Thanks, y’all, for your kind words and thoughts about Mister Boogers. We are missing him an awful lot these days – more than we expected, I think. With Spot and Tubby, at least they were sick for a while before they died, so it wasn’t unexpected (especially with Spot), but Mister Boogers was young and not sick at all, so it was a complete shock.
We both keep finding ourselves surprised anew by the loss – and every now and then one or the other of us sighs and says “Poor Boogie.”
Good ol’ Boogie.
It’s so strange – Mister Boogers’ personality was so large that with him gone it’s like our cat population has halved. Things are so quiet around here, and the other cats seem to know that something’s not right.
If you haven’t donated to the shelter in his memory and wanted to, there’s still time! (For that matter, if you were offended by the Boogie hetred, you could donate NOT in his memory. The shelter can always use the money, especially now that they’re aflood in baby kittens.) I suspect Mister Boogers would pretend to be horrified that people were remembering him in such a way, but secretly? He’d be pleased. He’s looking up at y’all right now IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
They accept donations by mail (check or money order), by phone (Mastercard/VISA), or select the button below to donate through PayPal.
Challenger’s House
112 Tristian Rd.
Toney, AL 35773
Phone: 256-420-5995
So on Friday, after I went to the pet store and cleaned out cat cages and gave extra love to all the cats there, Fred and I set off on an errand. I know I mentioned that the pigs went off to freezer camp a couple of weeks ago. As always, once the pigs were no longer there for us to feed our kitchen scraps to, I missed having a convenient bucket to toss everything into. When we’re pigless, I toss everything into a Ziploc bag and keep it in the freezer ’til it’s full, then move it out to the garage so that when we have pigs again, we’ll have scraps on hand to feed them (they get pig chow as the main part of their diet, but we supplement it with food from our kitchen, the garden, and Fred’s mother saves their leftovers for the pigs, as well).
After a few moments of discussion (doesn’t take much to convince me), Fred decided to call the pig man and see if he had any small pigs he could sell us. He did – he just had to trap them, which took a few days – and they were ready to go. Since Fred had Friday off, we decided Friday morning was the perfect time to go pick them up.
The drive up to the pig man’s house is always a pleasant one. While Fred and the pig man went off to get the pigs (you can read more about that here WARNING GRAPHIC VIOLENCE), I walked around and took some pictures.
Great Pyrenees puppies (no, we didn’t come home with puppies!) and a kitten.
Momma cat (the slightly larger orange and white is the Momma) and some of her babies.
Kittens (they didn’t let me get close to them at ALL).
This one wanted to be friends in the worst way, but she was just a little too scared of me to let me pet her.
One of the many dogs around the place.
“Pet me! Pet me! PET ME!” (I did.)
Momma pig heard her babies squalling and came running. Right through a barbed wire fence. All I could do was stand there and stare – she slipped through so close I could have touched her. (I didn’t.)
Happy pigs.
“What?”
Guineas sure are ugly.
New pigs. Thus far, Fred has attempted to woo them with food. He hasn’t been 100% successful at getting them to connect him with food, but with the help of Piggerdoodles, he’s getting there.
Saturday – well, what did we do on Saturday? I know I got up early and went to the pet store to clean cages again. To my utter delight, Belle got herself adopted! I cleaned out the cages and then let the kittens – and there are a lot of kittens right now – run wild. I swear to god, if I could bottle 1/100th of the energy those kittens have, I could rule the world.
I left there and went to Sam’s Club to stock up on important household items (2 gallons of white vinegar for less than $4? Yes, please!), and I think I was only in there for about half an hour. I wasted some time at Target, walking around looking at stuff ’til Michael’s opened, then browsed in there for a while before I headed back to the pet store (which was now open) and bought some cat food.
I was home a little after 10, I think, and then I did a lot of puttering around the house getting veggies (which Fred had helpfully picked while I was off running errands) cleaned and put up.
We had a pretty simple Fourth of July meal – hamburgers, horseradish potato salad, corn on the cob, and cherry tomatoes with blocks of mozzarella (always my favorite part of summer. Well – that, and the raw green beans, straight from the vine. Nothing tastes more like summer to me!).
The best part of dinner was dessert – holy MOLY was it good. I ran across a recipe for Paula Deen’s Strawberry Cream Shortcake last week some time, and printed it out. Instead of using just strawberries, I bought some blueberries on sale, and used strawberries on the first layer, and blueberries on top. SO GOOD. I highly recommend it.
(So do the pigs!)
Out of curiosity – do any of Paula Deen’s dessert recipes NOT call for a can of sweetened condensed milk? Not that I’m complaining!
Speaking of good food, I made Quesadilla Pie for dinner last Friday, and it was a big hit with both Fred and I. I did make each layer a lot thicker than I should have, so it ended up being higher than the pie dish, and lasted for several meals. Next time, I’ll make the layers shallower and see how that goes. It’s a good recipe to use up leftover chicken, extra summer squash and zucchini – I imagine just about anything tossed in would be good!
Creed, Dwight, and Phyllis are such funny little kittens, racing around the house, jumping on each other (and us!), fighting, and then falling in a heap to sleep for hours and hours before resuming the racing around again. They’re sassy little monkeys, and Creed especially is a love bug. He adores climbing up on Fred in the evenings, sniffs wildly at Fred’s mouth, rubs his face along Fred’s cheek, and then settles in to sleep.
(Unless, of course, he hears a strange noise at the other end of the house, in which case he goes racing off to investigate.)
At this point, these three are ready to go to PetSmart, but there are so many kittens at the shelter and more coming in all the time, that it could be a while. And to be honest, I’m fine with that! They’re no trouble, and they’re certainly entertaining.
Phyllis, sound asleep with her eyes open. Kinda creepy!
On the mat by the door, among the shoes, is Dwight’s favorite place to snooze.
“We are trying to sleep. Go ‘way.”
He just REFUSED to lay so that the hat would sit on his head properly. So I hung it off his ear, and he could not have cared less.
Sweet boy.
Stinkerbelle thinks about taking on the Mantel of Hetred.
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: What can I say? I’m a freak.
2006: If the vet tells me that Tommy’s overweight, I’m going to say, with great dignity, “We prefer to call him ‘portly’.”
2005: Mia.
2004: There were a couple of parts that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe – especially the line “I see you have a little swimming mouse”.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have I ever mentioned that I’m kind of a dork?