Once in a Blue moon

Its a blue moon tonight. Ours is visible and actually looks blueish. I attribute it to snow on the ground and being fairly cold, LOL.

I don't do resolutions, but new years goal is to be more focused in a mind on where I am kind of way.

Great new business idea -Infidel Airlines

Anyone want to give me several billion to test it? Someone else posted on Ace(http://www.ace.mu.nu) that having a pig mascot would deter a fundamentalist islamic terrorist. Eternally unclean to die with a pig or some such. So every flight would have a pig mascot, every boarding gate would have a dog, striving to make most of the dogs trained bomb sniffers over time.

And if the TSA, NTSB etc keep the no carry on rule in place, Infidel Airlines will also provide books, snacks, netbooks or cheap laptop cpu's so folks can work on things in flight via use of a memory stick. OK Infidel Airlines might be a bit over the top for naming. Perhaps Freeborn Skys or something.

Got some fresh air with the bay girls on sunday

It was sunny and calm and felt nice out on sunday. I had been going to ride saturday, which was forecasted to be the nicer day but after some sun around 11 am it was clouding up and a cold breeze by the time I was ready to try to ride around 2. Never wait when the weather is nice is the rule around here. But I lucked out with the nice weather on sunday. Mia was snoozing in the sun when I grabbed Shade so I thought I was safe to take Sadie too. Well Mia wanted to come then but went in the house for me pretty willingly.

I think I may need a pommel riser insert with my barefoot saddle on Shade. I will have to try with a rigged up one. After looking at the video of me riding her my stirrups are not really behind me so I think the feeling I've had may be coming from the saddle being a bit low in front. Its an easy thing to play with at least. I still really need to get my riding muscles fit, and should take some lessons to improve my technique/equitation. But I felt better on sunday and I had added a thin wool pad under the skito so it effectively made Shade a bit wider. Of course I was also distracted on sunday ponying ms Sadie. If she weren't a runt I might be tempted to ride her a bit already. But being runty she'll get to wait until fall 2010 to be started, or possibly later if I think she needs more time to grow up. The trainer I have in mind does quite a bit of long lining and would probably just do ground stuff I requested it. I really just want her started, I can deal with a lot of greenness, but I'll leave the starting itself to an expert.

Everyone survived my christmas turkey

No one took the turkey out to thaw until thursday evening shortly before I got home. Mom had it in a couple of paper bags to quick thaw outside the fridge but it was still solid after I hayed the horses Christmas morning. So I decided if we were going to have to soak the bird to thaw it anyway it was a good day to try brining. OK, find a recipe that looks passable, calls for a gallon of vegetable broth, 1 cup sea salt, and tablespoons of rosemary, thyme, sage and savory. We had a qt of chicken broth and a packet of dried vegetabe soup, so I used that and water to make 1 gal, couldn't find the sage in front of my nose on the ledge above our stove and no savory. So I threw in some allspice. Barely found a cup of salt (1/4 cup was actually sea salt) Got that all in a pot and simmering and climbed into the attic on the rickety ladder to get my 5 gal. igloo water cooler down to soak the bird in. The good ladder is so heavy and needs a car moved to set up nicely so I took my chances with rickety.

Verified turkey would fit in my cooler and rinsed out; unwrapped the turkey and no way were giblets or neck budging yet, well they usually use plastic to wrap the giblets these days so I figured its fine to just soak the whole works. Put in a gal. of cold water, the turkey and dumped the hot brine on top. --recipe calls for ice water and cooled brine --assumes a thawed turkey too.

Let that sit while I grained the horses, then I checked the brine. What was in the bird was cold but otherwise it was warmish so I threw some ice cubes in there. Didn't want the outside of the bird too warm. I kept checking and adding ice cubes until the brine was nice and cold. I kept hoping mom would snap out of her facial pain and take over the meal preparation but no such luck. She did clean up after supper though. So about 2:00 I brought the turkey in and added the seasoning and water to the bread mom had shredded the night before for stuffing. Had to rinse just a bit of ice out of the turkey to remove the neck, dad brought in the roaster --mom was instructing from the couch where stuff was and how she seasons the stuffing etc. Got the bird in the oven about 2:30. Its supposed to take 3 to 3.5 hours for a stuffed bird but brined birds cook faster, so we'll have an early supper for the big meal. I made pumpkin custard --didn't put frog eye pasta in this time but I was only going to make a small batch with 1/2 of the pumpkin mom had out to thaw but I misread the recipe as I was mixing things and put in white sugar where it called for milk (recipe called for brown sugar and just a bit of white sugar) Well I caught this before baking but I had to double everything to balance out the extra sugar, and it barely fit in the bowl, and I was slopping over stirring things in since I had grabbed the mid-size bowl which was plenty big for a small batch........ But it turned out fine.

I also got to make the mashed potatoes, gravy and a vegetable and thanks to microwaves and some gravy mix everything turned out pretty good. Gravy was plenty salty but balanced ok with the mashed taters and stuffing.

So WHY did I go through all that instead of just cooking something else? Dad had invited a truck driving friend to come over and with mom being sick and me not liking to cook, we hardly have anything but tv dinners to cook. Only some hamburger, fish sticks, etc type stuff -- no roasts, steaks, chops etc. Dad's friend didn't expect dinner, he knows mom's been sick but he's on the road all the time and while some truck stops have a buffet where drivers can get close to home-style meals they really appreciate a cooked meal once in a while. And while I wont give up my free time to cook often *I* like a good meal once in a while too.

Then we opened what few presents we had. Dad got me rims for my car --didn't put those under the tree. I requested them so I wouldn't have to pay $16/tire to switch out from snow tires to all-seasons 2x/year. I got dad (and mom) some cowboy humor books. Brother and wife sent us a Figi's gift box with sausage, cheese and chocolates. Mom's brother and his wife sent us some cute cowboy tree ornaments, a puzzle, Hickory farms gift box, and a horse hair pottery thing that would hold a thick candle I think, or can be a pen holder etc. I guess H knows the artist/crafter that makes them. Sis hasn't got presents ordered yet (no big deal we are not tied to exact dates) I sent brother and family a check, and sister a foldable camping kitchen counter thing she had requested. She hasn't opened it and I didn't quiz her if it was the right model from the box. Cabelas had 3-4 different models. Who would guess there is enough demand for a portable kitchen counter that they need multiple models? LOL

Had another nice weekend

Saturday was pretty warm and Mia came in for a nap about the time I was dragging myself off the couch to go ride. So I thought I'd probably pony Sadie but she was busy visiting with the neighbors morgans and didn't come up to the gate the whole time I was tacking Shade up so it was just me and my main girl. I need to set up to do that more often. We didn't ride very far but had some lovely cantering.

Sunday I rode RazzMo and got dad to video me. One of these days I'll get it downloaded and get my guru to look at it. I know w/o any instructing that I have gotten so flabby. I need to ride more, instead of worrying about the state of the country. At least with mindful riding I know I can achieve a positive difference.

Dad got up a bunch of lights. He bought LED strings to replace the broken outdoor strings we put on the evergreen trees outside the house. I put up mom's kids nativity scene. Scooping a little sand inside to keep the plastic figures from blowing away I could handle. I also got the indoor tree up. I left a lot of our more recent ornaments off. We could just about decorate another tree. Good news if I get a place of my own I guess. I should hit the stores after christmas and get another set or two of indoor lights. I barely had enough and that was scavenging scattered good bulbs from one string to fill in broken bulbs in a shorter string. Its probably cheaper to buy a new string than enough replacement bulbs to fill in the one string, and one cannot get those round bulbs anymore. Perhaps I'll get LED indoor lights.

I mail-ordered 4 thermo cubes today. I was browsing hoping to find some more that come off at 37 instead of 45 and found some that don't come on till 20F and then come off at 30F. That should work pretty good for tank heaters in our climate, I might have a few days where I'd plug in heaters directly but we get a lot of cold nights then it warms into the 40's and the black plastic tanks soak up plenty of heat and don't need tank heaters running and basically humidifying the air above the water when temps are between 30 and 45F.

I'll probably be a couch potato christmas day and then maybe I'll get the motivation to get out and ride on saturday &/or sunday. It will still be below freezing on saturday, with sunday just getting to 34F. But if its calm and sunny and I feel rested I might enjoy a ride in the snow. I ordered dad some funny books but they wont be here. I haven't gotten mom anything, really have no idea what to get her, plus I guess I rather feel that taking 100% care of her horses is pretty much a good gift and I shouldn't have to buy stuff too.

I signed up to 'adopt' another soldier. I wanted to just send one-time packages and not be expected to write weekly cards/letters but I had emailed on that and didn't hear back from the coordinator and one cannot just switch on the website. So I'll bore another young soldier with horse and dog talk unless this one is an exception and writes to me so I could have some back and forth on topics he has some interest in. Oh well the main point is sending a little stuff as a thank you for their service.

Hey its already thursday

Keeping reasonable busy at work. Trying not to obsess over the latest marxist assaults on capitalism. Have we lost so much ground that we have to let the already much Marxist infiltrated system collapse and then hope a new America can rise from the ashes? Will the health mandate bill be defeated? Will the EPA destroy U.S. business while boosting China and India? Hmmm wonder if that (boosting of China) is why Russia blew the whistle on the HadCruT scam in Siberia this week during Dopenhagen. Is there any set of temperature data that has not been sorted or massaged to a warming trend? See WattsUpWithThat.com if you want details behind this.
I suppose I should join the local Republican party and try to push good conservatives for local elections. I hate politics and joining groups but I probably need to get over it and consider it civic duty, just like voting or being willing to take jury duty.

Grey and Shade seem to be picking up weight wise. I added a scoop of senior that had been bought for Duke to their daily feed and upped the oil back up after I had lessened it. Today Target had canola oil at their pretty good price for 1.5 liters. Yay! I have found that the canola oil stays liquid instead of gelling to quite a bit colder than the soybean oil so I wont have to remember to haul oil from house to feed room until its going to be really cold with canola. I have not been in a mindset to grab morning rides before work. I hope I don't regret not taking advantage of fairly mild weather later.

Got to enjoy my horses this weekend, aaah nice.

Sadie had to come say hi, and see if I had treats when I was taking pictures.

I rode Shade twice. Saturday my dad walked out as I just finishing saddling and asked if the dogs needed a run, nope I took them in the morning. Since he was dressed and outside I asked him to video me with the camera so I can get some advice from my horsewoman guru friend in GA. I rode in the little pasture and RazzMo was looking over dads shoulder and sometimes nudging him the few minutes I had him video me. So I told dad he should throw a saddle on Razz since Razz was so bored, and he did. So we went down the road west just a bit as the dogs had wanted to come, then Mia was done after going just a few hundred meters so we turned around, I shut her in the yard and we went the other way about a km. Shade and Razz were both dragging after passing home, Shade was just wanting to eat. I am going to up her and Grey's feed a bit more and than suck it up and move RazzMo within a few weeks so I can give Shade and Grey richer hay. I hate to make the change because its so convenient for graining having Razz in with Shade and Grey. Shade shares with Grey and not Razz so they get what I want them to have; then CJ is boss over Cindy and Sadie but he goes to the first pan I dump feed in and stays there. Sadie and Cindy sometimes swap or share but its not bad. But if I have Razz in with CJ and those girls he is boss, he has to test every pan to see if one has better or more stuff and he eats much faster than CJ. So I'll have to halter him and take him out when I want everyone to have specific stuff. Its a PITA when its cold. Maybe I'll have to swap Razz back and forth depending on when I'll be willing to take him out.

Sunday it was even warmer but we had a good breeze. So I rode Shade again. We had a bit of cantering to save my sanity for another week or so. Then I dumped and scrubbed the water tanks east of the house, both of which were really due for that. Maybe the mini's barrel is low enough to dump today. I didn't want to mess with it yesterday with 7-8 inches in it although I could have tipped it since its only a 1/2 barrel. AJ's tank is half-full. I scooped some hay floaties out of it. So I guess he uses it as night when we put his hay in his stall. So I probably wont try to talk the parents out of using that tank and heating it when its cold. Its been mild the last 3 nights so I haven't plugged in heaters. I want it to be COLD in Copenhagen, DC, and NYC to help fight Dopenhagen, but I'm enjoying the milder temps here while we have them.

WHAT was I thinking?

I volunteered to be santa's elf for a military family WHAT was I THINKING?! I was thinking its fun to buy toys but I was forgetting that I only like to buy toys that I like, which is why I usually buy toys and drop in collection bins instead of doing any kind of matched thing the last 5 years or so. I hate hate hate the stress of trying to match a vague list to what is in the store and in this case also to what would fit in a flat rate USPS box since I was given a family in Alaska. --I could have UPS'd a bigger box to someone at Fort Carson but to Alaska and to make sure it arrives in good time, I didn't even want to run the rate calculators and I've been unpleasantly surprised too many times when I thought something wouldn't cost all that much at the post office -I like to stick with the flat rate boxes if I'm using the post office.

So I will have to give the nerf dart gun to a collection bin. It was already a smaller nerf gun rather than what was on the list and I have another item from that kids list so not a biggie (although the other kids are getting 2 cheaper things). I shopped with a strong eye to 'will it fit in the largest rate flat box after I remove the extra packaging' more than worrying about would the kids like it, although I still spent hours going up and down toy aisles. How would I know what kids will like anyway? Its been decades since I was a kid -- or what a mom of young kids who 'likes pretty things' would like? I got the mom a Burt's Bees gift set and some Aussie 3 minute miracle hair conditioner. I could not bring myself to try to guess what she might find pretty and went with 'eh, she is in Alaska, surely its hard on skin and hair and some pampering stuff will be suitable'. THIS is why I stuck to buying legos, K'nex(spelling?) tonka trucks etc in years past.

OH Well I have at least got everything else fitting in the box after ruthlessly stripping off the store packaging; NOW I have to wrap everything and get it all back in the box, might be FUN trying to wrap the odd shapes and wrap tough enough to squish the soft stuff in the box and not tear on stuff that has point, etc etc. Oh well its for kids of 14 months, 4, 4 and 7. I don't think they will be fussy about neat wrapping. If they are fussy, TOUGH. The elf was also to give the family a walmart gift card or visa card of at least $25 to cover a nice christmas dinner. I added $20/each and will include a note for them to go shopping for the bulkier stuff on the list because this elf doesn't have a license to fly Santa's sleigh. With luck mom and/or the whole family will enjoy a shopping trip to Wally world --I don't do visa cards since they charge for issue plus charge service fees every month if not used up in a year.

tank heater update

by saturday evening I had concerns that a light in my small area would keep things too warm so I removed everything but the temperature control cube and the cords to the tank heater and outlet. The thermo cube must generate some heat as the works has been cycling a little bit with the temperatures remaining below freezing point. The tank is staying open and I have yet to see any steaming vapor over it. So I guess I can just buy another cube and do the same thing for the other tank.

First priority is to convince dad that AJ does not need his own tank and drain it and turn off that heater though. That is up to 600kw hours in a month that stays cold --if I assume that heater is 1000 watt and some are 1500 -- or I just forget to turn it off in the morning when it will be a warm day and I tend to forget that switch even when I was really using that tank. Heh, just planning on not having a grid connection at my place in WY is making me extra conscious of electricity usage and I don't even write the checks to the utility company in CO. I did give the mini's a 500 watt tank heater this morning. We are having too many days that are staying well below freezing to keep messing around just dumping ice out of a rubber tub.

Meanwhile our EPA has declared all greenhouse gases are pollutants and EPA can regulate them. And I guess there was a supreme court decision that allowed this. I will guess that lawsuits will be brought or something. At this point I think a good chunk of the population should lean towards congressional candidates who run on a platform of cutting funding to EPA and various other bureaucracies but I am afraid a majority might still favor status quo of bloated, intrusive government we are having lately.

Must break free from couch

I did just a couple wee projects. Got my windshield wipers adjusted -bet you didn't know a hammer was the tool for that did you? But I couldn't find a big flathead screwdriver to pop the cover off so I used the hammer claw. Then I loosened the nut with a wrench. Nope the hammer is not the only tool I had. Took the dogs for a run and then splashed some extra washer fluid on the windshield and tested if my wipers still work after the blades got stuck the other day and bent. Whew I'm glad I don't have to get the wiper motor replaced. --They wipers got stuck when I ran the cleaning function on a cold night. I'd been driving 20+ minutes with the defrost on full blast and had had the wipers up so they wouldn't freeze to the windshield while I was parked at work. But a little extra drag and the previous owner had two 22 inch blades when the car is supposed to have 22 and 20 inch blades. Timing got a bit off from cold then the blades tangles and got really stuck, and I had to force them down a bit to drive home cuz the drivers one was right in my sight line. Of the zany fun I have with car foibles, LOL. Checkers in Brighton is wonderful by the way. I had both blades off and in the store and was confused because the computer was saying the 2 sizes but it didn't match what I had and I wasn't sure if I had the exact right car model. The manager checked, verified I needed different sizes AND he put on the new blades for me. I was trying to get the packaging off the passenger side and he had already finished the drivers side. I told him it looked like he had had some practice putting those on. I usually fumble for at least 5 minutes with the blades.

I did gather up a night light, 5 qt ice cream bucket and misc and set up my temperature outlet cube and tank heater with the bulb set to go on when the tank heater does inside the bucket to retain the heat a little bit. This is to see if I can get the heater to cycle so its not running all the time the temp is below 35F. I feel like it wastes so much extra juice evaporating the water at 40-50F the tank heater's thermostat is set for. Now to keep a close eye and see if it keeps the tank open but is not running constantly. Our weather is so erratic I'm not sure a timing outlet is the way to go and its hard to find one I want. Stores are full of ones set up to come on at dusk and run so many hours. I'd like one that comes on 7 hours after dusk and runs so many hours.

December is starting cold

And I am loving it. Not because I like cold weather, I prefer just enough to kill off most of the flies; but because it will tilt public perceptions more against man-made global warming. Please let enough of our population be going brrrr to rise up against the stupid cap and tax bill. AGW proponents like James Hansen hate it because it has scads of exemptions and wont do anything to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions for several years anyway and I and other conservative minded folks hate it because it adds yet another layer of choking red tape.

The public should be even more hostile to talk of choking our industry while agreeing to trillions for 'poor' countries -which was the expected Copenhagen agenda but with luck that will fall apart at Copenhagen and it wont even come to our senate having to reject any treaty.
Give me a break, most of these poor countries are loaded with rare minerals and other valuable natural resources. They are poor because they have had backwards governments, either in form of colonial rule, dictators out only for personal power, or communist governments that continued the colonial "just leave the thinking to us" mindsets.

I had a thought to keep my tank heaters from running so much with the 35F on 37F off outlet regulator. Going to see if I can set it up with a teeny light bulb and a bucket or coffee can covering the works --because what I'd like is a regulator that doesn't come on till its a few degrees below freezing and then goes off as soon as it hits 32, or even cycles some when it is below freezing as a lot of the heater wattage is going to producing steam rather than keeping the tanks drinkable.

is it friday yet?

Dang I hope I didn't leave it too late to start another round of zinc. I am feeling droopy already and should work at least another 2 hours, but thankfully I have pto and its flexible here so I can decide to chuck it if I feel like pushing will be counterproductive for the whole work week.

I think it will be ok, yesterday my nose and eyes were itching a bit and today its just my eyes. I bought zicam meltaways yesterday. Target didn't have the strawberry cream flavor I like in the cold-eeze brand. Now I may switch to zicam. I'm not into paying the extra for the highly advertised brands but the citrus meltaways do seem to have less zinc taste to them. Hopefully I wont need to buy anymore zinc this winter though. I have stocked up a fair bit I think. Geez how boring, prattling on like a hypochondriac. I must look up an address and send a friend a letter. I have gotten some small little things done so at least I don't feel like a total slug.

Climategate story continues to grow in the blogosphere. all U.S. TV news but FOX continue to ignore or excuse the shoddy data handling and tribalism at the CRU. Maybe more folks will come to understand how slanted the coverage is if the story keeps growing while those big media groups ignore it. I think that may be the biggest thing needed for my country to recover from its current mess. I realized it last year and it was unsettling but we need to be a much more skeptical people. Folks will have to live with that unsettled 'who/what can I trust' feeling for a bit and learn to demand sources and references and trust THEMSELVES to decide what is and isn't a real story.