April 2009 – Page 2

4/13/09

So yes, we had some “severe” weather in Alabama on Friday, but luckily not around here. All I knew at the beginning of the day was that it might get stormy later on, and then around noon Fred called and told me that it was supposed to get really bad in about 45 minutes. 45 minutes later as I was sitting in the living room with my parents, half-watching the weatherman on TV, he called back again to let me know that it was going to be SUPER BAD in “about 45 minutes” and I told him I didn’t believe him and sure enough – we got some rain and a lot of wind and the tornado sirens went off a few times, but that was about it.

As the wind was blowing, I said to my mother “Wouldn’t your other kids get pissed off if you came on vacation to Alabama and got killed by a tornado while you were here?” and she laughed.

No tornado, no big tree in the front yard falling onto the house, thank god.

I did notice, when we were hanging out with the kittens (Beulah took a liking to my mother and climbed up on her legs and fell asleep not once, but twice) that every time the wind blew particularly hard, the kittens would pause and look around like little meerkats.

My parents arrived here Thursday afternoon, and it was bright and sunny and warm. Friday was a wash, weather-wise, and Saturday was cold and gray. Yesterday they went to Tuscaloosa to visit my father’s sister (they’ll be back Tuesday), and it was warm and sunny until late afternoon. Last night, rain. Today, rain. Tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe more rain.

I hope they’re having nicer weather in Tuscaloosa!

Fred got the garden tilled yesterday after dithering about it – it was really too wet, but with the rain coming last night and the next stretch of rain-free days not coming along anytime soon, yesterday was really the only day he could do it. He did it, and got the planting done, and I think you know that we can’t WAIT ’til the next few months go by and we’re eating fresh squash and tomatoes on a regular basis.

So far we’ve fed my parents a Crooked Acres chicken (in the form of chicken pot pie), some Crooked Acres pig (in the form of ham steaks, which they agreed tastes very much like beef), lots of Crooked Acres vegetables (corn on the cob, vegetable medley), and Saturday morning we had a big breakfast (bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, biscuits).

Come to Crooked Acres! We’ll feed you animals we raised ourselves!, that’s our motto.

I also made a batch of Surprise Cookies on Saturday, and I’d say they were a hit (I put milk chocolate chips in half the batch and semi-sweet chips in the other half). I think they’d actually be just as good without the glaze on top, but I might think that because I have NO skillz when it comes to drizzling glaze on cookies – or on anything, for that matter.

We haven’t really done anything but hang around the house, but I’m planning to drag my mother to the movies after they get back from Tuscaloosa, and I’m sure we can find other things to do (I did get her to walk to the post office and dollar store with me on Saturday; hopefully the excitement wasn’t too much for her!).

Spanky and Sugarbutt targeted my mother as being the one most likely to give them some human food at dinnertime. Thursday and Friday night Spanky politely stood on his hind legs next to my mother and politely patted at her arm. Saturday, Sugarbutt joined in on the other side, and she gave in and they each got a little bit of pork steak and wanted more.

Rude little brats.

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In addition to being a published auuuuuuuthor, Fred is now also a published photographer, kinda. In the book How to Raise Poultry, which will be released April 15th, the following can be seen:

Luckily, aside from crowing about how he’s going to spend “all that extra money” on hookers and blow (he was paid $0.00 and a free copy of the book, if you’re curious), he’s not letting it go to his head.

The Rock Star and the Featherhead, on the other hand, are demanding fresh bugs three times daily and their own waterer so they won’t have to mix with “the commoners.”

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So, I took this Real Age test recently, and I have to say – I’m a bit skeptical.

My “virtual age” is 25.3? I sincerely doubt it. Also, I’m pretty sure I have no real desire to live to be 90. I think early 80s is just about as far as I want to go.

(Ask me again when I’m 78, though!)

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I weighed the kittens Saturday evening, and can announce two things, regarding our wee Miss Beulah:

1. She gained TWO AND A HALF OUNCES in the last week, bringing her up to a whopping 13.5 ounces.

2. (More impressive, as far as I’m concerned) She can now use the litter box and NOT immediately tromp through her poo!

Fred continues to think she’s funny-looking (he also agreed Saturday that “Pip” would be a good name for her!), but I think she just gets cuter. She’s been a lot more willing to pick fights with her brothers and sister lately, and it’s kind of funny to see a kitten more than twice her size squealing because this tiny little thing is biting his or her tail.

Phinneas and Ezra are both just over two pounds now – once the rest of the kittens are at least three ounces over two pounds, I’ll take the whole bunch (except Beulah) in to be spayed and neutered. It’ll be a few more weeks, I’m guessing.

The kittens are continuing to have the run of their room and the bathroom most days. There’s a very tall litter box in the bathroom, and the kittens insist on using it even though it’s pretty difficult for them to climb into it. They’ll get in there two or three at a time and kick the litter around – it’s funny to see how thrilled they are.

For now, since they’re not showing any real interest in moving beyond the bathroom, I’m going to keep them confined to the foster room and bathroom. My parents are visiting, and the guest bedroom is where Stinkerbelle likes to hang out – since she can’t hang out in there (we make all guests keep the bedroom door closed at all times so a cat can’t sneak in and pee on something; yes, that’s right, we ARE a class act around here!) she hangs out in my room. So since I don’t want to block off her access to my room, I won’t let the kittens go into my room ’til Stinkerbelle can hang out in the guest bedroom again.

I love how Beulah is hugging Elijah like he’s a big ol’ body pillow.

Tellin’ secrets.

More kitten pics over at L&H.

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Brudderly love. I love the fact that they’ll turn 4 at the end of June, and they still groom each other and snuggle all the time.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Feel free to cut and paste, assholes, though I fully understand if you prefer something with a few more misspellings.
2006: Must… resist… evil… urge…
2005: “Ah JEEZUS, here she goes again with the Gatlinburg! She goes for four days and talks about it for four weeks!”
2004: Oh. My. Eyes.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Entries I liked.
2000: No entry.

4/10/09

Hey, did you know that Sunday is Easter? I had no idea ’til I looked at the calendar yesterday and saw it written there. Who the fuck knew? dividerlinecantwaittosleepintomorrowmorningdividerlineisaslackeratheart Can you hear the sound? I tested the website with some of the younger staff at my office. They hear the noise and tell me … Continue reading “4/10/09”

Hey, did you know that Sunday is Easter? I had no idea ’til I looked at the calendar yesterday and saw it written there.

Who the fuck knew?

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Can you hear the sound? I tested the website with some of the younger staff at my office. They hear the noise and tell me it’s rather annoying. I could not tell you – no noise for me or a couple of my co-workers in my age range – 35-45.

I did hear it, actually! And then I made Fred sit down and listen, and the first time he didn’t hear it, and the second time he could “kind of” hear it. This must mean I have young ears, right? It sure does seem like everyone’s mumbling a lot lately, though.

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While you count up the chicks, they may be counting y’all, too.

“Chicks can do basic arithmetic“

Too neat!

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Do you find living near the church noisy? You two wake up early so I guess it’s ok.

I actually don’t ever hear anything from the church. The only annoying thing is that on Wednesdays and Sundays, George and Gracie feel the need to defend our property from the churchgoing interlopers, and they bark and bark and bark. Other than that, I hardly ever notice the church is there at all.

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In your 2006 Previously, you said that Fred was no help because he was standing there laughing his ass off. Wasn’t that what he was doing the other day when you were stuck in the mud? Does he do this often? Ha ha!

Apparently he does it ALL THE TIME, I just never noticed before. The unhelpful bastard!

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Hmmm…. I’m wondering if you would consider trading a year of blog banners for Beulah? My 17yo cat, Katie, died nearly a year ago, and we’ve not gotten another. Perhaps it’s time we think about getting a new kitty? Just thinking (typing) out loud here…

Um. Perhaps not Beulah… 🙂

For the record, anyone adopting one of our foster kittens would have to go through Challenger’s House, the shelter I volunteer for (the fosters don’t actually belong to me) and there’s an adoption fee involved.

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Your freaky kitten reminds me of gremlins. For years after the movie came out, I had nightmares about the creepy gremlins. *Bright light! Bright light!*

I have to admit – I can see that!

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Ok – just go ahead and adopt Beulah! By the time the girl hits 2 pounds, she will be so interwined into your family, you won’t be able to part with her. So just go ahead and do it so we don’t have to be in suspense for the next 4 or 5 months.

Shhhh… I have a plan. Don’t tell Fred (I didn’t copy him on the notify email, so I’m sure he’ll never read this), but I expect it to take months before she’s big enough to be spayed. Then I’m sure I can eke another 6 months by telling him there’s just no room at the pet store, and after that, I guarantee he’ll have forgotten that he objected to her becoming another one of ours.

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One way to avoid getting sick from chicken is an old-timey Caribbean way of cleaning your chicken; take a lime or lemon and some salt and scrub the chicken with it and then rinse well. I always do this with our chicken (sometimes I skip the salt), but always with the lemon/lime. I think it’s the citric acid that helps prevent salmonella. Also, the rinsing doesn’t leave a lemon or lime taste to the chicken.

Conveniently, I just bought a big bag o’ lemons at Sam’s! I knew they’d come in handy eventually!

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With the kittens out and about, you have 17 cats running around your house?

Once they actually have free reign of the house, yeah. There’ll be 17. I feel a little faint at the thought.

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Spanky = Barry White. Yeah. That photo made me think that. Like Spanky has this alter ego that sashays off to an undisclosed Crooked Acre room where he slips on a velvet smoking jacket and tickles the ivories…. Wait a minute. Isn’t Spanky the one who meower is broken? Good thing I came back to reality before the singing commenced.

No, that was Spot! Spanky’s got a perfectly good meower, and he uses it regularly. Here’s a movie of his verbal prowess I shot back when we lived in Madison:

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I recently received a Harriet Carter brochure in the mail and when I came across this item I thought of you and the egg buyers.

I’m not sure it would work for me because I’m so spooked by everything already that the alarm would probably scare me as much as strangers showing up in my yard unannounced. For instance, I tried one of those timed air fresheners and all it did was scare the bejesus out of me every 9 minutes, had to throw it away.

I also saw this and thought of you.

For some reason I love those Harriet Carter brochures although I have yet to buy anything from them.

I ADORE the Harriet Carter catalogs, I get them too, and I always look through them. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually bought anything from them, but that doesn’t stop them from sending them to me!

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ARGH! I HATE the term panties-it just sends shivers down my spine and makes me think of an old, nasty pedophile lusting after young children. A co-worker once found out I hate this word, and spent the better part of a week using it in almost every sentence.

My sister and I once found out that our friend Liz hates the word “snatch”, so we tried to work it into every conversation. “Don’t snatch that out of my hand!” and “Snatch that CD and hand it to me, would you?” We are so juvenile.

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A day late and a dollar short, but I really HATE when people feel the need to use an apostrophe for plurals. I’ve been noticing it more and more lately. I actually have a cousin who is VERY stupid and named her child Lar’s. WITH AN APOSTROPHE!!! GAH!!!!!

BEST COMMENT OF THE WEEK. This made me HOWL.

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If I taught English and someone handed me in an essay with text-speak, I would put U FAIL LOL at the top, followed by, NO SRSLY; NO A 4 U, and KTXBAI!

OTHER BEST COMMENT OF THE WEEK. HEE.

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Two things. First, I think you should keep Beulah, she is just too small and you and Fred are the only ones that will take excellent care of her. (At least that sounds like a good excuse. Doesn’t it?) Second, did you watch RHoNY and then a sneak peek at RHoNJ? Man, I would just like to smack Kelly!!!! She is on something, no one can act that weird/goofy/strange. And do you think she has rosacea, or her own tanning bed? My husband hates the RH shows, but I cannot turn them off. Is there something wrong with me?

Last night, I made a crucial step in the Beulah Project – I got Fred to discuss names for her. We were watching Yes Man (which was a really damn funny movie – I love Jim Carrey. And could Bradley Cooper be any prettier? That is one pretty, pretty man.) and I said “Tillie would be a perfect name for her!”

He immediately said “NO!” (as in, “No, we’re not keeping that kitten!”) But later on when we were laying in bed talking, he said “Well, it should be short for something, shouldn’t it?” and I said “Matilda!” Then we started joking around, and I said we should name her “Matilde” and call her “Tilde” and spell it like this: ~

(We probably found that far too amusing, for we are dorks.)

I did get a chance to watch the Real Housewives yesterday, and I say:

1. Mario is a douchebag and he and Ramona take themselves FAR too importantly. Have you ever noticed that the people least deserving of respect love to go on and on about how they’re being disrespected? I love that Bethenny thought of Simon to play with Jill, but man – Simon needs some new tennis clothes. I still think he’s creepy, but watching him play the worst game of tennis ever made me laugh and laugh. LOVED the sweatband.

2. I think that’s a fake tan Kelly has going on. It just looks wrong to me. And she can go on and on about that guy (what the hell was his name?) being so good-looking, but I’m not seeing it. I guess he’s marginally good-looking, and he seems like a nice guy, but I’m not blown away by him or anything. I can absolutely see what Bethenny means about Kelly not being genuine; ever moment of that date rang false to me, like Kelly was putting on a show. I don’t like her, but bless her for coming through for the charity (although I recently read that her ex-husband is refusing to follow through on taking the winning bidder’s portrait and Bethenny is offering up her ex-boyfriend (I’m assuming the photographer Kelly spent all that time flirting with) to do the job.)

3. I don’t really care for the new look of Jill’s apartment – Bethenny was right about it looking like Liberace lived there – and I really don’t like those little mirrored tables, but I think it kind of suits Jill. Actually, now that I think about it, it looks a little Graceland-y to me.

If loving the cheesy reality Housewives shows is wrong, I don’t wanna be right!

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She is too cute – is she a little crosseyed?

She’s actually a bit wall-eyed. Katherine sent me an email earlier this week that made me laugh and laugh.

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I had a Beulah comment too – is it okay for her to be that tiny? It sounds like she’s still gaining weight, but she just seems so itty bitty.

She seems perfectly healthy, and she’s gaining weight, all her systems seem to work okay (she’s a champ in the litter box, if we can just get her to stomp tromping through her poo!), so I think she’s fine. She’s just wee!

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Robyn, that little Beulah is so adorable. She looks so fragile so my heart says you must keep her and love her and protect her forever. Also, when I hear her name is reminds me of the times I stayed with my maternal grandparents on their farm and my grandmother would sing a hymn that went, “I’ve got home in Beulah-land that outshines the sun”. Has anyone ever heard of this song? Such good memories from those days on the farm where my grandmother raised chickens and my grandfather milked cows and had a milk route. I was a city girl and loved staying on their farm. You are living my childhood dreams, Robyn.

and Elayne said:

Jillybean: I’m familiar with the song, but have always heard it as “Glory Land” (aka heaven). (Google turns up references for both, to my surprise – I thought it’d be an individual adaptation.) Here’s a wiki article that explains how Beulah Land comes to equal heaven:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beulah_Land

Interesting!

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PS – remind me again why hens being broody is a bad thing? I know someone asked but I don’t remember the answer and don’t feel like googling (and getting sucked into six more hours of fascinating but time-sucking clickage).

I’m going to guess – and be kind to me if I’m wrong, because I’m totally ignorant, chicken-wise – that a broody hen doesn’t lay any more eggs because her body/hormones/whatever chickens have is focused on hatching the eggs that are already underneath her, so it’s undesirable for them to be broody because then they stop laying?

Yep, that’s exactly right – once they go broody and have a clutch of eggs underneath them, they stop laying, take up nesting boxes, and we end up with more chicks that we don’t really need!

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More kitten pics over at L&H.

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Miz Poo does not believe we need any more kittens in this here house.

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Previously
2008: Which means no entry for you!
2007: “Is it true that you’re fucking that evil woman, who just informed me that you are in love?”
2006: (See various entries I’ve written wherein I said that I’m bad in an emergency)
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Questions answered.
2002: No entry.
2001: Spring cleaning.
2000: No entry.

4/9/09

Recently, we’ve had hens going broody left and right. Fred built a box that he attached to the wall of the big coop – it’s got a screen floor, and when a hen goes broody he puts her in the box with food and water for a day or two. Since she can’t get heat beneath her, the broody instinct goes away (or something – I’m not completely clear just exactly how it works, only that it usually does). There were a couple of hens who refused to be broken, though, so Fred brought them to the blue coop – where the 34 chickens we hatched at the beginning of March, and the 7 we hatched three weeks before that are currently living. Now the blue coop appears to be the maternity ward/ little chicken coop/ sick ward (since that’s where Charlie lives ever since she hurt her wing). Last night we realized another hen had gone broody – this time a Rhode Island Red – so Fred added her to the maternity coop and stuck three eggs under her.

I have to say, without any obnoxious roosters around, it’s kind of peaceful over there. The broody hens – the white Silkie and a Buff Orpington, one of the hens from our original batch of 12, and now the Rhode Island Red – spend the majority of their time on their nests, taking the occasional break to run outside, scratch around, and then back they go into the coop to sit on their eggs.

No, we don’t need more chickens, but when a hen is insisting upon being broody, what can you do? I think Fred’s got each of them on three or four eggs, and when he candled the eggs the Silkie was sitting on, they all appear to be viable and growing little baby chicks. We’ll see what we end up with in a few more weeks.

And speaking of baby chicks, out of the 41 Copper Black Marans eggs we received in the mail, we ended up with 11 chicks. One of them died last night. Since we’d decided that if we got 10 or more Marans we’d go ahead with building a flock of them, it appears that we’ll be doing so. Marans lay dark eggs, so this way we can keep Charlie in the Marans yard and not worry about mixing her eggs in with the Marans eggs.

I know, fascinating, right?

Here – this is what it was like in the chicken yard when we had too goddamn many roosters – if you watch carefully, you should see at least two instances of chicken sex.

Untitled from Robyn Anderson on Vimeo.

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One thing I discovered about making hamburger rolls from the Amish White Bread dough is that it’s really heavier than you’d like a hamburger roll to be – BUT if you cut the roll in half and toast it, then put some Brummel and Brown on it, it is FABULOUS. I’ve been eating half a toasted roll with my scrambled eggs this week for breakfast, and it’s really damn good.

Which reminds me of a question I had, o bread bakers out there – just out of curiosity, what (if anything) would happen if I let my dough rise an additional time? That is, following the recipe, you make the dough, you let it rise, you punch it down, divide it, and let it rise again before baking it. What would happen if you punched it down a second time and let it rise yet again before baking it? Anything?

Just curious. Inquiring minds and all, y’know.

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So, the great freedom-letting has begun! Yesterday I put up the baby gates (one stacked atop the other to provide a daunting barrier that the kittens could climb if they realized it, but no one’s realized it just yet) in the hallway so that they can go into the upstairs bathroom in addition to their room. At first they were AMAZED at the bathroom. They crowded in there, they sniffed around, they examined every inch of the bathroom, they said “Did you SEE the toilet scrubber? You gotta check that out, it’s CRAYZEE, man!” Now they investigate the bathroom from time to time, but spend most of their time in their room, still.

The upside to having the baby gates up, so they can see out into the rest of the hallway is that they can see me coming and it’s not such a surprising event for them. Earlier today I went upstairs to hang out with them, and they were napping. They lifted their heads when they heard me coming, then went back to sleep.

In a few more days I’ll move the gates further down the hallway so they’ll have access to my room, and then I suspect the fun and games will begin (and I suspect my comforter will have little claw marks in it in no time flat). After about a week of having that much access, I’ll move the baby gates to the bottom of the stairs, so they’ll have the staircase to run up and down, too.

(I am skeptical whether Beulah will be able to get up and down those stairs, though!)

Please note that Beulah fits entirely in my hand.

More kitten pics over at L&H.

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Stinkerbelle and Tommy, trying to get some quality snuggling time in. In the background, Boogie is the usual class act.

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Previously
2008: Now if I can just convince him to get going on that closet for the corner of the computer room….
2007: “What the fuck did you DO?” I accused Sugarbutt, who looked up at me with the most innocent face in existence.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Stupid Steven Cojocaru.
2003: I think I speak for most Alabamans in this area when I say “Uh, what the FUCK?!”
2002: sights from my walk
2001: I am SO PISSED OFF.
2000: It’s not stealing if I give them credit, right? Uh… right?

4/8/09

Y’all are some grumpy motherfuckers, aren’t you? Your comments yesterday cracked me UP. I have to admit that loud chewers can get on my nerves, too. I can be guilty of chomping my gum too loudly (but usually only when I’m agitated!) Lisa, I agree with you about Jorja Fox, she’s got quite the smackable … Continue reading “4/8/09”

Y’all are some grumpy motherfuckers, aren’t you? Your comments yesterday cracked me UP.

I have to admit that loud chewers can get on my nerves, too. I can be guilty of chomping my gum too loudly (but usually only when I’m agitated!)

Lisa, I agree with you about Jorja Fox, she’s got quite the smackable face!

I have to agree with Leonore’s comment:

I teach writing and English lit at a community college. You know it’s bad when “could of” isn’t even the most annoying mistake anymore (though it will always produce the same apoplexy in me as it does in Robyn, I’m sure, as will their/there/they’re, your/you’re, and many others). See, there’s a new trend for people to forget that an essay is NOT, in fact, A CELL PHONE!! and so they feel perfectly comfortable writing such things as: “Their are ways u can help urself quit a bad habit coz sum ppl don’t know to quit and its bad to keep doing that habit.” The vein starts to twitch when I see the letter u sitting all by itself. I refuse to use it even on the very rare occasion that I text anyone on an actual call phone (maybe once every other month?) Even my 42-year-old sister is started to speak in text shortcuts! STOP IT! I SAID STOP!

The happiest day of my life (okay, maybe the happiest day of my week) was when I got a cell phone with a keyboard on it, so I can easily type out text messages without having to resort to “u” and “4” and “did u get ur msg?” and the like.

Rachel hates the word “undies” – I can’t say I care for it either, but “panties” annoys me even more.

Leslie: People who ask, “Where is it at?” Hello-o-o, you don’t need to add a useless preposition to the end of the question. Also – this really bugs me: If I am in a store and I say thank you to the cashier or bagger, and the automatic is, “No problem.” I didn’t THINK I was causing a problem by expecting you to do your job. I was just being polite, and the correct response is “YOU’RE WELCOME.” Also: Road Boulders – people who drive at or below the speed limit in the fast lane, so everyone else has to pass them on the right.

That reminds me that “We’re going to the store. You wanna go with?” bugs the shit out of me. Why not just “You wanna go?” Why you gotta add that “with” on the end? IT’S WASTEFUL. Also, I rarely say “You’re welcome,” it was beaten into me (figuratively speaking) when I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager that you answer “Thank you” with “Thank YOU!”, and it’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction for me. It’s not obnoxious, is it? The bagger at the grocery store always looks a little surprised when I thank her after she’s thanked me.

Cara: Pet peeves: People walking around in the grocery store talking on a cell — not just a brief chat, but long, drawn-out conversations/shouting-matches/etc. Don’t they realize EVERYONE can hear what they are saying? Sigh.

God yes, and the people who talk on their cell phone while they’re checking out. And they don’t END the call or say “Let me call you back,” they just keep talking because they are just THAT important. I can’t count how many times I’ve been in line behind someone holding a Very Important Conversation and rolled my eyes at the poor cashier.

Michelle: You can also add these games for my twitch factor: “I know I heard a cat barfing somewhere, now WHERE IS IT?” and “Stop it stop it STOP IT with the growling and hissing and chasing I’M TRYING TO SLEEP!”

What’s worse than knowing there’s cat barf in the house and not being able to find it is NOT knowing it’s there, and stepping in it. Gah.

Val: It’s “Good, Good, Good” that makes me twitch. A former boss said it all the time. He wasn’t a good boss. I can take Good, Good, but throw that 3rd good in the mix and my skin crawls and my ears bleed.

I say “Good, good, good,” but only when I am extremely super over-the-top pissed off. Imagine that the last “good” is bellowed at the top of my lungs.

Aimee: Everyone’s twitchy grammar stuff reminds me of what the girl at mcdonald’s said to me yesterday. “here goes your coke.”

Were you tempted to say “Where’s it going? Can I go too?” Hee.

Elaine: Ah man, I am with Devil on the “could care less” twitch. I run through the difference in my mind EVERY time I hear someone say it. Must be my little OCD issue. I cannot stand constant motion. Why for the love of God is it impossible for some people to be still, if only for a minute or two? I hate that only women are shown singing to their toilets on television. I am sure there are men out there that burst into song everytime they get to stick their scrubby paws into the toilet. Supposebly. ARRRGGGHHHH. I hate corporate speak. Some ahole is always going to Tee Up some Low Hanging Fruit for a Shot on Goal while we get Granular and Organic on some project. Help me Obi Wan.

“Supposably” reminds me of the episode of Friends when Chandler said something about idiots who use the word, and then after he left the room, Joey repeats it to himself a few times, and then nods like he knows it’s the right word. I sure do miss Friends. ::sigh::

Leanne: Anyone who uses the term “ax” as in, “I axed you a question”. !? Add to that “fustrated” and “subbosably”. I swear I am THIS CLOSE to murdering stupid people when they insist on talking like IDIOTS.

My friend Liz cracks me up because she (jokingly) likes to say “If you don’t know, you better AX SOMEONE!”

Also Leanne: As well, as a basement dweller, my issue is with people who live in upstairs apartments who have no consideration for the people below them.

When I was pregnant with the spud, my ex-husband and I lived in a basement apartment, and the woman who lived upstairs got up every morning at 5:00, and she apparently IMMEDIATELY put her heels on, and she walked back and forth. And back and forth. And back and forth. One morning I counted how many times she stomped back and forth, and it was about 40 trips back and forth across the kitchen – which was directly above our bedroom.

To my surprise, no one brought up the usage of quotation marks when they’re not called for – such as the recent sign I saw that proclaimed We don’t take “checks.”

There were lots of good comments yesterday, those are just a few of them. Y’all ought to check them out if you’re not in the habit of reading them regularly!

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Thanks, you guys, for your hand lotion suggestions. I’ve written them down, and I will start working my way down the list ’til I find something that works for me. If I’m lucky, the first thing I try will work. A girl can dream, right?

So, I got plenty done yesterday, despite the fact that it was too freakin’ cold outside and I didn’t want to do anything but go back to bed. I did lots of cleaning, plenty of laundry, and I even cleaned a window or two. I’m not going to go overboard* cleaning, because the house is really in pretty good shape, just needs dusting and decluttering. I moved a bunch of stuff around in the front room, and I think the side of the front room we never use looks a lot better.

I think we ought to put up a wall to divide off the unused portion of the front room and turn it into another cat room or a sitting room or something. It’s going to waste the way it is right now, but I’m at a loss what else to do over there. We spend the majority of our day in the computer room, and just a couple of hours in the evening in the front room – there’s that whole unused space over there. It’s a CRYING SHAME, is what it is.

One thing I never did do yesterday is take my jeans off the clothesline. They’ve been there drying for three days now. I wonder if the neighbors shake their heads at how long I leave stuff on the line sometimes. I bought a tote bag at the Hard Rock Cafe back at Christmas time, and I think it’s made out of recycled material (or mostly recycled material). I don’t know what the problem is, but that bag fucking REEKS. I ran it through the washer twice and have let it hang on the line for three and a half months, and it still stinks.

It’s like Nance’s Purse o’ Stank, now that I think of it! I’m such a freakin’ copycat. I’m sure that next I’ll get myself a MacBook.

Maybe I’ll just turn the damn bag into a clothespin bag and let it live out on the line. Except then would it transfer The Stank to the clothespins and ultimately to the clothes the clothespins are holding on the line? I guess we’ll see.

*Remind me I said that when I’m frantically scrubbing under the bed in the guest bedroom and alphabetizing my lotions Thursday morning, would you?

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Ezra can’t quite seem to get over the lip of the kitty condo…

“Ezra, give me your paws! I’ll help pull you up!”
“It sure is a long way down…”

Jasper: “Can’t… pull… you… up. You’re too heavy! Caleb! Get something soft for Ezra to land on!”
Ezra: “I have so much to live for! I’m so young! I haven’t even had my snack today! I don’t want to die!”
Caleb: “I likes to chew on this rope.”

“Hold on, brother! I won’t let go of you!”

Jasper: “Can’t… hold… on! My grasp is slipping!”
Ezra: “TELL MOM I LOVE HER IF YOU EVER SEE HER AGAIN! TELL HER I MADE SOMETHING OF MYSELF! TELL HER I WAS A CONTENDUH!”

Jasper: “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Ezra: “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Caleb: “This is just some tasty, tasty rope. I wonder if it’s some of that special Italian rope?”

Ezra: “Huh.”
Jasper: “He’s alive! He’s ALIVE! IT’S A MIRACLE!”

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During the time before we let the fosters out into the house, we need a way to stop them from getting away when we open the door to the room where they are. We were using a box, but it was flimsy. I tried to get Fred to build something for me, but before he got around to it, I saw the fireplace screen and a lightbulb went on over my head. It’s the right size, the kittens can’t push it over, and they don’t really try to climb it. It’s perfect!

You’ll note that they’re all trying to get Tommy’s attention, but he cannot be bothered to give them the time of day.

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Previously
2008: Detective Boogerton, the grizzled, cranky veteran detective who has seen it all, is disgruntled that his day off has been interrupted.
2007: No entry.
2006: FYI.
2005: Meme.
2004: Lime green would work.
2003: I called Fred at one point and said “Maybe it’s SARS!”
2002: Well, you can just bite my coconut-scented, soft, smooth, butt.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

4/7/09

Random things that make me twitch: 1. Could of/ should of/ would of. No. NO. There is NO SUCH ANIMAL as “could of.” What you’re trying to say (write) is “could’ve,” which is short for “could have.” Please stop. Every time I read something along the lines of “I could of kicked him!” I have … Continue reading “4/7/09”

Random things that make me twitch:

1. Could of/ should of/ would of. No. NO. There is NO SUCH ANIMAL as “could of.” What you’re trying to say (write) is “could’ve,” which is short for “could have.” Please stop. Every time I read something along the lines of “I could of kicked him!” I have a tiny little aneurysm, and one day I will fall over dead and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT. STOP IT.

2. Robin Tunney. Jesus god in heaven, please stop me from smacking her across the face until my arm aches. While I will admit that she’s a passably good actress, I SUPPOSE, her super-pouty face makes me want to hurt her.

3. Microfiber. My hideous, dry-ass hands always get caught in the fibers of micro, and it is a singularly unpleasant feeling. I don’t wear microfiber underwear, I refuse to clean with microfiber cleaning cloths, I DON’T CARE HOW WELL THEY CLEAN, I can’t stand the feel of the fibers plucking at my super-dry skin, and my home will always be a microfiber-free zone. PROMISE.

4. My super-dry hands. Look. I slather lotion on my body from head to toe as soon as I get out of the shower, and then that’s generally it until after the sixteenth time I wash crap (sometimes literally) off my hands, and I think “Wow, my hands are gross and dry!” and then I lotion them up, but then I ALWAYS have to wash my hands like ten seconds after I’ve put the lotion on them, and I’ve tried that whole thing where you put Vaseline on your hands and then put gloves on over the Vaseline and sleep with the gloves on (or at least a few hours, whereupon I wake up, yank off the gloves, and toss them on the floor), but it doesn’t help. AT ALL. Stupid hands.

5. Cats licking themselves and making that slurpy smacking sound. Every night. EVERY NIGHT. Every night I settle down to read for a while before bed, and Miz Poo settles down next to me, and she starts grooming herself. She grooms her face. She grooms her ears. She grooms her chest. But then as soon as she hits her mid-section, she starts making that SLURPY SMACKING noise, and she might as well be driving an ice pick through my eardrums, because it takes about ten seconds of that sound before I lose my mind. I poke at her and say “Stop it.” She looks at me, appalled at my nerve, pauses, stares off into space, tucks her paws under her and closes her eyes, and then I go back to reading. AND THEN IT BEGINS AGAIN. Like I’m not there and can’t HEAR her. GODDAMN. So we go through the poke-stop it-acting-like-she’s-gonna-stop routine at least twice more before I put my book down, look her in the eye and say “Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you going to MAKE me run you off the bed?” She sighs and settles down for real most nights, sighing her put-upon sigh, but some nights she MUST make that slurpy smacking sound, it’s apparently MANDATORY, and so she jumps down off the bed, travels two feet away, and commences slurpy-smacking. Which is when I sit up and shake the can of compressed air at her until she runs out the door, sending a wounded look over her shoulder at me.

6. Is that cat pee? Is that cat pee? Or isn’t it? Do you smell that? You don’t smell that? Put your face right here next to mine, and sniff. No? Maybe? Well, help me find it! ::sniff::sniff::sniff:: It’s not the couch. It’s not the couch pillows. There’s nothing on the ottoman. The table? No, not the table. Sniff that part of the rug, Boogie was sniffing that part of the rug earlier with great interest and vigor. I’ll check the corner by the stairs. No, nothing here. By the door? The fireplace? Let me get the black light. Is that -? No, right, that was there. God, we sure do have a lot of fuzz on our couch. Well, I don’t see anything. Maybe it wasn’t cat pee. You’re sure you don’t smell it? I don’t smell it now, either. Hm.

7. What the fuck is that smell? Jesus CHRIST, what is that smell? Do you smell that? Right? Did something die somewhere? It’s not the litter boxes. It’s not the compost bucket. Is it the pig bucket? No. OH GOD. Did you throw FOOD in the trash can LIKE A WEEK AGO? I ought to TIE THIS AROUND YOUR NECK and make you wear it! Would you take the trash out, please?

What makes YOU twitch?

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Oddly enough, cleaning the litter boxes and/ or wiping kittens’ behinds does not make me twitch. Much.

I never did get any cleaning done yesterday (ran to Sam’s and got home just in the nick of time to pack up the kittens and take them to the vet), so off I go to start. I think I’ll start by relaxing with the kittens and then maybe swiping in a desultory manner at some dusty furniture.

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The really good news for today is that all the kittens went to the vet and were tested for feline leukemia (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), and all came back negative. That’s great news – I’ll admit, I was worried, but all my worry was for naught.

I was actually going to leave Beulah at home because she’s still so tiny I didn’t think they’d be able to get blood from her. But she’s never been alone, and I didn’t want her to get lonely, so I popped her in the carrier, and they decided to go ahead and give it a try, and were able to get enough blood for the test. Yay!

(I will tell you, it was NO FUN sitting in the waiting room of the clinic hearing my babies cry from the back of the clinic. They did NOT enjoy having blood drawn, and they were scared. I gave them lots of love when we got home, and they seem to have forgiven me.)

They’ve also had their initial vaccinations, and now we can relax until they’re all over two pounds and can be spayed and neutered!

(Well, like I said, it’ll probably be quite a while before Miss Beulah’s big enough to be spayed, so probably her brothers and sister will go when they’re all over two pounds.)

Since their tests came back negative, it’s safe for them to mingle with our cats, so in the next few days I’m going to start giving them more room to roam. With the judicious use of baby gates, I’ll let them explore the bathroom (which is the room closest to their room), and then probably will quickly allow them the run of the entire upstairs. I expect it won’t be too long before they’re racing through the entire house, and I can’t even imagine what that’ll be like!

It’s like a clown car! You think we could cram another kitten or two in here?

More kitten pics (and a video!) over at L&H.

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“You are going to let those noisy, stinky little kittens…. OUT of their room? I don’t believe I care for that thought. At all. Is this up for negotiation, perhaps? Like, you don’t let them out, and I don’t barf on your keyboard?”

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Previously
2008: She turned and glared her “FUCK YOU” glare at me, and went along her way.
2007: No entry.
2006: You WISH you were me.
2005: Off to Gatlinburg.
2004: Our palates are too immature, I suppose.
2003: Now I know why, when the camera and sound guy were setting up and I chirped “Oh, is this the camera that’s going to make me look like Ashley Judd?”, everyone laughed so hard.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Then he and the spud went swimming yesterday, since the pool’s up to a sultry 66.

4/6/09

It Ain’t Easy Being Dinner. Couldn’t’ve said it better myself. Fred processed ten chickens (mostly roosters) Saturday. It took two and a half hours, but he shouldn’t have to do it again anytime soon – we get at least two meals from each chicken, sometimes more. He decided about mid-week that it was time to … Continue reading “4/6/09”

It Ain’t Easy Being Dinner. Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.

Fred processed ten chickens (mostly roosters) Saturday. It took two and a half hours, but he shouldn’t have to do it again anytime soon – we get at least two meals from each chicken, sometimes more. He decided about mid-week that it was time to cull some of the roosters from the flock (you can only have so many roosters to so many hens – otherwise the girls walk around with bare spots on their backs, and the roosters fight each other all the time), and was dreading it so much that he woke at 2:30 Saturday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep.

He wanted to get it done and over with, but first we had to go to the dump, and then we had to wait for a woman who was buying eggs (she was coming with her grandchildren to see the pigs and chickens, and Fred didn’t think it was a great idea for some little kids to get THAT face-to-face with the farm life), and then he had a phone conversation with his sister, who wanted to come out and see the pigs (she and her husband are purchasing half of one of the pigs) and chickens, and when she found out Fred was processing chickens asked if she could buy a couple of them. He doesn’t particularly like the idea of selling our chickens to other people – like he says, if we get salmonella from them, that’s one thing; if he makes someone else sick, it’s an entirely other thing – but in the end she talked him into selling her a couple.

So, the woman showed up with her grandkids and got her instructions on how to hatch eggs, and then Fred started processing chickens, and I expected that his sister and her daughter would show up at any time, but he actually got the chickens processed and we put them in bags and got them into the refrigerator before they showed up. Fred showed them the big chicken coop and the chickens and pigs, and then I took them up to see the kittens, who were very well-behaved (well, except for Phinneas, who was startled by my sister-in-law when she bent down to pick him up, and he hissed. Nothing less terrifying than a fluffy hissing kitten, is there?)

When they left, since neither of us had eaten since breakfast, we went into town and got Chinese food for late lunch/ early dinner.

In and amongst the waiting and the processing, I made some white Amish bread solely because we were originally planning on having hamburgers for dinner Saturday night, and I wanted to try using some of the dough to make hamburger buns. The hamburger buns came out really well, but the loaf of bread I made with the other half of the dough didn’t actually get baked long enough, and when I went to cut up the loaf Sunday morning, I realized that. When I took it out of the oven, I suspected it might not be done, but I ignored that instinct, damnit.

Ah well – the pigs will enjoy it!

I also made a batch of dog treats using pureed vegetables, and cooked the chicken livers Fred had saved for me, so that I could make another batch of treats for the dogs on Sunday.

(The smell of boiling chicken livers: gag me.)

Sunday, I didn’t have to get groceries (I’m doing that later today), so I slept in ’til 6:15 (I KNOW! Slacker!), then puttered around the house, hung out with the kittens, and then went into the kitchen to begin some more baking. A few weeks ago a local reader (hi Jean!) sent me the link to this article about and recipe for whoopie pies. I was skeptical whether they’d be the same as my favorite whoopie pies – the outside cookie/ cake part is no problem, but I have yet to find a recipe where the inside filling is right.

So I made the whoopie pies, and while the filling was tasty, the filling wasn’t right, and so the pigs got themselves quite a treat. Ah well – like I said to Jean, finding the right recipe for the filling will give me something to strive for.

Then I made a batch of liver treats for the dogs, and if boiling chicken livers = gag me, then baking chicken liver treats = gag me x 2. Especially later in the afternoon when I forgot there were treats in there cooling (once they’re done cooking, I leave them in the oven and turn it off so they’ll harden and cool) and turned the oven on to preheat it. I am not loving the smell of the liver treats, but the dogs seem to like them quite a bit. I’m sure they were getting bored with the peanut butter treats I’ve been giving them.

The rest of Sunday was pretty relaxing, I got to spend plenty of time with the kittens, and any day that includes a nap with a pile of purring kittens atop you is a good day, indeed.

Today, I’ll be making a run to Sam’s, swinging by the grocery store, and later I’ll be starting to clean the house. My parents are going to be here Thursday afternoon, and so it’s a good time to get some Spring cleaning done, although the damn weather has turned cold again and it feels more like Winter than Spring.

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Friday night, when we sat down to watch TV, Fred asked what I wanted to watch.

“We still have that movie from Netflix,” I reminded him.

“Oh,” he said, clearly not into the idea of watching Seven Pounds.

“Well, I’d like to give it ten minutes; if we don’t like it, we can watch something else.”

We started watching it, and about ten minutes in, he grumpily said “This movie is too confusing!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll make sense eventually, ’cause they always gear movies toward the lowest common denominator.”

He laughed. “They do?”

“Will Smith movie, mainstream? Not one of those confusing artsy-fartsy we-don’t-have-to-make-sense-we’re-making-ART movies? They do. And we’re not the lowest common denominator. There’s someone out there watching this movie who’s dumber than we are, I guarantee it.”

During the scene about half an hour or so into the movie with Will Smith and Barry Pepper in the hotel room, I knew how the movie would end. Because I can’t keep knowledge like that to myself, I told Fred what was going to happen.

He looked at me appreciatively. “I bet you’re right! I never would have guessed that!” He laughed. “You might not be the lowest common denominator, but apparently I am!”

As it turned out, I was right about the ending. It wasn’t a bad movie, all in all – I’ve certainly seen worse.

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I did the weekly weigh-in with the kittens last night. Phinneas continues to be the heaviest, at 1 pound 12 ounces, and Beulah gained a whopping 1.5 ounces this week and weighs in at 11 ounces.

Everyone else is right around 1 and a half pounds.

At the current rate, I imagine that everyone but Beulah will hit two pounds (and thus be ready for spaying and neutering) in three weeks or so. And that Beulah won’t hit two pounds until she’s six months old!

My sister-in-law and niece stopped by yesterday to see the pigs and chickens, and of course I had to take them up to admire the kittens. All the kittens were like “Yay! People to give us love!”, although Phinneas was startled by my sister-in-law, and actually hissed at her when she picked him up.

(Which, I think, kind of charmed her!)

I love this kitten. LOVE HER.

More kitten pics over at L&H.

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Yesterday around mid-day, Fred said “Where does Upstairs Mama hang out during the day?” and I said “The top of the bookcase in the front room, or outside. Why?” He shrugged and said “I just wanted to see her.” He couldn’t find her, so we figured she’d found herself a hidey-hole. This is the cat, after all, who went up the chimney in the front room last summer and hung out.

Yesterday evening I realized I hadn’t seen her all day, and by 5:00 she’s usually hanging out in the kitchen giving me the hopeful “Is it Snackin! Time! yet?” eyes.

“When was the last time you saw Kara?” I asked Fred. I was worried that, despite her electric fence collar, she’d managed to get out of the back yard.

He gasped. “You don’t think she’s in my room, do you?!”, and he raced up the stairs. Opened the door. Said “Hey, Mama!”, and when I reached the bottom of the stairs, she came racing past me.

That poor thing had spent over 12 hours in Fred’s room without food or water and without access to a litter box, and didn’t make a single sound. She also didn’t pee in his room anywhere.

“That means she’s one of the good ones!” Fred informed me.

Indeed.

This picture makes me laugh and laugh.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Now, I’m sure I’d rather be skinny and bald than fat and hairified, but what I’d MUCH prefer to be is skinny and hairified, thanks.
2005: I think that a more accurate description would be “covered the annoyance of itching by making your skin feel as though you’re being set on fire.”
2004: Meme.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Fred’s such a bastard.

4/3/09

It sure would be nice if we had, like, a week or two without torrential rain. It rained so hard last night that the back forty was nothing but water (and oddly enough, the dogs thought it was AWESOME). At least it drained off quickly and it’s not supposed to rain today. For the last couple of weeks (or so it seems), we’ve had a lovely, sunny day and then a rainy day, sunny then rainy, and so forth. Fred’s itching to get the new shade structure built on the front of the big coop, but the water level is too high, and he can’t set the posts. Also, he wanted to plant the garden next week, but it’s too wet to till. It’s driving him a little crazy, all this wet weather.

It’s actually supposed to get down to freezing again early next week. Ugh.

We watched Slumdog Millionaire, started it Wednesday night and finished it last night. To be honest, when the movie started I was like “Oh, I don’t think I’m interested in this…”, and I was flipping through a magazine, but as the movie went on I got more and more into it, and in the end I have to say – that’s one damn good movie!

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A quick tip that may save you time/trouble – if the only thing that is making you want to switch cable tv providers is price….call your current provider and say, i’m gonna quit you because this place can give me the same service for $25 less. Escalate it to a supervisor if need be, and I’m betting that you get your $25 discount and don’t have to wait for a new provider to come out and install the dish, etc etc. 🙂

It usually works, and i would imagine in these times it might work even better.

I thought that the only thing making us want to switch was the price, but I found out that apparently Dish N3twork offers all High-Definition channels and Dir3ct TV doesn’t. Or something like that. I honestly don’t ever notice whether something’s in High Def or not – it’s all the same to me. But in the end we’ve got High Def – which makes Fred happy – and a lower cost, which makes us both happy. So it’s all good!

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Do any of your cats, drown their “victims” in the water bowl? Gus has started to put the milk lid rings into the water dish which is scary. My mom’s kitten has taken over a Beanie Baby cat as his friend/victim. He daily puts his buddy into his water dish – usually more than once a day. So far, my mom has had the wet bb dropped on her head from the bed’s headboard in the middle of the night and a mark left on the headboard in the outline of a wet bb. I sure hope Gus doesn’t start drowning his victims and bringing them to me in bed. Yikes.

I’ve heard that sometimes cats put things in their water dish so that they can see where the surface of the water is – but if they’re dunking their toys and then bringing them to you, god knows what that’s all about!

In our first house, I used to find toys in the litter box ALL the time. I figured it was the cat version of reading on the toilet.

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About Big Love. I just read that it WAS picked up for another season. On February 5, HBO announced that it was renewed for a 4th season, set to premiere in 2010. YAY!!

Yay! Only, now that I don’t have HBO, I’m going to have to wait ’til 2011 to see it! Boo!

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So, am I the only one who searched for mywifeisaravingbitch.com? I’ll just slink away now.

I checked to make sure it wasn’t a real site before I mentioned it. Heh.

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I came across this link the other day, and tried making the bread, it was awesome! I though you might like to give it a try with your bread making adventures.. at least with this one you don’t have to do anything, it just takes time!
Here is the link to the article – and the link to the bread recipe.

The only reason I haven’t made the No-Knead Bread yet is because I actually don’t have a dutch oven or other heavy covered pot in the right size, if you can believe it. That’s the next thing I need to get, I think!

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I don’t seem to have spraying cats, I have door molding shredding cats. Drives me crazy! Got a fix for that?

How about this Sticky Paws double-sided tape stuff? I put some on the back of Fred’s office chair, and the back of the couch, and it seems to work pretty well, actually! (If your door moldings are painted, though, I’d probably be worried about it pulling the paint off.)

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Also, forgive me for not knowing but I did not know you had a brown tabby. Is this a new addition or perhaps Mr Boogers in camouflage?

That’s Kara – the mother cat who gave birth to kittens almost a year ago. Fred fell in love with her, so we had to adopt her – last Fall, in fact. She brought our permanent cat resident count up to double digits. ::sigh::

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Your photos of the new kitties have made me long for a kitten. I told my husband and he gave me a dirty look. But we have only 4 cats. That’s nothing, right?

I would say that having four cats is really not even in the realm of being a cat owner, you amateur. How can you tell you even HAVE cats? You don’t become a real cat owner ’til you’ve got six or more.

True story!

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Honey– exactly how many chickens do you have now? You need more?

What? You think 140 is too many for two people? Really? ‘Cause I’d like to see it around 200 in another two months. WE CAN DO IT!

(NOT.)

As far as the purebred flock we’re attempting to start (we got four hatched over the course of the past few days, and we should have another hatch beginning on Monday), for reasons completely mystifying to me, people pay a lot more for fertile Copper Black Marans eggs than they do for fertile “mutt” eggs. If we had a purebred flock and could sell a dozen or two a week (once they start laying), we’d come pretty close to being able to feed all our animals off the money those eggs brought in. “All our animals” including the dogs and cats – that would be pretty awesome.

Newborn Copper Black Marans.

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I love to make BBQ sandwiches out of leftover Pork. I chop or shred the pork, mix my favorite BBQ sauce in, and serve it on a nice onion roll or sesame roll. Wonderful with some potato salad and cole slaw (personally, I like my coleslaw ON my BBQ sandwich!

I quote this comment because it made me think, for some reason, of the fact that when I first moved down here, I had no idea on earth that they put coleslaw ON BBQ sandwiches. One day I went and got BBQ for everyone in the office, and I opened the bag o’ food when I got back to work, and threw a fit because there was no coleslaw in the bag. Which is when Fred stepped in and gave me the you’re-an-idiot look and told me that the coleslaw was on the sandwich.

Oh.

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you poor thing! I hate the feeling of not being able to move from the mud – I did the same thing last summer at the off-road vehicle park. I felt like a dumbass. But with you wearing your boots, it reminds me of the time that Ramona Quimby got herself stuck and she couldn’t move and there was a picture of a tow truck pulling her out by her raincoat. LOL She coulnd’t bear to leave her boots behind so someone had to come back and rescue her boots too. That sounds like something you might do.

Oh, I was NOT leaving the vicinity of that damn ditch without my boots, believe you me. If I’d had to crawl out of the ditch and then turned around and yanked the boots out, I would have. If I’d had to make Fred go get the tractor and pull them out with heavy chains I WOULD HAVE.

NO BOOTS LEFT BEHIND, that’s my motto! (I paid too goddamn much for those boots to lose them to some stupid muddy ditch!)

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There are houses across the road/street from you! For some reason I’ve always imagined an open field there, with the only neighbors being the ones next door.

No, we’ve got neighbors – not as many, and not as close as we did in the ‘burbs, but they’re certainly there. This is what it looks like from the front porch:

Standing on the front porch, looking to the left. That flash of yellow is the sign for the Dollar Store. That white building is a little strip of stores. The red car is on the access road that runs from the strip of stores to the street that comes out right across the road from our ditch.

Directly across the street – an empty field. I hope it stays empty forever!

Turning toward the right.

And to the right. Neighbors across the street (but not TOO close), and across from them (next to us), is the church.

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What were all those firemen and such doing while you were wollering around?

I did not even look at those damn volunteers. Fred said he didn’t think anyone was even looking, but it didn’t occur to me to look over and see if they were laughing at me. Probably a good thing I didn’t, ’cause I’m sure I would have given them the finger or some other such classy gesture.

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And please tell me you weren’t wearing your super-cute Justin boots when this happened.

OF COURSE I WAS. They seem none the worse for wear, though – I sprayed them off, dried ’em out, and they’re good as new!

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Beulah does have an odd eye-to-head proportion/placement thing going on, but I think it’s because she’s still so runty. She’ll grow out of it, and Fred’ll be changing his tune.

Unlike my mother, who still calls my tortoiseshell Cassie “that ugly monkey-faced cat of yours.”

Katherine (who came over to admire the babies yesterday and then watch those damn Housewives of NYC with me) said that she can kind of see where Fred’s coming from.

I have to admit that I think of Beulah as the feline version of Nance‘s Felina. She’s got the big-headed googly-eyed thing going on, but I still think she is GORGEOUS.

Also, Fred thought that Flossie – here, let me show you a picture of Flossie:

Fred thought Flossie was hideous because, and I QUOTE, “Her markings are asymmetrical.”

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Does the Spirea have a scent, and if so, what’s it smell like?

It has no scent at all, actually. Thank GOD it doesn’t smell like Bradford Pear trees in bloom.

(And too bad it doesn’t smell like Winter Honeysuckle, because that stuff smells amazing – a light lemony fragrance that I wish I could bottle.)

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Looking at Red Friendly and Charlie got me to wondering how many of your hundreds of chickens have names?

Not that many, actually – the problem is that for a chicken to have their own name, we need to be able to distinguish it from all the other chickens, so the Buff Orpingtons are known collectively as “The Buffys”, but don’t each have their own name.

The chickens who do have names are: Mister Friendly (the speckled black and white chicken born in November, so named because he’s a friendly little guy), Red Friendly (ditto on the friendliness), Michelle the Rooster (named after a reader!), Charlie (named because of her twisted-up toes), George (who looks just like Charlie, but doesn’t have the twisted-up toes), Sassy (the black chicken who leaves the back forty every day to lay her egg in her childhood coop), the Rock Star (which is really more a description than a name), the Featherheads (again – description, not really name), and The Assholes (who are not long for this world – so named because they are so fucking rough on the hens. They’re gorgeous but THEY SURE ARE ASSHOLES).

Chickens who are no longer around that had names (and let me just say, people who say don’t name your chickens ’cause then you won’t eat ’em? WRONGO.): Flappy (the first to be eaten and SHE WAS TASTY), Frick (who died of natural causes – or at least, WE didn’t kill her. We suspect she was eggbound. Easter Eggers lay pretty eggs, but they surely are not dependable layers) and Bob, who I liked a great deal, but you can only have so many roosters in a flock. Edited to add: How could I have forgotten McLovin?? Our first rooster, who lives on in a ton of our chickens. Good ol’ McLovin.

I love wisteria, too! I’ve heard that it takes 7 years to establish itself and start blooming and I just don’t have that kind of patience!

I had no idea it takes so long to establish wisteria! I think it’s so pretty that I’ve mentioned the idea of having an arbor (made of hog panels) placed somewhere, with wisteria planted at the base. I guess I’d better get moving on that!

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What is a blow-in?

Those subscription cards they toss in all magazines that fall out all over the damn place. I don’t get WHY they include those even in the magazines you already subscribe to!

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The kittens had a visitor yesterday – the lady who adopted two of Kara’s kittens (then they were River and Inara – now they’re Nate and Dora, which I think fits them better!) stopped by to visit, and the kittens handled it quite well. They weren’t skittish or scared of her at all (did I mention that it’s nice to have a bunch who are so friendly?) and in fact just considered her another person to climb on and be petted by (and entertain!).

We had a lot of rain last night, and we were watching TV when suddenly the ceiling in the living room started to leak. I went upstairs to so what was going on, and the ceiling in the closet of the foster room was leaking. We just got a new roof like a month ago! So the roof guy’s coming to investigate the source of the leak, and the kittens will get another visitor.

I hope he likes kittens!

Jasper, appalled.

More kitten pics over at L&H.

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“Oh, is it snack time already?”
(Fred was taking the babies out to the brooder and set them on the cat bed while he put his shoes on. They were very popular with Tommy, to say the least.)

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Previously
2008: I don’t, for the record, covet the struggle anymore.
2007: At least the floors are clean.
2006: Fred was no help, because he was standing there laughing his ass off.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Nothing, by the way, pisses me off more than the crap that gets installed with the program you really want – Office 2000, I’m looking at you and your crappy Outlook friend.
2002: Mother Nature is getting ON MY NERVES.
2001: No entry.
2000: So if rainy days and Mondays always got me down, I guess I’d have been suicidal today.

4/2/09

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch watching TV with Fred, and I was flipping idly through a magazine, and out of nowhere GOT A GODDAMN PAPER CUT FROM ONE OF THOSE MOTHERFUCKING BLOW-INS. WOE. Lord, I ask you: WHEN WILL THE SUFFERING END?! ***i’mjustadividerlineyesi’monlyadividerlinedividingthissectionfromthatandthatfromthisawwwwyeah*** Scenes from around Crooked Acres, ’cause I’ve got litter … Continue reading “4/2/09”

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch watching TV with Fred, and I was flipping idly through a magazine, and out of nowhere GOT A GODDAMN PAPER CUT FROM ONE OF THOSE MOTHERFUCKING BLOW-INS.

WOE.

Lord, I ask you: WHEN WILL THE SUFFERING END?!

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Scenes from around Crooked Acres, ’cause I’ve got litter boxes to scrub out and kittens to cuddle; oh my rough, rough life.

Two of the baby chicks born at the beginning of March, facing off. Clearly they’ve hit their goofy stage, and are racing toward their gawky stage as well. Still cute, though.

One of the Polish crosses. Her mohawk is coming along nicely, dontchathink?

More of the ones born at the beginning of March. I love their little fluffy tails. They crack me up.

Good ol’ Charlie. She’s a mess, but she seems to be doing better – she’s able to get in and out of the coop on her own the last couple of days, so hopefully her wing is improving. Assuming that her wing improves and she’s able to get around on her own with no troubles, she’ll likely end up permanently living in the blue coop with whatever flock ends up there.

This guy’s from the batch of 7 born… Uh. (Let me think…) At the beginning of February, so he’s almost two months old. He’s very friendly – we’ve started calling him “Red Friendly”, to distinguish him from the black and white speckled (much older) chicken in the back forty known as “Mister Friendly.”

Joe Bob investigates the egg basket to see if the hens have been doing their job.

I usually go out to check for eggs around noon. When Fred gets home at 3:30, he goes out and checks again. Yesterday, I got 21 eggs at noon – Fred got another 12 at 3:30, and then a few more after that. I’d say our hens are doing their job and doing it well!

Sassy McGee kicks around in the compost heap. She sure does live the life of Riley. I should rename her Sassy Riley – but it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

The violets are blooming.

Wisteria! I had never had any experience with this stuff before we moved here, but the blooming of the Wisteria is something I’ve come to really look forward to. I can see it from my desk, and it makes me happy.

Red bud in the front yard. SO PURTY.

All of a sudden, the Spirea burst into bloom. I love this bush, but I sure wish I had any idea how to prune it. The camellia, the winter honeysuckle, the butterfly bushes and rose of sharons, no problem. The freakin’ Spirea is beyond me, though.

Spirea blooms, up close.

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Let me tell you about Phinneas. Anyone who knows me knows of my great and abiding love for orange tabbies, and Phinneas is a good example of why I love them so. He’s a little wild thing, racing around the room, jumping on his brothers and sisters, biting them on the neck one moment and then vigorously grooming them the next. He’ll race across the room to jump on my foot and bite it as hard as he can (and these kittens can bite HARD when they want to!) and then when I pick him up and pet him, he instantly goes limp, purrs loud enough to be heard from two rooms away, and gives me the Eyes of Love.

He’s the biggest kitten, and he likes to eat. Like, a lot. And he doesn’t want anyone else to eat off the plate he’s eating from, so if anyone gets too close, he gives them the Paw of No. Right now he’s at a pound and a half, and he has a big ol’ beer belly. It doesn’t slow him down, though.

NOTHING slows down our Phinneas – but he’ll take time out for a belly rub, of course. A boy’s gotta have priorities!

See more kitten pics over at L&H.

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“That’s right. I started out living in this trash can, and then I moved up to a condo by the back steps. Now I’m back in the trash can. Some might say my downward spiral is due to my addiction to the herb known as The ‘Nip or my failure to take responsibility for my own actions. Maybe even the ECONOMYYYYYYYYY. I think we all know the truth, though – it’s your fault. It’s ALWAYS your fault. Remember that. Now go away and leave me to my stinky trash can in the back yard and my half-gnawed squirrel head. I’ll be fine. Just fine. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME.”

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Previously
2008: I try not to do the snackin’ time call unless it’s really snackin’ time, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
2007: When one mows the lawn on a windy day when it hasn’t rained in a long time, one gets a lot of dust on one’s face.
2006: No entry.
2005: I am not pregnant, and I’m especially not pregnant with twins. I’m sorry to disappoint – some of you got REALLY excited, didn’t you?
2004: I can totally see the Bean clinging frantically to the top of the Jeep while I cluelessly drive around.
2003: But you’d better believe that if I had a penis, it’d be a big swingin’ one.
2002: “Walmart eating ass” will be the name of my seventh novel, in case you were curious.
2001: No entry.
2000: Well, I’ve got magazines to read, and naps to take.

4/1/09

Happy April 1st, fools! New month, new banner! This one was created by Aly, who answered my cry for help (the beginning of the month took me by surprise!), and did a fabulous job of it, didn’t she? Thanks (again!) Aly! ***dividerlinedividerlinethelinethatdividesthissectionfromthatsection*** On Monday, Fred and I dropped my car off at the car … Continue reading “4/1/09”

Happy April 1st, fools!

New month, new banner! This one was created by Aly, who answered my cry for help (the beginning of the month took me by surprise!), and did a fabulous job of it, didn’t she?

Thanks (again!) Aly!

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On Monday, Fred and I dropped my car off at the car place in Nearville so that they could change the oil and do whatever they usually do at 24,000ish miles. This meant I had no transportation to go anywhere yesterday, so I was home all day long. Allllll day long

When Fred got home from work, he and I went to Nearville to pick up my car. It took us maybe 20 minutes from the time we left the house to the time we got back home. Possibly as long as 25 minutes, and I think that would be stretching it. I was right behind Fred as we drove down our street, and so I expect we saw the flashing lights of the fire truck at the same time.

Calm down – this isn’t an entry about how the house burned down, or about how the garage burned down (with all those baby chicks inside!), and it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Nothing was burning. No one was dead or even hurt.

There was, however, a truck hanging over the culvert leading to the ditch between our property and the church property next door. The fire truck was parked in front of our house, and all the traffic was being diverted onto the access road across from our house. Someone was parked in our driveway.

The truck was attached to a trailer and was hauling a car on said trailer. There’s a stop sign directly across from the culvert/ ditch, and I’m assuming the guy couldn’t stop and slid across the road and into the ditch.

He was fine, no one got hurt – it’s about as much excitement as the fire department’s seen lately, so there were a LOT of fireman standing around out there.

Fred drove down the access road and talked for a moment to the infant fire department volunteer, who shrugged a “Dude, I don’t know what to tell you, MOVE ALONG NOW.” Fred moved along, and pulled into the church parking lot. I followed him, and we parked on the side of the lot nearest our land.

We locked our cars and walked across the church property to the ditch dividing our property from theirs.

“Wow, they have a mole issue over here, too,” I noted, sinking into the ground with every step. Fred agreed.

We reached the ditch, and began looking for a place to cross. Due to the amount of rain we’ve gotten recently, the ditch had water in it.

“There’s really not anywhere to cross,” Fred said. He was wearing sneakers. I was wearing my boots.

“I’m going across here,” I said, approaching a spot where the water was low, and the bank on the other side of the ditch wasn’t too high.

“Careful,” Fred said. “The ground is really soft.”

I looked down at where I was about to step and thought it doesn’t look that soft. It looks kind of sandy, actually… and stepped.

I sank in mud that came up to within about two inches of the top of my boot. Unable to do anything else, I brought my other foot down, and it did the same. The suction on my boots was so hard I couldn’t lift either of my feet up. I flailed around and looked helplessly at the bank from whence I’d stepped.

“Well,” Fred said BECAUSE HE REALLY IS THE HELPFUL SORT, “You’ve gone that far, you might as well go forward!”

“I CAN’T!” I bellowed.

Fred skittered back and forth behind me, trying to find a place to cross. I pulled as hard with my right leg as I could, and then I lost my balance and fell forward onto my knees. My purse and the bottle of water I was holding fell into the mud. From behind me, I could hear MY ASSHOLE HUSBAND as he LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED.

“Goddamn,” I said.

“Jesus fuck,” I said.

“JESUS GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK,” I said.

Fred giggled helplessly. Which somehow did not help. I picked up my purse and the bottle of water and heaved them over the bank in front of me. Then I reached up to the bank in front of me and yanked my right leg as hard as I possibly could – so hard that my thigh aches today – and then I did the same with my left leg, and I crawled through the mud on my hands and knees until I was over the bank.

At some point Fred skipped gaily across the ditch, and when I picked up my purse and water bottle and stomped toward the house, he followed behind, gasping for air.

“Some day,” he promised between high-pitched giggles. “You’ll see the humor in this!”

“FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK,” I snapped, left my purse and water bottle on the side steps, and then went into the back yard to wash the mud off my boots and scrape as much mud off my jeans and coat before I tossed them into the washer.

I’m still waiting to see the humor in that situation. HASN’T HAPPENED YET.

(Note that you can not only see the truck and the random men standing around supervising, but also my car (the red one) and Fred’s (the blue one) in the church parking lot.)

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Since I was home all day yesterday and couldn’t go anywhere even if I wanted to (which, really, I didn’t given the rain and the crappy, cloudy, overcast day), I decided to do some baking. First I made a batch of Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies – BEST chocolate chip cookies ever, I swear – and then I happened to glance in the fridge and saw the container of ricotta I’d bought last month. I checked the date on it and since it was expiring in May I figured – y’know – better use that baby up before it goes bad! So I made a batch of Lemon Ricotta Cookies, which are SO good. This time around I only glazed half the cookies, because I personally think they’re way better without the glaze. Just the slightest bit of a lemon taste to them. I also made them a lot smaller this time around, too.

Then – because we decided that sandwiches made with leftover pork roast from Sunday (I really think we’ll be eating roast pork for at least two more meals – luckily it’s tasty!) would be good, I put all the ingredients for a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine. And THEN, because I had buttermilk in the fridge taking up space, I decided to go ahead and make Buttermilk Honey Bread.

Everything came out just right (though the loaf of whole wheat bread came out a lot smaller than I expected, but then realized I’d followed the directions for a 1 1/2-pound loaf rather than the 2-pound loaf. Dur.). The Honey Buttermilk bread came out tasty, but I’ll be honest – I think I prefer the Amish White bread Aimee linked to.

The funny thing is that after all that baking, I wasn’t interested in eating any of it.

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Fred thinks Beulah is ugly. I think he should just shaddup – how could a wee little kitten who likes to sit on my knee and look judgmentally at her siblings as they go bouncing by be ugly? DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Okay, clearly I have a particular fondness for Beulah, but let me tell you about Ezra.

Ezra is just the sweetest little guy. He loves to bounce around and fight with his brothers and sisters and he has a LOT of energy (an energetic kitten, go figure!), but when it’s time for snuggling and going to sleep, Ezra doesn’t hesitate. He climbs up into my lap and looks up at me, and then he jumps up, grabs onto the front of my shirt, and pulls himself up so that he’s right under my chin. If I don’t immediately put my hand under him, he has the saddest meow, like I’m breaking his heart, how oh HOW could I just let him hang there like that?! When I do put my hand under him, he lets go of my shirt, and he lays there and purrs and purrs and purrs.

(He also likes to be kissed, but don’t tell his brothers or they’ll mock him mercilessly.)

Sometimes he decides actually it’s NOT time to snuggle and take a nap, in fact he has gotten his second wind. So he climbs up onto my shoulder and surveys his kingdom, and then he slowly lets himself back down to the floor by backing down the back of my shirt.

And off he bounces, to expend some of that energy!

More kitten pics over at L&H.

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“I am NOT April’s fool! I don’t even KNOW April!”

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Previously
2008: However, I don’t subscribe to the “only pick it up if it’s heads up!” theory of thought.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: There’s a saying that men make plans and god laughs.
2004: No entry.
2003: Won’t be happening in my lifetime, thanks.
2002: No entry.
2001: I get the weirdest freakin’ referrals to my site.
2000: No entry.