Saturday morning I got up before I wanted to, not only because Miz Poo was wheezing her usual death-rattle in my face (that cat wheezes like she’s been smoking three packs a day every single day of her 11+ years; in the course of one of her many surgeries, there was some scarring to the tissue at the back of her throat, and spit or phlegm gets caught there every once in a while, and she wheezes raspily until it annoys her (which is long after it’s annoying to everyone else in the vicinity) and she coughs and clears her throat), and not only because there was a mourning dove mourning in the tree outside my window, but also because the alarm clock in the back of my brain sounded because I knew Fred wanted to go somewhere bright and early.
So I got up and got dressed, and we headed for Decatur. Every year on Memorial Day Weekend, they have something called Jubilee, which is a hot air balloon “classic” (according to the web site), and a million (est’d) hot air balloons go up into the air. Fred remembered that it was going on, and wanted to go see the balloons go up.
I have to admit, it was pretty neat. Once they’re up, the balloons actually go a lot faster than you’d expect.
After we stood and watched the balloons for a while, we headed toward home, which is actually in the same directions that the hot air balloons were headed. We saw a couple land, and later a few went over our property, spurring George and Gracie to bark their fool heads off in defense of their chickens.
Reflection in a ditch.
When we got home, we worked in the garden for a while. Then I hung out with the kittens and did some housework and laundry ’til Lisa stopped by to visit with the McMaos and The Spice Girls (and me!), and at one point she had Clove laying asleep in the bottom of her shirt, and it was so adorable that I was silently cursing my failure to bring a camera into the room with us.
Lisa left, and I did a little (very little) more housework before I landed on the couch and took a nice long nap.
Really, I’m pretty sure they only invented weekends so everyone could take Saturday and Sunday afternoon naps. I hope y’all got yours in!
Sunday morning I was up and dressed by 6:30, and we were out working in the garden by 7. Fred came back inside to do something, and I weeded the compost heap (there are so many volunteer tomato plants growing on the compost heap that we’ve decided to let them be and just pick the tomatoes they offer all summer long. But there was so much Amaranthus and Bermuda growing alongside the tomato plants that it was getting difficult to even see the tomato plants, so I yanked up the non-tomato stuff, tossed it in the cart, and then pulled the cart out to the pig yard. I tossed everything I’d yanked up into the pig yard and called to the pigs, and they ambled out of their shelter, where they’d been snoozing (I swear, these little girl pigs are the laziest pigs we’ve ever had. They’re always piled up in their shelter sleeping!) and the spotted the pile of greens and acted like it was the best treat EVER.
Then I finally planted my three watermelon seeds in the bale in my little raised-bed garden (I’m experimenting with limited bale gardening this year – two tomato plants on one bale, and three watermelon plants on another), and finally got the soaker hose run to all my various raised beds and bales and pots of herbs, tested it to make sure it would work (it does!). I then spent about 45 minutes raking up the leaves and random detritus in the side yard and carting it all out to the spot where we decided to start the new compost heap. Then I was done – DONE – working outside for the day, because it was after 9, and already hot, and I refuse to work outside past 9:00 during the summer.
After I ate breakfast, we went up into town to Tractor Supply and bought a yard sweeper. It was a big one, one that could be pulled by the riding lawnmower. Fred mowed the back forty on Saturday, and we had decided that we’re going to put weed-blocking fabric in the garden so that he doesn’t have to spend all his spare time weeding the damn garden. But we needed to put something down on top of the fabric, and I’ve been lobbying for years now to put grass clippings down on the weed fabric, and he apparently decided that that would work.
So we got the yard sweeper, and when we got home Fred started putting it together, and wouldn’t you figure? The fucking thing wouldn’t go together right no matter what he did, and Fred was ready to drive directly to the company that makes the yard sweeper and burn it down (figuratively speaking, of course), but in the end we simply returned the goddamn thing. We’re still talking about what we’re going to do. SIGH. I’m up for doing whatever it takes in the garden that will require the least amount of work, long-term. It’s too damn hot here for him to come home from work and spend time weeding in the garden, and honestly? I have no desire to do it either, buh-leave me.
We’ll see.
While he was out working on getting that piece of shit put together, I was inside making cookies. I’ve been seeing the recipe for OMG THESE ARE THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER for ages now, and finally I decided to give ’em a try. I made the dough on Friday and then let it sit for 36 hours in the fridge, and on Sunday I scooped the dough out and sprinkled it with sea salt and baked them, and after much careful consideration, here’s my opinion:
Meh.
The Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies are still far and away my favorite cookies and the best chocolate chip cookies ever AND you don’t have to use cake flour and bread flour and let the dough sit in the fridge forever and a day and then carefully scoop out dough and ask Your Lord and Savior to help these cookies rise and tiptoe around the house and kiss each kitten twice on the nose and once behind each ear and caaaaarefully remove the cookies from the oven only to be completely disappointed by the spectacular unspectacularness of the damn things.
But that’s just my opinion.
And while I’m talking about baking, I made a chocolate cake with whipped cream icing as a belated birthday cake for Fred (since his birthday was on Thursday and we don’t eat that stuff during the week) on Saturday, and again I say: meh. I should have just made a damn Black Forest Torte because THAT, my friends, is something to write home about.
There was another nap on Sunday afternoon, and lots of snuggling with kittens, and the best part is that Fred has today off. I don’t know what we’re going to do (my prediction: nothing much), but I’m sure there’ll be a nap involved!
Someone asked the other day, Someone else asked, and I was wondering too actually… what will happen to the lovely Maggie?
Once her babies are spayed and neutered and have gone off to Petsmart to be adopted immediately (fingers crossed!), Maggie will stay here with us. I’ll wait about a week to be sure her milk has dried up, and then I’ll have her spayed (id chipped, rabies shots, all that) and she’ll hang out here with us until room opens up at Petsmart for her, whereupon she will go to Petsmart (and hopefully be immediately adopted!).
I will tell y’all, I would really like to release the McMaos to explore the rest of the house, but I’m worried that Maggie’s protective instincts will kick in. Jake was so desperate to get into the guest bedroom Saturday that we let him in to see what would happen. What happened is that he bellied up to the kitten food and ate while growling at any kittens who came near, and then Maggie went ::FLOOF:: and started chasing him in a threatening manner around the room, so we ushered him out of the room. I’m tempted to let just Maggie out into the house to meet the other cats (without the kittens around for her to feel protective over) and see how that goes.
“I’m flying! I’M FLYIIIIIIING!”
“Holy cow! He’s flying!”
“So then I was all ‘You want yerself a real man, you know where to find me!’ She’ll call, right?”
“Sure she will, bro. Sure she will.”
“I’ve got it! I’VE GOT IT!”
I don’t know what kitten tails taste like, but they must be really tasty given all the chewing that goes on.
Attitudinous little brat.
I have this cheap little rechargeable sweeper that I use in the foster room when the floor has gotten so bad I can’t stand it, and don’t want to put all the kittens into carriers and bring them out of the room. It’s fairly quiet, as that sort of thing goes, so I’m not too worried about scaring the heck out of the kittens the way a real plug-in vacuum would. However, the McMaos are not the bravest of kittens, and last time I used the sweeper in the room, they all ran to the closet and hid from me.
“That is SKEERY, lady!”
“I don’t like it. I tried to cram myself in this old baby wipe container, but I wouldn’t fit all the way.”
“We was ALL skeered, even Fergus Simon the hellion.”
“Ferguson tried to get into the wipes container with me, but I told him ‘Bro, if I won’t fit, we’re not BOTH going to fit, and this is MY safe place!'”
Since there’s been such a lot of interest in Dorothy lately, I’ll break my usual don’t-want-to-jinx-anything stance on the topic and let y’all know that Dorothy has a forever home, and she’ll be going there this weekend. I won’t give you details ’til after the adoption is done (see above about not wanting to jinx anything), but I think she’s going to be very happy in her new home!
Dorothy and Alice, hanging out in the sun.
The Spice Girls are doing very well. They’re healthy and happy, and in the evenings when we’re watching TV, we can hear them running around like little wild things, playing. Jake really wanted into the foster room on Sunday, so I let him in. He walked to the middle of the room, looked at the girl kitties, and then walked out. They, in turn, were interested in Jake, but a little leery of him as well. They all floofed up a bit, but weren’t terribly freaked out.
Cilantro, trying to decide in which direction to run.
Clove. I love her markings.
Coriander, considering.
Snoozin’ Coriander.
They sure do love that scratcher.
Clove demonstrates that these girls are well-trained in the litterbox arts.
Coltrane, hanging out near the pig yard. One day last week, I was out checking on the pigs or feeding them, and I heard George bark, and looked up to see he and Gracie running full-tilt toward the far back corner of the back forty. My heart almost stopped when I saw that they were running toward Coltrane, and I thought I was about to see some carnage (I yelled for the dogs to stop, but they didn’t seem to hear me), but as it turned out (it’s hard to tell from a distance), Coltrane was outside the fence. George and Gracie stopped short of the fence, seemed to recognize Coltrane, and turned and ran back toward me.
(For the record, I really don’t think G&G would have killed Coltrane, but I also can’t swear that they wouldn’t – it’s possible they would have seen him as a threat to their flock.)
Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: I always forget what bitey little brats they are at this age. They’re so MEAN.
2007: “I’m so happy,” he said. “That if this were a movie, in the next scene you’d be raped or killed.”
2006: No entry.
2005: Every time I type in “u” instead of “you”, I die a little inside.
2004: No entry.
2003: What happens if you put a box on the floor?
2002: “Where was it, Bessie?” he asked, trying to draw me into the trap with him, so he could perhaps trip me and then run away, leaving me there for her to latch onto.
2001: What do you s’pose a realtor’s house looks like? I always assumed it’d be a real showplace, with everything just so, all appliances gleaming and so on.
2000: Every time I blow-dry my hair, it sounds like the phone is ringing.