Life at the Acerage

She Blowed Up Real Good!
Sweetie and the puppy were away for the weekend and I was by myself for a few days.  Since I am now a 'consultant' working from home, I was diligently working away at my desk when all of a sudden there was loud BOOPH!!!! that shook the trailer!   Yikes!  What the H-E-double hockey sticks was THAT?!  I nearly $%!# my pants!

Turns out the neighbors were taking advantage of the soggy weather to burn a wood/junk pile behind our trailer. A little gasoline and a match ... she blowed up real good!


Our Neighbors the Belgians
The horses next door are a team of Belgian heavy horses whom I have affectionately named "Blondie" and "the Other One" (don't know their real names so I just made that up).  They are nearly identical looking and were standing in a nearly identical pose.

The quality of the picture is poor because I decided to take it through the window.  Why?  Cuz Blondie and Other One are fickle and I knew that once I opened the door and snapped the the camera, they would move and ruin their perfect pose.  And I was right.

Whatchulookin'at???

We're outta here!

When Nature Calls 
So I figgered I got some OK shots of the Belgians (even though they moved) and was about to leave my photographic perch when when I noticed this guy about 50 meters from the trailer ...

I don't think he saw me at first but when he did, he changed course and headed off in the other direction ... but not before taking care of some 'business' first.

(Lucky for him it was me with the camera and not Sweetie with the cross-bow!)


Quiet As A Mouse
Sweetie got up early one morning last week to head to the office.  He was so kind to be very quiet so as not to awake me.  In fact, he was SO quiet that the resident mouse didn't notice him either!  The brave little guy was busy snooping around the kitchen for crumbs and doing whatever else brave little mice do (like poo on the counter).  Sweetie was pretty disgusted by this.  He went into full-blown anti-rodent mode: mouse traps, Irish Spring soap, heavy duty rubber gloves and industrial strength Lysol by the gallon!

Friday evening I was settling in for the night when I heard it: THWAP!!! ... scuffle scuffle scuffle ... silence.  Apparently the lure of peanut butter was too much for the little fella and it proved to be fatal.  As I mentioned, Sweetie was away all weekend so I had to do the dirty deed and dispose of it (I briefly pondered leaving it for Sweetie to do but that would have meant seeing those bulgy eyes and flat head for several more days.  Besides, Sweetie hates rodents of all types so I probably would have had to deal with it anyway).

Sorry, no photos to go along with the 'mouse' story cuz that would just be grim.

Jaz and her playmates

Sweetie's puppy LOVES the horses that live in the fence next to us.  She is always looking for them and will sit and watch them for hours if we let her.  And it seems that the horses kinda like her too; when they see her near the fence, they will saunter over and have a nose-to-nose chat.  They're not that interested in us though unless we have something for them (such as lush green grass from our side of the fence since their side has been grazed to the ground.)

Jaz and her playmates

Drama at the acerage: Its a bird ... its a plane ... no wait, its a bird!!!

Sweetie left his truck door open for less than a minute, ran in the house to grab his wallet, ran back outside ... low and behold, he's got a passenger haha!

Its a bird ... its a plane ... no wait, its a bird!!! from Penella Zollner on Vimeo.

Change is good? Not always!

Rant alert!!!

I have taken tons of video over the last 2 years since I got my camera and in the past it was pretty easy to upload video clips directly to my blog (editing with the [bleeping] Panasonic/Sony software is another story and the subject of a future rant). I kinda like making "mini-movies" with my camera and over the months, I've created a few that I'd like to share here.

At some point, Blogger decided to "improve" things and changed the way videos are uploaded.  I prefer to upload my clips directly to my blog (the other method is via You Tube) but I have had no success uploading since this change.  Nuttin'.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.  Grrrr!  For whatever reason, the blogger FAQ and help sections have not caught up with the 'improvements'.  I spent more than a few hours in this dead end loop:

upload video clip
"failed to upload" error message
Google it to find a solution
upload again, different file format
error message
Google it again, different search term
upload
error
Google
upload
error
beat my head against a wall
Google ...

This morning I conceded defeat ... partly.  I discovered a website called "vimeo" which is like You Tube but geared towards professionals, artists and shmoes like me who prefer a respectful and supportive community (ever read some of the comments posted on You Tube?  Nuff said).  I'm going to attempt to upload my mini-movies there and link to them here and with any luck, I'll have some fresh new content!!

Here goes ...