Oliphant Parts

Reframing Reality

Archives: April 2009

The Miracle Of Birth

by Nathan

Categories: Family, Photography, Whatever

Tags: No Tags

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Published on: April 30, 2009

Makes me nauseous. I am so glad I am not a mama-sheep, hungrily slurping off the afterbirth.

Whatsitsname just born

Cute little bugger, but I am squeamish. Stepping back and giving them some bonding-time is in order.

Okay, let's step back and avoid the ickies.

And there we have it, a clean lamb. So what am I supposed to do now? Look under the tail and see if we’ve got a boy or girl? Or can I go fire up the barbeque?

There, all clean. So tasty . . .

It’s been busy around here lately, which explains why the poor piggies have been neglected, photo-wise. Just in time for the swine flu outbreak, the girl-child’s 4-H group sent home piglets Monday evening.

MMM…this bucket tastes like bacon!!!

Our two have been behaving just like teenagers: Sleeping until noon, eating just to the point of bursting, making a mess of their house and eating the occasional turd. Oh, and a lot of sunbathing in the nude. They’ve doubled in size over the past three days.

Does this snout make me look fat?

Gut Feelings

by Nathan

Categories: Family, Photography, Whatever

Tags: coffee, soay sheep

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Published on: April 15, 2009

Due to popular demand, here are the floofy broon ships. Or fluffy brown sheep, when I’m not trying and failing miserably at a Scottish brogue. So, first the entire herd, in their knee-high glory. I took the pics this morning, and nobody wanted to stand still, so they are all a bit blurry.

The Whole Gang

Leading the herd is Monica (preggers), who is the old gal at two. She is the friendliest of the bunch, willing to come up and sniff your fingers in the hopes of finding something tasty. Considering she is a sheep, tasty is pretty bland.

Dirty Monica

In the middle is Cimmaron, a sprightly (and, of course, knocked-up) one-year-old. She already lost her winter coat, so she looks much smaller than the others. She is also the most skittish of the bunch, usually staying in between the other two. Maybe she realizes I’ve been thinking of how good her lambs are going to taste as barbeque . . .

Cimmaron

Following behind is Mister Studly, aka Luxor. He thinks he’s so cool. If he ever gets brave enough to butt me, I’m drop-kicking him over the fence.

Mr. Macho

So, that’s the herd. The lambs are due sometime between May 1 and June 30. Should be fun. In the meantime, I am following my gut instinct and reducing my mochas from six shots to four. It’s nice to finally have decent espresso at home, but the hole in burning through my stomach lining is somewhat unpleasant. Yeah, I know that has nothing to do with sheep.

Gimme a bucket!

by Nathan

Categories: Family

Tags: Easter, sheep, vomit

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Published on: April 12, 2009

We’ve got sheep! And a tummy-ache. More tomorrow, if I don’t die of bloat first. Stupid eating holiday.

Dog Zapper

by Nathan

Categories: Family

Tags: destructive pets, electric fencing

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Published on: April 6, 2009

Shocking. Electrifying. No f****ing fair. We put up an electric fence in our back yard this weekend. “Why?” you ask? Because our dogs eat trees. And roses. And Yucca. And rocks. And pretty much anything they can get their mouths around (we’ve already discussed the dog turds, so no reason to bring that up again, right?). When we moved in, this house had a beautiful back yard: The lawn was perfectly manicured, the edges bordered with Arborvitae and roses. Horribly annoying red lava rocks were strewn ornamentally. We had privacy for naked swim night. We had somewhere relaxing to spend a warm evening.

That lasted less than a year. Lava rocks are sentient, or at least mobile and evil. They wake in the night and crawl onto walkways in small groups. They hide in the grass, waiting for the mower. They spill over onto the driveway and creep into the garage. Also mobile and evil? Our shrubbery-loving dogs. We started with one, old and slow and not much into destruction. Thanks to kind hearts and little common sense, we now have five, of which three love destruction. Duke, the Golden Retarded, will strip an Arborvitae of branches in an afternoon. Hiro and Bailey, lab and schnoodle respectively, fill in by shredding yuccas and anything non-tree. Our once-beautiful yard is now a rock-strewn, stick-filled wasteland. The lawn, where it isn’t filled with holes or questionably squishy, is infested with fairy-rings. Our shrubbery looks like we’ve been hit by acid rain. Or perverse beavers. No more, though. Judging by the decreasing frequency of yelps, it sounds like the dogs are learning. Soon our trees and plants should be able to grow again. We can re-plant our grapes and red yucca. Maybe even put the rocks back out by the pond. Today is a good day to be a tree in our yard.

I Forgot The F****ing Title

by Nathan

Categories: Reviews

Tags: coffee, grinders, poor design

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Published on: April 4, 2009

We go through a coffee grinder about once every six months. Either it breaks, or we get tired of sub-par grinding. Our last grinder was actually quite sturdy, but it used a blade, and I could never get the grinding just right for our French Press. Our new grinder is a burr grinder, which I much prefer.

If you enjoy the aroma of freshly-ground coffee, the Capresso Burr Grinder Model 551 is for you. The poorly-fitting connection between the grinder body and the ground coffee container emits a constant shower of grinds during grinding, gently dusting everything within two feet with a coffee coating and filling the room with that yummy coffee smell. As a bonus, the highly static grounds container sends forth another glop of grinds as soon as you move it from its base, and yet another when you pop open the lid. If you want to minimize the initial powdering, you have to press the catcher tightly against the main body during grinding.

Fortunately, I have big hands, so I can do this with just one hand. This is fortunate because the start button for the timer takes a few seconds before it actually stays down. A small-handed person would have to focus on holding the button down and enjoying the coffee dust batch for the first two or three seconds rather than focusing on minimizing the spray.

At this point, I like to wave a finger back and forth over the edge of the catcher body and watch the grounds line up and sway in time with my finger. I find this play of static and grounds quite mesmerizing. My wife finds it, and the mess, quite huff-inducing. You can’t please everyone.

Financial Genius

by Nathan

Categories: Family, Whatever

Tags: espresso, robins, Spring, worms, yummm...chocolate!

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Published on: April 2, 2009

The stock market is ticking up again. You can thank me with cash or chocolate, your choice. Yes, it was me and my decision to buy a new printer and espresso machine, bouying up the market. Send cash now, and I will get a new computer and really get this whole stock market thingie cranked up. Okay, maybe that G20 deal had something to do with it, but mostly it was me.

So Spring has been a wash this year. The First Robin of Spring was in the back yard the other day, perched in the walnut tree with the Second through Fifteenth Robin of Spring and an assorted collection of Starlings of the Apocalypse. They looked hopeful, but mainly pissed that it was snowing again. In a day or two, when the snow melts, I am sure I will find a few of them frozen to the ground. Maybe you should have waited for the ground to thaw a bit before going after worms, silly!

I do need a new computer, though. Once again, my highly static nature has wiped out a machine. The sad beeps at startup tell me it is the memory. I’ve tested the memory, however, and it all works, just no longer in that computer. I can use one memory chip at a time as well. So it is actually the motherboard. Sigh . . . I am off to the computer graveyard in the back shop with yet another computer corpse.

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