Electronics

They are evil, but necessary.  That is what I am deciding right now.  My phone which has been on its last leg for a week or two now finally finished falling apart last night.  Yesterday, the cord to the laptop finally gave up the ghost.  It's been working off and on and finally quit when my phone finally broke.  (Well, cord died yesterday and phone died last night.)

So, I am without anything unless I really work at it.  For example, I am using the old desktop we brought with us from Indiana to do this entry while the generator is running.  Since I don't like to run the generator for single, specific things unless necessary (and me blogging, while enjoyable and stress relieving is not necessary) I am taking advantage of the fact that Husband is working with power tools to get this in.

In other news, we have refrigeration!  I don't mean we have a cooler that we keep bottles and jugs of ice in to keep it cold.  I mean our propane fridge is working and cold and freezing stuff and keeping things cold like milk and cheese!  YAY!  Yes, I am lame.  I am all excited over a fridge.  But it is our fridge and we are able to run it without draining our batteries.  And, it was free.  And it works. 

We went to the fire department meeting Wednesday night.  I am not interested in fire fighting.  I am interested in First Responder/Paramedic.  But, part of being with a volunteer department is attending the meetings.  Most fires around here are grass and woods.  They were saying they fight about 10 house fires a year.  "And they do a very good job.  Every foundation is still standing."  IOW, the house is destroyed by fire and they just keep it from spreading. 

I did learn that although there are fire codes, there are no laws either locally or county wide to enforce these codes.  The SCHOOL is not up to fire code.  But, they can't close it down until it gets to code.  Even if they could, there is no money.  So, the children around here go to a school that (going by the descriptions I heard) is a death trap in the event of a fire.  If someone is in the basement, there is no way out.  There are parts of the school that have no windows and only one door in and out of that area.  And there is nothing the fire chief or anyone else can do because there is no law that states that if a building does not meet certain codes, it can be shut down.  Yet, if it were to catch fire, the fire department would do an excellent job to keep the fire from spreading (there is a gas station two doors down) beyond the building.  Woods and grass, they do a good job with.  From the sounds of things, building not so much.  Although they did make the comment about field burning (an annual event here) "Well, did the grass fire stop at the road?  Then it's controlled."

Yeah.  The fire department for this area.  Although, to turn it around, how would a city fire fighter deal with the rugged terrain of a forest?  You work with what you know. 

I did find out that the tanks on the backs of the fire trucks hold close to what we haul on the backs of our truck.  Our tanks are 275 gallons.  The fire department is 300 gallons.  They do have a pumper truck if they happen to be right near the lake and fighting a fire and they need more water.

I'm trying to think of other things going on.  I got a couple of roosters butchered today.  I will be doing two a day for the next week and filling the freezer.  There was one I butchered where when it was hanging upside down and I cut into the neck, instead of the blood running down, it was spraying out the side.  It got me good.  It did that twice.  The second time, I was able to turn him quickly before I got sprayed.  I don't mind butchering, but I don't like getting sprayed.

There is one rooster that I'd just as soon put a bullet in.  I had him by his feet and he flipped his body up and pecked me before I got to the rope.  I held on, but he twisted himself and got loose.  Darn bird.  I was mad.  I came in yelling "Where's my gun?"  But, I decided to not go grabbing it. 

I had a pap smear day before yesterday.  I will find out in three weeks if the precancerous cells have gone away, stayed the same, or gotten worse.  Three weeks.  I don't like waiting. 

I found some neat workbooks for the children.  Unfortunately, they only go up to Grade 4.  BrainQuest is the name of it.  It covers all the subjects in one thick workbook.  I like it.  I like the lay out of it.  It is a good easy work for Charlie if he is not up to being challenged.  Bethany likes it as well.  It gives her a sense of "This is MY schoolwork" rather than dealing with something I put together for her. 

I'm sure there's more, but the generator needs to get shut down.