Silo

This weekend I am NOT TEACHING!

It's awesome.

On our list of important things to do

was a run up the highway to our

little feed supplier.

They have a bunch of silos

full of the grains they grind and

mix fresh for us.

We have always wondered how they fill them with grain.

And today we got lucky enough to find out!

This trailer is full of soy bean meal.

See it pouring out of the little hole in the back.

Making a little pile.

And the pipe to the left?

That is a little vacuum!

It sucks the meal up through the pipe and

then through the next pipe

and over to the silo.  

It is quite the system!

(And a LOT of weight to be resting on those

rear tires... they are a little squished...)

Naturally Rod found the truck driver

and had a good visit with him.

He said normally it doesn't take too long

to off load all that meal,

but because of the old and unique

system they have here,

it takes several hours.

He still needed to run over to Plant City

to pick up and load and then was

heading back up to Georgia.

It was pretty fascinating!

Canadians Speak Weird!

Have you ever noticed how weird we 

Canadians talk?

And I don't just mean things like:

eh

chesterfield (yup, I still say that!)

garberator  (and that!)

It all started last night when I was driving

to my hotel after dinner.

I was passed by a Toyota Celica.

I haven't seen one of those in a while.

And when I saw it, I was reminded of

Deanna Bradshaw and her Celica, Cecil.

And, of course, I pronounced it correctly.

The Canadian way.

Cel-eeeee-ca.

Not the silly American Cel-i-ca.  (soft i)

Which then got me to thinking.

Down here, Rod, Jim and Kyle drive

American Semi's.  (Long I)

But if they were in Canada, they would drive

Semeeeees.  

You know.

Like semeeee colon.

(not sem-I-colon...)

Hmmmm.

Do we ALWAYS pronounce I as EEEE?

And come to think of it...

In high school, I was a draamaa major.

Not a drahma major.

*unless I was trying to be drahmatic...  lol

Yup.

When I'm away teaching

I lose my mind.

It's scareee.

Stump Bump

The trees are gone.

But they left giant stumps behind.

And those need to go.

Kyle to the rescue.

First he dug a giant hole.

Then he dug around the giant roots.

Then he wrapped a chain around it and

pulled the thing out

(with the tractor)

Kyle WINS!

It was a BIG hole.

(But notice the stump still in the background

behind him.....)

NEXT!

This next one is proving to be MUCH tougher.

Day 3 begins today!

GO KYLE!

Trees No More

It appears I NEVER take a picture of this side of

our yard.

I just looked through all the pictures on my phone.

I took this one in 2013!

Ignore the herd of horses trying to get 

into the house.

Instead notice the giant trees to the right

of the patio.

Those were two really nice big pine trees.

WERE being the important word there.

Then they died.

Well, the one behind died.

And our neighbors were afraid it would fall

on their house.

The one in the front was looking 

a little sickly as well.

So this weekend Rod and Kyle (and Shadow)

removed them.

It was a THING!

And now they are gone.

See?

No trees left.

*And WAAAAY too much of the neighbor's house.

These babies were HUUGE!

(I see a ... table? patio? MANTEL for the fireplace????)

The trash guys are going to be thrilled.

Lucky we have good help!

(And a good friend who lends us his tractor!)

BYE TREES!

(sniff)

Dogs

Howdy.

Shadow is Queen of the World.

She likes to sit on TOP of things.

Do you love how GREEN our yard is?

LOVE Florida.

The "fancy" dog house is something Kyle 

threw together for his old dog Bison.

But Bison didn't trust it.

He has finally decided it's not

scary or evil and now he will lay in there

and enjoy the shade.

But originally he would lay OUTSIDE

of it and give it the evil eye all day.

LOL

(The tarp next to it covers Duke's spot.

Duke is Rod's greyhound.)

Just in case you care.

Shadow belongs to Kyle.

He inherited her from his employer

when their daughter left for her mission

to Peru.  They don't want her back.

Bison belongs to Kyle.

He inherited him from Rod's brother

when they were putting in a pool in their

backyard and needed to take down the fence.

They don't want him back.

Duke belongs to Rod.

He is a retired racing greyhound who broke

his toe in the starting gate.

They don't want him back.

I don't have a dog.

I have chickens.

And rabbits.

And horses.

And cows.

Some day I will probably get a small dog.

But not until I'm not working 29 days out of 30.

Easter Bunny

They didn't quite make it for Easter.

They were a little late.

But they were close.

Yesterday I brought one out to "see"

the world.

(hard to do when your eyes aren't open yet)

And you are sound asleep.

But oh so darling!

This one might end up a pet

at Jim and Sabrina's.

Back Pasture Updates

Over the weekend the guys were BUSY!

They built a "corral" around my little baby

mango tree.  The cows have discovered 

the leaves are pretty tasty.

And the aluminum panels were had around it

were pretty easy to shove out of the way.

Then they built the frame for this

totally cool shade thingie.

Kyle put the metal roof panels on it yesterday.

We are working on getting them used to 

being touched.

Putting their Ivermectin (wormer) on them

was entertaining since they are pretty shy.

Moon is still pretty stand-off-ish.

She and Shadow (dog) love to play together.

But she's still not too thrilled with the humans.

You can pet her while she is eating.

But she doesn't like you to stand beside her.

You can stand in front (like the photo of Kyle

petting Sir) and pet her head and sides,

but she gets suspicious of anything else.

And then,

just to keep things fun and interesting

Moon climbed THROUGH the space in the 

fence between the top and bottom boards

and ate more of my tree.

We had to take the bottom rail off and shoo

her out.

And then Rod and Kyle put some barbed wire

between the rails (like the rest of the pasture fence).

No pictures of the little sneak.

I was busy protecting my tree.