There's No Title to Describe This--I'm Taking Suggestions

In my last few blogs I discussed the problem we had with raccoons in our chimney and mice in our attic.  Turns out the mice are squirrels.  And my cat Gibby (with a soft G) is training for Wrestle Mania.  Or so it sounds.  And going by the alias, The Headhunter.

At night I can hear slamming and running across the attic floor above my head.  Richard has gone up but finds nothing.

Gibby has gone up—slam, wham—and comes down with a dead squirrel that then shows up on our front lawn without a head.  Thus his alias in the world of wrestling—The Headhunter.

So far we’ve had the raccoons, the squirrels and the ticks.

Ah yes, the ticks.  How the heck do they land on an animal?  Do they fly? Jump?  So many.  They suck the blood out of my dog and cats, plump up, then fall off everywhere.  Richard came in one day and asked why all the blood along the floor?  Looked like someone stepped in some and tracked it through the house.  Yup.  If you can guess it….Richard must have stepped on a blooded up tick, popped it, and then tracked its blood through the house.  DISGUSTING. 

I do believe I’ve mentioned coyotes?  Haven’t seen one yet, but have been instructed by our neighbor to get a shotgun and kill them when I see them in my yard.  Apparently I don’t need a license for the gun or a license to shoot the animal.  Nor do I apparently need to know how to shoot the gun.  Just aim and fire.

Remember the “Billy Club”? 

Pumpkins and Pumpkin HEADS

I haven’t written in ages and SO much has happened.  A lot of good and pretty much a lot of bad too.

The latest event has provided me both material and motivation to blog again.  It’s what Richard termed “the Pumpkin Nor’easter” that dumped a foot of snow over us on October 30 and wiped out our power for five days now.   If you ever wanted to know what Armageddon might be like, you should have been in our town the next morning looking for a cup of coffee. 

I have decided that in addition to the list the government puts out for emergency supplies, I’m including two working bicycles.  Imagine if you couldn’t get gasoline, which was the case Sunday morning.  Imagine if you couldn’t drive down the road because of fallen wires and trees.  At least a bike might make it around these things.

Imagine if you have a mother like mine who has no cell phone, and if she did, wouldn’t know how to use it.  How could you check on her?  This leads me to what I call “the incident.”  It involves a mother, a cell phone, an emergency, and a lot of frustration and anxiety.  Here it is:

Three days into the power outage my mother still would not leave her home to stay with me, who at least had a wood burner, nor would she stay with my brother or sister who both had full power.  She preferred to sleep in her 45 degree house wearing a down coat, hat, and mittens to bed each night.  I got her a cell phone from Target so we could check on her each day and if she needed to contact someone urgently she’d have a means to do so.  She actually used it pretty well the first day she had it and assured me on the second day that she had fully charged it at the doctor’s office.  Mind you she’s been unwell for several months.  Just another added detail to this story.

It was now day four of the power outage and I could not get hold of her nor could my brother or sister.  And she had made no effort to contact us to assure us she was still with us.  I began to panic at about 9:00 am and at the urging of my co-worker called the police to swing by and check on this elderly person, my mother.  I anxiously awaited the call back from the police telling me she was either frozen dead in bed or thawed and alive.  Sure as heck, they made contact with her.  She answered the door in her sleepwear—the down coat, hat and mittens—and told the officers her phone was “not charged.”  Do I believe her??? Not sure.  But she ended up going to a temporary shelter for all of her meals that day at the suggestion of the kind officers.  She LOVED the food and the socializing. She got her power on that night, which I wonder if maybe her attire alerted the police to take some action on her behalf.

The "incident," which I will forever refer to as "the Pumpkin Head Incident," ends with me being the daughter who called the police on her mother.

When last I called her on her cell phone, it just rang and rang.  She says she can't hear it.  Do you think she pressed the wrong button and muted it by mistake?  Maybe a new company is in order:  PumpkinHead Technology.  Not bad.

Making Ends Meet

Part of my new routine is to go to the Laundromat every Saturday morning.  As kids, we’d go with mom and we HATED it.  Now here I am in the supposed 21^st century (though you wouldn’t think so looking at my living conditions) and I’m going there again.

One thing I like is ALL the clothes get done at the same time and while it takes 2 hours or so, I can do errands or wash my car in the adjoining car wash as the clothes tumble and turn.

Now I’ve always admired the women (and men) who stand around so patiently and carefully fold their clothes when they come out of the dryer.  I, on the other hand, simply remove them from the dryer and stuff them in the trash bags I brought them in only to fold them and curse the wrinkles that set in when I return home.

SO…I decided to try it…folding and hanging and smoothing out wrinkles and matching corners of my blankets just like all those other people were doing.  They must find me more horrifying than watching me stuff the clothes in trash bags as I’m dropping articles on the floor and dragging blankets and sheets as I try to fold the monstrosities.  What the heck, I’ll be back again next week with everything.

But I have to admit, going to the laundry is a way of “making ends meet” in more ways than one.  And I’m starting to get good at it.

We are EGGstatic

Richard and I are getting egg laying HENS!!!!  We are so excited.  Getting the Americaunas which lay beautiful pastel, Easter egg-like eggs. 

Richard needs to figure out how to build a coop.  It seems pretty easy.  Just need to find a way to keep them warm in the winter and keep predators away.  I’ve picked out names for them.  You can get 12 chicks for about $15.  Can you believe it???? So my first 12 names are as follows:

Annie
Beatrice
Clementine
Dolly
Ernestine
Gracie
Hattie
Ida
Jenny
Lucy
Myrtle
Nell

All good old farmer wife names.  I LOVE them.  

We should get one egg from each hen each day.  

I’ve already got people lined up to buy them.

Really COOOOOL Story

I have the makings for a Stephen King novel.  It will be based on an old house that gets bought and is in the process of a rehab.  Summer is steaming and the husband finds an air conditioner in the attic, left behind by the previous owners.  Oh thank heavens.  Finally some relief from the heat. 

He puts it in the bedroom window and every night/early morning (probably around 2:00 am) while the a/c is blasting out cool air and, as everyone who has ever owned one can testify to, very loud humming that somehow puts you to sleep anyway, a muffled radio can be heard.  No words or exact music can be made out, but it's definitely a radio.  "Where is it coming from"?  Inside the a/c.

Turns out that there is an evil presence living in the a/c and it draws the people  into it by telling them that life on the inside is heavenly and lulling them with nice music.  So they do as told, stick their finger in the electric socket, and ZAP!!! they now live on the inside of the a/c.  And if you listen closely, you can hear them at night while their radio plays.

True!!!

Slowly but NOT Surly

It’s been awhile since I last posted.  Much has changed.  Our wood floors are NEARLY all in.  Once they are though, the sanding and polyurethaning begins and we’ll have to sleep at mom’s to avoid death by chemical inhalation.

Our kitchen cabinets, ordered June 5 with an anticipated delivery of 4 weeks later, are still not in.  Another 3 weeks or so.  That means we’re still cooking on the grill every night and sometimes in the microwave.  A lot of times it’s just sandwiches.  But once cabinets arrive, we can get our plumbing finalized and add our appliances.

Dog seems accustomed to the place although suffers from her usual separation anxieties a bit more than usual.  And cats are still living at mom’s.  They seem to LOVE it there.  But mom will have nothing to do with keeping them…not that I’d REALLY want her to.

Our bathroom looks good.  Still waiting for a sink.  Richard is working on the claw foot tub he bought off of Craig’s List. Our bathroom is quite large so a tub separate from our shower stall will work beautifully.

I went to Costco and loaded up on safety items such as a fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detectors, and flood lights for the outside.  It’s DARK out there.  Of course some things must wait until our electric is all complete.  That’s another few weeks away.

We are now sleeping in our true bedroom as opposed to the livingroom.  Just waiting for closets to be completed.  I really want to hang some pictures soon.  We have our blinds on the windows so it’s looking pretty finished.  Still waiting for our dressers to be moved in.  I went and invested some money in making our closets look nice, neat and organized.  Bought those skinny hangars all in the same color.  It does make a difference when you look in there.  And they work well.  Clothes don’t fall off and there is extra room made in the closet for yet MORE clothes which we do not need.

Richard wants hens so we can get fresh eggs.  Each hen lays one each day so we figure two hens are plenty AND you don’t need a rooster.  Whether or not the hen gets “laid,” an egg gets laid.  As if we don’t have enough trouble getting dog a sitter when we’re away.  Imagine my mother getting a dog, two cats and two hens to watch?  I think I’ll tell her that one.

So I think we’re moving along.  Slow but what can you do with just one person working it?

Ain't No Coon Hound

There’s a series of books I just love about “Ladybug Farm.” Three so far and I do hope more. The author is Donna Ball. My friend Mattie doesn’t care for them. Says they’re too predictable and happy. Everything gets tied up in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. Well that’s just how I like life. I like the happily ever after. And that’s just how the coon story ends.

Our baby raccoon (which we named Braveheart)cried all night into the next after his mama left him and took all his siblings. Imagine how awful to be left all alone in the dark. Hungry, frightened, cold, waiting for the return of your mama? We prayed she would return for him. Hoped that she only left him because she was running out of time with dawn breaking and three others babies to hide in a new nest. We both had bad dreams about the coon family. We were actually very upset about the situation.

But “Life is Good.” Mama returned sometime in the night while we were fast asleep and took her last baby home to the nest.

I learned at least one thing from the experience. Our dog is NOT part Red Bone Coon Hound as we once thought.