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HUH!?

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

Down by the barn is a small, 75 gallon water tank with a tank heater in it. And by ‘Tank Heater’ I mean it keeps the water just warm enough to keep it from freezing. I’ve never tested it, but it might be 34 degree’s for all I know.

I’m doing my chores one morning. And while I’m doing my chores, I put the chickens water buckets that have frozen, in that tank and leave them for a few minutes.
Then usually the ice around the edges has melted just enough that I can knock it out of the buckets.

This one particular morning while working I notice a smell from the tank. Kind of stinky, like sewage. And I thought to myself, “Huh! That’s odd” and I go about my chores. A few minutes later I’m back with another bucket of ice that I put in the tank and then I go around back to the pole barn and get a bucket of straw for the egg boxes. And when I get back, this bucket of ice has melted about half an inch all the way around and I thought “Huh! that’s interesting.”
And I dump out the ice and refill the bucket and continue my chores.
A little bit later, I’m in the tractor working down there and I notice the tank is steaming more than usual.
And I think “Huh! That’s weird.” And I go about my way.

Ah–  but then I come back and take a second look. And I put my hand in the water and it’s like a hot tub! A dirty, stinky, hot tub but still; way hotter than it should be.
Evidently there is something wrong with this tank heater.

Got a new one and all is well. And I thought to myself, “Took ya long enough to pick up on those hints.”

What’s the last thing that made you say “HUH!”?  

45 thoughts on “HUH!?”

  2. My first, but probably not only, huh! of the day occurred early this AM.

    I was slumbering away peacefully, when I gradually became aware of an unusual sound. Eventually I was awake enough to realize that what I was hearing was an electronic alarm of some sort.

    I have a Bose radio on my nightstand, and in the dark, all I can see is the time: 4.55. I get up an press every single button on the top of the radio, but even with the light on I can’t tell what any of the buttons do. The sound persists, but I now observe that I have changed the time and apparently activated some other alarms. I’m still tired, so go back to bed determined to ignore the sound.

    The sound persists and gets louder, so I can’t go back to sleep. I get up to investigate.

    First I check the smoke detector. It seems fine; not the source of the beeping. But I’m getting closer to the sound which appears to be coming from the kitchen. No it’s not the dishwasher or the timer on the stove, it’s the small radio clock on the counter. I press the only lever on the thing I know and the sound stops. Blessed relief. I go back to bed.

    A minute or two later, it starts in again. Apparently some damn snooze contraption. I head back to the kitchen looking for more options for silencing the radio. Finding none that work, I pull the plug.

    Deanna, our domestic fairy was here yesterday. Apparently in her cleaning frenzy she has accidentally activated something on the radio. I’m going back to sleep, and hope that I wont have to immerse my Bose radio in a bucket of water to deal with whatever I might have activated pressing all those buttons.

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    1. Sandy dust hard, often, and everywhere accessible. (I am still getting over cleaning under the beds.) she rubs her pledged dust cloth hard over every button in sight. So we get phantom sounds, often hard to stop and hard to restore the settings.
      Living with a person with growing memory lose is like living in a huh bowl.

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  3. We had a Huh? moment this morning when we heard an odd noise in the hallway, a sliding, scraping noise. We ignored it. Later, after Husband got up, he couldn’t find his glasses. We hunted all over, then linked the odd noise to the disappearing glasses. We found them on the basement stairs where Millie, our tortie kitten, had put them after she knocked them off the table and batted them around the hallway.

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  4. The bacteria content of that overheated tank must have been stunning. It reminded me of the film clip of Julia Child making primordial soup, but I couldn’t find it to post.

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  6. Yesterday evening I showed up at 5:45 at the Page Theater out at St. Mary’s U, to check in for my ushering gig (Frozen River Film Fest. this weekend). Not a soul around to give me my tea shirt and FRFF lanyard. I wait about five minutes thinking I must be the first one here, find an open office door with a kind woman who tells me the film is in Salvi Hall. (HUH! I should have read that email more closely!) and directs me there. Luckily I arrive not to late to get checked in and “trained” before people start arriving.

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  7. I received a phone call at work a while back alerting me to possible fraud on a bank debit card I don’t even have an account for. I was very puzzled (Huh?!) until I realized the bank was trying to get in touch with the guy who had my work phone extension before I started working here. He retired and didn’t update his contact information at the bank.

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  8. Grand daughter Lily keeps giving us Huh? moments. Not a farm kid, a double barrel PK, she keeps having big success in FFA. She just qualified to compete at state in Creed Speech and as a freshman. This makes sense, unlike her other successes. The speech and acting gene is strong in my family. The more deeply she gets into this the more sure she is that she wants to major in agri-business.

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  9. Weeks ago I had a Huh? moment. I had dozed off while watching TV. I was awakened by an argument. That got my attention because I was the only person in my apartment, so who was talking to whom? It turned out that my TV was running an ad for Amazon that promoted their artificial intelligence program, Alexa. The magic word that wakes up Alexa is her name. My new tablet computer includes Alexa. Hearing her name, Alexa in my tablet began spluttering, complaining she didn’t quite get what question she was supposed to answer.

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  10. Kind of a Huh? Moment, but maybe smart marketing.
    Just saw an ad with five guys with big beards and big muscles and their caps on backwards. They try a dumb guy Dave Barry sort of stunt and fail badly. They next shot they are coming out of a Kay Jewelers carry little bags.

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  11. Just happened to my daughter. They took their two cats to the vet. Each in its own carrier. On way home the young cat went wild trying to get out of the carrier, even breaking a tooth, fortunately close to home. In the drive way she let the cat out the carrier in the yard. The cat jumped back into the van and ran up front to sit on the dash. After awhile they carried it into the house, where it immediately crawled into the carrier and refuses to come out. This is usually a very complacent cat. Odd, but complacent.

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    1. I have given up on taking Martha to the vet. I’ve twice had to cancel appointments because the minute she spies the pet carrier, she’s gone. And I mean gone. She disappears completely, I have no idea whereto, and doesn’t make an appearance again until I put the carrier back in the basement. Perhaps I should leave it sitting in the dining room for a couple of days. Surely I can outsmart a cat; I guess that remains to be seen.

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      1. Their old cat does not like the young cat and will disappear for days like that. She has some secret hiding place. They are afraid she may go there to die.

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      1. On the serious side, I have been for a long time. Used to be 60-40/stocks to bonds but on January 2, 2018 I reversed the ratio to 40-60/stocks to bonds. My investment handlers, Vanguard, recommended it. It was a good move. Treasury bills are safer but diversity is best.

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  13. Hey Kids–

    Been busy all day. You’re all in fine form today. I have very much appreciated the comments.

    No, I don’t think I need a hot tub.
    But some day I would like to take an outboard motor and a chainsaw and cut a giant circle in the ice and make it spin like I saw on that commercial. That looked like fun.

    I wondered about the giraffe too. Loved the comments.

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  15. A first tonight; had to cancel a performance because an actress was too sick to go on. Usually adrenaline kicks in and they power through. This young lady has terrible migraines and had been throwing up all afternoon and headaches so bad she couldn’t see straight. She came in, but couldn’t do it. And we didn’t want her collapsing onstage or anything.
    So we cancelled.

    The play is Eugene Ionesco’s ‘The Bald Soprano’; an absurdist comedy with limited appeal, so there was only 17 people in the audience.

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  16. A few months ago I came home with a malt from some fast food place, maybe Arby’s, that I couldn’t finish. Even their small malts are pretty large. It was in one of those plastic cups with a plastic dome lid that you put a straw through. I intended to put it in the freezer, but got distracted by something else, so I set it on the kitchen counter and then forgot about it. Then next morning I was getting my coffee ready and heard something. I looked over and saw the malt cup, and the straw was moving. Upon closer inspection, I discovered a very unhappy wet mouse in the cup. The mouse didn’t know how lucky it was – the fact that it had managed to get trapped in the cup probably saved it from being repurposed as a cat toy.

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      1. No. the lid was on. They have a lid that’s made for malts with whipped cream on top, so the lid is dome-shaped with an opening about an inch and a half across the top. The opening was apparently large enough for the mouse to get in through, but it couldn’t get out. It’s sort of surprising that it didn’t tip the cup over on its way in, but it didn’t..

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        3. I took the cup out to the car and drove it to a park down by the river, where i tipped it on its side and let the mouse wriggle out. It was still fairly warm when this happened, it might have been September or so. That’s usually the month when I get mice coming in the house.

          The mouse was ice-cream coated and would probably have made an especially tasty meal for a hawk or a coyote, but it had a reasonable chance to escape and clean itself off and live.

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        4. Glad you clarified that this happened back in September. Otherwise a frozen mousickle is what I envision as a result of your release in the park.

          Liked by 2 people

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