Like I Need Another Hole in My Head...I Mean House I Mean....

Somehow it made perfect sense to me to cut a hole in the ceiling of our bedroom in search of a beam strong enough to support the aerial silks I got Skye, so that she could practice her aerial arts class at home.






I didn't have to cut too much to find these nice sturdy beams.

Following this same strange logic, I decided if I needed to drywall and patch one hole, how big of a deal would it be to patch a second one.

Searching for the Origin of the Leaks



Now I know exactly where to fix the roof above Skye's room



Having determined the problem here, I can most properly fix it.




And last but not least, I was trying to figure out a cool way to safely house my collection of shot glasses, only to run into conduit, structural support, even the piping for the vacuum system that runs through the house and that we consequently never use.

Which brings me to that hole in the head thing......

Hunky Santa and one of our teachers

Skye and I started taking classes in the aerial arts several months ago.

One of our teachers, Lesley landed a gig as one of the Hunky Santa's candy cane girls down at the Beverly Center. We watched the show twice. It was really amazing and inspirational. I highly recommend the show. It is beautiful and really wild how close one is to the performers. Some times it was to close to get a good picture.



Hey hunky santa and there's our aerial arts instructor, Lesley, just hanging out.



Lesley's, to the far left.




And on top if it all, streamers!!!!







Again I highly recommend the show and its FREE!!!!!!!!!!!

A Nighttime visitor

HOOT HOOT

After I put the chickens up to roost, I was just hanging out in the garden when I heard what certainly sounded like an owl.

It sounded way too much like an owl to really be an owl. And then as I was heading back in, there she was, this big Great Horned Owl perched on our roof.

I climbed up to take a picture put couldn't quite pull it off.

I scarred her and she flew to a neighbor's house.





A view from our rooftop, the owl is hard to make out, but after a few minutes she flew to a house across the street.



Birds of the night sky.



A very beautiful bird indeed.

The Wonderful Journey of Opaline and Shadow -- Part Three

Bunnies in the Garden

Right now the garden beds are bare, in between plantings, so I have been using this area to house the chickens during the day. If it was good for the chickens, maybe it would be good for the rabbits as well. What harm could they do?




I used some branches of rosemary that I had pruned as a little lean to for the bunnies. They liked it.



Hanging with the bunnies



Down the rabbit hole.
They decided to do a little digging which was cute at first.




Then they kind of went nuts, digging out much of the gravel that I had originally put in for drainage purposes.

I had penned off one bed where I had planted one dill plant, one of the only plants in the four beds. They dug under the bed and back up into the bed and devoured the dill.



One of my precious hot pepper plants that the bunnies reduced to a nub. The rabbits seem fine although the word on the internet is varied.

The rains flooded out the bunnies and had them back in the living room for the night.

The Wonderful Journey of Opaline and Shadow -- Part Two

Welcome Home Opal and Conpet(AKA Shadow)

After driving down to San Diego and falling in love with a couple of beautiful Giant Chinchilla Rabbits, we were informed that even though the rabbits were for sale and in fact sold, you could not take possession of said rabbits until the convention closed on Thursday, meaning one more trip down to San Diego.

Where in the World Will the Rabbits Go?

Remember when I said I had planned to maybe get the rabbits in December or beyond? What that translates to is that I had not no permanent housing for the rabbits. I, mean, I had a pretty good idea of where they'd go and it was/is a pretty cool idea, but real rabbits couldn't very well live in an idea. Add to that that after a bit of research it turned out that these "special" rabbits also needed "special" housing. It had to be extra-large, no surprise there, but a wire flooring was not an option because of there weight. They needed to have a wood floor, so my original "idea" for housing would have to be modified. In the mean time they would need a place to stay.



As a temporary housing option, I got a cage meant for a large dog that could be divided. The problem was that while it was big enough for a sleeping quarter, (it was bigger than the cages they had been in for the previous week) they would need more room to move around.



Opaline(Opaline) and Shadow(Conpet),(both re-named, but still unofficial, remember they are pedigree animals after all), exercising in the TV room. That would be the first of their "temporary" housing arrangements.



Opaline trying to take over my chair.



How many rabbits are there? Are they already multiplying?

All smoke and mirrors.

But seriously, what I realized rather quickly was that everything about these rabbits was bigger than normal.

They ate more and well, what goes in must come out, and it did. Which meant that the confined environs of the TV room began to smell of rabbit pretty quickly. I moved them down to the living room where the still unfinished floor would make for a good place for the rabbits to stretch their legs while I planned and made their permanent housing.

Another Craig's List Find

Breezing through Craig's list, I happened upon a listing for rabbit cages, what an amazing stroke of luck. Only thing was they were all the way up in Lancaster.





The back was stuffed with cages so I piled this last 10' x 24" cage on top and headed home, very much Beverly Hillbilly style.

I am still working on the Giant Rabbit Warren, in the meantime.....

To Be Continued.....

Death Valley Marathon

Two Marathons in a Month
I signed up for the Death Valley Marathon because it seemed like it would be a great experience and I signed up for the Malibu Marathon because it was an inaugural event and a friend was also running it. At some point I realized that these two races were only three weeks apart. Then I got crazy busy and pretty much stopped training. In the last 2 months I probably have ran a half a dozen times. Ooops!!!!

Running Under the Sea

The Borax Death Valley Marathon is an out and back course that starts and ends at Furnace Creek Ranch, elevation 190 feet below sea level, straight out Highway 190 (strange coincidence)



Skye and me before the race. It was cold, but I knew that after a couple of hours of running under the desert sun, I would warm up.



Getting ready to embark on another adventure.



Can you find me?



Several miles into the run, on the "flat" course.

The marathoners took off first followed by the half-marathoners and finally the 10k runners took off. When the half-marathon guys and gals blew past me, it kind of quickened my pace.

During the entire race, I would be checking my watch, see that I was going at a faster pace and try to slow down a little. It wasn't until mile 18 or so that I actually believed I might not totally bonk and be reduced to a crawl in the last couple of miles.



I'm just about to the half-way mark.


Video of me running back towards the beginning.



Shots from the course. The beauty and serenity of Death Valley



The scenery did change, a little, but after a couple hours of plodding I was definitely missing my music. (For safety reason, the National Park will not allow headphones to be worn during the event)




Nearing the finish line.

About a mile and a half from the finish, my right hamstring totally started cramping, as did my right and left calf. I had to walk a little but then was able to push through and have a pretty good finish.



The medal, the sweet reward of completion and a PR of 4 hours and 22 minutes.

The Wonderful Journey of Opaline and Shadow -- Part One

13,000 Rabbits

Some where, some how I started thinking rabbits would be a good addition to the Milagro household. I started doing some research, surfing the internet, made some rabbit connections with some bunny-aficionados on-line. And then I ran across the 86th ARBA(American Rabbit Breeder Association) Convention and Show being held in San Diego. This event is like the Olympics for rabbit lovers and not often held on the west coast, so you can imagine how thrilled I was with the timing of this. So Skye and I hit the road again and went south to "The Endless Summer- In Search for the Perfect Rabbit"

The San Diego Convention
Rabbitcon
(Like Comicon but for bunny lovers)

We skipped the Rabbitcon portion of the convention which was held the weekend prior to the week long, yes week long coming together of 13,ooo rabbits and guniea pigs and there loving friends and families.

But we surely didn't miss out on the abundant leporid love that permeated the event .

Everything a bunny lover might pine for.



Are bunny people hyper-sensitive or are people really that cruel?




Here Skye is in the Giant Chinchilla Rabbit section. The breed we decided was the best fit for Milagro "Farms".




Originally I had planned to wait until December or beyond to get rabbits, if we were going to get them at all. But really what chance was there that we would go and see 13,000 cute bunnies, the top of their field so to speak and not leave without one or more.



How could I say no to this beautiful girl? Especially when it was about gorgeous rabbits that were kind of my idea to begin with. Which is how we came to introduce two Giant Chinchilla Rabbits to our family.

Tilapia--A very viable fish source

I love to eat fish, all sorts of fish. I love it raw, fried, baked, grilled or seared. I like it on it's own or mixed into a dish. That being said I also realize that I am far from the only one who enjoys seafood. For years I have been aware of the devastating effect overfishing, pollution and loss of various ecosystems, etc., etc. has had on our finned delicacies. I try to be aware of the type of fish I eat, where it comes from, this and that. So recently when I found out about aquaponics (the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment.) I was more than a little intrigued.

I want to and will go into much more detail in regards to the workings of such systems. I have not started my hydroponic set up yet, still doing some research. But since I came across a local source for some non-genetically modified tilapia, I decided to at least get the ball rolling in regards to the fish, as it would take several months for them to reach good eatin' size.



This is not one of our fish, but is an example of a grown one that I was going to filet and make into fish tacos. Only problem is I haven't scaled and cleaned a fish before and I decided to learn how at around 2 o'clock in the morning, the day I was going to host the inaugural "Backyard Buddies" (more on that later). Well I scaled the thing and then when I started pulling out its guts and trimming away gills and fins, with the minutes heading quickly toward early hours as opposed to late ones, I realized that a few fish tacos just weren't worth the effort and ending up scrapping the effort.

After much Googling, I thought I was going to have to make another trip down to San Diego. (That's where I picked up my collection of super hot chili plants as well as the local of the bunny convention which led to 2 southern journeys and of course 2 giant rabbits.) That's when I came across some tilapia on Craigslist.

The Craiglist acquisition deserves its own story and hopefully I'll be able to recount that soon enough. But I wanted to get out some pics of my little fellas, cause so many people have been asking about them.




The 180 gallon horse trough serves as an inexpensive tank for around 30 little tilapia.



Daisy found the new acquisitions very entertaining.




Future fish tacos.



Don't worry fellows, I was just kidding about the tacos.

Lakers on cruise control

As promised, a little Laker update. I have not had time to do much more than check out headlines and such and then maybe catch up with highlights from the internet. But it is the begining of the season and there have been no epic games to speak of.

Artest is fitting in nicely, no craziness yet and with both Bynum and Gasol healthy, they are crushing teams like last night, Golden State; 130-97, even with Kobe having an "off-night". He only had 20 points, usually averaging 29, putting him second in the league. Which is where the Lakers are as well, right behind the Suns.

They play again tonight against the New Jersey Nets who are looking desperately for a win. Otherwise they will continue to be winless, this season giving them the not so honorable stat of worst beginning of a season ever. Something tells me that that bit of motivation won't be enough..

So there you have it. Now back to stories from the "farm".

The Case of the Headless Chicken

Night Marauders or things imagined
The other night I thought I heard a disturbance down in the chicken run. I rushed outside with a flashlight to check on the ladies and although there was some clucking, they all seemed fine and were huddled together, "sleeping".

When I went to check on them in the morning, two were walking around and one was still in the spot they were in the night before. I walked over to discover that not only was she stiff as a board she was missing her head. Before I could do anything, (I didn't really know what to do, mind you) one of the other chickens walked past me and started snacking on her unfortunate friend.
I snatched the corpse and took her outside of the run, while I dug a deep hole.

I was confused.

The chickens had chosen to, instead of roosting up high, to all settle down between the planters in what happened to be the moistest area in the run and it had been pretty cold the night before. Maybe she died of exposure and I was to blame because I hadn't built their coup yet. I felt more than horrible.

Skye however pointed out that the entire head was gone, no bones, no beak, nothing was left of her from the neck up. She then reminded me of the birds bad habit of sticking their heads through the fencing to get a better look around.

That was it then, raccoons were to blame.

Then the next day a second chicken died. These were never that healthy looking of birds, which instead of playing the part of an animal rescue bleeding heart, I should have turned on my heels and left that horrible little pet shop in Sun Valley. So I dug another hole, thoroughly confused. One hen left, Blondie and she looked pretty healthy although she was still pretty funky and had matted feathers and just not that clean, something I wrote off as just the way chickens are, until I saw chickens that were properly cared and housed not jammed into a pen at a "pet shop".

Blondie was lonely and let me know by clucking, a lot. I realized I needed to find a friend for her before the neighbors freaked out about the cluck, cluck, clucking.

But first I was going to finish the chicken coupe. I was actually modifying a little structure, I had built a ways back to hide a big AC unit. Anyway, the work went quickly and soon Blondie had a nice warm home. It's been a couple of weeks since those two passed, I still blame the raccoon for the first bird and I think the other died from a few things, hastened perhaps by the quick cold snap we experienced. Blondie has since cleaned herself up and looks pretty healthy. Even her beak which had been snipped by the "pet shop" has almost grown completely back. As to "friends" for her, well that is another story.
Stay Tuned....

A raccoon could have maybe done such a dastardly deed. Regardless I would be making their evening quarters, more accurately converting and modifying an existing structure. Now I just need to finish

Malibu Marathon

I was so not prepared for this marathon, to the point where I had to think of it as a training run just to maybe get through it. Some how, some way I just relaxed and enjoyed the run. It helped that the course was so beautiful.

We started out at 7 am and it was cold. But after a mile we were warmed up and enjoying the cropland/breadbasket that is California. BTW I am realizing more and more how relatively easy it is to be a localvore or even a semi-localvore in California.

I started having lots of fun in the run, kicking it off rocks and berms, yeah it was fun. In fact, it was the most fun I ever had on a marathon. Usually miles 20 - 26 are absolute hell, somehow this time, in spite of the hills the last five miles were incredible. I actually sprinted the last 1/4 mile.




What an amazing locale for a run. It makes it easy, right?



Feeling good after a 26.2 training run.




Kicking it at the beach ending.

Little time to rest though, cause Dec. 5, Death Valley awaits!!!!

Week in Review

Not Off the Presses

The last week[(s) I have been spinning not sleeping so time- weirder than usual] has been absolute craziness, so the blog has taken a backseat. Here are some of the headlines/topics that I will try to cover in the next day or so.

The Case of the Headless Chicken

Backyard Buddies

Prius Headaches

Bunnies

You say Tilapia I say Tomato I say Tomato

Go Lakers



STAY TUNED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Separation Anxiety

Look, I understand I can be a ridiculous bundle of dichotomies; one day being a techno-gadget-consumer-whore to the next where I can see the virtues of No-Impact man. It is why one day Ann Rand is a model of self-determination and the next she represents the ultimate in capitalist buffonery and worship to the corporate myth of the free market that does not, will not and in our world of duplicity, human nature and greed can not exist. So it is with a good-sized grain of salt that I relay my trippy relation to recycling and re purposing.

I ran across this link, Living in a World Without Waste while surfing years ago. Not only did it inspire me at the time, but it made me feel less foolish as I dragged bins of cans and bottles and my daughter to the recycling center getting a few cents here and there, certainly not worth my time in a monetary exchange but well worth it in the example I was trying to set and the concept of where our stuff ends up after we blithely consume.

A bit from the above BBC article:

The Japanese island where the rubbish collectors never come

The Mayor of Kamikatsu, a small community in the hills of eastern Japan, has urged politicians around the world to follow his lead and make their towns "Zero Waste".

He told BBC News that all communities could learn from Kamikatsu, where residents have to compost all their food waste and sort other rubbish into 34 different categories.

I am well on my way to sorting and dividing to Kamikatsu standards;



In the County provided Big Blue Bin I toss in plastics and various papers that have somehow avoided the shredder, worm bins and/or rabbit house, rat apartment or world of re purposing.

Glass gets separated by color green,brown, and awaits a field trip to the recycling center where I will get a few dimes for my efforts.

Aluminum cans gets re purposed into things like jewelry and Christmas ornaments or get crushed and to the recycling center. These are the most valuable bits of waste and are what those people who wake up real early and sort through our garbage and recycle bins before they get picked up by big trash trucks are primarily after.

Yard clippings; weeds and diseased plants go into the Green County provided to dealt with in an economy of scale.

Food that we don't eat for whatever reasons go; vegetable type stuff goes into worm farms; foods with animal proteins go to black soldier fly Bio-pod

Rabbit and rat litter into planters and the various composters

Corn get mixed into rat and rabbit litters and into the chicken run

Paper products into shredder; mixed into litters, also used in compost

I have been sorting and keeping this stuff to take to a Hazardous Materials collection site. I have yet to make the journey;

Batteries

Those "Green" flourescent light bulbs. " “Green” bulbs may be non-hazardous, but they still contain mercury. Mercury, even at very low levels, can become air-borne and be deposited into the environment, such as lakes and other water bodies."

Aerosol spray paints

Compsotable silver ware, cups, plates. They will go into the compost bins and we'll see how "compostable" they are. Still toying with these "eco-friendly" goods.


These are routes that I have not utilized yet but working that direction.

Freecycle-First to friends and family and then on-line.

Craigslist-Bricks and Pebbles

Repurposed items

Soda stream to make sodas and carbonated waters and avoiding containerage

Exploring paths of consumerism and eco-happiness--to be continued........

Gone Too Long or maybe Too Long Gone

It’s a few minutes shy of three in the morning, Friday morning. I woke up around an hour ago, after falling asleep while trying to watch the Daily Show. I woke up to infomercials, with two Giant Chinchilla rabbits frolicking around and remembered that I had left a couple of fresh Tilapia in the sink downstairs, one scaled, one not; with the “How to Cook Anything” cookbook opened to the section detailing how to clean fish.

For some reason, it had seemed like a good time for me to learn how to do that. As I started to gut one of the fish, it struck me that it really wasn’t a good idea. I mean the idea itself might be worthy, but the timing certainly was not. That actually might be a good analysis of much of my wanderings and musings. Cindy has always been a good balance to this trait of mine. But she has been away and even with regular and consistent phone therapy, I am veering much to close to the edge.

This morning or rather yesterday morning, Thursday morning I was up at 3:30. By 4:30 I had Skye up and we were on the road to San Diego to pick up a couple of rabbits that we had fallen in love with on our Tuesday field trip to the 2009 National Rabbit Breeders Association convention.
We dealt with the official aspects of buying “pedigreed” bunnies and set forth to contend with the exodus of 13,000+ rabbits and their human devotees, after their week-long cultural niche orgy love-in. We then headed back to LA or rather Carson so that Skye could fulfill her obligation as Impromptu Master for her Public Speaking Club.

It was after she finished this and while the other club members spoke and did whatever else speech makers do when they get together (I say this blithely even though I was on my Speech and Debate team in High School) that I went to the local grocery mart to get some water for the aforementioned and still unnamed bunnies. Turns out it was a Philippine market with a pretty good selection of fish. So I picked up some Tilapia, so that Skye could see what the 30+ inch-long fish in the 180 gallon horse trough in our garage were going to grow into and so that I could get some experience in processing said fish. I also picked up a squid to grill and chicken to do up “Beer-can style” for the Inaugural Backyard Buddies gathering we were hosting on Saturday.

Backyard Buddies is my idea. A good idea, I think. But good ideas are little more than that until put in action. And that is where my timing, practically and convictions often collide. It is at that intersection that my wife Cindy has taken on the difficult job of Crossing Guard/traffic cop, duties that don’t really translate well to long-distance, remote participation.

In her absence, I have managed to fit in a Ken Keesey-like 3 week “car schooling” road trip, to visit her on location, in Georgia. I have set in to motion, our own little Urban Farm, complete with chickens and rabbits, Tilapia and catfish, worm farms and soldier grub pods, more plants than one could ever imagine fitting on our very vertical piece of rock. All the while juggling Skye’s education that includes Shakespeare work shopping, book and public speaking clubs, Girl scouts, various martial arts, Aerial Arts (Trapeze and the like), her social networks of “park days” and weekends full of birthday parties and holiday themed get togethers. We managed to shoe horn in at least 4 costumed events and yes we designed and sewed her outfit. And a second yes to doing the 3 R’s and a goodly number of “electives”

For good measure I have been trying to keep physically and mentally sound by keeping up my FUNctional fitness routines, Brazilian Juijitsu and of course I have my gauntlet run of marathons, starting with the Malibu Marathon in week or so.

My listings and ramblings are but a tip of the iceberg of my recent going-ons. Thus far my Titanic has yet to collide in the seeminly global-warming impervious ice-berg field I’m barging through. But that could be said of the White Star’s crown jewel until that fateful April night.

It is now 4:15. I am signing out, dozing off.