Just about to walk out the door for work, I walk into my living room and I am greeted by a kitty sitting in the middle of the floor-"meow". Our little Buddy has returned! Only been gone for 6 freakin' days! I snatched him up, checked him over from ears to tail for any injuries (forever medical) and squeezed him until he meowed again. I was so excited to see him, I took him into our bedroom and shoved him in Hunter's face. "Look babe, Buddy's home!"
"oh goo 'ney" was his reply.
Later that afternoon, when Hunter was back at work: "Hey, you know Buddy came home?"
"Uh, yeah, I told you that this morning, don't you remember?" I said.
"Yeah...no."
Booness is glad to have him back too-they immediately started fussing, licking each other's ears, fussing.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Lost Kitty
Well, Hunter took me to "town" for my 40th birthday for a spa day and I was pampered from head to toe. We left our two cats, Holly and Buddy safe at home with food and water for days (we were only gone two nights) and they have a cat door so they can come and go when they please.
We come home and there is ever faithful Hollygirl (My Booness) but Buddy is nowhere to be found. STILL.
I am very worried about him-he's a tough little guy, a killer and a fighter, but I can't help but think something got him. I took out my flashlight and my gun and when out looking for him late when I got home tonight. I looked in all of the usual places and then in some of the not so usual places. We have 13 acres, so that would be a lot of places to search, plus we live on a big ole hill too. He's probably just hunting and playing and farting around like cats do, but The Booness misses him! She mopes around and meows and looks for him in the house.
I miss him.
We come home and there is ever faithful Hollygirl (My Booness) but Buddy is nowhere to be found. STILL.
I am very worried about him-he's a tough little guy, a killer and a fighter, but I can't help but think something got him. I took out my flashlight and my gun and when out looking for him late when I got home tonight. I looked in all of the usual places and then in some of the not so usual places. We have 13 acres, so that would be a lot of places to search, plus we live on a big ole hill too. He's probably just hunting and playing and farting around like cats do, but The Booness misses him! She mopes around and meows and looks for him in the house.
I miss him.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Mouse in the House
So, I woke up this morning and our young cat had brought me present! I walked into the living-room and bent to pick up what I thought was a thick piece of string off the floor-I had just vacuumed the floor the previous evening after all and I try to keep a decent house. The string was shiny and long and AAGGHHH-it has a heart attached to the end of it! Yes, that's right sports fans, I just picked up-WITH MY BARE FINGERS- the intestines and heart of some poor mouse or other small furry creature that fell to the fierce and ferocious jaws of one of my two hunting beasts! YUCH! Jeez, now I gotta throw it outside and scour my hands and get the carpet cleaner and scrub......grumble, grumble, curse, curse...
Good morning! It's either gut piles or feathers-one time it was just a foot and a tail. Another time it was just head the of the rodent and there was still long pieces of grass and grain in it's mouth and cheek pouches. It's our fault you know. We only feed them once a day and we want to keep them a little hungry so they will catch mice! Oh yes, how ironic. I guess I failed to make it clear to either one of them that they don't have to bring their kills in to show "mommy" how good they did. Sometimes I catch the little one (Buddy) cruising in with a mouse, mole or some such creature still in his mouth-whole-dead and he will let me put it on a paper towel. He will be dainty and proper and eat it on the towel. Good boy. My bigger one, however, Boo, will refuse to touch it if I dare to put it on something as human and clean as a paper towel. Don't make my clean up any easier-noooo. God, it drives me absolutely crazy, I can't walk through my house barefoot without fear of stepping on some squishy piece of intestinal goo, have to turn on every light in the damn house so I.......
Good morning! It's either gut piles or feathers-one time it was just a foot and a tail. Another time it was just head the of the rodent and there was still long pieces of grass and grain in it's mouth and cheek pouches. It's our fault you know. We only feed them once a day and we want to keep them a little hungry so they will catch mice! Oh yes, how ironic. I guess I failed to make it clear to either one of them that they don't have to bring their kills in to show "mommy" how good they did. Sometimes I catch the little one (Buddy) cruising in with a mouse, mole or some such creature still in his mouth-whole-dead and he will let me put it on a paper towel. He will be dainty and proper and eat it on the towel. Good boy. My bigger one, however, Boo, will refuse to touch it if I dare to put it on something as human and clean as a paper towel. Don't make my clean up any easier-noooo. God, it drives me absolutely crazy, I can't walk through my house barefoot without fear of stepping on some squishy piece of intestinal goo, have to turn on every light in the damn house so I.......
Friday, September 9, 2011
Semi-Fall Day
It's about 10 in the morning and I have just picked the last of my Walla-Walla sweets from the reluctant ground. Out of about 10, 3 or 4 of them are about racquetball size and the rest are, well, smaller. I will probably use them all in one dish and forget I even had them! The only thing I am so proud of are my tomatoes. I have them nestled on my porch, protected from the worst of the weather and this morning I was pleased to be able to pull three crimson cherries from the vine. I immediately popped one into my mouth and stood in the sunshine while the juices slipped ever so sweetly over my tongue. It's like liquid sunshine in my mouth! I bet that if you could see the inside of my mouth while it was closed it would be lit up by the pure light those little babies give off. I found a tomato plant smack dab in the middle of my weak-sauce (weak-sauce-I did that just for you Finesse) corn patch! Um, I didn't plant it, and before the so-called garden was in, it was just grass there, so...
I hate to see the end of our growing season coming-I know it may be a little further off, but I am already seeing slight changes in the tree leaves. Fall is my favorite season, but it means that planning for next year's garden craziness will ensue.
I have discovered a HUGE spider on my porch. I'm not really a fan of spiders, but this one is the largest I have ever seen that spins a web-her web is about two feet wide and long, and she sits as big as a quarter in the middle. Light brown, gargantuan body, poky-outey legs and she has darker brown spots all over. She is NOT AFRAID OF ME seemingly, as she moves around her web, making subtle changes, re-threading her killing stations, and reinforcing her anchors. I watch her closely (and I mean physically close) and sometimes she will raise one of her legs at me as if to say "okay, back off now, you are ruining my groove here." I politely move back and let her finish her business. Damn she's big. She has a girlfriend right around the corner of our house, but her web is nothing in comparison.
I was at a friend's house yesterday evening and she had many deer in her yard-they were setting of their motion lights-and even though I have been here pushing a year, seeing the deer so close still holds such fascination for me. I hear others saying they are a nuisance, eating your flowers and peppers, and fruit and yeah, yeah, I get it, but there are a limited number of people that can say they have these amazing wild animals walking in their yard! I hope I never lose the wonder of them. In town, the deer will get scared of people's little dogs and the deer will STOMP THEM! Tee-Hee! I know, I know, it's not funny, wait...uh yeah, it's funny. Aww, I feel so sorry for your little doggie that got the absolute shit stomped out of it by an animal that is 10 times it's size-shouldn't it know better than to aggress something that is standing 4 feet above it? Whatever. I'm not a little kick-me-ankle-biter dog fan anyway.
I hate to see the end of our growing season coming-I know it may be a little further off, but I am already seeing slight changes in the tree leaves. Fall is my favorite season, but it means that planning for next year's garden craziness will ensue.
I have discovered a HUGE spider on my porch. I'm not really a fan of spiders, but this one is the largest I have ever seen that spins a web-her web is about two feet wide and long, and she sits as big as a quarter in the middle. Light brown, gargantuan body, poky-outey legs and she has darker brown spots all over. She is NOT AFRAID OF ME seemingly, as she moves around her web, making subtle changes, re-threading her killing stations, and reinforcing her anchors. I watch her closely (and I mean physically close) and sometimes she will raise one of her legs at me as if to say "okay, back off now, you are ruining my groove here." I politely move back and let her finish her business. Damn she's big. She has a girlfriend right around the corner of our house, but her web is nothing in comparison.
I was at a friend's house yesterday evening and she had many deer in her yard-they were setting of their motion lights-and even though I have been here pushing a year, seeing the deer so close still holds such fascination for me. I hear others saying they are a nuisance, eating your flowers and peppers, and fruit and yeah, yeah, I get it, but there are a limited number of people that can say they have these amazing wild animals walking in their yard! I hope I never lose the wonder of them. In town, the deer will get scared of people's little dogs and the deer will STOMP THEM! Tee-Hee! I know, I know, it's not funny, wait...uh yeah, it's funny. Aww, I feel so sorry for your little doggie that got the absolute shit stomped out of it by an animal that is 10 times it's size-shouldn't it know better than to aggress something that is standing 4 feet above it? Whatever. I'm not a little kick-me-ankle-biter dog fan anyway.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Cannin'
What a beautiful day, and we have close to 500 ears of corn to do something with! Lots of canning, maybe some freezing and probably giving more than just a few away to friends. Hunter and Gatherer go through a lot of corn in the year and we haven't canned corn in 6 or 7 years. I remember when we did this the first time-we were out on our deck and shucked and pot-watched all day long and into part of the night. We don't have that much time this go 'round because I have to work tomorrow, but we get done what we can. The smell coming from the pressure canners are amazing-it's just fresh cut-off-the-cob corn, but WOW-it smells so good. It it going to taste like a wonderful summer day smack dab in the middle of winter.
Yesterday we canned peaches-peach jam and honey peaches and you talk about aroma on the back deck! The yellow jackets liked it too and so we gave them a little bit to drown in. We put some of the honey water in a bowl and set it away from the processing area and let them have at it-instead of just getting to the edge of the bowl and tasting they tend to want to take a bath in it and then they end up drowning. Gatherer said maybe they get drunk with it and Hunter said they don't seem too smart.
The drag of canning is constantly watching the canners so they stay on pressure-it seems as though I am just sitting around for the hour and 25 minutes while they cook doing nothing! It drives me batty, so I thought I would blog a bit.
We are thinking about putting in a root cellar. We have thoughts on digging right into the side of a hill on our property and lining it with railroad ties for the walls and ceiling. Shelving and floor space for canning jars and baskets of root veggies of course, and that way we can eat all winter the bounty of our efforts in the spring summer and fall. It is quite an effort and I don't know if it will happen this year or not. Living up this far though, and being so far from the conveniences of city life (a major store is 45 miles in either direction) forces you to consider alternate (and often what folks would consider the old-fashioned way of doing things) methods of food storage.
It froze just a touch three days ago-I had a beautiful acorn squash just going to town and when I checked the garden the next morning the leaves were black. My tomatoes were unscathed as were the onions and garlic, but I sure was looking forward to that squash! Greenhouse anyone? That thought keeps my mind busy. I am debating (and often with Hunter) about getting one, size, location, materials, maintenance, blah, blah, blah. I have seen a lot of PVC pipe frames that are sitting on people's property around the area that are seemingly unused and I think OOH! I wonder if they would be willing to sell it me (cheap) so I could get started in protecting my garden stuffs. But then I think, WHY are there so many that ARE unused? Did the owner get old, give up, consider it too much work, pass away, or DO THE STRUCTURES NOT WORK UP HERE? Hmm. More research on that one.
Yesterday we canned peaches-peach jam and honey peaches and you talk about aroma on the back deck! The yellow jackets liked it too and so we gave them a little bit to drown in. We put some of the honey water in a bowl and set it away from the processing area and let them have at it-instead of just getting to the edge of the bowl and tasting they tend to want to take a bath in it and then they end up drowning. Gatherer said maybe they get drunk with it and Hunter said they don't seem too smart.
The drag of canning is constantly watching the canners so they stay on pressure-it seems as though I am just sitting around for the hour and 25 minutes while they cook doing nothing! It drives me batty, so I thought I would blog a bit.
We are thinking about putting in a root cellar. We have thoughts on digging right into the side of a hill on our property and lining it with railroad ties for the walls and ceiling. Shelving and floor space for canning jars and baskets of root veggies of course, and that way we can eat all winter the bounty of our efforts in the spring summer and fall. It is quite an effort and I don't know if it will happen this year or not. Living up this far though, and being so far from the conveniences of city life (a major store is 45 miles in either direction) forces you to consider alternate (and often what folks would consider the old-fashioned way of doing things) methods of food storage.
It froze just a touch three days ago-I had a beautiful acorn squash just going to town and when I checked the garden the next morning the leaves were black. My tomatoes were unscathed as were the onions and garlic, but I sure was looking forward to that squash! Greenhouse anyone? That thought keeps my mind busy. I am debating (and often with Hunter) about getting one, size, location, materials, maintenance, blah, blah, blah. I have seen a lot of PVC pipe frames that are sitting on people's property around the area that are seemingly unused and I think OOH! I wonder if they would be willing to sell it me (cheap) so I could get started in protecting my garden stuffs. But then I think, WHY are there so many that ARE unused? Did the owner get old, give up, consider it too much work, pass away, or DO THE STRUCTURES NOT WORK UP HERE? Hmm. More research on that one.
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