“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.” – Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)
Sunday, February 03, 2013
Got the “Fancy Gallery” Going
I've found a great template for creating an image gallery for the web site. There are thumbnails you can click on to see a photo a bit larger as well as a slideshow capability to scan through all the photos. As a test, I've posted a few photos from our last Christmas at the Cabin -- clear back in 2005. We had seven dogs then: Daisy, Body, Bart, Sailor, Millenia, Hailey and Alex. And, we had three cats: Sam, eBay and Vincent. I guess we didn't get any shots of Vincent.
Enjoy!
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/03/2013 at 07:24 AM
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Thursday, January 03, 2013
Welcome to 2013
Hope you don’t suffer from triskaidekaphobia.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 01/03/2013 at 10:16 AM
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Without Electricity
I get frustrated living without electricity. Getting about and doing things is a bit like a choreographed dance, but it takes practice. Everything needs to be in the right place at the right time or you end up working very inefficiently backtracking to get a flashlight, for example.
We have several flashlights and lanterns. Each needs to be staged at a certain place in the house so we can always find it. And, if you want to go to a dark part of the house, like to the basement, or into a closet, you need to remember to grab the right light. Of course, this would work if we always remembered to pick up the light when venturing into a dark place. And, if we always put lights back in their known staging location—which I, at least, don’t.
And, making sure the right kinds of light are available for cooking or cleaning can be a challenge. I know it sounds silly, but having to backtrack from the closet where I went to get some shoes all the way downstairs to get light, then back up to rummage in the closet can get frustrating and tiring.
To this, add the fact that without electricity we have no running water. In preparation for Sandy, we filled both upstairs bathtubs with water. This is for two purposes. One is to refill the toilet tank after flushing (which we do only when necessary), the other reason is for emergency water in case we go through the 15 gallons or so in plastic water “cans” also filled in prep for the storm.
The issue here is making sure you have a small bucket of water with you when you go to the toilet. With three bathrooms and two bathtubs and only two buckets, it becomes a complex asset management problem to take a crap.
Now, try making sure you have a water bucket plus some form of light each time you go to the toilet in the dark of night. They are never in the same place. And, you may need to go upstairs to fill the bucket from the bathtub prior to doing duty. Sometimes I go to look for the bucket forgetting to take a light.
The dogs seem to have it easy. They can pretty much see in the dark and don’t feel a compelling need to flush.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Posted under: New Jersey • Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 10/31/2012 at 10:59 AM
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Hurricane Sandy, Day Two - Copied from Lynne
This is a photo of our driveway on the other side. We have a circular drive and thankfully we don’t use this part very much.
I am blogging from Rick’s iPad since I guess I was a bad girl and have not been syncing my iPad with my computer so that my version of BlogPress is not working. Sigh.
We survived the night. The wind was ferocious last night. We started off by sleeping downstairs but woke up about an hour after going to bed and hearing that the wind had died down, we went back upstairs to our own bed for the remainder of the night.
If I had seen the sight I saw this morning of our neighbors’ (Kim and Mark) trees down across the road I might have stayed downstairs!
So far we got the generator running and right now the fridge is plugged in. It’s still raining outside and pretty gray, so not a lot of lot is coming in to the house. I am typing by lantern light at the moment in the kitchen.
We have a fire going in the wood stove and I just put a tea kettle full of water on it to heat up for either washing a few dishes or a little sponge bath.
We walked down our street and saw lots of trees down.
But the worst thing we saw was the major road and all the trees and power lines down on it. This was the same exact spot where our power problem was last year in the October snowstorm!!
Last time it looked like this it took us five days to get our power back. Not looking good!!
In the meantime we are safe and warm. We plan on reading around the wood stove and maybe we’ll put a puzzle together.
Rick’s company is closed again today and we know that they don’t have power, so until power is restored down in Wayne he won’t be going to work.
We got coffee perked on our butane burner and ate biscuits that Rick baked yesterday. Not sure what lunch will be. Grilled cheese sandwiches? Soup?
Apologies in advance for any typos!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 10/30/2012 at 08:12 AM
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Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Rain, rain and more rain
Just a note to document the tremendous rain we’ve had the past couple of days. Over 2” yesterday and a good start on that again today. It was cool and damp enough last night that Lynne built our first fire of the year in the fireplace. All the rain is bringing out some mushrooms. We saw a Hen of the Woods in the back lot the other day but chose not to pick it since we had nothing in the meal plan that called for it. I hope it grows again next year. Lynne saw a big Chicken Mushroom up at Skyline the other day.
Posted under: New Jersey • Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 10/03/2012 at 09:09 AM
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