08.02.08

Fawn encounter & “unknown device”.

Posted in Thoughts and Reflections at 11:11 pm by admin

This morning I had just finished turning off the water from the pond filter to water Daniel’s garden, when I returned to the back gate to close it. In the back yard behind the fruit trees near the tree line stood a lone fawn, no Mama in sight. The fawn seemed small for this time of year, and I wondered if it was truly alone.

I walked back into the house and told Daniel what I’d found. He was busy building his mother’s new computer, so I returned to the back yard keeping the fruit trees between us. I began to talk softly to it, certain that it would run off, but it didn’t. Rather, in a round about way it approached me, then backed off to the trees and stopped. I crouched down in the grass and once again began to talk softly. Camera in hand I was able to take ten photos, all with the zoom. Suddenly, it ran towards me and stopped twenty feet away, lowering its head and licking the air, all the time flicking its tail. I took three more photos as it continued to approach cautiously. I changed position to sit down in the grass in the hopes it would continue to approach closer when it turned tail and disappeared into the trees. I guess I didn’t taste like Mom. I never did see her.

Once before, about fifteen years ago, something similar happened, but with twins. They were very small and appeared thin. It was in June that year and together they approached me without what would appear to be any fear at all. Again there was no mother in sight. I sat down in the grass and they came within two feet of me, all the while nibbling on clover. They were so close I could smell them. I talked softly to them, but made no attempt to reach out. After five minutes or so, they had cleared that section of the yard of clover and moved off. I waited until they were about twenty-five feet away when I stood and walked back to the house. At no time did they seem frightened.

After spending several hours assembling his mother’s computer, Daniel spent nearly as much time installing the operating system and software she uses. After he finished with her computer, he began to install a new motherboard into his newest computer, and for the past several hours he’s been reinstalling software and drivers. The company sent CD’s with old drivers on them and after two attempts to get it up and running, he realized they were the wrong drivers. He had to go to their website and download the most recent drivers to work with his current operating system. At the present time, Daniel has been working on computers for twelve hours. It will be close to bedtime before he is finished. Then he will have to transfer all the data back onto that computer, that he transferred off in preparation for the upgrade. Fortunately, the data transfer can take place overnight. Tomorrow I’m sure he’ll be tweaking this and tweaking that until it’s just right. Sounds like porridge, doesn’t it?

Finally, Daniel was stumped. While he was installing the device drivers he kept getting a message that was bugging him. “Unknown Device” kept showing up on a list, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. This particular computer has more bells and whistles than a “One Man Band”. Being the simple minded technodult (technically challenged adult) that I am, and knowing Daniel as well as I do, I posed a question to him. “Was there anything special that you may have installed on this computer that might be unique to other computers?” He snapped his fingers and said, “Yes, a firewire 800 card, a cheapie, no-name brand made in Korea, and because it doesn’t have a name, the drivers can’t identify it. I’ll bet that’s what it is.” Turns out that wasn’t it, but it got him to thinking. The last time I checked, he was investigating the LCD message display screen. As he said, “I didn’t install any drivers for that!” After a few minutes he snapped his fingers again and said, “That’s (the LCD message display screen) connected via USB, and I didn’t install any drivers for that so it doesn’t know how to talk to the screen. I’ll bet that’s it.” Turns out he was right. He also identified the remote control he had installed on this computer. Once he installed those drivers the message went away.

See, simple minded can be good sometimes, it attracts fawns.

O.P.W.
fawn

08.01.08

Cornmeal & computers.

Posted in Thoughts and Reflections at 11:50 pm by admin

Well this morning, no wait, I have to go back to last night. Last night I was determined to go to bed early enough so that I would be able to wake up before Daniel left for work. I turned in at 01:50. Daniel woke me at 7:40, ten minutes later than the usual, but I was still able to sit out on the front porch with him for a few minutes. It was nice. Then he left for work, we said our good-byes at the front sidewalk and I went right to the pond and watered his squash garden. Some of the plants have sent our their first set of leaves.

I did a water change in the pond and a load of laundry while I performed my moderator duties at the Poets org forum. Around 11:30 today Mom stopped in for a bit on her way to the grocery store. We sat on the front porch and talked for a while. I told her I couldn’t think of a thing to make for dinner. In the last two weeks I’ve cooked beef, pork, chicken, fish, chili, more chicken, more fish, more beef, and shrimp. Mom wasn’t any help with the menu. The only thing left is stew or soup and it’s too damn hot for that. After about a half hour Mom left on her way to continue her day.

The UPS delivery man stopped by today. Our new mailbox arrived. It’s one of those huge rural route boxes, black in color. The old one lost its door last year and I haven’t been able to find one locally. I found it on Amazon three weeks ago and ordered a green one. Turns out I ordered a large, and I needed a Jumbo (it is huge). It can hold a decent size package. Daniel will most likely install it this weekend.

I drove to the bank, then bought gas, now $3.899 a gallon, still highway robbery if you ask me, and my last stop was to the post office to pick up the mail. When I got home, I took two grilled chicken breasts out of the freezer just in case. Then I remembered I had a 4 pound spiral ring of sweet Italian sausage in the chest freezer in the basement, so I dug it out and sat it on the stove to defrost. While it was defrosting, I made cucumber salad, boiled another half pound of penne, and whipped up a batch of cornbread from scratch. I baked the cornbread out on the front porch in the toaster over. While the cornbread was baking, the sausage had thawed just enough to cut it up into hot-dog length pieces with my poultry shears. I set the first three pieces aside that were about half thawed from up the outer ring, and rewrapped the remaining eight pieces in freezer wrap and refroze them. They still had frost on them and were a bugger to cut.

Speaking of the word thawed, have any of you ever heard the word dethawed? Daniel uses that. We had a discussion (argument) as to whether it’s a word or a local colloquialism from where he grew up. I said there’s no such word, seems like a contradiction to me. Daniel said it’s a word. Damn if he wasn’t right, dethaw is a dang word. Looked it up in the dictionary. Just seems wrong to me.

I put the sausage on the grill and scrubbed down the mandoline. Before the sausage was ready to turn, Daniel called to let me know he was on his way home from work. Seems I timed everything just right. He took about a half hour to unwind from work before we ate dinner. The cornbread was a little dry, my fault, as I thought the batter was a little thin and added an extra half cup of 50/50 cornmeal and flour to the mix. It was an experiment, as I combined two different recipes. I didn’t want to have to cut in shortening, so I used vegetable oil and cut back on the milk the shortening recipe called for. Basically I used the dry ingredients from one recipe on the Indian Head Corn Meal bag and the liquid ingredients from the premixed recipe. I should have just left the batter be, but I’ll know for next time. Daniel ate his cornbread with honey, I used Brummel & Brown.

Daniel is building a new computer for his mother. Her computer died about a month ago, but until recently, Daniel hasn’t felt that he could travel the three hours it takes to drive there. Building computers is one of Daniel’s favorite activities. All the parts arrived yesterday in two large cartons. He’ll be in his glory this weekend.

That light was back in the southern sky again tonight. I’ll have to ask Christine what it is.

Sleep well everyone.

O.P.W.

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