Dirty Jobs, Odi style

The picture of Gary in the Dirty jobs illustration Keren did got me thinking... What would be Odi's version of "Dirty Jobs"

And then it hit me...

Digging up the sewage system around the house.

I think we have posted one of the excavations he did to pull out one of the roots in the system (I remember Ben was with me, "helping" Odi while he is 2 feet under).

Anyhow, this one is the craziest ever.

He dug up 3.5 cubic meters of hard Nazaz land, in order to make a new pipe line for the sewage.

It sums up in 14 meters (36 feet) lenght, by 1.2 (4 feet) avrage meters deep, by 35 cm (1.2 feet) wide.

and in a week of time!

We are very proud of him.

well, enough talking, here are the pictures...

Dirty Jobs with Gary Koester

So today I had the pleasure of accompanying Gary on his farm calls. Here is a short pictured example of what a vet's dirty job is like... :)

Preparation: Gary cuts the fingers of his fancy nylon arm-long gloves. "Gary, why do you cut the figners off?" "--So i can feel better".


Gary in a full combat outfit. The "Before" picture.

The cows wait patiently for the doctor's appointment.


And now, to the real dirty job: Gary reaches in... wrist deep... elbow deep... and pulls... pheeeeew.



A pile of steaming cow manure is building on the floor... "The best lesson you can learn from this day, is: 'when you hear the splatter sound, you better close your mouth!'"


Shoulder deep... "She's pregnant!" "She's open!"

"Mooooooooooooo"


The "After" picture.


Now, some cleaning is in order.


All in all, that's a good day's work!! I think I'll keep my day job though. :)

Good-bye to Mowing the Grass

Lat weekend Gary, Ben, Matt, Kevin, and Erin put a new roof on our house. It was a big job and they did great work. However, some of us (Keren, Megan, Me) were not needed on the roof so I arranged for a different activity for us. I had 1 ton (2000 pounds) of stepping stones delivered on Friday, and the three of us spent the weekend laying out paths in what will someday be my woodland garden. The picture below shows the large flat rocks leading out toward the opening in the fence. For each stone we had to outline it's shape, dig down about 3 inches into the soil, make sure there was an inch or so of sand at the bottom, drop in the stone, and then backfill around the stone. It was dirty, tiring and lots of fun. Between the mud and the mosquito spray, we all looked (and smelled) pretty bad by the end of the day.




The next picture shows how Keren and I laid out moss between the stones to make them look like they'd been there forever. Most of the moss was laid on Sunday with Keren's aid, but I've put in a bit more since then. The shredded leaves fill in other muddy areas to hold the soil in place until there's enough moss or groundcover to do the rest of the path. I suspect it won't all be done this summer, but I plan to recruit more free labor in the future to finish the job.






The last picture is another view showing how the path also comes down off the back steps to the deck. Try to imagine all those grassy and leafy areas filled with low growing ground covers.

Oh, and kudos to Grady for moving that big rock in the background for us.

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some more pictures from that weekend are here

Remember memorial day weekend?

Those that went to Canada will in a second. Let's see. What happened?
1) We caught a lot of fish. Well, Keren caught most of them, and she also caught Walter the Bass at the river inlet on the Northeast side of Lake Duborne. In case you forgot, it was on a Shad Rap.
2) We rode 4 wheelers back to Stinky Lake and saw some beavers. Ben won the race back home.
3) Ben smoked some people at horseshoes.
But most of the weekend chatter centered around the events on the Mackinac Bridge, the Thursday (or was it Friday?) before Memorial Day. Does this remind you of anything?

You can see it's on our TV. Keren got a good shot of it last night. There's a tiny guy in an orange suit atop one the towers of the Mackinac Bridge. He's changing a light bulb, just after he painted the inside of one of the towers, and painted some of the green cabling. Look a little closer. Here he is climbing up the suspension cables.
Yep, it's Mike Rowe, from one of our favorite shows, Dirty Jobs, on Tuesday night. It's the latest episode. He was on the Mackinac Bridge Memorial Day weekend. There were numerous sightings. He seemed to be satisfactorily freaked out by the heights climbing up the cable, and he did a lot of complaining climbing down the inside the tower to paint it. We learned a bit about the bridge.
1) There is indeed an elevator that runs up the towers, but it's more fun to climb the cables.
2) Since the road doesn't rest directly on the towers (it's suspended form the cables), the road sways by up to 25 feet (7-8 meters). The oscillations are low enough frequency that you don't ever notice it.
3) One can climb down the towers on a ladder, inside a tight, claustrophobic tunnel. They repaint the inside of the the bridge too!

Here's a last parting shot, where they are just beginning their ascent up the cables. There's the camera crew down below them, and I'm sure their helicopter is hovering somewhere...WAIT! Look at the red minivan! Zoom in on the passengers. Could it be? Nooooooooo.



Posted by ben. Photography by Keren

Ice fishing - the Israeli way

That's right.

We also have a version of ice fishing: digging out and getting the roots of our pipes.

Here is the action order for it:

1. dig a hole













2. get the fish out of the hole













3. Hold the fish for a nice picture:


















4. Look at the fish, and make sure it's dead















I believe this one can go also with the title of Dirty Jobs. (taken from here!)