Alpha Kit

This little guy has by far been the most active of the litter of kits born recently.  Looks to be a total of four young ones....watch out world they'll be coming to see you soon!

Irish Foxes

Obviously, the foxes are Irish here behind the house as they brought out the little ones to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this afternoon.

Out with the old....

An oldie but very much a goodie in her day (dual DVI outputs!).  Finally couldn't handle the fan noise anymore and the occasional incompatibilities (think random blue screens).

New card....many more times as powerful and uses much less power.  Most importantly she is for all intents, noiseless while powering the dual monitors.  Game on!

Green Power

The pump in the solar powered birdbath (a great gift many moons ago) has had issues the last couple of years.  I saw a fairly inexpensive solar powered pump (like $6) over the winter and hoped it would be a good retrofit.  With the little statuary girl holding the panel, the water is once again splashing and gurgling.

Waiting on a few more things to kick off the season...

...like warmer weather.  Things are looking good for great kick-off to the swim season here in Tennessee.  Just need to get the water temperature up another 40 degrees or so.

Springtime Daffodils

A few of the clusters of daffodils around the front walk.  While a few groups decided to bloom weeks early, the rest were pretty much on schedule.

For all the nerds (read Clarks) out there....

Have got to get me a pair of better graphic cards :)

Foxes all around

Springtime seemingly brings out the local foxes as they begin to actively forage for food and prepare to raise their kits.  The neighborhood provides plenty of cover from people, dogs and coyotes to raise their families.  The pair behind our house are frequent guests and don't mind a stray human or two to be around...at a good distance.

One Score and Four...many, many more to go!

Twenty-four years ago today a lovely fair maiden went "all-in" and eloped with a somewhat wayward, bearded young man for reasons unknown to him (his face yet unseen!).  Many moons, several homes and three incredible children later, the fair and beautiful maiden still finds the somewhat slower, older and increasingly hirsute young man her main squeeze.  Here's a toast that she continues to look with nearsightedness through those same rose-colored glasses for many more scores of years to come!

Happy Anniversary First Mate!!!

Fortunately after shaving off the beard she liked what she saw and never asked to cover it up again :)

That's a Wrap!

Three for Three in the kids to college category!

Miss B

Padawan Young Jedi

And the Littlest Princess

Almost time to become a full time beach bum :)

Communication Center

A bit of 3D going on here to show the dishes and tower at the communication building.  In the background is the mill---no building needed here in the desert.  The mill team uses a construction type crane for their everyday maintenance and operation tasks.

Desert Cat

Our cat Delilah has a sister in the desert.....a very friendly one.

Quitting Time

Looking west over the mine in the distance from the parking lot of the man camp.

Nouakchott International

We're not in Kansas anymore....and I'm not working around raindrops either :)

Times are Tough

Unusual visitor to the suet baskets...

Times must be hard to find a mockingbird on the suet.  There are a few hardy pairs around the open, less wooded areas in front of the house that stay year round.  When it snows, or toward the end of a winter, they will come to the back yard when the readily available food supplies run a bit low.

Sparky the (Un)Lucky Squirrel

I noticed something a bit different the other day with our 25kW transformer outside the house.

On closer inspection it seems one of our resident gray squirrels contacted one of the hot legs and the grounded leg.  This isn't the first time but usually there is a loud "pop" and all you find is some scorched fur around the base of the pole.  Since Lucky got caught up on the low voltage side he's basically "stuck" for now.  Hopefully he falls off soon before one of our hawks or owls gets involved (crows should feel free to try and get a piece).

A Different Kind of Mac Pro

The littlest princess is all set to give the opening arguments for the prosecution today in Mock Trial competition.

She's got her game face on :)

Hustle and Bustle

A short clip of the feeder....

Always one in the crowd...

While most of the daffodils are primed and ready for their spring bloom, usually early to mid February since we've lived here, there is one bunch that is getting a head start on the others.  Looks like they wanted to show off a bit :)

Pretty in Pink

After a recent storm I found some pink insulation on the deck outside---weird as I know that the attic vents have screening on them to prevent this regardless of how much wind we have.  We also have fiberglass batting and not the loose, blown in type of insulation.

 

Closer inspection at the very peak of the house shows a bit of the pink stuff laying across one of the attic vents.....a long way up there!

Hanging the camera out the window in my office (aka bonus room) shows that we've had uninvited company---and some attic work to do before it warms up.  Appears that our friendly neighborhood squirrels needed to insulate their nests for their soon to arrive kids (oh joy).

Bustling up to the feeder

Our usual morning rush hour crowd at the feeder.

The male gold finches are beginning to turn "gold" to impress the ladies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Goldfinch

Illuminating Fan-tastic Repair

 We've had some on and off (literally) problems with the light fixture on the ceiling fan in the kitchen.  Bulbs would work, then stop and restart for no reason.

Close inspection showed that the ceramic lampholders looked heated---it's been here for 20 years but I was still surprised as we've only put 40 or 60 watt lamps in it.

Once the fixture was disassembled, 4 of the 5 lampholders were really, really bad.....and the 5th wasn't far behind.

The worst lampholder had wiring with burned off insulation.

All bright and shiny now :)  Will monitor the temperature as I suspect the heating may be with dimmer switch.

Getting ready for warmer weather

Most people rake leaves in their yard.  With all the trees on our property I've tried different ways to remove the leaves from the pool cover before taking the cover off.  This year's method looks very promising and relatively less labor intensive from previous years.

Time to upgrade....

In the good old days, hard drives either gave the death rattle right before they bit the dust (which preceeded rapid floppy disk backing up) or just failed altogether with no notice.  The new drives, paired with the operating system, now have the audacity to tell you they don't want to work anymore.  This hard drive is named Apollo and is installed on my desktop and has been online continuously for over 3 years.  He is imaged and backed up on Cronus which I'll probably be using soon to create a new C: drive.