Smores level: Expert
And I need to work on the shed. I'd like to get the roof on before the light rain we might get Wednesday. That means painting, rafters, and corrugated metal all in place over the next two days. Add in some regular chores, incl. some goat items, and I'll be busy.
Hooves need trimming, the two kids get banded today (turns them from bucklings into wethers), barn needs cleaning, and I want to weigh Itzhak ahead of butchering next weekend. I want to know what % of live weight ends up as wrapped weight.
Pam leaves Thursday for a week's visit with the kids in AZ. She's going into town to do laundry today, but helping me with a couple of those items before she goes. Banding in a 2-person operation, one (me) to hold the goat and the other to use the special tool that puts on the band. And weighing a strong, 100+ pound goat on a bathroom scale is definitely a two person job.
Because I'm already up I've been noting the time Spike first crows in the morning. He's dropping 5-10 minutes a day as the sunrise gets later. A week ago he came to life at 6:15 and this morning it was almost 6:40.
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It's now a little after 1 p.m., 77 degrees and very smoky, and I've just finished lunch.
I did the 4 mile run and pushed it the whole way (speed day). I ran that route faster than I did last Monday...by one second. Grr. Felt faster than that.
We banded AJ and Burrito. I held them while Pam applied the band. That was her choice because last time, with Asante and Itzhak, she had trouble restraining them while I put on the bands.
The Harbor Freight paint gun was a total bust. By the time I thinned the paint enough to go through the gun it was so watery it ran down the siding. That was the primer, so not critical. It's now in the trash, a $16 failure, and I'll just plan on putting on the color coat by hand. Oh well.
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At 3:30 the corrugated galvanized roof is ON. I was going to start painting but it's too hot and too humid to work out there any longer. I've got inside tasks to do if I feel like getting out of this chair (unlikely).
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At 7:30 I'm dead. We're down to 80 (81 in the house) and with an overnight low of 59 tomorrow should start out cooler, though still smokey. I'll lose the better part of the afternoon to a dr. appt. in Springfield so I'll try to get an early start.
Tomorrow Pres. Trump will announce his DACA decision and the press will go crazy. They're guaranteed to trot out all manor of pitiful stories from immigrants brought here as children and now holding graduate degrees in medicine and social services.
Review: DACA was signed into law by President Obama as an executive order, totally bypassing the legislative branch. It's reported (an important caveat!) that Pres. Trump will end the order effective six months from now, thus giving Congress time to do what they should have done all along - pass a law dealing with the problem.
Pundits seem to think Congress is incapable of coming to an agreement on a solution, having tried and failed several times already. Maybe, but then it will be on their heads, not the President's. Just maybe the press of a deadline and the pressure from the people will drive them to legislation.
We can hope, eh?
1 comment:
I'm not bullish on the prospects of Congress resolving the issue of immigration, even the narrow problem of children brought here by their parents without legal status. I've noticed in our democracy a tendency toward a collective schizophrenia: We want law X on the books, but then cry out against the consequences of the enforcement of law X. Lawmakers then try to modify law X to change the enforcement consequences, and the people cry out against that. I fear that our federal system is too large, too bloated, too complex to meet the expectations of our diverse country. We cry out for top-down, D.C. driven solutions, and then buck the consequences as those "solutions" are driven to the local level.
Mike
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