A Much Different Day

I am out of my funk!  So no more kvetching on the blog (this week).  Elliot, the college-age young man who lives next door, did much to restore my good humor, and then I received an e-mail from my cousin Sarah, which made me laugh out loud.  My brother-in-law showed up at 7:25 last night and jumped the van, so I once again have transport.  All is well with my world - my kits have been loving and snuggling with me, I've cared for Ooch, and I fed the kits and Tessa (and walked  her) and have been home for a while.  VT showed up while I was in Safeway, and escorted me home - such a sweetie....   Dee, a friend who used to live in Githens Acres, told me last week that she and her hubby wanted a puppy.  Tuesday morning there was a report on the news regarding 86 puppies that our Humane Society had taken  from an over-crowded Tulsa rescue agency.  They range in age from 8  to 16 weeks, and cover all types of breeds and mutts.  I called Dee and told her about it.  This morning, she showed me a photo of her new girl, a yellow Lab - golden Retriever mix.
   I thought we were having a nasty time with wildfires here in Colorado.  There are 5 major fires burning in Virginia, that have destroyed over 14,000 acres, plus numerous small fires.  The largest fires are in Alleghany County (near the home I shared with Jeff), and in Craig, Page, and Shenandoah Counties as well.  Farmers have already declared a drought on the Eastern Shore.  Come on, Mother Nature!  We need rain all across the country (and a little more than the brief wetting we got in Boulder last night, please)!  I think I always say this around this time of year, but having done my family tree, and finding that my ancestors were farmers for the past 600 years (and fishermen in Sweden and on Chincoteague), I worry about the state of precipitation around the world....
    I hope everyone has a great day!

The Way I Feel Now...

I feel like the female in the photo...

I feel like this totalled car...

I feel like Wile E. Coyote here.....

A Real Twister of 24 Hours

I am in a bad mood as I write this - more frustrated than anything, but I wish I had something I could punch without hurting myself!  The water tank/heater replacement man showed up at 11:30 yesterday morning - he stayed, working until almost 8 p.m.  I had been zealously guarding the doors, as the crew had all the main doors in and out of the house wide open, and I had three indoor-only cats and a dog inside.  The back yard fence is being replaced, so I couldn't put everyone out back and sit and watch them.  I penned them all inside the den for awhile, but they weren't happy.  While they were in the den, I went out to water the peas in the garden - they are planted under a trellis just in front of the four bee hives.  A guard bee took exception to my presence, and stung the underside of my left wrist, right between two major veins.  In less than 15 minutes, my forearm looked like Popeye's after he's eaten spinach.  I took loads of Benadryl, and iced the entire forearm; today, I still have a swollen plaque, 4 by 1 1/2 inches on the underside of my wrist.  It hurts to use my fingers, flex my wrist, or apply any weight or power to it.  That's bummer #1.  While I was icing my arm, the owner of the dogs with whom I had the misunderstanding regarding care dates, showed up.  We sat in the shade on the deck, she admired the water feature, and then left me with a $50 bill - because she doesn't want to lose my services.  (The charge for what I did came to $120 - so she won that situation.)  That was my second bummer.  Then, as the water tank guy left last night, he (a) left the front door open, and all the cats escaped, so I was hunting them down in the dark, without a moon for 4 hours - until midnight ; then (b) he informed me that while the water tanks are in place, he hasn't yet turned on the heating elements, so (1) no hot water and (2) no heat if it gets cool.  That was bummer 3 and 4.  I went over to take care of Ooch, who was long overdue for his dinner, and the closing of the house curtains....  Someone, not me, my sister, or the owner's daughter, had gone in and fed Ooch something that he couldn't stomach, and I had six spots the size of dinner plates covered with vomit on the rug that I had to clean up.  Bummer #5.  When I got up this morning, after caring for Ooch, I was going to run home and take care of the kits, then go back and walk the Rs.  The underwire in my bra broke yesterday (bummer #6), and after I walked the red kids, I was going to drive over to WalMart to purchase new bras and some canned stuff I can't purchase anywhere else (certain favorite brands that local stores don't carry).  I grabbed the keys, went to the van, and found the battery was completely dead.  (Bummer #7)  Then I wrote a note to my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew and placed it on their front door, saying the battery was dead, and I asked if someone would be willing to take the 5 minutes needed to come over and jump-start the van.  (I figured, three people, one car and one truck - it's 7 a.m. and I knew they had a 9 a.m. meeting with a lawyer - but 5 minutes? Tops?)  My sister called me at 8, and said they'd gotten the note; they were running late as always, but as soon as they returned from the lawyer's office, one of them would call and come over to jump the van.  Sister was due at work at 1:30, so it would definitely happen before then.  At 2:30 this afternoon, I called her house, let the phone ring 15 times, and left a voice mail, saying I hoped that someone might be able to jump the van this evening, as I was going home by bus to care for my kits.  That was Bummer #8....
    Apparently I am so insignificant, that my request was forgotten, ignored, or brushed aside for "later"...  It takes about 8 minutes to drive from where I was to my apartment; on the bus, with good connections, it takes 60 minutes, one way.  I just want to HOWL!!!!!
   Thanks for letting me vent, if you read all the way through this...
I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow!

Miscellany

The Montgomery Canal in Shropshire, England

This is the John Gold Sanborn cottage, in Knoxville, Illinois  .  It was orginally built in  1832   from butternut logs, and served as both general store and home to the family.

The back yard of a current home in Oak Hall, Virginia.  My 13th-great grandfather moved to this area in 1648, he started out with 5 acres of land, and owned more than 700 acres when he died.  He originally came to the colonies as a bond servant, and worked on a tobacco plantation outside of St. Mary's City, Maryland for 6 years to procure his freedom.

Justice And Other Things

The two high-school students charged with felony animal cruelty charges in Longmont (for herding wild Canada geese into the street and then running them down in an SUV) both got plea deals - community service and a suspended sentence.  Does this really teach teenage boys not to destroy wildlife just for their own satisfaction?
  Two of the three college boys charged with felony animal cruelty charges here in Boulder, have also made plea deals.  The third claims he is "not guilty."  The three young men (19 to 21 years old) beat a raccoon to death with a baseball bat, a hockey stick, and an extremely dull machete.  Witnesses say the young men were "very excited" and jumping and dancing around, yelling, "Get him! Get Him!"  I admit that having a raccoon raid your trash can is not good - but the raccoon didn't need to be beaten to death for over 15 minutes by 3 people who each outweighed it by 10 times it's own weight.  The two who have plead guilty have the same community service and suspended sentences as the younger boys who ran over geese for the fun of it.  Since the third young man has plead "not guilty," he will go to trial.  Maybe he will learn some manners in jail.
   I can see, in the country, far from a veterinarian, having to kill an animal that is horribly injured - I do condone mercy killing in that instance. A baby rabbit, skinned alive by a lawn mower and with a broken back, that is squealing continuously, needs to be allowed to die quickly.  But young men today seem to be a lot more blood-thirsty than they were when I was growing up.  I mean, you went out hunting during hunting season - hopefully, you made a good shot, with either your rifle or bow, brought your game down cleanly, and had something to put in the freezer.  You didn't go out just to kill something.  I really do think that the proliferation of violent games that one can play on a computer, or Game Boy station, or whatever, have made today's youth extremely calloused to death in the real world.
....  On another note, the US Army Corps of Engineers, has come up with a plan to restore old, traditional oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay.  The corps, which holds the first meeting tonight in Annapolis, says the plan is the first comprehensive bay-wide strategy for large-scale oyster restoration.  Nineteen areas, 11 in Maryland and eight in Virginia, have been selected for restoration. Those waterways include the Eastern Bay, Tangier Sound and the Nanticoke, Choptank and Chester rivers in Maryland. The Pocomoke, Rappahannock and James rivers are among the areas in Virginia.  The plan also calls for sanctuaries where harvesting won't be allowed covering 20 percent to 40 percent of historic habitat.
    I've been in contact with a woman who is writing a book about the genetic make-up of the "wild" ponies that live on the islands off the east coast.  I gave her all the information I had on the Virginia side of the Chincoteague ponies - including Mom's memories of the size and coat colors of the ponies when she was a girl.  She's been checking my info and is surprised at how accurate my memory is...
   My kits are having a blast this morning - I took care of the Thore household early this morning, then spent time with Ooch.  Then I came home to Lovey and Nedi - I gave them a special breakfast, and have been loving them to pieces.  Lovey is sitting on the corner of my desk, and Nedi is sitting in the open patio door, soaking up the sunshine.  The weather folks say we'll have a mix of snow and rain Saturday night, so I hope the kids enjoy the weather while they can.

A Long Monday

Today has been very entertaining - I got up early and grabbed breakfast, took care of Ooch, and then waited for the water heater folks.  The manager, Greg, told me last night that he had to wait on the home-owner to make a decision between three kinds of tanks, he said he'd call her this morning for the decision.  I made the comment that she was in San Francisco, and he said,  "Yeah?",  and I said that she wasn't an early riser, to which he made no comment.  He called me at 10 this morning, stating he had called the owner more than an hour earlier, and that she had said she'd call back in 3 minutes; he hadn't yet heard from her.  I just went ahead at 10:30 and collected the red kids for their walk, leaving a note for Greg on the door, but not really worrying about it.  When I returned, I took the note down, had lunch, and played with the kits and dog; then I fed the koi, and watered the garden.  Greg called again at 1:30, and told me it probably would be late tomorrow morning before he arrived.
  So I've gone to the bank, had an ice cream cone, and am finally at home with my kits.  I'll need to stop at the store on the way back to the house, but right now, I'm enjoying a break, and have Rawhide on tap - it's "The Incident of the Dogfaces" and was written by Gene L. Coon, and is guest starring James Whitmore.    I'll go over and put Ooch to bed around 8 p.m.; and then start reading a new book.   - Mmmm, mmmmm....  I do like the sound of Eric Fleming's voice....

Easter Photos

Ashley and Kristie prepare to dye their eggs

Kristie looks over the dye jobs

                                                       

The family's bunny cake

And Easter has always meant baby critters to me...