as I still have the stake sides to build and paint.  This is going to be a bigger project than I had imagined!

Scott N. (the fellow we lease our south field to) came by today to pick up his bales of hay.  I had a chance to talk with him, and he's quite happy about the state of the field.  The weeds don't bother him in the slightest, as he knows from experience that the first year after you plant alfalfa, it's just getting established and the weeds can successfully compete with hit.  Just wait until next year, he said – it will be gorgeous.  And profitable :)

Scott uses an interesting machine to pick up the bales.  He just drives his tractor, and the machine picks up the bale, orients it correctly, and stacks it neatly onto the wagon he's towing.  If I counted correctly, he can pick up 180 bales of hay at a time with this contraption.  I haven't seen him unload it, but he tells me that you basically just drive the wagon out from under the hay, which plops right down on the ground without disturbing the stacking.  That's ever so much easier than throwing bales on a wagon by hand, as we did with Tim's hay last year...

Undercover video of Planned Parenthood...

Undercover video of Planned Parenthood ... plotting to sell (illegally) dead baby parts emerges and shocks the nation.  In reaction, the (shocked) Attorney General of California leaps into action.  What does she do?

Why, she opens an investigation into the people that took the video.  Of course.

Somewhere, Stalin is laughing his butt off...

Rustlers in Paradise...

Rustlers in Paradise...  This morning I went out to work in the shed at around 4 am.  As I opened the front door of our house into the darkness, I heard a loud and widespread rustling high in the pine trees in our front yard.  I'd never heard this before (and I've been out at this hour numerous times), so I flipped on the front outdoor lights (which light up the entire front yard) and walked out, looking up all the while.  As I approached the pine trees, the rustling got louder and louder – and with a sudden burst, bats came flying out of the pines.  Dozens and dozens of bats, about the size of a house finch.

Assuming those were insect-eating bats, this was a bad night for the bugs in our neighborhood :)

Canada and the U.S. about to go to war?

Canada and the U.S. about to go to war?  Nah.  All Canada would have to do is say “boo!” and Obama would just hand the islands over.  The American lobstermen, though, are a sturdy bunch.  They might just counter-attack...

Wait, what?

Wait, what?  Illinois just passed a law forbidding the payment of state welfare benefits to dead people.  This notion is apparently novel in Illinois, and required codification in the law.  Well, they are famous for letting dead people vote!

And I thought California's governance was bad!