Itty Bitty Hooves

High Speed, Low Speed—Just Get Outta My Way!

Let me start this post off with the preface that patience has never been one of my virtues.

I consider myself a fairly nice person. I have some virtuous qualities. I wouldn’t exactly put myself up against mother Teresa, my mouth could make her blush in her grave. I have my selfish side. So on and so on, but I try to be nice to others, I try to help out when I can, but I have ZERO patience.

I would pray for patience but I’m afraid God would give it to me. The thing is, I think he tries. I seriously do. I think he keeps putting things in front of me that REQUIRE that I be patient. I’ll tell you what though, it just doesn’t make me happy. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I type.

You see, about a week ago I got DSL high-speed Internet connection.

Yippeeeeee you say, right? Right. That’s exactly how I felt. After YEARS in the country stuck on S L O W, I was finally in the FAST LANE. Until Thursday.

Equipment problems, storms, more equipment problems not only cause slowness, but COMPLETE outness for two day, then the company offered me a dial up connection for the time being… graciously I accepted because hey, I need to get on here, and slow is better than stop…. well almost. Boy it’s amazing how spoiled you can get in just a few short days.

The slow speed of dial-up that I had been resigned to in the past, I’d completely forgotten about until I reconnected via phone line last night. OUCH Boy that’s slow. I dealt with it for a couple hours then went to bed. I got up this morning and the first thing on my mind was I wonder if they have the DSL working yet. Nah, I thought, overnight working, that’s too much to ask for from a small rural company… but hey, I need to get some email done so I’ll go on dial up if I have to…ew…so okay, a cup of coffee, a fist-full of cigarettes and I sit down at my computer prepared to chain smoke and guzzle coffee between page loads when what do I see at the bottom of my tool bar? The little connection icon glimmering!

It brought a tear to my eye, it really did.

So I happily opened up my browser and….

SCREEEEEECHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(That was my come to a sliding stop sound in case you didn’t know.)

Oh the DSL was on, but it’s danged near as slow as dialup. Not quite, but reeeally close. I called the office, not sure if I’d get anyone on a Saturday, but hey, you never know. Last Sunday when we’d first gotten this thing we had a question and I called them, got no answer but a tech called back a little bit later (that did impress me). Well I got their answering machine again today, with the message that they’re experiencing technical difficulties due to the storms in the area last night…. sigh. Well, hey, at least I’m alive on here, even if I am stuck on SLOW.

ZooToo Fun

Sometimes it feels like I live in a Zoo, between the goats, horses, cats, and other animals that roam my house and property, so it’s only fitting that I’m always on the look out for great forums and sites dedicated to all of the animals that share out lives. Recently I found ZooToo.com. They have a — wow — really full-service pet community centered around people and their pets. I am still searching around all of the available features of the site, but signing up was fun. You not only sign up for yourself… oh, and it’s FREE, but you add your pets too, along with any pictures you want to upload of them. I’ve already added Baby, one of my cats, Skeeter, one of my minis, Sparky, my shetland pony, and Kali my halflinger horse. I thought I had a picture of Kali on my computer but I can’t seem to find it. I hope I didn’t lose it in the crash of my old computer. I have to add Spooky cat still, but I have to get a more recent picture of her.

Here’s a picture of the top page of ZooToo

As you can see even from just this top part of the page there is a LOT to have fun getting into. They even have ‘pet wars’ where you post cute pictures of your pets and they vie for top spot amongst the other posters.

Here’s a shot of the members page that shows the add ons of the pets

This site is a lot of fun and I really look forward to meeting all the folks that hang out here, and reading up on the articles. They have blogs related to pets highlighted so you can find great informative posts made by members on all sorts of topics relating to their pets. They even have a pet product finder to help you locate local groomers, vets, shops, etc.

Check them out and come join the fun.

Sheep Surfing

This is the cutest video I just found on You Tube. I’ve had cats go ‘horse surfing’, and goats go ‘goat surfing’ but I’ve never had a goat go ’sheep surfing’. If this doesn’t make you smile, you’re truly having a bad day.

A Stitch in Time

I admit it–I’m bad. Do you know in all the years I’ve been married, neither I, nor my husband have had a savings account? Using a checking account we’re good at. We both have our own, as well as a business checking account, but no savings. Of course, it would be helpful to have a little money to save which when you have hay burners isn’t likely, but it needs to be done anyway. It’s about time to start thinking about emergencies instead of dealing with them by scrambling to cut corners when they happen. There’s really no excuse anymore with the ease of banking online, every bank everywhere is connected and putting money in, or even taking it out when necessary is as easy as a click of a mouse. Wamu has a great online advantage for savings. I already have a Wamu credit card (of course, right?). Maybe it’s time to open up a really important account. The old saying ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ makes complete sense in this context as well… saving now saves headaches when emergencies strike.

Branding

When you think of farm life and you hear the word ‘branding’ you often think of the long metal pokers with letters on the end that you heat up over a fire and apply to some poor unsuspecting animals backside… but branding is a marketing term that applies just as much to farms as it does to consumer items you find in a store. Brands like Kleenex, and Corum spend millions of dollars a year to imprint their name on the consumer’s mind. You can do much the same thing without spending millions… thankfully. It will take work though. The whole idea is to associate your name with your product so often that people automatically think of you when they think of that item, whether it’s a watch, a piece of tissue, or a Boer goat, branding gives companies, or individuals a step up in their efforts to more their product.

Sights and Sounds vs Comfort and Convienience

Living out in the boonies has a lot of advantages, but it has some drawbacks too. Everything is so far away. I haven’t been to a movie theater since we moved out here. We used to go to the movies all the time when we lived in the city. For the most part I prefer to watch movies at home. Sometimes I miss the big screen advantage, especially on action flicks, but overall it’s more comfortable, you can hit pause when you have to go to the bathroom, or grab a snack, all of that. One thing that’s hard to replace is the smell of fresh popcorn. The sounds of popcorn machines popping, the smell of hot melted butter in the air. Now it’s microwave popcorn in a bag. It would be cool to buy one of the home theater popcorn machines for special movie nights where the whole family gathers to watch a movie. Then we could ‘have it all’. The convienience, the comfort… and the smell of fresh popcorn and hot butter.

Tearfull Goodbyes

Bubba went to his new home yesterday. I miss the little guy. He was the only boy born here this year, and he was just full of himself. All attitude and love. He was one of the most friendly of the new kids, and always wanted attention. He is a real hunk and I’m sure he’ll do great for his new young master in 4-h. It’s always hard to have them leave though, especially the ones that imprint themselves on you by being loving. Now it’s all girls out there. They’re all staying. I have four yearlings for sale on the other side of the farm, but this years kids are a great lot of hunky girls who will be great mom’s next year. I’m still hoping Bowie was bred when I brought her home to the big red buck at her former home. If she is she’ll be due in July. Cross your fingers for a little boy. I really need a buck with different bloodlines. Mickey will never go anywhere, well at least not soon, but he can’t do it all alone. He has too many daughters here now.

Here are a few pictures of Bubba, our little boy who left for a new home. I kicked myself as their truck drove out of the driveway for not remembering to use my camera to get a parting shot of the big guy.

So long big boy, have fun in your new home!

Speak Softly, and Carry A Big Whip

I had a discussion with a good friend today about working from home. She wants desperately to start making some money from home so she can quit the 9 to 5. Well that’s everybodies dream isn’t it? There are lots of benefits to working from home. They even go beyond simply ‘working for yourself’. The old dream of being your own boss still often involved getting up, getting dressed, driving to a place of business, and often long long hours of slave driven work, but even then most self-employed people would tell you it beat doing the same for someone else to benefit from their efforts. At least all the time spent was spent on THEIR business, and put money in THEIR pocket.

Makes sense too, but working from home while STILL making the dream of being your own boss a reality is even better. No long commutes in rush hour traffic, no getting up, showered, dressed in stuffy office clothes, in fact, no exact hours. Work all day, take breaks when you want, watch a favored tv show when it comes on, go out and run some errands, work in the middle of the night if you desire… you still have to put in the hours, but YOU say what those hours are. That’s a pretty big benefit right there.

Okay, so of course I’ll help my friend in any way I can, but the first thing I tell anyone who has this ‘dream’… is it is still W O R K.

In fact, being your own boss, whether it’s at a brick and mortar store, or on line in an office in the corner of your kitchen, means you are the only one responsible for making sure the work gets done.

That’s the big downfall for most people striving to develop any type of self-employement. It’s fun at first. They go gung-ho and are all excited… then it gets a bit dull, then sometimes even downright boring.

As with any job there will be parts you love, and parts that are a royal PIA (pain in the you know what). As with any job there will be problems and difficulties that need to be addressed and/or fixed. You can’t put it off. At a normal job your boss wouldn’t let you, or the fear of being fired wouldn’t let you, either way, it would get done. You’d grumble and gripe, but you’d do it because you know you have to. At home it’s a lot easier to just say ew I don’t want to… and not do it.

Of course, just like in the outside business world, if you do that, things start to crumble, and then go away altogether. Whether that disappearance is fast or slow depends on the magnitude of the problem, or the number of times you’ve let it slide… but it will happen as surely as if you got a pink slip in your pay envelope.

So if you have any desires to work from home, forget about all the possible pit falls and scams… those you’ll learn to weed out and find the good ones. The first thing you have to think about is… do I have a big enough whip, and am I willing to use it on myself?

Stretching Fuel Dollars

A very hot topic on the Homesteading Today site is whether there is any fuel alternatives. Some have debated the efficiency and even safety of using water to cut gasoline. By no means is it something you can just pour in from your tap, but the folks at Water 4 Gas have a very interesting solution to the problem that they say can double your mileage. Who doesn’t want that in today’s world of insane gas prices? Click Here to find out more about this really interesting way to make your fuel dollars stretch.

Building Plans

Anyone who has animals, especially farm animals knows that the planning for new buildings is never done. Whether it’s a simple run in shed, a big barn, or even modifying an old building to suit your needs you’re always planning your next project. I’ve found a really really cool new program that’s free (yes, a very complicated big time program that’s FREE) from Google, called Google sketch up. Just go to google and find their downloads and look for ‘Sketch Up’. Here’s a short video that gives an idea of how cool this program is and how it works.

You can plan anything from the simplest to the most complex project, AND you can even create a layout that shows your whole property and where everything is to help you plan out where to put a new building, field, or whatever. That is a really cool aspect that goes even way beyond just planning the buildings themselves.

You can also use it for home projects–which are also never done. LOL

I love it. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s really pretty straightforward. If you’ve never used a CAD type program, be sure to watch the free videos they have posted on the download page. The one above is the first of three that really help to explain what you’re doing.

Take my word for it, you’ll get the hang of it a lot easier if you take the few minutes to watch them (LOL voice of expierience here, I didn’t the first time). Once you get it, you’ll be unstoppable.