Navy Week

Welcome to Navy Week at OPOD. We kick the week off with this picture of the Hartford. This was the flagship of Admiral David Farragut, and it was the ship he fought from at the Battle of Mobile Bay. Unfortunately, this ship was not preserved, and sank in its dock in the 1900's and was then dismantled.

Domestic Update:

OK, there has been lots going on here, so I thought I better fill you in on some of the latest developments. Probably the most important issue is that the peacocks all have nests, and are sitting on their eggs. Elly May has her nest out in the bush, but things are more interesting with Lovie and Miss Kitty. Lovie decided this year to not repeat the disaster of laying her eggs in the chickie coop. This year, Lovie laid her eggs in the Peacock Palace.

Now, that leaves Elly May. If you remember last year, Elly May was a terrible mother. When her babies were three days old she went for a walk in the bushes with the boys, and she lost her babies and left them out in the brush. I had to help her go find them. Then with two babies, she had one taken by an owl, and then the other one she took for a walk and lost and then we never found that one. 

Well, this year, Elly May decided to lay her eggs in the peacock palace. The funny thing is that we would see her lay her egg in there, and then the next day it would not be there, but there would be an extra egg in Lovies nest. Yes, Lovie was stealing Miss Kitties eggs, and probably for good reason. Well after a few days Lovie ends up with 13 eggs in her nest (twice the normal size nest) and Miss Kitty ends up with no eggs. Then Lovie decides to start sitting on her ENORMOUS nest. At this point Miss Kittie realizes that she has been duped, and all her eggs stolen. So she decided to sit on top of Lovie. I kid you not, out in the peacock palace there was a huge nest of eggs, Lovie is on top of the eggs, and Miss Kittie is on top of Lovie. This went on for a couple of days, and they finally reached a compromise where they would both sit on the large nest side-by-side. Watching this huge mess unfold, I will be surprised if any of these eggs hatch.

Dirty Dogs

I will admit that when I posted yesterday's Mystery Person contest I intended for this to be "Union Thug" week, where each day we would look at a Union Thug or examples of Union Thuggery. After looking through some pictures, I concluded that they were a bunch of Dirty Dogs, and then decided to make this "Dirty Dog" week instead. So, we start with the picture above, which was taken in Alaska in 1916. These are no doubt sled dogs, but in the off season they are being used to pull a cart. I like the picture, and I like studying the different ways people have used dogs as "workers".

Domestic Update:

OK, I am sorry I have not had a domestic update in a while. Things are very busy around here, and sometimes I just do not have time to pull it off. So, here goes . . .  

First off, it looks like Handsome Jack is finishing up his project out behind Chickie Town. It looks like he has built a rather magnificent structure for himself.

We will keep our eyes on the construction project. Hopefully he is going to put some doors on those big openings.

Things continue to go well out in the Bean Barn. With the days getting longer things are growing very fast. The new lettuce system is really producing an abundance of lettuce . . . much more than we can eat, sell, or give away.

You can see we are growing Bib, Romain, and Purple lettuce. The trick is to plant in stages so every day you have heads that are ready to pick. In addition to the lettuce, we are getting lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, zucchini, and sweet peas. I really like having everything growing, so when Mrs. PJM is cooking, she just tells me what to go out and pick. It is like having a fresh vegetable market right in the back yard.

Now, I am in the process of trying to figure out what the project will be for this summer. I am thinking about putting in a corn and black eyed pea patch, expanding the orchard, or drilling for water, and putting in a wind mill. I have not exactly figured out what to do, but I will need a challenging summer project.