Quote: George Burns

"You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there."

Lambing Season is Over

One other ewe had her lambs, twin boys, Thursday. Only one of them made it. We are past the point where they can have them, so I guess the other two didn't breed.

The second softball practice is today. Hopefully it will be warmer than last week. And hopefully be more fun/productive.

Easter

It looks like we're going to get our cold weather for Easter. I can only remember one Easter in my lifetime that was warm and sunny...and I was sick that year. My brother, Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa hunted eggs in the back yard. I could see them from the couch, where I was stuck. The cold weather is also going to make the first practice of summer softball less pleasant. I'm kind of nervous, but Mom has talked to some of the girls and they seem excited, so that helps. I'll be glad when we get past the shirt ordering business. There's definitely a benefit to being assistant coach if only to avoid that mess.

The three ewes still haven't had their lambs. I'd be worrying, but their eating and grazing habits haven't changed, so I think the lambs are still alive. They are just waiting to get here. Probably sometime between Friday night and Sunday morning, when it's raining/snowing and around freezing.

Baseball!

Baseball season is here. The first full day of MLB. My friend Reggie Willits made the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim team. He's a backup outfielder. GO REGGIE!! I have two fantasy baseball teams this year. One on Yahoo and one on MLB.com. So far I'm seriously under-impressed with MLB.com's.

There are still three more ewes that have to have their lambs within the next few days...or we have a problem. We have 21 live lambs. They all seem to be doing good. The bottle baby is starting to put on a little weight. She's cute as a button (I've always wondered why people say that. Buttons aren't all that cute.).

It's time for Little League summer softball. I'm head coach this year. My brother's going to assistant coach. My mom is taking care of all the paper and leg work. I'll be glad when we get that part over with and can concentrate on softball. The focus is going to be on learning the fundamentals. I figure, if we get those down, winning will come on it's own.

Saturday's Are Nice

It's not a workday and it's not Sunday (where you have to worry about Monday, which is a workday). I spent the morning getting feed, cleaning out self-feeders and fixing fence. Every year I say I'm going to clean out the self-feeders (feeders where the lambs can go and eat their fill whenever they want) after we start individually feeding them and not wait until spring when we have a new lamb crop. And every year I fail to do it, so it's always wet and moldy. Luckily we've figured out that a shop-vac will suck that stuff right outta there. It was really dusty this year. I had it from head to toe. Warning: The black widows and wasps are already out.

We've decided to bottle feed one of the lambs. The mom only has one working food source and the bigger girl seems to be cleaning it out before the little girl can get to it. She ate 1/4 of a bottle this morning and 1/2 tonight. She's really too cute. She's teeny-tiny and has a bleat that breaks your heart. It sounds a lot like a newborn baby when it's really wailing.

I upgraded my Ubuntu to Feisty Fawn. It's a beta version, but for what I've used it for so far today, it's worked great. The best thing is I didn't have to install any printer drivers or anything to get my printer to working. Yea!!

Happy Birthday Sydney!

It's Been a While

I know it's been a while since I posted, but that shows how truly boring I am.

We've had a few more lambs and lost a few. We have four ewes left to lamb, but I think that one of those isn't bred.

I've been playing with Ubuntu; installing, reinstalling, tweaking. I did get MLB.tv/audio working...but then I broke something else and did a clean reinstall.

I always think of things I want to rant about/post on here when I'm away from a computer, and then when I get back to one I've either forgotten what I was going to post or it just seems silly when I think about it.

I want to say a belated happy birthday to my brother. I love ya little bro.

Update: Dad just called and we have two more lambs, a boy and a girl. So now we are down to three (or two if I'm correct).

Ubuntu and Canon

I know that Murphy's Law covers a great many things. I haven't had time to sit down and read them all, so if there isn't one that matches it, or if there is one I want to rename it, that states "If something can go easy or it can go difficult and it always goes difficult" that's Mandi's Law.

So in a previous post, I talked about how I installed Ubuntu on my external hard drive. Well, of course my Canon Pixma ip4200, and all Canon's for that matter, aren't very compatible. Why did I have to have a printer out of thousands that wasn't compatible? That's right, Mandi's Law! So after many frustrating hours of trying to get it right with the driver that's supposed to be for that printer, I may have found a solution using a Canon bjc-8200 model with the recommended driver. It printed the test page and a spreadsheet successfully. I haven't tried a picture, but I'm going to end the night on a successful note and not try it until later.

I still haven't gotten MLB tv/audio to work in Firefox on Ubuntu, but I do think I'm getting closer. I gotta get it working before April 1st for sure. ;)