Onward Positive Thinking

I have had some truly spectactularly frustraging -- ooooh, I like that word... too bad it isn't a real one. My frustration does move to near rage at times. You know, basically those situations where if something can go wrong, fifty things in a row do? But I digress. I have had some truly spectactularly frustrating happenings in the last few days. It's almost like I'm being tested - remember that book I mentioned about trials? Well, I have decided I'm not going to give any more focus to the incidents. Really, when I'm reading over these ten years from now, am I going to care? Almost certainly not, so why focus on them now?

Okay, so the picture with the tottering pile of dishes is courtesy of ds2 a few days ago. BTW, the bottom plate is tilted just the tiniest bit, since the sink edge has a bit of a lip on it. Next we have a bowl, then an upside down pickle jar. Two or three more cereal sized bowls, then a PYREX bowl!! ARGH!! lol A plastic bowl and finally a silicone scraper.

Today I took a bunch of pictures of the plants on our property. I can identify some of them, but most are a mystery. But I own a very cool book called Weeds of the West which will help me identify all of the weeds and includes common names, scientific names and the scientific family name. It was an investment, since it is out of print - copies on half.com start at $30.00. It has great closeup color photos of the various weeds. You might ask, "Who cares?" Well, when you own goats, it is good to know what is on your property. You don't want your goats eating something poisonous, which you could have identified and eradicated. I meant to do this identification probably well over a year ago, maybe two years!

What I found fascinating is that some of the plants that I have seen and identified on our property, were not present today. Duh, this of course means that weeds are seasonal, like vegetables and fruits. Very neat!

One weed that I remove immediately, without delay, (meaning I force myself to grab a shovel and remove the thing THIS MINUTE!) is the bullhead sticker. This is what we called them when I was growing up because they look like the skeleton of a bull's head. We had NONE when we moved out here. I could walk barefooted through the whole property, but I suspect we have tracked some home from my SIL's house since they are overrun with them. According to my book, this particular weed is actually called Puncturevine Tribulus terrestris L. Zygophyllaceae (Caltrop family). Non-standard names: goathead, Mexican sandbur, Texas sandbur. The image shows one of the bullhead sticker weeds which I pulled out by the root this morning. The "bullhead" is the seed, which according to my book is comprised of FIVE sections. So the sticker you see enlarged in the photo, to the bottom left, is the seed, which breaks into five bullhead stickers. Each plant grows out into a large area; another that I pulled this morning had already grown to cover a space about two feet square. Seeds line the vines every inch or so. So for every plant that grows unchecked, there is potential for a large number of thorns to be scattered around our yard. Every place I've lived for my entire adult life, I have made a point to eradicate this weed. They seem to have some type of poison in the thorn; it is painful enough to step on a quarter-inch long thorn, but then it leaves something in your skin that stings and burns.

A storm is nearing, so I had better get off this computer and get it unplugged! I still cannot get my printer to work and am planning to buy a USB to serial adapter tomorrow. I think the cord that connects the computer to the printer might be fried, or perhaps the plug in on the mother board. So I'm just going to bypass the serial port connection altogether and use the USB connections, which still work. I have a very nice HP LaserJet 4, which I just bought a new (refilled) cartridge of toner for, and which is very economical for printing, so I'd rather just get a new connector cord than rush out and buy a cheap inkjet printer.

Until next time.