If you’re in Maine and are looking for a cat, please let me know and I’ll pass your email along to the people looking for a home for her. She’s about 1 1/2 years old, has a very sweet temperament, and is a blue-eyed Siamese mix. (Sorry, no pics at the moment – but I’m sure there’ll be some available soon!) She’s spayed and has had her rabies shot.
Attention, those of you in the North Alabama/ Tennessee area: the North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic is having a fundraiser this weekend in the form of a Plea Market (they had one last year, you might recall.) They’re looking for donations (which are tax deductible!) – you can go here to read more about what they’re looking for, when and where you can drop off your donations, and when the Plea Market will be open to the public.
This event is sponsored by 13 animal welfare groups in the area. The money raised will be used to buy a transport vehicle to assist people in rural areas to get their animals spayed/neutered. Volunteers will be needed on Thursday & Friday (12/18-19) to help set up and also on Saturday, the day of the sale. Donations of saleable items will be accepted both days at the Jaycees Building on Airport Road.
The North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic charges $35 for feline neuters, $45 for feline spays, $55 for canine neuters, and $65 for canine spays. The only cost above the basic charge is $10 for the rabies vaccination if you cannot provide proof that your animal has been vaccinated in the past 12 months.
PLEASE NOTE THAT ANYONE CAN USE THE SPAY AND NEUTER CLINIC. You do NOT have to qualify! There is no extra charge for weight or if the cat/ dog is in heat.
Sights from around Crooked Acres.
The back forty.
Rooster. He’d like you to know he’s a great big stud.
Miss Gray. She’s the only chicken we’ve had that’s this particular color and pattern. I think she’s beeeeeautiful. I secretly call her Meredith. Get it? Meredith Grey? No?
Momma hen and her babies.
I went out to the back forty to open the big coop door (so the coop could air out) yesterday morning, and George and Gracie were out cold. I stood there and took pictures of them, and waited for them to sense my presence, but they didn’t. Finally, I got worried that perhaps they’d been poisoned and were laying there dead, so I said “Puppies!” and they jerked awake.
“I was restin’ my eyes, lady.”
So, in the guest bedroom (which also doubles as an extra foster room, as you probably know), we used to have a little set of stairs so that any little fosters could climb on them, and ultimately get up onto the bed in there. You can see them in the background of this picture:
As you can see, they were covered in carpet (or carpet-like material), and after they’d been vomited on a million times, I couldn’t stand the way they looked. I said to Fred “Can’t you make me a set of stairs out of wood that I could paint or polyurethane and so when they’re vomited upon, I can just wipe them off?”
He said that he could, and that was about six months ago.
The weekend before last, I finally got pushy about getting him to make the steps for me – I have no idea why, it’s not like any of the kittens aren’t big enough to climb up on the bed without the assistance of stairs, I just WANTED them – and he did.
The kittens approved! So I took them out to the garage and painted them with a stain/ polyurethane combo. Honestly, if I had it to do all over again, I’d have just used a clear polyurethane, because the combo ended up being so drippy (and I so uncoordinated) that there are parts of the stairs that look terrible. I complained to Fred about it, and he pointed out that he was pretty sure the kittens weren’t going to care, which is true, but I’m making a mental note not to do that again.
(Please note that I am NOT giving you a close-up view!)
I think they’ll work quite nicely.
AND, since we were going to the store to buy wood for the stairs, we bought more wood. See, in a corner of the computer room I put a carrier with a pad in it, and I called it the Spanky Cave (or the Sugarbutt Cave, or Whoever-was-in-it Cave) and the cats liked it quite a bit. But it sits under a chair, and the cats were using it to climb up onto the chair, which was making the top collapse downward permanently.
So we made a box about the same size of the carrier, from wood. I stain/ polyurethaned that as well, but since it was a simple box, there was less of the dripping problem that I had when I did the stairs.
Miz Poo approves.
Which is why, when I saw this over at Modern Cat, I said “Hey! Great minds think alike!”
When I was looking for the picture above that showed the old cat steps, I ran across these, and I think I might have fainted from the sheer stunning cute.
That’s Hydrox from the Cookies, by the way. He was such a little character!
The Crooked Acres House Tour, continued.
From the bottom of the stairs, looking up toward the landing.
The curtains on the window at the landing. I love these curtains (I don’t know if you can tell or not, but they have daisies on them).
Looking out the window at the driveway.
From the landing looking downward. That doorway leads to the guest bedroom.
Annnnd from the landing looking upward.
Top of the stairs, looking down at the landing. This is exciting, no?
At the top of the stairs, to the left, is Fred’s bedroom.
For the uninformed, yes – Fred and I sleep in separate bedrooms. And if you’re all spluttering condescendingly like Dr. Phil was on his recent show where someone asked him whether sleeping in separate beds was a bad idea, and he tried to pretend that if it worked for the couple, then it was fine with him, except that he made it SUPER CLEAR that in his opinion it was a bad idea, then please feel free to bite me. We don’t sleep well in the same bed. We sleep very well in separate beds. I can sleep through cats tromping all over me; Fred cannot, and once he’s awakened in the middle of the night (by, say, a cat balancing on his head) he has a hard time getting back to sleep. We lay down and talk and cuddle every night for half an hour or more, then Fred goes off to his bedroom and I stay in mine. He usually goes right to sleep; I stay up and read or watch TV and turn in at a more reasonable (ten-thirty! Am party animal!) hour.
In conclusion, let me tell you that there are three women (I am no longer in contact with, for the record) who come to mind who, in the past, had an absolute screaming cow about the fact that we sleep in separate rooms. Oh, they couldn’t BELIEEEEEEEEVE that we didn’t sleep all curled up together in sweet marital bliss. Oh, what a TRAVESTY, what a SHAME, they were SO SORRY that our marriage was in such dire shape, did we need HELP with attorneys fees for the DIVORCE, would we perhaps like some ADVICE on how to fix our SHAM of a marriage?
Would you like to take a guess about how many of those three marriages are still standing? Did you smugly guess that NOT ONE of those “I could never sleep separately from MAH MAN!” bitches is still married?
In. Your. FACE.
(Who, me? Chip on my shoulder about this topic? Why, I’d never!)
“Jake’s trying to sleep here, lady. Go ‘way.”
A note of interest: this was actually originally going to be the foster room. But Fred doesn’t sleep well when wakened in the middle of the night, and the room that is now the foster room (that was originally supposed to be Fred’s room) is on the front of the house, facing the road, and occasionally loud motorcycles or cars or people walking go by. That room is better suited to being a foster room, anyway – it gets lots of sun, and the closet’s a great size to keep litter boxes and cat supplies in. You can see the foster room door at the other end of the hallway.
My room. You can see the closet door on the left, but you can’t actually see that there’s a second closet on the right – the door is next to the recliner. I like having all that closet space, but it makes it hard to place the bed. I don’t like blocking part of one of the windows, but whatcha gonna do? I had the bed kitty-corner originally, but then there was no room on the wall for my bedside table. I sleep on the left side (if you’re facing the bed).
From the recliner, looking over toward the door. The white bookcase (which you can’t see much of) holds my books (duh). The armoire type piece of furniture straight ahead holds the clothes that are out of season – I just got out all my Fall/ Winter clothes yesterday, so all my lighter shirts and shorts are in there now. Please note Starsky on the bed.
Standing next to the bed, looking toward the opposite corner. You can see the other closet door now. Next to the bookcase is the Poo Cave.
“I yam Poo, and this are my Cave.”
I don’t know if you’re dying to see in my closets, but if I were you I’d want to know what the hell’s going on in all that closet space.
This is the closet with the white door. Mostly shipping supplies for jams/ jellies/ hot sauces – boxes, bubble wrap, foam peanuts.
Other end of the closet.
Now, true confession time: until two weeks ago, this closet was STUFFED with boxes. I must have saved every damn box I got for the past year DESPITE the fact that I didn’t need them. Finally, I got my shit together, hauled almost all of those boxes out of there, and took them to the recycling center. I didn’t want y’all to think I was a dirty rotten box hoarder. (Nevermind those boxes on the shelves. Shaddup.)
The other closet – it’s cedar lined, but ever so much more boring than the other closet, if you ask me.
There’s a second row of clothes hanging behind this row.
And that’s it for the tour this week! Next week, the upstairs bathroom and foster room. Then the week after that, the garage! Woohoo!
Starsky and Tommy.
Hutch and Rhyme.
It’s too bad these little guys can’t seem to find anyone willing to snuggle with them, isn’t it? So sad.
Smug little monkey.
They’re getting so leggy.
Sooooo…. guess who’s going to their new home tomorrow?
“…ME?”
That’s right. But not just Starsky. Hutch, too. They’re both being adopted by the same family!!!
I won’t say anymore, though. I don’t want to jinx it! But I am very excited, to say the least!
The garbage can (which has never been used to hold garbage, by the way) in the back yard has become THE place to be. Sugarbutt gets it when it’s sunny – and when it’s raining out, Tommy hangs out in it (Tommy LOVES to be outside when it’s raining. I think he’s part otter – although, he doesn’t particularly care for getting wet). Sometimes the Bookworms sneak in and hang out there for a little while, but it’s usually the domain of Suggie or Tom.
Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: I was going to spend the day shopping today, but due to the onset of PMS rage, I think it’s best that I spend as little time in public as possible.
2007: Brudderly love.
2006: No entry.
2005: Apparently I’ve got the Jaws of Doom.
2004: Reader questions.
2003: Of course, my immediate response is “Are you on drugs???”
2002: I think that everyone there had a little cartoon question mark over their head, ’cause I sure as shit did.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: No entry.