060212 Wienie Roast at 8 degrees

(Feb 12, 2006) Yes, we had a wienie roast in the back yard and we were very comfortable. It was 8 degrees and there was a full moon with clear shadows of trees on the snow. Nice warm fire, hardly any sounds. Diesel sat out there with us. And we roasted pineapple chunks too. Did you know that when hot chocolate freezes it's not hot chocolate anymore?

Bert’s coop works so well. It’s –20F outside tonight with a wind chill of –40F but...

Bert’s coop works so well. It’s –20F outside tonight with a wind chill of –40F but the coop is 35F and the nests are 45F, with NO external heat supply. Just heat from the Chickens. with a tiny exhaust fan to keep the humidity down to 50%. By morning it would be a bit colder so just for overnight Ace put in a 80watt hair curler to supplement heat just for tonight. Today it was –5F, but the solar powered aviary was 65F and 100+ in the sun, which warms up the coop too... All for free. In Summer the coop stays 4 degrees cooler than the outside temp. These are some lucky Chickens.

SWAGSEEKER inspires BERT to come up with a revolutionary product

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

DO you like Eggnog? Do you like Eggnog with Rum?

ON sale soon. Bert gives his hens RUM to drink. Bert's farm fresh Pre-Rummed eggs. No need to buy Rum, Bert's hens are extremely happy hens and now they pass on their happiness to you. No more of Uncle Bob throwing mashed potatoes at Aunt Sarah at the Christmas party. With Bert's Pre-Rummed eggs, everyone will be mellow and smiling and happy or passed out on the couch.

(with music)...An egg in your nog will make you sleep like a log.
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060220 NASA apologizes to Bert for mistake.

Dramatic NASA Hubbell telescope pictures of Albireo (means "The Chicken's Head" in Arabic) show newborn stars emerging from "eggs" of cold gas and dust — not the barnyard variety — but rather, dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called Evaporating Gaseous Globules (EGGs) protruding from the wall of a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen. Hubble found the "EGGs," appropriately enough, in the CHICKEN nebula (also called M16.5), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years from Earth in the Coopers constellation. It was previously thought to be in the “Eagle” nebula until Bert brought it to their attention. Still unanswered though is the Chicken-Egg debate.

Let there be light (electricity)

A mean machine






It’s now buried 2 feet under. This is what Bert and Ace/Karen did last week. Buried 1,800 feet of #6 Electric cable from the pole barn to the cabin to replace the temporary cable that was there.


30 sec Video – an amazing machine in action (not Ace, the machine). 

Went down this steep hill and thru the fields and woods.














Only a few more hundred feet to the cabin on the creek.









Nearing cabin Almost there










On steep hill, laying cable in trench.












I hooked the elec up temporarily and it works. Next I need to permanently wire the pole barn and cabin breaker boxes then put the walls in the cabin back together.
This is our "nearby" cabin (an hour) where we can go just for overnite. It's very modest with only a TV/DVD, Small Frig, Microwave, LP-gas furnace (needs elec), ceiling fan, small vacuum and occasionally run a skill saw maybe.  Oh ya, an electric blanket too.

071230 Harris Point Elec trench.avi

Using trencher to bury elec cable from PB to Point

Ace has a girlfriend on the side.

(Ace takes over Bert’s blog).
Who wouldn't love her?  She always wants my attention and she’s so beautiful and sweet and kind and gentle and she loves me and keeps me smiling and entertained, nibbles on my ear, and she’s inexpensive to keep and doesn’t ever argue or disagree.
I was reclining in my 1974 Mustang chair with my feet up on the desk, knees slightly elevated, reading some City documents. I was perusing thru a stapled packet of papers when all of a sudden in a flash, a very dramatically "POP", over the top of the papers comes a Dove head from behind the papers with her beak hanging over the top of the papers. While she’s standing on my knees and on her toes, stretching, she stares at me. It was as if she was saying "Boooo" and waiting for my reaction. So I pretended I was scared and continued reading.
A minute later I had unfolded a blueprint and was holding it in the air in front of me looking at it when out of nowhere this Dove lands at the top and skillfully slides all the way down holding her wings up over her back as if she was downhill skiing saying "Wooooooo HooOOOooooo" as she lands in my lap. Then she looks up at me, smiling "DID you SEE what I just DID". She does this on purpose as I’ve seen her slide down slippery magazine covers too.









Out of a loose stack of 8.5x11 papers, she pulls one out and flings it on the floor "Wooooooo HooOOOoooo".
It’s not just what she does that’s so entertaining, it’s how she "talks" while doing it, she talks a LOT. Whenever she lands on something "Woooo Hooo Hooo Hooo hooooooo". If it was an especially risky or -daring maneuver she says "WOOOOooo HooOOOoooooo". Sometimes she just talks to herself with tiny little short muffled cooing sounds. Every time she lands on Ace it’s "Wooo Hooo Hooo Hooo Hooo HOOOooooooooooooo".


Her flying skills are amazing. She can hover like a helicopter or hummingbird, rise up and down and land almost anywhere. Also she has landing skills, like on the small round slippery plastic dome of Ace’s computer microscope. Very talented. She lands on the sloped arm of a lamp and slides down to the bottom "Wooooo HooOOOOooooooo".
Whenever Ace leaves the room after about 5 minutes she "yells" rather loudly and mournfully "Woo……. Hoo Hoo Hoo..oo..oo..o…o…." and sits on Ace's chair until Ace returns.
Ace hugs her a lot. One time, Ace hadn’t shaved for a few days and hugged her. Apparently she got stabbed in the eye with whiskers and walked around looking like a one eyed pirate (one eye closed) for an hour. Then she was fine.
Karen takes Spot in the shower with her to bathe. She doesn’t seem to care if she is in a torrential rain storm, she just sits quietly on the shower floor until it’s over then I dry her (the Dove) with a hair dryer, she seems to like that. Link = Wet-Spot Dry-Spot
She likes to peck at a sound activated Disco lite on Aces desk. Every time she pecks it flashes. One time it was not turned on and she stared at it and pecked harder and harder. Ace finally turned it on again, then she was happy.
I hope this gets to you cause now she's trying to pull wires out of the modem. She's tugging so hard.
She was standing on my hand, each foot on a different finger as I spread them. Her body sank lower and lower until she was doing the splits. No problem, she just sat there looking very uncomfortable but didn’t care.
Now she just finished her Yoga stretch routine, which she does about 5 times a day( Left wing left foot stretch, then Right wing/foot stretch, then both wings touching over her back, followed by a big eyes-closed yawn, and shakes her head slightly).
She can see out the windows but rarely pays any attention to the outside. Yesterday I was outside and looked toward the window and there she was resting on the window sill, motionless, kinda napping but watching me work in the yard, waiting for me to return. It was obvious she was a lonesome Dove.
She seems to know that pressing the "Eject" button on the keyboard will open the DVD drive, she turns to watch it open.
Now she’s on my shoulder nibbling on my ear.
She likes to walk around on the floor too and often goes for a stroll around the office, rearranging all the computer wires.
Ace has some "bird toys" on his desk for her. One is a garland of autumn leaves. She sometimes shapes them into a "nest" and naps between Ace and the monitor.






She spends most of her time sitting on the back of the keyboard pecking at keys but often will settle down there, fluffs herself up and take a nap. Ace just nudges her to get at the top keys.
Ace has a floating keyboard, tensioned to support the two keyboards. At 5 ounces Spot is just heavy enough to hop on it and ride it down like an elevator and she does this frequently ("Woooo HooOOOooo" she says). She likes to nap on the back of Ace’s chair too.
If Ace hasn’t paid attention to her for a while, she flies in front of Ace’s face brushing him with her wingtip, then lands in front and stares back ("Wooo Hooo", "I’m here").
She LOVES rubber bands and shakes them violently until they are totally dead then she tosses them as far as she can ("Woo Hoo hooo hooo" as she congratulates herself). I'll just pick up the 5 pens, 2 flashlights, several paper clips, an insulator, a bottle cap, 3 pieces of wire, a key chain, 2 batteries, an empty box, several keys, string, and 2 rubber bands that she threw on the floor, then back to work.
Now she’s pecking at the cursor (Ha ha I keep moving it)…
The 100% totally pure white Dove is named Spot because… I can never find her when I walk into the room. She finds some tiny places to hide sometimes, so I just glance around looking for the white Spot in the room.
Ace’s wife Karen came into Ace’s office and says to Ace "It’s hard to take you seriously with a bird sitting on your head". Karen brought Ace a plate of "Pilaf " with lots of natural grains (Looks just like birdseed) and Spot insisted it was for her, kept trying to hop on to the edge of the plate ("Woo HOO HOO HOO"), very persistent.







On my desk there is a Dove perch supported by two vertical bars about 2-1/2" apart. She could have easily walked around it but… Noooooo, she has to struggle to squeeze and squirm and twist between the bars almost gets stuck, but then Wooooo HooOOOoooo on the other side (" I did it"). Show-off.  She loves a challenge.
She seems to understand the word "Treat" because she then zooms down to Ace’s hand. Or, sometimes she sits in front of Ace and silently STARES at the treat container (She makes it quite clear) until Ace finally gives her some treats.
Today she learned to say a new word…. A very very quiet "mmmmmm….". I’m not sure yet but I think it means "Good, or Great, or Fine, OK"…
Sometimes she sits on Ace’s hand while he’s typing… she just goes along for the ride swaying back and forth as Ace’s hands move around, it seems to be a challenge for her. Then she’ll walk up his arm usually to his shoulder and takes a nap.
Now she’s settling down on the keyboard above the number pad and fluffing up, and her eyes tell me she is getting very sleepy and ready for another of her many daily naps. Now her eyes are closed. She fluffs up to nearly twice her normal size. Sound asleep. She takes afternoon "Siesta’s" of about 1 to 2 hours a few times each day. She is SOOOooooo sound asleep now. In case you’re wondering, no, she doesn’t snore.






If you’re still reading this…. I could go on writing indefinitely because she is non-stop active always finding new and creative ways to make Ace smile and laugh. She’s such a sweetie.