I knew we had bears around here, we've seen the signs and tracks.
But, ye freakin' gods, it's not any bear.
It's a very large black bear. My brother has a game camera, and this footage was shot about
20 minutes after he (my brother) had passed through this area.

Yes, it's a huge black bear.

For perspective, here is a frame of the bear


and here's my 6 foot tall brother, in the same spot, with my little Dinki Di.

It just confirms that there are lions and tigers and bears that you never see out there.

The 'fear' is only heightened lightly from before, this bear has come through for years.

But we have poultry, poultry food, a garden with fruits and veggies, a huge berry patch and orchard, coops and outbuildings, cages of stinky ducklings, cages with plump bunnies, pet food in canisters, trash barrels....

Everything a bear can classically wander into and get cornered at, and you walk right into their path.
We found a large black animal hair on our well house this spring we couldn't identify, but now we know the culprit.

What's keep us safe? 3 dogs.
The three girls have been on edge since winter. The bobcat, the cougar, and now this bear, they are hyper and nonstop patrolling. Dinki has even taken up sleeping out by the bunny cages!
What a good Shepard. :D
Mako, the cowardly Husky Chow that I generally haven't warmed up to, has just earned her spot.
She's nonstop barking and charging at the woods at every noise.
Cookie is miss diligent as always.

My brother is carrying a very large stick around nowadays.
Frankly, I'll be the same level of cautious, he's fat for this time of year, and eating well then.
He hasn't bothered us, and we'll continue to give him no reason to.

In rapid succession since last Sunday to this one;

Secondary washing machine dies, ancient Korean-vet Marine shows up and regales us with stories,
our Blue Jay (BJ) flies into a ceiling fan and dies, we go and get 2 new Flemish Giant does on a very hot ride in a van, the week get dreadfully hot and humid, my blood pressure goes down and my hand shakes get worse, my sister gets a sinus infection, we spend time catching hens all afternoon for a poultry trade, the chicks we bought get ill, the ducks we are trading for are disgustingly sick and filthy and starved and 2 die after eating food, my cat has fleas, my dog is stealing gloves to play with, the electric goes out on the hottest night yet, we harvest broccoli and put it in the freezer, we slaughter more chickens, we clean filthy chicken shed, we build and ship more furniture, we have a possible huge dream client ordering lots of furniture, we have a b*tch interior designer who strung us along with possible work not call us for a month then just say 'you have the job', the flies are biblical around here, the grass needs mowing, my dad did not look to healthy today and his driving home was scary bad last night, I haven't started on my costume, my art spark is drying up, my brother is acting emo and left too many eggs to go rotten in the coop and they exploded while we were catching chickens to kill (bletch), I got to see 'Terminator Salvation', I brewed beer on the hottest afternoon I ever cared to, Dinki almost ate a guy selling digital inter-net hook-up.

I need a vacation.

Nothing you probably didn't know, but I feel like writing a few words.
( Hasta La vista, InKi )


~In Loving Memory of Stan Winston.

I am gonna miss you Stan. :(

For those who do or do not know it, I have been going through some sort of arm/hand stress.

It started, funny enough, when I wrote this entry and remarked about my arms feeling poorly circulated and cold.
Well, it's just getting worse and worse, to the point of constant falling asleep, numbness, the spidery tingles in various spots, and now fingers twitching, insensitivity, weakness, and joint strain. I can no longer hold a camera steady at 1/30th of a second, which was never hard for me, and grasping pencils and stuff has it's bad moments.
Chisels and hand planes and running machinery are getting too risky.
I went out of a dream yelling at myself to slap my arms, and woke up doing, and that's getting so common.
I doubt I am going diabetic, as most of the internet sites claim.
The other is Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, which is always possible, I do lots of repetitive work and activity. But I also and pretty good about how I use my hands and good posture on things like the keyboard.
Plus, weirdly, caffine makes me a full twitching jitterbug. I don't drink coffee, but even green tea has me spazed out.
It's taken 2 times for it to get across to dad, and it's finally sunk in.
Good news is he's always had problems like this, and some of it is familiar.
~~~

To put it in a nutshell, we've some to this scenario;

I went off birth control pills because they've been annoying.
That was at the beginning of April.
On the Pill, I lost loads of muscle mass and mostly gained weight over the course of 2 or 3 years. (I cannot verify exact mass/weigh loose or gain, we have not had a scale for some time. My dad, after the last one broke, kept forgetting it and... grrrr. We got one recently, thank the gods.)

I have been doing more physical labour (namely playing soccer with Dinki and lots and lots of tilling and mowing with large machines.)
This has increased my arms, torso, shoulder, general upper body strength and mass.

Apparently my dad went through something similar, but how his shoulders are set, the more muscle he added on the more it pushed and interfered with nerves and how they were wired through his arms.

I have similar shoulders (the doctor remarked mine are huge, and slightly crooked) and my back is like that also. (My pain is literally caused by some of the nerve ends being wired differently and when my body does it's monthly shift, they get more pressure and tension than most women do, so thusly hellish pain.)

In a nutshell= the more mass I've put regained, the more it's screwing me up.

Dad has suggested I take up yoga to get the most out of my back and arms.
Fair enough, I have wanted to, but this is now on my time.

No, my dad is NOT a doctor, if you couldn't guess that.


There's way too much info on the inter-net on yoga, but I've wacked it to the basics.
Yes, this is best done with an instructor, which I have a snow bunny's chance in Hell of getting.

Plus, with my schedule, it will probably only work out if I do it before breakfast first thing in the morning.
Setting up schedules like that is no big deal, and frankly it's a bitch.... but maybe the only way a person who don't like working out will do it is if they get it out of the way first thing?

We'll see, I've got to do something quick, my daily work and hobby time is being eroded quick.

Swiped from pilar_sama  , too funny to not try and do...

Sorry, some people don't scale down their pictures.

( The silly photobucket meme! )

A friend posted this link to this pic provided by the WETA forums.
Apparently whatever it is flies (like a great flying dragon)...
but clearly it's naked flying dragon, it had the nudity block on!
http://www.wetanz.com/assets/Uploads/RTJHBWlrg.jpg
Jooohn, please, throw us a bone!!

For us Blues lovers, RIP the Queen of Thee Blues.

I missed 'Kung Fu', but one doesn't have to just know that to know Carradine.

Thanks Tarantino for giving us that gem of 'Kill Bill' for a final chapter.
sigh.

Well, I am working on it.
For those not following my sister's general costume posts, I have decided to costume a Plague Doctor this year.
(Yes, colonelliamross , you win! You said that was the best costume, and I agree.)
I am starting the brainstorm on a mask.
I have to construct that beak first...
well, here's the artist's work that I have gotten permission to base a costume around;

Mostly fullbody shot

Fullbod doctor

Lovely headshot


Yeah, I can do it. Psyching myself up. Yeah

Grrrrr, I knew it  would be my claim to fame.
I sold one of my first prints.
What piece did it have to be?
Yes, the albino toilet bunny......

Yeah, maybe I'll get that print for myself one day and hang it in the bathroom for fun..

That bunny was a camera ham.