2/16/09

In case you missed it, I put up an entry on Saturday complete with pictures of a little dog who needs a home.

(This time, the dog didn’t show up at our front door, thank god.)

She’s a sweet little thing, but as far as what kind of dog she is, I have no idea. Fred thinks she looks like a Min-Pin. I think she looks like a dog.

(We really only saw her in person for about ten minutes altogether and while she was very active and inquisitive, she never barked at all.)

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I still have some jams and hot sauces in stock, for anyone who’s interested! I didn’t make any jam this weekend, but I need to get some made in the next few days, since I’m starting to run low.

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I think I found a blog through one of your links once but can’t remember the name. Does this ring a bell? A woman died suddenly in the hospital shortly after childbirth. The father is blogging now. I’d love to find it again

It doesn’t sound familiar to me, but I know one of you out there knows where it is. Help?

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So, Saturday morning after I slept in ’til 7 (SLACKER) and took my shower and scooped the litter boxes and just generally puttered around, Fred and I got into the truck and headed in the direction of Tennessee. We stopped in Elkmont at our favorite Feed ‘n Seed store (the one with the dog, linked above) to trade eggs with the owner of the store. Since our hatching was so dismal last week (7 survivors out of 9 hatchings; and we began with 42 eggs!), we decided to trade some of our eggs for some of his (he insisted on giving them to us for free – Fred offered a trade instead), and then Fred and the owner talked for several minutes while I wandered around and looked at all the animals.

We also bought some chicken feed and some goat cheese while we were there. We’ve been meaning to buy goat cheese to try, and we finally remembered to do so. Once the truck was loaded up, we left and headed for Tennessee.

In our kitchen, there’s a seven-foot bookcase where I store a bunch of canning stuff, cookbooks, and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. Like such:

It works out pretty well, but it drives me nuts, because it looks messy to me, and it doesn’t really go with our cupboards and I’d prefer to have everything stored away behind doors to hide the mess.

So recently I started harassing Fred to build me something that would fit in that space, and that would have doors and that would go better with our cabinets. (Let me note here that I’ve gone from “Oh god, I HATE these cabinets!” when we first bought the house to “These cabinets are perfectly fine!” Swear to god, I changed the pulls on the cabinets and it made an absolute world of difference. Before/ After.) Fred finally said that he didn’t think he has the skills to make something nice (I completely disagree, for the record), and I whined and pouted and just generally acted like a big baby and then stopped talking about it.

Which is when Fred said that we should drive up into Lawrenceburg, TN and see if we could find someone in the Amish community who could build something to our specifications. And that’s what our goal was on Saturday.

The first place we stopped, the guy in charge of making the furniture wasn’t around, so we kept on looking. At the second place, Fred went inside the shop and talked to the guy for a long, long time. I sat in the truck and waited, and eventually Fred waved for me to come inside. We discussed whether we wanted the cabinet/ pantry to be made of oak or poplar. I liked the look of the poplar more (plus, it was slightly less expensive, and also our stairs are made of poplar and so it kind of seemed like it would be a sort of theme, so we went with the poplar). Fred went off into another room with the guy, so I snapped a picture of the table and chairs that appeared to be waiting for someone to come pick them up. They were well-made, very simple, and very solid.

When it comes down to it, the simpler and more straightforward furniture appeals to me. (Actually “Simple and straightforward” could describe how I like just about everything!) Fred sometime tends toward furniture with fancier details, but if all our furniture was Shaker-style, I’d be happy.

So Fred left our name and address, and paid 10% down. The estimated time frame is 3 – 5 months, and I’m perfectly happy to wait that long. As long as I know it’s coming eventually, I can be patient.

(Fred is enthralled with the idea that the guy is going to send us a letter when the cabinet is done.)

We left the furniture shop and were driving around to see if we could see anyone advertising that they had pigs for sale (we’d brought the big carrier, just in case), and as we drove slowly down a road, we spotted a youngish (maybe 10 or 11) boy running full-out down his driveway. It was a long driveway, and I said “Boy, he’s really moving, huh?”

“Forrest Yoder,” Fred said, and I laughed until I wheezed.

(The majority of people in the Amish community of Lawrenceburg seem to have either Yoder or Gingerich as their last name.)

We made a few more stops, Fred bought some more fertile eggs (hey, the incubator holds 42 eggs. Why waste the space, I ask you?), and then we went and ate lunch. After lunch, we searched for a house someone had told him about, where the man had pigs for sale. They were, unfortunately, larger than we wanted, but he pointed us down the road to someone else who had pigs for sale. That guy’s pigs were more the size we wanted, but he’d promised them to someone from Birmingham, and HE pointed us down the road toward someone else who might have pigs. We never did find the third house, but we did end up driving down some very isolated roads that I thought were very neat and Fred thought were very scary.

(He’s easily scared, I think. CITY BOY.)

We finally gave up and headed for home. We stopped at an antique store on the way home, where Fred scowled after I said he couldn’t buy the scary clown.

We got home and puttered around, then started watching TV earlier than usual. We’d stopped to pick up a pizza on the way home and since the pizza store is next door to the movie store, we went in and rented Zack and Miri Make a Porno. So we watched the movie – and both liked it quite a bit – and watched an episode of Burn Notice, and then went to bed.

(This is what big losers we are – when the movie was over, Fred said “Burn Notice?”, and I looked at the clock and said “But it’s 8:20!” and Fred agreed. Because if we watched a 42-minute show, we might head for bed two minutes after 9. WHO CAN POSSIBLY STAY UP SO LATE?! So we mocked ourselves for being dorks and watched the show, and Fred fell asleep for a few minutes at the end of the episode.)

So, that was my Valentine’s Day – spending the day with the man I love, driving around, looking at cool things, solving my kitchen storage dilemma, eating pizza, and finishing up the day with a funny romantic comedy. I’d say that was a pretty damn good way to celebrate the “holiday.”

Sunday morning we left the house kinda early, then went into town to return the movie and get cash at the ATM. On our way to the ATM, we passed a house with almost as many cats as we have:

Note that there are two dogs in the background. I counted eight cats gathered around the cat food. I don’t know if those cats belong to the people in that house, or if there’s a feral colony there, or what.

So we got our cash and headed to Lacon Trade Days, which is essentially a flea market with livestock. This is the place where we got McLovin’ over a year ago, actually, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any pigs there, I’m not sure why we went except that it certainly didn’t hurt to look. We bought some produce and looked around, then headed for home. We stopped on the way home for breakfast, which was okay but nothing to write home about.

We got home, and I got all inspired and cleaned all the bathrooms, vacuumed the downstairs, cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry, and finally – FINALLY – went out to start cleaning the garage. I used the shop vac to vacuum up the thousands of dead ladybugs from around the windows upstairs (the ladybugs that died last Fall, ugh), and moved some stuff around. I took a break to walk up to the dollar store with Fred (and someone driving by honked in a jaunty manner and waved happily at us. Fred waved back at her, and then we both wondered for half an hour who the hell that was.) and when we got back I started on the downstairs.

Fred’s mother gave us their old freezer at Christmas. Fred and Brian went and picked it up when Debbie and Brian were visiting at Christmas, and it’s been sitting, unused, in the garage. I finally got things rearranged so that we could plug the freezer in and put it next to the freezer we already had.

(If you’re keeping track, this is three freezers we have – one upright freezer in the laundry room, one chest freezer in the garage, and the smaller chest freezer Fred’s mother gave us. The freezer in the laundry room holds mostly vegetables and pork. The freezer Fred’s mother gave us will likely hold mostly chickens. Yes, we have a small generator, just in case.)

The garage is mostly arranged the way it needs to be arranged, but this week I need to get out there and sweep it out and maybe do some more rearranging in the upstairs before I’ll be happy with the way it looks.

Today, I think we’re going to the flea market in Tennessee on the off chance that someone might be selling pigs. I don’t think we’re going to be successful, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to look, right?

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Smilin’ Joe, atop the bookcase. (Yes, the new cabinet will have room on top for Joe Bob storage. Priorities, you know!)

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: (”Rescue me! I’m a sad little practically-orphaned waif, adrift in this cold, cruel world, wahhh! Save me! Pity me!”)
2006: So, in summary, if we are to judge all female cats by Miz Poo, then male cats are nicer, but female cats are clingier.
2005: Don’t you wish I was responsible for your books?
2004: I WANT TO FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE SAID.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001.: And almost wet my pants in terror.
2000: So, the nausea continues.