Psychic Dogs?

This spring weather has me in one heck of a funk.  The six inches of snow the other day set me off on an eating frenzy.  I ate every thing I could find in the kitchen that didn't require any real prep.  Geez.  I managed to get through the winter with only an extra 5 pounds. Not bad considering it was one of those years that I couldn't get out to snow shoe.  I haven't gotten back on the scale since my funk last week as it probably added to that 5 pounds!

So, I decided, rain, snow, sun, I was going to go for a hike along the river today.  So, of course, it rained, snowed and the sun did come out.  Sigh.  Don't care, I'm going!  Okay, so, do I take the dogs?  Certainly one of them, but maybe not all three.  They're in the other room sleeping, I walk in, pick up the box with their collars and suddenly there are two terriers in front of me jumping 3 feet in the air and a labrador running in circles.  Now, come on, I haven't picked up that box in 5 months and I was careful that it didn't make any noise as I picked it up, how did they know??  Now what do I do, I swore I would never take all three ever again.  Yeah, right, take all three.

Left the house in sunshine, drove 4 miles to the river and it was snowing.  Ah, spring!  Put my gps on and one on Sarah Labrador and off we go.  In and out of snow storms.  Several downed trees, but no real problems.

Checked the Osprey nest, still there but no Osprey, though I did hear them about a mile up river.  Maybe they have moved the nest, the old one didn't look too safe.  Will have to go hunting next WARM day.

Got up to the turn around, two miles.  There were 4 ducks in the river.  I look down and there's Sarah out in the river.  Well, she is a bird dog.  I guess we get to see if that gps is water proof, it is soaking wet now.  I did get a picture of the ducks.  I saw these ducks last year and couldn't figure out what they were and ultimately miss identified them.  This year, the female was with them and I finally have an ID, they are Common Goldeneyes. Okay, well, they do have a yellow or gold eye.   

On the way back to the car, I hear a big splash in the river.  I thought, wow, that must have been one big fish.  I turned around just in time to see what I'm guessing was a hawk of some sort come up out of the water.  It had a cute little fish in it's talons as it came back around and flew by me.  Darn, I have no idea what it was.  Dark upper, white breast, black tail and definitely a hawk or a kite.  It wasn't that big, medium sized. Ah, well, I enjoyed seeing it, what ever it was.

When we got back to the car, I had done 4 miles and burned 343 calories.  Okay, that's a start.  Sarah's gps was still working and she had done 6 miles to my 4 and had burned 1045 calories.  Hmm, wonder if the calories burned is the same for a dog as for a human.

Sarah's gps track is funny to look at if you zoom in.  My track was straight down the middle of all those circles and zig zags. Sarah Labrador by danugna at Garmin Connect - Details

Pet Peeve

I don't buy fully prepared microwavable dinners often any more, but every once in a while I will.  There are a couple that are actually quite good, though they do tend to be a bit pricey, especially in this one grocery town.

I bought a chinese dinner the other day that I've found to be quite good.  Having discovered of late that packaging tends to lie, I decided to check this particular item out.  I had looked at the info on the side to see how many servings and how many calories per serving.  It said one cup per serving, 250 calories per serving, package holds 3 servings.  I looked at what was in the bowl and said "NO way that's 3 one cup servings."

Okay, I spoon it into a two cup measure, 'cause I know there is no possibility there are 3 cups there.  Hmmm, 1 1/2 cups.  Let's see, that off by 50%.  Okay, that's by volume, it also lists grams.  Let's check it by weight.  200 gram servings, that should mean 600 grams.  410 grams.  Hey, 33% or 50% less than advertised, I don't care, now I'm pissed.  Maybe if I had weighed the box it came in I would have come out to 600 grams, but I don't EAT the BOX.

At the same time I bought the chinese food, I gave in to my worse half and bought a prepared pannini.  I get home, pop it out, put it in it's sleeve, put it in the microwave, THEN I look at the nutrition info.  Dumb. Now, it's clear that it is meant to be one serving.  You are not going to cut that little thing in half and share it, but, when I look at the box, 2 servings, 250 calories.  Ah, that means that one pannini in the microwave is 500 calories.  Yikes!

Now, that is the one that REALLY pisses me off.  Package some thing that is CLEARLY meant to be a single serving, but because the nutrition info makes it clear that you're going to gain 10 pounds if you consume it as one serving, list it as 2.5 servings or 2 servings or what ever number of servings will make it look like a good deal calorie wise.  The average consumer is going to flip it over, see the 250 calories and not think twice about it.  They end up eating 500 or maybe 750 calories and never know it.

Soft Drinks are especially bad about this, but as the pannini above shows, foods do it too.  One of my favorite foods does it with their packaged foods, when ever the calorie count gets too high, what is obviously one serving suddenly becomes 2 servings.  Some of their food is one serving, but they are all low calorie, the second the calorie count gets a little high, it becomes 2 servings.  I will buy their one serving packaging, won't touch the other.

I really hate that.  I stopped buying bottled drinks a long time ago because of this little trick.  You want me to buy it, it's clearly one serving, label it that way.  I usually catch it on packaged food as well, but every once in a while one slips by.  I didn't expect the one with the chinese food where they just plain don't give you any where near what they say.  That's fraud.  I really like that food and if they had been any where near correct I would continue to buy it.  I will NEVER buy it again, I'm sorry packaging 1/3 to 1/2 less food than labeled is just too much.

Any way, that's my food pet peeve.

Getting a bit Warmer

A couple nice warms days brought on a nice snow melt.  The yard is 90% clear now.  Yeah!!  Of course, it's snowing today, but, well, it is spring.  I was talking with a fellow the other day and he said that you could count on the worst of it being over when the buzzards returned and they returned a few days ago.  Hmm, okay, sounds good to me.  He said that he had worked with local Native Americans for years and this theory was theirs and his observations were that it was true.  Like I say, sounds reasonable to me.  If I didn't have feathers on my head, I'd prefer to wait until it got a bit warmer too!

Managed to get a lot of paddock clean up done with the warmer weather.  With 5 horses out there, they do a fair amount of shitting during the winter that I can't get out of there until spring.  Looking a lot better.  Of course, I've replaced the shit with shedding hair.  I leave the hair out there in case the birds want it for their nests and as I mentioned before, the Raven's seem to quite like it.

Started a 5 day spring worming regiment on the horses today.  It went really well.  Couldn't believe it, but it is only day one.  By day three they run the second they see me.  By day 5, both they and I are ready for it to be over. It really went well today, odd.

Bird feeder is busy.  The Junco's arrived in mass this morning.  There had been a few here and there, but this morning there were about 30 out there.  There was one Junco yesterday that was colored quite a bit different from the others.  She was really noticeable.  I've been looking all day today, hoping she would come back so I could get a better look, but, no luck.  I noticed two males this morning that were a bit different in coloring as well, not as different as the female yesterday, but noticeably different.  The males could have been adult vs juvenile, but the female yesterday, she was truly different. They are all dark eyed Junco's and a majority are  what I know as Oregon Junco's.  I'm thinking there must be more of the non Oregon variety coming in this year, not sure why.

Well, in spite of the snow, I need to go do some more paddock clean up.  Should have it done by the end of next week.  Have to do it by wheel barrow since the tractor is still down.  Ah, well.  Later.