Category: Crooked Acres

Ever have one of those days when there’s ONE thing you really need to get accomplished by the end of the day, but at the end of the day, it remains undone?

I had one of those days yesterday.

I did laundry, then had to use the dryer instead of hanging it out to dry because it looked like it could rain.

I chopped cucumbers and onions to make sweet pickle relish – good god, what a time-consuming pain in the ass, but I didn’t want to use the food processor, because I like my sweet pickle relish to have those little cubes rather than shreds. I could have used my Vidalia Chop Wizard, but that died a few months ago in a tragic “GODDAMN IT, YOU WILL CHOP THIS ONION, WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS???” accident that might have involved someone putting it on the floor and stepping on it, then bouncing up and down to force it to chop the Teflon-skinned onion someone was trying to chop. After chopping and chopping and chopping for hours yesterday, I ordered a new Vidalia Chop Wizard so that in three years when the 6 half-pints of sweet pickle relish I made yesterday AND the five half-pints I made a few weeks ago are used up, I won’t have to chop by hand (although I’m sure my Chop Wizard will have died again by then. Don’t they make a version of that thing that is NOT made of plastic?).

I paid bills and balanced the checkbook, which I’d been putting off since the middle of last week.

I ran over to the post office to drop off a box and to mail my bills.

I got home and checked my mail, to find that a book I’d dropped in the mail box at the post office on Friday was over 13 ounces, so they attached a “Bitch, I don’t even think so. You have to hand this to a person. IT MIGHT BE A BOMB AND HANDING IT OVER TO A PERSON IN PERSON WILL ENSURE THAT IT IS NOT A BOMB.” sticker to the front.

I went through the buckets of vegetables Fred had brought in from the garden on Sunday, picked out the oversized zucchini to feed to the chickens (they adore that zucchini), washed off the cherry tomatoes and put them in a bowl to finish ripening (the majority of them tend to have just a tinge of green when Fred brings them in. Sitting on the counter for a day usually takes care of that), washed off the remaining zucchini and summer squash, and looked balefully at the ONE partially-ripe tomato sitting on the counter. We have 50-something tomato plants, and have gotten just a handful of tomatoes. I suspect that in a week or two, I’m going to be awash in mostly-ripe tomatoes and I cannot WAIT. I’m planning to make my own ketchup this year!

I put laundry away and threw a load of towels in to wash.

I had to go to the bank to deposit checks and of COURSE I didn’t think to bring a magazine or book with me. And of COURSE I didn’t think about actually going inside the bank to make my deposit until after I was trapped in the drive-thru. So I sat there for 15 minutes and cleaned out my purse, used a wet wipe to wipe down the dashboard, looked in vain at my pocket calendar, checked my phone for games to play (there are no games on my cell phone, damnit, except for a trial version of Ms. Pac Man) and just generally cursed this whole fucking antiquated business where people write on pieces of paper, necessitating that you have to take said pieces of paper TO THE BANK to get your money, and what is this, 1734? Can’t they just mentally zap the money into my checking account or something? GEEZ.

Since I was in that end of town anyway, I decided to go check the PO Box. I don’t check it that often, because I’m usually not expecting anything, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and I figured at the very least there’d be magazines I have no desire to read so that I could get annoyed by the previous owner of the PO Box for not filling out the card to have her mail forwarded. I wasn’t quite sure what my exact PO Box address is (I haven’t memorized it yet), so I called Fred and made him check my contact page so I could be sure. Then I went into the post office and my fucking key would NOT open the box.

I called Fred and double-checked to be sure I had it right. I did, I tried it again, and the key would go in, but it wouldn’t turn. I stood in line for 10 minutes, told the lady at the counter my problem. “Oh,” she said. “Your rent must be due. Would you like to pay it?” I said I would, and she went to bring up the account for me, but since I wasn’t within 30 days of the bill being due, I couldn’t pay it. In other words, the rent? Not due yet. She went back and looked at the box and checked with someone, then told me that she’d pull “the green stick” (I didn’t ask) out, and I should be all set.

I went back, and again the key went in and wouldn’t turn. I went back and stood in line for another five minutes so I could tell her that it wasn’t working. She went off to consult with someone, who eventually came out and went to the box with me, saw the nonworking nature of my key, and went back into the back to see what the hell was going on. It appears that the issue of Garden & Gun magazine that Douchey McGee, the previous box owner, was subscribed to had been pushed up so that it was under the turning mechanism, thus stopping the turning mechanism from, well, turning. I’ll be writing to those goddamn magazines (Douchey McGee also received her monthly issue of Entrepreneur as well as Parenting. Well-rounded interests, that Douchey.) to stop the subscriptions from arriving.

I had hoped to be home from my errands by noon – by the time I got home, it was almost 1:00. I went out and gave the dogs their mid-day snack (shaddup), tossed scratch to the chickens, checked for eggs, and then came inside and ate lunch. We had BLTs for dinner the other night – the bacon from our most recent pig; we took them to a different place for processing this time around, and they smoked the bacon for us and HOLY CRAP was it good – and there were two pieces of bacon left over, so I had a BLT for lunch.

It was fabulous.

After lunch, I drained the chopped-up cucumbers/ red and green bell peppers/ onion, made the syrup for the pickle relish, boiled the whole mess for five minutes, canned it all up, put it in the water canner, and then cleaned the kitchen while the canned pickle relish boiled merrily for ten minutes. I think I mentioned that I ended up with 6 half-pints of the stuff. The perfect addition to chicken or egg salad! And best of all, I think we can skip a year of cucumbers, unless the gherkins I’m going to make next week (assuming I have enough cucumbers) are so good that I need to make more next year.

Once the canning of the relish was done, I pulled the zucchini and summer squash out of the fridge, sliced up a shitload of it, dipped and coated it, oven-fried it, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer (still on the baking sheets) to freeze. Once it was frozen, I piled up all the slices and popped them in a freezer bag. This winter, all I’ll have to do is bake those ’til they’re heated through, and we’ll have ourselves a decent side dish with whatever the hell we’re eating.

We are some squash-loving motherfuckers.

While the squash was cooking, I pulled the ears of corn out of the fridge and started cutting the kernels off the cobs. Fred harvested a load of corn last week, and I boiled up a couple of ears and it was really good, so I froze the rest of it. Then he waited too long to harvest the rest of the corn, and it got past the point of being any good, which we discovered on Saturday when we were eating corn on the cob with our burgers. It was chewy and just plain gross. Since we can’t toss ears of corn on the cob into the big chicken yard lest George and Gracie snatch them up, eat them, and then require $63 million in vet care (eating the cobs can cause intestinal blockages), I decided to cut the corn off and toss the kernels in the big chicken yard, and the leftover cobs in the little chicken yard (there was enough corn left on the cobs to make it worth their while for the chickens to peck at the cobs).

I’d just tossed the cobs into the little chicken yard and the kernels into the big chicken yard when someone pulled into the driveway. I looked at the time and cursed Fred’s existence. Someone was stopping by to buy hatching eggs, and Fred KNEW that, but it was just after 3:30 (he’d told them he’d be home at 3:30), and where was Fred? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, THAT’S WHERE. I answered the door, made sure it was the egg-buying guy (it was), then called Fred on his cell phone to find out how many eggs they were buying, and how much. When he sells eggs on eBay, he sends out 14 eggs to allow for egg breakage in shipping, so I wasn’t sure if he maybe gives in-person egg buyers 14 eggs as well. (He does not.)

As the egg buyer was pulling out, Fred pulled into the driveway. We talked for a few minutes, then he went out into the garden to make more work for me because he’s a hateful motherfucker. I puttered around the kitchen, and eventually started dinner.

For dinner last night: sausage browned with onions and chopped-up zucchini, mixed with spaghetti sauce, served over spaghetti squash. Side dishes: roasted pattypan squash (sliced too thin, as it turned out) and oven-fried sliced okra. It was pretty freakin’ good, if I do say so myself – and we’ll be eating it again tonight, this time with thicker roasted pattypan squash.

After dinner, I dealt with the produce Fred had brought inside, then sat in front of the computer and Googled pattypan squash recipes. I got a sudden brilliant idea – why not dehydrate zucchini slices, which I could rehydrate in the future to use as lasagna noodles? So I Googled around about dehydrating zucchini slices and found a bunch of information about dehydrating shredded zucchini, which you can then rehydrate and use in zucchini bread, or just toss into soups and stews. So today, I’ll be running the dehydrator!

I had enough time before I was due to do Snackin! Time! to go out and fill up the bird feeders and refill the bird baths, so I did that. By the time I was done with that, I had a few minutes to do a little more reading on Google about dehydrating zucchini slices (to blanch or not to blanch first, that is the question I am pondering), then it was Snackin! Time! I fed the cats, scooped the litter boxes, cleaned up the kitchen (the cats make more of a mess in a five minute Snackin! Time! session than I make all day long, I swear to god), and then it was Snackin! Time! for Fred and I, and we settled down in front of the TV. He put in a movie, and I surfed on my laptop.

(Side note: We’re working our way through Season 7 of CSI (Vegas), and I have to say that if Sara Sidle says ONE MORE THING that she thinks is clever and then PURSES HER GODDAMN LIPS TO INDICATE HER SEXY, SEXY WIT, I will go through the TV screen and I will throttle her.)

(Other side note: I’ve told Fred that Gil Grissom is totally the weirdo at Thanksgiving dinner. So when he goes off on one of his informative tangents, lecturing to his fellow CSIs, I say, in a whiny kid’s voice, “Mooooooooom, Uncle Gil is DOING IT AGAIN!”)

(Other other side note: It drives me crazy when one CSI finds a weird piece of evidence and says, basically “Golly, I wonder why that is?” so that the other CSI can condescendingly explain what’s going on so we stupid, stupid viewers won’t be left in the dark.)

(Last side note: All bitching aside, I really do enjoy the show. I swear!)

We went off to bed at 9, and guess what? The one thing I woke up wanting to get accomplished that morning didn’t get done. This house desperately needs to be vacuumed in the worst way.

Guess I know what I’ll be doing today!

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This rooster cracks me UP. He’s part Crested Polish, thus the mohawk. I love his devil-horns comb!

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I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before – Dwight is a sniffer. Every night while we’re watching TV, he climbs up on Fred, and he sniffs Fred’s breath. Then he tries to stick his nose up Fred’s nostril. He’s not picky, though – usually a couple of times a day he’ll approach me and try to stuff his entire head in my mouth, wildly sniffing the entire time. I don’t know if he’s doing a breath check, checking to be sure we’ve brushed our teeth, or hoping to find some food in there, or what. It’s seriously cute.

Phyllis and Creed are both sniffers, too, but not to the extent that Dwight is. They’re hobby sniffers – Dwight, on the other hand, would like to make it his career. I wonder how much a breath-and-nostril sniffer makes these days?

She is SUCH a pretty girl.

“What?”

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Note the droplets of water on his nose.

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Previously
2008: Here’s a tip: if someone teases you about being a Housewife of Doom and a perfectionist, it is difficult to refute that assertion if you’re caught in a compromising position.
2007: No entry.
2006: Damn freaky cats.
2005: “It’s cancer,” Fred said. “That’s a tumorous lip if I’ve ever seen one!”
2004: I didn’t tell her that I think scars are badass and it can scar up all it wants.
2003: God, I hate people.
2002: No entry.
2001: So the house situation, oh what a story it is.
2000: This week, the devil won.

Attention, those of you who own netbooks and love them – tell me what kind you’ve got and whether they’re super-simple to use. I like my laptop, but I really want something smaller. And since I use it solely to check my email and surf the web, I don’t need anything fancy. So what do y’all recommend? The simpler to use, the better!

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You know how it is when you have ten million errands to run, but all you want to do is get home? Friday was like that for me. I left here at a little after 6:30, headed to the pet store to scoop litterboxes, clean cages, and give kittens lots of love.

Bessie was there, but at least she’s not in a cage by herself – she’s now in a cage with two other black kittens, who are around her age. She was happy to see me, happier still to run and play with the other kittens, and when I put her back in her cage with her new siblings, she was happy to eat and flop down for a nap.

I took pictures at the pet store; you can see ’em over here.

From there, I went to Target and shopped for a few things (I’d tell you what, but honest to god, I don’t even remember. I’m sure it was very important.), then left there to go to Sam’s for litter. A LOT of litter. Six 40-pound buckets of litter, to be exact. (Also, toothbrushes and gum.) God bless Sam’s and their 40-pound buckets of litter, is what I say.

Then I drove down University Drive to Garden Cove. Garden Cove is a health food store that I like to visit a few times a year. They have really good produce and I always end up buying some organic animal crackers and other stuff while I’m there. The main point for my visit on Friday was to buy more powdered Slippery Elm bark – I’ve bought it in bulk there before, and it’s very reasonably priced. When I walked in, though, there were no bulk spice bins, and as I wandered through the store, there were empty shelves everywhere. It kind of looked like it was going out of business, and they had no powdered Slippery Elm bark at all. I bought the last bag of animal crackers, and left.

(The powdered Slippery Elm bark was for the foster kittens. You sprinkle it on their food, and it’s supposed to help stop the diarrhea. I’ve been using it on their baby food (they’re also getting Alb0n) and needed to replenish my supply.)

I headed back through Huntsville to Madison, and stopped at the health food store in Madison to see if perhaps they had any powdered Slippery Elm bark. A quick walk through the store told me that even if they did carry it (though I didn’t see it anywhere), it would have been way too expensive for me. That place is EXPENSIVE, but since it’s located in Madison, what did I expect?

From there, I went to have my hair cut. I don’t think I’ve had my hair cut in three or four months. I had canceled my last appointment because Fred and I had to take Spanky to the vet, and then I just kept putting it off. I really like the way my hair chick cuts my hair, but I REALLY hate to have my hair colored. It’s sitting there for so long with the color on my hair that just gets on my nerves and I always dread it. Finally, after months of putting off doing anything about my hair, I came to the brilliant conclusion that I could, indeed, get a cut without having her color my hair.

So I did. And then yesterday, I colored my own hair. And saved about $40 in the process. Go, me!

I left there and went over to Kohl’s to return some jeans and try on more pants. After about an hour of shopping, I ended up buying some jeans and a pair of capris.

From there, I went over to TJ Maxx, browsed for a while, bought nothing.

Went to the bank, cashed a check.

Went to the grocery store, bought groceries.

By the time I got home, it was 12:30. SIX hours after I’d left, and I had a shitload of stuff to haul inside and put away (though I left the buckets of litter for Fred to deal with) and all I wanted to do was eat lunch, spend some time with the kittens, and take a nap. So after I put everything away, I spent some time with the kittens and then? Yes, I took a nap.

Well-deserved, I say.

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Fred has been brushing George and Gracie just about every day. They’re losing their winter coat at an astounding rate, and the fur’s been coming off in fistfuls. There was so much dog hair spread across the back forty that I told him it looked like he’d been slaughtering dogs out there.

He got a brush at the pet store the other day to use in addition to the Furminator, and after he’d brushed George and Gracie with it on Saturday, he came in and proclaimed it the best! brush! ever! (I’m pretty sure it’s this one.) He made me go out to admire how pretty the dogs looked when he was done, and I’ve gotta say – they looked awfully good!

(Which was negated a mere minutes later when they started rolling around in the dirt, of course.)

Gracie found the brush and decided it was hers.

Keeping an eye on the cats. Gracie in the front, George in the back. You can see that he’s huge compared to her (and she’s pretty big to begin with!).

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The pigs are slated to go off to freezer camp in three weeks or so.

“We’re going to CAMP? Oh boy!”

We’re using a new… uh. “Camp counselor,” shall we say, so Saturday morning we drove out to make sure we know where it’s located. We found it easily enough, so then we swung by Lacon Trade Days to see what there was to see. There wasn’t much to see, actually, though it’s probably a miracle that we left without buying any chickens. There were a LOT of chickens there.

Fred bought a $3 pair of gloves, and after one last meandering through the shacks that make up the market, we headed for home. Stopped by Target and PetSmart first – there were groceries I needed to pick up at Target, and then while Fred checked out I embarrassed him by standing off to the side and reading the latest article in US about The Most Evil Woman On Earth, Kate Gosselin (gossip must be slow these days, eh?), and then we finally headed for home, for real.

Fred had just gone out to work in the garden when someone pulled into the driveway and honked his horn. I paid no attention, figuring they wanted to buy eggs, but after Fred had been standing out there talking to a guy for ten minutes, I began to suspect it might be more than that. Sure enough, the guy wanted to buy 10 chickens. Ten! After all these days of having the “Chickens for sale” sign out and no one showing any interest at all, we finally sold some chickens.

Then later that night, he got an email from someone interested in buying another 10 chickens and a rooster. Yesterday, his wife and kids stopped by to see the chickens and leave a check, and next weekend they’ll be picking them up (they’re still building their coop). Twenty chickens sold in the space of two days!

(We sell another 40 or so, and I’ll consider us to be down to a realistic number of chickens for the two of us.)

Later, Lisa – who also volunteers for the shelter I volunteer for – stopped by to see the place and (more importantly, the foster kittens!), and Miz Poo responded by acting like no one had EVER given her love EVER in her life EVER EVER EVER, oh please pet me! Everyone else responded by running for the hills like they were being attacked.

Well, except Joe Bob, who had slipped out of his collar for the millionth time and was hanging out on the side porch – OUTSIDE the fenced back yard, where he is NOT supposed to be – and when I opened the door, he moseyed in like he had every right in the world to be on the side porch.

Damn cat.

Saturday night, we watched He’s Just Not that into You, which I’ve gotta say, I really liked. It probably helps that there was no one in the movie I didn’t like (Fred has a man crush on Bradley Cooper, and who can blame him?) The movie did seem to be a little long, but I’d recommend it.

And on a side note – good god almighty, Ben Affleck has got to have the biggest head in all of Hollywood. I know I mention that just about every time I see him in anything, but it’s true! I have nothing but sympathy for Jennifer Garner, who seems intent on birthing lots of Affleck babies. She’s been lucky so far, but sooner or later one of those babies is going to come out with the Affleck noggin, and things are never going to be the same.

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Brudderly love.

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Sunday morning, I glanced out the window to see Sugarbutt staring intently at something. So I went to investigate.

I don’t know where he came from, but he seemed pretty sure of where he was going. Fred carried him out to the back forty so he wouldn’t have to crawl all the way out there on his own (and probably freak out the dogs along the way). The turtle responded by snapping at him.

That’s gratitude for ya.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Today, no weeding for me.
2006: Apparently I’m high. And in desperate need of makeup.
2005: By this time the investigator’s eyes had glazed over, and he was clearly thinking “This has WHAT to do with reliability?”
2004: When I was on the pier, the bream darted forward to partake of my delicious thighs, and I stomped across the pier as fast as I could, saying “STOP IT, YOU FUCKERS!” and I stomped up the steps to the top part of the pier, and waited for Fred to take his face out of the water.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: But. It. Was. Too. Far. From. Huntsville.
2000: Oh look, it’s Robyn, bitching. How unusual.

Reader Jennifer has a cat-related question. I don’t have any advice for her, but I thought y’all might have some suggestions.

I’m a long time reader of your blog and I am hoping that you could post this so that I could get some advice from yourself and some of your cat loving readers. I have a 14 year old male fixed cat named Tigger. He’s been healthy all of his life until about the last year or so when he started having bowel movements outside the litter box. At first it was only once in awhile and I thought it was because he was constipated, they were very hard and dry. I started giving him canned and dry food and that seemed to solve the problem. I also had taken him to the vet who gave him a physical, there was nothing wrong with him. Also I tried the Feliway infuser, I don’t think it made any difference. Then it started up again last fall, again it was only once in awhile so I wasn’t too upset about it. Then shortly after Xmas it started to be everyday and then I saw him urinating outside of the litter box. I took him to a different vet who did bloodwork and a physical and again nothing wrong with him. She gave me some suggestions about litter box retraining, I will make a long story short and say that I have done everything she suggested and it has not seemed to work. I don’t want to go back to her because she is pushing me to buy their brand of expensive vet food which I cannot afford. At this point we have him confined to a small area with a baby gate across the doorway, it is our main floor bathroom and laundry area. His food is in the bathroom and litter box in the hallway. He will use the litter boxes when he is confined but not when he is free to roam the house. I don’t want him to live like this, it is hardly fair to him to be confined to such a small area but I can’t let him out to eliminate outside of his litter box. We have a 9 month old baby girl who just started crawling and I can’t take the chance that she is going to get into cat waste. I suppose having the baby is what is causing his stress and that is why he is eliminating outside of the box. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to put him down because of this. I’m hoping someone will have some suggestions for me. We are short on $$, I’m on maternity leave and my husband was off work for a few months. I can’t afford a lot of expensive vet bills. Any suggestions would be really appreciated. I’m afraid if we can’t solve his problem we are just going to have to leave him confined to the area he is in or put him down and no one wants that.

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When I read Elayne‘s comment from yesterday, I snickered and then I giggled and then I snorted.

I had a dream last night about you. You were doing a sort of video-entry (what’s the name for those?) where you had mounted a camera to your shoulder so it was as if we were peering over your shoulder as you went about your daily tasks. You were cleaning in the kitchen and then you said how much you love having a septic system because it makes laundry so easy – you just drop the towels right down the sink (and here you.. just dropped the towels right down the sink) and the septic tank gets them nice and clean. Then you went into the bathroom to clean in there, and you said that for sinks with small drains, such as in the bathrooms, it was easier to flush whatever dirty clothes you had down the toilet, and you demonstrated this with a pair of socks and a pair of jeans.

You said that the septic tank had a sort of grid over the top of it, and the clothes got caught up on the grid, and the water and chemicals would wash over them from subsequent flushes/sink-drainings/etc. Then all you had to do was go out once a day, hoist the grid up, and let the clothes dry in the sunshine, and it was just the best thing ever. You said the only problem was when it was rainy and you had to haul the wet clothes into the house to dry, and I was yelling at my computer screen, “That’s the ONLY problem? The piss and shit and stuff that rushes over your clothes every time you flush a toilet, THAT doesn’t bother you in any way?!? Have you LOST YOUR MIND?” But it was the internet, you couldn’t hear me.

The worst part is, in the comments, people were saying what a fabulous idea that was and how they couldn’t believe they’d never thought of it, and several people said they were going to re-do their standard “city water” hookup and switch over to a septic tank system so they could do the same thing. Others said they’d also been doing it for years, and I resolved never to leave the house again lest I accidentally brush up against someone who washed their clothes this way.

You owe me several hours of sleep! (c:

Rereading my last sentence in the second paragraph, I’m LOLing:

On the internet, no one can hear you scream.

*snerk*

I don’t know why it made me laugh so much, except that it almost seems plausible that I could come up with something boneheaded like that, and then rave about how much easier it made my life while completely ignoring the down sides of my brilliant new idea.

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Scenes from around Crooked Acres:

Cucumber plants are blooming! Now that we’ve had some dry weather, the garden’s starting to take off. We had our first oven-fried summer squash last night.

Nest-building in the garden shed. Ugh.

Evidence of mice in the garden shed. Nice of them to leave the pecan shells behind, isn’t it? (I wish I could shell a pecan half as well!)

Brandywine. These tomatoes can’t grow fast enough to suit me!

Cherry tomatoes. Can’t wait to have these on a salad!

This Robin was hanging out on the tomato cages; I caught her in mid-flight.

Corn!

I tell Fred that this little chicken (one of the batch we got from the hatchery – we don’t know what kind it is) reminds me of a road runner, it’s so tall and lean.

Check out the stinkeye I’m getting from the chick, second from the left. “We are trying to ROOST here, please leave us ALONE.”

Yes, wee baby chicken, please roost with your butt hanging over the food. I think your brothers and sisters don’t get enough chicken poop in their daily diet.

I don’t remember intentionally hatching a part-Polish egg, but it appears we must have. Check out the mohawk!

Someone’s ALWAYS crowing.

“Heya, Georgie, howyadoin? Mind if I hang out up here for a bit?”

“There appears to be a distinct lack of food up here.”

“Seeya!”

Dry weather and sunshine = dust bath!

Watching Fred on the tractor.

The many faces of George.

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Phyllis: Always smiling.

Creed: Always looking for a cuddle.

Dwight: Always playing like a little wild thing.

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Disapproving of you.

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Previously
2008: I suggest that you expect entries to be incredibly light on content for the foreseeable future.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar.
2003: I’m about to enter the PMS Zone
2002: What I’ve done since Thursday
2001: No entry.
2000: God help me, I’m going to go upstairs and strangle Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling.

Yesterday, I finally got around to taking all the recycling stuff to the recycling center, and after that I ran to Wal-Mart because I had some clothes to return.

One of these days, I’ll learn that buying clothes without trying them on first is never a good move for me.

So I returned the clothes, and went back to grab a shopping cart. As I approached the area where the greeter stands and the carts are kept, I heard her talking to a man sitting in a wheelchair. It sounded like she was talking about a lightweight wheelchair, one that was easy to fold up and put in the back of a car.

“I’m going to need one of those when I retire,” she said. “I have artificial legs.”

There are people in this world who can hear a sentence like that and NOT go all bug-eyed and whip their head around to get a gander at this woman’s legs. I call these people “not me.” I took a good long look at her legs before I could help myself.

They looked perfectly normal (ie, non-artificial to me), but that could be because she was wearing slaaaaacks, and I couldn’t see her actual legs for myself.

If I had a job where I was around the public all the time, I bet I’d play games where I’d wait ’til an unsuspecting nosy-looking person came close, and then I’d casually slip in a sentence guaranteed to make them turn around and look. I’d make it a game where I awarded myself points for every double-take I could rack up in eight hours.

“He loved his cat so much he married it. It ain’t right, if you ask me.”

(The clothes I returned almost completely paid for two bags of dog food. Yay!)

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In case you were wondering how to make your cat yodel:

(Fred sent me that link yesterday, and I made the mistake of taking a drink of water while watching it. Shooting water out your nose = painful.)

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I found a kitten who the vet says is about five weeks old. I’ve never had a cat that young. After I fed her, I showed her the litterbox ( I have another cat) and she sniffed around, climbed out, and immediately disappeared into one of the many hidey holes that are in my basement, which is partially finished and totally cluttered. After several hours, we found her and were able to grab her, and I brought her upstairs where she snuggled and purred and played and slept and seemed quite friendly. After she ate again, I brought her down to the litterbox again, and she pulled the disappearing kitty act again. That was last night, and she hasn’t come out since, excpet once to wail for food, but she darted behind the wall where we couldn’t get her. There is food down there, but I’m not sure if at 5 weeks old she’ll know to come out and get it. Can a kitten that age be expected to be able to negotiate a flight of stairs to get to her food and litterbox, or, when I catch her again, should I put her in some kind of cage until she’s older. I want to inculcate good litter box habits early, and all the other kittens i’ve ever had got it if you plopped them in the box right after feeding them, but they were all at least 8 weeks. Do you think I should contineu to give her the run of the house, or is she too little for that?

My recommendation would be to confine the kitten to one or two rooms if it’s possible, or if it’s not, then by all means put her in a cage when you’re not actively playing with or cuddling her. I think she’s probably still a little young to remember where everything’s located – when we get fosters that young, they stay in one room (well, a room and a walk-in closet) for the first couple of weeks, then they gradually get more room to roam. When I got Beulah & Bessie and their brothers, they were about seven weeks old and not really *quite* to the point where they were using the litter box all the time. I think you’re going to want to give your baby a few weeks of having the litter box and food right by her before you give her the run of the house.

I hope that helps, and let me know if you have any questions!

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I would trade the banner for the threaded comments anyday but that is not a request just an opinion.

Well, we’re not giving up – Fred thinks there’s a way to make it so we can have this design and threaded comments, but it’ll have to wait ’til he has a change to mess around with it.

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You’ve probably seen this but if not:

I had not – but now I’m thinking that next time we have a large litter of kittens, it’d be fun to give that a try! My favorite are the ones who are like “Fuck this, I’m outta here!” and they crawl out and run off. TOO CUTE.

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First time commenting, long time reader. DON’T store your homemade bread in the fridge. It dries out faster and gets stale (hard) faster. You’re better off storing it at room temp and using it in 3-4 days or freezing it and taking it out as you need it. I know PITA. You can add lemon juice, bottled it fine, to the dough when you make it (you won’t taste it at all) and that will make the bread stay fresh a couple days longer. Use 2 tsp. per loaf or 1Tbs. for a double loaf batch.

We actually ended up putting the extra baked rolls in the freezer. We tend not to eat that much bread, so the bread we have sits and sits, so I think it’s better to have it in the freezer and need to thaw it out rather than have it sitting on the counter molding. I’m going to try the lemon juice trick next time, though. Thanks for the suggestion!

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Do George and Gracie like to be brushed? My girl Siberian loves to be brushed but I have to brush my boy while he eats his food otherwise I can’t get him to stay still!

Oh boy, DO they like to be brushed! I need to make a movie of Fred brushing them – they LOVE it. They grin and roll around and kick their feet in the air and if they were cats, they’d be purring up a storm!

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Hey is it just me or does the Crested Polish chick have a serious “the Donald” comb-over???

Ha – yeah, he kind of does. And I sense a new chicken name!

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Hey! So. I just wanted to pass this on. My brother’s girlfriend, visiting from Mexico, says that back home she regularly goes to the market to buy chicken heads for her cats, and they LOVE it and eat it ALL. Can’t remember if you ever mentioned giving the chicken heads to the cats after Fred does the deed, but thought I’d mention it. It’s supposed to be good for them, and they seriously eat the entire head *shiver*

While I actually think it’s somewhat funny to see the pigs running around with chicken legs sticking out of their mouths, I can’t imagine a cat being able to eat an entire chicken head. You’d think they’d choke on the beak! The pigs usually get the leftover chicken parts – and it’s likely that that practice will continue. 🙂

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Robyn, Every time I hear your voice it startles me because it sounds exactly like me. Today my son came by before work and I played the first video for him. He gave me a weird look and said, “That sounds like YOU!”. Now I know it was not just my imagination. Hee! We are voice twins!

You have my sympathy. 😉 Maybe next week I’ll make a movie of myself yelling “GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!!!” and you can play it for him. Heh. I always wanted a low, husky, whisky voice like Ellyn from Thirtysomething.

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Have you had a chance to see the RHNY Reunions and the RHWNJ episodes yet? All I can say is WOW-differnt kind of catfights. Bethany’s blog on Bravo’s website and the comments are interesting too. Great trash/guilty pleasure reality tv. I have lived in NJ for 29 yrs. and have never heard the term buhbees used-boobs,breasts,tits,hooters,tatas even but never buhbees. What are they three years old? Oy!

Yeah, I sure have!

The RHNY reunion: I still love the hell out of Bethenny and Jill, I liked that Luann got down and dirty with Kelly (but she’s SO FULL OF IT when she claimed that the Countess title doesn’t mean that much to her. It means a LOT to her, make no mistake!), Alex really seems to come across as reasonable and thoughtful (hated her makeup at the reunion, though), and Kelly is a freakin’ whackjob. I thought before now that she had to have a serious drug problem, but now I think she lives on her own planet. She just strings words together that make NO SENSE. I can’t stand her! If she’s not back next season, I won’t miss her. Also, I think Jill (was it Jill?) was right when she said she thinks Mario’s trying to get more air time. BINGO.

The NJ Housewives, so far: Jacqueline is a sweetheart but might be a bit of a pushover (not a good thing when she’s got those sisters-in-law!). Dina’s kind of a pain in the ass when she’s in “bitch mode”, but she’s also kind of funny and she looks strikingly like a young Lorraine Bracco to me. Caroline (is that her name? The oldest one?) seems okay, maybe a little overbearing and all up in everyone else’s shit. If I have to hear her sputtering about how she and her family is “thick as thieves” one more time, I might be annoyed into an aneurysm, though. Danielle is UGH. I don’t need to hear about the phone sex she has, I don’t need to see her trying to drag some guy into the bathroom, and if you have to say the words “I’m so bad”, know what? You’re not bad, you’re just trying too hard. Annnnd last of all, Teresa? Honey? Stop carrying that cash around with you. You’re asking to be smacked over the head and mugged. Also, god bless you for thinking your husband is – how did you put it? Juicy and delicious? I will guess that you’re the only woman in the world who thinks so. And no one is fooled when you claim not to be a stage mom.

The NJ cast has to be the looniest cast so far, I swear to god.

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Well, I *thought* I was a master bread baker, but I’ve never frozen bread/roll dough so I’m not sure how it works. I just bake the bread/rolls and as soon as they’re fully cooled, wrap each tightly in a little sheet of foil, place in big plastic freezer bag and freeze. We only thaw what we’re going to eat right now and they retain that just-from-the-oven flavor and texture. Surprisingly, the crispy crusted rolls are still crispy crusted, but soft inside, when I thaw them (I thaw them in the foil wrapper).

Y’know, the only reason I thought you could freeze bread dough is because I’ve seen it in the grocery store. I think this weekend I’ll have to thaw out the dough, let it rise, and bake it to see if it works that way! If it’s a dud, at least I’ll know, right? I’ll report how it goes!

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OMG a kitty smaller than Miss Beulah.

Holy cow! Beulah’s already bigger than that little cat!

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Now that you have had George and Gracie for awhile – do you like dogs more than you have ever thought you would?

Well, I’ll say that I like George and Gracie a lot more than I expected I would, I don’t know that that would necessarily hold true for all dogs. I still wouldn’t want a dog in the house, but I do like going out to visit with George and Gracie a few times a day. When someone’s that happy to see you coming, well, it’s awfully hard not to like them!

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So my question for you and your peeps. We live in a very quiet neighborhood. Nice homes on small ponds. I have the windows open this morning and am being subjected to not one but two sets of neighbor music. It is very upsetting to me as one of the sources is our HOA president (let’s call him Bob okay?). I think the second source is doing a little passive aggressive move on the president. We have listened to Bob’s music for 3 years now and I am tired of being forced to listen to his mood music and for having this lovely quiet setting screwed up with Samfir and Marc Anthony. Not that I don’t like that music, I have the same MA album actually, it is just, as they say, the principal of the thing. Any suggestions on how to get these people to keep their music to themselves. I find this social offense particularly offensive.

I know that if it were Fred and I, we’d passive-aggressively bitch about it to each other and blog about it, but would we say anything to him? I suspect we wouldn’t. Has anyone ever said anything to Bob about the music? And who the hell are these people who feel the need to subject those around them to their music, anyway? Want me to send Mister Boogers up there to kick some ass?

Obviously, I’m no help here – Bitchypoo readers, give Elaine some advice!

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When you get your next pigs butchered, you could have the butcher save the fat and make lard, and make your own “suet” cakes! Some butchers will even make the lard for you but I think they are few and far between now. You are so domestically talented, you could figure it out! As long as you don’t have to leave it in the oven to dry out : )

Actually, I will be keeping the fat when our pig is slaughtered in the next few months, and intend to render it to lard so I can make suet! I haven’t done any real research on rendering fat into lard, but I think it might be as simple as melting the fat. Which is something I’ll be doing in a pot on a hotplate OUTSIDE, thank you very much.

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Robyn, what do you think about people who are scared of cats? I just don’t understand it. What’s scary about a cat? I don’t get it.

Are there truly people who are frightened of cats? Because all I can guess is that those people suffered some sort of childhood cat-related trauma and they’re still carrying it with them. I can’t imagine being honestly scared of cats.

Does anyone out there know someone who’s scared of cats? Tell me their story! I wanna hear!

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I realized yesterday (though I know some of you realized it before I did) that Beulah totally looks like a real cat. A SMALL real cat, but a cat nonetheless. She doesn’t really have the tiny bug-eyed alien look going anymore. Also, she has the softest, silkiest fur on earth.

Yesterday morning at 3:30, Spanky started howling. I’m pretty sure he’s part Siamese (a conclusion I reached years ago, given his chatty ways) and sometimes he just wants to hear his own voice. She he howled and howled and howled. I finally yelled at him to put a sock in it, and I’m not sure whether it was Spanky’s howling that set them off, or hearing my voice, but Bessie and Beulah wanted out of the cat room and they wanted out RIGHT NOW. So I opened the door for them and went back to bed.

Bessie, being a heat-seeking missile, climbed up into bed with me, located my upper arm, and started kneading. She started out gently, not using her claws, but she got happier and happier, and soon enough she was like – as Fred said – the Phantom of the Opera playing the organ, and I had to tuck the comforter between her paws and my arm lest she shred me to bits. She sure is a cute little thing. Well, really – they both are!

Okay, I’m taking the girlies off to the pet store in a little while. Send some happy adopting thoughts in the direction of North Alabama, won’t you? It’s going to be awfully quiet around here without them!

“Hello, good-looking!”

Bessie in the sun.

Bessie does her daily kitten yoga.

Gigglin’ Beulah.

“Made in China, you say?”

Lookin’ smug.

Oh, how she LOVES her sleep.

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“WOMAN, do NOT come over here and sniff my harbl again, I’m warning you!”

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Previously
2008: This machine keeps beeping, and it’s harshing my buzz, man.
2007: I am so old.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: More proof – not that you need it – that I am the ruler of the Kingdom of Dumbassery.
2002: What’s worse, an asshole, or an asshole who won’t stand behind what he says?
2001: We dropped Jeff off at his office, and it was then that I found out – to my relief – that the long, low farting sound I’d heard was the scary door opening by itself.
2000: The moral of the story is, don’t even think about fucking with me, or I’ll give you a really mean look.

Attention, people with mad graphic design skillz!

Reader Anita has a family member who has been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer – some of you may have heard of IBC, but it’s not nearly as well known as the breast cancer we always hear about. You won’t find a lump because it doesn’t present itself that way. Most women who are diagnosed with IBC find out when they’re already in Stage IV. There is NO Stage V. It can look like a rash, or a bug bite, so many women pass it off. It’s very aggressive, and the prognosis isn’t good.

Anita started up a web site for Sherri, We Love Sherri, and they’re looking for someone to design a banner/ logo so that they can get a Cafe Press store up and running.

This is where you talented graphic designers come in! The only design elements they’ve come up with so far are:

1. a Berry (we call her Sherri Berry)
2. a pink ribbon

She says, Sherri is not working right now b/c she’s so sick, and she’s got 2 kids. We’ve had a couple of charity events for her, but of course, they don’t bring in a ton of money. I don’t imagine the t-shirts, mugs, etc will either, but I feel like I need to do something- anything. It’s all very sad and awful….

Who’ll help out? Email welovesherri (at) gmail (dot) com

And, thank you!

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One of these days it will stop raining, and I will be able to mop my floors, secure in the knowledge that the cats won’t run outside, get muddy feet, and then tromp all over my nice, clean floors.

Yesterday was not that day. Today won’t be, either.

I meant to do some cleaning yesterday, but it was rainy and crappy outside, so I snuggled up on the couch with the kittens and Miz Poo and watched Grey Gardens (the movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, not the original – though now I’ve added the original to my Netflix queue).

I actually thought that watching that movie would motivate me to get up and clean and declutter the house (if you’re not familiar with how the inside of Grey Gardens looked, there are some pictures here), because seeing TV shows about hoarders always makes me freak out a little and feel like we’ve got WAY too much shit and usually a cleaning frenzy commences.

Yesterday, though, I looked around and the house was relatively neat and organized, and I shrugged and said “Looks okay to me!”

(I bet that’s the first sign of being a hoarder, not seeing the mess that surrounds you. Someone’s probably standing on the front porch right now, ready to come in, remove 1,000 pounds of trash and junk from the house, and capture 450 cats and carry them off to the shelter.)

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So, last week I said that the maternity/ little chicken yard is like a freakin’ Peyton Place. First, let me re-introduce the Mommas:

Red Momma and her two babies.

Buff Momma and her one baby.

Silkie Momma and her four.

You’ll note that Buff Momma has one baby. After I found Buff Momma’s baby snuggled up under Red Momma three or four times in a row, it became clear to me that Buff Baby was rejecting his Momma. I don’t know if Red Momma bribed him with better food or the idea of having siblings in the form of Red Momma’s babies (who were getting ready to hatch) were what convinced him that he’d rather hang out with Red Momma, but his preference was pretty clear. Then Red Momma had her two babies, and now she’s got her two and Buff Momma’s one following her around all the time.

Coparenting as they stroll around the chicken yard.

Sometimes Buff Baby will follow Buff Momma around if she asks very nicely, but most of the time Buff and Red Mommas stick pretty close together. I know that Red Momma is letting Buff Momma think they’re coparenting all three babies, but Red Momma’s babies have no interest in what Buff Momma has to say.

George Momma hatched two babies, one little yellow baby and one little black one. And then, because these chickens are HORRIBLE mothers sometimes, the little black baby got into the nest box where Black Momma was sitting patiently on her eggs, and guess what Black Momma did? Did Black Momma take George’s baby under her wing and love and snuggle it and teach it how to eat?

Why, no. There was no loving and snuggling and teaching from Black Momma. What there was, was MURDER. Black Momma pecked the intruder to death. TO DEATH.

And in the next nest box over, George just SAT and did NOTHING.

That’s right – MURDER IN THE BLUE COOP.

Poor little baby.

I’d like to say that George watches over her remaining baby with a close eye, making sure the baby is always near her and safe, except that that’s not true. MOST of the time George watches over her remaining baby closely and makes sure it’s safe, but if George and her baby are in the coop and one of us is outside tossing scratch to the chickens, that baby is ON HIS OWN.

However, if the baby manages to find George, George will cluck at it to show it where the food is and what’s okay to eat, and if another chicken gets too close, George loses her shit and runs it off. Apparently George requires a lot of personal space.

George Momma and her baby.

George Momma and her baby. See that white chicken on the left bottom of the picture? That’s one of the older chicks. It’s getting too close to George’s baby, as far as she’s concerned…

…so she ran it off.

Earlier this week, we found a dead chicken – one of the six week-old ones – in the maternity yard. It didn’t appear to have been chewed on (ie, not killed by a predator), so all we could guess is that it got too close to a baby, and one of the Mommas attacked and killed it.

If you ever thought of mother chickens as being sweet and maternal, get that thought right out of your head! They’re vicious bitches! It’s a fucking SLAUGHTERHOUSE over there. I told Fred that he needs to build a row of single-nest chicken coops, each with its own little yard, so the goddamn mother hens can’t get into each others’ nests and the babies can’t wander into harm’s way and get VICIOUSLY MURDERED.

The Mommas still see Charlie as no threat whatsoever, apparently. She’s like the mascot of the maternity coop.

See how Charlie gets all up in Silkie Momma’s space? Silkie baby’s all “Who’s that, Momma? Should I be scared?” and Silkie Momma’s all “Oh, that’s just Charlie. She won’t bother you.”

I would like to take a moment to apologize to Silkie Momma, though. She actually does a really good job of keeping her babies around her, now that Fred fixed the ramp into the coop so that they can get in there on their own. So far, all four of her babies are still alive. I guess it just took a day or two for her to figure out that whole mothering thing.

Keeping an eye on the babies.

Is it just me, or do the babies look like her security detail? Especially the two in the back, gazing off into different directions, alert for the possibility of a concealed weapon.

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“Look, okay, you know what? We’ve been over and over this frickin’ CSS code, and I don’t know how to explain it any clearer. I think you’ve just not got a head for CSS, lady. It’s hard for me to use the mouse without opposable thumbs, but I will if it’ll SHUT YOU UP.”

Beulah works on her modeling poses. This is her “concerned” look.

Skeptical.

The wide-eyed innocent.

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The look on Tommy’s face is cracking me UP. He’s like “Oh, THIS ONE again. She keeps following me around!” and she’s like “You’re purrrrrty!”

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Previously
2008: I choose to believe it recovered and took flight.
2007: “GodDAMN I’m good-looking. Why am I taking orders from this old hag? Am I making enough money to put up with this over-polite shit*? I think NOT. GodDAMN I’m good-looking.”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Questions answered, and a meme.
2003: Once again, pot-kettle-black.
2002: You can imagine the temper tantrum that followed.
2001: I would have preferred a candy bar, but unfortunately, we don’t got none o’ them ’round these parts.
2000: No entry.

So the things I need to work on as far as this site goes:

1. Fix the banner so y’all can see it no matter what size you’re viewing it at (hopefully that’s not beyond my skills!).

2. Add “before” and “after” links to the top of each entry (they were there with the last design, I’m going to have to see if I can figure out how I did that). For the record, if you click on the “comments” link under each entry, way at the bottom under the comments are “before” and “after” links. I know some of you would rather have them at the top too so I’m going to work on that.

3. Fix the colors in the sidebars.

Anything else that jumps out at y’all?

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On Saturday, Fred was headed back toward the house after settling the chickens for the evening. It was, shockingly enough, another rainy day and the chickens hadn’t spent much time outside because of it.

They don’t really like to get their feet wet – or rather, I should say they don’t like to have their feet wet for days on end.

As he headed back to the house, he glanced over into the maternity yard and he saw what looked like a chicken, against the fence in the small chicken yard. He stopped and looked. It wasn’t moving, and he decided it must be a clump of leaves caught in the fence, but then decided to go take a closer look, just in case.

It turned out to be a little Rhode Island Red, one of the six week-old ones. The yard is fenced with welded wire, and he ran chicken wire inside that to keep the smallest chicks from getting out. This little one had gotten trapped between the layers of fencing – apparently before the rain – then held there throughout the storm. Worst of all, that part of the fence is right in the middle of the runoff area, so the poor little guy was probably in 4-6 inches of chilly water during the rain and after it.

Fred thought the chicken was dead, and then it blinked.

I was in the kitchen cleaning up after Snackin! Time! when the back door opened and Fred called “I need a box!” I found a cardboard box to hold the chicken, Fred lined the box with paper towels and put the chicken inside, set up the heat lamp, and brought the whole setup into the living room.

When he first brought the chicken inside, it looked pretty much dead. After two hours of sitting under the heat lamp, it was perfectly fine. Fred took it back out to the blue chicken coop, and the next morning we couldn’t even tell which chicken was the one who’d been heated back to life.

You could say the cats were interested.

Mister Boogers was both interested and a bit freaked out. And with a twitch of Fred’s foot…

…this was the result. We laughed ourselves stupid.

Miz Poo was less interested in the chicken and more interested in how she could get under the heat lamp, too.

::perk:: “Hey, guys! What up?”

Bessie was not interested in that chicken at ALL. She just wanted to bite on the corner of the box.

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Remember how a few months ago we went up to Amish country and ended up ordering a cabinet to go in the kitchen where the bookcase is?

Sure you do. I wrote about it here.

Well, we thought it’d be mid-summer before the cabinet was finished, so imagine our surprise at the end of April when we received a letter from the man building the cabinet, letting us know that we could come pick it up.

We got the letter on a Saturday – I’m usually right out there checking the mail at 10:00, but on this particular Saturday I didn’t mosey out there ’til early afternoon. Had I checked the mail when I usually do, I probably would have insisted that we go up to Tennessee and get it that very day. We planned to go and get it the following Saturday (this past Saturday), but Fred the Weatherman worried and fretted and pissed Mother Nature off so that it stormed all day long. We knew pretty much as soon as we got up that morning that we weren’t going to go get the cabinet, because although we could wrap it in a tarp, if it was going to rain really hard – and it did – the cabinet would get wet, and it’s raw wood, so we didn’t want that to happen.

So we wrote a letter to the man who’d built the cabinet, apologizing for not showing up, blamed the weather, and told him we’d be up to get it on the next nice day.

We originally thought that we’d go up there Friday, but as the weather patterns changed – and they always do, don’t they? – we decided that yesterday would be our best day to go. Fred left work early, came home, we loaded up the truck with a tarp and a blanket, and we headed for Tennessee.

We got to the furniture shop to find that the man who’d built our cabinet wouldn’t be back ’til after 3 (this was at 2:20), but that his neighbor could help out anyone picking up furniture. We drove to the neighbor’s house, parked in the driveway, and Fred got out to look for the neighbor. Near the barn was tied a young cow, and as Fred walked away from the truck, she walked toward him with great purpose, like she’d been waiting for us to show up. She was adorable, and I wish I’d snapped her picture.

Fred offered the neighbor a ride back over to the furniture shop, and the neighbor hopped into the back of the truck. So of course all the way back to the furniture shop, we worried that Fred would hit a bump really hard, the man would go flying out and hurt himself, and we’d be on the Amish Shit List.

We made it back just fine, and Fred and I unwrapped the tarp and put it in the bed of the truck, then I stood outside and held one side of the tarp down (it was kind of windy), and Fred and the neighbor went inside to figure out which piece of furniture was our cabinet. Fred waved for me to come inside and look at the cabinet, and I went in and I’ll tell you what – that is one SOLID piece of furniture. It was also bigger than I’d expected, and I said “Oh my god! I love it!”

Fred hissed “Don’t say oh my god!” and I turned tail and ran back outside.

The thing that scares me about going up to Amish country is that I’m terrified I’m going to blurt something out and offend someone. I can FEEL the profanities on the tip of my tongue, just ready to be unleashed – “Hell-O, Amish motherfuckers, and how ’bout that goddamn rain!” – and so I do my best to just stand off to the side and keep my stupid mouth shut.

I offended no one this time, in fact I’ve never offended any of the Amish (that I’m aware of), but I can just FEEL it coming one of these days.

While Fred and the neighbor were trying to figure out how they were going to get the cabinet out the door and onto the truck, the furniture shop owner showed up. The two Amish men carried the cabinet out the door onto the truck bed while Fred held the doors of the cabinet closed. We got the tarp and blanket wrapped around the cabinet, tied everything down, and were on our way home.

I didn’t even flash anyone and bellow “I’VE GOT BOOBIES!!!!” or anything.

On the drive home, Fred told me that he was worried we weren’t going to be able to unload the cabinet ourselves, that it was really, really heavy and then he said something like “I think he made it all out of one-bys!”, which are words I do not understand and is probably code for something important.

Fred suggested many ideas for how we could get the cabinet out of the bed of the truck, and every one of them sounded to me like something that would end in the cabinet in pieces on the garage floor. Ultimately, we stopped at the corner store, and Fred went inside and threw himself on the mercy of the store owners and the old men who hang out in the store.

He came outside a minute later with an older gentleman. I got into the back seat of the truck, and we headed for home. We pulled into the driveway and got out of the truck, and I was starting to worry whether the three of us were really going to be able to unload the cabinet, when a truck pulled into the driveway and two teenage boys stepped out.

Secure that the menfolk had it all in hand, I went inside and started dinner. It took the four of them about a minute and a half to lift the cabinet out of the truck and set it in the garage, and then the three of them refused to take any money from Fred for their help.

This living in a small town thing? It kinda rocks.

So the cabinet is standing in the garage for now. Fred’s proclaimed that we must wait ’til the two week-old baby chicks in the brooder (in the garage) are moved out of there before he starts staining the cabinet so the fumes don’t kill them. It’s going to be a few weeks, at least, ’til the cabinet’s in place in the kitchen, and let me tell you – it’s going to be hard waiting!

The cabinet’s made of poplar – like the stairs – and we’ve talked about staining it the same color as the stairs. We’ve also talked about staining it the same color as the kitchen cabinets (or trying to, anyway). We’ll see – I think it’s going to be gorgeous no matter what color it’s stained!

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 

Okay, yesterday I lied – THESE are the last of the pictures I took of the boys before they went to the pet store.

Jasper got adopted last night! I think our Sleepy will be very happy in his new home.

Such a big baby – he was whining at me because I wasn’t petting him enough.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 

Previously
2008: I ran after him screaming “NOT IN THE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUSE!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Hoverers make me want to just get the hell out of that store as soon as humanly possible.
2004: I think it’s a boy, though.
2003: He’s his usual Fancy self.
2002: “I can’t believe you let me go out in public like this!” I yelled at Fred.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

Happy birthday, Mom!!!

Troubles says “hi.”

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

So, I walk into the blue chicken coop, the one I also refer to as the “medium” chicken coop (because there’s one smaller and one bigger, obviously) and the “maternity ward coop.” As I walk into the coop, George the chicken (named after Curious George for her curious ways when she was a baby chicken) is stomping back and forth, squawking and bitching and whining.

This is George the chicken:

It takes me a few minutes of peering at the chickens, but eventually I realize that something’s wrong in the maternity coop. One nest box is empty, of course, because Silkie Momma (aka The Bad Mother) is outside, this time with all four of her babies following her around.

In the next nest box is Red Momma, who’s sitting on eggs that are due to hatch any time now.

This is Red Momma:

She’s in the correct nest box.

The third nest box over is empty. No chicken, no baby chicks, no eggs. This is Buff Momma’s nest box; she hatched one baby a few days ago, a cute little black chick.

This is Buff Momma:

The fourth nest box over contains Buff Momma. This nest box does NOT belong to her, and it takes some investigation on my part, but I realize that she’s sitting on six eggs. That do not belong to her. The nest box Buff Momma is in belongs to Black Momma.

This is Black Momma:

Black Momma is in the fifth nest box over, sitting on eggs that do not belong to her. This nest box belongs to George the Chicken who, as I mentioned, is having herself a hissy fit. Here’s a reminder – this is George the Chicken:

She is having herself quite the temper tantrum, and no wonder – her eggs are being warmed by a strange chicken, and what if the eggs hatch and the babies think Black Momma is their Momma, when really George Momma is their Momma?!

In the sixth box is Americauna(ish) Momma, who is minding her own damn business and prefers not to be involved, thank you.

This is Americauna(ish)Ma:

I am befuddled. Where the fuck is Buff Momma’s baby? Why are these stupid chickens sitting on the wrong eggs? For that matter, why is Buff Momma sitting on eggs at all – her baby hatched (only one egg of four hatched; perhaps she’s mourning the loss of the other three babies?)

I poke around some more, and I see a small black baby chicken with Red Momma who, as I mentioned, is sitting on eggs due to hatch at any moment.

More befuddlement on my part. I poke around under Red Momma and find eggs there, no egg shells, and the little black chick.

I go inside, get the phone, and take it out to the blue coop with me. After some discussion with Fred, I realize that none of Red Momma’s eggs have hatched, that the baby hanging out with Red Momma belongs to Buff Momma. Buff Momma is sitting on Black Momma’s eggs, Black Momma is sitting on George Momma’s eggs, George Momma is having a possessive temper tantrum, and AmericaunaMa is minding her own damn business.

So I get down on my knees and I pull Buff Momma out of the nest box she’s in, and I put her in her nest box. She does not care for this maneuver. She shrieks at me and calls me names. I quickly dig around under Red Momma and pull out the baby chick, and put the baby chick under Buff Momma. Baby Chick says “Are you my mother?” Buff Momma says “You again. I thought I gave you the slip.” Baby Chick climbs over Buff Momma and slips underneath her feathers. Buff Momma looks grumpy, but settles in.

I pull Black Momma out of the nest box she’s residing in, and she shrieks in a most unladylike manner, kicking and flailing and calling me names. I put her in her nest box, and she gets in, shakes her feathers, and looks around.

“This will not DO,” she says, tsking, and immediately begins arranging her eggs in the preferred pattern. A few moments later, she settles down and glares at me.

This leaves George Momma’s nest box – with six eggs in it – empty of a Momma, and I go outside to look for George Momma. I don’t see her anywhere, decide she’s gone under the coop to pout, and go back inside to make sure the Mommas have not gotten all crazy and switched nest boxes again. While I was outside, George Momma slipped past me, and is now sitting on her eggs.

All is well in the maternity ward. For NOW.

I’m telling you – it’s always SOMETHING.

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

Yesterday I walked into the front room to find a puddle in the middle of the floor. I sighed, stomped to the laundry room, got the bottle of Stink-Free and a couple of rags, and stomped back into the front room. Then I stopped and looked closer at the puddle. It looked less like something an angry cat (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, BOOGIE) would have left, and more like something that had dripped from the ceiling. I looked up at the ceiling and saw a single drop of water hanging there.

It hadn’t rained in days, and aside from that, we’d never had an issue with the roof leaking in that particular location. I sniffed the puddle to be sure it wasn’t cat urine. It wasn’t.

I stood and pondered some more, staring up at the ceiling, and then realized that where the water was dripping from (or rather, had dripped from) was exactly where the water bowls in the foster kitten room are located.

I went upstairs and found I was right – the little brats had overturned a waterer at some point, which ultimately caused the puddle downstairs.

I should totally be a detective, dontchathink?

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

Speaking of detectives, I’ve gotta say – doesn’t it seem that the bad guy in just about every detective novel ends up going after the cop/ detective’s family? I think it’s time to get a new plot device.

I’m curious to know how often it happens in real life that a criminal goes after a cop/ detective’s family, because judging by the world o’ fiction, I’d say it happens about 75 percent of the time.

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

While my parents were here, Caleb earned himself the nickname “Troubles”, because that boy is into EVERYTHING. He races around and races around and races around, and gets into everything, chews on every wire he sees, jumps on all his siblings and kicks and bites them ’til they cry. And then when he gets tired, he climbs up on and cries like a big baby. Even if you snuggle him and kiss him and tell him I know, it’s a hard life, it’s okay baby, still he cries until he falls asleep.

Then he sleeps for about ten minutes, and he’s refreshed and ready to race around some more.

He loves to play with his brothers and sisters, but what he REALLY wants is to be buddies with the big cats. The big cats, however, are not all that interested.

They’ve got plenty of friends already, THANKS FOR THE OFFER, KID.

Poor Troubles.

Inching ever so closer to Mister Boogers (who did not put up with this for long).

Like a rock, this one sleeps.

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

Suggie goes for a ride on his Daddy’s shoulder.

**dividerlinewondersifitsfridayyetdividerlineisexhaustedwithallthishardworkdividedividedivide**

 

Previously
2008: I thought you guys would want to know.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: So, Fred has now been officially neutered.
2004: All I have to say about the kayak is this: those fuckers are HARD to get out of!
2003: Except that best laid plans and all that jazz.
2002: I love old houses with deep porches.
2001: No entry.
2000: Even now, Fred and I talk about that, and we refer to it as my “Walking the gauntlet.”

Before I forget – I emailed those of you who asked where we get our Frontline online, but in case I missed one or two of you, or my email got tagged as spam, I said:

In the past, I’ve ordered Advantage and Frontline from this site in New Zealand with good results, but Fred discovered another site over the weekend that’s a few dollars cheaper – AND in the US (so, one assumes, we’d get it quicker).

This is what we order – that’s about what we paid for three tubes at the local Co-op, so it looks like a good price.

I haven’t tried that site yet, so I can’t recommend it yet, but it certainly seems worth a try.

In my comments yesterday, Elizabeth added:

I urge you guys to check your vets office of Frontline pricing! I know things are cheaper online, but its not always true! We keep ours below online prices and right now (and usually) the makers of Frontline are offering a buy six doses, get one free deal. PLUS, Frontline bought thru your vet keeps your money locally and supports them AND comes thru legal channels. The drug company does NOT sell to anyone but practicing veterinarians so who knows where the stuff you buy elsewhere really comes from.

And yeah, obviously if you can get Frontline through your vet’s office for a comparable price, you’ll want to do that. In our case, the vet charges more than the Co-op does – and the Co-op’s price is twice as expensive as the online price.

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

(Click on any picture to go to a larger version of it)

George and Gracie are doing well. They’re happy in the back forty with their flock, and they’re happy when we go out to hang out with them – and they’re ESPECIALLY happy when I bring snacks out for them. I’m trying to limit how many snacks I bring them because too many snacks isn’t good for anyone, of course. But they get SO HAPPY when I make them sit and give them snacks that it’s hard to refrain.

They spend a lot of time sacked out under the coop (it amazes me a little that they can actually FIT under the coop, as big as they’ve gotten), but they’re happy to crawl out under the coop and come greet us when we come to visit.

I made a movie of them back in March, and of course I’m just now getting around to uploading it. It probably wouldn’t hurt to turn your sound all the way off so you won’t be irritated by hearing me incessantly asking the dogs what they’ve got. At one point, I swear that George looks at me and he is clearly thinking “Lady, I’ve got a carrot. You GAVE me the carrot. What the fuck do you THINK I’ve got here?”

George & Gracie, March 2009. from Robyn Anderson on Vimeo.

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

“The Silkie is broody again,” Fred said. “Should I try to break her? Maybe we should put her in the blue coop with a few eggs under her, and let her hatch some babies. Everyone says Silkies are really good mothers.”

“I’ve heard that too,” I said. “Silkies are really good mothers. Everyone says so! And I’ve heard they go broody at the drop of a hat. We should let her fulfill her destiny and have some babies!”

So Fred put the Silkie in the blue coop with some eggs under her. She brooded and brooded and brooded. And then after three weeks of brooding, she had her four babies.

On Friday as I was on my way out to the big chicken coop, I saw that Momma Silkie had her babies outside, and she was walking around the chicken yard with them, showing them what to eat. Mother chickens make a very distinctive “Hey! Food!” sound that baby chickens know, and when they hear it they come running, and they eat whatever Momma’s showing them to eat. About an hour later, I decided to go outside and take some pictures of Momma Silkie and her babies.

I walked around the entire chicken yard, looking for Momma and her babies, but they were nowhere to be seen. I decided that they’d likely gone under the chicken coop; they like to hang out under there, where it’s cool. I decided to go out to the back forty to visit George and Gracie, figuring that Momma Silkie would just come out later. As I was walking by the little chicken yard which contains our youngest chickens, the ones we got from the hatchery and our purebred Marans, I glanced over, and then I took a second look.

There were two little chickens that were much, much smaller than the chicks that surrounded them. It took a moment of hard thinking, but I realized that somehow two of the Silkie’s babies had escaped the medium chicken yard and were yucking it up with the chicks in the small chicken yard. I have no idea how they did it – the two yards share a common fence, but there’s chicken wire all around the inside of the small chicken yard and they shouldn’t have been able to squeeze through it.

I went into the small chicken yard and – after quite a bit of chasing, and with the eventual use of SCOOP HANDS – caught them. I took them into the medium chicken yard and put them down, sure that Momma Silkie would see them and call to them, and there would be a joyful reunion.

Except that when I put them down, the babies wandered around the yard cheeping sadly, and Momma Silkie was nowhere to be found. Which is when it finally occurred to me that Momma Silkie could possibly be inside the coop. I opened the big door to check it out, and that goddamn chicken was in the coop with two of her babies, gaily kicking shavings around and looking for food.

“Momma!” I said. “Your babies are looking for you!”

She ignored me, just kept on with the kicking and the pecking. Kick and peck. Kick and peck. Kickkickkickpeckpeckpeck.

In the yard, her babies cheeped sadly.

“You,” I said to Momma Silkie, “Are a bad BAD mother.”

She ignored me. Kickkickpeckpeck.

I turned and began chasing her babies. I managed to catch one of them pretty quickly, and I went to the door of the coop to place the baby inside the coop. The baby cheeped in alarm. When she saw me walking toward the coop with one of her babies in my hand, Silkie Momma came running over, making her Alarmed Momma sound, and puffing her feathers up so she’d look as big as she possibly could.

“OH,” I said, setting the baby carefully down. “So NOW you’re all the concerned mother! You didn’t give a shit about this baby two minutes ago when you were kicking and pecking!”

She glared balefully at me and herded her baby into the coop and began again with the goddamn kicking and pecking, joined in her dance by three of her babies.

Behind me, baby number four cheeped sadly.

I grabbed the SCOOP HANDS and began chasing the last baby around the chicken yard. Here’s the thing y’all probably don’t realize about tiny baby chickens – not only do they run fast as the wind, they are also TINY and thus very fucking hard to catch. I would come THIS CLOSE to catching the little fucker, and it would slip through my SCOOP HANDS. Or it would run under the coop. Or it would disappear and reappear behind me.

I got so pissed off that I finally bellowed “FINE YOU LITTLE FUCK THEN DIE OF LONELINESS!, threw my SCOOP HANDS as hard as I could over the fence, and stomped inside to call Fred and blame it all on him.

He gave me a few good ideas, I eventually calmed down, and I went back out to try again. Last time we had a number of mother and baby chickens, Fred took a cat carrier and put a piece of wire across the front of it. That way, you can put a mother chicken in the carrier, and – in an ideal world – the mother chicken will call to her babies, who will come running and slip through the wire into the carrier, which you can then take into the chicken coop to release the chickens.

It works really well when the mother chicken isn’t a flighty little bitch who is STUPIDER THAN THE STUPIDEST CHICKEN EVER KNOWN IN ALL OF HISTORY. I put that goddamn Silkie in the carrier, and she squawked and shrieked and just generally acted like an idiot. I took the carrier outside and put it near the coop so that her baby (who was under the coop the last time I’d seen it) could hear her. Except that she didn’t make her “Come here, baby” noise; she made her “OH LAWD JESUS HELP ME I AM BEING TORTURED” noise, and that is not a sound that attracts wee baby chicks. I sprinkled some food in the carrier and she went “LAWD JESUS GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSA- Oh hey look, food!”

Still no baby.

And I got down on my hands and knees on that dirty ground and I looked under the coop, and there was no baby to be seen. So I looked in the coop in case the baby had somehow figured out how to go up the ramp into the coop, but there were only three bewildered baby chickens in there, and so I threw up my hands and I stomped around the yard and I looked for that baby. Which is when I glanced into the little chicken yard, and that baby wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get to his Momma, but he was apparently smart enough to get into the little chicken yard AGAIN, and I still have no clue how he did it.

I went into the little chicken yard and chased that little fucker around, and finally when he was trying to fit through the chicken wire, I caught him and I carried him into the medium chicken yard, and I put him and his mother into the chicken coop. And Momma Silkie began kicking and pecking, and her babies began pecking at the food she unearthed, and all was right in Stupidville again.

The Bad Mother.

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

First, the mother bird on the nest:

Then, the eggs:

I saw the mother bird headed for the nest with a worm in her mouth over the weekend, and I decided to check the nest. Then I promptly forgot about it. Two days later I went and checked, and voila:

There are at least three of them, maybe more. I’m doing my best to stay away from the nest ’cause I don’t want to traumatize any of them, but it sure is hard!

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

::slurrrp::

::slurrrp::

::slurrrrrrrrp::

::zzzzzz::

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

Tom on a mission.

**newwordpressconfusesdividerlinethebuttonsaremovedallovertheplacedividerlineisconfusedbutthenthatsnormalfordividerline**

 

Previously
2008: And Mister Boogers lives to het again.
2007: No entry.
2006: I love my cats, but sometimes I really HATE MY FUCKING CATS too.
2005: KIND OF LIKE HERPES.
2004: The mind boggles, does it not?
2003: Sam’s! Whoo!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Ah, the intrigues of 11 year old girls…