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.

Spring, yeah, not here

A week into spring and I'm cold.  I'm tired of being cold!  Today is windy and COLD.  Sigh.  Really has put me in a BAD mood.  Would love to get out and hike with the dogs, but it's too damned cold.  I mean, I don't mind this kind of cold during the real winter, when I can put my snow shoes on and go for a stroll.  But this, can't hike, can't snow shoe, can't easily ride the horse from the house.  AND, it's suppose to snow all weekend.  Sigh.

Aside from that, there are lots of birds in the yard and I am enjoying watching them.  Grey squirrels have been playing in the yard, which, while fun to watch, I don't trust them not to do a lot of damage.  The Golden Mantels will be back soon, then I'll have to consider getting a cat, which will chase the birds off as well.  Ah, maybe I'll luck out and the ground squirrels won't come back.  Hmmm, I'll have to check to see if maybe the grey squirrels chase them off.  If they do, I may take a liking to them and let them stay.  I know they chase the red squirrels off, cause they did yesterday.  Hmmm.

Thinking that maybe, just maybe, spring was close by, I set up my outdoor grooming and trimming station for the horses.  Managed to get one horse trimmed before it turned nasty.  I much prefer to do them outside rather than in the barn.

So, time to do some work inside the house.

Cozy Nests

Last night, just before dusk I saw a Raven fly low overhead with some thing in his beak.  I thought it odd, since Ravens are carrion eaters and tend to eat their meal with in a few yards of where they find it, even if it's quite small.  Not only that, what ever it was carrying was almost white.  I couldn't think of any small critters in the area that would be that light in color.

So, I go out to feed the horses this morning and a Raven flies by with a really big white some thing in its mouth.  Hmmm, light bulb goes off in my head.  When I brush the horses, all very light in color, I toss the hair they shed out into the paddock for the birds should they want it for nest building.

LOL, apparently they do.  The Ravens had even gone inside one of the stalls where I had tossed a couple large bunches of hair last night.  Some little baby Ravens are going to have a really nice cozy nest this year!

I quite like having the Ravens around, they come in and go through the horse manure and I almost never have a fly or bug problem.  Attracting the right birds can really help with the bug population.  Come mosquito season, I'll be wishing I had more Bats and Night Hawks, that's for sure.

Any way, the darn Ravens have not let me get close enough to get any good photos.  This one this morning was on the fly and the only half way decent one I've managed to get.  So, I'm going to brush the horses tonight, leave the hair out in the paddock, get up early in the morning and see if I can get some photos of them.  Ah, worth a try.

Bald Eagle 2011

I stopped by La Pine State Park during the Great Back Yard Bird Count last week and took this picture of a winter resident.  Not sure I don't like this picture just a bit more than the Bald Eagle I got last fall.  I almost got it in flight, almost.

Ear Buds and Ear Wax

I spent the last 4 days deaf in my right ear and limited hearing in my left.  Scared the living begeejus out of me.  I mean, I've always had super human hearing.  Years ago when I'd go in for my aviation physical, the doctor would joke that he loved to see me come in because I calibrated his machine, hearing tones that very few could.  Of course, age has taken it's toll, but still, I have pretty darn good hearing for a 60 y/o, even with a case of tinitis.

I had noticed that my hearing was not as good lately and I hadn't cleaned my ears in a bit, so, I dropped a few drops of mineral oil into my ear.  Wham, no hearing.  Okay, okay, that was what a doctor had told me to do, what the heck just happened?!  Maybe there was a bug in there and it just ran up into the canal and blocked it??  Yeah, doesn't explain the other ear.

So, long story short, called RN friend.  I have been doing a lot of listening to audio books of late and I prefer what are called IEM's, they're the ear buds that go into the canal and seal.  Turns out they heat the canal, causing the ear wax to melt and then the ear buds block the canal so the ear wax can't get out.  When I put the mineral oil in, it did what it should, softened the wax, but because there was so much of it, the wax just sealed off the canal.  No hearing in one ear and limited in the other.

RN friend tells me to not panic, put mineral oil in canal twice a day to soften wax for 5 days, then flush ear canal with body temp water, should take care of it.  5 days with no hearing, this is going to drive me nuts.  Today was day three, had to try the water flush.  OMG, you would not believe how much wax came out!  Any way, I can hear out of the right ear now and I'll start on the left tomorrow.  No way I was doing the left until I knew for sure it would work.

Switching to head phones from here on, nothing going inside my ears!!

It's Okay For You

What a beautiful spring like week.  The snow and ice are melting at an amazing pace.  Jo has a large pen that has been full of snow and ice for months, but, today the darn thing is nearly clear, I couldn't believe it.  The horses, like me, have put on a bit of weight.  Gotta love winter!

Finally managed to get my hair cut.  Ah, it feels sooo good.  I had to wait about 15 minutes while she finished up the customer ahead of me.  I've met the customer a few times over the years.  Her husband was an engineer, a very successful engineer.  I was once told that they were probably one of the wealthiest family's in the state, though as I recall, the person said in the country.  They own 300 acres on the river, with a quarter mile of river frontage.  No question, they want for nothing.

So, the wealthy woman is chatting about her granddaughter.  She's a college graduate and recently married.  Turns out that she married an Army NCO and her granddaughter is going to be living on base, in fact was going to be moving this weekend.  OMG, you would have thought the world had come to an end.  It seems that sort of life is fine for those that have no other choices, but HER granddaughter HAD a future.  What ever was she thinking, marrying a soldier.  Not a commissioned officer but a non-commissioned officer.  I did not get the impression that she would have been one bit happier even if he had been a commissioned officer, but really, a NON commissioned officer, the horror of it all.

I happen to know that the hair dressers grandson is in the service, an enlisted man.  I would assume that the wealthy woman also knew this.  She clearly felt no shame in expressing her horror, which was considerable,  over the kind of life that her granddaughter had chosen.  The hair dresser didn't blink an eye, just kept styling he hair.

I spent most of the week thinking about the exchange and the fact that the man that sent 5,000 young American men off to an un-wise, un-necesarry war to die, thought very much the same about them as this woman did about her grandson-in-law.  It's okay for those with no other options, but not for them or theirs.

Birds are Back

Got up this morning and headed in for breakfast, looked out front and there were birds every where.  Haven't seen that many birds since last fall. Three Northern Flickers, two Stellar's Jays, about 20 Mourning Doves and flocks of Mountain Chickadees and Red Breasted Nuthatches.  At least there weren't any Pine Siskins, when ever they come in, they come in such large numbers that no one else can get near a feeder.

They all like the suet feeders, though the doves always eat on the ground.  Plenty down there, those Flickers and Jays drop as much as they eat!  Fortunately the Doves do a good enough job that the squirrels aren't invading . . . yet.  I see an occasional Chickadee stop by the thistle feeder, but there is some thing about it that they don't like, they barely touch it before taking off.  Not sure if it's placement, type of feeder or what.

In getting ready for The Great Backyard Bird Count, I put out a large feeder for the little guys.  Stocked it with shelled sunflower and thistle plus the left over seed from my Canary that died on Thanksgiving day. You may remember, I said never again to putting a large feeder out last fall, but, well, I did put it about 150 feet from the house, so, with a little luck, the squirrels won't be tempted to come in any closer.  With no Pine Siskins, that feeder should be good for a couple months.

OMG, there must be a 100 birds out there right now.  Hmm, getting ready for migration?  Nah, I think it's that small bird feeder.  Maybe having lots of little guys around makes the big one's more comfortable.  Geez, the things been out less than 24 hours.

Hey, back to the Great Backyard Bird Count.  If you're interested, it's Feb 18-21 and only requires 15 minutes of your time, more if you like.  Go to http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/  to download a check list and get instructions on how to participate.

At this rate, I should get a pretty good count.  I need to head down the road to see if I can gain access to the river where I photographed that Bald Eagle last fall.  There were at least three at the time and they looked like they planned on staying.

Warm Tending Toward Cold

Two weeks of spring like weather in January.  Crazy.  Nice, but crazy.  It's cold enough at night that the snow has melted into ice skating rinks any where there is traffic.  Thank goodness for wood pellets.  When it's wet during the day I can lay a thin layer of pellets, they'll sop up the wet, expand, then freeze in place at night.  Makes for nice little "walk way" for me and the horses.  Though, I'm not thrilled with what sticks to the boots and tracks into the house, but better than doing a flip on the slick ice.

Angel started to shed big time about a week ago, Jo has started and the boys are holding on to their coats. I think the boys are smart, 'cause I'm pretty sure we'll get hit with some cold and snow in February.  Angel's stall is 100% inside while all the others have outdoor portions to their stalls, so that may be why she's shedding so bad.  I need to hunt up the shedding blade.

The hay bales I have this year are 115 to 120 pounds and boy are they hard to move.  I am sooo careful, but still, I managed to wrench my lower back a couple days ago.  Popping asprin and icing my back trying to calm it down.


I've been taking Sarah Labrador and BayLi Rat Terrier out for a run with the ATV.  Sarah gets this big smile and runs and runs and runs.  She loves the winter running.  She has a hard time when it warms up, that double coat keeps her too warm and she just withers, but oh, come winter and you can see the joy in her eyes as she lopes along in front of the ATV.  I let her choose the speed and her speed is around 10 MPH.  I love that look of joy she gets.  BayLi loves to go out, but he's more interested in the smells than the run.  Haven't been taking Jack JRT out, he thinks he can handle it, but I don't think so.

I ran out of suet for two days and the birds all left and haven't come back.  LOL.  Ungrateful, fickle little buggers that they be!  I do hear the chickadees and nuthatches in the trees though.  They come in now and again but they sure don't like that thistle feeder.  I see them try it, but they don't stay long.  Not sure why they don't hit up the suet as they leave, but they haven't been.

I was invited for a ride out on the desert a couple days ago.  When I went to hook up the trailer, the darn thing had fallen off it's blocks.  By the time I found the jack and got organized, I decided I was just not suppose to go.  Probably could have made it, but I would have been frazzled.  Darn, I really wanted to see  the trails in this particular area.  One of the few I haven't done yet.

Suppose to cool down a bit for the next week.  Well, I better get the ice pack and go nurse my back for a bit.  Probably do some reading while I do that, there sure isn't any thing on TV.  I mean, really, there is nothing worth wasting your time on.  I know, we need another cop show!  LOL.

Sunny Winter Days (Big Smile)

What a beautiful day.  After spending the last week reclaiming stalls and buildings from the flood waters, things are looking pretty good.  At least for now.  I imagine we'll have lots more snow and then the inevitable spring melt and mess, but I don't have to worry about that right now.

One of the Northern Flickers had another tussle with a couple Stellar's Jays this morning.  Last time the Flicker gave up but he held his ground this morning.  Not going to make him leave that suet until he was darn good and ready.  LOL.  The Jay's were even trying to physically move him, but no go.  They all got plenty.  I see a Nuthatch out there right now.  I put a thistle feeder out but none of the little guys seem to like it, they ignore it and go to the suet instead.  Ah, well.

I really need a hair cut.  It's driving me nuts.  I finished stall clean up and am going to go take a nice long shower, then head into town and get a hair cut.  Hope ya' all are having as nice a day as we are here, later.

Friends That Transcend Place and Time

The cold/flu that hit me last week seems to have pretty much moved on.  Just a bit of sniffles left.  We had a few beautiful winter days, cold but sunny.  Now, it's warmed up, the sun is hiding and it's just a bit dreary outside.  The snow no longer has that fresh, crisp quality, having melted into a mass of white with no real definition, just there.  Instead of that black blob from Star Trek, it's a menacing white blob.

Took a picture of the windmill.  It was completely covered in snow last week.  Now the snow has settled and melted and the wind vane has re-emerged to show that there is a bit of wind out there today.  The top is about 4 feet, so still a bit of snow out there.

I had a visit from an old friend, Ellie, over the weekend.  She lives over in the valley, retired professor at the University.  It was so wonderful to spend time with some one that was not only like minded but such a kind and caring soul.  She brought and left behind a peacefulness that I haven't felt in sooooo long.

It was an interesting weekend!

An Unkindness of Raven

The horses think that the name for a group of Ravens is quite appropriate.  An unkindness of Raven.

In the winter with the packed snow, if it's not raining or snowing, I'll put the horses hay out on the packed snow, then toss their pellets on top of the hay.  They either get complete cubes which are quite large and require a lot of chewing or they get a low starch pellet which is rather small and apparently the perfect size for Raven.  Tonight they got 2 pounds of low starch pellets on each hay pile.

So, I fed and then a bit later when going out to the garage to get some thing, I noticed quite a lot of activity in the horse paddock.  I stopped and looked and saw black wings, the occasional Raven head and horses chasing them and apparently not winning.  I don't have the best of views from the garage, so after a few minutes of watching and thinking it quite funny that the Ravens were stealing the horses pellets,  I decided that I really ought to put a stop to it, since I really don't want Raven poop all over the area.

The Raven had a look out in a near by tree and I didn't get half way to the barn before they all took off.  OMG!!  There must have been 30 Ravens, the sky was black as they took off.  No wonder the horses were losing the battle.  They weren't all that upset, just irritated.  LOL, guess they didn't get a full ration tonight, may have to go toss them some extra hay to make up for it.

I'll have to stay in the barn tomorrow night and see if the Raven come again and if they do, maybe I can get a picture.  Maybe a bit hard since it will be near dark, but it would be a cool picture.    

Dig, dig, dig. . .

Well, I got the car dug out.  Yeah.  Now, it has a dead battery.  LOL.  I expected that, hadn't started it in two weeks and with negative numbers showing on the thermometer it didn't stand a chance.  Gonna have to get the charger off the fence and get her up.  A couple more storms and it'll spend the rest of the winter where it is.

The next door neighbor that moved to the valley apparently showed up last night and tried to drive all the way to the house.  It hadn't been cleared all winter and there had been some pretty good storms.  The berm at the front of her driveway settled snow three feet high.  Now, any idiot would have known that a Dodge van ain't gonna make it.  She got over the berm which was hard packed and onto the soft stuff and just sank.

She lived here for 10 years, I just looked at her and asked what she was thinking.  Well, she had her new boy friend with her.  Seemed like a nice guy, but I don't think snow is his thing.  She wanted me to pull her out.  Nope, can't do it.  I wasn't being a bitch, just no way I was going to put my vehicle at risk.  She borrowed two shovels and finally dug it out.  I gave her the phone number of a guy that could get in, but even he said it would take most of the day and the Bob-cat, no way the PU with plow could do it.  She decided to leave the car at the road.  Smart move!

The Stellar's Jays and Norther Flickers have been stopping buy for a quick meal.  They had a little battle between them the other day.  Looked like the Flicker had won, then the Jay went and got his buddy and the Flicker decided it wasn't worth it.  LOL.

When I was shoveling the berm at the end of the driveway the other day, I wasn't paying attention and one of the dogs snuck out.  I mean, I noticed he was there, it just didn't register that he was outside the gate.  He stayed near, then some idiot woman in her car decides to stop rather than just drive by.  All three dogs get excited and go to see if it's some one they know.  If Jack hadn't already been out, I could have stopped it.  So, this idiot woman opens her car door and lets the dogs in her car and baby talks to them about what sweet dogs they are.  This is two terriers and a Labrador.  Are you F'ing crazy Lady!!!

I was beyond pissed!!  "Oh, I love dogs."  Lady, just keep driving, honk at them, run over the dumb ass animals,  but don't stop and let them in your car!  Now they're going to try to get in every car they see.  "oh, I love dogs."  She really did keep saying that.  Geez, REALLY, call some ones dogs and encourage them into your car when the owner is right there trying to stop them.  "oh, I love dogs"  REALLY?????  Yeah, I really wanted to kill that woman.

So, today, open gate and if the dogs got with in 10 feet of the open gate they got scolded.  Didn't take long for them to go back to, "oh, yeah, we don't go through gate."

Competition and Stale Crackers

A few years ago we had two grocery stores in town, they were competitors.  Then, one of them decided to sell and for a while we thought we were going to get a Safeway, but in the end, the company that owned the store at the other end of town bought it.  So, now we have two stores, both owned by the same people -  so, NO competition.  In fact two weeks ago, Ray's had run out of some stuff, so they sent their guy up to Shop and Save to raid their shelves to refill their own.  He didn't even have to take note of what he got, just loaded it up in a basket, threw it in his car and off he went.  Okay, so much for competitors.

When this all happened a couple years ago, the locals were pretty upset as we knew that with no competition the prices would be high and the quality low.  They promised that they would run them as though they were truly competitors, not to worry.  Yeah right.

For the third time this year I bought an item with out checking the expiration date.  The first was some Rye Crisps, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat Rye Crisps ever again.  I assure you, stale RC are really awful.  Then a month ago I ended up with some Turkey Bacon that had an expiration date of 2009.  Really??? 2009???

So, today, I'm returning a box of Premium Saltines that was expired.  As I'm standing in line, another woman that I know said that she had run into the same thing several times and was making sure that she was hyper vigilant looking at dates.

We both indicated aloud that if items were available at the local BiMart or Corner Store, we bought there as we had always found their stocks to be fresh.  Now, the assistant manager is listening to this.  So, I get up there, he gives me my money and says "I guess I'll have to have the Nabisco guy check the stock."  He wasn't particularly upset, just have the guy check the stock.

He asked if I wanted to exchange them or get my money back.  I said that I'd already replaced them at BiMart and I'd take my money thank you very much.

Okay, if I'm the manager or assistant manager of the store and some guy is losing me business, I'm gonna be a bit more upset than that.  "Ah, yeah, I'll have a talk with Gary and have him check the stock."  Really???  Do you not keep track of the amount of food that comes back as stale??  Do you not care that your customers are doing their best to not enter your store?  Geez, you have got to be kidding!  How does this guy keep his job??

I know that I buy probably 1/4 what I used to when there were two truly competing stores.  There are more people living in the area, so maybe they just don't notice it.  Having two pissed customers standing in a busy line complaining about your lousy food and the fact that they buy elsewhere when possible can't help.  Ah, well, I did get some fresh Saltines at BiMart.