Saturday morning I got up before I wanted to, not only because Miz Poo was wheezing her usual death-rattle in my face (that cat wheezes like she’s been smoking three packs a day every single day of her 11+ years; in the course of one of her many surgeries, there was some scarring to the tissue at the back of her throat, and spit or phlegm gets caught there every once in a while, and she wheezes raspily until it annoys her (which is long after it’s annoying to everyone else in the vicinity) and she coughs and clears her throat), and not only because there was a mourning dove mourning in the tree outside my window, but also because the alarm clock in the back of my brain sounded because I knew Fred wanted to go somewhere bright and early.
So I got up and got dressed, and we headed for Decatur. Every year on Memorial Day Weekend, they have something called Jubilee, which is a hot air balloon “classic” (according to the web site), and a million (est’d) hot air balloons go up into the air. Fred remembered that it was going on, and wanted to go see the balloons go up.
I have to admit, it was pretty neat. Once they’re up, the balloons actually go a lot faster than you’d expect.
After we stood and watched the balloons for a while, we headed toward home, which is actually in the same directions that the hot air balloons were headed. We saw a couple land, and later a few went over our property, spurring George and Gracie to bark their fool heads off in defense of their chickens.
Reflection in a ditch.
When we got home, we worked in the garden for a while. Then I hung out with the kittens and did some housework and laundry ’til Lisa stopped by to visit with the McMaos and The Spice Girls (and me!), and at one point she had Clove laying asleep in the bottom of her shirt, and it was so adorable that I was silently cursing my failure to bring a camera into the room with us.
Lisa left, and I did a little (very little) more housework before I landed on the couch and took a nice long nap.
Really, I’m pretty sure they only invented weekends so everyone could take Saturday and Sunday afternoon naps. I hope y’all got yours in!
Sunday morning I was up and dressed by 6:30, and we were out working in the garden by 7. Fred came back inside to do something, and I weeded the compost heap (there are so many volunteer tomato plants growing on the compost heap that we’ve decided to let them be and just pick the tomatoes they offer all summer long. But there was so much Amaranthus and Bermuda growing alongside the tomato plants that it was getting difficult to even see the tomato plants, so I yanked up the non-tomato stuff, tossed it in the cart, and then pulled the cart out to the pig yard. I tossed everything I’d yanked up into the pig yard and called to the pigs, and they ambled out of their shelter, where they’d been snoozing (I swear, these little girl pigs are the laziest pigs we’ve ever had. They’re always piled up in their shelter sleeping!) and the spotted the pile of greens and acted like it was the best treat EVER.
Then I finally planted my three watermelon seeds in the bale in my little raised-bed garden (I’m experimenting with limited bale gardening this year – two tomato plants on one bale, and three watermelon plants on another), and finally got the soaker hose run to all my various raised beds and bales and pots of herbs, tested it to make sure it would work (it does!). I then spent about 45 minutes raking up the leaves and random detritus in the side yard and carting it all out to the spot where we decided to start the new compost heap. Then I was done – DONE – working outside for the day, because it was after 9, and already hot, and I refuse to work outside past 9:00 during the summer.
After I ate breakfast, we went up into town to Tractor Supply and bought a yard sweeper. It was a big one, one that could be pulled by the riding lawnmower. Fred mowed the back forty on Saturday, and we had decided that we’re going to put weed-blocking fabric in the garden so that he doesn’t have to spend all his spare time weeding the damn garden. But we needed to put something down on top of the fabric, and I’ve been lobbying for years now to put grass clippings down on the weed fabric, and he apparently decided that that would work.
So we got the yard sweeper, and when we got home Fred started putting it together, and wouldn’t you figure? The fucking thing wouldn’t go together right no matter what he did, and Fred was ready to drive directly to the company that makes the yard sweeper and burn it down (figuratively speaking, of course), but in the end we simply returned the goddamn thing. We’re still talking about what we’re going to do. SIGH. I’m up for doing whatever it takes in the garden that will require the least amount of work, long-term. It’s too damn hot here for him to come home from work and spend time weeding in the garden, and honestly? I have no desire to do it either, buh-leave me.
We’ll see.
While he was out working on getting that piece of shit put together, I was inside making cookies. I’ve been seeing the recipe for OMG THESE ARE THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER for ages now, and finally I decided to give ’em a try. I made the dough on Friday and then let it sit for 36 hours in the fridge, and on Sunday I scooped the dough out and sprinkled it with sea salt and baked them, and after much careful consideration, here’s my opinion:
Meh.
The Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies are still far and away my favorite cookies and the best chocolate chip cookies ever AND you don’t have to use cake flour and bread flour and let the dough sit in the fridge forever and a day and then carefully scoop out dough and ask Your Lord and Savior to help these cookies rise and tiptoe around the house and kiss each kitten twice on the nose and once behind each ear and caaaaarefully remove the cookies from the oven only to be completely disappointed by the spectacular unspectacularness of the damn things.
But that’s just my opinion.
And while I’m talking about baking, I made a chocolate cake with whipped cream icing as a belated birthday cake for Fred (since his birthday was on Thursday and we don’t eat that stuff during the week) on Saturday, and again I say: meh. I should have just made a damn Black Forest Torte because THAT, my friends, is something to write home about.
There was another nap on Sunday afternoon, and lots of snuggling with kittens, and the best part is that Fred has today off. I don’t know what we’re going to do (my prediction: nothing much), but I’m sure there’ll be a nap involved!
Someone asked the other day, Someone else asked, and I was wondering too actually… what will happen to the lovely Maggie?
Once her babies are spayed and neutered and have gone off to Petsmart to be adopted immediately (fingers crossed!), Maggie will stay here with us. I’ll wait about a week to be sure her milk has dried up, and then I’ll have her spayed (id chipped, rabies shots, all that) and she’ll hang out here with us until room opens up at Petsmart for her, whereupon she will go to Petsmart (and hopefully be immediately adopted!).
I will tell y’all, I would really like to release the McMaos to explore the rest of the house, but I’m worried that Maggie’s protective instincts will kick in. Jake was so desperate to get into the guest bedroom Saturday that we let him in to see what would happen. What happened is that he bellied up to the kitten food and ate while growling at any kittens who came near, and then Maggie went ::FLOOF:: and started chasing him in a threatening manner around the room, so we ushered him out of the room. I’m tempted to let just Maggie out into the house to meet the other cats (without the kittens around for her to feel protective over) and see how that goes.
“I’m flying! I’M FLYIIIIIIING!”
“Holy cow! He’s flying!”
“So then I was all ‘You want yerself a real man, you know where to find me!’ She’ll call, right?”
“Sure she will, bro. Sure she will.”
“I’ve got it! I’VE GOT IT!”
I don’t know what kitten tails taste like, but they must be really tasty given all the chewing that goes on.
Attitudinous little brat.
I have this cheap little rechargeable sweeper that I use in the foster room when the floor has gotten so bad I can’t stand it, and don’t want to put all the kittens into carriers and bring them out of the room. It’s fairly quiet, as that sort of thing goes, so I’m not too worried about scaring the heck out of the kittens the way a real plug-in vacuum would. However, the McMaos are not the bravest of kittens, and last time I used the sweeper in the room, they all ran to the closet and hid from me.
“That is SKEERY, lady!”
“I don’t like it. I tried to cram myself in this old baby wipe container, but I wouldn’t fit all the way.”
“We was ALL skeered, even Fergus Simon the hellion.”
“Ferguson tried to get into the wipes container with me, but I told him ‘Bro, if I won’t fit, we’re not BOTH going to fit, and this is MY safe place!'”
Since there’s been such a lot of interest in Dorothy lately, I’ll break my usual don’t-want-to-jinx-anything stance on the topic and let y’all know that Dorothy has a forever home, and she’ll be going there this weekend. I won’t give you details ’til after the adoption is done (see above about not wanting to jinx anything), but I think she’s going to be very happy in her new home!
Dorothy and Alice, hanging out in the sun.
The Spice Girls are doing very well. They’re healthy and happy, and in the evenings when we’re watching TV, we can hear them running around like little wild things, playing. Jake really wanted into the foster room on Sunday, so I let him in. He walked to the middle of the room, looked at the girl kitties, and then walked out. They, in turn, were interested in Jake, but a little leery of him as well. They all floofed up a bit, but weren’t terribly freaked out.
Cilantro, trying to decide in which direction to run.
Clove. I love her markings.
Coriander, considering.
Snoozin’ Coriander.
They sure do love that scratcher.
Clove demonstrates that these girls are well-trained in the litterbox arts.
Coltrane, hanging out near the pig yard. One day last week, I was out checking on the pigs or feeding them, and I heard George bark, and looked up to see he and Gracie running full-tilt toward the far back corner of the back forty. My heart almost stopped when I saw that they were running toward Coltrane, and I thought I was about to see some carnage (I yelled for the dogs to stop, but they didn’t seem to hear me), but as it turned out (it’s hard to tell from a distance), Coltrane was outside the fence. George and Gracie stopped short of the fence, seemed to recognize Coltrane, and turned and ran back toward me.
(For the record, I really don’t think G&G would have killed Coltrane, but I also can’t swear that they wouldn’t – it’s possible they would have seen him as a threat to their flock.)
Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: I always forget what bitey little brats they are at this age. They’re so MEAN.
2007: “I’m so happy,” he said. “That if this were a movie, in the next scene you’d be raped or killed.”
2006: No entry.
2005: Every time I type in “u” instead of “you”, I die a little inside.
2004: No entry.
2003: What happens if you put a box on the floor?
2002: “Where was it, Bessie?” he asked, trying to draw me into the trap with him, so he could perhaps trip me and then run away, leaving me there for her to latch onto.
2001: What do you s’pose a realtor’s house looks like? I always assumed it’d be a real showplace, with everything just so, all appliances gleaming and so on.
2000: Every time I blow-dry my hair, it sounds like the phone is ringing.
One of the few times Oliver has ever been scared was when a hot air balloon was floating low over our neighborhood and fired its burners right overhead. Jamie says he just about had his shoulder dislocated as Ollie tried to get away from the thing. It was an “OMG we can’t stop here! This is bat country!!” moment.
Of course his other moment of sheer terror was a misshapen snowman. He nearly took his ears off trying to back out of his collar. When they came back to it on the end of the walk, he peed on it.
As someone who has spent 37 of her 42 years ballooning, may I apologize for your dog’s distress? We really do try not to upset the livestock, but in going over a subdivision, the kids seem to get a much biggger thrill if we’re low enough to smile and chat and wave. When you’ve been flying this long, the fun is in the enjoyment of others, especially the kids.
I’d think Coltrane wouldn’t be so brave if George and Gracie were an actual threat to him. Wouldn’t he be able to sense it if he was in danger?
It appears that the McMaos let you know very clearly that they did NOT care for that sweeper. Just look at those little freaked-out faces!
Yeah, I’ve noticed that when someone puts “OMG!!!!!” in the name of a recipe (that’s in all caps too), it tends to be a letdown. A great choc-chip cookie recipe is like a great recipe for lasagna, chili or meat loaf…VERY subjective and needs tweaking to get it just right for each family.
Love the red kitty bowls. 🙂
Considering Coltrane’s reaction to George and Gracie (I swear, he doesn’t even seem to notice they exist), I don’t guess he considers them much of a threat. And even if he had been inside the fence, I think he could have gotten away from them.
One thing I insist upon when it comes to feeding my kittens is cute dishes. 🙂
Thanks for posting the pix of the balloons up in the air! I went with my sis/brother-in-law/nephew for the afternoon balloon show — they were supposed to go up at 5:15, but for some reason didn’t. We heard someone say it had something to do with the wind. Anyhow, they did inflate the balloons near dusk, firing a lot and creating “glowing balloons.” It was a pretty sight, but I was a bit disappointed I didn’t get to see the balloons take off. Fun event!
When I first started reading your post, I thought, “Wow, I missed meeting Robyn & Fred,” but then realized you went for the early morning show.
We didn’t actually go all the way to Point Mallard, we drove in that general direction and parked on a side street, which (according to Fred, anyway) made it easier to “race” the balloons toward the river. Seeing them go up was really quite a sight. They seem to go up so slowly, but once they’re up they move at a pretty fast pace.
Robyn, that “fast pace” is probably why they didn’t launch the evening flight: the winds were too high. There’s a gray area around a windspeed of 8-10 mph, depending on direction and what the winds aloft are doing. Any higher and the “Balloon Meister” will declare Nobody Launches. Think of a big flag on a flagpole – if it’s lifting completely away from the pole, the wind is too high to fly.
This link is to an awesome chocolate chip cookie recipe. Every time I make them, people want the recipe.
http://www.whiskeymarie.com/2010/09/i-wonder-if-martha-stewart-ever-usus.html
I looked at your recipe for Black Forest Torte because it’s one of my favorite things. Looks amazing, but I need cherries in my Black Forest. Think I’ll put a layer of cherry pie filling in there under the cream layer and then I’ll die and go to heaven!
I know, with a name like that you’d expect cherries, wouldn’t you?
Regarding the cookie recipe, I’m afraid that once I saw the phrase, “making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie”, I would have promptly wadded the recipe up and flung it violently across the room. Then I would have felt obligated to melt a Hershy bar in the microwave and dip Fritos in the chocolate goo, all the while seething about how pretentious foodies and their pretentious fucking recipes make my ass hurt.
BUT. Having said that…I do think sprinkling some salt on them before baking is a FABULOUS idea. I’m a big fan of sweet-and-salty, so I’m going to try that on my next batch of boring, non-gourmet chocolate chip cookies. 😉
The salt *was* a pretty tasty addition, I’ll admit. I may try it next time I make my own favorite cookies!
But Robyn, did you turn each chocolate chip so it was horizontal?
Of course not – OBVIOUSLY that’s what I did wrong! 🙂
I’m thinking if I want a chocolate chip cookie I want it NOW – not 36 hours from NOW. ugh.
I know, right? And by the time 36 hours is up, I’m thinking my craving would have passed.
I am very glad that Dorothy has a forever home, I have been fantasizing about buying a plane ticket and trying to adopt her myself. She is such a gorgeous little thing, there is just something about her that makes me melt.
I was curious, do you only eat sweets on the weekend? That seems like a great idea, and I vaguely remember something about you and Fred having a “free” night, or something like that?
I didn’t mention it in my previous comment, but I’m a little bitter that somebody besides me is getting Dorfy. (And yes, I *know* it’s “Dorothy”, but I’ve been calling her “Dorfy” in my head since your first post about her.) For some reason, out of all the adorable kittens you’ve fostered over the years, Miss Dorfy is the one that stole my heart. I guess I should be happy that she obviously had the same effect on somebody else. Still…the disappointment, it burns!
I understand completely, Lisa – at least you can take solace in the fact that we’ll be able to demand update pictures! 🙂
Clove reminds me of the Hunger Games – which reminds me that I wanted to ask you if you read the trilogy and if you liked it or not. I’m currently obsessed with the casting for the movie – not due out till March 23, 2012. 🙂
I did – and I did! 🙂 I don’t know about Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, but I haven’t seen her in Winter’s Bone yet, so I’m reserving judgement.
We have guardian dogs in with our goats. Our dogs are about 8 years old and have had cats around the outside of the pen the whole time they have been here. Last week one of our cats must have cut thru the barnyard as I found her dead. The dog probably grabbed her and held her to visit with her and it was too rough. I have had him grab two cats before, he just sort of holds them with his paws. The two previous cats were fine, but sore. I was there to get him to let them up with the other two. I was devastated by the loss of Lily and was very angry at the dog. But, he was taking care of the goats and the same dog stood between me and 3 huge black wolves one day; he would lay down his life for me and the goats. He would not leave the body until I put him in the barn, he was licking her. There were no puncture wounds on her, I think he squeezed too hard. We have the fencing surrounded by chicken wire, which we have raised to 6 feet in height, it looked like the cats had figured everything out and knew better. I don’t know what she was thinking, I only know that I miss her terribly and feel awful about her death. So, while Grace and George may not mean any harm, it can happen. Bergy seemed to be depressed and upset for days. I don’t know if he was getting that from me or if he truly realized what he did. The dogs are a threat just because of their size, even if they intend no harm. I have had non-cat people tell me I should not be that upset, I still have 14 cats to love on.. they just do not understand. I miss and love you Lily and I am so sorry I didn’t keep you safe 🙁
Aww, Robin, I’m so sorry for your loss. 🙁
I’ve never actually seen any of the outside cats inside the back forty (I’m hoping that George and Gracie are scary enough to keep them out), and I hope they continue to stay out!