“Ah hets little sisters.”
Spanky likes to hang out on Fred’s bed. Where annoying little sisters are NOT.
I take exception, y’all, to those of you who “knew” we were going to keep Stinkerbelle (previously known as Maryanne). Y’all “knew” we were going to keep Rambo and Jodie, and you “knew” we were going to keep JoeBob and Myrtle, and you “knew” we were going to keep Sugarbutt… Okay, well. If you “know” we’re going to keep every cat that comes across the doorstep, obviously you’re going to be right SOMETIMES, I suppose.
The evening after he brought Stinkerbelle home, Fred said “We have TWENTY-ONE animals under our care!”, and then he had the utter nerve and gall to turn and look accusingly at ME. Like the only reason we have the chickens or the Stinkerbelle is because of ME.
The cool thing is that when I called the shelter manager to tell her that Fred was going to pick Stinkerbelle up and bring her home, she said “Well, I just got off the phone with this lady who’s interested in adopting her and Spanky!”, and I called Fred back to tell him that if he hadn’t picked up Stinkerbelle, he shouldn’t. But he had, and I could hear her howling in the background, and there was NO WAY ON EARTH he was going to take her back, so I called the shelter manager back and apologized, because what can you do about a man in love?
But the woman who wanted to adopt Stinkerbelle and Spanky ended up adopting Spanky and Gilligan instead! Yes, Spanky and Gilligan had been sitting in that cage at the pet store for three weeks or so, unadopted, and then in one fell swoop they got adopted, and we brought Stinkerbelle home.
Pretty good for kittens I was absolutely positive would be unadoptable due to their feral nature when I first saw them, ain’t it?
Poor Tommy is taking the brunt of the Stinkerbelle love, though. She follows him around and harasses him, and he’s patient with her, but I note that he’s spending a lot of time outside, and whether that’s to get away from her, I can’t say – but I suspect “yes.” The night before last, I was laying in bed reading, and Tommy was in the cat bed on the end of my bed, and she was laying in the cat bed on the trunk next to my bed, and she woke up and saw him, and jumped from the trunk to the bed and climbed into the cat bed with him, and he vigorously groomed her for at least ten minutes, then he decided “Okay, done with this. Bye!”, and jumped onto the trunk to settle down into the cat bed. She waited perhaps thirty seconds, then followed him.
So he jumped back onto the bed, and she followed him again, and he made a noise of annoyance, and ran off. She looked after him, considered it, and then flopped over in the cat bed and went to sleep.
Right now, she’s laying on the doormat next to the back door waiting for Tommy to come back inside. She hasn’t figured that whole “outdoors” thing out – I think the flap on the cat door, and Frick running around outside scare her – but when she does, we’ve got a collar for her, ready to go.
She’s a bratty little thing, but I’ll admit – I kinda like her.
A big-ass bowl of sweet potatoes!
I’m trying to convince him that next year, we should have a little plot of land devoted to growing sweet potatoes. I like sweet potatoes a lot, and they were so amazingly easy to grow that there’s no reason we shouldn’t grow more next year.
And speaking of the garden, BUG ALERT!!!
The garden is slowly starting to peter out. Fred pulled up the green beans over the weekend, mostly because we have more than enough green beans to get us through the winter. Lesson learned for next year: pole beans, not bush beans. Bending over picking them hurts his back.
The tomatoes are starting to peter out, too. The ones we’re getting are so small that it’s almost pointless to make sauce out of them – you just don’t get enough from each tomato to make the peeling and chopping worth the effort.
The okra are producing more slowly, though they are still producing, and probably will for at least a few more weeks.
At this point, the garden is a LOT less work than it was this time next month, and I ain’t complaining. The peppers – bell, jalapeño, and habanero – are coming in quickly, and I have more than I know what to do with. Fred wants me to make more salsa, which I’ll do this weekend, but we won’t be using ALL those peppers we’ve got, so we’ll have to figure out something to do with them.
Funny that we have so many peppers when he’s the only one who’ll eat them.
