http://www.garydigs.com Tales of the holes I dig, the dirt piles I make, and the holes I fill at the B-Bar-Lazy-B Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:10:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Pile O' $h!t: Apparently it has been 2 months since I wrote the Homeresque blog post about the truck designed to rival Tolstoi in verbosity. You can imagine I needed a long hard rest after that blogging odyssey, and honestly, I don't feel like I've gotten that long hard rest, but alas, ... http://www.garydigs.com/2009/06/16/pile-o-ht-pie-transportation-and-hair-weave-on-the-loose/ Right around the time we started the new bed and hauled the cottonwood rounds, I ran across a post I could not refuse during one of my frequent "diesel < 3000" Craig's List searches (don't ask me why, I'm not really shopping for anything particular, but I like to see ... http://www.garydigs.com/2009/04/09/dangerous-chemicals-and-oodles-of-icky-oil%e2%80%a6continued-from-last-post/ We're working on a new raised bed (as previously mentioned), honey bees are coming soon, and I just acquired almost 200 gallons of used vegetable oil that I'd like to brew into biodiesel (most of the oil is in JnX's garage at present)...More on this soon, and I mean soon, ... http://www.garydigs.com/2009/03/03/projects-projects-projects/ More to come on this soon... (written 1/17/2009) Ok, well, soon is a relative term...it is now March 3rd and Maya has seen fit to comment on how terribly out of date this post is (in addition to threatening to blog about the new raised bed, not that I'd mind, but ... http://www.garydigs.com/2009/01/17/rats-eggs-and-escapees/ but only in the left half of our front yard. Minor freak out this afternoon when I stepped out front to check the mail (after having been in the backyard for a bit) and found the left half of the front yard damp and rain drops falling solely in that ... http://www.garydigs.com/2009/01/17/raindrops-keep-falling-on-my-head/ Well, it wasn't her own doing this time, but rather our friend Y. with all the many nicknames (mentioned here: Extravagance…with a little help from my friends…) sent Maya a YouTube video that you have to watch. This is, as Maya put it, A Beautiful Thing. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/12/17/she-finds-the-coolest-things/ I suck... because I haven't writen a well thought out post in quite a while. My Dad was in town over Thanksgiving weekend, and that was a blast. It's the first time he has made it out here from Dead Rock, MT since we bought the house, so it was a long ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/12/14/on-the-whole/  I've gotta give props (no pun intended) to Keith Olbermann (who generally just irritates me as much as any of the rest of his ilk on the 24 hour news cycle) for the following:   Generally, I tend to think the more effective (and more accurate) tact is that in a supposedly "free" secular ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/11/16/credit-where-credit-is-due/ first, you have to know that there are 2,532 songs on my iPod (which generally stays in my truck unless I buy or import some songs and need to sync up). You should also know I am a little bit obsessive about keeping it on "Shuffle All". I enjoy my ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/11/04/lookin-for-a-leader-election-day-freak-out/ pre-occuppied with tomorrow that I can hardly stand today... That's all I've got for now, and tomorrow I will be stationed in front of the TV and the ol' interweb until the cows come home... Ok, can't resist, saw this on FiveThrityEight.com “And I swore I’d be in Chicago tomorrow, and made sure ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/11/03/today-im-so/ 6 days later??? Strange that right after we finally posted signs that Bukowski waltzed in the house looking for dinner. Perhaps he can read... Or, he got himself trapped in someone's shed or garage... Or, he has been in someone's house and instead of calling they just let him go...which is disappointing, but ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/25/the-cat-came-back/ a cliché, but "clichés, good ways, to say what you mean, mean what you say..." (Jimmy Buffet, Clichés, Havana Daydreamin'). It seems we can't get through a month without a little drama and disaster around here. Bukowski the cat has now gone missing. We last saw him on Sunday night. Historically ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/23/its-the-not-knowing/ First, you must follow this link. and a very special thanks to M&M Incremental Updates for making my Sunday morning with that link. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/19/ummmi-almost-wet-myself/ Maya has written about and posted pictures of the spoiled girls of the house... You must visit here. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/16/this-just-in/ 2008-10-18 Update on Joe (not really Joe and not a licensed plumber). I was reluctant to write this post. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think it might be because I hate to memorialize what I think was one of Barack Obama's greatest gaffes through the debates. I just don't ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/16/a-word-or-two-about-joe-the-plumber/ The Republican Party has succeeded in energizing its base, and now we know who that base is... McCain struggles against his base Of course, he could have done a better job of addressing the blantant racism and fear mongering, but then he would lose the election for certain. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/13/the-cat-is-officially-out-of-the-bag/ Blume layed what could have possibly been the cutest egg in the history of chickenkind...however, it fell out of my pocket as I was creating the concrete buffet and fractured beyond salvage before anyone but I could see it in all its overwhelming adorableness. The egg was even smaller than ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/11/concrete-buffet-and-i-keep-gettin-a-little-teary-eyed/ and yes, that is good enough for me. So, generally, I have to admit...I don't cook. I suck at it, I don't enjoy it, I don't have the motor skills nor memory to keep several things going all at once in the kitchen and quickly get overwhelmed by the simple tasks ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/09/c-isssss-for-cookie/ No, really, a mess of beans. Yesterday's gusts up to 40 mph took out our half-ass bean trellis yesterday (not surprising, I suspected the stinking Skyway winds would take their toll on it eventually). As an aside, one of the things I initially loved about Seattle was how infrequently we ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/05/mess-o-beans-happy-chickens-and-an-update-on-the-old-man/ This post is long overdue... As you might recall, August started off with a bang, and not the bang for which we were hoping. I mentioned the middle of the night trip to the emergency vet with Hemingway in this earlier post. Well, he improved somewhat through August, but never regained ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/01/the-old-man-and-the-see/ with flexible insulating ducting... [caption id="attachment_191" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The splendor of the flexible insulated ducting...so beautiful...so charming"][/caption] This project finally got started, as most do, fairly unintentionally and following lengthy internal debates about the relative merits of the project in contrast to the associated risks and hassles (which, as usual, were underestimated). ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/01/i-think-im-in-love/ In short, I consider it the most important appliance in the house (well, maybe the furnace is more important, but bear with me for a moment). The dishwasher actually fulfills the promise of modernity. Technology that saves us labor without the technology itself creating much of a hassle. We should ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/10/01/battle-dishwasherwon-at-last/ is a gaggle of ignorant pidgeon heads... That's all I have right now, what a missed opportunity to both salvage the economy and make some progress in the regulation and oversight of the country's major banking institutions all at once... Well, we had a second world war...I guess it is time for ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/09/29/the-house-of-representatives/ So, it would be inaccurate to say we were lost... At any given moment, we knew the way home, we just didn't know how to get where we wanted to go. As I mentioned previously some horrible crap happened to Maya's car during a middle of the night hit-and-run (it was ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/09/01/always-take-the-map/ We were so looking forward to August. The hope being that some assemblance of the normal order would be returned, and that a blanket of calm would settle over the B-Bar-Lazy-B. Since I am the crappiest blogger known to the entire cyber-universe, I'll have to give you some background before ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/08/17/were-up-were-down-were-in-were-out/ So...our friend Y. who goes by many nicknames...none of which he would want posted online...gave me a pair of gloves for my birthday this year with a pack of M&M's stuffed in them. In the flurry of activity (mostly me showing our guests the chickens) I failed to try them on ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/08/05/extravagancewith-a-little-help-from-my-friends/ You have to leave right now and go look at this dirty bee butt... http://www.eighthacrebounty.com/2008/07/30/bees/ and the fantastic bee head picture that Maya took out in the yard. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/08/02/if-you-are-here-for-some-mysterious-reason/ I added a dynamic sidebar to the classic theme. Pretty pedestrian, but hey...ya gotta start somewhere. If this is boring you to tears, there is more interesting stuff over at Eighth Acre Bounty, you should visit. At present this is where you will find a couple pictures of my holes and piles... Also ... http://www.garydigs.com/2008/07/23/yippee/ I'm trying to figure out why the image upload over at mayacooks.com is not working right. So, here is a picture in a post... (PS: Figured it out, kind of, IE6 weirdness with WP 2.51. Upload was working in IE7 and FF. Advised Maya to just use FF for now, she understandably hates IE7.) http://www.garydigs.com/2008/06/25/for-the-benefit-of-my-best-friend-in-the-whole-world/ It was bound to happen, and now it has... Well, almost...we'll see when something actually gets written here. http://www.garydigs.com/2008/06/07/coming-soon/