9/8/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday

Attention, those of you in the Roanoke, VA area! Barbara needs help finding a home (or a rescue) for a dog: The dog is ours, Dodger. He is an Australian Shepherd/Collie mix. We got him in April as a 6 week puppy. To cut to the chase, he is aggressive towards our youngest, Erin, who … Continue reading “9/8/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday”

Attention, those of you in the Roanoke, VA area! Barbara needs help finding a home (or a rescue) for a dog:

The dog is ours, Dodger. He is an Australian Shepherd/Collie mix. We got him in April as a 6 week puppy. To cut to the chase, he is aggressive towards our youngest, Erin, who is 7, and shook one of our cats so badly, she is at the vets with a spinal cord injury and we are trying to decide what to do…. We have 6 other cats that I have kept inside, because I didn’t feel like putting Dodger in his kennel is fair either. But the cats are in/out cats so that isn’t fair to them. He has collie coloring, but the blue/brown eye combo of a shepherd. He loves to run. He would do well in a house with teenagers and no cats. Our shelter is full, I tried the Australian shepherd rescue group and haven’t heard back, and I tried a local no kill, and haven’t heard back from them either.

Our animals add so much to our lives, but this is the hard part, isn’t it? Finding a safe home for the pet who hurt our beloved Tabby Dabby, and trying to decide if Tabby needs put down.

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If you can help or know a person or rescue who can or have any questions, please email me (mizrobyn (at) gmail (dot) com), and I’ll pass your email on to Barbara.

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Attention, those of you in the NYC/ NJ area! Gail’s looking for help:

A kitten literally followed me into my car this morning. Literally. First day of school (I’m a teacher). Sigh. NYC is famous for alley cats. I can’t help them all, but when one runs over to you in a moving car…

And I still have three warehouse kittens. And am moving in 20 days. If you could think of anything to help, I would appreciate it.

BTW, all he does in purr and purr and lick and snuggle. And eat.

Here he is pre-bath:

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Here are some pics of him cleaned up. They are bad, because he doesn’t know how to be still. He took a bath and didn’t fuss, and allowed me to blow dry him. He is a charmer for sure, just can’t be still.

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If anyone can help, or has any ideas or questions for Gail, please email me (mizrobyn (at) gmail (dot) com) and I’ll pass your emails along to her!

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Sights from around Crooked Acres (and elsewhere!)

On Saturday, we went up to Ardmore, Tennessee to go to the Dog Days Flea Market. It’s an outdoor flea market that’s held every Sunday and Monday, except for Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, when it’s held Friday through Monday. We usually go up there on Sundays when we have nothing to do around the house and Fred is bored and just wants to go out and do something. We got, I think, our second set of pigs there, and when we had turkeys, that’s where they came from. Oh, and we’ve gotten a few chickens there, too.

(Please note that these aren’t the best pictures on earth, because I was taking pictures in a sneaky hold-the-camera-out-and-hope-I-get-the-pic fashion.)

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I cannot believe I left without making Fred buy this thing for me. Wouldn’t it look fabulous on the front porch?

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I’d love to have some of those old blue Ball ( ::snicker:: )(I am 14 years old) canning jars, but the last time I checked the price on one, it was $8, and I don’t know if that’s a good price or not, but I have plenty of non-old canning jars I’m just as happy to use.

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I would not recommend buying your Muscle Milk or batteries at the flea market, but I did buy six bottles of Sunsilk hair gel there once and it worked just fine.

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I should have bought this sign for the chicken coop. Who doesn’t want some Funk-y corn?

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Most of the people who sell their wares at the flea market have campers or tents to stay in. This person apparently just plopped their cot down in the middle of the grass. Looks kind of comfy, but I don’t know how they handled the nighttime creepy crawlies.

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Old tins.

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More junk. (Someone needs to get that boy statue to the doctor. He’s GRAY.)

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Acupuncture at the flea market! Free demo!

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We always have to stop and look through the videos, even though the only VCR we own is out in the garage.

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I have informed everyone I’m related to and who might have a say in the matter that if I end up in a cemetery with one of these fake arrangements on my grave, I’ll be coming back to haunt them ALL.

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Knockoff purses.

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Rifles everywhere at the flea market.

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Isn’t this the neatest thing? HOW did I leave without buying that thing? It’s so cool and would have looked perfect on the side of the coop!

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Metal chicken! (But not giant one.)

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This is probably my least favorite part of the flea market, the selling of puppies. Actually, no. My least favorite part is the part where the puppies are hundreds of dollars, but the cages of kittens who occasionally show up are free. (This time around, there were no kittens at all.)

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Did you need a fire hydrant? I bet George and Gracie would have loved to have their very own!

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Lots of people selling home-canned goods, too.

We didn’t buy any of that stuff – honestly, we rarely buy anything at Dog Days that isn’t living – but we did buy something to make Fred happy. On the drive up there, we were talking about ducks (because we weren’t even pretending that we were going up there for anything OTHER than ducks at this point) and Fred was talking about how many ducks we should get. I told him I’d prefer to have an even number of them, two or four (not that he doesn’t know what an even number is, but I didn’t want him to think I meant twelve or fourteen!), and he thought that was funny. When we found a booth with little ducks, there was a cage of about ten itty bitty ducks, but we didn’t want the tiny ones. In the next cage over? Four ducks who were maybe not teenage ducks, but somewhere between toddlers and teenagers (tweens?). We snatched ’em up and got out of there.

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Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Bob. (I’m joking. They all look the same to me. And no, we don’t know what sex they are yet. I’m hoping for three girls and a boy, but four girls would be fine with me. With our luck, though, they’re all boys. I think girl Rouens are prettier than the males.)

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Manna from heaven! (Or scratch from Fred. One or the other!)

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Underwater duck!

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Smilin’ duck.

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Bob bobs.

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“Hey, guys, what’s THAT? That’s a BIG pool! We can really go swimmin’ in that one!”

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Note that Bob’s over there in the Rubbermaid pool.

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But then he saw the attraction of a bigger pool.

These ducks will get in any water they see. Katherine was visiting yesterday, and we looked over and there were two ducks in the dogs’ water dish. Fred told me he was out there the other day, and one of the ducks sat down in a tiny little puddle of water. So cute, these ducks. I hope they don’t grow up obnoxious.

(The ducks are not future food, by the way. They’re purely for entertainment purposes. If any of them are girls, and they lay eggs, we’ll use their eggs to bake with, but as far as eating duck? I’m not interested. Not that I’ve had any experience with eating duck, but I also don’t eat goat, and I’m okay with that!)

Randomness:

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Morning Glories are so very pretty.

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That’s right, Sam’s Club. Lecture me on sensible eating when there was a display of Little Debbie snack cakes behind me when I snapped this picture. (But I DID buy those apple straws and they ARE way too good and I will NEVER buy any more because they’re TOO good!)

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The Peppers Gang have been spayed and neutered! They were very unhappy with me on the ride up to the vet. And then poor Molly actually HISSED at me when I picked up their carriers, so was so scared. But they did well (they hissed at the vet tech, but weren’t mean about it, she told me) and now THAT’s done and over with, and we get to just enjoy having them around ’til it’s time for them to go off to Petsmart. In a few days, we’ll give them more room to roam, and then if that goes well, we’ll see how they do in Gen Pop. Jake’s going to be in hog heaven, because he sure loves watching the little ones run around and play!

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Would you look at that bratty teenage attitude?

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Lucy in motion.

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“What doin’, lady?”

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Lucy tellin’ secrets.

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Got it!

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Everett’s face, though blurry, cracks me UP.

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Everett gets a snuggle from Fred.

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No pictures of Charlie and Patty today (it was a busy day yesterday), but they did get baths last night, and definitely look better. They also look a lot more bright-eyed than they did just two days ago, and in fact last night Fred had Charlie rolling around on his back purring and kneading the air. I just wish their big, swollen, worm-filled bellies would go down some (I’m seeing worms in the litter box, so the medication is starting to work!) and if I saw them play just a tiny bit, that would make me happy, too.

I saw Charlie grooming Patty last night, and I pretty much died from the cute.

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Poor Tommy – everyone just loves him so very much, he can’t get a moment to himself. (That’s Loony Jake laying on top of him.)

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Previously
2010: For today, feast your eyes upon the sheer gorgeous stripey perfection of the kitty known as Corby McGee.
2009: It’s like we’ve entered another universe completely.
2008: Yes, more chickens.
2007: No entry.
2006: I think that “Proven to be beneficial to livers” should be Fred’s new tagline.
2005: Give me some of that, Barbara Bush, you ignoramus.
2004: No entry.
2003: Because believe it or not, it never once occurred to me that the Walton family was comprised of hillbillies.
2002: Look, I drink a gallon of water a day. I need to know that I can pee when I need to, so stop rolling your eyes at me.
2001: No entry.
2000: Can I tell you how much I loathe Bret Easton Ellis?