Gotta love a sleeping kitten! I always want to kiss Clove (and luckily she puts up with it!) Cilantro would like to know whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? Ciara and the crazy eyes. Her favorite feather teaser, even though the feathers have been chewed off. Smackin’ at it (she chatters at it, too!) She knocked the … Continue reading “7/27/11 – Kitteh Wednesday”
Gotta love a sleeping kitten!
I always want to kiss Clove (and luckily she puts up with it!)
Cilantro would like to know whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?
Ciara and the crazy eyes.
Her favorite feather teaser, even though the feathers have been chewed off.
Smackin’ at it (she chatters at it, too!)
She knocked the door closed, and then was interested that someone was sticking their paw underneath the door.
Sweet girl.
Her other favorite teaser toy!
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“What ARE you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” (That’s Spanky.)
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Previously 2010: Like it’s a rule that if both vehicles are here SOMEONE BETTER BE HERE TO SELL HIM EGGS DAMNIT. 2009: I screamed at the top of my lungs, and then I took a gasping breath, and I screamed some more.
2008: No entry. 2007: (Unless there’s a secret “Robyn is a blithering idiot” message board somewhere, which is possible but – given that the world apparently does NOT revolve around me (even though it should), my blithering idiotness probably doesn’t occupy the minds of others the way it occupies mine.) 2006: I look like a fucking Simpson! 2005: “I dropped my purse!” I lied. 2004: I’m a slug in a family of energizer bunnies.
2003: No entry. 2002: My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts.
2001: No entry. 2000: I’m just not feeling very chatty today.
Randomness: I thought I was going to get myself a pet sparrow this morning. I went out to pet Maxi, and was sitting on the top step. This little sparrow came so close to me – AND Maxi! – that I could have reached out and touched him. I had no food for him (and … Continue reading “7/26/11 – Tuesday”
Randomness:
I thought I was going to get myself a pet sparrow this morning. I went out to pet Maxi, and was sitting on the top step. This little sparrow came so close to me – AND Maxi! – that I could have reached out and touched him. I had no food for him (and the bird feeders are full), so I just watched him hop back and forth and eyeball my toes before he came to his senses and flew off.
I saw one single hummingbird last week. I was sitting at my computer and it hovered by the window, right in front of my face, giving me a meaningful look and tilting it’s head toward the side porch, all “Howzabout it, sister?” I filled and put up three hummingbird feeders (one at the side porch, two on the front porch) and haven’t seen another hummingbird since. They usually show up in early August, I think, so I guess I’ll keep the feeders filled with fresh hummingbird food so once they come around they’ll stay around for a while. I do love those hummingbirds.
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before: I really like to go to the live camera at Abbey Road and watch the people go by. I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait longer than five minutes to see a person – or three – have their picture taken as they go across the crosswalk. It’s oddly mesmerizing.
Is there any American who married “royalty” more impressed with themselves than LuAnn De Lesseps? Because you know what you want more than anything is to marry a royal, here are her useless tips.For fuck’s sake. (Tip #8: swear as often and as colorfully as possible.)
Why do people insist on talking on their cell phones in public bathrooms? And then give you a dirty look when you use the hand drying machine to dry your hands? People are assholes (she probably said the same about me!)
Fred called Elwood “L Ron Chubbard” last week and we both laughed until we cried.
Speaking of laughing ’til I cry, have you heard of the Talking Tom app? I need to figure out how to turn these into ringtones.
A few weeks ago, someone pulled into the driveway. When I went out to see who it was, a man got out of a truck and came over to the bottom of the side stoop.
“Did you want eggs?” I said.
He looked at me and thought about it for a long moment, then opened his mouth and earnestly said “Yeff.”
“I… I’m sorry?” I said.
He looked out toward the chickens and said it again. “Yeff?”
“I….” I began, then just stopped and stared at him.
Another guy stuck his head out the truck window and bellowed “EGGS!”
I still don’t know what he was trying to say with “Yeff,” but he ended up with a dozen (“one pack” is what our non-English speaking customers ask for; they’ll occasionally ask for “twelve” but never say “dozen” or even the Spanish word for dozen, docena. According to Fred’s niece’s husband, that’s because docena is like slang and perhaps isn’t in regular usage in Hispanic communities. I’d be interested in any input anyone out there has on the topic, because I find it interesting.)
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I got a ton of pictures yesterday, but now I’m having issues getting the pictures off the camera. So y’all don’t have to go without kitty pics, I’m going to post some random foster pics and I promise I’ll provide you with new ones tomorrow!
Awww, it’s Peter Brady!
Tiny scaredy-cat Alice.
Cindy Bwady.
Gus and his floof!
More Gus!
Dorfy, clearly stressed.
Starsky and Hutch.
Martin, after his bath.
Pancho and his “Glamour Shots” pose.
Garrity, cracking a joke.
Wee baby Corbie!
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Newt, in 2008. Don’t you want to kiss his silly little face?
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Previously 2010: Apparently I’ve got food on my mind this morning. 2009: And no one was even drinking!
2008: No entry. 2007: I think y’all know that I happily contribute to charities and have donated to a lot of your causes and will continue to do so, but I don’t support Blogathon, haven’t for a couple of years, and don’t intend to in the future. 2006: I may have Hepatitis. 2005: But not to worry, it was just cramps. Whew! 2004: I want to rip her goddamn fucking ::fliiiip::TAP::TAP::TAP::FLIIIP::TAP::TAP::TAP::FLIP::TAP::TAP::TAP::FLIP::TAP::TAP::TAP:: head off her stupid fucking goddamn neck
2003: No entry. 2002: I caught the eye of one of them, who noticed my intensely guilty terrorist-like face, and waved me over to wand me down.
2001: No entry. 2000: Because, you know, my life is so damn chaotic. Yeah.
So, you remember the whole thing where I found a Brown Recluse in the house a few weeks ago and Fred ran around in circles clutching his pearls and spraying every surface of the house with spider-killing spray in hopes that he’d kill the 30,000 Brown Recluses in the house before they could find him … Continue reading “7/25/11 – Monday”
So, you remember the whole thing where I found a Brown Recluse in the house a few weeks ago and Fred ran around in circles clutching his pearls and spraying every surface of the house with spider-killing spray in hopes that he’d kill the 30,000 Brown Recluses in the house before they could find him and take a big juicy bite out of his butt?
Well, the other thing we did was to buy a bunch of glue traps online. When they arrived, Fred set about 20 of them up in various spots through the house. He put them in closets and under furniture.
At this point, three weeks later, we have caught no spiders at all. We did catch one Tom Cullen, but since his bites aren’t poisonous we removed him from the trap (or rather, the trap from him) and let him live.
Fred was telling his father about our Brown Recluse travails, and his father said that they’d used glue traps and never caught a single Brown Recluse with them. (The glue traps supposedly have some sort of attractant in the glue that will, uh, attract spiders to them.)
Fred has told me many times that his father and stepmother had a big problem with Brown Recluses in their house – in Fred’s teenage bedroom, as a matter of fact. So when his father told him they’d never caught a single Brown Recluse with the glue traps, Fred was confused.
“But wait,” he said to his father. “I remember coming over and using the bathroom off that bedroom and seeing traps that had a TON of Brown Recluses on them!”
As it turned out, the Brown Recluses that Fred saw stuck to the glue traps? They hadn’t wandered there of their own volition. Fred’s father told him that what he’d do was wait until after dark, when no one had been in the room for a while. Then he’d go in and turn the light on, and I’m imagining a herd of Brown Recluses, frozen in surprise as light floods the room.
But you’re wondering, I’m sure, how oh how did the Brown Recluses make it onto the glue traps? Did they think they were seeking refuge on the glue traps? Were they running to the glue traps to hide until such a time that the big human would turn the light off and leave the room so they could wander at will in the dark with no one to watch and judge them?
No. What would happen, after Fred’s father went into the room and surprised the colony of Brown Recluses, is that he would use a ruler to HERD the Brown Recluses onto the glue traps. Where they would get stuck and die while (in my imagination) Fred’s father stood over them and laughed evilly.
He would herd the Brown Recluses onto the glue traps.
I’m sorry, perhaps you didn’t hear me. Let us run through the sequence of events: he’d walk into a dark room and turn on the light. And there would be a thousand Brown Recluses, all frozen like “Shit! Y’all don’t move! If we don’t move, he can’t see us!” Then, where you or I might be all ::stompity::stomp::stomp::stomp:: with our shoe-covered feet (one shouldn’t stomp Brown Recluses unless one is wearing shoes, I imagine. A little tip from me to you. You can also squoosh a Brown Recluse with a litter scoop. If you were wondering. Or so I’ve heard. Not that I’ve had any experience with such a thing.), Fred’s father would pick up a ruler and patiently herd the spiders, one by one, to their last moments of life atop the glue trap.
I like to imagine that one of the Brown Recluses managed to make it look like he was firmly stuck to the glue trap but only had ONE leg stuck there, and that these days wherever the Brown Recluses (they’re reclusive spiders, those Brown Recluses, they’re not Brown Sociables) hole up, there are young spiders yelling “Oh god, Grampa’s talking about how he escaped the Evil Glue Trap Herder by leaving a leg behind AGAIN. RUN!”
(I do not intend to take up Brown Recluse herding, for the record, not least because I’ve only ever found the one BR in the house. If things change and I decide to start training for the annual Brown Recluse Herding Championship, I’ll let you know.)
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In my little raised garden, at the beginning of the summer, I put some feed bags down on the ground so that I could put the pots where I’d planted various herbs on top of the feed bags and wouldn’t have to worry about cutting the grass growing around the pots (since there wouldn’t be any grass growing, I mean). Over the weekend, I decided to pull them up, because the bags were getting shredded and had holes in them, and grass and weeds were growing up through the holes anyway. It looked like shit, and was bugging me, so I decided to put down fresh bags, move the potted herbs over near the raised beds, and call it good enough.
When I pulled up one of the feed bags, I caught sight of a small bit of red, and I knew immediately what I’d found. There, with a body the size of the tip of my pinky, was a big fat dead Black Widow. I poked it with a stick ’til it was good and squished (I wanted to be sure it was dead) and then I pushed it into the ground and covered it with a bit of dirt.
(I bet a Black Widow tree will totally sprout in the next few days. I don’t know what the fruit on a Black Widow tree would look like, but I imagine it’s some evil-looking shit.)
I don’t ever work in the garden or pick veggies unless I’m wearing gardening gloves to protect my hands, so even if it had been alive, and even if it had gotten on me, I would have been okay.
But still – ::shudder:: It’s funny, because I’m scared more by Black Widows than by Brown Recluses, even though Brown Recluse bites can do more damage. Black Widows are just EVIL looking (also, they’re more aggressive than Brown Recluses. The Brown Recluse hangs out in the corner at a party saying “I’ll just be over here, don’t look at me pls, thx.” whereas the Black Widow’s all “I SAW YOU LOOKING AT ME I WILL FUCK YOU UP!”)
You can do your own Google search on this topic, but I will tell you that there are people out there who keep Black Widows as PETS, and the thought just makes me shudder. Gah.
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First, the good news: Fergus Simon was adopted on Saturday!
And then the OTHER good news: MAGGIE WAS, TOO!!!!
(They didn’t go to the same home. But I think they’ll be just fine!)
The fact that Maggie was adopted just makes me SO happy. At this time of year there are so many kittens that the adults often get overlooked, and I was concerned that that would happen with Maggie. I’m so glad that it didn’t, and that she’s gone to a good home where she will be loved and pampered. Yay!!!
So we’ve still got Ciara with us, of course, and the Spice Girls. They’ll all be going to Petsmart when there’s room, but it will likely be a little while yet. I hate that they’ll be going, but this is really my favorite time with fosters: they’re all past their shots and surgeries, they’re happy and healthy and are having no issues, so all we have to do is enjoy them! It’s a rough job, but I think we’ll manage.
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Those of you who don’t remember – or who haven’t been reading long enough to have read about it – I did write about what was going on with Corbie back in March, but I’ll cut and paste what I wrote then, so you don’t have to go back and read it:
So I haven’t told you exactly what’s going on with Corbie – don’t worry, it’s not bad! It’s just that he’s a thin cat, and in the past couple of months, we’ve noticed that from the waist up (not that cats have waists, but you know what I mean) he looks perfectly fine. But from the waist back, he looks like he’s starving to death. Which he’s NOT, let me tell you, boyfriend can eat when he wants to.
He also has this kind of knock-kneed thing going on that’s hard to explain – he walks fine, but his back two legs kind of go one in front of the other. I originally mistakenly told Fred that Corbie was bowlegged, which triggered a memory, and I thought “What if he has cerebellar hypoplasia?”, but I went and read about it, and watched some videos, but that’s not it. He also can’t really jump – he can get up on the couch if he wants to, but that’s by pulling himself up by his claws rather than jumping. Though he can jump from one surface to another – he jumps from the table next to my recliner, to the back of my recliner – if they’re roughly the same height, but he just can’t jump UP.
This is not something that was going on when he was little – we would have noticed it. It’s something that has come on gradually as he’s grown. I took him to the vet. She looked him over, took some blood, and then took an x-ray.
Structurally, he’s okay. He’s got a perfect skeleton (and have you seen x-rays of cats? Aren’t they just the neatest things?). The vet called and told me that his blood looked okay, but he had an elevated level of… something (my notes on the topic are hiding in my desk somewhere and I don’t want to go looking for them) and long story short, we should try giving him Taurine and L-Carnitine to build up the muscles in his back end.
Then, of course, I went off and had surgery. About a week and a half later, I remembered about the Taurine and L-Carnitine and I went online and looked around to see what I could find for supplements. There are these treats that have the right amounts of Taurine and L-Carnitine in them, but we’d have to give four treats, twice a day, to Corbie and that seemed like an awful lot to get him to eat, especially considering that we didn’t know if he was going to like the taste. So we ordered L-Carnitine in powder form and Taurine in capsules, with the intention of sprinkling them atop a scoop of Gerber chicken baby food and letting Corbie eat it.
Well, the problem was that to make sure Corbie was the only one ingesting it, Fred had to take him into the guest bedroom. Being locked in the guest bedroom freaked Corbie out, and he wouldn’t touch the stuff. We dithered about what to do for a few days, and then finally Fred just tried mixing the powder with water and shooting it in the back of Corbie’s mouth.
Corbie’s not crazy about it, but he handles it just fine. So he’s been on Taurine and L-Carnitine for about a week, morning and evening. Fred doesn’t think there’s any difference in Corbie, and he’s probably right, but to ME (you know, the woman who stalks Corbie relentlessly), he looks a bit bigger. A bit more muscular.
We’ll keep going with the supplements and see how it goes. It’d be nice if this took care of the issue – though I need to check with the vet and see if this will be a lifelong thing or if we can discontinue the supplements after a while. Whatever the issue is, I can tell you that it hasn’t slowed Corbie down at all. He runs from one end of the house to the other just fine, he plays, he snuggles, he’s a happy boy.
He might have a skinny back end, but he’s perfect to me!
That’s what I was referring to in Friday’s entry – these days, we aren’t giving him the Taurine and L-Carnitine because it didn’t seem to make a difference, and it was getting to be a struggle (he was starting to run every time he saw Fred) and the stress to Corbie wasn’t worth it. He hasn’t improved, but he hasn’t gotten worse either, and whatever the issue is, it’s not interfering with his quality of life.
So that’s what that was about. 🙂
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Want your own “I love cats, it’s people who annoy me” gear? Go get that stuff here. Everything’s marked up by $2, which will go to Challenger’s House. (I’ll put a link in the sidebar at some point.)
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Don’t you just love Ciara’s dramatic eyeliner?
Giving me the crazy eyes.
“You keep on pettin’ ’til I say stop, lady.”
Coriander on the cat tree.
Clove’s orange patches are really starting to show.
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I have been a horrible slacker regarding snapping pictures of the Crooked Acres Gang (permanent residents), so here’s the very first picture I posted of Spanky on Flickr, from way back in 2005.
He was only (doing the math….) a young and spry eight and a half back then, but if you showed me that picture and told me it was taken yesterday, I’m pretty sure I’d believe you. At almost fifteen, he’s in great shape for an old guy!
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Previously
2010: No entry. 2009: Hello from Pennsylvania. 2008: You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers. 2007: Evan Rachel Wood! You are throwing away your youth and beauty on a talentless freak! You are wasting the pretty! Stop it right now, young lady!
2006: No entry. 2005: Home again, home again. 2004: I am a SUCKAH for the bullshit claims on bottles of lotion. 2003: Momma always said, stupid is as stupid does…
2002: No entry. 2001: Oh joy. 2000: I’m such a wimp that even a confrontation on TV ties my stomach in knots.
What do you do with the dehydrated zucchini and squash? Do you just eat them that way? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question. I have about 5 zucchini sitting in my fridge and am going to make your over fried zucchini this weekend. That’s not a stupid question at all! Sometimes I eat … Continue reading “7/22/11 – Friday”
What do you do with the dehydrated zucchini and squash? Do you just eat them that way? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question. I have about 5 zucchini sitting in my fridge and am going to make your over fried zucchini this weekend.
That’s not a stupid question at all! Sometimes I eat the dehydrated zucchini and squash like chips – the squash, especially, is really good.
Usually, though, I saute dehydrated squash and zucchini in a little olive oil with some onion and dehydrated cherry tomatoes. We call it “vegetable medley.” I also made a test batch of scalloped squash with dehydrated squash and zucchini, and it was really good!
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Robyn, have y’all lost any chickens due to the heat? We belong to a CSA that’s based in Hohenwald, TN, and they were losing 300+ chickens a DAY due to the excessive heat. The chickens are free-range, and any time a predator (like a hawk) would show up, they would run, get over-heated, and just fall over dead. They’ve now have an employee whose only job on hot days is to ride back and forth with a water truck, misting the chickens to keep them cool. I had no idea chickens were so delicate!
We’ve been lucky, I guess – we haven’t lost any chickens to the heat. On particularly hot days I do have to go out around noon to make sure everyone has water (and even if they do, I empty and refill the waterers with cool water). I wonder if the chickens would like it if I went out with a spray bottle of water and misted them? I might have to try that!
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Have you ever tried the Genie Bra? I know you’ve written several times about your favorite bra. I’ve been thinking about buying a Genie Bra, and I’d love to hear if you or your readers have tried them and what you think about them
I’ve never tried the Genie Bra myself, and in fact had to Google around for information on it. I ended up here, and a lot of women have a lot of complaints about the Genie Bra, go check it out!
Readers? Anyone out there try the Genie Bra and have an opinion?
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Hey, I like how you have your oven mitts on the refrigerator. I have mine in a drawer where they take up waaaaaaay too much room. Where did you score that nice magnetic thing-y with the hooks? I mean, yeah, I could probably figure it out on my own but it would be so much easier if you would tell me where to go buy it. In fact, if you could just buy it for me and then drive it here to me in Maryland, that would be the easiest thing of all.
I honestly can’t remember where I got it (I’m thinking The Container Store, but I don’t have a receipt for it in my email anywhere, so that might be wrong), but you can get ’em at Amazon, here.
It is SO handy having them hanging on the fridge, because we have shallow drawers in the kitchen and the damn things wouldn’t all fit in one drawer.
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Robyn, I was reading an interesting article in National Geographic about growing/raising heirloom foods/breeds/varieties. The article has pics of chickens that made me think of you, Counting on Uncommon Chickens. I noticed the Orpingtons and the Gold Sebright reminds me of some of your chickens maybe? The Phoenix is gorgeous.
Those are some gorgeous chickens! The Gold Sebright looks a lot like our Golden Crested Polish (who we call The Rock Star), and we do have some Buff Orpingtons. We used to have a couple of Hamburghs – I called them “The Pigeons” because they looked like pigeons to me for some reason – and they were such light birds that they’d roost in the rafters of the chicken coop, far higher than any of the other birds. We had a Black Silkie, too, for a while, but now we only have the White Silkie, who is probably the best mother of all our hens.
The article discusses seed exchanges and how to grow heirlooms, again, you came to mind. Check it out: Grow your own heirlooms.
You thought right – I had to immediately add it to my Google Reader!
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I have lurked FOR YEARS but have never commented but I had to let you know that my three year old loves looking at photos of cats so she always looks at your site with me… Now she wants me to “go and get Clove!”. I was also wondering, with all the cats you have had is there ever one that just got on your nerves like no other? I am keeping my brothers cat while he moves and fixes up his house and I have to tell you that back when I had four cats all four of them together didn’t get on my nerves like this cat. I am an animal lover and I feel so guilty, but I can’t wait until he leaves!
Oh, without a doubt there have been cats who get all over my nerves like that (and I typically respond by giving them more love because I feel so guilty!). I don’t think every animal lover is going to wholeheartedly love every animal – just like you’re not going to like every person you meet, you’re not going to love every animal. Just be glad that your brother’s cat will be going back to your brother instead of staying with you!
Give your daughter a kiss from Clove!
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Last night I dreamed that I went to get new tires and sat in the waiting area holding a sleeping kitten. It was Clove! Now that is a brilliant idea! Include adorable kitties available for adoption for people in waiting rooms to snuggle. I wouldn’t even mind waiting an hour for a 5 minute oil change then.
That is the BEST IDEA EVER. They need to have kitten waiting rooms EVERYWHERE!
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Please tell me that Cat-on-Top-of-Fridge is not going to…leap…down…to the…floor…!! (Although it’s been done here.)
No, she (that’s Stinkerbelle) usually jumps from the top of the fridge to the counter and then to the floor from there. If someone were chasing her, or she was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to see her beloved Tommy, she might jump from the fridge to the floor, but I think I’ve only seen that happen once or twice.
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How is the beautiful Corbie doing health-wise? He looks like he’s faring well, hopefully he’s only been improving all along!
Corbie is doing well – he’s not better than he was, but he’s also not worse than he was, he’s pretty much staying the same. We treated him with Taurine and L-Carnitine for 4 months, and there was no difference at all. We’ve stopped giving it to him, because it was stressing him out a lot and not making any difference.
Corbie was recently at the vet, and his opinion is that Corbie’s physical condition was caused by his mother being FIV positive (for those of you who weren’t reading at that time, Corbie and his brothers were found near Fred’s office. We trapped his mother and took her to the vet, and she was not only FIV positive, but also very ill; I had her euthanized.) Fred pointed out to the vet that Corbie was perfectly normal when he was a kitten, that it wasn’t until he was about a eight months old that we noticed something was going on, but the vet seems pretty convinced that the mother cat’s FIV status is what caused it. So who knows? I’m just glad that he’s getting around so well and that it’s not getting worse!
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I was trying to figure out what kind of spider that is, but I can’t see close up enough. It looks like it has a light-colored stripe down the cephalothorax and thorax, so it could be a baby grass spider. If it’s an adult, I have no idea.
I think it’s just a grass spider – all I know for sure is that it wasn’t a Black Widow or a Brown Recluse, thank god!
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All about Elwood.
My mom was over and walked past the computer and said… Why is that bear wearing a collar?
Ha!
My goodness Elwood is a big kitty!!! He doesn’t look fat just like a big-boned kitty! :0) Maybe it’s just the pictures…
Let’s just say that he weighs one pound less than Tommy (Elwood’s 14 pounds) and Tommy carries his weight a lot better than Elwood does. He’s fat AND big-boned!
Elwood, I iz skeered of u!!!
Aww, don’t be skeered of the Elz. He looks mean and like he’d slap your mama and steal her cake, but in actuality he’s a big ol’ lovebug who has a sweet, squeaky purr. Just don’t squeeze his belly; he’s sensitive about his gut.
Elwood is gorgeous! And full of cattitude. What is that on his collar?
That is the collar that goes to the in-ground fence around the back yard. If he gets too close to it, it beeps to warn him. If he keeps going, he gets a short zap from the collar. Most cats (Elwood included) only have to be zapped once (it doesn’t hurt them, but it does startle them unpleasantly). Most of the cats don’t need the collars because they are GOOD cats and don’t try to escape the back yard. Elwood, Kara, Tommy, and Sugarbutt, however, are naughty cats and must wear the collars. Which I personally hate, because I think the collars ruin otherwise perfectly nice pictures! But we’ve gotta keep ’em safe, whether they like it or not.
The Elwood box is the best box ever!! What is it from?
That’s a shoebox with the lid attached. Elwood’s actually laying in the lid, and then the box part is behind him. There’s another box behind that, because I had gotten a couple of packages in the mail that day, and I usually toss them all in the kitchen and wait to see which one they’ll like before I take the others out to the garage.
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So do your fosters never come back from PetSmart? When mine go off I know if they don’t get adopted after a week or two (depending on how many cats/kittens the rescue has needing time in the adoption center) I’ll likely get them back for a bit. Makes it a little easier to send them off…even though I know the little kittens are likely going to be adopted sooner rather than later so probably won’t be coming back….
They do come back from PetSmart occasionally – if, after a few weeks, they aren’t adopted, then they can come back here for some R & R for a while before they get another try. We’re lucky that most of our fosters are adopted pretty quickly.
Back in 2007, we had a litter of five sisters who were five months old. I don’t know how many times those cats went to Petsmart and then came back, then went to Petsmart again. One of them, Elle, absolutely stole our hearts and the last time she went back to Petsmart, Fred and I agreed that if she wasn’t adopted within two weeks, we’d bring her home and make her ours. She was adopted the day after I took her back to Petsmart.
This is her:
Oh, look. A brown tabby. How shocking that I loved her, right? She’s on the list of our fosters who, if they are ever returned to Challenger’s House, we will likely snatch her up and keep her forever. One of my favorite videos is of her, sitting on a cat bed and kneading:
It cracks me up that Fred sounds like an old Southern lady when he says “Elleh Belleh!” (And yes, she was the original Ellie Belly!)
Basically, if Fred knows the kittens’ name by the time they leave us, that means they’re probably on that list. Four years after Elle was with us and three years after HG was here, he immediately recognizes their names and (most telling) even remembers that Elle was a brown tabby and HG was a tuxie.
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What is the watermelon sitting on?
That’s landscaping fabric. It helps protect against weeds (though you’re supposed to put something on the fabric to protect it from the sun) and this is the first year we’ve used the fabric and also the first year our watermelon and cantaloupe plants haven’t been swallowed up by weeds!
Do roosters get aggressive to the chicks if one is another male?
Roosters won’t get aggressive toward male chicks until they hit adolescence (for want of a better word). Since the last thing we need out there is more roosters, any chicks who turn out to be males will go off to freezer camp before it gets to be a problem.
And isn’t Maggie desexed? Can she still lactate?
Yep, she was spayed, but she kept on lactating until about 10 minutes before I took them off to Petsmart. In fact, I put a note on her cage telling the cleaners and adoption counselors that it was okay to let Maggie see her babies, but not to let them nurse. Five bucks says that if any kittens tried to nurse on her right now, she’d probably start lactating immediately.
Doesn’t unripe tomato taste “bluchh?” Must try some this summer.
I wouldn’t eat green tomatoes in slices the way we eat ripe tomatoes, but coated in a cornmeal/ flour/ parmesan coating and oven-fried, or cooked with spices and other vegetables, they are very, very good!
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Cilantro loves Joe Bob’s scratcher.
Clove and her incredibly long arms.
Sweet Miss Cori.
“You woke me up for THIS?”
Ciara shows off her stripes.
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Who, him? Oh, just some cat. Nothin’ special. Corbie, I think they call him. ::shrug::
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Previously 2010: Vacation pics. 2009: Dehydrating zucchini slices. 2008: It’s a rough life, but someone’s gotta live it.
2007: No entry. 2006: Maine facts.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: “Okay, first of all she wasn’t married to Frank Gifford, that was Kathie Lee, and secondly FRANK GIFFORD ISN’T DEAD!” 2002: “Hallo, Clarice,” he said.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Sights from around Crooked Acres. Katherine asked if I’d take a picture of my watermelon with something next to it for size reference. I couldn’t think of what to use, so I went into the kitchen and looked around. That last one is the biggest watermelon we have at the moment. We, of course, do … Continue reading “7/21/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday”
Sights from around Crooked Acres.
Katherine asked if I’d take a picture of my watermelon with something next to it for size reference. I couldn’t think of what to use, so I went into the kitchen and looked around.
That last one is the biggest watermelon we have at the moment. We, of course, do not know what kind of watermelon we’re growing, because we’re terrible gardeners and like to do everything in a flailing and disorganized manner. (That’s a Thomas Everything Bagel for size reference.)
Oven-fried green tomatoes (using this recipe). We’ve been eating a lot of these lately.
I’ve never seen the Wisteria (the vines crawling across the ground) as aggressive as it is this year.
Wee eggplant.
Definitely a Bhut Jolokia “Ghost” pepper.
Sungold cherry tomatoes. I’m not having a lot of luck with the full-sized tomatoes this year (to be honest, I’ve never had a decent year with the full-sized tomatoes!), they’re all cracking due to uneven watering (blame Mother Nature for that!). Next year, I am growing ONE row of tomatoes and most of them are going to be Sungolds, because they’re our favorite!
The pepper plants are happy.
Corn’s getting tall – hopefully we get lots of corn this year (last year we didn’t).
In my experimental raised-bed garden:
Carrots in the center, a potted Meyer Lemon tree in that pot, and in the back left catnip!
Watermelon plants in the raised bed/ straw bale experiment. They seem happy, but I think next year I’m going to save my raised beds for herbs, and grow things like watermelons in the big garden.
In the back yard, Fred dragged these pieces of the fallen tree in the back forty into the back yard (using the tractor). There are no cats in this picture, but they hang out there a lot. See the metal around the tree to the far left? Fred put that up so that the cats wouldn’t climb up into that tree and scare me to death.
Blueberry bushes, getting bigger! And in the background, compost bins.
Dehydrated zucchini and yellow squash.
Butterfly in the chicken yard.
George, you are such a slacker.
One thing that brings them out from under the coop: snack time!
::chompchompchomp::
George lets his Alabama roots shine through.
“You haz a snack for me?”
Keeping an eye on stuff.
Remember the bagel I used up there for size comparison with the watermelons? The chickens found it tasty. They love their carbs.
They also love tomatoes.
Chicken George and her baby.
“What are you DOING over there, kid?”
Young Brahma hen.
I think that black chicken in the front is absolutely gorgeous.
The rooster keeping an eye on his wimmin.
Mama and babies.
The chickens have their own waterers, but of course they prefer the dogs’ water dishes.
Is it just me, or does this look like a Charlie’s Angels pose?
“GIVE. US. COOOOOOOKIE!”
I always worry that they’ll figure out how to climb that gate.
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The good news is that Declan was adopted Tuesday evening! That leaves Maggie and Fergus Simon, and of course Ciara is still here with us. She’s going to just stay here with us until it’s time for the Spice Girls to go to Petsmart, and then she’ll go with them.
Ciara shows her attitude.
Ciara smiles.
Vampire kitty is thirsty.
Smilin’ Cori.
All three Spice Girls, giving me attitude.
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Maxi likes to hang out by the tomato heap.
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Previously 2010: “Momma! Momma! MOMMAAAAAA!” 2009: (Don’t answer that. Let me live in my dream world.) 2008: Out of curiosity – anyone still think we won’t eat those pigs?
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: Handwritten.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry. 2000: Jemima J.
Coriander, Cilantro, and Clove had their spaying yesterday, and all went well. I usually don’t pick them up from the vet until after 5:00, but they were done early enough that I could pick them up and bring them home a couple of hours earlier. They were wide awake when I picked them up and … Continue reading “7/20/11 – Kitteh Wednesday”
Coriander, Cilantro, and Clove had their spaying yesterday, and all went well. I usually don’t pick them up from the vet until after 5:00, but they were done early enough that I could pick them up and bring them home a couple of hours earlier. They were wide awake when I picked them up and when I got home with them, I put them in the foster room and shut the door so they could eat and rest, but of course they didn’t rest – they ran around in there like little wild things. It amazes me how quickly they bounce back!
Sweet Cori, snoozing in her favorite spot.
And Clove, snoozing nearby.
That’s a 23 ounce bottle of water next to Cori, for size reference.
Cilantro at naptime (obviously before the spaying – she now has a shaved belly with a small scar).
I don’t know what Clove’s keeping an eye on. Probably Elwood. She has a little crush on him.
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Ciara would like you to know that she is, in fact, da bebbe.
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Jake always enjoys a good belly rub.
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Previously 2010: I hope it’s not a dog going after my other-dimensional chickens. 2009: I should have demanded a decorator’s fee. 2008: The last time I wore a bikini, I was around five, and I expect that unless I lose my mind, that’s the last time a bikini will come anywhere near my body.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry. 2001: And then he looked at ME, like I was the instigator or something! 2000: “Where’s my food?! Where’s my FOOD, bitch?! I need fat, I need salt, I need sugar, and GIVE IT TO ME NOW, or I’ll drive you completely insane!”
I usually regard those reminder calls from doctor’s offices as annoyances, because I’m (almost) always careful to keep track of my appointments in my Google Calendar, which is syncable (is so a word) to any number of the devices with which I’ve surrounded myself. I suppose the reminder calls do serve a purpose, though, because … Continue reading “7/19/11 – Tuesday”
I usually regard those reminder calls from doctor’s offices as annoyances, because I’m (almost) always careful to keep track of my appointments in my Google Calendar, which is syncable (is so a word) to any number of the devices with which I’ve surrounded myself. I suppose the reminder calls do serve a purpose, though, because the appointment I’d recorded as being on Wednesday is actually today.
Now if only I had any idea what the appointment is for. I remember going to see my doctor in January, and I remember her saying that we’d do a followup on… something… in six months. Which would be today, apparently. But for the life of me, I cannot remember what the hell the appointment’s for.
Probably the early-onset Alzheimer’s.
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When you wake up at 4 am and can’t get back to sleep, so you decide to just get the hell up and get started on the day and then you do laundry and clean the kitchen and take the ton and a half of recycling to the recycling center and then go to Walmart and then come home and vacuum the house and then clean all the floors in the downstairs, all that before noon, and then you have lunch, you know what the most awesome thing to do in the afternoon is?
The most awesome thing is to lay down on the couch intending to watch those Real Housewives of NJ and then snooze really really hard for about 20 minutes. Then you can wake up and watch the rest of the show, and guess what? You might have snoozed through a third of the show, but you didn’t miss a damn thing.
In case you were wondering.
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The Spice Girls are off to the vet for their spaying in a little while! Right now they’re still in the foster room (where we always put them at night), howling their little heads off and wondering where the food went. I suspect that tonight they’ll be racing around like nothing happened (or I suppose they might be a bit groggy, depending on what part of the day their operations take place). Then we get to just enjoy them until it’s time for them to go off to Petsmart!
Cori don’t care ’bout no spayin’ nonsense.
Over the weekend, I was walking by the guest bedroom, and I glanced in and thought “Who the heck is that hanging out on the cat tree with Alice?” It was Cori, but for some reason the way the light was hitting her, she reminded me of Dorothy – I don’t know why, because her colors are nothing like Dorothy’s, so maybe it was just the way she was laying or something. Who knows?
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The many moods of Elwood.
Complaining.
Hating.
“You. Will. Bring. Me. Food. NOW.”
Cute ‘n cuddly.
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Previously 2010: Now goddamn it, I OBJECT.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry. 2007: Goddamn squirrels.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry. 2002: OR I may have thought to myself, well, every author is entitled to a horrid piece of excrement or two. 2001: I’ve been packing in a desultory and lazy fashion this week, and have about half the upstairs done. 2000: I think if any of the kitties lose their mind and go on a human-throat-gnawing spree, it’ll be her.
Thursday morning, I was laying in bed thinking about getting up (it was 6:00 which is plenty early for normal people, but I was still feeling like kind of a slacker. This is what happens when you’re married to someone who gets up at 4:00 on the weekend and acts like you’ve become a Bed … Continue reading “7/18/11 – Monday”
Thursday morning, I was laying in bed thinking about getting up (it was 6:00 which is plenty early for normal people, but I was still feeling like kind of a slacker. This is what happens when you’re married to someone who gets up at 4:00 on the weekend and acts like you’ve become a Bed Person in need of rescuing by Richard Simmons if you stay in bed past 6:23.) and the phone rang. I got up and ran across the room to answer it, dodging cats as I went.
“Well, I finally did it,” Fred said disgustedly. “I always worry when I have a bunch of stuff to get out of the car that I’m going to lock my keys in the car, and now I’ve done it.”
I stifled the urge to helpfully point out that if he used the remote on the key fob to lock his car, he wouldn’t be in this pickle.
I told him I’d look for the other set of keys to his car and call him back. I got dressed, went downstairs to where we keep all our extra keys, and started looking through them. I eventually found the second set of keys to his car, but not until after I’d dug through a pile of useless keys. We haven’t owned a Jeep in five years, but by god we’ve got three Jeep keys anyway.
I called him back and told him I’d found the keys. I don’t have a sticker to get on base, so we decided on an off-base location to meet.
“Can we do it later, to miss the early morning traffic?” he suggested. “Like, 9:00?”
“Sure,” I said. After I’d hung up the phone, I immediately called him back.
“Let’s make it more like 9:30,” I said. “I want to eat breakfast at 9:00.”
“Okay,” he said.
I went out and worked in the garden until 8:45, and then came inside to start making breakfast. While my eggs were cooking, I called Fred.
“Can we make it 10:00 instead?” I asked. “I just got inside and want to eat and then take a shower before I head over.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said.
I ate breakfast, and then called him again. “Can we make it 10:30 instead? I need to give Miz Poo her medicine at 10:00.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said.
I showered and dressed, puttered around the house, and then called him at 10:00. “I’ll be leaving here in about 10 minutes so I’ll probably be there more like 10:40. You want me to call you when I leave?”
He sounded weary. “Just call when you’re crossing Thus-And-Such Road.”
I called when I was crossing Thus-And-Such Road, and made it to our meeting place, and then I sat and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I didn’t know who was bringing him to meet me, or what kind of vehicle they’d be in, so I eyeballed every vehicle that came into the parking lot, and when there were no cars coming in, I checked my email on my phone. Then I played a little Snood. Then I wondered if I was in the right place.
About five minutes after I’d gotten there, a red truck pulled up behind me and honked the horn. I got out and saw that Greg had given Fred a ride.
We call Greg Fred’s “work wife,” which Greg (and, one assumes, Greg’s wife) finds hilarious. Fred and Greg are best friends at work, but never have any contact outside of work.
I handed Fred’s extra keys over to him, and we chatted for a few moments, then Fred thanked me, and he and Greg left.
Fred Anderson, you might not be surprised to hear, does not believe in public displays of affection, even if “public” is only one other person.
That night, I gave him all kinds of shit for not kissing me goodbye. (Not because it really bothered me, you understand. Just because I wanted to give him shit. It’s how he knows I love him.)
“I don’t believe in public displays of affection!” he pointed out.
“Greg was the only one there,” I said.
“Like I said! Besides, I didn’t want to make my work wife jealous by kissing my home wife.” He thought for a moment. “He chews tobacco, though. Kissing him would be gross.”
I said nothing.
“Um. Not that that’s what’s keeping me from kissing him.”
“I know. His mustache would tickle your nose, is the real reason.”
“Shaddup.”
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Over the weekend, Macushla was adopted! He was adopted into a home with two young cats (1 and 2 years old), and I expect he’ll be a happy boy, since he gets along so well with other cats.
That leaves Maggie, Fergus Simon, and Declan who are still available for adoption. Ciara’s still here with us for a little while longer, and at this point I think it makes sense to just keep her here ’til the Spice Girls are ready to go. We’ll see.
The Spice Girls are going to be spayed tomorrow, so after that it’s just a matter of waiting until there’s room for them at Petsmart. They’ve moved on from their baby-round stage to their miniature cat stage. They should be hitting their ridiculously long and lanky stage any moment now.
It’s sad, how tense Ciara is.
So smug.
I adore it when kittens sleep flat on their bellies.
Cori, doin’ the smug thing.
I love her little sleeping face, obviously.
There are 14 cats in this picture, by my count.
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Maxi, hanging out in the back yard.
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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry. 2008: I am SO not crazy. 2007: Like mud with a soupcon of cat poop stirred in for good measure.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: If I were Jennifer Lopez, I would be VERY frightened at the thought of birthing an Affleck baby, if noggins like that run in the family. 2002: I mean, an online journal. Have you ever heard of such a silly thing?
2001: No entry. 2000: Okay, I just really don’t have anything to say today.
I’ve grown tomatoes for years and have never pruned them. Can you give me a quick rundown on the how and why? Do you get a higher yield? I can tell you that although there’s a way you’re supposed to do it – see this page here for reference – I tend to start out … Continue reading “7/15/11 – Friday”
I’ve grown tomatoes for years and have never pruned them. Can you give me a quick rundown on the how and why? Do you get a higher yield?
I can tell you that although there’s a way you’re supposed to do it – see this page here for reference – I tend to start out doing it that way, but then I kind of start… hacking away at the plants with the idea that if there are fewer non-fruit-producing limbs in the way, then I’ll see the tomatoes that are ripening more easily. This is, I think, the third summer I’ve pruned tomato plants, and I have seen no real difference in the yield. Of course, we have yet to get one single decent tomato this year – they’re all cracked around the stem – but every year hope springs eternal. SIGH.
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This is going to sound so stupid, but every time I see a picture of a chicken, my first thought is “My God! The poor thing has no arms!” And for some reason, “Macushla” is always “Mashugana” in my brain. I am feeling very feeble minded, suddenly.
Every time I read the first part of your comment, I cackle. I don’t know why, but that really hit my funny bone – maybe because it’s the sort of thing I would think myself!
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I want a metal bucket like that one holding green beans. Do you remember where you got it, Robyn?
We have several of them, and they come in handy for all kinds of things. I got them from Jeffer’s, but you could probably find them at your local co-op.
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I read you every day, but I saw Corbie’s pic on the perm residents. Can you post a link when that happened? Its hard to keep track of these things!
It was at the end of March, entry here. I convinced everyone that Corbie had gone to his forever home… and then announced that THIS is his forever home!
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LOVE the pictures of Stinky! She’s is such a beautiful cat, but…is she getting a little on the tubby side? (For God’s sake, don’t tell her I asked – she might hunt me down and rip my throat out!)
Nah, she’s not getting tubby. It’s hard to tell from pictures, but she’s actually a pretty small cat. You’d think she’d be bigger, actually, given that she spends all her time on top of the cabinets watching the other cats or looking for her beloved Tommy.
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Any advice to handle a kitten that is just downright mean? She is only 6 weeks old or so, but she bites and attacks out of anger. She has never been mistreated, but I would swear she had been. This kitten may be too much for me!
Do you have other cats? Generally kittens who aren’t around other cats or kittens will act that way toward humans (because they don’t have other cats around to put the smack down). If the kitten attacks and/or bites you, immediately (and consistently) blow in their face to make them stop that shit. Of course, the best solution would be to spray water or compressed air at them, but you can’t always have those on you, and time is of the essence (you want to do it immediately; otherwise they won’t have any idea why you’re spraying water at them). I’ve heard of people who respond to a mean, bitey kitten by biting them on the ear. I’ve never tried it myself, but it might be worth a try!
Anyone else out there with advice? Feel free to share!
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Robyn, isn’t when Fred starts calling someone ‘beautiful’ the indicator they’ll become a permanent resident?
Can we cross our paws and hope?
Part of the reason I was SO beyond thrilled about the fact that Cillian was one of the first kittens adopted is because Fred developed a late-stage crush on him and I was worried he’d harass me into going to get the boy and bring him home. As it is, all I can do is shrug and smile. He’s already in his forever home, what’m I supposed to do?
(God help us if something doesn’t work out and he’s returned, though!)
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Wait…what…Coltrane? I mustv’e missed a day…when was this?
BTW, you do realize you are one of a very few people who can say “… we only had five cats…”? 😉
Ha – I know, right?? I cannot believe we have so damn many cats. When I moved to Alabama, two cats was an INSANE number of cats, in our opinion. Then we got Spanky, and we had three. Then Tubby. Then Fancypants. And now suddenly, we have what is TRULY an insane number of cats. But I cannot for the life of me imagine only having two cats again. Sometimes – especially last weekend, after we’d reduced the number of cats running around this house by six – I think “How do people with two cats even know they HAVE cats?!”
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Paula said:
Robyn, yesterday I was behind a car that had those stick figure decals representing family members on their rear window. You know, like a kid with a soccer ball, a dad with a briefcase, etc. Well this one had no people, just two dogs and three cats. I think you said one time that you would love to get those decals, and when I thought of that and then this clown with a mere five, I thought, “AMATEUR!!”
And I was all “I know, right? I wish they had chickens and pigs in those stickers! But alas!”
Then Paula said:
Familystickers.com has pigs and chickens!!
Damn you, Paula. DAAAAAAAAAAMN you. (I’ll provide pictures when such a time comes that I actually get my ass in gear and order the proper number of stickers!)
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Smug Miss Cori again looks like Smug Miss Alice.
Indeed she does! We’ve actually started calling Coriander “AJ” (for “Alice Junior”), so Fred will know who I’m talking about!
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I know the odds are that Maggie will do just fine wherever she lands, but I’ve been harboring the hope that she would get adopeted with at least one of her babies… how great would that be?!
That would be SO awesome. Fingers crossed!
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When the kitties are put up for adoption is there any background information on when/where they came from? I’m sure if potential adopters saw how they are raised with you, people would be doing cartwheels into Petsmart to adopt a Robyn/Fred kitty!
I actually got permission to include a note with the bag of toys directing adopters to Love & Hisses so they can see the whole story behind how their babies grew up.
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On the ‘hidden’ calitabby – the fact that you can see both colors makes her a non hidden one. Basically on a girl cat, different regions of the body select at random to be orange or black. In theory, all the regions could choose the same color like flipping a bunch of coins and getting all heads or all tails. Such a case would be a hidden tortie or calitabby, since you could only tell if she had kittens and had both orange boys and black boys. (Male cats get their orange gene from the mom only, since the Y comes from dad).
and
As Oldcat says, Clove is no longer a “hidden” Cali-tabby but just a very “obscured” one, that’s not a cat breeding term, I just made it up. But before I wondered if she was hidden because I thought I saw orange reflections in her mostly brown fur, but obvious it was actual orange furs mixed in with the brown ones.
The older Clove gets, the more orangey her orange spots have become, by the way. But I find this whole thing very confusing and thank my lucky stars that y’all out there know more than I do and are willing to share. 🙂
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A lot of my friends get those plastic kiddie pools and fill them with water for their dogs to cool off in.
We actually tried that with George and Gracie, and they said “Meh. Not interested, I’ll be under the coop thx.” I wonder if part of the reason they’re not very interested in laying in a pool of water is because their fur is so thick and water repellent. I wouldn’t be surprised if being submerged in water would still not be enough to get them wet to the skin. After the deluge of water that came down on the day of the tornado, I went out to check on them, and the top of their fur was soaked, but as I petted them, I realized that at skin level, they were perfectly dry. I need a raincoat made of George and Gracie fur, obviously.
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Any news about more adoptions?
Not yet, but adoption hours are tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have news for y’all on Monday!
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Finally, that gawky rooster has feathers on his legs and feet?!?!?! I’ve never seen that before, although my experience with chickens is limited (and my experience with chicks is very limited to just the incubator stage). What’s the deal with that?
He’s at least part Light Brahma. We have several Light Brahma hens and our one rooster is a Light Brahma as well. Brahmas have feathered legs! The chicks who were hatched this Spring and Summer are at least half Brahma (since their daddy is a Brahma), and some of them – but not all – have feathered legs.
We like Brahmas because they’re relatively calm birds. They get pretty big, and they’re decent egg layers. I wouldn’t mind adding some different kinds of chickens to the flock just to keep things interesting (and hey, there are Buff Brahmas and Dark Brahmas too!), but we haven’t gotten around to getting that done, just yet.
This is what our Light Brahma rooster looks like, though you have to look closely to see his feathered legs:
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Miz Poo in the box, Clove on top.
Clove, mildly annoyed (I love it when they put their ears back like that).
If only Ciara could make herself comfortable.
Ciara with sass.
“You haz a snuggle for me?”
Ciara, Cilantro, and Cori, hanging out.
Cilantro sure does love that toy mouse.
Green beans: best cat toys EVER.
Cilantro hangin’ with Cillian and Fergus Simon, last week.
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Your weekly announcement: Corbie is beautiful. You know you forgot that!
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Previously 2010: Vacation pics. 2009: Is it called “BeelzeBoogs”?? Oh, that sounds like a FUN book. 2008: “Huh. An armadillo. Weird. They don’t usually come this far north!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: “Bessie,” he said. “That is CAT POOP, not kitty treats!”
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry. 2002: Our kitties, spoiled? Nah.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Scenes from around Crooked Acres. Green beans. I spent two and a half hours working in the garden yesterday morning and ended up with a bucket of green beans and two rows of heavily pruned tomatoes. I have more pruning to do and some other odds and ends, so it’s another gardening morning for me, … Continue reading “7/14/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday”
Scenes from around Crooked Acres.
Green beans. I spent two and a half hours working in the garden yesterday morning and ended up with a bucket of green beans and two rows of heavily pruned tomatoes. I have more pruning to do and some other odds and ends, so it’s another gardening morning for me, SIGH.
Cantaloupe!
That’s our very happy row of cantaloupes and watermelons! To the right at the end of the row is where our cucumbers are growing, and to the left are squash plants that desperately need to be weeded (but don’t hold your breath).
We may get a couple of peaches this year, yet.
One of the tomatoes I pulled to feed to the chickens. Chickens LOVE tomatoes, and so they get all the tomatoes that are seriously cracked or have a lot of worm holes. A couple of days ago I spotted a tomato that had a single bite taken out of it. I really need to get a game cam set up on the garden so I can see exactly what goes through there!
Okra flower. These are the prettiest flowers, probably my favorite. Too bad they grow into okra and didn’t just stay pretty flowers!
Squash flower.
Pattypan squash and a visiting spider.
Watermelon!
Watermelon flower.
I like the pattypan squash because I think they look cool. They’re a pain in the butt to deal with, though.
Jalapeno.
Cayennes. I pick them when they’re ripe, dry them in the dehydrator, and then grind them into powder.
Pretty sure this is going to end up a Bhut Jolokia “Ghost” pepper, which is the hottest pepper in the world, or so I’m told. Given that even jalapenos are too hot for me, I don’t intend to partake of any of the Ghost peppers, thank you.
Rows of tomatoes. To the left are peppers. To the right is a half row of tomatoes, and at the end of that row are the eggplants.
Eggplant!
On our fantabulous compost heap, which is covered with huge tomato plants, this watermelon plant all of a sudden showed up. God bless the compost heap!
George comes out from under the chicken coop to see if perhaps I have a snack for him.
Slacker puppy. Doesn’t he look just a bit embarrassed?
Mama hen and her two babies.
Chickens LOVE tomatoes.
Gatherin’ ’round for tomato time.
He’s hit that gawky stage.
Two girl piggies in the wallow, and the third headed that way – ’til they saw me, of course.
“You haz snack for us?” Not this time, girls, sorry.
In the front room is a fireplace that we don’t use. Up in that fireplace is a ledge. Back when Kara was our foster, she disappeared one day and I was frantic, sure she’d gotten outside and ran away. Then she reappeared. Then she disappeared. Then I saw her coming out of the fireplace. She doesn’t hang out up there any more, but apparently Elwood figured out that he could hang out on that ledge (he cannot climb any further up the chimney, though, if he could, we’d block it off). Last night, Fred realized that Elwood was hanging out up there. I’m sure it was cooler up there than in the rest of the house!
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Little ladies love them some Macushla. He’s such a ladies’ man.
Clove and Maggie.
Sweet, silly Declan.
Clearly the McMaos were fond of this bed!
Maggie and Macushla.
Clove and Cilantro. I love their stripes and spots!
Macushla, laying like a frog. I love it when they lay like this.
Bed full o’ McMaos.
Sweet Miss Clove.
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Kara on her platform in the back yard.
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Previously 2010: Take THAT, bad boys. 2009: That right there is what we call a “no-shitter.” 2008: All in all, a very good weekend.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: It doesn’t have that ring of finality to it, that “I’m ending this goddamn email, see?” air. 2004: Why the fucking hell shouldn’t men cheat on beautiful women? 2003: Could I be more boring, yammering on about my email address?
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry. 2000: I guess I should clean under the couch a little more often, huh?
