I had myself a pretty damn busy weekend. It started Friday with me spending a couple of hours cleaning and rearranging the garage. I don’t park in the garage (we’ve had the brooder set up in there for the past several months, between the chicks we got from the hatchery and the ones we hatched ourselves), and we’ve just been tossing stuff in there. A lot of crap had piled up, and after I broke down all the cardboard boxes we had in there and carted them off to the recycling center last weekend, there was a lot of trash that needed to be carted off to the dump. When I was done, there was a nice-sized pile of trash sitting on Fred’s side of the garage and everything else was neatly arranged.
I don’t remember what the hell else I did Friday – hey, it’s been DAYS – but I do remember that I didn’t sit my ass down in front of the TV to watch Lost and Grey’s Anatomy until mid-afternoon, and I never did get around to watching ER. Oh look, a crazy person is holding hostages in the ER. All our favorite characters are in peril. Le yawn.
Saturday morning I got up early (I’d told Fred to wake me up if I wasn’t up by 7:00. HA. I was up before 6:00; I don’t remember the last time I slept past 6:00, actually. Damn cats.) and did my usual morning stuff, spent a little time with the kittens, took my shower, and it was time to leave for the dump. The dump was surprisingly unbusy for a sunny Saturday morning, so we were done pretty quickly there. We stopped by the ATM so Fred could activate his ATM card (after calling to activate the card, you then have to do a “balance inquiry” at any ATM, an action that they charge you 50 cents for. Fuckers.), then over to the co-op so Fred could buy pig feed and chicken feed and a bag of cracked corn (Jimmy did it. I don’t care.) so I could make my very own mix of no-waste wild bird seed for the bird feeders.
I know. I’m a dork.
We got home and I found that the loaf of bread I’d started as soon as I rolled out of bed
(Side note: We got a bread machine for Fred’s birthday (from Fred’s father). Guess who’s making all the bread now? That would be the person who doesn’t really eat much bread. HI. Is this fair? Like my birthday present to Fred is making him loaves of bread WHENEVER HE WANTS? So his birthday gift from me lasts all year? Not fair. Not at all.)
(Side note #2: Actually, it’s not that difficult or complicated. I just like to bitch. DUH.)
(Side note #3: I like bread fine, it’s just that I don’t eat many sandwiches. And even when I do, I consider the bread to be the device that delivers chicken salad (or whatever) to my mouth rather than something to be appreciated for itself.)
was done cooking, and it was lumpy and misshapen and not worth giving to Fred’s father and stepmother, who’d mentioned the possibility of stopping by during the day. We decided to walk down to the dollar store (which recently opened very close by) and see if they had whole wheat flour. We didn’t expect that they would, but it was worth a look.
We were about to head out the door when Fred asked if I had any cash on me. I reminded him that he’d gotten money back at the co-op, which I only knew because I’d been bored waiting for the guys to bring out the feed Fred bought, and picked up the receipt and looked it over. Fred informed me that he had not, in fact, gotten cash back. But we didn’t have the receipt, because he’d had to go back into the co-op to be refunded for the cedar shavings he’d bought and which, ultimately, they didn’t have in stock and they’d kept the receipt.
So we got in the car and drove to the co-op, and Fred pontificated at length about how much he hates this one kid who works there and is slower than molasses and always fucks something up. He was only in the co-op for a couple of minutes. Once the woman working there looked at the receipt, she could see what had happened and she refunded Fred his money.
Since we were so close to town (we’d stopped at the dollar store to check, but they had no whole wheat flour, no surprise) we went to the grocery store, and despite the fact that it’s a full-sized grocery store with a large baking aisle, the only kind of flour they had was white. We talked about it for a minute, decided to get bread flour and make a loaf of white bread for Fred’s parents.
(The doughy, misshapen loaf – which I attributed to “old flour” is being fed to the pigs and chickens.)
We got home and finally got to get started on doing the stuff we’d been planning on doing. I started the new loaf of bread (Fred came in and interrupted me 17 times and I threw up my hands at one point and said “If this bread comes out okay, it’ll be a MIRACLE.” It turned out just fine.) and then helped Fred as he packed eggs for shipping.
I see that big cartoon question mark over your head right now. Yes, eggs for shipping. Turns out, you can sell fertile eggs on eBay for about $1 an egg, and so far Fred’s sold 2 dozen of them (the second dozen is going out in the mail today). What with the price of food these days, it seems that more and more people are raising their own chickens for food. Who knew?
I cleaned up the kitchen, did some dusting, vacuumed the entire house, spent some time with Kara and the babies, and just generally puttered around the house most of the day. At several points I went outside to see what Fred was doing, and watch our new Momma Chicken walk around the chicken yard followed by her babies, and see the toddlers* run around their new playpen. I also mixed up my first batch of no-waste bird seed (25 lb roasted peanut chunks, 25 lb sunflower chips, 25 lb white millet, 10 lb basic canary seed, 25 lb cracked corn), and filled the bird feeders.
So far, the birds seem to like my no-waste mix. Or if they don’t, they’re pretending to. Maybe they’re just being polite.
Sunday, I was up early again due to a cat I’M SURE (actually, now that I think about it, a really loud car going by the house woke me up.) and I rolled out of bed and hit the ground running. I started laundry, cleaned the kitchen, scooped the litter boxes, took my shower, then spent some time with Kara and the babies. When it was almost 8:00, I took my massive grocery list and left for the grocery store.
Too damn much money later, I got home and put the groceries away. I had breakfast, and then at 10:00, I started cooking.
Since I’m going in for surgery on Thursday (plastic surgery in the form of a lower body lift, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention) and won’t feel like cooking for at least a couple of weeks, I wanted to cook and freeze a bunch of meals so that all Fred will have to do is either put something in the oven for a specified amount of time, or take a container with a prepared entree in it out of the freezer and nuke it. I started cooking at 10:00 and wasn’t done until about 3:00.
Now, granted, I took plenty of breaks, but still. That’s a lot of damn cooking!
What I made, for the curious among you: Light ‘n Luscious Lasagna (this will serve as two meals for the two of us, plus several lunches for Fred to take to work), jambalaya (six entrees), chicken and rice casserole (all Fred has to do is put bread crumbs on top and put it in the oven. It’ll make at least four meals for us, plus some lunches for Fred), and beef taco skillet (four entrees). That’s enough food to get us through a couple of weeks, though Fred might have to cook once or twice.
Once the last batch of food was done, I put some laundry away and then headed to town for the recycling center. I stopped by the grocery store for a few things I’d forgotten earlier in the day, then got home, cleaned up the kitchen (I did so many dishes yesterday my hands may never recover), put laundry away, goofed off online, and then it was time to start dinner (chicken fajitas).
Today, I have plans that will keep me out of the house ’til about lunchtime. I have an eye appointment, need to run to Target and the pet store, Sam’s, the mall, back to the eye place to pick up the glasses I’ll pick out after my appointment (it’s a one-hour place), and then hopefully that’ll be all I need to do and can go home and relax with Kara and my babies and stop spazzing about the fact that in a few short days I’ll be sliced and diced.
You know how on South Park the Canadians have those heads where the top and bottom aren’t attached? I imagine that if something goes terribly awry and my stitches give way during a bout of post-op vomiting, I’ll be walking around with the upper half of my body detached from the bottom half. It could be funny if I fart and my lower half goes blowing (HA HA) across the room.
Fred has already received the instructions that if something goes wrong during the operation and they have to use bionic parts to make me better! stronger! faster! he should give the go-ahead. We all already know I’m totally a badass. With my bionic legs and arms I’ll just be able to prove it much more easily.
*We’re calling the 5 baby chickens that were hatched by a buff orpington the “newborns”, the ones we hatched ourselves the “toddlers”, the ones we got from the hatchery back in March the “teenagers”. And I suppose that when the other eggs currently sitting under a buff orpington hatch, we’ll probably call them the “new newborns.”
As I mentioned up there somewhere, one of the buff orpingtons hatched five eggs last week. She’s a good mother (despite the fact that she was a dumbass for a while there, leaving the coop to eat and then going back in and sitting on the wrong nest) and keeps a protective eye on her babies. Well, unless one of us goes out with food for the chickens, in which case she runs across the yard and those babies are on their own.
Priorities, y’know.
(pic)
(pic) Giving her sister the “back off bitch, these are MY babies” look.
(pic) The other chickens seem mostly unconcerned and unimpressed with the babies.
The problem is that now that Momma Chicken has brought her babies out of the coop, she refuses to go back in. When it starts to get dark, she takes her babies under the coop. We tried to force her into the coop and were unsuccessful, so she and her babies have spent the past two nights under the coop. We don’t like it, but we’re at a loss on what to do.
Damn chickens.
(More chicken pictures over at Flickr)
The kittens are growing so damn fast I swear I can see it happening. I want them to stop growing and be tiny forever! They’re all using the litter box (though Zoe got confused last night and had an accident on a cat bed, poor little peanut) for peeing. I have seen no poo in the litter box, but I didn’t ask Kara any questions about that. Also, hey. Did you know that kitten pee doesn’t smell at all? I swear to god, I picked up a cloth that had been peed upon by them and smelled it to see what the hell it was, and no smell at all. It’s too bad THAT goes away as they get older!
I’ve seen them all drinking water out of the water bowl at one point or the other, but they’re still not interested in the cat food. Some of them – Zoe, especially – like to get into the litter box and chew on litter. I’ll be glad when they stop THAT. We use the plain clay litter for them, and I have to completely empty and refill the litter boxes every day, because you cannot scoop that stuff. I was using the scoopable stuff for Kara’s litter box (it’s bigger, and in the closet), but now that the kittens are exploring a lot more, I don’t want them to eat the scoopable stuff, so I’ve gone to the plain clay litter for her, too.
The kittens are now at the point where they’re in control of their legs, so they zoom around the room and bounce off each other and pounce at each other (I love the way they get low and wiggle and wiggle and wiggle, and then they POUNCE, and go the amazing distance of about two inches). Saturday, all four of them piled on me (Inara up on my shoulder and the other three in my lap) and went to sleep. It was seriously sweet.
Inara, when she’s getting sleepy, will climb up so that she’s resting on my chest and she stretches her front paws out and demands that I kiss her on top of her head.
I love the holy hell out of these kittens.
I don’t have time to go through the pictures I got over the weekend – I’m about to leave for my appointment and errands – but I’ll share with you one picture I took that makes me laugh ’til I wheeze. Poor long-suffering Kara.
(pic)
(pic) Miss Momma sure does love to sit on Fred’s lap.
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: And we might have expected Mommy/ Whatever to tell the Little Prince “no” and, well, we can’t have THAT.
2005: We’re foster parents.
2004: Because WHY HAD IT NOT OCCURRED TO ME TO THROW MYSELF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO AVOID THE CONCERT???
2003: The words “ass ugly” were invented to describe these shoes.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: She hasn’t claimed boredom since.