Category: Fostering

Saturday was a busy day for us. First we had to drive into the country, down long and windy and hilly roads to see our friend Egg the Pig Man and pick up our two new little pigs. Because I’m not the one driving the truck with the Pork Chop Express attached, I really like the drive – it’s pretty scenery as we head up toward the Tennessee border.

Egg the Pig Man met us at the lower part of his property. He had the two pigs already sequestered in a trailer, and all Fred had to do was back our trailer up to his so Egg could run the pigs from his trailer to ours. While we waited for Fred to back up the trailer, Egg told me that he was still “down” in his back and that the doctors were going to put a needle in his back and inject Super Glue. At least, that’s what he thought they said, but now that he thought about it, they probably meant silicone.

After the pigs were run into our trailer, Egg and Fred started talking about food. This was at 10:00, and I hadn’t had anything to eat yet, so I was drooling about 30 seconds into the conversation. Egg had a leftover pork chop for breakfast (he doesn’t like to warm his food in the microwave, it doesn’t taste right. He puts the oven on about 200 and puts the food in there ’til it’s nice and warm) and he was thinking about seafood for dinner.

Egg loves seafood, but his wife isn’t partial to it. He gave us a few tips on where to get some good seafood (there’s a place that has a seafood buffet on Saturdays and he likes to go load up on frog legs and oysters and then he gets a salad for her.)

Poor ol’ Egg – not only does he have a bad back, he also has an aneurysm (he pointed vaguely to his lower abdomen, so I’m not sure where the aneurysm was located) and a kidney stone. They can’t treat the kidney stone (which is too big to be passed) until they’ve taken care of the aneurysm, and they won’t (or can’t) treat his back ’til the aneurysm and kidney stone are taken care of.

Egg’s grandson raises cattle to sell – Holsteins, not meat cows – and he goes down to Florida every so often and loads up his trailer with Holsteins and brings them back here to raise. It takes him a day and a night to get down there, get loaded up, and get home again. He turns a tidy profit, though, apparently. He helps Egg with the hogs, but once Egg is retired, that boy doesn’t want to see another hog. He has no interest in hogs. (This prompted Fred to say that perhaps when Egg retires, we should find ourselves a sow and start breeding her so that we don’t have to worry where we’ll get our pigs. The idea of breeding a sow freaks me OUT because – as Egg says – yeah, a sow’ll roll over on them sometimes and “mash one or two of them.” I don’t want to find a “mashed” wee baby pig, if you don’t mind.)

After about fifteen minutes of conversation, we left and headed home. The pigs (you’ll see pictures on Thursday) are cute – they always are when we first get ’em – and Fred has begun teaching them that he’s the one who brings them their food. They haven’t actually taken a cookie from him yet, but they’ve come close. I’m sure by the end of the week they’ll be eating right out of his hand.

So after we got home with the pigs, I puttered around the house for a while, then napped on the couch for a couple of hours (shaddup, I felt like I was getting a cold). Then I puttered around the house some more. THEN I changed my clothes and put on makeup (!), and Fred and I went over to his boss’s house for a cookout with all the other people who work for the same company and who are working on the same contract.

Fred’s been working at his new job for two and a half months now, and I was both looking forward to meeting some of the people he works with (not all the people he works with were going to be at the cookout, because a lot of them are employed by other companies. This whole contractor stuff is kind of confusing.) and kind of dreading being at a gathering of people I’ve never met before. I’m not the most social of butterflies (I know! You’re shocked!), and was afraid I’d just be standing there alone while everyone else socialized.

(“Don’t you dare go wandering off and abandon me!” I warned Fred repeatedly. He promised he wouldn’t, and he didn’t.)

I shouldn’t have worried – everyone there was super nice, and no surprise to me, the people he particularly likes are people I particularly liked, too. We talked, we ate, we bonded. One of them brought pictures of her dogs and her boat (which is moored in Maine at the moment!) and I got to poke fun at Fred a few times. Really, what more can you ask for in an evening of socializing?

Fred’s boss’s house is niiiiiiice. We spent part of the evening out on the deck which has this HUGE covered section with a fireplace, an outdoor kitchen, furniture, a ceiling fan. Really, I kind of wish I’d brought my camera, because this place was SPECTACULAR. If not for the fact that the roof of the covered deck was comprised of 2000 pound beams that had to be FLOWN in and put into place, I’d be harassing Fred to build me one. (I’m still harassing him to build me a covered deck over the patio, but one not quite so amazing.)

Before we went to the cookout, Fred and I discussed how early we could leave (we were getting there at 6 – that’s past dinnertime for us, y’know, and halfway to bedtime!) and Fred declared that 7:30ish wouldn’t be too terribly early.

And, of course, we were so caught up in talking and eating that it was well after 9 when we left – and we weren’t nearly the first ones to leave.

I’m pretty sure that makes me a social butterfly.

Two things of interest:

1. AmySATX left a comment sometime Saturday asking if I’d ever considered making an apple-habanero jam. I asked Fred if he thought that’d be worth making (since I can’t eat the hot stuff, I usually ask his opinion on this topic), and we talked about it for a bit – would I make an apple butter type jam with habaneros, or would I make the chunky caramel-apple jam and add habaneros to it?

(Y’all may certainly chime in here with your opinion on the topic! I’m going to Sam’s later and will be buying a bag of Granny Smith apples. I’m leaning toward the chunky caramel-apple jam with habaneros added.)

At the cookout, there was a table of stuff to nibble on while we were waiting for the brisket to finish cooking. There was some sort of jam over a block of cream cheese. Fred tried it (he’s my guinea pig) and told me that whatever it was, it wasn’t hot. I tried it, and agreed with him. There was NO heat to the stuff, but whatever it was, it was good. A few minutes later, someone else started talking nearby, and as it turned out, it was apple-habanero jam. “The heat is kind of like an aftertaste,” the guy who was talking about it said. Now, y’all know that I am the wimpiest of the wimp – if there was any heat to that stuff, my face would have gone up in flames. Sunday I Googled around, and judging by the color and the lack of heat, I’m pretty sure that the stuff was apple-habanero jelly rather than jam. The difference being, after the apples and habaneros are cooked, the apple pulp is strained out before sugar and pectin are added to the liquid. Straining out the habaneros = no heat.

2. I tried Coke Zero, and y’all are right – that stuff is pretty good, and Fred agrees. We’re on the way to becoming a Coke Zero household. If you hadn’t suggested I give it a try, I never would have. So thanks, you guys, for suggesting it!

In the guest bedroom, Martin shows that cat bed who the boss is.

Moxie, hanging out in the guest bedroom. (They always end up in the guest bedroom – it’s directly across from the stairs, and there are 300 cat beds on the bed.)

I wish Dodger would spend more time hanging out with us downstairs. He comes downstairs, but if we so much as glance at him, he goes running upstairs. But when we go upstairs, he comes running to be petted. I guess it’ll take a little more time before he’s completely comfortable downstairs.

Marty keeps an eye on things.

“I am hanging out with my bo’friends, lady. You go away!”

Check the attitude, mister, I’m just trying to get a shot of your pretty eyes!

Oh, Corby. Why you so stressed out? You need to learn to relax!

Elwood, atop the canning cabinet in the dining room, keeps an eye on the birds.

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: “Hmm,” I say to Mister Boogers. “It’s almost 80 outside, but only 74 inside. Imagine that!”
2006: You really don’t want to fuck with the Plumbing Mafia.
2005: “GodDAMN you, Mister Boogers!” I yelled.
2004: “This book makes me want to have a baby!” I said to Fred when I was about halfway through the book. “Let’s have a baby!”
2003: No entry.
2002: Gag city.
2001: I think you know what I’m thinkin’.
2000: I’d like to return to my regularly scheduled life, please.

Remember how last November I was sent a Cat Quest cat toy to review? Well, several weeks ago I got another email asking if I wanted to review another toy.

I know I don’t have to tell y’all that cat toys are my downfall. If my cats don’t currently own every toy in existence right now, it’s certainly not for lack of trying on my part. You cannot possibly offer to give me a cat toy I don’t own and expect me to turn it down. It’s just not possible!

So last week I received the package, and I opened it, and knowing that I needed to do a review of the toys, I put them where the cats couldn’t get them, and waited until I could calmly introduce them to all the cats. Except of course that never really happened, and so on Sunday I grabbed the toys, called the cats, and went up to the foster room. I figured anyone who was interested could check out the toys, and as it turned out, the little ones were interested in seeing what was going on, Corby came up to see what was happening, and Elwood (who thought there might be food involved) came along as well.

The toys were these:

Skinneeez For Cats. Two from the Forest Series (a skunk and a duck, on the wand toy) and one from the barnyard series (a chicken). I particularly liked the chicken, because we have our own chickens and occasionally one escapes the chicken yard and wanders by the door between the computer room and the side stoop, and the cats get pretty excited. Not that they’d see the similarity between the big bird outside and the little stuffed chicken toy, but I still thought it was cute.

What I found appealing is that the Skinneeez toys are stuffing free. I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve certainly had to fish polyester stuffing out of kittens’ mouths in the past when they’ve ripped open a toy and decided to see if the filling would be tasty. The only thing the Skinneeez toys have inside them is catnip.

So I carried the toys upstairs and called to the cats. Then I put the toys down on the floor and waited to see what would happen.

Melodie and Martin checked out the chicken.

Melodie liked it quite a bit.

Melodie checks out the skunk.

Melodie and Martin were curious and interested and batted the toys around a little, but didn’t really seem to feel the effects of the catnip.

Corbett, on the other hand, is a complete and total ‘nip head, and he kind of came out of nowhere to check out these catnip-filled toys.

A little high.

So high he resorted to toe-sniffing.

Martin, giving me the attitude.

Then Corbett sneaks in…

And gets a little high.

Melodie disapproves of Corby’s catnip addiction.

Then I got out the wand, and Dodger came flying over from wherever he’d been hiding to check out what was going on.

Corby liked the catnip aspect of the toy. Dodger liked the moving-toy aspect of the wand.

Martin came over to see what the fuss was all about, and Dodger grabbed and bit him on the neck in an effort to protect HIS toy.

Elwood batted at the toy a few times, as long as he didn’t have to expend too much effort, but wherever the toy went, Corby was right there.

Elwood and Martin checked out the toy, while Corby tried to figure out how he could get hold of the wand and take the whole shebang away from me.

And then, like all little kids do, they abandoned the toys for the packaging!

The biggest surprise to me – and what I managed to NOT get a picture of, of course – is that later that day, Jake “discovered” the skunk and decided that it belonged to him. Every morning for the past three days, he picks up the skunk – which somehow ends up upstairs every evening – and he carries it from my bedroom upstairs, down the hallway, down the stairs, down the downstairs hallway, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. The entire length of his journey, he keens at the top of his lungs as though he’s caught and killed a real skunk, and he’s coming to show me his “kill”. I always praise him – okay, well, he looks like such a little nut that first I laugh and then I praise him – and he drops it and looks very proud of himself.

So I’m going to say that the older cats give the Skinneeez toys two thumbs up (they do LOVE the catnip!) and the little cats will play with the toys, but they’re not sure why the older cats act so strange.

The one thing I’d change, about the teaser wand in particular, is to maybe add a bell to the toy. It’s hard to get the kittens’ attention by just waving the toy around, and I think a bell would help accomplish that.

Skinneeez cat toys retail for approximately $3.49 – the Forest series is on Amazon, here, for $2.21 (though I’m unclear whether that’s $2.21 per toy or for all three of the ones shown), the chickens are here for $3.49 (again, I’m not sure whether that’s per toy or for a set of them) and the Forest Friends teaser wand is $3.19, here – that appears to be for three wands, which is a pretty amazing price.

Previously
2009: I wanted to file for divorce.
2008: It took me ’til dinner time to get the house cleaned, and I swear to god the house doesn’t look any different at ALL.
2007: No entry.
2006: He shifted position and eyed Fred with bright-eye malevolence.
2005: Maybe I just like to bitch, y’think?
2004: Waiting for Ivan.
2003: No more Benifer. How sad.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Speaking of N Sync – that Lance Bass is a cutie, but I get the distinct feeling that although the lights are on, no one’s home.

The other night, we were watching Killers. It was an okay movie, I usually like Ashton Kutcher’s movies even though he strikes me as having douchebag potential in real life and I can usually tolerate Katherine Heigl (ditto on the real-life douchebag potential). It had a super-weak ending, though.

But anyway, we were watching the movie, and it begins in France. Ashton Kutcher was driving a sportscar down the road, and he was all OVER the damn road in that thing, and after he’d spent a long stretch of the road on the right side, I turned to Fred.

“They drive on the left side in France, don’t they? Doesn’t most of Europe?” I was pretty sure I was right, but I know there are random countries that drive on the right side, so I wanted to check with him.

Not that he’s been to France, either, but I thought he might know.

He paused for a long time and then slowly said “They drive…. on the opposite side of the road than we drive on.”

Which, hello, isn’t that a strange way to word it? So I turned and looked at him and I said, “What side of the road do we drive on?”, just to test him.

He took a lonnnnnnng time to deliberate, and finally he said “We drive on the right side of the road.”

“Are you sure?” I said, testing him.

Another long pause. “Yes. The right side of the road.”

“Are you having a stroke?” I said.

“I might have been dozing,” he said.

Fair enough.

I was searching through the freezers yesterday wondering if I had any cranberries left over from last Fall. I’m getting ready to start back up with the habanero jam making, and in the process of making my grocery list, I couldn’t remember if I’d used up all the cranberries or not.

In the house we have two refrigerators, each with its own freezer, and one stand-alone freezer (let us not discuss the TWO freezers we also have out in the garage). I searched all three freezers, but found no cranberries.

What I did find:

*Small ziploc bags holding (according to the label) ground chicken hearts and livers, from last December. Not sure what I was planning to do with those. I’m also not quite sure whether they’re raw or cooked. No doubt I was planning to give them to the cats, but if I recall correctly, the last time I offered the cats raw hearts and livers, they turned their noses up at them. Spoiled fuckers.

*Edamame. It was like CHRISTMAS when I found those! Ever since Sam’s stopped carrying my beloved edamame in snack-size (frozen) containers, I haven’t had much luck finding edamame in bulk, and that makes me very sad. Apparently, at some point, I did find a couple of small bags at the grocery store, stuck them in the freezer, and promptly forgot about them.

*Cube steak, given to us by Fred’s former coworker about a year and a half ago. He raises his own cows, and we traded him some pork for beef.

*Frozen cookie dough, intended (I am sure) for pig cookies. I have no idea how long that’s been in there.

*VitaTops 100 calorie muffin tops. I bought a pack, tried one, and decided I don’t care for them. I’m pretty sure they’ve been in there about a year.

*Hot dog and hamburger buns. I must have bought them when they were on sale, but have no idea how long they’ve been in there.

*At least 20 2-cup bags of pecans, from our own trees, from Fall 2008. I took a bag out, roasted them in the oven, and they’re still good. Yay! We didn’t get any pecans last Fall, but I think we’re expecting a good harvest this year. I love the hell out of pecans.

Most of all, I found English muffins. A TON of English muffins. What the fuck? How many English muffins do we need to have on hand? I counted thirty before I decided to stop counting. THIRTY. I’m an English muffin hoarder. You’re going to turn on the TV one day and I’ll be standing there, surrounded by mounds of English muffins, my hoarder eyes all atwirl as I say “Well, I likes me some English muffins! You cain’t have too many English muffins! You can toast ’em and eat ’em with jam! You can toast ’em and put a piece of cheese and some scrambled eggs on ’em! You can make tiny pizzas out of ’em! The possibilities are endless!”

I also loves me some Hoarders. The new season of Hoarders has started, in case you didn’t know, and it’s running concurrently with a Hoarders offshoot called something like Hoarders: Piles of Crap.

More Hoarders than you can shake a stick at!

Yesterday I was watching Hoarders: I Cannot Let Go of This Invoice from 1983 and the organizer was helping this skateboard-collecting guy start cleaning up his house, and she was all “Should this go in the toss pile, the keep pile, or the recycle pile?”, and the guy was all “Toss. No. WAIT. What do you mean by “toss” and “recycle”? Because this has use! Someone could use this! If you toss this, does it go to the landfill?” They debated the meanings of “toss” and “recycle” until I felt like I was watching Bill Clinton debate the meaning of “is.”

I would be absolutely horrible at helping a hoarder clean up his or her house because I would have NO FUCKING PATIENCE for the woman who was dithering over whether or not to toss out a rotten cantaloupe and I’d end up yelling at her and grabbing everything and tossing it in the dumpster while she wailed over her loss.

Speaking of shows I love, have you seen that there’s going to be a reality show about a polygamous family on TLC called Sister Wives?

You better believe I’m counting the moments ’til THAT show premieres.

Is it just me, or do Moxie’s eyes look almost red in this picture?

Moxie atop the cat tree, Melodie and Dodger climbing up the cat tree, followed closely by Jake.

Melodie on the stairs.

And smacking at the curtains.

Where Martin spends most of his day.

Corby, asleep on the cat tree.

Corby and Reacher are pretty sure that if they’re under the foliage, you can’t see them, and thus you can’t yell at them to get inside.

Tommy, atop the pantry. He goes up here sometimes to get away from the kittens.

Previously
2009: Kanye: Douchebag.
2008: No entry.
2007: By the way, I still want a pet hummingbird.
2006: Maddy sadly contemplates the vast expanse of my thigh. How will she ever cross it and reach freedom?!
2005: For the record, there’s a big fucking difference between pranking someone and just being an asshole.
2004: Like, so world-weary, like “I can’t be bothered to sign ‘love’, because it sounds so warm, I need something COLDER, so I’ll just scrawl ‘as ever’”.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

We had an absolutely beautiful weekend, with sunshine and weather in the mid-80s (I told my brother on Friday that when I lived in Maine, I would never ever EVER have considered a temperature in the mid-80s to be cool and comfortable, but I guess it’s amazing what 14 years of living in the south will do to your opinion of what’s hot and what’s cold).

I know I’ve mentioned that a lot of our younger chickens are able to get out of the back forty and wander the property during the day. They’re getting out of the back forty by walking under the gap that has developed between the bottom of the fence and the ground. A gap that has gotten so large that, if the fully grown chickens were of a mind to, they could also get out of the back forty and wander the property. It hasn’t occurred to them, though, or maybe they’re smart enough (DOUBT IT) to know that in the back forty they’re protected by George and Gracie. If a dog or some other predator were to come onto our property and go after one of the wandering chickens, there’s nothing that George and Gracie could do.

I don’t think that’s happened, but to be honest we have SO FUCKING MANY chickens right now that if a few have gone missing, we don’t know about it.

So anyway, Saturday morning I went out and started working on the fence so that the chickens who are going under the gap can’t get out that way. This was a fairly tedious process that consisted of cutting fence, pushing it into the ground at the bottom of the gaps, and then attaching the pieces of new fence to the old fence with cable ties.

It looks… not great. It’s kind of a mess, but who do we have to impress? It seems to be doing the job. Sunday morning when I went out to work on more of the fence, there were chickens by the gaps I’d blocked off on Saturday walking back and forth with big cartoon question marks in the air over their heads. I worked on the fence for another couple of hours, and I should be able to finish up the front part of the back forty next weekend. I know there are gaps on the fence going along the side of the back forty, but I don’t think any of the chickens are going out that way. If I’m proven wrong, I suppose I’ll have to do the fence along the side, too.

Right now, the ends of my fingers hurt like a motherfucker.

Worst feeling in the world: paper cuts. I got one on the end of my thumb and just thinking about the feeling of the cut happening makes me shudder. HATE PAPER CUTS.

(Do you glue your paper cuts shut with super glue too? It works like a charm!)

Is there a word for taking corn off a cob? I made a shit-ton of corn on the cob last night so that I could use the cobs for cob jelly (shaddup, don’t judge), and had to take the corn off the cob to use the cobs, and I have NO CLUE what the word for taking the corn off the cob is. IS there a word? Dekerneling? Decobbing? Anyone know?

Last weekend, Nance posted a picture of a damn tasty-looking cheese danish. Naturally, it got me craving a good cheese danish, so I started looking around to see if I could find a recipe for a simple danish I could make at home.

I found one (and not one that requires you to make your own dough, thank god), and made half a batch of them on Friday.

Oh my god, they were SO FREAKIN’ GOOD. Too good. So good I need to never make them again because I could NOT stop shoving them in my face.

Recipe here.

Moxie, Melodie, Martin, and Dodger continue to explore the house. They start howling to be let out of their room a little after 6 – unless they hear me up and moving around earlier than that. I give them their morning snack, then let them free to roam the house. Marty is completely comfortable in all corners of the house and has staked his claim to one of the beds on my desk. Moxie also occasionally sleeps on my desk. Melodie and Dodger haven’t quite gotten that comfortable, but they’ve at least gotten to the point where they’ll come downstairs.

All four of them ADORE Jake. He really is the Charlene Butterbean of Crooked Acres – he plays with them, he grooms them, he snuggles with them. It’s way too cute.

Bolitar and Rhyme: still unadopted. Wah! But reports are that they’re calm and friendly and NOT hiding in the litter box any more, so I’m not too worried about them. It’s only been two weeks, I guess it’s going to take a little time.

In the meantime, we give Corby and Reacher all the snuggles they can stand, because it could be their turn to go to the adoption center any time!

God, Corby. I wish you’d learn to relax a little. You’re stressing me out!

Miz Poo reflects that someone needs to clean that window.

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: “You,” I said to Flappy through clenched teeth, “Are the stupidest goddamn animal in the entire world. GET IN THERE!”
2006: Maddy!
2005: let’s just say I am NOT very fond of Robyn v. 2002 right now.
2004: My mother hung up the phone and said “If she wanted closure so bad, maybe she should have shown up at the nursing home to see her!”
2003: No entry.
2002: I think he has a camera hidden somewhere in the bathroom, and when I’m in the shower, an alarm goes off and tells him to call me immediately.
2001: Time to go cold turkey, Deb…
2000: WHEN WILL THE SUFFERING END???

So, last week I put up a video of Marty from soon after we got him, and his funny, squeaky little meow. In case you missed it, here it is:

Someone asked if his voice had changed any since then, so I got a video so y’all can judge for yourselves.

I shot this video yesterday as soon as I went into the foster room. The babies get their snack of canned cat food first thing in the morning, so they’ve all gotten used to yelling at me as soon as I walk in. No one yells more than our Marty.

His voice may have deepened a little, but it’s still the same funny meow.

And while we’re on the topic of cats and their voices, Coltrane certainly has a very distinctive, VERY high-pitched voice. Every evening he takes up residence on the side stoop, and any time Fred or I go out there, Coltrane has something to say to us. (In the second part of the video, you can hear Maxi’s meow, which is lower and huskier, but no less distinctive!)

I know, I know. I’ve put up an AWFUL lot of pictures of Corbett recently, but I just can’t help it. He’s so gorgeous that every time I see him I can’t help but take a thousand pictures of him. I swear I’ll point the camera in the direction of some of the other cats… tomorrow. For today, feast your eyes upon the sheer gorgeous stripey perfection of the kitty known as Corby McGee.

Previously
2009: It’s like we’ve entered another universe completely.
2008: Yes, more chickens.
2007: No entry.
2006: I think that “Proven to be beneficial to livers” should be Fred’s new tagline.
2005: Give me some of that, Barbara Bush, you ignoramus.
2004: No entry.
2003: Because believe it or not, it never once occurred to me that the Walton family was comprised of hillbillies.
2002: Look, I drink a gallon of water a day. I need to know that I can pee when I need to, so stop rolling your eyes at me.
2001: No entry.
2000: Can I tell you how much I loathe Bret Easton Ellis?

What an absolutely gorgeous weekend we had! It was cool (mid-80s), it was so sunny that I didn’t see a single cloud in the sky from Friday to Monday, and we had three million adorable baby chicks hatch on Saturday and Sunday.

(Well, more like fifteen, really. Expect loads of pictures for Thursday.)

There were two chickens – the white Silkie and a yellow Buff Orpington – sitting on seventeen eggs between them, and all but two hatched. We have one grown rooster and he’s apparently been a busy, busy boy. I never would have expected to have that many fertile eggs. We didn’t particularly WANT that many chicks, really, but when those hens go broody, they aren’t kidding about wanting to hatch them some babies, so Fred piled a ton under them assuming that one lone rooster cannot possibly spread the lovin’ around to 40 grown hens. We were wrong, of course.

There was one chick who had a hard time hatching, and you are NOT supposed to mess with chicks who are having difficulty, you’re supposed to just leave them alone and let nature take its course. Fred, however, cannot possibly leave well enough alone, so he brought in the chick and helped him the rest of the way out of the shell, and put him in the incubator.

The chicks that Fred “helps” are always named “Lucky”, because we’re always hopeful they’ll make it. They don’t always, in fact they usually don’t – I think only one Lucky has actually made it – but you can’t blame Fred for trying. This little guy was in a heap on the floor of the incubator for most of Saturday evening, and then he got up on his feet and stomped around for a while and demonstrated that his lungs were functioning just fine. When Fred decided he was doing well, he took him back out to the coop and put him in front of one of the Momma hens and Lucky didn’t hesitate to climb under her and go to sleep.

Sunday morning Lucky was bright-eyed and moving around, but mid-day Sunday he started winding down, and by Sunday evening he couldn’t even open his eyes, so Fred euthanized him. The rest of the chicks were doing well, but Monday morning when Fred took the trailer out to set up in the pig yard (the pigs are going to freezer camp next Monday, and Fred starts feeding them in the trailer the week before so that when it’s time to go, they’ll go into the trailer easily. Yes, we use their love of food against them.), I followed him out and peeked in the maternity coop to find a dead chick laying in the food and Momma Silkie surrounded by a bevy of babies, all of them having a bit of a tizzy.

Anyways. Uh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on about the damn chickens for so long. There’s nothing cuter than a wee baby chick, though, let me tell you.

Saturday morning was when I took my last antibiotic, and Sunday morning began my reunion with my True Love, Diet Coke. I swear to god, I took my first sip of Diet Coke around 7 am, and for the rest of the day it was like I was on meth. I cleaned! I did laundry! I snapped a zillion and sixty-three pictures! I watered the plants! I cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeders! I cooked! I cooked! And I cooked some more! (But I didn’t cook meth. My house smells like cat pee often enough without that special scent added to the environment, thanks.)

Let’s see, what did I cook? I cooked Green Tomato Chili!

A year ago, or thereabouts, when I first wrote about the Green Tomato Chili, I said that I didn’t have a dutch oven, so I made the chili in my crock pot, and declared that it was just fine.

I was so, so wrong. Now, don’t get me wrong – the Green Tomato Chili was perfectly fine, but this year I DO have a dutch oven, and I made it using the directions Jenn gave me, and HOLY COW, it was SO much better. I also used steak instead of ground beef, and tossed a couple of small cans of mushrooms in, and OH SO GOOD.

To go with the Green Tomato Chili? Cornbread! Now, Fred has some strange belief that cornbread cannot be sweet. So instead of arguing with him over this fallacy, I made a batch of regular cornbread for him, and a batch of sweet cornbread muffins for myself.

Sweet Cornbread Muffins recipe here. If you want the recipe for the regular, non-sweet, non-life-affirming nasty-ass cardboard-tasting cornbread Fred loves so much, you’re shit out of luck. Go Google it up, that’s what I did!

Then, since I was planning on grilling burgers for lunch on Monday (which I think I do just about every Labor Day), I made a batch of Justin Wilson’s Slaw (it’s always best when it’s aged at least a day), and a batch of Potato Salad, too.

While I was waiting for the potatoes to cook for the potato salad, I wandered out to the garden and picked all the split, half-rotten tomatoes off the tomato plants in the garden and the raised beds as well, and then I tossed them all to the chickens. There is nothing our chickens love and adore quite so much as tomatoes, half-rotted or not.

I waited impatiently for Fred to wake up from his afternoon nap, and then I made him help me carry the big-ass cat tree from the foster room to the front room, and a smaller cat tree back up to the foster room. The big-ass cat tree is awesome, and the kittens like it a lot, but the problem is that the big-ass cat tree is about a foot taller than my reach, so if a scaredy-cat wants to get away from me, she knows she only has to go to the highest level of the cat tree and I can’t reach her and either have to go get the stepladder (which only serves to terrify all the other cats, when I go stomping into the foster room, stepladder in tow) or just stand and unleash a helpless stream of obscenities in my sweetest, softest voice in hopes that it will persuade her to come and be grabbed by my flailing hand.

Then Sunday morning I made Fred do all manners of things I’ve been wanting him to do for ages and ages, such as (1) hang a curtain rod in the foster room and (2) fix my shower so that it drains in a more timely manner and, uh, that’s all I can remember. I was going to make him put hair color on my hair, but I had already taken a shower because I forgot that I need to color my hair due to the graying of said hairs. I wanted him to put up another shelf in the foster room closet, but apparently the installation of said shelf required more work than he felt like doing, and I was so grateful that he’d gotten the curtain rod put up that I let that one slide.

OH MY GOD DOES IT SEEM TO YOU THAT I AM BABBLING AT YOU IN A BABBLING AND UNORGANIZED MANNER BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE I CANNOT KEEP THREE THOUGHTS STRAIGHT IN MY HEAD AT THE SAME TIME AND SO I AM GOING TO BABBLE ABOUT THE CATS AND POST THIS AND PERHAPS BY THE TIME IT IS TIME TO POST ANOTHER POST POST POST AM I SAYING POST A LOT?! I WILL HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO THE METHIMEANCAFFEINE FLOWING THROUGH MY VEINS IN A MANNER CAUSING ME TO ACT IN A DISORGANIZED BABBLING MANNER AND PERHAPS I WILL MAKE MORE SENSE TOMORROW OKAY SEE YOU TOMORROW THEN BYE BYE!

ALSO, HABANERO-EATING MOTHERFUCKERS, HABANEROS ARE COMING IN LIKE GANGBUSTERS (PERHAPS THEY TOO ARE HITTING THE DIET COKE PIPE AGAIN!) SO HABANERO JAMS AND HOT SAUCES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE BY OCTOBER 1ST LOVE YOU BYE!

Bolitar and Rhyme: Unadopted.

I blame the holiday weekend, and will likely go visit with my sweet boys in the next few days. Last report I got, from Jean who happened to be in Petsmart on Friday, they were curled up together in a non-scared manner on top of their litter box.

On Saturday, I opened the half-door at the end of the hallway upstairs and gave Martin, Melodie, Moxie and Dodger the run of the house.

They were distinctly underwhelmed.

Martin eventually made it downstairs and did some exploring on Saturday, became a little more comfortable on Sunday, and by mid-afternoon on Monday, he was helping the big cats clean their plates at snack time (the upstairs foster kittens get their “snack” of canned cat food first thing in the morning. The big cats downstairs get theirs mid-afternoon.). The other three have been down several times to look around, but they’re more comfortable hanging out upstairs. It’ll take them a little more time to spend any real time downstairs, which isn’t surprising – they think of upstairs as “home”.

The biggest surprise to me is how well the big cats have dealt with the little cats. Reacher and Corbett genuinely like the little cats, and have been seen playing with them and giving them the occasional lick on top of the head. Neither Reacher nor Corbett have Bolitar’s drama-queen nature, so aren’t picking on the babies.

So far, so good!

Martin approaching Jake for some love.

Melodie and Corbett.

I’m sorry, is Dodger THE biggest love bug on this planet, or what? He loves loves LOVES everyone.

Moxie puts up with the flood of love coming her way.

Melodie in the sun.

When I go out into the back yard in the mornings to snap pictures, Corbett likes to come lean against my leg.

Corbett’s got a bit of the ear floof going on. Nothing like his half-brother Gus, but certainly a bit more floof than your average cat.

Sometimes he likes to tell me how it is.

And sometimes he just gives me the look o’ love.

Newt wonders if perhaps it might be snackin’ time?

Previously
2009: I like to think that the chickens are sitting on their eggs thinking “Why do I keep craving birthday cake…?”
2008: No entry.
2007: Pretty good for kittens I was absolutely positive would be unadoptable due to their feral nature when I first saw them, ain’t it?
2006: Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straightened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin’?
2005: I didn’t get any pictures of it, but last night the stank coming off Rambo’s hindquarters was so strong that we finally gave in to the inevitable and gave him a bath.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHO IT IS.
2000: Am I not an ass-kicking WalkAerobics diva?