Beau Jackson

Irony is a wonderful thing.  A few days ago, I posted a comment on Richard’s blog, wondering what had become of him, since he hadn’t posted anything in a looong time.  Today, I received a similar post on my own blog.  Let me assure everyone that the Flying Pigs did not get me, and that I’m safe and sound.  Well, safe.  My soundness is questionable.

So what’s been going on lately?  Been busy at work.  We’ve got a pretty aggressive release cycle for our software, so I get home at night and pretty much want to leave the computer alone.

I finally got the garden plowed last night (yes, plowed.  With a tractor.  Roto-tillers are for wussies!).  I need to disc it up too - helps to level it out, the plow leaves it pretty rough.  Sadly, the hydraulics on my tractor are not working well, so I may get to replace a bunch of hydraulic hoses (whoopee.  not.) before I can do that or the other tractor work that needs doing - brush hogging, etc.

I’m writing a little piece of software - primarily for my own use, but I may distribute it eventually.  It’s for keeping track of all the things that need to be done for the various critters here on the ranch.  Shots, sheering, shoeing, etc.  You get more than a couple of pets and you start thinking “now when was the last time animal ‘X’ had a vaccination…?”  I think it would be a handy tool for anyone that has more than a few animals.  It’s occurred to me that you could use it for other things too as it’s essentially a reminder program, with some built in historical logging, so you can see what things got done when, as well as when they need to be done again.  It’d work as well for kids activities, automobile maintenance, etc.

We put together a website for Ozark Carding Mill.  We’ve got a few little finishing touches to put on it, but it’s essentially done.  We’ll be doing a shopping cart for them too.  We’re also going to be putting up a shopping cart on our Spindle and Wheel site as we’ve been getting our processed fleeces back and we have some stuff to sell now.  We’ve been doing some changes to the theme of the site too, and we’re probably going to be re-doing it altogether before long.  The logo stays, ’cause it’s a great logo, but the overall feel of the site will change with the current articles moving into a tutorials section, and new articles getting posted that are more informative than instructive.

Anyhow, that’s most of it in a nutshell.  Should be getting some lambs here before long, so we’ll definitely be doing some posting when they come along.