sheepdog

Welcome Miller! Glad to see your back here at good old Xisto. So, where have you been and what made you decide to come back here?

Ok, just because it's so slow here, not trying to pick a fight with you or anything, can you tell me any of the good things you think Obama will do in the future? He sure hasn't done anything to help us out in the past 4 years he's been in office. Did hear a good one on the news last night. Donald Trump has offered Obama 5 MILLION dollars to distribute to any charity he would like to if he will realease his college records and passport information! That should prove to be interesting!

I am so sorry to hear about all your health problems. Sure have missed you around here. Do try to visit more often, you can relax and type nice and slow, we don't mind, we are all very paitent. Congrats on kicking the ciggerette habit. That is something I REALLY need to do, but just can't manage it. What a tough thing to do!

The alternative to not having a wood splitter is using an ax or splitting mall, if your horse enough to swing one. Not a pleasant experience at all! I know from experience, I've sure done enough of it myself. We heat our home with fire wood, and it is enough of a job to cut trees down, cut them up, and load them up and bring it home and then unload it, without having to swing a chopping ax at it all too. Of course, you still have to lift the logs up onto the splitter, so it's still not an easy job keeping warm in the winter. But it will split up a pretty big chunk of wood, anything I am stroung enough to wrestle up on it is fair game. It's almost that time of year again, I am without a doubt, dreading it. The older I get the harder it gets to do.

I worry about you children some days. You do know that it is still possible, and actually pleasant, to have a real conversation, face to face, with a real person????? No, as you may of guessed, I don't do Twitter.

Wow, so close now to the election and only 3 people have voted!? That is some serious apathy! This is turning out to be quite the horse race, with the candidates now running nearly neck and neck in most polls. How many of you watched the debates? I've never watched an entire political debate in my life until this year. I watched ever minute of the first 2, but the 3rd one I missed a little of, honestly, it got pretty boring. Just rehasing the same old stuff.

Yes, since the masses have entered the computer and technoligy world, prices have been coming steadily down, just as long as your not one of those folks that has to have the newest gizmo the very day it is released to the public. Most things are within the reach of anyone's budget. But one problem is the rapid advance of technoligy. You set up your system will all the bells and wistles and goodies you want, but then in just a few years any new systems that come out will no longer work with the new stuff. I really wanted to upgrade to the newest version of windows, but none of my current software programs would work with it. I was pretty dissapointed, but didn't want to replace everything, so I just had to go back to Window's XP.

Welcome to Xisto! Do tell us more about yourself, your interests, what part of the world you hail from, and all that stuff.You'll find we are generally a pretty friendly and helpful group.

You guys aren't alone in the world, it took a long time to convince a buddy of my hubby that they are real. He finally saw one out here one day. He thought they were cartoon charectors too. One of the things that surprised me when I began my roadrunner observations is that they actually nest up in trees. Had I been guessing I would of bet for sure they were ground dwelling birds. They are strong flyers when they want to be, though I've never seen one fly more than a 100 yards or so. They do prefer to run. They are a fair sized bird, maybe not quite as big as a crow, but one thing for sure, I remember the first time I had the original road runner come up and take a mouse out of my hand, I thought at least his beak was pretty big! I was questioning my own sanity in offering the mouse, that beak looked big enought to take my finger along with the mouse! But he was a smart enough bird that he knew not to bite the hand that was feeding him.

LOL, yea, that is one draw back to waiting, especially with technoligy type stuff. It can be outdated long before us cheapskates can get our grubby little hands on them. But for everything else, it works out pretty good. Though I have to admit, there are time when I feel like one of those buzzards sitting on the fence post waiting around for something to die that says to the other buzzard, "Patients hell, I'm going to kill something!"

Thanks for all the kind words guys. It's hard to think about him being gone. He was quite a charector, always very lively and animated, with hilliarous wild stories to tell. The first few dates me and hubby had were actually spent at his house visiting, drinking beer and just in general having a good time. We shared all the holiday dinners together, at one house or the other, and frequently met up in the big city to have lunch together. I'm sure my hubby will come to terms with it in his own way. He is a smart, stable level headed guy, but it's hard not to worry about him. What's eating at me as much as anything is that it is an unpleasant reminder of the future, as they say, Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

I've watched mine closely, and have never seen them show any interest in fruit and seeds. But yes, lizzards are definatly on their menue, and bugs, and the main reason I decided I like them so well is that their favorite food seems to be mice! Since they are a lot cuter than the black snakes we have around here eating mice, I prefer the road runners to the snakes of course.

So, your lounging around the house watching TV and you see an ad for some odd ball product and you think, gee, that's pretty cool, I could use one of those! Then the announcer gives the price and you think dang, that's a lot of money for a stupid little piece of junk like that. But wait....if you order right now we will send you not only one gizmo, but 2! That's right, 2 for the price of one, you just have to pay the shipping and handling on the second gizmo. What a deal right? But then you squint up your eyes and get real close to the TV and find that the shipping and handling charges are probably still more money than the silly little gizmo is worth to start with. So, what do you do? Whip out your credit card and order it anyway??? Not me!!! Because I have long since learned that sooner or later, all these crazy products you see advertised on TV will sooner or later be offered by some vendor at a swap meet somewhere! At a very small fraction of the price they were originally offered for on the television, and there's no shipping and handling charge at all! This weekend I managed to score a Lint Lizzard, one of those things you use to poke down your clothers dryer vent to suck out all the lint balls. And a Shoe's Under, so I can get some of the clutter out of the bottom of my closet and stash the extra pairs under the bed. And the good news is I spend a whole $6, which I believe is less than the shipping and handling fee on just one of the products!Now, if only someone will bring one of those gizmo's you stick to the bottom of your bath tub to scrub your feet with, I'll be a happy camper! :-)

Hi there infotronix! Glad you found you way here and hope you enjoy your stay. Lots of fine, friendly and helpful folks here. So if you have questions just start asking away! I'm sure someone will have answers for you. Be sure and tell us a little more about yourself. Your interests and likes and what part of the world you are in.

I have always loved my hubbies Bar B Que, he normally makes pork steak or chicken on the BBQ but recently he wanted to try something different, so he purchased a package of what they call Country Style Ribs. I have got to tell you, they are FANTASTIC! They come a couple different ways, some are completely boneless, and some have a small edge of bone in them. He cooks them quick on a charcoal grill, they cook up fast, and so far every package we have had has been very tender and absolutly delicious! Normally when you fast cook meat it ends up tough, but these sure don't! Next time you want to fire up the old grill, look for a package at your local grocery store. Just make sure they are labeled "country style" ribs. We haven't grilled a single package of pork shoulder steak since we got started on these country style ribs.

Well thats interesting, thanks for the heads up about the bots. I didn't realize they would be counted. I just kept thinking with that many guests we should be getting a lot more members than we do, but if they are just bots that would explain those high numbers. I know this place has been around for quite a few years now, but 81,000 and some odd members is an awful lot of members for no more traffic than we have here, or have been having for the last few months. I know it's easy to get side tracked with what life throws in our direction occasionally, but you'd think with that many, most would pop back in from time to time, even if they gave up on one web site sooner or later they would take up another one and knowing how easy it is to get free hosting here they would come back when they are ready to start another site.

Yes, keeping the meat fresh is an issue, but I did use lunch meat, which no doubt has enough preservatives in it for it to be ok for at least a day or 2 anyway. And since I have seen crows eating long dead road kill, I didn't think their tastes buds were all that particular about freshness anyway. Ritu, it was just one of those odd times I happened to have the camera in my pocket. I carry it around a lot back and forth between the house and the kennel when I'm taking puppy pictures for customers, I just happened to have it this time. I was about 20 feet or less from him. He was actually in an empty dog pen I had left the gate open on and was cleaning them, as I came over to take the picture he came out of the pen and stood for a minute right in front of them.Just yesterday our little Schnauzer tried to chase one of them. She knows she is not supposed to bother them, but sometimes she just forgets and gets excited when she sees one and goes after it. I yelled at her and she instantly stopped chasing it, and funny thing was, the bird stopped running just as soon as I made her stop chasing it. It's almost like it knew that he was now safe and didn't have to get away from the annoying little dog. He then just causually sauntered away at a calm and leasurly pace, while the dog sat and glared at him. I thought it was rather funny, though I don't think the dog appreciated my sense of humor on this one.

The incubator itself does not make steam, but you have to keep shallow trays of water in it under the eggs that produce a fairly high humidity. When the chicks start to hatch humidity becomes critical, and you aren't supposed to open the incubator till they are done, but I can never keep myself from peeking, and of course, they often hatch over a period of several days, so if you don't take out the early birds they would starve before the hatch is done. Fortunatly, chicks can go for awhile without eating, that is why you can order baby chicks in the mail and get them to survive. They absorb the yolk just as they hatch, and can live off of it for awhile. Opening the incubator during the actual hatching causes the chicks to get shrink wraped, in other words, the tough layer that seperates the chick from the inside of the shell drys out and gets to hard for the chick to tear out of. But I keep a mister bottle handy when checking the incubator during this time and always mist the eggs before I put the top back on it. It works out ok that way. I got a little better than a 60% hatch rate this time. They tell me this is pretty good for a still air incubator. I lost 3 chicks the first night, they all crowded into one corner of the brooder box, by where the waterer was and managed to drown 3 of their silly selves. Lost a few more since them but still have about 50 chicks. Figure half about will be pullets (female) that I will keep for laying hens, so that still leaves me plenty of fried chicken dinners.

The preasure is really on now. With the passing of my hubbies older brother, we are even more determined to make it out to see his sister this year. So far things are going ok, but there has been a bit of a slow down in sales. I do hope that doesn't last very long, and I sure hope Christmas goes better than last year. But right now I am pretty optimistic about our chances for getting to take a vacation this year. I worry too about it being an election year. It seems that scares some people out of spending money when the economy is bad and things are unstable, and there is a great deal of uncertainity about the future. And it won't really matter which one gets elected, there will be just as many pessimists that are sure we are all doomed as there are optimists that think everything will get better.

Yes, it is a poor opinion, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. All you have to do is look at kids around you today. Look at the little morons that harrassed that bus moniter to tears. And then were stupid enough to post the video of their torture of the poor old woman on face book. Is that what computers are doing to our young people today? What kind of social skills are they learning to treat another human being like that? They seemed to think it was just fine to do that and disrespect their elders. Children did not act that way when I was growing up. A child would NEVER speak to an adult that way. And I doubt any kids would of even tried it, knowing full well our parents would of busted our buts darn good for such antisocial behaviour. If children do not get out in the real world and make real friends and socially interact directly with other humans, they will never learn to live in a civilized society. You don't learn people skills sitting in front of a computer screen.

I seem to have met more than my fair share of really strange people in my life. Seems like I draw them like a magnet. One that jumps to mind I could use the oxymoron to describe as an honest liar. Used to know this woman who would tell the dangdest stories you ever heard in your life. Supposedly she claimed she worked as a Hollywood stunt woman, and personally knew Elvis Presely, and John Wayne. I remember when the duke died she came in to the restuarant where I worked all crying and upset because he had died and they were such good buddies. Now granted, I suppose those wild tails could of been true, but I always had some serious doubts about them. So finally the opportunity presented itself for me to set her up and find out just exactly the kind of liar she was. It started when I gave her this dog. Shortly after I gave it to her, apparently she asked this other fellow to put the dog down for her, she didn't want it anymore, and he came to me and told me about it. He also brought me the dog back, so I actually had possesion of the dog. Then every time I saw her for the next several months I would ask her about the dog. I let all my co-workers in on the little secret, so they could all see her for what she was. She went on for months telling me how wonderful this dog was and how her hubby cared so much about it and all these special training classes they took the dog to and how intelligent it was and how it could do all these amazing tricks and just all kinds of BS. I never did tell her that I had the dog back.

Well, then, I'm pretty pround of myself, guess I'm the first, and so far only fool to have sat and posted and posted and made it the the magical number of 51! And no, I don't think any of it was spam, though I did hit up a few of the older posts that I had missed in the past. Don't think I'll be trying it again any time soon. I guess it was worth it, I ended up wracking up $10 in credits. Not bad for a rainy day when I couldn't do much of anything else anyway. Now....if only I could finish off these apples!!! I've dryed and dryed and saused and pied until I can barely stand the sight of an apple. We sure had a bumper crop this year. I figure about one more good round in the dehydrator, and maybe another cobbler and it will be all over with finally. Then I get to experiment with recipies for dried apple pie!

In an effort to control fraud, many credit card companies now decline charges to your credit card that are "different" than you would normally use. They do track and record every purchase you make, so they are well aware of your shopping habits. So if you are usually near your home paying for gas at your local gas station, if a charge is suddenly made on your card a sate or two away, that would send up a red flag in a hurry. In my case, I normally only use the card to occasionally purchase gas, and frequently to order dog vaccine, so that is a pretty far cry from a book.

I'm glad we've had this topic and discusion. I was surfing for places to put ads on line the other day and actually ran across a site that you can right articlues for, and one they need on the site is one I can do with some real athourity on a subject I am well versed in, so with the incouragement from this discusion, I have added articule writing now on my to do list! Sadly, it's hard to find all the hours in the day I need, I seen to have dificulties just keeping up with posting here to pay for my web hosting. Oh well, I'll keep trying!

Interesting about the river, and reallly good news. The presense of water makes the odds of life on the planet a lot higher I would think, and while it may now be nothing more than fossils, it means there was life there at some time, even if it was a million years or so ago. I find it really amazing that they could learn all that extra information about how it flowed and all that too, just from the rover. Have to wonder how they figure all that stuff out.