gosling homeopathy

We discovered one of the younger goslings walking around with a heavy limp yesterday. Spouse and I checked her out. No broken bones, just some bruising on her ankle. May have sprained it on the rocky terrain around here. Spouse recommended that we keep the geese in the large pen instead of free-ranging today, in order to let her rest and heal up a bit.

This morning, the limp was worse. Eeek!

I had used the homeopathic remedy arnica montana when practicing Aikido to quickly heal bruises and sprains. I had heard that animals also respond well to homeopathy, and thought, "what the heck". Sprinkled arnica montana tablets into all their drinking/soaking tubs. As of this afternoon, I can't tell which goose had the limp. It is gone.

Homeopathy is one of those healing methods that I still have a hard time believing in its efficacy, but it keeps showing me that it works.

[Photo: the geese discover the front porch. Piles of poo were generously given.]

Are you sure there's no bugs?

We used to call our two Plymouth Barred Rocks "Crash" and "Airborne", but now we just call them both "The Hausfraus" - they look like stereotypical stocky little German farm wives. This photo was snapped with my iPhone - do you know how hard it is to snap a self-photo with one of these things? - while Hausfrau was pecking through my highlights. "Are you sure there's no bugs in there? Are you sure?"

Ouch.

[a slow couple of days with Spouse home, and me taking time off to recover from swollen joints. more posts soon.]

Two drills at the same time

"Two chicks at the same time?"* Hell no, two DRILLS at the same time, baby! That's what I'm talking 'bout!

Spouse showed me the cool trick of using two drills on projects - one for drilling pilot holes, and the other for putting in the screws. No swapping back & forth of bits. Time saved, patience saved, works great, less filling.

Today's completed project: roller shades in the kitchen windows. The roller shades were only $1.50 more than the accordion stick-up paper blinds, plus the roller shades block out light and last a helluvalot longer.

[Safe for work; it's a riff on a quote from "Office Space" via IMDB]

A Letter to My Puppies

Dearest puppies of mine,

You don’t know how lucky you are. You have a genuine guardian angel looking after you by the name of Auntie Karen*. Auntie Karen was a dog rescue worker, and is very adamant about proper training and taking good care of puppies like yourselves. Which is a good thing, because if it weren't for valuing her opinion, yesterday’s antics would have got you [action redacted]. Serious as a heart-attack, I was this close to [action redacted]. You do that again, and I’m gonna [action redacted] and ship you off to Auntie Karen, whose dogs will then eat you for lunch. Okay? Okay!

Much love,

Your owner with a developing eye twitch

*a good friend
[photo: Bandit & Maggie, respectively. As of this morning, they're still alive.]
[Edited on 6/26 for better clarity. Actions remain redacted for self protection from Auntie Karen. Puppies remain living as of this date.]

farm definition: "critters" versus "varmints"

Here's some farm-related terminology for your edification:

A critter is considered, by Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as simply a "creature".
A varmint, on the other hand, is considered "1: an animal considered a pest; specifically : one classed as vermin and unprotected by game law"

So basically, a varmint is a sub-set of a critter that's not tasty enough to eat or hunt into oblivion. Sort of like the difference between a plant and a weed:

A plant is something that you want growing in your garden, versus a weed, which is something you DON'T want growing in your garden.

It all gets a bit fuzzy when you have folks who like raising rabbits (versus gardeners who despise the ones munching on their gardens), or folks who eat dandelion greens (versus those who kill every fuzzy yellow head they find in their lawn). It all comes down to a matter of perspective, doesn't it?

[photo: Thug2 the Rooster checking out the new girls.... "hellloooo, ladieeeeez!"]