Illogical web spamming drives me nuts. Just sayin'.

An Open Letter to CNN.com:

Dear CNN.com,

While I may have clicked on several of your links for news, I never gave you permission to send news alert emails (which fortunately because gmail apparently is able to read my mind and saw that I never gave permission or signed up for anything ended up in my spam mailbox).

As I navigated your site to try to figure out if I had actually had an out-of-body experience and registered for your news alert distribution list, I discovered that you, CNN.com, did not have my email address in your files as to having an account with your website, so I reached the conclusion that fortunately, my sanity was still mostly intact and that I had never signed up for the alerts.

Nothing can describe my confusion when you prompted me to sign up for an account in order to turn off the news alerts emails. So, now, you are asking me to sign up for an account that I do not want, to turn off services that I had never requested for, nor gave permission for.

Please kindly refrain from killing off the rest of the marbles in my brain by stopping this news alert service immediately.

Love,

zlotte

a bit of a update ...

Been a while, yes? Not too much to talk about on my end - else than the road trip #3 (which was far too close to road trip #2 for my comfort, ugh - driving fatigue!), and that I'm missing N, M, and their dog, Kiah way too much.

First stop: Mt. Rainier National Park. Wow. Words or pictures does not do it justice - if anyone is visiting Washington State, this is a MUST STOP. I camped near the Sunrise portion of the mountain, and the weather was perfect, the view near the water was gorgeous.





After Mt. Rainier, I drove to East Washington and camped at an extremely touristy campground by a lake - nothing exciting there, move along people, nothing to see (except I wish I had a video of me jumping up and down screaming after being stung by two wasps who along with a bunch of 'em decided to investigate the picnic table that I was using for a nest location ... apparently they didn't think it was feasible.)

A couple stops later, Yellowstone. Boy do I have mixed feelings about that park. There were way too many people there. Seriously, people, that National Park had three, count 'em, three post offices. Wuh?! Some of the intersections there had off-ramps. There were traffic jams there on Monday and Tuesday. Double wuh?! Granted, I think it's excellent that people are coming out to explore nature in droves, but enjoying nature has somewhat less to do with people, but more to do with nature, that's for me anyway. Regardless - Yellowstone was GORGEOUS - and one / two days are just enough to visit - don't think I'll be making a visit back any time soon.

And a shout-out to Gallaudet!

Drove through the second most boring state in the US of North Dakota (no offense to anyone who live there - I think Kansas wins the title of the falling-asleep-while-you-are-driving state), stopped by and saw a couple of friends near Minneapolis, met up with an old college buddy out in Madison, fun was had with all - and then I decided to just book it. Drove 12 and 10 hours in two consecutive days. I had to take a couple of days of doing nothing and doing it all day to recover.

So, now you're pretty much caught up. It's all pretty boring these days - hopefully that'll change soonish.

not quite coffee, but close ...

This is my front porch - there's a few separate buildings on the property and my bedroom is just an one room studio, separate from the main building with its own porch.  So, this is the front porch where I usually emerge half-asleep to head to the bathroom and then the kitchen for 2 or 3 cups of some strong caffeinated coffee - er - diesel fuel. 

This is what I woke up to a for a few mornings over the last week (we move Goldie every few days so she has fresh grass to eat everyday).  Smack dab in front of me, hello Goldie!  I still needed the coffee.

a few more farm pictures

N's ancient tractor - he loves the tractors that were built in the early 1900-1940's because they are built to last, so he found this one that he uses for furrowing and a variety of other gardening needs. He went out and bought another one that was selling for 1/4 of what it is worth, so he's a very excited boy with his new toys!

Couldn't resist another picture of the pigs - they are growing so much and so quickly. It's fun to watch them because they definitely are extremely smart and alert of what is happening around them.

Kiah! A bad picture of N and M's 9 / 10 months old puppy, Kiah. She has tons of energy, but she's also very mellow and does chill out. She loves hanging under the dinner table (probably cos of all the food that falls down there). She's a Kuvasz - a breed of livestock guard dog. I think she's starting to recognize me, and gets excited to see me along with N and M when / if we're away for a bit.

Drunk Pudy! Nah - good beer is easy to get around here, just fyi - so many good microbreweries, woo hoo - this cat is one of the four cats around here - Pudy and Hector are the attention whores who loves to just annoy the hell out of you when you're trying to read a book. Pudy would walk right on the book and poke her head right in my face with the "pet me, bitch" look.

Hope I'm not boring you guys with tidbits from around here - there's really not much happening on my end except for working here on the farm. This weekend, although, I'm heading up to Seattle for the weekend to hang out with a couple of friends, as well as get my ASL injection, so hopefully will have some good city photos!

moving the chickens ...

Transporting over 500 chicken from the brooding area in our barn to the field is easier than you think when you're related to two people that have done it twice for the last five years ...

The chicken was getting too big for the brooding area (this is the area where you set it up with heat lamps, 24/7 light for a couple of weeks, and then gradually introduce the concept of night to the baby chicks, and then switch out the heat lamps for lower strength until you get to just normal light bulbs), so we put them in these crates and hauled out to the field. We had to make a few trips so that the chicken can travel comfortably and have some elbow room for the one mile drive out to the field that N and M rented.



In these pens approximately 80 to 90 chicken are placed in each pens - we have 6 pens so that they have plenty of room to walk around. Food and water are cleaned and provided twice everyday.


This is a crucial part of the concept of healthy and "organic" chicken (the quote marks is because N and M's farm has not been certified organic yet, but all process and policies follow the organic concept) - the pens are moved once everyday so that the chicken have fresh grass to eat everyday, and so that they don't walk around in their own manure, which is a major issue in regular chicken raising factories - they get all these diseases from standing around in their manure for too long. The pens only require two people to move it (this photo shows a family who is helping a student that has a contract with M to learn chicken farming), one with a dolly, and the other one with a rope pulling the pen over the field slowly (the chicken learns to move with the pen).

This is a bonus for the field because the manure fertilize the field, for future crops.

Hope y'all enjoy this mini lesson on chicken raising ...

the things that the supermarket does not sell / show you

This lovely and perfectly good carrot had the misfortune of being planted in a constrictive box / pot before we discovered it (rather than being planted right in the ground), and this is the result! Makes you wonder what happens to all the "deformed" but perfectly good food that does not make it through the "supermarket filter" ....

bye bye cast!