Jinx's Wiki Page

Hi Mandolynn
I have never come across it.  Where it would break down with me personally, is that I am a hoarder of books.  If I enjoy reading them.  I can lend okay, but I am loathe to give them up permanently to someone else, I like to reread books.  But I will enquire about it here, as a concept.
  What we do have is gnome stealing.  Someone's garden gnome gets stolen and then sends post cards home from all over the world, with greetings from interesting countries garden gnomes wouldn't normally travel to.  Most of the gnomes return home safely.  One day the owner is doing his garden and the gnome is just sitting there, returned without being seen.  Sometimes these trips stay anonymous.

I've heard about the gnome thing... my puppets go all over and have adventures but not as "hostages."  They send postcards, too.  But hopefully they will never go without me.

When I signed up for this bookcrossing thing, I signed up to be alerted to "releases" in three places:  my hometown of Lancaster, PA; Shenandoah National Park; and Minneapolis, MN.  Of course lots of books get released in Minneapolis.  In fact, if you are a business who wants to encourage bookworms as customers, such as a coffee shop (probably not a bookstore, though, since you don't want people giving away books for free there) you can get a sign and designate your business as a bookcrossing zone so people know it's okay to leave books there.

I can understand not wanting to let go of a book.  When I was a kid my mom didn't really believe in buying books.  She felt like once you had a read a book, you would be done with it forever (why read it again if you know how it ends?) so she was strictly a library person.  But if I like a story I want to claim it as my own so I keep the book.  But, the bookcrossing people have a solution for us:  buy a second copy and release it into the wild (or keep the new and release the used one, I guess.) 

About 50% of the releases I saw were Harlequin romances.  I don't know if you have those in NZ.  They are the kind of cheesy romance novels that have the slightly lurid covers... (paperbacks only, no one in the market for these reads wants to invest in a hardback because not even their fans take them seriously.)

Changing topics, I was at the gym yesterday and I needed something to read so I picked up a brochure called "Overseas Adventure Travel" and I was reading about an itinerary to Australia and NZ.  I don't have the money for that in the near future but gosh, it sounded so tempting.  Maybe some day.

Australia and NZ are very different.  In Aus, you can travel a 1000 miles and not see anything but gum trees, flat roads and dust, but they do have awesome natural sites that are almost spiritual in their breathtaking beauty.
  NZ is known for it's scenery.  It is a beautiful country, especially the South Island, and it is easily explored in two to three weeks from top to bottom.
  What I'm saying, is if you want to come 'down under'  you'd be best to do one country at a time, rather than combining a trip, if you're on a time deadline.  Us first of course, lol!! 

Teehee I know what you mean about having a spare 10K.  But you never know.....!  There's lots of info about NZ on the net, especially if you use Google images.  I'd like to think I'd get to the US and beyond one day, ie the UK and Europe, but like I said, who knows.  Like I mentioned to Daffodil, even if I found the money, I'd still have the fear of flying to overcome.
  My sister is home at the moment, she lives and works in London.  She's just flown 28 hrs with Air New Zealand, but she said now there is more foot room and on the back of the seat in front is a monitor, with access to fifty channels of entertainment, to help you whittle the time away.  I'm sure if I could just get over the feeling that every time the plane hits turbulance we're doomed, I might even enjoy the journey.

Forgot to add - in Amsterdam, don't they have the bike stands, where you just pick a bike and ride it to wherever you want to go, and then just leave the bike in the bike stand at your destination - they're all communal.  Not sure if it's Amsteredam, but I like the concept.

Hi Jinx!  I was just stopping by to say "Hi!" and find out how it's been going for you and your family.  Great, I hope!   Talk to you later.

~~Daffodil

Hi Daffodil, how's things with you?  I am fine, getting ready for our busy lambing season.  Thanks for thinking of me, how's our wee friend, still living undiscovered around your place?  Cheers Jinx

Hi Jinx!  Everything around here is good.  My husband is on vacation this week from work, so that's kind of nice.  We didn't go anywhere, it's kind of difficult with all these pets, plus one is a diabetic dog.  We are both fine with that though, it's just been relaxing.  The weather has actually been really nice too.  The last few weeks of weather haven't been all that great, not as hot as a typical August and quite windy everyday. 

 

We've been watching the "shooting stars" this week, and last week we were watching the International Space Station every night when it would go cruising by up there.

 

I think the prairie dogs have moved.  The people that water/cut/bale the alfalfa in the field where they were living have been driving on the path quite a bit the last month.  The little anaimls were making their holes and burrows righ next to the path where the vehicles drive so I assume they got tired of the traffic.  I've seen the animals up the road a bit, of course I have no way of knowing if they are the same ones that were living closer to us.  I suspect they have (probably miles!) of tunnels underground around the area, so I think they just relocated to a quieter place.  Hopefully that's what happened.

 

The public schools start around here in a few weeks.  Summer sure does fly by quickly!  When do your kids get out for their summer break?  I remember you said they have Christmas off during your summer.

 

Talk to you later, and good luck with all those lambs!

Hi Daffodil.
I wanted to reply to you, but it's late here, and my daughter has just woken, she's three and going through the nightmare stage.  Bear with me, I'll reply tomorrow.  cheers J.

Oh, that's awful!  Nightmares can be so scary, I hope she grows out of it quickly!

Hi Daffodil,
Normally if she is in bed at her normal bedtime, she sleeps peacefully, but last night she was late to bed, being a weekend and she'd been playing with her cousins, so she was hyper already.  She wakes crying and just wants to cuddle into me, she is scared, but by the time she wakes can't remember why.  She's okay, she supersedes hubby in the marital bed for the night, and wakes the next morning happy as anything to be there and back to her normal self.
I'm pleased the prairie dogs have survived the summer and your neighbors you were concerned about, they just sounded like such hard case little guys as you described them.
  We are supposed to be able to see the ISS from NZ too just about dusk, but I'm never entirely sure which one it is.  I'm working with the naked eye, not a telescope, which I'm sure would be much more effective, lol.
  I hear there is supposed to be a lunar eclipse later on this week, visible here, so that should be interesting.
  Our school year is going by very fast.  Then end of term three here is September 20 and then Jack will get two weeks holiday before going back for the last term of the school year.  School finishes here about a week before Christmas and goes back the first week in February.  I would love to experience a white Christmas some day, but I love Christmas in summer, and NYE is always a relaxed BBQ in the summer heat - great fun.  The last month of school, the kids are so excited, they sing carols and have a Christmas theme to their end of year break up.  In our lovely wee country school, last year every child still believed in Santa, and that's one of the beauties of a small rural school, you wouldn't get that in the city.
Cheers! 

Hi Jinx!

     I'm glad that you daughter is fine.   I remember when I was a kid, getting together with my cousins at our grandparents house during the summer and playing until we were about ready to drop.  That was back when summer seemed to last forever.  Time sure does fly by now though!  Sometimes I wish I could slow it down a bit!

     You are right about the small school and the little ones all still believing in Santa.  I think that's great!  I think small schools are much better than a big school that is impersonal and run the kids through like a herd of cattle. 

     As far as the ISS, we have a telescope that my husband's aunt gave us when she moved to a smaller place, and I'm pretty sure it would be too difficult to get the ISS in focus to see because it moves fairly quicky across the sky.   There is a web-site you can go to, it's www.spaceflight1.nasa.gov  it gives times and horizon coordinates for your area.  If that doesn't work just Google "International Space Station".  It looks kind of like a star that's moving.  Sometimes it appears to be closer than others and it comes into view in different parts of the sky each evening, sometimes more than once per night.  Sometimes it is visible for a minute and sometimes up to three minutes.  If you can get the location of where it's supposed to be from the web-site, it's not difficult to spot.  It's about 220 miles from the Earth, which I would have thought it was further away than that, but it is not close enough to see any detail.  I'm not sure how interested in space and the ISS you are, I find it all mind boggling!

     Have a great day!

 

 

I love your page. Do you have cows? We have about 13 milking cows but I , being a daughter of a military man have had to take some time to get used to them. I love the country life also but it has been an adjustment.

Your children are adorable!

Hi, yes we have Belted Galloways like in the photo ( they're not ours).  We are predominantly a sheep farm and the cows are my husbands hobby,  He shows them in the summer here.  They are very cute tho, with their white belts and quite docile.  Do you milk the cows yourself.  I was a 'townie'  when I met my husband and had to adjust to country life too.

Thanks for your nice comment about my children.  I have to tell you I admire you, if you have six kids.  Sometimes two is enough for me, lol!!

My husband used to manage a farm, where he did milk all of the cows himself wih the help of a hired boy. Then we moved into a village to buy a house. We are having a friend take care of them until we can buy a small farm. He has to drive over an hour to see the cows.

When I gave up living in town and 1st came to a farm I wore a dress and heels and the cows pooped all over me and I had to throw away my good clothes...lol The guys at the farm laughed because I was so over dressed. 

So you have sheep? That is great! We had a goat and when we get a farm we will have pigs too. We just need a big house. We may just get a farm and rent the house out.

Do people homeschool there? I homeschooled my 4 yr old last yr and loved it!  I would love to learn about your culture. What are your laws?

Yes, I do have 5 girls and 1 boy and ..there is a girl in our home that will leave next June because she will be 21 and out of fostercare. We would love to adopt 1 or 2 small boys and then stop..

Do you think you will have more children? Do they have fostercare there?

We farmed pigs for years.  We are just slowly getting out of them and into the cows.  Pigs are such a big tie, twice a day Hubby had to attend to them, and our kids being small, we wanted to be able to do family things with them, without having to leave early to come home and do the pigs!
  Homeschooling is not big in NZ although it is being done.  My son attends a small country school four miles from our home, with sixteen other children.  They're like a big family, with the big kids helping the little ones out.  Our school law is that all children must undertake some form of education until they are sixteen.  At the side of my blog page I have a link to a NZ website if you want to see something of my country.
  There is a foster care system here, and it is something I may look into one day too.  Adoption here is very very hard.  The number of babies adopted within NZ would not even be 100 per year.  Years ago the emphasis was placed on encouraging young mothers to keep their babies.  I don't know whether one  ideology is better or worse than the other, but now very few babies are ever put up for adoption here.
  My husband and I will be stopping at two biological children.  We started late, I was 35 and 37 when I had them.  We say if we had of started ten years ago, we would have had at least one more, but I am very happy with what I have got.

You're so welcome sweetie!  I loved doing it!  I'm just glad that you like it. 

I'll have to look out  for the movie! busy week coming up. today is my dog molly's 8th b-day, my b-day is this week, mother's day & my daughter is graduating college!! she was voted 'outstanding student in the computer science program'!! she will be getting a special award & also her name will be put on a plaque at the college with previous winners!! I am a very proud mom!! have a nice day!