Bill's on Fire and Other Monday Miscellany

I don't have any photos of Bill on fire this morning.  Sorry.  I'm sure all readers would like to see that.  

Actually, it's not too exciting to photograph my husband looking intently and fingering his brand-new Kindle Fire.  

Today Bill has reached Social Security age, as has his twin sister Margaret.  Happy Birthday, Margaret!

The brand-new Kindle Fire is his birthday present, given to him early this morning.  

By the time I made it downstairs from my first computer and coffee session, Bill had registered his Kindle and had it open to a website about fly tying.

Later, when I came in from doing the chores, he was setting up his email account. 

I told Bill he's probably gonna become a Kindle-carrying Starbucks man.  

Starbucks and Amazon.com must LOVE each other. D'ya suppose there's a conspiracy among those Seattle-based giants?

Anyway, Bill will enjoy his new tech toy, I'm sure.

My other photos were snapped yesterday when it was raining and during very brief interludes when it was not.

That little pine squirrel had Kiwi and Kea straining their necks most of the day.  Kiwi looked away momentarily for this shot, which I liked.

The pine squirrel simply looked down upon me and the dogs from its perch of superiority.

And, poor Lily and Lefty.  They wanted desperately me to come to the gate and let them into the barn.  They had stood out in their shelter in the mud long enough on yet another slop-filled day.  

Only problem is the barn floors are tenuous at best, and 24 hours of heavy horse use could result in some cave ins.  Replacing barn floors with gravel is on our summer docket.

As mentioned yesterday, I went to the Colburn-Culver and Selkirk Road junction to see the train-derailment activity.  The 14 cars went off the tracks about half a mile north of the crossing so no great photos of strewn freight cars bearing soybeans.

Brian Wood, owner of Wood's Crushing and Hauling (he's in the photo) told me I could go to the driveway down the road to snap some upclose and personal pictures of the actual derailment, but I was a bit shy about driving up to a stranger's house who had probably had a few other snoopy invaders.  

We know that feeling because a BNSF train derailed across from our place in 1997.  The railroad used our pasture for a salvage pile, which in that case was a whole lot of lumber.

With the fence torn out all along the road on our west boundary, we had visitors, usually close to dark or after dark.

I loved hiding behind the pile and waiting for them to make their way across the field and then stepping out, asking, "What are you doing here?"

I heard some good stories and saw a few startled looks. 

The best incident from that situation was the guy who brought his pickup, parked along side our field.  I happened to be coming home at the time and noticed that he had covered his license plates with plastic bags.  

Now, why would a person do that?

After I drove back and forth down the road a couple of times past his pickup, he sheepishly left.

Dumb thief, for sure.  

Train wrecks and derailments bring out some interesting behavior. 

Brian told me his trucks and equipment will be running 24-7 until a road is built, allowing for salvage and reconstruction operations.  He estimated a week's time for the project to be completed. 

Big news!  We have no rain this morning!  They promised us two days of this and then back to winter in the latter part of the week.

So, I'm on my way out the door to take advantage of the nice day ahead.  

Happy Monday.