Nobody else is suspicious of that loaded sentence? “We stood around and Fred talked to the owner for quite a while, and we bought a few things before heading home.”
Whatjall buy? I think it was a potbelly, some ducks and Pyrenees.
We did not buy any potbellied pigs, nor any ducks, NOR any dogs. We bought Taste of the Wild cat food because I’m a lemming who jumps on anything new and shiny that I haven’t seen before. We also bought a “Fresh eggs” sign because Fred thinks his hand-lettered sign is cheesy. That’s about it, I think.
It seems like there might have been something else, though… Oh, right.
We might have bought a black Silkie, though. What? We didn’t want to just have ONE Silkie, and we thought that if we bought a black Silkie, we could name the white one Sookie and the black one Tara. (That’s a True Blood reference, for those not in the know.)
Except the black Silkie isn’t really pure black; she’s more black with some reddish-brown accents. It’s pretty hard to get a good picture of her, because she’s a bit skittish around us. I suspect that when she realizes we’re the source of food, she’ll get over that right quick.
So, yeah. New chicken. Same ol’ same ol’.
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Okay, I need to get cleaning so I can flop down on the couch and watch some TV without feeling guilty or worrying about the cleaning that needs to be done. So here are some pictures from around Crooked Acres to tide you over.
The little chickens are trying to figure out their places in the pecking order. Note here that the speckled chicken is pulling an impressive maneuver we like to call “umbrella neck.”
This rooster likes to follow me around. He lurks and peers at me from behind the corner of the coop and then he acts all super-casual like “Me? Following you? Nope, not me!”
Little rooster, keeping an eye on me.
Lurking and peering. I think he might have a crush on me.
This picture’s from a while ago – I think I took it about six weeks ago.
This picture’s from yesterday. I can’t believe how fast the pigs grew between the two pictures. (Note please that my stalker rooster is RIGHT THERE, as usual.)
Little Pig (only “little” in comparison to Big Pig) checks to see if I might have some food for her.
“HEY! You has food?”
“Food?”
“Food?” (These last three pictures are from about a month ago.)
“FINE, I’ll just eat grass.”
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As we use our eggs, I rinse the egg shells off and keep them in a bowl until the bowl is full. Then I run them through the food processor and give them to the chickens. Eating egg shells ensures that the chickens will lay eggs with nice thick shells instead of the thin-shelled eggs you get from the grocery store.
(Yes, I cleaned the poo off that shell in the left of the food processor.)
I supplement the ground egg shells with oyster shell, because we use a lot of eggs, but we also have a lot of chickens, and the shells we have aren’t enough to keep them in calcium every day. The bag of ground oyster shell is sitting in the wood shed for some reason, and it’s gotten kinda messy in there. The wood doesn’t care, though. It’s not picky.
“IT IS THE LADY AND SHE HAS SOMETHING IN HER HANDS I THINK IT IS FOOD O HAPPY DAY!”
I put the oyster shell/ egg shells in this little feeder, though you can just sprinkle it on the ground.
Charlie (the white chicken to the left, with the twisted-up toes) thought it might be a good idea to try to perch on the side of the feeder. She knocked the feeder over, and the egg shells/ oyster shells went everywhere. Goddamn Charlie. Chickens are not known for their intelligenc. They’re not known for their pickiness either, luckily. They’re just as happy to eat the egg shell off the ground as from a feeder.
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Tommy is so rude. He goes into the kitten room, eats some of their food, digs through their toys, plays with some of their toys if he’s inclined to, and when they come over with the big hopeful eyes, wanting him to play with them, he gives them a dismissive look and ignores them as he ambles out of the room. Brat.
Tommy jumped on Joe Bob and bit his neck as soon as I snapped this picture. I don’t know what it is about Joe Bob that brings out Tommy’s aggressive asshole side but I’M NOT LIKING THE BEHAVIOR.
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Previously 2007: Amazing how that works.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: Just call me Grinchypoo. 2003: Survivor. 2002: If you think you can have too many smiley-face stickers, you are sadly mistaken. 2001: The phrase “anthrax in my pants” is FUCKING FUNNY when it’s spoken by a sixty-three year old woman.
2000: No entry.
I left the house yesterday morning at 7 (half an hour later, just in case the chicks that were shipped from the hatchery arrived a day earlier than expected; they didn’t.) and didn’t get home ’til almost 4. After I did my stint at the pet store, I hit the following places (for the following … Continue reading “11-14-08”
I left the house yesterday morning at 7 (half an hour later, just in case the chicks that were shipped from the hatchery arrived a day earlier than expected; they didn’t.) and didn’t get home ’til almost 4.
After I did my stint at the pet store, I hit the following places (for the following reasons):
Target (for Tide (more on this in the next section), and to try on jeans because the pants I’ve been wearing are too goddamn big for me and I’m sick and tired of constantly hiking up my pants so I don’t flash my ass at the world. I didn’t have any idea what size jeans I wear, and it’s not any clearer after trying on about sixteen pairs of jeans. It seems that I can get my ass into jeans size 8, 10, or 12, depending on the brand).
The gas station (gas was $1.98 a gallon, and I was able to fill up for less than $25, woot!)
Michael’s (for crafty items with which to torture cats).
The pet store (since by then it was open, I could go buy the cat food I needed).
The fabric store, party store, and Hallmark store (looking for a tiny Santa hat; not having any luck).
Sam’s (kitty litter, edamame).
To Fred’s office to pick him up because we were going to go to a furniture store to look for a new table by the side door. We drove to the furniture store (located right around the corner from his office) and found that the store’s no longer there, so I dropped him back off at his office.
To Madison to the post office.
To Old Time Pottery to look for more cat beds (I bought three!) and to see what’s on the left side of the store (bedding, towels, curtains. No pottery!).
To Kohl’s to try on more jeans (in Lee mid-rise boot cut jeans, I wear a 10 petite. I couldn’t even get the Gloria Vanderbilt 10s over my thighs) and a couple of tops.
All this took me right up to 2:00, and I had to hurriedly pay for my purchases because I had to head for Huntsville and my doctor’s appointment. I haven’t had a pap smear or gynecological exam since January of 2005 (yes, BAD, I know) and so I finally scheduled one, and as much as I wasn’t looking forward to it, I knew I had to just suck it up and get it over with. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
The appointment went fine, I got myself scheduled for a mammogram in December, a prescription for the birth control pill (my period is so regular you could set your watch by it, and it’s getting tiresome to have the damn thing every month, so I got a prescription for Seasonale), and headed for home just in time to hit rush hour traffic.
The funny thing is that when I left the house at 7, I figured I’d be done with all the errands I wanted to get done by 10, and would have to figure out something to do ’til my appointment, so I wouldn’t have to drive home and then turn around and drive back to Huntsville. As it was, I had to rush out of Kohl’s to make my appointment.
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I bought a small bottle of Tide at Target because I noticed over the weekend that my cleaning rags and dishtowels aren’t absorbing anything, which makes cleaning (and drying dishes) a pain in the ass. I’m imagining that the homemade laundry detergent I’ve been using is leaving some sort of residue on them, preventing them from absorbing fluids. Hopefully a few washes with Tide will take care of the problem – I plan on continuing to use the homemade detergent on my clothes, though, since it seems to be keeping our clothes perfectly clean.
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This is totally unrelated to anything y’all are talking about but I wonder what you think about this. In First magazine this month Tricia Yearwoood had a section from her new cookbook.
I’m very interested in her method of cooking turkey. She said it makes it very moist and tender. She preheats the oven to 500.She takes a 12 pound or so turkey. She rubs butter and then puts salt and pepper all over the outside and in the cavity. She puts celery, onions and carrots in the cavity. She puts it in a roaster with a tight fitting lid Then she puts in 2 cups of boiling water and covers the roaster tightly. She puts it in the oven and when the oven reaches 500 again she sets a timer for 1 hour. When it goes off she turns off the oven and leaves the door closed until the oven totally cools, about 4-6 hours.
Does anyone cook turkey like this? Will that high heat wreck my fancy-dancy stainless steel roaster? How will it brown if it is covered for the whole process? Thanks for any info or opinions.
I’ve never heard of making turkey like this – anyone out there try it? Let us know what you think of it!
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Since you’re always giving reviews on items, I thought I’d add one for you! I’ve used Sigg bottles for a while, but recently ordered/received a Fly Lady water bottle… and it’s big enough to put big pieces of ice in, has a screw on spout and cap that is smaller than Siggs, and DOES NOT SWEAT. The ice stays for hours and hours. I love it!
Speaking of water bottles Desi, who ROCKS, recently sent me a couple of CamelBak water bottles, and they look a lot like those Fly Lady bottles. My CamelBaks are really cool and easy to use, and I like them a LOT.
I guess we’re pretty lucky that none of our roosters has ever been really aggressive – and I can say that any rooster who tried to show us that he’s the boss of us wouldn’t be around for long! But the idea of random people being terrorized by roosters, well, it kinda makes me giggle.
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Does Newt scoop up the Field mice and bop them on the head?
NOOOOOO, that’s Little Bunny FooFoo’s job! (I must have sung that song three thousand times when the spud was a baby.)
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…what happened with joe bob? did he stop spraying?
He’s mostly stopped spraying – after that one horrible day, we’ve found a couple of small sprays, but nothing like the spraying rampage he went on that one day. I suspect that his behavior was due to Miz Poo smelling like the vet – that’s one thing that can cause spraying, anyway. We’ll be keeping an eye on him, though. I’M WATCHING YOU, JOE BOB!
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How do you keep the cat beds clean? My old cat is so hairy I finally gave up on keeping bedding clean. She likes to sleep on wool so I just get old wool sweaters at Goodwill, put them over a basket, and throw them out when they get too hairy. In 19 years of cat ownership I never could keep beds clean.
All the cat beds get tossed in the washer and dryer every couple of months. That gets rid of most of the excess cat hair. There’s always hair pretty much embedded in the beds, but once they go through the wash, it’s not too bad. Buying old wool sweaters at Goodwill is a really good idea!
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I’m just always amazed at your ENERGY level. You get up early and get hundreds of things done before rush hour even hits. Do you just have a high metabolism, or do you just ignore the tired feeling. I waste so much time on days I’m home. I often think, “If Robyn was in this house, it would be whipped into shape in about 2 hours.” But even shaming myself doesn’t work. I nap, I read, I watch t.v., and do an errand or two. Then I’m exhausted by 9 pm, and it’s on the couch for me. Ridiculous! And, no I’m not sick. Apparently, just way lazier than you.
I have to say that I don’t accomplish half of what I think I should every day. My house is SO not whipped into shape, I don’t vacuum nearly as often as I should, and I desperately need to do some decluttering. Most of what gets me moving my ass, though, is that even when I’m relaxing on the couch watching TV, my brain is telling me what I need to get done, and I get so annoyed by that that I get up and do it.
I get lots of lazy butt-sitting time in every day, though, I promise!
(Also, I’m usually sound asleep by 10. Sometimes earlier!)
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I think Mister Boogers would be happier in a cowboy hat or something more manly. It’s not the hat, per se, but the flamboyancy of said hat!
Ahem. It’s funny that you say that. Did I mention that I went to the craft store yesterday?
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Dang…I was hoping you had used your SCOOP HANDS to catch the chickens and move them to the new chicken coop. I am slightly disappointed. Hmph!
You cannot actually pick up more than one chicken with SCOOP HANDS, which would have made the transfer a lengthy pain-in-the-ass process.
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How the hell do I get rid of the pantry moths. I have been battling them for weeks now. I have taken out every item, looked it over and put it back or tossed it depending on what I found. And yet, THEY return. I am really tired of them flying in my face when I open the door.
I found that Pantry Pest Traps work pretty well – I put a couple in the pantry, and though I do see a moth every once in a while, they’re mostly gone. I got mine at Lowe’s and they’re not too terribly expensive. They last for a couple of month, too.
Speaking of pantry moths, did you know that the little fuckers like chocolate chips? I was SO PISSED, the day I went to make cookies and the chocolate chips were infested with pantry moths.
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I just can’t wait until it’s Stinkerbelle’s turn with the hat 😀
Stinkerbelle seems to know where the hat is at all times and whether it’s headed in her direction, in which case she disappears into thin air. I’m not holding my breath that I’ll be able to get it on her head, damnit.
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I giggled when I read that you you bake cookies for the pigs. And I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have 91 chickens. And it makes me curious if you really struggle with adding to the household cat count. I think having a lot of cats only carries a negative stigma for single old ladies, like me, which is why I have to keep it at 2. (I don’t count the 2 young strays I just started feeding whose mommy got killed in the street last week – and they count as a bonus, because now I get headless mice on my porch!) So, I guess my question is, why don’t you have 30 hundred million cats? And the other question is, what in the hell are you going to do with 91 chickens? giggle! 91. Holy schnikeys!
It’s not really a matter of the stigma of having so many cats – I think we all know that Fred and I are crazy cat people whether we have 5 cats or 10 or 100 – it’s more of a matter of whether the new cats will fit in well with the other cats. Also, the 91 chickens are out in the back forty and the 10 cats are (mostly) in the house and cats react poorly to overcrowding. As independent as cats are, they still need attention (some more than others) and there are only four hands between the two of us for petting.
Now, if our house was bigger, I could see adding more cats to the family, but as it is now I think we’ve pretty much reached our limit (right now god’s laughing and sending a family of adorable kittens to live on my porch, right?). Don’t hold me to it, though!
What we’re going to do with 91 chickens is eat the eggs they give us, sell what we don’t eat, and (theoretically) eat chicken regularly.
Did I mention that since we’ve started eating our own chickens, we eat chicken a lot less often than we used to?
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What’s with people honking to get you to come outside? This happened to me yesterday.
That’s a good question – it never happened to us before we moved to the country!
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Be careful! I think you should put up a new sign, saying, “we bear arms” or somesuch. Maybe they were friends of walkin’ dude….. I know, perhaps try to become dog lovers – well dog likers enough to keep one outside in a dog run so that the dog can bite anyone who tries to steal your chickens or harm you!
I actually think that the reason we don’t get more people stopping by is because we have what looks like a dog house on the front porch (the house Fred built for Maxi and Newt to stay in before they started coming inside all the time), and people assume we have a dog.
Fred IS going through a “Let’s get a dog!” phase (he’s also going through a “Let’s get an X-Box!” phase).
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I would keep a close eye on the chicken yard for a week or so to see if the guys were up to no good.
My desk overlooks the back yard and from here I can see the chicken yard clearly, so if anyone goes out there during the day, I’ll see them. If they come at night, the chickens are locked in the chicken coop (literally – there are locks on both the doors. I look forward to the day we lose the key to the locks.) and if they tried to bust down the door Fred would hear them (his bedroom overlooks the back yard). Hopefully we won’t have a problem with chicken thieves.
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I wonder when they made those little red hats did they think of cats? That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw one.
The hat was actually in the doll section of the craft store, so I think it’s probably intended for dolls – but it certainly works well on cats, doesn’t it?
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Our new baby chicks just arrived, literally less than an hour ago. I got them out of their box, dipped their beaks in water, and they’re all wandering around checking out their new home.
The kittens are continuing to come out of their room more and more often. I moved the baby gates to the bottom of the stairs, and now when you walk down the hallway, you’re apt to see Claudette or Delmar sitting there. They run back upstairs when they see us, but I think it’s just a matter of time before they’re ready to come into the downstairs and do some exploring.
Sugarbutt is clearly thrilled. But doesn’t he look fancy?
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Previously 2007: Amazing what a little maintenance will do, ain’t it? 2006: “I CUT THROUGH THE GODDAMN EXTENSION CORD AND THEN I MADE THE CHAIN COME OFF THE CHAINSAW!” 2005: Senator Stanley J. Boogerton.
2004: No entry. 2003: So I’m not reporting that. At all. Never happened! 2002: Riley’s response? “Nuh uh!” 2001: Dr. Phil looked at me judgmentally, and I began to babble. 2000: And I don’t even like cherry Poptarts! 1999: Fred has agreed to let me adopt the kitten!
Fred opened the door to the chicken coop yesterday before he left for work, but it was still pretty dark out, so the chickens peered at him and said “Um, no thanks. We’re okay in here. Buh-bye!”. Fred went to work and I got up shortly thereafter, did my morning chores, and sat down at … Continue reading “11-13-08”
Fred opened the door to the chicken coop yesterday before he left for work, but it was still pretty dark out, so the chickens peered at him and said “Um, no thanks. We’re okay in here. Buh-bye!”.
Fred went to work and I got up shortly thereafter, did my morning chores, and sat down at my computer. I looked out at the chicken yard to see a large number of chickens milling about, so I knew they’d figured out how to come out the door (with chickens, you can never overestimate their stupidity, TRUST ME).
A while later, Fred called to check on the chickens, and as I was talking to him, I looked out the window and realized that there was a chicken wandering through the old chicken yard. I hung up the phone and went out to see what the hell was going on, and I was displeased to realize that the chicken was one of the three fairly youngish chickens we’d been calling the Three Musketeers (because we are so original), a chicken who is very scared of Fred and I, because she was hatched by one of our chickens and thus was never really handled by either of us and thus believes we’re about to harm her in some very painful and inventive way if we even think about glancing in her direction.
Then I realized that there were about fifteen other chickens wandering around in the space between the new chicken yard and the old chicken yard, which meant they’d gotten under the fence somewhere and needed to be herded back into the new chicken yard.
With the help of cracked corn, I was able to lure all of them but the Musketeer back into the new chicken yard, and when I looked around to see how they’d gotten out, I quickly spotted a huge-ass gap under part of the fence, where the fence didn’t even come close to touching the ground. T-posts still need to be pounded in all around the back forty to hold the fence in place, but we (FRED) had been so eager to get the chickens moved that we (FRED) decided to move them to the new coop before the new yard was really secure.
Since the rest of the chickens were occupied with the chicken scratch I’d tossed in the chicken yard, away from the fence, I propped the gate open and ran to get on the other side of the Musketeer to shoo her into the yard.
Oh, yes. What a fool-proof plan THAT was. I ran to get on the other side of her, and she saw me running at her and she ran away from me. Away from the gate. She ran so that she was between the fence on the side of the old chicken yard and the trees and greenery next to the fence. I ran into the chicken yard and tried to get even with her so I could encourage her to move toward the new chicken yard, but never could get near her.
(You should imagine that I was swearing at the top of my lungs, this entire time.)
Finally, I gave up, opened the old chicken coop in case the stupid goddamn Musketeer wanted to go inside to lay an egg or something, and then I stomped inside. Then I stomped back outside to the new chicken yard, where I dragged a post over to the gap in the fence to block other chickens from getting out that way again. Then I stomped back inside and growled to myself that I hoped something would EAT that goddamn Musketeer and that it would be SLOW and PAINFUL for her.
An hour later I looked out to see the Musketeer strolling alongside the fence again, the fence on the side of the old chicken yard. So I grabbed more cracked corn and I went out and tried to lure her near the new chicken yard. She would not be lured. So I grabbed my SCOOP HANDS and went out to try to shoo her toward the new chicken yard. The shooing went okay at first, but then she remembered that she is a goddamn idiot and so she lost her shit for no apparent reason and went squawking hysterically into the woods.
(You cannot make a stupid bird a smart one with SCOOP HANDS.)
And I gave up. I could occasionally see her wandering along beside the fence, but I figured she’d either make her way into the old coop whereupon Fred could grab her at dark and transfer her to the new coop, or she’d figure out how to get back into the chicken yard, or something would eat her and ASK ME IF I CARE.
Goddamn chicken.
(When Fred got home, her day of being without food and water had apparently gotten to her, and it took very little coaxing on his part to get her in the chicken yard. Stupid chicken.)
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In between the bouts of chicken wrangling, I was sitting in front of my computer trying to reason with Mister Boogers, who is having PMS or something these last few days and picking on any other cat who happens to wander across his angry, hetful path. I was just about at the “They’re not bothering you, why are you being such an asshole to them?” part of the discussion when I heard a horn in the driveway.
“Oh! I must have a package!” I said to Mister Boogers, who clearly could not have cared any less about anything I had to say. I put him on the floor, slid my feet into my shoes and went out into the driveway.
It wasn’t the mail lady, it wasn’t the UPS, FedEx, or DHL guy. It was a guy I’d never seen before getting out of a white minivan, and so I met him in the side yard, smiled and said “Hi” and silently cursed myself for not looking out the window before blithely skipping out the door. If I’d known it wasn’t a mail call, I’d have hidden and pretended not to be home, because the Robyn don’t take kindly to strangers, especially of the unexpected sort.
The man pointed out toward the chicken yard and asked if we sold chickens. We’ve only sold chickens once before, and both Fred and I felt so bad about doing so, despite the fact that the family who bought the chickens did so to have them as laying hens and therefore they probably are going to lead a longer life than they would have here at Crooked Acres. Or so we believed at the time, before we got to the point where we only have chicken every other month or so.
“No, we sure don’t,” I said. His friend/ brother/ coworker/ how the fuck do I know their relationship? got out of the van and walked over to us.
The first guy mumbled something that I didn’t quite understand, though I heard “just roosters?” in there somewhere, so I said “Well, we have a couple of roosters, and the rest are hens.”
The second guy said “You have any fresh eggs?”
“No, we sure don’t,” I said. “We sold the last extra dozen yesterday.”
“So, when the sign is out is when you have eggs?” Guy #2 said.
“Right, if the sign is out we have eggs, and if it’s not we don’t.” I wisely didn’t add “DUH!”
There was silence as the two men looked out toward the chicken yard. And it wasn’t anything they did, I didn’t have any flashes of intuition, I’ve read The Gift of Fear and I believe fully in following your intuition, I never truly felt unsafe, but that’s the point when I thought to myself, You’re a goddamn idiot for standing here talking to two strange men. This is how news stories that begin ‘A Smallville woman was brutally raped and murdered in her own home earlier today while ten cats hid under a nearby bed’ happen.
“How many chickens do you have?” Guy #2 asked.
I lied. “About forty,” I said.
Another pause as they looked out toward the chicken yard, and then they smiled and thanked me and left.
When I came inside and called Fred, he made me go over the conversation a couple of times, and then he said “Have you learned anything?” and I said “To look out the window before I go running out the door when someone honks their horn!” and he said “Anything ELSE?” and I said “No, not really”, even though I knew what he wanted me to say was that I’d stick a gun in my pocket before I went out to talk to strange men, but the conundrum there is that if I’d realized they were strangers I never would have gone out there.
(I’ve told Fred we need a doormat that says “The wife don’t take too kindly to strangers.”)
So then he said “What would you have done if you’d seen them headed for the chicken yard to STEAL OUR CHICKENS?”
And I obediently said I’d have grabbed a gun and gone after them, but please. As if. I know me, and I’m as likely to go after a couple of trespassing strangers who are out to steal some chickens from us as I am to get the lead role in The Nutcracker on Broadway.
So, yeah. Strangers came by, I talked to them, they left without incident, and I live to bitch another day.
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The other day I went upstairs to hang out with the kittens, and Kara wanted to come with me, so I let her in. She went into my bedroom to hang out, and I put the baby gate back up.
After getting his fill of love from me, Lem was all “It’s time to EXPLORE!”
So he sat in the hallway looking at Kara for a long time.
Kara said ::hiss!::
Lem said ::HISS!::
Kara said “That’s what I thought you’d say. I’ll just be in here hiding under the bed.”
Lem said “Good to know. I’ll watch here from the doorway.”
I don’t expect Kara to adopt the kittens as her own or anything, but would it be too much to ask her mothering instincts to kick in just a little and have her be NICE to the little ones?
Apparently so.
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Crooked Acres President-Elect Tommy “Big Time Pimpin’ Daddy” Cullen with his bodyguard.
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Previously 2007: Well, of course. Of course he was in the house. Where else would a squirrel be, after all? 2006: In lieu of an entry today, you get a plea.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: I’m not holding much love for Tubby at the moment, believe you me. 2002: And also, I have short and stubby legs. 2001: I think that our dog thinks she’s a Mexican jumping bean. 2000: In fact, my new motto is going to be “Bitch, whine, moan. Lather, rinse, repeat.” 1999: I would name her Molly.
Best review of Twilight (the book, not the movie) I’ve read. It would be as if you or I were dating an apple fritter. made me laugh my ass off. & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Sometimes when Fred and … Continue reading “11-12-08”
Best review of Twilight (the book, not the movie) I’ve read. It would be as if you or I were dating an apple fritter. made me laugh my ass off.
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Sometimes when Fred and I are sitting in the living room watching TV, I consider screaming and flailing wildly, then jumping up and running down the hall and out the back door.
Just to see what he’d do.
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Monday night after it got dark out, Fred and I spent an hour moving the chickens to the new coop. Rather than moving them one-by-one (which would have taken forever), we put them in a big carrier, six or seven at a time and carried them out in that. Fred caught the chickens one by one, and I lifted and lowered the door to the carrier as he put them in. Most of them were pretty quiet once they were in the carrier, but there was one bitchy little squawker who acted like we were strangling her, she screamed when Fred caught her, screamed once she was in the carrier, and screamed all the way to the new coop. Fucking drama queen.
(By the way, we waited until after dark so we could just get them straight from the coop rather than having to chase them around the chicken yard.)
We left them in the coop all day yesterday so they’d imprint on it as home, and Fred went out several times to check on them. They seemed to be adjusting pretty well, especially considering that we put the twenty-five small chicks (ranging in age from 6 to 10 weeks) in with the forty grown chickens. (Yes, we have sixty-five chickens. We also have twenty-six more on the way. Shaddup.) Fred had read somewhere that the best time to merge two flocks is when you’re moving them to a new coop. It seemed to work pretty well.
Now they have a huge chicken yard to roam around in, and hopefully we won’t lose any of them to passing hawks.
Pretty sure that little one in the front is a rooster.
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Yesterday morning, Fred got the gates on the front part of the new chicken yard put up, and then he had no plans. I’d mentioned the day before the idea of venturing up to Tennessee, but Fred hadn’t wanted to, so I figured we’d be hanging around the house all day. After he got the gates up, he asked if I still wanted to go to Tennessee. I did, so we headed out.
Before we got too far, we decided that neither of us was really in the mood for the long drive, so we ended up going to the movie store and picking up movies, then going out to lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse before going home and hanging out for the rest of the day watching movies.
We got about ten minutes into 88 Minutes and Fred needed a nap, so he sacked out on the couch while I went upstairs and hung out with the kittens. He called up to me when he was awake again, so I came back downstairs and we watched some more of the movie. With about fifteen minutes left in the movie, the phone rang. I talked to my sister for a few minutes, and while I talked Fred fell asleep on the couch again for about twenty minutes.
When he woke up again, he went out to feed the pigs and I went to clean the kitchen. Then we finished the movie, and let me tell you – that movie was clunkily written and horribly acted despite the cast of usually good actors, and there was a point at the end where Leelee Sobieski threw her head back and laughed in an attempt to be sinister, which I mocked several times, to my great amusement.
We took another break, then sat down to watch The Happening.
(Let me point out here that during both these movies I had my laptop on my lap and I was surfing the entire time, which is the only reason I watched both movies all the way through.)
I knew I was in for a special treat about two minutes into the movie when I turned to Fred and said “Why is Marky Mark talking to these high school students like they’re second graders?” The movie met my expectations, sucking right to the end. I honestly do not understand who in Hollywood keeps giving M. Night Shyamalan money; alls I can guess is that he’s got some really good blackmail material on someone big.
We watched True Blood (I LOVE YOU, SAM) and then I went upstairs to spend some time with the kittens while Fred watched TV. When I came back downstairs, he started watching Paranormal State while I surfed, and he occasionally tried to convince me that we could fake having a ghost problem to get Ryan and the gang to Crooked Acres (when I told him I didn’t want to expend the energy on faking a ghost problem, he suggested we claim Mister Boogers was possessed. That just might work!).
We started the latest episode of Heroes, which Fred paused about ten minutes in and said “I honestly don’t care about this show any more” and I said “Me either!”, so he deleted it and we watched Dirty Jobs instead.
So yeah, it was a total slacker, TV-watching, nap-taking day for us. Fred’s been working so hard on the chicken coop and fencing the back forty that I think he deserved it. I haven’t necessarily been working so hard, but hey – someone needed to keep him company, right?
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I learned something yesterday. For days I’ve been going upstairs to hang out with the kittens, and wondering why they weren’t exploring the upstairs. Sometimes one or two of them would be hanging out in my room and go running back to the kitten room when I appeared. But once I was upstairs, they’d never leave the kitten room.
Yesterday, I hung out with them for a few minutes and then I thought Hmm… I wonder if they’d come hang out with me in my room? I went into my room, lay down on the bed and started reading, and within a few minutes the kittens started appearing on the bed beside me. Eventually all four of them were on the bed with me, rolling around and purring. Apparently the reason they were spending all their time hanging out in the kitten room while I was upstairs is because I was in there.
Previously 2007: Whatever I do, I’m sure it’ll be exciting!
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: NOTHING gets by him. NOTHING. 2003: Yep. When you have a crush on a fictional character and whine about how no one in a NOVEL is telling you anything, it’s about time to get a life, say true. 2002: Obviously she’d never taken Customer Service 101, wherein the “‘Thanks!’ = go away” equation is covered thoroughly. 2001: Poor Sadie. Those damn mean cats just refuse to play with her…
2000: No entry.
1999: No entry.
So, I couldn’t get online before I left for the pet store this morning, so I reacted like a great big baby and had a temper tantrum and posted some pictures via Flickr. You got to see me whine about my internet being down, whine about the sun in my eyes on the way to … Continue reading “10/30/08”
If you ever check this site and see a crappy camera phone picture posted via Flickr, you can assume it’s because my goddamn internet is down AGAIN and the only way I can post is via Flickr (did I mention that Flickr ROCKS?).
I think if I’m going to be posting camera phone pictures, I need a phone that takes better pictures. Dontchathink?
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I belong to Goodreads, and every so often one of you ask to be my Goodreads BFF, and of course I’m happy to add you as a friend, even though I’m horribly bad at keeping up with adding the books I’ve read to my list.
But what really annoys me is when someone requests to be added as a Goodreads friend for the sole goddamn purpose of spamming me because they’ve written some shitty book and think because I read books, I’ll want to read the poorly-written book they’re flogging.
Hint: throwing extra adjectives into a book summary doesn’t actually make it sound more interesting. It makes it sound like it was written by a fifth grader with a thesaurus in hand.
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Do not cry for Miz Poo, y’all. She is being babied and given the full Princess treatment, to the max. Yesterday morning when I walked into the guest bedroom, she was hanging out in the cubby of the bedside table. I carried her out into the living room with me and we watched The Real Housewives of Atlanta (more on that in a moment), and I took the cone collar off her and scratched her ears and around her neck until she drooled. And then she slept for a long time, and demanded more scratching, and more drooling ensued. I eventually put her back in the guest bedroom so I could go out and touch up the paint on the new chicken coop (when I’m not around to keep an eye on her, I put her in the guest bedroom so the other cats won’t harass her), and then I spent another couple of hours on the couch with her in the afternoon. When I don’t actually have her in my lap, I put the no-cone collar on her. She hasn’t actually shown any interest in licking or biting at the drain or her stitches, but I’d hate to leave her alone and come back to find that she’d pulled the drain out.
Pardon me while I shudder at the idea.
She was a lot more bright-eyed and with-it yesterday morning than she’d been the night before, but we’ve got her on the pain medication so she’s still pretty doped up and sleeps a lot. I think the pain medication is doing a good job, because she doesn’t appear to be in any pain.
Last night when we sat down to watch TV, we took her collar off. She sat on a pillow on my lap for two and a half hours, and she cleaned herself for about two hours and twenty minutes of that time. She did try to lick at her stitches and drain, but I stopped her every time, and she’d look at me like “THIS IS MY BODY I WILL DO WHAT I WANT I HATE YOU WILL YOU SCRATCH MY EARS PLEASE?”
She’ll be fine – don’t worry about my baby, I’ll keep her spoiled rotten.
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Real Housewives of Atlanta (skip to the next section if you’re not interested!)
Honest to god, I kind of thought that they’d hype DeShawn’s gala event as being a big flop only so they could jump out of the closet and scream SURPRISE! when all of a sudden the bidding started and DeShawn managed to bring one million and ONE dollars in for her foundation. But holy cripes, what a flop. I thought she was kind of uninformed and naive about how to run a gala, but I ended up feeling sorry for her because of the HUGE flop it turned out to be. They ended up spending $20,000 more on putting the gala ON than they made!
I’m curious why that one woman made a point of asking if LeBron James (I don’t know sports, but even I recognize the name) was going to be there, acted all excited that there’d be some sort of LeBron-centric package being auctioned off, and then pointedly didn’t bid.
When DeShawn was looking for Mark Hayes, I thought she was looking for some guy named Marques. Heh.
When Kim decided to buy that diamond cuff at the gala and she was all “I have to call Big Poppa and tell him I bought this!”, I assume that was a call that went along the lines of “Big Poppa, listen to what you just bought me with the credit card you gave me!”
(By the way, if you’re curious, the word on the web seems to be that “Big Poppa” is married real estate developer Lee Najjar, whoever the hell that is. I don’t know that I’d consider him a “celebrity” as Kim said in the first show, but then I’m not part of the Atlanta social scene, so maybe he’s a celebrity in Atlanta.)
Am I getting this right? Lisa was going to a trunk show to showcase her jewelry, and she and a bunch of friends were sitting around MAKING the jewelry? Because I don’t actually think of jewelry at Macy’s being stringed together by a bunch of people at a kitchen table – but then I’m also not really Macy’s target jewelry (or “JOOORY”, as everyone on this damn show pronounces it) demographic either, so what do I know? (I think Lisa is absolutely gorgeous, by the way, but I prefer her hair curly to straight.)
You know, Kim’s insistence on continually telling Sheree how beautiful she is, is just weird and I think even Sheree was getting uncomfortable with all the smoke Kim was blowing up her ass.
There’s going to be some DRAMA next week, looks like. NeNe doesn’t back down from confrontation, so it should be something to see.
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Pictures from around Crooked Acres:
Kara’s assimilation into the Crooked Acres Gang is just about complete. You can’t see it in this picture, but she’s wearing a collar. She LOVES to be outside, and she’s mostly got the hang of the cat door. When she goes outside, she flops down at the bottom of the steps and rolls around. At night, when the door is closed, she tries to lead us to the door every time we head in that direction. I’m sure she’ll understand eventually that night time means no going outside.
Hello, Fall.
We call these three the Three Musketeers. In the few days since I took this picture, they actually got too big to squeeze through the fence, but for a while there they were spending all their time in the side yard cleaning up under the bird feeders.
These girls sure do flop down and sleep hard. Sometimes we have to call them several times before they wake up.
These two have suddenly started flying up and hanging out on top of the gate between the chicken yard and the back yard. Makes me wonder if we’ve got another couple of roosters on our hands.
Hawk, checking out the chickens.
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I told Fred yesterday that if I had the naming to do over again, I’d name him Dr. Google instead of Delmar. At least once a day I get the once-over from him. He sniffs my nostrils, my eyes and my breath before he decides that I continue to be healthy. And then he gives me an arm massage before he flops down for petting. He’s part-physician, part-masseuse, ALL lovebug!
The kittens got over being mad at me for taking them off to the scary place pretty quickly – yesterday afternoon Delmar, Marion and Lem all crowded around me and climbed on me, head-butted me for petting, and then complained when I wasn’t quick enough with the petting. They’re so demanding.
Tonight they get their vaccinations, and I expect in the next few days, if they’re interested, I’ll let them out to roam the house. I’ve let Kara in the kitten room to visit with them a few times. She hisses at them and puffs up, but they just look at her like, “What’s YOUR problem?” Our cats might have freaked them out initially, but now they’re not scared at all when Kara or Tommy or Mister Boogers pokes their head into the room.
Claudette continues to be a scaredy cat. It’s like she wants to be friendly, but she’s just too scared to come over for petting. It seems like tortis are always either terrified little scaredy cats, or completely nuts.
(Well, I suppose that goes for ALL cats, really, doesn’t it?)
I expect that she’ll come around eventually, and when she gives in to her deep-down desire to be a snugglebug, she’ll really be a sight to behold.
“Whyyyyyyyy are you not petting me right now? Whyyyyyyyyyy?”
Stinkerbelle would like you all to know that those of you who pointed out that she’s no longer a “little thing” can KISS HER ASS.
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Previously 2007: “Jesus christ, LENNY. I’m not going to PET THE DEAD SQUIRREL.” 2006: Isn’t it nice that I named cats that aren’t mine?
2005: No entry. 2004: List of fives. 2003: (Also, Nance called me “nice.” That bitch!) 2002: But I don’t guess that introspection is the forte of that particular diva. 2001: Who tells stories about you? 2000: This morning, red and goopy. 1999: (Side note: I did nothing, and that just pisses me off. I wish I could go back and smack the shit out of that jerk. I hope his life is hellish).
This is how my Monday went: 1. I didn’t sleep worth a shit Sunday night, got maybe two hours, and when Fred woke me up to say goodbye, we talked long enough that I woke up completely and couldn’t get back to sleep. 2. On Saturday, we noticed that Miz Poo had a swelling near … Continue reading “10/28/08”
This is how my Monday went:
1. I didn’t sleep worth a shit Sunday night, got maybe two hours, and when Fred woke me up to say goodbye, we talked long enough that I woke up completely and couldn’t get back to sleep.
2. On Saturday, we noticed that Miz Poo had a swelling near the base of her tail. We looked at it and Fred Googled around and we decided it was likely an abscess. We decided it wasn’t an occasion for the emergency vet (unlike a few years ago when I think we took Spot to the emergency vet and blew a few hundred dollars on the visit because he looked “funny.”) and checked on her during the day. Saturday night Fred looked over in the padded pyramid near the couch where Miz Poo was hanging out (which in itself is weird, because she’s usually on the couch with me or on the couch with Fred, she’s an equal opportunity lovah.) and she was licking at the swollen area. When he got down to check on her, he found that it had burst, and poor Miz Poo was trying to lick up the flood of bloody puss and had the most disgusted look on her face.
You weren’t eating, were you?
We did our best to clean her up, dabbed off the puss, and put antibiotic ointment on the area and checked on it again Sunday. Yesterday I took her to the vet, figuring that they’d have to clean out the area (it looked pretty nasty, but not infected) and might have to knock her out to do so. The vet looked at the area and said that he thought he saw some tumor tissue, that they needed to knock her out, remove the tissue around the area, and try to close it back up. I left her there so they could do it. Apparently they doped her up to see if they could clean the area before operating, and she vomited, so they had to wait a while to operate. Yesterday evening the vet talked to Fred and told him it turned out to be an anal gland adenoma. That they usually come back and turn into a chronic condition, but sometimes they never reoccur. Fred asked him if this was a death sentence, and the vet said that ultimately (if it turns into a chronic condition) it would probably be what kills her, but not to break out the ash and sackcloth just yet.
She stayed overnight at the vet and hopefully I’ll be able to pick her up after I drop the kittens off at the vet to be spayed and neutered.
3. I spent three hours painting the outside of the big coop (we’re going with dark green this time around). Today my leg aches like a motherfucker; I guess I stand funny when I’m using a paint roller.
I got green paint on the palm of my right hand, and I scrubbed and scrubbed at it and it mostly came off, but my hand is so dry that I can’t quite get all the paint off, so my right palm is tinged slightly green. I look like I’m about to start turning into the Hulk.
Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
4. I’m a fucking idiot and put my iPod in my bra while I was painting (what? I don’t usually wear pants with pockets, that’s where I usually store the damn thing when I’m doing stuff.) and sweated all over it. It stopped working completely at first, and now it’ll light up and I can synch it, but the menu buttons won’t work at all, so it’s pretty much useless.
If the week knows what’s good for it, things will be downhill for the next few days!
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I have to box up the kittens and take them to be spayed and neutered. I don’t know how that’s going to go – the boys are okay with being picked up (Delmar actually seems to like it) but the girls hate it, especially Claudette, who’s a tiny little scrapper when you pick her up. I put two carriers in their room Sunday and they’ve been checking them out and jumping in and out of them and sniffing them all over, so they’re not scared of carriers.
Stinkerbelle in the sun. Pretty little thing, isn’t she?
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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: (”GOD. No WONDER you’re so fat, if you eat stuff like that ALL THE TIME! All you have to do is stop eating crap like that, and exercise! I should know! I’m an anonymous asshole you’ve never heard of before, so listen to me!”)
2004: No entry. 2003: I’m going to DIE. Someday, I’m going to die. I’m going to die, you’re going to die, Fred will die, the spud will die. We’re going to DIE. All of us. 2002: I’m an AMERICAN, after all. I should never, for one second feel the slightest bit of discomfort.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry. 1999: As far as I’m concerned, to each his own.
Squeeky the Cattle Herding Pig. Too cool. I can’t imagine our pigs being so light on their feet, and they’re a quarter the size of Squeeky! & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Zack Scott has got some pretty awesome movies … Continue reading “10-22-08”
Squeeky the Cattle Herding Pig. Too cool. I can’t imagine our pigs being so light on their feet, and they’re a quarter the size of Squeeky!
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Zack Scott has got some pretty awesome movies on his YouTube page. Katherine sent me this one, and I watched it three times, each time laughing harder. You have GOT to watch it to the end. The looks they shoot each other are funny as hell.
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Bella’s got the tortured artist look down:
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Pictures from around Crooked Acres:
Sugarbutt peers around the monster tomato plant in the back yard (STILL producing!) to see what Joe Bob (on the other side) is doing.
Michelle the rooster. Such a pretty rooster.
No-Tail does the move we refer to as “umbrella neck.” I’m not sure what exactly umbrella neck signifies – sometimes it seems to happen when the chicken feels there’s danger, sometimes the roosters do it as part of their mating dance. Yesterday, No-Tail was following me around and throwing me the umbrella neck, so I expected him to either start his mating dance or decide I was some sort of threat and attack me.
I’d expect such a pretty rooster to have a more impressive tail. I mean, I know he can’t help the size of his tail or anything, but still. You’d think McLovin’s sons would have prettier tails.
Her name is Lola. She is a show chick. (Someone mentioned in my comments that they think of “Copacabana” when they see the featherheads. I think of this one as Lola now (because she is SO BEAUTIFUL), and the other two (the black chickens with the spray of white feathers on their heads) as the featherheads.
The featherheads, taking dust baths along with some of their sisters.
Little bitty abandoned web in the fence.
Big Pig. (That’s a ball behind her head, not her cheek sticking out oddly.)
Little Pig, grazing like a cow.
Something’s got her excited. Maybe it’s time to eat?
No-Tail, up close. Pretty, pretty.
Scruffy little Amish chick.
I’m calling the Silkie “Princess” these days. C’mon, look at her. Doesn’t she LOOK like a “Princess”?
Big bowl of pecans. Fred filled up the bowl, and we had to start using an empty 40-pound litter bucket to put them in. I pity the fool who has to crack all those damn things…
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The foster kittens continue to relax. Claudette still isn’t approaching me to be petted or anything (though if I make the effort to reach out and pet the top of her head, she allows it. She’s a benevolent ruler.), but she’ll come down out of the cat tree and hang out on the floor with her siblings and I. That’s progress. Also, Delmar no longer runs for the cat tree when the door to the foster room opens. That’s progress, too! (Of course, the other three hightail it for the tree as soon as they hear the door handle turning.)
Every day, there’s a little more progress. I’m really enjoying watching these kittens come out of their shells and turn into friendly little purrbuckets.
Oh, speaking of… cats. I have news. About Kara. It seems she’s found a home.
We now have ten cats.
::sigh::
More about that tomorrow.
Clearly she’s thrilled about it.
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Boogie says, “If SHE’s staying, I’m OUTTA HERE!”
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Previously 2007: You snooze, you lose. That’s our motto at Crooked Acres.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: (We fat chicks love the buffet, don’tchaknow.) 2003: The gluttony, the sloth, the avarice! 2002: The kitties did not care for the tune, the unappreciative bastards. 2001: How to change a tire.
2000: No entry. 1999: But as I see it, more than 2 cats makes you a weird cat person. Am I wrong? Is it three, or some incredible number like ten?
I’m telling you now, though, if you don’t read The Thirteenth Tale soon, I’m going to show up on your porch, barge my way in, set you down in a recliner, hand you the book and force you to read it. I’m just sayin’. It’s in the queue! I swear it! In fact, I’ll look … Continue reading “10-3-08”
I’m telling you now, though, if you don’t read The Thirteenth Tale soon, I’m going to show up on your porch, barge my way in, set you down in a recliner, hand you the book and force you to read it. I’m just sayin’.
It’s in the queue! I swear it! In fact, I’ll look when I go upstairs tonight, and if it’s not in the next five books, I’ll move it up! How’s that?
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We have those type of stairs and call them “pain in the ass to move anything big up them” stairs.
Dude. TELL me about it. When we had to move my furniture upstairs (when I moved from the downstairs bedroom to the upstairs), it was a HUGE pain in the ass to get my mattress up the stairs, let alone anything else. I guess I’m just lucky I don’t sleep in a King size bed!
[It’s called a]return staircase. sorry, i know the strangest things!
I knew someone would know the answer!
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We have hardwood floors in our house. They need to be refinished. How did you decide between doing it yourself or having them done by somebody else?
I actually had to call Fred and ask him for the answer to this one, ’cause I couldn’t remember. At first Fred was planning to do them himself (with some help from me, I’m sure), but he always researches everything thoroughly before he does it, and the more research he did, the more concerned he was that he’d mess it up and we’d end up paying a professional to do it anyway. After much deliberation, waffling, dithering and A LOT OF ANNOYING OF HIS WIFE, he decided to get quotes from local area businesses. The first guy who came and looked the house over gave us a quote that fit into our budget (I’m not being coy here, I honestly don’t remember how much it cost at ALL), was very professional, and gave us a lot of references. I really wanted to have a professional do it, and after a little more time spent thinking about it, Fred ended up agreeing with me.
Fred did end up redoing the stairs himself (with a lot of help and direction from his father), which gave him a definite appreciation for the work involved, and a year and a half later, he says that if he had it to do over again, he’d still hire a professional for the floors.
Oh my lord, my head aches. I found that if you read it quickly rather than try to figure out every word, it goes a lot easier.
And it is pretty funny!
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I’m cracking up at the last sentence of your bringing Miz Poo home story….Sorry for all the kitten talk. HAHAHAHA. If you knew then what you know now.
I totally had no idea, 9 years ago, that I was going to turn into a batshit crazy cat lady!
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Hey! Didn’t you have a camera set up to see who was peeing on the bed???? Whatever happened to that? Did you find out who it was????
After a stint as an egg-hatching cam, a brooder cam and a front-porch cam, the webcam is… You know, I’m not even sure where I stashed it. I think it’s on the bookcase in the front room. I need to set it back up in the guest bedroom because it’s been long enough since the bed was peed upon that we’re just about due for an incident!
(I’m trying to convince Fred that we should set the webcam up in the chicken yard for at least a few days so y’all can watch the chickens strut about!)
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OK – am I the only one who wonders why you don’t take your shower BEFORE you go get your hair done? Or are you one of those fussies (like my daughter) who hates the way the hairdresser styles their hair?
Oh, I do take a shower before I go have my hair done – and then I take another afterward. She tends to use a lot of product in my hair, and I touch my hair a LOT (also, I touch my face a lot. Apparently I’m a self-touching fool.) and the feel of product-laden hair bugs me. Also, she’s good about getting most of the teeny little hairs off me when she’s done, but there are still plenty on me, so I take a shower and change clothes to get rid of those.
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What’s a girl who lives in the boonies with rabbit ears to do? I only get 3 networks, and I still struggle with watching/taping everything! I actually look forward to re-runs!!!
I recommend Hulu.com and iTunes! Edited to add – you can go here and search to find your favorite shows. Thank you, Lisa the awesome!!!
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Didn’t you have a recipe for homemade liquid hand soap? If not do know anyone who has made some successfully?
I haven’t made the hand soap yet myself, but Nance did, and her recipe is: 1 bar Castille soap, grated; 3 c. water. Heat ’til the soap melts. I have the soap and am ready to make it, but my liquid soap dispensers aren’t anywhere close to empty, so I’m waiting ’til they are. I have it on good authority that it works pretty well!
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Mister Boogers LOVES someone?? How is that even possible?
In his own way, Mister Boogers loves people. For a little while. Until the het takes over and he has to cast them aside. His love is fleeting; his het is not.
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(From Kinzie, whose daughter coined “Honkshu”, which I immediately stole for my own usage) Got another one for ya. They told me they can’t talk about the “b-word”, which is Pickle’s balls, so they say “He’s showing me his beehive.” HAHAHA. Where do they GET this stuff??
HEE.
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I think you would like this site too: http://iamneurotic.com/ It’s kind of like post secret but you list your neuroses. Very fun to browse through–makes me feel normal!
I do like that site – and you’re right, it totally makes me feel normal!
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I just finished Manhunt, which is about the 12 day chase for John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln’s death. There was an incredible amount of research done and it ended up reading more like a suspense/thriller than a history book. I hear that that book is supposedly being made into a made for tv movie. Hope it does! Reading it made me want to go do all of the tours of Mudd’s house and the Surratt house and Ford’s Theatre again. Good thing I live nearby them!
Is it a gap in my education, or was I just not paying attention, that I didn’t realize it took 12 days for them to catch him? I had no idea – I thought it was a matter of HOURS! (I’m definitely adding that book to my wish list. It sounds good – also, educational. Clearly I need me some education.)
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Um, can i come vacation at your house? I think I could really be happy eating and watching TV.
Wouldn’t I be an excellent slacker vacation host? I’m always excited to have people come visit ’cause it means I have someone to go out to eat with and drag to whatever store I want to visit!
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What happened with little Zoe? Did she get adopted? I noticed you didn’t mention that you brought her home again.
No, she hasn’t been adopted yet. As of yesterday, she was still there. She’s in a cage by herself, but – I think as a result of being in a cage alone – she’s a lot friendlier than she was when I took her to the pet store. Of course I spoil her when I go in there – she’s the first one out of her cage and the last one back in, and I give her plenty of cuddles in between. If too much more time goes by and she remains unadopted, I’ll likely bring her home to give her a break from the cage and give another kitten a chance to be exposed to the people who go by the cat room.
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There’s a book out about the Ice Man… hit man serial killer…something like that. I have it wrote down somewhere but anyway… I saw a piece on him on A&E (I think) and that man was a cold human being/monster. But his story fascinates me and I want to know more.
I had never heard that! Well, I may have heard of washing your hair with baking soda, but washing your face with oils? That sounds so odd!
Anyone tried either of those?
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What color did she use on your hair?? I must have it too!!!
I haven’t got a clue – it’s something she mixes up in the back. Maybe it’s magic!
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I was about to tell you the surefire method of having easy peeling eggs… which is to not boil them fresh, boil ones that have been in your fridge for a week or so and they peel with ease. Then I remembered that there are ONLY fresh eggs at Crooked Acres. How long does it take for an egg to go from chicken’s ass to the grocery store anyway?
When we have deviled eggs, I always immediately set another dozen eggs aside to let them “age”, because I’ve always heard that they’re easier to peel when they’re a bit older. I want to try the 12-minute low boil followed by baking soda and ice bath, and see if it works as well on fresher eggs. Probably we’ll be having egg salad this weekend!
By the time eggs get to the grocery store, they’re 7 to 10 days old; in comparison, we had scrambled eggs for dinner last night that were maybe three hours out of the chickens.
I can’t recommend getting your own chickens enough, if you live in an area where that’s a possibility.
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Umm…HOW do you get pics of your cats with such awesome expressions? And what the devil was he doing? The doesn’t look like a yawn?
With the invention of digital cameras, people like me can take picture after picture after picture and end up with some pretty good ones. It doesn’t cost anything to take 10 billion pictures and delete all but one of them.
Of course, it also helps to have cats who are real characters and make such goofy faces, too.
Mister Boogers was actually at the tail end of a yawn in that picture – though it’s also the face he makes when he sneezes, so I’ve gotten plenty of pictures of him making that face!
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How surprised were you to see those dogs on your porch? The raccoon wasn’t that surprising (but cute), but those were two big dogs! Speaking of big, the spider that crawls across the porch was pretty large, too. Blech.
and
Do you know who those dogs belong to? I would love to save dogs/raccoons/stray cats come up and feed on my porch, but since I live in a suburb with NO land around us whatsoever, I do not think our neighbors would appreciate that.
I wasn’t terribly surprised – we’ve seen both those dogs around here from time to time, ever since we moved in. I think, though I don’t know for sure, that they may have belonged to the people who sold us this house. I’d love to get my hands on them to at least have them neutered, but the few times they’ve caught sight of me, they’ve run off immediately and ignored my calls.
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How much cat food do you go through out on the porch? If that was just a sampling of the free loaders, I can’t imagine that how much food you’re going through.
Less than you’d think, actually – I buy maybe two big bags of (cheap) cat food a month, whatever’s on sale. Some mornings I go out and the food dish is completely empty, but most mornings it’s only 1/3 to 1/2 empty. I’m guessing that the dogs are getting food elsewhere as well as on our front porch. I don’t know if someone else is feeding them, or if they’re catching small animals to eat or what, but they seem to be at a good size, not too skinny, so they’re eating SOMETHING.
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Enjoyed the porch cam. A wild game cam with night vision out at the back forty might truly capture a lot of roaming deer, raccoons and who knows what all. About 100 miles south of where you live, a woman has a wild game cam and catches lots of deer, raccoons, possums — as well as lots of coyotes! (They are not hunters, just like to see what is wandering around their fields and woods.)
I would LOVE to have a wild game cam with night vision! I think it would be really neat to see what moves through the back forty at night. I’m still working on Fred, trying to convince him that we need one!
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LOVE the porch cam! Wouldn’t you have DIED if you were going through the images and saw like, a PERSON sneaking up on your porch? Looking right into the camera? And giving you this evil grin? Shudder.
I told Fred that I half-expected to find a movie of The Walkin’ Dude (who we also refer to as Crackhead Bob) snoozing on the porch swing!
Pigs and birds enjoy popped popcorn….. so does little fat squirrels that you won’t bake cookies for ; )
Oh, the pigs and birds and squirrels get PLENTY of food, believe me. In fact, I have a tree that’s pretty much devoted to squirrels – they get peanut butter suet nuggets, a square of corn and sunflower seeds, and if they get bored with those, I put peanuts (in the shell) on fence posts for them.
Any animal who wanders across our property sure does get spoiled rotten, don’t they?
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What kind of webcam do you have? I just bought one on ebay. Do you capture it to a tape or dvd, or to a browser?
Fred can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s a TRENDnet Internet Camera. It comes with software you install on your computer, then you connect (wirelessly) to the camera, and you can set it to record manually, at set times, or when motion sets it off; it records right to your hard drive.
You can mess with the motion sensitivity; when I had it on the front porch, I had to fiddle with the camera “zones” so that the bushes blowing in the breeze didn’t set it off.
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Just wanted to say that I used to feel the same way about slow walkers. With all due respect, I changed my mind one day when good friend’s mother, who was elderly and had to use a walker, was “nudged” and knocked down by an impatient truck driver. The truck driver, who saw what he had done, drove off, leaving her lying in the street with a broken hip. She later died. I guess the truck driver had more important things to do in his oh so very busy and important life than help a fellow human being, whose distress he had caused. My attitude now towards people who get impatient with slow-walkers is…take a valium and chill out. You’ll be a lot happier and, unless those 15 extra seconds spent at some intersection mean that now you won’t have time to discover the cure for cancer, I’d say they really aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things.
Oh, I agree – I figure I’ll get there sooner or later, but CERTAIN PEOPLE take the fact that sometimes people are in their way as personal insults.
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You’ve probably addressed it before, but … WHY does the cat have to pee in the litter box the second it is cleaned and put back on the floor? Said cat, Simon, practically dances on his two back legs clutching his, um, self, waiting for me to finish!
Good question! All I can guess is that some cats are pickier than others when it comes to litter box cleanliness. I know that some of our cats will wait until I’ve scooped all the litter boxes, and then they use them immediately. What drives me crazy is that they’re picky about the cleanliness of their litter boxes, but they ALL use the damn same hole in the back yard as an outside litter box and you can bet I do NOT scoop that damn thing!
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Oh God! No! Don’t waste your time reading those books, read the recaps that Cleolinda Jones wrote. Go here, they’re funny:
Now, in Stephanie Meyer’s defense, she wrote a book called The Host for an adult audience which was much, much better. She’s definitely writing Twilight for a fourteen-year-old reader, and she KNOWS her audience. That’s why Twilight is such a repetitive soap-opera. Don’t be afraid to put the book down.
Oddly enough, I picked up The Host in Target yesterday, then put it down because I decided I had enough damn books to read!
I’m going to check out Cleolinda’s recaps, but I think these are definitely worth checking out as well – they cracked me UP (though I only read the first few chapters so as not to ruin the surprise of the rest of the book for myself!).
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My dad always talks about honkshuing. Of course, he also talks about things being cattywhampus, calls unidentified objects ’sphagnum’, and refers to sick people as having ‘collywabbles in the bingbang’. I’m never sure which words he’s made up, which ones he’s using completely (on purpose) incorrectly, and which ones are legitimate. We are an odd odd family.
I would have guessed, if pressed, that “collywabbles in the bingbang” would be like “bats in the belfry”, guess not! I’m going to try to remember to use “collywabbles” in the future and see if I get A Look. Heh.
So my question is – does he use the phrase just in passing, or does he do it to get A Look from someone?
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I don’t have HBO but really want to see the True Blood series. Does anyone out there have a DVR and is keeping the episodes? Could I beg someone to copy the episodes to a DVD for me (or VHS is fine too)? I’d be happy to wait until the season’s over even if I could get all of them. I’d pay for the DVDs and shipping. If someone’s willing, let me know and we can exchange e-mails or something to work out the details.
Anyone willing to help out, let me know and I’ll pass you along to Lo! Edited to add – you can go here and search to find your favorite shows. Thank you, Lisa the awesome!!!
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So I missed the unveiling of the House Tour, which I had whined for, because of the week-long power outage up here (”Ike Hits Ohio”), and then you up and go away.
I have been in serious BP withdrawal.
Anyone who might have missed it, the House Tour is here (and you can always follow the link in the sidebar to the right in the future).
And there, there. I’m back now, and I don’t intend to take any more time off from journaling in the near future, I promise! 🙂
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Previously 2007: I was a little shaky as I looked around the first floor of the garage, then I said “I have a gun and I’m coming up there!” and I went upstairs. 2006: He’s always a party pooper. 2005: If I hadn’ta covered my head with my hands, I might be DEAD right now!
2004: No entry. 2003: “No,” Fred said. “You’re the muffinhead. DID SHE STAND OVER YOU AND MAKE YOU INSTALL IT??” 2002: Spanky is the Lance Bass of our family. 2001: I guess if tomorrow’s Day Zero and Friday is Day One, that makes today Day Negative One.
2000: No entry.
I always know I can count on you guys! Thanks for the banana bread recipes and the advice (I had no idea that you could substitute applesauce, grated apple, or zucchini for the third banana, but of course it makes sense!), but I ended up just tossing them in ziplock bag and putting them in … Continue reading “9/19/08”
I always know I can count on you guys! Thanks for the banana bread recipes and the advice (I had no idea that you could substitute applesauce, grated apple, or zucchini for the third banana, but of course it makes sense!), but I ended up just tossing them in ziplock bag and putting them in the freezer so I don’t have to deal with them right now. At some point in the future, when I’m in a baking mood, I’ll pull ’em out and use them.
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Katherine sent me the link to this site the other day:
If you don’t want to go watch it right now, it’s a video of pictures illustrating the lyrics in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.
Confession: It wasn’t ’til I watched the video that I realized he was saying “Children of Thalidomide” (I thought it was “Children of the Little Mai”, figured it was a Vietnam reference), and I thought “Bay of Pigs Invasion” was “Bay of Pigs and Beijing.” Duh.
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We have nine kittens and we desperately need to find homes for them. All nine are white/light tan striped with blue eyes. We live near Athens Ga. If any of your readers are nearby please send me an email. We have loved on these kittens from day one but we can not keep them as we already have five cats and four dogs. Thank you Robyn for passing this along to your readers!
If anyone’s interested, email me and I’ll pass your email along to Lisa!
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I don’t understand the logic of shredding information that is just name/address. I admit that I’m the opposite of paranoid. I probably don’t take enough care with privacy because I figure the bad guys will get the info if they want. But if someone could get the same information from a phone book (or driving by your house if you had your name “The Coopers” on the house), what does it prevent to tear off magazine labels, etc.?
To be a stickler, here, our phone number is unlisted, and we don’t have our name on the mailbox. But I get what you’re asking – I don’t think that anyone could use our name and address to do any real damage, but since I recycle magazines, catalogs and the occasional mailing box, and I have seen people going through the “magazines/ junk mail” and “cardboard boxes” dumpsters and pulling stuff out (which is actually rather thrifty – why pay for People Magazine when you can pull it out of a dumpster and read it for nothing?), shredding that stuff is in the “better safe than sorry” vein for me.
I do know that you can turn yourself inside out trying to protect yourself from thievery and all it takes is brushing against (figuratively speaking) the wrong person at the wrong time. You can’t live your life trying to stop people from taking shit from you, but you also don’t need to go out of your way to make it available to them, you know? I honestly don’t spend much time worrying about this stuff, I might have overstated my paranoia a wee.
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I don’t get the T-shirt, “Every time you can has” ?? I guess I’m a dork and not a geek – will someone explain?
It comes from LOLspeak – seen in a big way over at ICanHasCheezburger – and Wikipedia says: A lolcat is an image combining a photograph, most frequently a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak”, or “Kitteh!”. Basically it’s saying “Every time you use that damn LOLspeak, god kills a LOLcat (the cat “speaking” the LOLspeak in the pictures featured at ICHC).
If that doesn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll try to explain it again! 🙂
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Where did you get the rooster? Maybe he was castrated. (I was reading about capons on wikipedia.) For the record, I just thought you had a rooster with a low sex drive.
He’s actually one of the chicks who was hatched by one of our adult chickens back in April, maybe? I don’t remember when exactly (and I’m too lazy to go back and look), but he’s definitely not been castrated. I said to Fred yesterday, “Are we SURE he’s a he and not a she?” and he said that the only reason he thinks it’s a rooster is because of the big, pretty tail. Female chickens don’t tend to have the big tails. On the other hand, Michele and No-tail don’t have the big, pretty tails and we’re sure that they’re roosters, so who the hell knows? We’ll have to wait and see if he develops a spur. It’d be too bad if he had a low sex drive, though – I think he’d make pretty babies.
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Did you skip a caption on the picture of Sugarbutt “yelling,” or am I just lame and don’t get it?
If you watch the YouTube clip of that scene:
You’ll see the few seconds after Don Corleone is mocking Johnny, the camera goes to Robert Duvall, who smiles.
Sugarbutt is doing his interpretation of Robert Duvall.
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I have had a shirt thing going on for a while, $10+free shipping on the daily shirt at http://shirt.woot.com/ and sometimes the shirts are good and sometimes awful but I look every morning, it’s the first thing I usually look at, I have bought 2 shirts for myself and 2 for friends…check it out.
I’ve been checking it out every day. I haven’t bought anything yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time!
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Did you and Fred watch that football show from a few years back, on ESPN? It was called Playmakers, I think, and we enjoyed it so much. But then I think there was some uproar over it being TOO realistic about the players’ off-field lives or something, and it only survived that one season. Anyway, it was good.
No, we never watched it – but it’s in my Netflix queue now!
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Also, what’s your favorite dusting product/method? I hate doing it, too, and don’t very often, but when I DO, it seems like I just end up moving the piles of dust around…
Most of the time when I dust (which is not very often because I HATE dusting and it’s usually not until I’m embarrassed by how damn dusty the house has gotten that I give in) I use microfiber cloths that I bought at Target (in the section where they have mops and stuff). I just go around, move everything off the surface of the table (or whatever I’m dusting), swipe that across a few times, and the dust is gone. I’ve also been known to use Swiffer dusting cloths from time to time, but I really and truly am trying to reduce the amount of disposable stuff I use.
Once a month or so, I go around with some cleaning rags and a can of some furniture spray (I don’t know which kind it is, just something I picked up at the grocery store, I’m not particular when it comes to furniture polish) and polish the furniture so it’s clean and shiny. And then I remember quickly why it’s pointless to polish the furniture – there are few flat surfaces in this house that don’t gather cats at one point or another, and the formerly shiny surfaces end up marked with paw prints.
Damn cats.
Readers? What do you dust your furniture with?
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I am in need of some cat advice from the expert (and the other kitty expert commenters). We have an outdoor kitty that we “adopted” at our current house. (She was an abandoned cat that hangs out in our backyard.) I managed to gain her trust and now feed her, give her love, and she truly lives here now, but she doesn’t ever come in the house. Not for lack of trying, she just freaks out and cries to leave after 5 minutes. Now we are about to move to a new city. I’m not sure how our cat is going to react. Clearly she won’t acclimate to being an indoor cat, but I’m afraid to let her roam outside in a new city that’s completely unfamiliar to her. I don’t know what to do! Do you have any advice for me?
Thank you!
I’m leaving this one open, because I have no idea at all – there’s no way we could keep Maxi and Newt inside all the time, but if we really had to, we could probably keep them contained in the back yard. Will you have a back yard at your new house where you could keep your cat contained?
Other than that, I have no suggestions.
Readers? Your advice?
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Oh My Gosh Robyn! You have the most gorgeous voice!!!
I can honestly say that that’s the first time in all of history that those words have been said (written) to me! Heh.
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Perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing too much (too lazy to check the spelling) but if I were left in a cage at a strange place I doubt I’d like the specter of two gigantic Bengal tigers. Zoe looks like she’s thinking, “WTF? Those two big cats want to eat me. Can you DO something, please?” Maybe they can post something more kitten-friendly. Little mousies eating cheese, perhaps?
Nah, the cats don’t even notice those pictures, I promise.
By the way, as of yesterday morning, Zoe and Kaylee remain unadopted. I’d be more unhappy about that, except that they’ve become noticeably friendlier than they were before (they might remember me, but I kind of doubt it. Hard to tell, though!) and they ran around and played the entire time they were out of their cage (and you KNOW I let them stay out of their cage from the minute I walked into the cat room to the minute I left!).
Here’s hoping they get adopted before next Thursday, though. I hate seeing them caged up!
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Not my little Zoe! Remember, she’s MINE, all MINE, and one wild and stormy night, after 4 or 5 pints of Guinness, you agreed to foster her until I can come out there and pick her up. Can we convince Fred otherwise?
I doubt Fred would go for that – though one day after I win the lottery, I will build a big, big, BIG house and I will never have to take another cat to the pet store again!
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Leslie’s response about the anti -“Okey Dokey Pokey” lady:
“Okey Dokey Pokey!” was just an inane phrase I blurted out and made some poor woman completely rageful. I put that comment in the comment thread about phrases/words that make folks crazy in response to Robyn’s list. It just seemed to fit the the discussion in the comments.
There isn’t much more to the story. We were in the Air and Space Museum in DC and I said that (quite perkily!) to my husband and a woman near us spun on me. She said that she couldn’t believe I would say such a ridiculous thing, AND TO A GROWN MAN! My husband and I gave each other the patented Mr. Booger’s Look-o-Shock and laughed heartily. She obviously felt she hadn’t made herself clear and said that she wouldn’t even say that to a CHILD! We of course immediately roared with laughter and delight. Our new friend then very purposefully Ignored Us (that sure showed us.)
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If you like vampires, I have to ask, have you read the “Twilight” series yet? It’s geared towards teens, but I LOVED it!!! (I’m 30) It’s by Stephanie Meyer. Go get them!
I have Twilight on the bookcase, it’s about five books down the queue, so I should get to it soon. It was more like 30 books down the queue ’til I read that Jane LURVED IT, so I moved it up quite a bit.
I’ll admit that I’m a tiny bit scared that I won’t like it, because you Twilight-loving lunatics might come after me and beat me up.
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How did I miss that they are making a tv series out of the Sookie Stackhouse books??? I love that series and just re-read it this summer. I had cast it differently, but what can you do? LOL. Argh – just realized it is on HBO – must call to subscribe ASAP!!! (I obviously need to get out more…)
I only knew about it because I read it in TV Guide (I LOVE THAT MAGAZINE). I don’t think they did all that much advertising for it, though maybe they did and I just didn’t notice (since we fast-forward through all the commercials these days).
Having watched episode #2, I’m continuing to really like the show. Fred could take it or leave it, but I’m definitely going to keep watching!
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Your house is lovely – were the rest of the cats outside when you took the photos? I was looking out for Spanky.
Thank you! And… I’m not sure where the cats were, actually. It’s kind of odd that more of them didn’t pop up in the pictures. I know that Tommy and Joe Bob were outside, but I’m not sure where the other ones were. It’s entirely possible they moved around the house just right so that they didn’t end up in any pictures.
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Why did you get rid of the first house?
I appreciate the opportunity this opportunity to mock my husband, so thank you for asking!
We sold the first house in Madison because we agreed that we wanted to buy a smaller house on a lot more land. Sound familiar?? So the house sold in a matter of days and we had a limited amount of time to find a new house. We went through a bazillion houses, several of which I really liked. But Fred has spent the majority of his life in newish houses, so the houses we were touring were not really to his taste, and I think that the idea of living way out in the country made him more than a little twitchy.
We finally decided that we had to get our asses in gear and started looking at a subdivision in Madison located about a mile from the subdivision where we’d sold the house. We made an offer on one house, but were outbid. We were about to make an offer on a second house, were a little disturbed by the $5,000 “decorating allowance”, and then before we finalized the offer, Fred discovered that the wooden frame around every window in the house was rotting and would need to be replaced and $5,000 wouldn’t even begin to touch that. THEN we made an offer on a third place, and it was accepted. We were pleased at first, then were starting to have second thoughts (it was smaller than we wanted, really), and the realtor inadvertently gave us an out by screwing up. We finally went and looked at a fourth house – the one we finally bought – and liked it. And we were so freaked about the fact that closing on the house we were living in was only three weeks away, that we made an offer immediately, and were relieved when it was accepted.
So, to sum up, our intention was to get a smaller house on a lot more land and to have a much smaller mortgage. What we ended up with was a smaller house on marginally more land (we went from 1/3 acre to 1/2 acre) with a BIGGER mortgage.
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In the porch picture with Maxi, what is that black giant paw looking thing she is partly obscured by?
It’s supposed to be a bird house, but I just use it as a decoration on the front porch.
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Why do you call it the poltergeist tree? And is Fred’s bedroom up a further flight of stairs from the rest of the hallway? I went back and forth on those pictures but couldn’t figure it out. And will Fred make me a table to go over my linen chest next to my bed, because I can’t find one online or in stores that’s the right size ANYWHERE, and will you both come out here and build and paint and tractor with me? And can I have a cookie?
Fred named it the poltergeist tree because he says it looks like the tree in Poltergeist. This is what it looks like currently, but in the Winter when all the leaves have dropped off, it looks more like the tree in the movie.
Fred’s bedroom is on the same level as the rest of the upstairs. This is from the other end of the hallway, pointed toward his room (we keep the door shut so the cats don’t go in there) :
(That string hanging down in the middle goes to the pull-down door to the attic)
Fred will make a table to go over your linen chest as soon as he’s done working his way down my list of demands, which means he should be ready to start right around his 93rd birthday.
I would TOTALLY come paint and tractor with you, but Fred has a day job and cannot get away. Also, who would feed the chickens and pigs?!
The only cookies available at the moment are the gingersnaps in the Pig Cookies container on the counter. They came from the Dollar Store, but I’m sure they’re just fine – and the pigs are willing to share. Or at least what they don’t know won’t hurt ’em!
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My husband and I are having a debate about getting a new front door. I love the one you have, but my husband is a little reluctant because you can still see through some areas of the glass. I see you have blinds put up on yours. Did you put them up? How is the door in general regarding privacy?
Yeah, we put the blinds on the door ourselves. We shut them at night and keep them open in the daytime to let light come in (though I don’t know why I bother to open the blinds in the front room during the day – we hardly ever spend time in there during the day). We got the blinds for the door specifically because Fred realized that there were areas of the glass you could see through, and in the evening, when we have lights on the front room, it was easy to see right into the house. When the blinds are closed, you can’t see a thing through the door – if you have a door with clear areas of glass, it’s definitely worth it to put blinds or sheer curtains up to block the view inside, I think.
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You’ve probably said before, but I forget – how big is your property?
It’s about 4 1/2 acres. The piece of land was originally about 5, but they carved out half an acre and put the house next door on it. I sincerely wish that half acre was ours!
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Oh, whoa. I thought the computer room was on the other side of the house and for some reason seeing pointing at the garage just messed me up. I’m weird, yes.
Here’s a layout of the house that Fred made before we actually moved in:
The room labeled “Spud b’room” is now my room; the room labeled “guest b’room” is now the foster kitten room, and the room labeled “master b’room” is now the guest bedroom. He also didn’t draw the outside doors on the plan, but there’s one in the front room, one in the computer room (to the left) and one in the laundry room (to the top).
Floor plan is not to scale, by the way.
And he also did a quick property layout for me yesterday.
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How old is the house again? Are you the second owners?
The house is about 75 years old. We’re the third owners – the first owner lived here with her mother and brother, then when she went into a nursing home, her niece lived here for a while. After that, the house was sold to a family with a large number of kids, and they’re the ones who sold it to us. Hopefully, we’ll be here ’til we’re old and gray! (Or until we win the lottery and move to 300 acres in Tennessee!)
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Ok, I took the house tour and I don’t “see” the Dollar store, not literally but figuratively, it seems like like you live so far out in the country that you would see nothing but trees and chickens! Oh, and I’m with Fred on the big tv, I LOVE me some big screen action.
Here ’tis!
(See the little bit of yellow, mostly hidden by that tree branch?)
It’s more obvious at night when it’s dark and the sign is lit up, but it’s certainly within very easy walking distance. We do live in the country, but we’re not terribly far out in the country – there’s a fairly large town about 7 minutes up the road with lots of stores (Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, grocery stores) and restaurants, so we kind of have the best of both worlds.
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So where do you and Fred eat dinner?
In front of our computers, usually. I KNOW we’re not supposed to, but damn. You want us to sit and eat dinner TOGETHER and COMMUNICATE? Who wants THAT?
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Question which you may have answered already – what things do you keep in your laundry room fridge vs. your kitchen fridge? I see you have two fridges (as well as the freezer) and I would think that all the current, soon to be eaten food is in kitchen and Drinks? Soda? extra milk? is in the laundry room.
Most of the day-to-day stuff – condiments, whatever I’ll need for dinner preparations, leftovers – is kept in the kitchen fridge.
In the laundry room fridge we keep the milk (it won’t fit in the kitchen fridge easily), the food Fred takes to work with him (leftovers from dinner and cottage cheese), a big pitcher of tea, eggs (it’s easier to come in from gathering them and put them in the refrigerator rather than have to go into the kitchen, especially since we’re getting around a dozen a day lately), hummingbird food, and all the vegetables Fred brings in from the garden that I want to deal with “later”.
I honestly don’t know what on earth we’d do if we had to cram all our stuff into the tiny refrigerator in the kitchen. There’s no way it’d all fit!
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Do you shower upstairs or downstairs?
I shower upstairs, Fred showers downstairs.
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Do you have a basement or an attic?
We have an attic (no basement, but I wish we did, so we’d have a good place to store canned goods), but it’s not really big enough to walk around in or store stuff in (though that didn’t stop the original owners, apparently – there are big glass jars in the attic underneath all the insulation, I’m told).
Do you still have exercise equipment in the garage–do you or Fred ever use it?? I think you get enough exercise now just taking care of Crooked Acres?
Yep, all the exercise equipment is in the garage keeping the chicks company, and it gets used on a regular basis.
Does the Spud still have any stuff there? Is she going to visit you at all? I guess she would stay in the guest room then?
The spud has a bunch of stuff in boxes upstairs in the garage, but she took the majority of her stuff with her. I imagine she’ll visit eventually – we talked about her coming to visit this summer, but she couldn’t afford to take the time off work, and now she’s busy with work and school. Yes, she’d stay in the guest room, unless she’d prefer to stay in the coop with the chickens.
So how many bedrooms, bathrooms?
4 bedrooms (three upstairs, 1 down) and two and a half bathrooms (one upstairs, one and a half down).
Why don’t you use the dining room–where do you eat? Just one den and one computer room, right??
We don’t use the dining room ’cause we don’t wanna, and there’s usually something online that’s got our attention while we’re eating. Yes, just one den and one computer room.
Also, I was confused by the stairs. Are there 2 sets of stairs??
No, there’s just the one set of stairs. They go up half a flight from the ground floor, there’s a landing, you turn, and there’s another half a flight to the top. I’m sure there’s a specific name for the kind of stairs they are, but I have no idea what that name is. Anyone know?
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I was very, very surprised when I walked into the guest bedroom the other day and saw Spanky sleeping in a cat bed on the bed and Stinky sleeping in the pile of cat beds right next to him (note: that pile of cat beds was there because I washed them and then forgot to take them upstairs to put them back in the foster kitten room, from whence they’d come). Spanky is very much a cat who doesn’t care for other cats. He doesn’t want them snuggling with him, he doesn’t want them touching them, he doesn’t want them NEAR him. And Stinky has her favorite men – Tommy and occasionally Mister Boogers – and has no use for any other cat.
But note that they’re practically TOUCHING.
“Don’t judge me.”
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Previously 2007: I have not yet attained the level of dorkitude that would allow me to answer “yes.” 2006: “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “That’s the monkey (ex-boyfriend) gave me. She can crap all over it if she wants.” 2005: We meet Sugarbutt, Tommy, and their siblings!
2004: No entry. 2003: Since he’s a year older than me, that’ll give me two years to theatrically take to my bed and waste away. Sounds about right. 2002: Obviously whoever lives at 308 belongs to the Bitchypoo “If I don’t know you, I ain’t answerin’ the door” school of thought. 2001: I hate you, Mr. Mailman. 2000: Only US Magazine would consider it newsworthy that Michael Douglas is changing diapers he hasn’t been wearing.
The talented Aly, who has created many of my wonderful Bitchypoo banners, has entered a scrapbooking contest. Go check out her layout and click on that “Vote for me” button, would you? It’s simple and just takes a second! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + … Continue reading “9/17/08”
The talented Aly, who has created many of my wonderful Bitchypoo banners, has entered a scrapbooking contest. Go check out her layout and click on that “Vote for me” button, would you? It’s simple and just takes a second!
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We have nine kittens and we desperately need to find homes for them. All nine are white/light tan striped with blue eyes. We live near Athens Ga. If any of your readers are nearby please send me an email. We have loved on these kittens from day one but we can not keep them as we already have five cats and four dogs. Thank you Robyn for passing this along to your readers!
If anyone in the area is interested, email me and I’ll pass your email along to Lisa!
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The Godfather Catmother
“A month ago, he bought the movie rights to this book. A best seller – and the main character, it’s a guy just like me, I, uh, I wouldn’t even have to act, just be myself. Oh, Catmother, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
“You can act like a man! What’s the matter with you? Is this how you turned out? A Hollywood finocchio that cries like a woman. ‘Wahhhhhhh! What can I do! What can I do!'”
“What is that nonsense. Ridiculous. You spend time with your family?”
“Sure I do.”
“Good. ‘Cause a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man. Come here…You look terrible. I want you to eat. I want you to rest a while. And in a month from now, this Hollywood bigshot’s gonna give you what you want.”
I know this picture is horribly grainy, but I took it as proof that the hummingbirds are still moving through. I need a pet hummingbird. They kill me with the cute.
Nothin’ happier than a chicken taking a dust bath.
This young rooster is gorgeous. He’s not acting at all like a rooster, though – not trying to crow, not trying to get him some lovin’. We’re not sure what’s going on with him.
Rock star. Have I mentioned I think she’s one of our prettiest chickens?
This baby’s not a baby anymore!
Gathering ’round the water bowl.
We call this rooster “No-tail” for obvious reasons. He was keeping an eye on some of the dust-bathing women when he froze and looked skyward. I expected to see a hawk circling in the sky, but saw nothing at all.
“I has no tail.”
I think No-tail is awfully pretty. I especially like his black “eyebrows.”
Michele would like everyone to know that up in these here parts, he is now the man. You will note just how impressed the wimminfolk are.
Previously 2007: I don’t know what you do to surprise your husband – lingerie, or a gift from the local “adult” store, perhaps – but I know the direct way to Fred’s heart, and mowing the lawn so he was free to come home and work on his shed instead of having to mow the lawn made him one happy man.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: How’d you like to wake up in the dark and see the Baldwin noggin coming toward you? I bet your life would flash in front of your eyes. 2003: “Freakass freak” is two words. 2002: As I pointed out to Fred this afternoon, it makes me uncomfortable when Dr. Phil is nice.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
