Happy Valentine’s Day! “Won’t you be my valentine?” An impromptu Saturday entry because the feed and seed store we love so much in Elkmont, Alabama has a dog looking for a home. She just showed up at the store about ten days ago. The guy who owns the store is taking care of her, but … Continue reading “February 14, 2009.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
“Won’t you be my valentine?”
An impromptu Saturday entry because the feed and seed store we love so much in Elkmont, Alabama has a dog looking for a home.
She just showed up at the store about ten days ago. The guy who owns the store is taking care of her, but he doesn’t need any more dogs, so he’s looking for a home for her. She’s friendly and very, very high energy.
Let me say that again so I can be sure you saw it:
SHE IS A VERY HIGH-ENERGY DOG.
He said that she’ll chase anything that runs from her (but if whatever she’s chasing stops and faces her down, she’ll back right off).
He said that she’s mostly house-trained – that is, if he’s careful to take her out every few hours, she’s fine. Otherwise, she might have an accident. He’s brought her home with him a few nights, and she’ll dive right under the covers and sleep at his feet.
I don’t have any idea how old she is, but she strikes me as a young dog. Very inquisitive, very active, very friendly. Pretty small, too – if she’s a much more than a foot tall, I’d be surprised. (Fred said “A foot at the shoulder, three feet at the ear!” Heh.)
Live in the area and need a dog? Know someone who does? Email me or leave me a comment, and I’ll send you the guy’s name and number!
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Previously 2008: I imagine that when we have 40 chickens, it will be a wee bit more difficult to coax them back into their yard after they’ve escaped. 2007: I should have asked him to be my valentine, no? 2006: “Stop following me,” Sugarbutt said. “Or I shall call the gendarmes and they shall kick your ass all the way back to Paree.” 2005: “I wasn’t worried,” Fred said to me. “Because any party where the invitation suggests bringing Dance Dance Revolution pads is not one that’s going to get out of hand.”
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry. 2002: Be our valentine, bitch! 2001: Could this get any more exciting, talking about the weather? 2000: Is it wrong that hearing about that incident gives me a whole new respect for Maria?
Happy Friday the 13th! Don’t let any black chickens cross your path… it’s totally bad luck, or so I hear. (They might leave you an egg, though, which probably negates any bad luck they bring.) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * … Continue reading “2/13/09”
Happy Friday the 13th!
Don’t let any black chickens cross your path… it’s totally bad luck, or so I hear. (They might leave you an egg, though, which probably negates any bad luck they bring.)
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Damnit, called out as a skimmer! Noooooooooo! (But shouldn’t that show you I’ve been reading long enough that I remember Fred being mysterious about his car FORFREAKINGEVER?)
That reminds me, I meant to put this up last week:
If it helps any, I don’t even remember what Fred was driving back when he refused to tell everyone what he drove. At one point he owned a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and then it was some sort of Suzuki SUV, and then another Suzuki SUV, then he went smaller when we moved out to the country and his drive in to work went from 10 minutes to 30.
I’m pretty sure his refusal to tell what he drove started as a joke, and the more people wanted to know, the more he wanted to torture them, because he’s a bastard that way!
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Keep warm? Why haven’t you joined the Cult of Snuggie?!
Because if I wanted to wear a backwards robe, I’d get my robe out of the closet and put it on backwards. 🙂
(I am told by Fred that the Slanket is much nicer and better than the Snuggie. I am too afraid to ask how he knows this. He CLAIMS that he heard a long discussion about it on the radio, but I’m skeptical.)
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A couple of getaway suggestions for the North Alabamians: Cloudland Canyon, GA
There’s a nice Inn in Monteagle, TN (it’s at the top of the big mountain you go over on I-24 on the way to Nashville) – if you’re the outdoorsy sort, there’s lots of hiking in that area.
I am totally going to try to get Fred to take me to that Inn. We always say “We should go away overnight” and then can’t come up with a place to go!
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Okay, seriously – Is the pig hernia operation without anesthesia a normal thing? Does the ASPCA know about this??
I honestly don’t know if it’s normal. We had a hard time finding a vet who was willing to operate on the pigs, so we don’t have another vet’s procedures to compare it to. I still can’t believe they’d do the operation without anesthesia, it’s just barbaric.
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I have been feeding Sensible Choice cat food to my cats for years. Now they discontinued making it and I have tried California Natural and (the cheaper) Costco Kirkland brand. The CA Natural was OK, but the Kirkland brand makes their poop stink to high heaven. Really, it is very bad and hangs around forever. What do you feed your cats?
Myself, I feed our spoiled rotten cats three different kinds of food (four if you include Snackin’! Time!). In one container I mix Nutro Natural Choice Senior and Purina Veterinary Diets UR. In the other container, I have Taste of the Wild. We have two bowls of each food available, and they seem to all go down at about the same rate. (Snackin’! Time! involves cans of Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys food. It’s about the only canned food that doesn’t make the more sensitive-stomached cats barf on a regular basis.)
I’ve heard that Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance cat food is good for reducing both the volume and the smell of litter box leavings.
Readers? Suggestions?
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Also wondering if you and Fred ever watch The Big Bang Theory. Now THAT’S some high-quality geek humor. Four nerds sitting around playing Klingon Boggle. Gotta love it. The hubby and I DVR it every week and it’s hilarious.
I’d like to give it a try (I’ve loved Johnny Galecki ever since his days on Roseanne) and I’ve downloaded the first several shows, but I haven’t gotten around to actually watching it yet!
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Hi, I’m a longtime lurker/reader… had to laugh about you telling Fred you would kill him if you got pig poop on you. When I watched you and Nancy do those video podcasts, you were really laid back. I honestly can’t see you saying half the things you say you said to Fred in a violent manner. Hope things work out with the pigs! BTW, I also think it’s hilarious when you talk about how much you love Publix. We don’t have Publix where we live in SC, but my husband is from GA and loves the store. He wants them to come up here so badly!
I’m usually laid back, but I have my moments, as Fred can tell you. I usually get over it pretty quickly, though, and most of the time Fred just laughs at me.
Publix is the BEST grocery store ever, and I hope they spread out across the entire country. I bet Nance would agree that Publix rocks – she was pretty impressed last summer when she and Trey visited!
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Those baby chicks are soooo cute. I used to see chicks hatch at my grandmas .They were the fluffy yellow chicks. Do they even still have those? When I had my own chicks,they were brown babies like yours.
We did have one single little yellow chick, but unfortunately that’s the one who died unexpectedly! Poor thing.
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I got more eggs from my brother this weekend. I dropped a few, so decided to make scrambled eggs. Only this one, didn’t want to open. I was able to peel the entire shell away from the membrane and then had to use a fork to pierce the membrane. My brother admits he has fed them too much oyster shell in the last month or two, but come on. I’m trying to talk him into letting me document his incubating/hatching, but he’s pretty sure he’s just going to mail order chicks again, this year.
That egg is just freaky! I’ve had eggs that are hard to crack before, but nothing like that.
And incubating/ hatching eggs is just a really neat experience (despite the sad and unexpected deaths). Watching the chicks hatch and then watching them grow (our babies are starting to feather out!) is just amazing.
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Be careful with your pig buying if you go back to the same fella — hernias are genetic in hogs.
The pigs with the hernias were available because they had hernias – they were culls from a commercial pig farming place – the guy we’ll most likely be getting our next pigs from is the guy who sold us our first set of pigs last year, and those pigs were hernia-free, thank god.
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And just HOW did Miz Poo end up without a bed?? I can’t believe she didn’t put the smack-down on one of the boys and take his bed.
I’m sure she was coming up with her smackdown strategy as I took that picture – I believe that just a few minutes later she sniffed at Mister Boogers, who responded by lifting up his head and grumping at her, and then she smacked him until he gave up and stomped off for friendlier pastures.
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Everyone should have a oven thermometer. I found that out big time. At my last apartment the oven was 100 degrees higher then what the dial said. Meaning instead of 350 degrees it would be 450 degrees! At first I thought my baking skills had gone to hell! Pun intended. 😉 Now at my new digs the oven is only 25 degrees higher. Check your ovens girls! It just might not be your fault you can’t bake worth a darn. Hee!
I actually bought an oven thermometer yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I opened the preheated oven to put dinner in the oven, and found that the thermometer read exactly what it was supposed to. I guess I can’t blame my cookie failure last weekend on the oven. More like operator error, I guess!
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Have you ever had a runt of the litter and did you notice a difference in their personality? My male is a runt and he is a total whack job!! Small-ish and so odd in his hot and cold need for affection and in his general lack of confidence in climbing/jumping.
Sugarbutt was the runt of his litter. He does run very hot and cold in his need for love – if he wants love HE MUST HAVE IT NOW, but if he doesn’t, then you’d best just not even bother ’cause he’ll have none of it.
He’s not lacking in confidence when it comes to climbing and jumping, though. He’s a jumping fool!
Do you have a momma-clinger? Which I guess has been answered with that photo! I wondered because my female was totally velcroed to my side yesterday even meowing to be held. She does the “let me sit here on this paper you are reading” thing all the time too.
Miz Poo is VERY clingy. The only reason she doesn’t spend all her time in front of me when I’m in front of the computer is because I won’t allow it (oh, don’t give me that look, I am NOT abusive!). That doesn’t stop her from trying 63 times a day, though. When I’m sitting and watching TV, she’s on my lap. If I’m laying down watching TV, she’s curled up against me. When I go to bed, she’s right there either on me or up against me. She LOVES HER MOMMA.
Actually, she loves everyone. I just happen to be the one who’s around most often.
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“Something about the sunshine makes them friendly, and they’ll come over to me to be petted.” Why, they’re solar powered, of course!
Why do I always forget that? Nothing makes cats happier than sunshine!
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I was wondering if there was chance that nosy neighbor would see your fruit trees and instead of thinking “barrier,” he would think “free fruit” and help himself?
Oh, it’s entirely possible – but I imagine there’ll be so much fruit we won’t notice if some of it goes missing!
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I think the neighbor’s son is checking Fred out–not looking at what he’s doing!! (assuming we’re talking about an adult and not a child!!)
Yeah, he’s an adult. And his living at his Mom’s seems to be a mostly seasonal thing – he’s around in the Spring and Summer, disappears at some point in the Fall, and shows up every now and then through the winter.
He very well might be checking Fred out – I did mention that Fred has a nice butt, didn’t I?
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Kara certainly is a pretty girl!
She is! I have to admit that I’ve not been all that impressed with brown tabbies in the past – I mean, I’ve liked them, but always preferred orange tabbies – but Kara is so pretty that I’ve gained a new appreciation for them. I love the white around her mouth and her caramel-colored belly, and her gorgeous green eyes!
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Did you watch the dog show? I cheered for the Great Pyrenees, thinking of you guys. Cats were not impressed with the whole thing, at all.
No, we don’t usually watch the dog show, but if I’d known there were Pyrs there, I might have insisted!
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Cannot wait to see pics of the old house. (OF COURSE, you’re going to scan the pictures. Ahem.)
Absolutely I am! I can’t wait to see those pictures, and I know y’all will want to see them too!
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When my brother and I were young, on the way home from the babysitters, we’d usually ask what was for dinner. My mother usually answered with “Shit on a stick.” I always loved that and use it frequently now myself.
and
We also got the ‘shit on a stick’ response to ‘what’s for dinner’ when growing up! 🙂 I also HATE that question with fire of a thousand suns!! My kids pretty much have stopped asking it but my response is either ‘food’ or ‘poop…poop on a stick’ (as my kids are 12, 7 and 2…the older one will get the ‘shit on a stick’ response! *G*) I guess my mom DIDN’T make up the ‘shit on a stick’ response!
Dee and Christine, out of curiosity, where did y’all grow up? Or rather I guess I should ask what part of the country your mothers grew up in – I’m wondering if it’s a regional thing. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard “shit on a stick” as a “What’s for dinner” response – but I’m intrigued!
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Suggestion re: dinner. If the menu is planned out, maybe you could write it down on the fridge. That way, all you’d have to do is point.
I actually used to do that (and the spud dearly loved crossing off each night’s dinner after we’d eaten, she’s a dork like her momma), and I should start doing it again, but I’m not sure it’d stop Fred from asking.
What I REALLY ought to do is post it at the top of each entry, in bold!
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Dee – have you ever had “Shit on a Shingle”? Usually some beef in gravy served over toast. We had it sometimes as kids, my dad would say they served it when he was in the Army.
I don’t know about Dee, but we certainly had it! (My father was in the Air Force.) We didn’t call it “Shit on a Shingle”, though, it was S.O.S, but I remember always knowing what the initials stood for.
I loved that stuff!
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Ok, I love Kara and am thrilled that you have adopted her, AND I read you daily – can you point to the place where you discuss adopting her. For some reason I don’t remember this.
(Hee! I kid!)
I mentioned it in passing on October 22nd, and then wrote about it for real on October 23rd. (I find it funny that in that entry, I said DO NOT WANT A DOG. Ha!) (Also, we never did rename her – we call her “Upstairs Mama” or just “Mama”, and I often call her Kara.)
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Just curious, but don’t the dogs get kind of…um….well….covered in chicken shit?? Living in with the chickens and all, I mean. How do you keep them clean? Do they get brushed and taken on walks ever?
They do get chicken shit on them – though not as much as you’d imagine – but their fur seems to be made of Teflon or something. They’ll have chicken shit on them when I go out in the morning, for instance, but by the time I go out at noon to check for eggs, the chicken shit is gone. Stuff doesn’t seem to stick to their fur for long. They actually get more covered in leaves and grass than anything.
Fred went out and brushed them both several times yesterday with the Furminator, and got quite a bit of loose fur off them. We’re going into the part of the year where they’ll start shedding, so they’ll need to be brushed regularly over the next few months to prevent matting.
They don’t get taken on walks except around the back 40. They’re working dogs, not pets. They have chickens to protect, and they will rarely leave their territory.
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Rumba and Samba are home from their spaying. As I mentioned I was going to, I put Rumba in the guest bedroom and Samba in the kitten foster room. The difference in their attitudes from before was like night and day. Before, Samba wouldn’t even come over to be petted (unless I was sitting in a patch of sunlight, and even then she was very skittish about it). When I walked into the room after she’d been in there alone for about ten minutes, she ran over and was like “Where have you BEEN? I need LOVE, and I need it NOW, please!” Then she spent the entire time I was in the room rubbing up against me, purring loudly, flopping in my lap.
It’s absolutely stunning what separating a couple of skittish kittens will do to their personality. It’s not the first time I’ve done it (or the first time I’ve seen the amazing instant switch in how they act), but it’s still incredible every time.
I’m likely going to keep them separated through the weekend and then let them out and see how that goes.
(Sorry, I have no pictures of them to share. I will by Monday, I promise!)
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Previously 2008: “We wouldn’t want to detract from the beauty of the muddy cat footprints on the counters. But you don’t need to worry. That’s not a maggot.” 2007: I need a nap. 2006: Mystery solved. Just call me Nancy Drew.
2005: No entry. 2004: Molasses runs in her veins, I swear to god.
2003: No entry. 2002: My life? Complete again. 2001: Do I want to go sit through an eternal PTA meeting, listen to endless amounts of people babble endlessly? Um, no.
2000: No entry.
Here’s something I do that is very annoying and should annoy the shit out of Fred, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too terribly much. When we’re going somewhere, he’ll say to me “Are you ready?” And I will invariably say “Yes.” So he will get up and he will get his shoes on, … Continue reading “2/12/09”
Here’s something I do that is very annoying and should annoy the shit out of Fred, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too terribly much.
When we’re going somewhere, he’ll say to me “Are you ready?”
And I will invariably say “Yes.”
So he will get up and he will get his shoes on, and he will wait by the door.
“Oh, I have to pee,” I say, because I’m always afraid we’ll get halfway to where we’re going and have to pee, even if it’s like two minutes away.
Fred stands patiently by the door.
“Oh, I need to fill my water bottle,” I say, because I don’t want to get thirsty, do I? WHAT IF I GET THIRSTY? WHATEVER WOULD WE DO?!
Fred stands patiently by the door.
“Oh, I need to get gum,” I say, because I’m a gum-chewing motherfucker and am always running out of gum.
Fred stands patiently by the door.
You get the idea. It takes me five to seven minutes, on average, to actually BE ready to walk out the door. If it were me standing there and waiting by the door, I would be SERIOUSLY annoyed at having to wait for someone who claimed she was ready to leave. Fred will sometimes go outside to wait for me but usually waits by the door, because we almost always take my car, and if he takes my keys and goes out to the car, I’ll have no house key with which to lock the door.
Probably what Fred needs to start doing is asking me five minutes before he’s ready to go if I’m ready to go, so that I’ll have five minutes to get all my shit done and my ass ready to walk out the door before he actually goes and gets his shoes on.
Except that I’d probably be annoyed at having to wait for him to get his shoes on.
There’s really no winning with me, is there?
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Speaking of no winning with me, I have a question for y’all – how many goddamn times a day do you have to answer “What’s for dinner?”
Before the spud moved to Rhode Island*, every day she’d get home from school and ask “What’s for dinner?”
I’d tell her.
Fred would get home from work and ask “What’s for dinner?”
I’d tell him.
Sometimes directly after dinner, the spud would say “What’s for dinner tomorrow night?”
I’d tell her.
Then she’d come home from school and say “What’s for dinner?”
I’d tell her.
And on and on.
(Sometimes if I’d already answered the question the night before, I’d refuse to answer it again. I AM NOT THE DINNER ORACLE.)
These days, there’s one less person in the house, but I seem to answer the question with the same frequency.
Yesterday, Fred got home from work. “Are we having enchiladas for dinner?” he asked.
“No, we’re having chicken pot pie,” I said. “Well, unless you’d rather have enchiladas. Both the enchiladas and pot pie are ready to be put in the oven, we could have pot pie tomorrow night instead.”
“Pot pie’s fine, I just couldn’t remember.” (From the conversation about dinner we’d had the night before, that is.)
We ate dinner. Fred went into the kitchen to do the dishes and put the leftovers away.
“Are we having pot pie again tomorrow night?” he asked.
“No, we’re having it Friday,” I said.
In a most puzzled manner, he said “Then what are we having tomorrow night?”
“ENCHILADAS.”
I AM NOT THE DINNER ORACLE. If he asks when he gets home from work, I will beat him over the head with the dish of enchiladas, I swear it.
*She moved to Rhode Island to live with her father and go to college. She is currently taking the semester off. (I only say this because every time I mention the child, someone searches on “Why did the spud move to Rhode Island?”)
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It cracks me up when I look out the window and see the dogs laying on the ground in front of the coop, dead to the world.
Poor exhausted pups.
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From left to right, a regular egg from one of our chickens (most of our eggs look like this; I have no way of knowing who laid it); an egg from either a Featherhead or the Rock Star; and a Silkie egg.
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I don’t know what freaked Kara out, but she raced in from the back yard through the cat door, through the house, and didn’t stop ’til she was on the landing. See the puffed-out tail? It stayed puffed-out like that for several minutes before she calmed down.
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Previously 2008: “I’ve lost Joe, and Fred is going to kill me,” I informed Mister Boogers, who glared at me and went back to sleep. 2007: I do NOT know why the fuck I’m such an idiot.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: Sounds like corporate logic, to me – cable guys having to service DVRs when they don’t know anything at all about them. 2003: Uninspired. 2002: Dude, what the fuck? They don’t have mirrors on Boston Public? 2001: My husband, Narcissus.
2000: No entry.
The other night when we were sitting down to watch TV and the Presidential Address was on, I said to Fred “I still can’t believe we actually have a black President. That’s way too cool. I feel like we’re living in an episode of 24. I expect to see Jack Bauer sidling across the background … Continue reading “2/11/09”
The other night when we were sitting down to watch TV and the Presidential Address was on, I said to Fred “I still can’t believe we actually have a black President. That’s way too cool. I feel like we’re living in an episode of 24. I expect to see Jack Bauer sidling across the background wearing his man purse.”
Fred laughed. “Welcome to the future!”
Maybe we’ll see a female president in office in a couple of seasons?
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I finally FINALLY have a PO Box closer than the one in Madison (the drive to check that PO Box was getting on my nerves). If you’ve got my PO Box address, update your address books, ’cause the one in Madison will be going bye-bye soon*.
AND THEN SEND ME ONE MEELLION DOLLARS!
*Well, it won’t really be going anywhere – it’ll still be there, I just won’t be getting the mail that goes there.
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The good thing about having a BrooderCam is that I can see what the baby chicks are doing without having to haul my ass the 80 feet to the outbuilding to see in person (though of course I go out there regularly to touch the babies with the fangers, ’cause they’re so damn cute).
The bad thing about having a BrooderCam is that if a baby chick is laying asleep in front of the camera for too long, Fred will call and ask me to look at the live feed and determine whether the chicken is sleeping or dead. (Luckily, the answer all day yesterday was “sleeping.”)
Fred called when I was at the grocery store yesterday and told me to call him when I got home because he had news.
“Well, tell me now!” I said.
“I’d rather wait ’til you’re at home,” he said.
“Oh, will it make me mad and want to swear profusely?” I said.
“No, the opposite I think,” he said.
So I called him when I got home, and he told me that this time when he called the niece of the woman who’d built our house (he’d tried calling before a few times and didn’t get an answer), she answered, and they talked for about 45 minutes.
She said that it brought tears to her eyes to hear that we love our house so much, and that we did a lot of work inside, that we’ve got a garden and chickens and a small orchard.
And the best thing? She said that she has a box of pictures, and that she’ll get them out of storage and send them to us! We’ve wished ever since we first saw this house that we could see what it’s looked like in the years since it was first built, and now we’re going to get to!
That is way too awesome.
She also said that she has friends in the area and gets down this way every now and then (she lives in Tennessee), and she’d like to stop by and see the inside of the house if that was okay with us.
“Did you tell her that she’s welcome to stop by whenever she wants, because we’ll pump her for information?” I said.
“I did,” Fred said.
The house was built in 1930, she said, which means it’s 79 years old – older than we thought! They had chickens here, and a mule that they used to plow the back forty (which was pasture), and the cement pad in the back yard held a house that was floor-to-ceiling shelves that held all their canned goods. What’s now the computer room and laundry room used to be one big sun room, and what’s our dining room now used to be a bedroom/ sitting room.
I am DYING to see those old pictures. I can’t wait!
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BEST foster news ever! Lem and Delmar got adopted last night – TOGETHER!!!! Yay!!!!!
Marion is in “quarantine” in a foster home because she bit someone at the store, and Claudette is in a cage by herself at the store. The side benefit of Claudette being alone is that now she’s starting to come out of her shell.
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Samba and Rumba are going to be spayed tomorrow. Of course after I mentioned yesterday that once I bring them home tomorrow night I’m going to separate them for a few days and see if that’ll help make them friendlier, Rumba started coming around to be petted last night. She’s actually the friendlier of the two kittens, but I’m still going to separate them to see if I can get Samba to the point where she doesn’t look like I’m trying to murder her if I attempt to pet her.
Have I mentioned that these kittens are seriously cute? Probably not. They are, you know.
Sometimes I let them “catch” the light, and then they don’t know what to do.
Kitten’s all “I think that’s my food?” Miz Poo‘s all “Don’t make me hurt you, kid.”
Kitten’s all “::Gasp!:: It’s Tom Cullen, the Ambassador of Love!”
Tommy’s all “Is there some of that tasty kitten food in here? I think I smell some. Bring on the food!”
More kitten pics (fun with the laser pointer!) over at Love & Hisses.
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I think Miz Poo’s ready to put the smack down.
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Previously 2008: We watched as fucko stopped, picked something up, and went back to his own property.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: Why she felt the need to ostentatiously walk up and down the property line so many times instead of just coming over and talking to Fred, I have no idea. 2004: Interesting how that works, no? 2002: Woulda made a good picture.
2001: No entry. 2000: Have you ever noticed that if you read or say the same word over and over, it ceases to make any kind of sense?
Poor little Zippy – the tiny chick who was born last on Sunday morning – didn’t make it. Both Fred and I are bummed because the little guy fought so hard to be born, but he was just too weak. Late yesterday he could do nothing but lay on his back and flail around chirping, … Continue reading “2/10/09”
Poor little Zippy – the tiny chick who was born last on Sunday morning – didn’t make it. Both Fred and I are bummed because the little guy fought so hard to be born, but he was just too weak. Late yesterday he could do nothing but lay on his back and flail around chirping, so Fred made the hard decision. It’s probably good that he was willing to, because I sure did like that little chick.
On the good side, I’m going to recycle the name for Sassy’s baby. I couldn’t come up with a good name – I suggested “Saucy” to Fred, who rolled his eyes – and Zippy’s a pretty damn good name.
Zippy McGee. I think it works well.
And to our utter amazement, one of the biggest, healthiest-looking chicks, a yellow chick that appeared to be a Buff Orpington – up and died overnight, too. This is the part I hate about having baby chickens, frankly – not knowing when one that appears to be perfectly healthy is going to up and die on you.
I was told last night that the guy at the store where we bought the Silkies (oh, hi. I think I didn’t mention that we got a white Silkie a few weeks ago, did I? We did. Shut up.) is going to have fertile eggs for Fred this weekend. These eggs are going to come from Golden-Laced Wyandottes crossed with a Buff Orpington rooster.
Laced Wyandottes are probably the prettiest chickens on earth. The Rock Star looks very much like a Golden-Laced Wyandotte and I love her markings.
So yes, apparently we’re going to be hatching more eggs soon. Don’t roll your eyes at me – it wasn’t MY idea.
Fred’s got a BrooderCam up and running for at least a few days. Sometimes those chicks get right up in the camera, and sometimes they disappear. Ya never know what you’re gonna get.
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The other night when we were sitting in the living room, I told Fred the story of how Xeney was in Rite Aid and a jerk told the cashier working there that he’d heard Rite Aid was going under, and kept it going even though the cashier was freaking out. Xeney told the guy he was an asshole, and rightly so.
Fred did a double-take and gave me a face of amazement.
Wow, I thought to myself. That’s kind of an overreaction.
He asked a few questions, and then I came to understand that even though it had APPEARED that he’d been paying attention to what I was saying, he had been off in his own little world, and he’d tuned back in about two-thirds of the way through the story. He was under the impression that I had been in that Rite-Aid line and chimed in when the person in front of me told the guy he was an asshole.
And then I realized that Fred is Joey.
(Except that in Fred’s head, there are show tunes.) (Also, I suspect he’s more a cross between Chandler and Joey.)
Usually, Fred’s Ross and I’m Chandler. Or Joey. Except that I’m kinda ditzy like Phoebe. I am an amalgam of Friends characters!
::sigh:: I miss Friends.
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I never did make an appointment for Rumba and Samba to be spayed/ id chipped/ rabies shotted, but I’m going to call and do that today. They’re doing well. The best time to hang out with them is when there’s sun flooding the foster room. Something about the sunshine makes them friendly, and they’ll come over to me to be petted.
After they’ve been spayed, I’ve decided that I’m going to separate them for a couple of days. Separating skittish kittens often changes them into more friendly cats for some reason, so I’m going to put one in the foster room and the other in the guest bedroom and see if it makes any difference. If they’re miserable apart, of course, I’ll reunite them, but hopefully it’ll make them a little more willing to be petted. I’ll report how that goes, of course.
I don’t remember what I was dangling over their heads – some toy or another, I’m sure – but I certainly had their interest!
Truly, Kara does not approve of those big loud barking things.
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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry. 2006: Unless maybe it’s a magic leotard and the source of all her powers? 2005: “Life’s too fucking short to read books that suck.” 2004: Damn you, DVR! I WANT to love you, but you’re toying with my emotions!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry. 2000: I’m not sure what effect, if any, it had on her.
I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend, actually. I went through the pile of recipes on my desk (I tend to print out recipes that look good to me and then just pile them on my desk for months before I ever get around to making them) and chose three to … Continue reading “2/9/09”
I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend, actually. I went through the pile of recipes on my desk (I tend to print out recipes that look good to me and then just pile them on my desk for months before I ever get around to making them) and chose three to try.
The first, Double Chocolate Caramel Turtle Treats – basically Rice Krispies Treats with chocolate, caramel and pecans added in – caught my eye because of the name. When we go to Gatlinburg, my number one favorite candy to buy are Turtles, something about the chocolate and caramel really appeals to me. So I made the Double Chocolate Caramel Turtle Treats and they were good. EXCEPT that I had made a batch of Sweet-Hot Habanero Sauce in that pot, and apparently there were still habanero oils present in the pot even though I’d diligently cleaned it, and so the Treats came out tinged with a hint of habanero. I ate a few small squares because they are JUST that good, before I gave up and let the pigs have the rest. I plan to make them again one day WITHOUT the habanero surprise, thank you.
The next, Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze were not difficult, but they were kind of time consuming. First, you have to zest a lemon, then you have to bake the cookies, THEN you have to let them cool on the cookie sheet for 20 minutes, THEN you let them cool completely, THEN you glaze them, THEN you let the glaze harden for two hours before you can put them in a container for storage. I made the cookies and Fred and I split a cookie before I put the glaze on them, and they are really, really good. Then I glazed them, and Fred LOVED the cookies – he said the glaze added just the right lemony zing. I thought the cookies were better without the glaze, honestly, but even with the glaze they’re pretty damn good. The cookies are big and soft and kind of cakey, and I think we all know how very much Fred enjoys his cakey cookies! Next time, I’ll likely make smaller cookies (these cookies are pretty big), and I’ll only glaze half of them.
The last was a recipe I printed out ages ago from Say’s Groovy Mom blog, Girlfriend’s Graham Cookies. She said in her blog that they’re reminiscent of the Girl Scouts Samoas cookies, which are my favorite Girl Scout cookies. I had a few problems, though. I couldn’t find unsweetened coconut, so I used sweetened, but the biggest problems I had were in the baking of the cookies. I think my oven might be having issues (and I need to get an oven thermometer to check on it), because I took the first sheet of cookies out at 9 minutes and they stuck to the cookie sheet. Then I tried spraying a cookie sheet with nonstick spray, only to have the cookies spread out way too thin and burn at the edges. The last sheet I put in, I used parchment paper and baked them for 8 minutes, and they came out perfectly. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked the cookies and Fred said “These are very active cookies.” Truly, they have a lot going on, between the chocolate chips, the walnuts, and the coconut. The more time that goes by, though, the better I think they are. At first I thought that maybe next time I’d leave out the walnuts, but two days later I think they’re perfect the way they are.
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So I posted on Saturday that I wasn’t sure if the pigs were going to be going back or not. In the end I made my opinion clear to Fred – I thought they should go back – but told him whatever he decided would be okay with me. Sunday morning I slept in ’til after 7 (SLACKER) and when I made my way downstairs, Fred told me he’d put a hog panel around the end of the pig shelter so that they were confined to their shelter and a little bit outside their shelter. Which was going to make it easier to catch them and put them in the carrier.
(The carrier, by the way, is one we bought when we were getting George and Gracie. Either of the dogs could easily fit in the carrier even now, so there was more than enough room for the pigs. In case you were wondering. We weren’t using tiny little cat carriers.)
“So we’re taking them?” I said.
“Yeah,” Fred said.
We went out to put the pigs in the carrier, and I don’t know that it could have been any easier. Fred went into the shelter, and the pigs squealed in alarm the way they always did when he walked into their shelter, and then they ran past him. He caught one, put it in the carrier, then caught the other one and put it in the carrier. It took about a minute to get them both caught and in the carrier, if that.
We put the carrier in the back of the truck and went to take our showers.
The traffic going down the road to the flea market was heavier than we’d ever seen it before (it was in the low 70s over the weekend, so we figured the heavy traffic was due to the nice weather). We parked and then carried the carrier to the guy we’d bought the pigs from.
I managed somehow to get a smear of pig shit on my pants leg. How? I don’t know, I never came into direct contact with the pigs once they were in the carrier – I’m guessing there was pig shit on the carrier. The guy took the pigs out of the carrier and put them in the small wire cage he had all set up, he and Fred chatted for a minute, and then we carried the carrier back to the truck. After we left the carrier in the truck, we started looking at the stuff for sale, and by the time we wandered back by the pig man’s booth twenty minutes later, he’d sold the pigs.
So yes, the pigs are gone and I don’t feel guilty.
(Much.)
The guy we got our first two pigs from last February has got a litter of piglets due in a couple of weeks, so unless we stumble across someone else selling pigs before then, we’ll likely be buying them from him.
We wandered around the flea market for another hour or so. Fred had hoped that the guy selling trees would be there, but he wasn’t. According to the pig man, the trees that guy sells aren’t the greatest anyway.
“They’re rejects from the nursery!” he said. “I bought (however many) trees from him and (however many minus two) died!”
“Well, we learned from those pigs about staying away from rejects!” Fred said. I waited for him to add a big “HAW! HAW! HAW!” in there, but he managed to restrain himself.
I had to practically drag Fred away from a guy who was selling Silkie eggs. “I wonder if they’re fertile!” he whispered to me. “We have brand new baby chickens right now, now is NOT the time to be hatching more. We’ll come back in a few months!” I said to him, and he finally (reluctantly) agreed.
We left the flea market buying only a few drill bits and nothing else. That might be a record for us!
Fred was pretty unhappy that the tree guy hadn’t been at the flea market, so we ended up stopping by L0we’s to see what they had in the way of fruit trees. Nothing they had was what we wanted, so we went up the road to Wal-M@rt to look at their trees.
After talking about it for a long time, we ended up buying sixteen trees – four Red Delicious, four Golden Delicious, and eight peach trees.
“Robyn,” you are saying. “What the fuck? Why so many fruit trees?”
Well, let me tell you why – because when Fred’s outside working in the summer, the son of the woman who lives next door likes to sit out on their deck. And while it might be our imagination, it sure does look like he spends all his time staring at what Fred’s doing, and Fred is not fond of the scrutiny. So the fruit trees are going to act as a fence to protect Fred’s privacy.
And if all these trees bear fruit, we’re going to be buried in apples and peaches and we very well might have to set up a fruit stand by the road.
I didn’t think we were actually going to fit all sixteen trees in the back of the truck, but we managed, and as we drove down the highway toward home with those trees and a big pig carrier crammed into the back of the truck, I felt very Clampett-like.
You better bet Fred was exhausted at bedtime last night after planting sixteen trees!
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So, the eggs started hatching Saturday morning, and so far we’ve got nine baby chicks out in the brooder. There are still four eggs sitting in the incubator. Fred has detected no movement or sound from those eggs, but he said that he’s heard of eggs taking up to 23 or 24 days to hatch, so we’re leaving them for now just to be sure we’re not giving up too soon.
Fred’s unimpressed with the number of chicks we got this time around. We started out with 42 eggs, after all, and 9 is not nearly as many as we hoped to get.
They’re awfully cute little things. I was thrilled that both of the Polish eggs hatched, and that Sassy’s egg hatched, too. Of the three eggs we really wanted to hatch, all three of them did, so I’m not complaining.
(In a few months we’re likely going to hatch another batch, and I guarantee you that there’ll be some of our Silkie eggs in there!)
The last egg to hatch hatched yesterday morning. When the egg cracked open and the baby spilled out, we saw first of all that he’s a tiny thing, and second of all that there appeared to be another yolk in there. Fred said that likely that egg was a double-yolker, and only one of the yolks developed. The chick is small and wobbly (wobblier than usual, I guess I should say) and tends to tumble over easily when one of the other chicks runs by. That’s usually not a good sign when it comes to chicks, but we’re keeping all our fingers crossed that this one makes it. I’ve already named him Zippy.
Sassy’s baby is apparently mesmerizing the other chicks with her long, long toes.
Someone needs a nap.
The two babies from the Crested Polish eggs. I suspect they’re going to be purty.
Another shot of Sassy’s baby.
Another shot of one of the Crested Polish babies.
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Oh, I thought I was SO smart, moving the filing cabinet over next to my desk so I could put two more beds there, because two beds were NOT enough for the cats who wanted to be closecloseclose to their Momma. Except that apparently FOUR beds is also not enough, as you can see by the fact that Miz Poo is taking up valuable real estate in front of the monitor (it makes it pretty tough to get things done when she’s RIGHT THERE where my arms go!). The only solution: I need a bigger desk!
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Previously
2008: No entry. 2007: Beach Roses (fiction). 2006: Giggling like that is EXACTLY something Fred would do. 2005: Taking the day off. 2004: I don’t believe I mentioned that the Bean has tapeworms.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry. 2001: And I yelled “Any fucking thing else?!”, addressing, I guess, God. 2000: Okay, so I don’t have much to say today.
So after we made our decision the other day to return the pigs to the guy we’d gotten them from, Fred started posting online at the forums where he hangs out, and to my dismay people started giving him suggestions on how to solve the hernia problem. The most popular suggestion was to slap duct … Continue reading “2/7/09”
So after we made our decision the other day to return the pigs to the guy we’d gotten them from, Fred started posting online at the forums where he hangs out, and to my dismay people started giving him suggestions on how to solve the hernia problem. The most popular suggestion was to slap duct tape over the hernias for a few days.
You can imagine how thrilled I was.
Fred waffled about it for a few days, then called me on Friday when I was on my way to the post office.
“Would you be WILLING to try getting the hernias to stay in before we return them? I think that we could wrap some of that tape that sticks to itself around them, and then use duct tape on the ends to make sure it stays in place.”
Well. Really. What kind of an unreasonable bitch wouldn’t be WILLING to maybe fix the hernias so we could keep them? That little one really has an appealingly bossy personality.
“I SUPPOSE,” I grumbled.
On his way home from work, Fred stopped and picked up the supplies, and after we made a quick run to Hartselle to pick up something for his tractor, we headed out to the pig yard to what had to be done.
Thanks to fabulous reader Maureen, I now knew that holding a pig by its back legs was a better idea than trying to hold it by its ears, so when Fred went into the shelter and the pigs grunted in alarm and tried to run out and he pinned Big Pig down, I grabbed one of Big Pig’s back legs and then the other. He flailed and grunted and squealed (and the pig had a lot to say about it too HAR HAR HAR), but he was a lot calmer than when I had him by his ears the other day.
Fred worked as quickly as possible, but as I feared, we weren’t in position very long before the little bastard’s fear worked its way out of his body in a most fearsome and foul-smelling manner.
“IF I GET PIG SHIT ON ME, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!” I bellowed at Fred, who didn’t hear me, because we were both wearing ear protection to protect our hearing from the loud-ass pigs.
I never did get any of the foul-smelling stuff on me, thank god. Fred wound the tape around the pig’s hernia and then around each leg and when he was done it looked, in essence, like a thong that needed to be pulled up.
It’s to my everlasting dismay that I didn’t bring the camera out with me.
When Fred was done, he told me to let the pig’s legs go. I did, and the pig? Couldn’t walk. Apparently the way the tape was wound around him was preventing him from walking, and he kind of flopped around for a few seconds before Fred told me to grab the pig’s legs again, and he cut the tape off.
As we walked back to the house, he said “At least I can take them back on Sunday knowing that I tried it and it didn’t work!”
And then all day today he waffled back and forth. The little pig, as mentioned, is a sassy little thing and has quite a personality. He said “We could just let it go, and if the hernias get to be a problem, I’ll shoot them and we can eat them!”
He said “I sure do like those little pigs.”
He said “I sure don’t want to have to deal with the guy we bought the pigs from, and I’m sure he thinks I’m an idiot now.”
He said “You know he’s going to just put them in a tiny cage and feed them and never let them run around, and now that they’ve tasted nirvana, they’ll think they’ve gone to hell!”
He said “We could just see what happens!”
So who the fuck knows? At this point, I have no idea whether we’ll be returning the pigs tomorrow or not. I’d say the odds are about 60/40 FOR returning them, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part.
“GIMME the Fig Newton!”
“I WANTS the Fig Newton!”
“I has the Fig Newton!”
Piggies in the sun.
Not to be gross, but those bulgy things behind their legs? Not balls. Those are the hernias. If you’ve ever wondered what pigs with hernias look like, wonder no more!
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The eggs we put in the incubator almost three weeks ago have started to hatch! Number one came early this morning. Then for a long time, nothing. Finally we got numbers two and three pretty close together, and recently got number four.
Fred’s got a webcam up over on his site for the time being – probably once the eggs are through hatching, it’ll be a chickcam (in the brooder) for a while longer.
Number one is the reddish one in the back. Number two’s over there on the left – the chick born of an egg that Sassy (the chicken who leaves the chicken yard and travels to her childhood coop to lay her eggs) laid. Number three came out of a Polish-laid egg. I don’t know if it was a Featherhead who laid the egg, or the Rock Star, but it was one of the three. No idea who the father is.
Number two (Sassy’s baby) and four (from a flea market egg).
Number two, Sassy’s baby. I think s/he is going to be gorgeous.
Sassy’s baby (before s/he was born, obviously), getting ready to get the hell out of there.
Baby number four is a cutie. (Well, they all are, obviously.)
Edited to add:
Number five! This one’s from a Polish mother (either a Featherhead or the Rock Star) and an unknown father.
Number one snuggles up to the newborn.
Edited to add:
Babies number 7 (the fluffyish yellow chick on the right), 8 (the black one in the back) and 9 (the reddish one in the front). We have four more eggs, but none of them are showing any signs of life. We’re going to let them go until tomorrow, but I don’t expect we’ll get anything from them.
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“Updating on the weekend? Is that allowed?”
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Previously 2008: Please don’t tell me she’s a flighty mess in real life. 2007: She became entirely liquid somehow, and flowed through my fingers and across the room, ending up under the bed. 2006: I think that the next thing Apple should create is a cell phone/ iPod player. 2005: Yes, I use the same kind of lotion as my CAT.
2004: No entry. 2003: Anyway. Enough about my underwear. 2002: You’ve been warned, skank hos out there who would swoop down upon my husband in his grief and get him to marry you. 2001: Yeah, that’s me, not giving a shit if they can see me or not… 2000: Really, what other journaller will thrill you with pictures from the litter box?
It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who’s married to a man who leaves the car door wide open and does a half-assed job of the dishes. Your comments yesterday cracked me UP. Fred doesn’t leave the kitchen cabinet doors wide open, but he’s quite fond of never shutting drawers all the … Continue reading “2/6/09”
It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who’s married to a man who leaves the car door wide open and does a half-assed job of the dishes. Your comments yesterday cracked me UP.
Fred doesn’t leave the kitchen cabinet doors wide open, but he’s quite fond of never shutting drawers all the way. It annoys me, but it doesn’t drive me crazy – I don’t get it, though. Why shut the drawer part of the way? WHY?
And now that I’m in a better mood today, I should balance yesterday’s bitching about Fred with some nice things. So in no particular order, random things I like about Fred:
1. He’s a master builder. Three years ago, he’d never built a thing. Now, he’s built four outbuildings (wood shed, small coop, medium coop, big coop, and garden shed), steps to the side of the house, bird houses, a fence around two and a half acres – the list is endless!
2. He’s a big ol’ softy. Did you know he goes out and crawls into the dog house and hangs out with the dogs just about every morning?
3. He puts up with my shit and doesn’t get mad when I write about the things he does that annoys me.
4. He’s super smart and can usually explain things to me that I just don’t get in a way so that I understand. Also, he’s up on current affairs and when I ask him what the hell’s going on with something (“Who’s this nice-looking black fellow they keep showing on the TV, Fred?” “That’s our new president, Bessie.”) he can sum it up in a sentence or two.
Every damn time I swear that we’re not going to get SOMETHING, we seem to end up with it within a year.
So right here, right now, I swear to you all upon all that is good and holy that I will NOT in the next year be holding a multi-million-dollar winning lottery ticket! I just won’t have it!
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You know, I really hated the Dyson handheld when Bryan brought it home, but I actually use it for major dusting now. I find it a lot more agile than using the vacuum hose, and I like that you can’t lose the little brushy extension. We have picture-frame paneling and interior brick, which means I have a lot of tiny dusty ledges to deal with, and I use it around the power cords and furniture feet where fur tumbleweeds flourish. I can vacuum the sheet-covered couch without it ingesting the sheet, too, which is a big bonus. So I would give it a “not terrible” rating if you have dogs and nooks like stairs, you just have to learn to be efficient with your 6 minutes of battery life.
I might have to give that a try. Maybe I’ll take it for a test run around the baseboards (at least some of them!) and see if that makes me any happier about it.
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I thought you’d enjoy this. Maybe get a few goats just for the comedy?
l
Don’t encourage Fred.
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You know what would be awesome on your site? A guess the kitty game, similar to this one for the Duggar family. You could use all your regular cats, past and present, and throw in the foster cats, pigs, chickens, etc. for an extra challenge!!
Oh man, if I had ANY kind of mad skillz at all, I’d create a game like that. It’d be neat to see how many people I could stump with it!
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Love the metal roof, Robyn. I wanna put one on our place when we need a new roof. How’d you get the insurance company to pay for part of it? I.e. How can I get me some of that action??
We called the insurance company, and they sent an adjuster out. We’ve had problems recently where if it rains for too long, we get leaks in several places in the house. The adjuster went up on the roof and reported that we had some pretty severe storm damage. Within a few days, we had a check from them. Like I said, it never occurred to me that they’d pay anything, but Fred’s partner mentioned that we should check with our agent before paying for it ourselves, thank god we did.
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A question about the whole absorbency thing with towels and fabric softener. How do you keep them from the evil static cling?
ms7168 said:
I have always used fabric softener on my towels . . I just use less and that way no static cling but it will still absorb 🙂
It never occurred to me that that could work!
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The post for 02-02-04 hot/versus good looking was one of the most fun ever. Would you consider repeating the question five years later just because it’s so much fun?
Okay, y’all – five years later, let’s hear it. Who’s hot but not good-looking, and who’s good-looking but not hot in your opinion?
I’ll go first.
Hot: Bruce Campbell. (Okay, wait. I think he’s good-looking, too.) James Gandolfini (but only as Tony Soprano. Otherwise, he does nothin’ for me.)
Good-looking: Jeffrey Donovan. (Okay, wait. He’s also kinda hot. I love the way he over-enunciates everything he says.) Good-looking but nowhere in the same universe as hot: Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
(Why yes, we ARE watching Burn Notice still. I LOVE BRUCE CAMPBELL.)
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Love the new roof! Ever considered any matching board and batten shutters? With Fred’s building skills, he would probably make them
I can’t say that we’ve ever talked about it. Right now I’m trying to convince Fred (through hostile thoughts in his direction every time I have to vacuum up the crap that gets tracked through the back door) that we need a covered porch on the back of the house – just a small one where we can take off our boots and shoes and leave them – but after that, maybe we’ll think about shutters. It’d probably go at the bottom of a long and always-growing list, though!
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I’m surprised you guys don’t have a GPS! Fred seems like he’d get a kick out of geocaching. I splurged on a Garmin right before Christmas and I love it more than I ever thought I would. It comes in handy really often.
Back in 2002 and 2003, Fred did quite a bit of geocaching, actually. (His first entry about it is here.) We got caught up in other things and haven’t done it since, but we do have a GPS around here somewhere. But it’s an OLD GPS and I rather doubt it would come in handy when I’ve done something brilliant like try to get home a new way and gotten myself lost.
(Though maybe it would. Perhaps I oughta see if I can find it and give it a try!)
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Hey! Your banner for February is pretty darn cute! Who made it if I might ask?
It’s actually a replay from last February, created by Aly!
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“Fred reported that he vigorously licked Samba on top of the head, and she really liked it.”
HOWL!
Proofreading is my friend… proofreading is my friend… ah, fuck it. Why start now?
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Your story about the dogs and the pig ears reminded me of my friend’s brother. He had a small dog as well as a pot-bellied pig, both as pets. One day he was trimming the pig’s hooves when he noticed his dog skulking about. He watched as his dog scurried out, grabbed a piece of discarded pig hoof, and ran off to go chew his treat in another spot.
That… is rather gross. It’s kind of like chewing fingernails, though, I’d imagine. I wonder if pigs hooves trimmings taste like fingernail clippings? (Please note: I will not be testing this theory, thankyou.)
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Do you ever call Tom Cullen M-O-O-N, that spells moon?
Gawd, I hope you get that.
But of course! Before we even decided to adopt him, Fred said “We should name him Tom Cullen and when we make an appointment for him at the vet, we could say “Yes, I need to make an appointment for my cat, Tom Cullen. It’s spelled M-O-O-N.”” And then we cackled about it like dorks for a long, long time.
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Did you see The Rocker? It was pretty cute.
I did! I watched it alone because Fred wasn’t interested in it, but I actually think he would have enjoyed it. I liked the music so much that I went and downloaded the album that same day.
(GOD I LOVE THE INTERNET.)
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Fred would like you to know:
I would just like to say that killing and eating those little pigs was an option, but SOMEONE thought returning them was a better choice.
SOMEONE still thinks that returning them is a better choice, thank you very much.
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I got all excited thinking we FINALLY would know Fred’s car, but no, I see the Ram is just from his truck….right? Darn it!
Actually, Fred wrote about his car – a Hyundai Accent – a year and a half ago. In fact, I linked to his entry from this entry, then went on to talk about the way I turn into a pouty teenage brat when it comes to car negotiations because – hello – BORING.
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Anyone else get a kick out of the fact that the chicken is George but the rooster is Michelle? HAHA!
Well, that’s ’cause they’re named after certain people. Michelle’s named after a reader who recommended a tomato strainer. George is named after a Curious monkey.
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Robyn-I know this is totally unsolicited advice-but I just had to comment.
I worked on a pig farm for years after college, and the best way to hold a pig is by catching it by the back leg (as it runs past you!) and holding it by both back legs with the pig’s belly facing away from you. Something about this posture keeps them much calmer and reduces the deafening squealing. You guys were right to send those pigs back, I am not sure how successful pushing on the hernia is.
I did not know that! Thanks for that, it may come in handy in the future. (Though I’ll admit that I’m kinda hoping I never need to put that into action!)
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What’s worse, do you think? Stepping in cold cat barf, or warm cat barf? I’m trying to decide here, but I think the jury’s still out on that one.
They are each a special kind of hell, but I would prefer warm cat barf, and let me tell you why – because if it’s still warm, then I can look around and see which cat is lurking about and licking his or her lips, and pretty much know who did it, and I can keep an eye on them to see if a problem is developing!
If “NO cat barf” were an option, though, I’d certainly go for that!
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I read you during my lunch hour. When I’m eating. Just giving you my schedule so you’ll know next time to leave out the guts talk. Thanks!
You might have wanted to skip that discussion about cat barf, then.
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“It’s kinda too bad that they’re going back, because they’ve certainly got personality.” I got a Pulp Fiction vibe off this, but I’m not sure if that’s what you intended. Cracks me up none the less.
That’s because I’m a bad motherfucker. That’s right.
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With regard to the roosters, does each one have his own wimmin or is it a share and share alike thing?
Let me take a moment here to say that it was just yesterday that I was looking back through entries from a year ago and LITERALLY we had thirteen chickens this time last year, and they were all living in the small coop in a corner of the back yard, spending their days wandering around our back yard and pooping it up. We have gone from thirteen to 80-something in a year.
I expect that this time next year, the chickens will be living in the house, and Fred and the cats and I will be living in the little chicken coop.
But to answer your question, as far as I can tell, the roosters don’t each have their own wimmin, they appear to share, and they all seem fairly happy about the arrangement.
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Help! I want to escape with my honey for a one night get away, somewhere not too far to drive. Any suggestions? (hotels or just locations appreciated.)
The only things that come immediately to mind: a trip to Nashville (stay in the Opryland Hotel!) or I’ve always thought that staying overnight at a B&B in Hartselle and then spending the next morning walking up and down the little main strip of antique stores would be neat. Or a trip to the Ocoee in Ducktown, Tennessee is not too far away, and the river is very neat – though on second thought, I wouldn’t recommend it this time of year, maybe in the Spring or Fall. Oh, and I hear there are cabins on top of Monte Sano in Huntsville that you can rent, I bet it’s pretty (though you might want to go further from home than that!).
How about it, North Alabamans? Got suggestions for a one night get-away?
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I gotta say, I’ve never in my life heard about trying to “poke them back in.” It’s a simple surgery to fix them, but eh….why bother… Much easier to just buy them without. FWIW though, there were a few 4-H hogs last year with hernias. They made it up to weight just fine apparently.
Fred actually called around to vets to see how much it would cost to have the hernias fixed. Without anesthesia, $35 each. With anesthesia, $75 each. We were appalled – “Without anesthesia? Are you SERIOUS?!” Fred talked to his sister, who said that she was pretty sure that they’d do a local anesthesia on the pigs FOR GOD’S SAKE THEY’RE NOT BARBARIANS. So we were all “Hmmm. $35 per pig isn’t a bad price, that’d be $17 per person! We should totally do that!” Fred called the vet to make sure they’d do a local.
No local. That area is hard to block. They – the vet SAID THIS – strap the pig down, put in ear plugs, and start cutting.
JAYSUS.
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I remember awhile back you were talking about how cold you were. Well, I am in the same boat right now–I’m currently down 48 pounds and I am just freezing–and no matter what I do, I can’t get warm. At work, I am practically sitting on top of my little space heater (because the building I work in is 100 years old and heat apparently wasn’t invented back then). Driving to and from work–well, anytime I am in the car really–the seat heater is on high and the temperature is turned up to 90. When I’m home, the thermostat is turned up, I’m wearing 8 layers of clothes, including socks AND slippers, and I’m wrapped up like a burrito in my Slanket. What did you do to get (and stay) warm??????
Part of my problem at that point was that I was on a beta blocker (for an irregular heartbeat caused by a murmur). Once I went off that, I didn’t have the problem nearly as much. I’m still cold more often than Fred is, but I think that’s fairly normal. To stay warm, I dress in layers. I have the space heater on all the freakin’ time (it’s like three inches from my legs right now), but I have to say that the one thing I’ve purchased that makes ALL the difference for me, especially when I’m on the couch in front of the TV, is a heated throw. It’s just an electric blanket, only smaller, and when I get under that baby and turn it up on high, the fact that the front room is 59 degrees (TRUE STORY, despite the fact that the damn heat is running ALL THE TIME) doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I love my heated throw. LOVE IT.
Readers, got any warming suggestions?
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Rumba and Samba seem to both be completely sneeze-and-sniffles free. I’m going to call later today and make an appointment for their spaying/ id chipping/ rabies shots.
I always feel sorry for the kittens when they have to be carted off to the vet and be spayed or neutered. I know it’s for the best, but they’re always so scared!
I’ll just tell them we’re going for a FUN RIDE and there’ll be toys and nice people to pet them! Think they’ll fall for that?
Brudderly love, still goin’ on. Tommy is clearly thrilled about it.
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Previously 2008: I am 40 years old, and I started SWEATING because I was SO WORRIED that the doctor would YELL AT ME about gaining weight ON MY OWN BODY. 2007: (DON’T JUDGE ME) 2006: I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately.
2005: No entry. 2004: And then Fictional Woman and Fictional Child share an Isn’t he DISGUSTING? look, and bid each other goodnight. 2003: Taking a nap looks like a good idea. 2002: I decide who’s King Shit of Turd Mountain, y’all, and don’t forget it. 2001: Everyone enjoys a good fart story!
2000: No entry.
So, the pigs are going back from whence they came. With these two, we really bit off more than we can chew. To quote from the email Fred sent out to the various people who were buying one and a half of the pigs (the last half being ours, of course): The pigs I bought … Continue reading “2/5/09”
So, the pigs are going back from whence they came. With these two, we really bit off more than we can chew. To quote from the email Fred sent out to the various people who were buying one and a half of the pigs (the last half being ours, of course):
The pigs I bought in Tennessee came from a factory farm hog raiser,
and they were considered “culls” because they have inguinal hernias,
which are small holes in their abdominal walls. Their intestines can
come out through the hole, making a bulge on the pig’s underbelly.
According to the man I bought them from, it’s a simple matter to “poke
the guts back up in the hole” regularly, and the pigs will eventually
get big enough that their intestines no longer protrude.
I did not find this to be the case.
After days of crawling through poop and wrestling squealing pigs, I’ve
had enough and am returning them to the man I got them from.
I’ll let you know when I find another (normal) pair.
Sorry for any inconveniences this may cause.
On Tuesday when Fred got home from work, we went out so that I could hold each pig while he “poked the guts back up in the hole”. These pigs are little but HOLY SHIT were they hard for me to hold. Apparently the best way to hold a pig is by their ears, and although I was reluctant, I did it. It didn’t, for the record, hurt them. Just made them angry and squeal very loudly.
(The volume of a tiny pig squealing is utterly amazing.)
So Fred did the poking, and after their guts were poked up into the hole, the guts? Immediately slipped back out. Okay. Well, apparently their guts were big enough to stay, right?
Yesterday when Fred got home from work, we went out. Only this time, instead of looking curiously at us when we walked into their shelter, the pigs remembered the horror from the day before (and again, nothing we did HURT them, it just scared them) and went shooting out of the shelter. Big Pig made it – we managed to catch Little Pig. I was just barely able to hold on to the pig while Fred did his thing. Big Pig, seeing that we were distracted by Little Pig, came over to investigate, and then bit my boot, hoping it was food.
Pigs = stomachs on legs.
Little Pig done (and yes, the guts slid right back out), we had to lure Big Pig with food. The dogs were exceedingly interested in watching us. I had a VERY hard time keeping hold of Big Pig, and after trying his best to push guts, Fred finally gave up and told me to let Big Pig go.
We came inside and discussed it, and Fred called the guy we’d gotten the pigs from. The guy told him “Oh, you don’t need to do it every day, just every ten days or so.”
“Here’s the problem,” I said to Fred. “I was – barely – able to hold onto the pigs today. In ten days, I don’t know that I’m going to be able to.”
We talked some more, and ultimately decided to give the pigs back to the guy this Sunday. The man who sold us our first two pigs last year will have some later this month, so chances are good we’ll be buying from him. The guy who sold us these two pigs will likely be able to find someone at the flea market to buy these two, so they won’t be going back to a factory situation.
And that’s what’s going on with the pigs!
It’s kinda too bad that they’re going back, because they’ve certainly got personality.
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From the side yard, driving Sugarbutt crazy:
Tufted Titmouse, keeping an eye on you.
Finch sock, right outside the side door.
The other Finch sock, about twenty feet away.
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From the chicken yard:
Chicken George has gone broody. Fred put her in a cage last night to break her from the broodiness.
Our wee Silkie has started laying the prettiest little pink eggs. In a few months, we very well may try hatching a few. (Silkies are purported to be very good mothers.)
Silkie in the yard.
Michelle and the wimminfolk.
Life on the farm is kinda laid-back.
The speckled rooster. I think he’s awfully pretty – I’ve started calling him Bob. Fred was going to process him back when he did all those chickens a few weeks ago, but I begged for his life and Fred relented. (Or I said “No, let’s keep him.” One or the other.)
Keeping an eye on the flock.
It’s a George.
Eyeballing the flock.
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Things that ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF ME:
Every goddamn time we go somewhere and Fred needs to run inside or go do something at the other end of the vehicle while I wait in the vehicle, he leaves the goddamn door wide fucking open. WIDE OPEN. It was like TEN GODDAMN DEGREES that day, and we were getting straw or feed or something, so he backed up to the loading dock and got out to give his sales slip to the guy, and left the door wide open. WIDE MOTHERFUCKING OPEN. Occasionally he’ll give the door a half-hearted push so that it closes part of the way. I fucking ASK YOU – how DIFFICULT is it to shut the goddamn door? JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY.
When I do the dishes, I do the dishes. That is, I put whatever will fit in the dishwasher into the dishwasher, I wash what doesn’t go in the dishwasher, then I dry and put said dishes away. THAT is what I consider “Doing the dishes.” Because if you leave dishes drying beside the sink overnight, you just might walk into the kitchen to find that a cat has helpfully peed upon the drying dishes. (YES, THIS IS MY LIFE. CAN WE GET MORE CATS, PLEASE?) Fred, on the other hand, puts what he can into the dishwasher, washes what won’t fit, and then piles them to the side of the sink and leaves them there forever. (IF YOU SAY “WELL AT LEAST HE DOES THE DISHES” I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND CUT YOU. Most nights “doing the dishes” for him entails putting his dirty dinner dish into the dishwasher.) Last night, after I gave him shit for not putting the dishes away, he said “Well, you should have said ‘Can you come put these dishes away?'” (1) WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO? DOES HE NOT SEE THAT THE DISHES NEED TO BE PUT AWAY? (2) If I had, I GUARANTEE I would have gotten the “Oh, you’re allllllllllways thinking up things for me to do!” PARDON ME if I think that picking up the bag of cat shit and taking it over to the garage WHEN YOU ARE HEADED THAT WAY ANYWAY is “thinking up things for you to do”, motherfucker!
(It might be one of Those Days. You know, a day that started off with stepping in a puddle of cold cat barf, followed by a couple of cats screaming at each other? Yeah, like that.)
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I love how it looks in this picture like Rumba’s yelling at Samba. “You just stay over there! I need my space!”
Previously 2008: At one point I turned around to say something to Sugarbutt, who was sitting by the screen door leading to the back yard, smacking at the cat door, and I saw every single chicken sitting on the back steps, staring expectantly at me, hoping I’d send some food their way. 2007: God. That sounds just like a herd of elephants, I thought.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: I DON’T KNOW YOU, I CAN’T CHAT WITH YOU, PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. 2003: Pictures found. 2002: That’s just the kind of sucky slacking emailer I am. 2001: You know, if I had ANY self-control at all, I’d wait to buy these books ’til they come out in paperback.
2000: No entry.
Attention: Edward (Teddy) Geiger, please remove yourself from my brain. Considering that For You I Will (Confidence) spent ONE MILLION YEARS bouncing around my brain before it bounced off into someone else’s brain, I don’t expect this request to be honored. Grrrr. PS: Get a hair cut, boy! * * * * * * * … Continue reading “2/4/09”
Attention:
Edward (Teddy) Geiger, please remove yourself from my brain.
Considering that For You I Will (Confidence) spent ONE MILLION YEARS bouncing around my brain before it bounced off into someone else’s brain, I don’t expect this request to be honored. Grrrr.
PS: Get a hair cut, boy!
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So, my visit to the surgeon who performed my weight loss surgery is over for another year, thank god. I know I’ve mentioned that my surgeon is very good at what he does, but he’s not much for the warm and fuzzy bedside manner. Which is okay, except that I have to go see him every year and squirm through a torturous visit and he’s perfectly nice and all, I just don’t know.
I DON’T LIKE HIM.
I don’t have to like him, I know, but I sure do dread the yearly office visit. January just dragged by for me, because I knew I had that appointment at the beginning of February and I was so not looking forward to it. There’s always this awkward moment at the end of the office visit where he smiles and just looks at me, and I feel like he’s waiting for me to gush gratitude over how this surgery has changed my life and this surgery HAS changed my life, I can do things physically that I was never able to do before and I’m grateful for that, but I just don’t gush. I’m not a gusher.
(THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!)
It’s probably all in my head, and I can deal with suffering through a ten-minute office visit once a year, but I’m sure glad it’s over with, is all I’m saying.
Once my visit was over and my appointment for next year was scheduled, I went to the health food store, since I was on that side of town. I really like this place, I always find some interesting new food to try. This time around I bought some animal crackers and some sesame sticks.
It wasn’t ’til Fred got home and looked at the animal crackers and read what it said on the box that I realized they were gluten-free, wheat-free, dairy/ casein free, egg free and trans fat free. We later determined that when they’d left out all that other stuff, they also left out the flavor.
It’s okay, the pigs’ll eat ’em!
(The sesame sticks were good, though.)
From there, I ran over to Sam’s Club because I was just about out of paper for the printer, and seeing as it’s February I figure it’s possibly time to get my ass in gear and move my 2008 files up to storage. To do that, I need hanging file folders, so I bought some ugly green ones at Sam’s. A box of white vinegar (two one-gallon bottles for less than $4!), 25 pounds of sugar, and a bag of pig’s ears (for the dogs), and I was out of there.
About the pig’s ears: Fred bought a small bag of pig’s ears for the dogs a while ago, and apparently the dogs are BIG FANS. We wondered if we might not be sending a bad signal to George and Gracie – “Here, have these pigs ears! And yes, those ARE pigs, and the only thing standing between you and their tasty, tasty ears is a flimsy gate! Good-night, we’re going inside now!”
But after some initial barkiness toward the pigs, the dogs pretty much ignore them now – though when we go into the pig yard, the dogs stand and look sadly at us, like “Why you givin’ them little weird animals yummy treats? We thought all the yummy treats was for US.”
Speaking of the dogs, back when I bought the Fling-ama-string, I also got a couple of these Humunga Tongues for the dogs. I’ve actually seen George running around with it in his mouth, with the tongue part hanging out, and it’s pretty funny looking, but I never have the camera with me when he’s doing it, of course.
They’ve started shredding the ends of the “tongues”, and there are bits of red plastic “tongue” spread across the back forty.
Dogs like to chew! Who knew?
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I was going to make an appointment for Samba and Rumba to be spayed this week, but yesterday Samba started getting kind of whistly and sneezy, so I started her back on chlorpheniramine (which seems to be helping), and if she’s doing well by Friday I’ll call and make the appointment for next week.
There’s no big rush, though – Delmar, Lem, Marion and Claudette are still unadopted. My poor babies!
Last evening we took the baby gates at the bottom of the stairs down. Samba and Rumba did NOT know what to think about that – at first, they’d sneak down to the hallway, then at the first sight of Fred or I, they’d turn and run up the stairs to the landing. When we settled down to watch TV, they came down and explored, and even made it out as far as the living room for a while.
It wasn’t hard to get them back into their room last night, and they were quiet all night long, didn’t bang on the door demanding to be let out. I let them out this morning and for now I’m going to let them have the run of the house. So far, they’re spending most of their time running around the upstairs and occasionally coming down the stairs to see what’s going on.
Samba always looks like she’s smiling. I want to just pick her up and squeeze the stuffing out of her.
From a garbage can to a tiny condo crammed between a set of concrete stairs and the hose reel in two short months! Who says the American Dream isn’t alive and well?
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Previously 2008: “WHERE’S THE SCAR?! HERE ARE HIS WRISTS, WHERE’S THE SCAAAAAAAAAAR?!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: How does one become a house appraiser? 2004: I told Fred about how little things remind me anew of our loss strike me when I’m least expecting it, and I cried again. 2003: And, oh and does fred annoy you? Not any more than I annoy him, probably. 🙂 2002: See something on the floor? Sit on it.
2001: No entry. 2000: Here’s a cute story to satiate your bitchypoo jones until then
