Spring?

Um, guys? I think Spring is here officially, if not by the calendar.  

First, my camellia decided to bloom.  I decided to not pay too much attention since it’s next to the house and fairly sheltered.

Then, woodpeckers returned.  Then, the bluejays and the robins.

Yesterday, I noticed the turkey vultures way early in the morning (this pair is pretty cool!).

This morning, the oak trees were clearly in bud.

What takes the cake though?

Mosquitoes have returned!

Yep.  I think it’s spring!  Might put down some grass seed out back tomorrow.

The Outcome

I appreciate all the positive thoughts and prayers today.  Unfortunately, we did not win.  However, the visitation schedule is being modified to allow for more frequent visitation, ie, an additional 2 weekends a year.  

It didn’t appear to matter to the judge what the parents (myself and the Marine) had to say.  Rather, Kitty’s desire to stay with her friends and an over all “Grandma knows right” attitude won out.

When we had a chance to speak with Kitty herself, she was very belligerent.  Her behavior in the last 2 months has radically changed.  So has her attitude.  And for that, I feel for her.  She has developed so many negative feelings for all the adults in her life that she just wants to go away for a fresh start and everyone can be damned.  She’s counting the days until she turns 18 and can escape, preferrably to England since she feels no ties to her mother country or her family.

Boy, it must really suck to be that angry all the time.

I think I want to cry.

Psst!

The settlement conference hearing for custody of Kitty is tomorrow morning.  Please send good thoughts, vibes, prayers and jingles our way!

I’ll let ya’ll know what happens when we get back!

Wordless Wednesday: Critters Around the Farm

 

pygora goat herd with 2 token pygmies

Freya, watching the goat herd

Smudge

 

Dexter in the office, second day home

Quick Takes!

Luna is getting spayed right now.  She had an accident in her crate on the trip to the vet, so her fresh bath was all for naught.  Fortunately, she was the best behaved dog in the waiting room.  Little things like that really put all the things that frustrate me about her into perspective.

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Dexter is doing much, much better today.  I suppose that it helps that he barfed when we took him outside this morning.  Since then, he’s been walking better on leash and not so tail tucked and crouched.  He even sniffed some toys and walked to the water bowl on his own.

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My goats are quiet today, too quiet.  I will have to go check on them shortly.

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To the Asshat in the red cap at dinner last night:

You, sir, need to go find where you put your manners!  And honestly, you shouldn’t talk about what you don’t fucking know!  I do not smell like weed, nor do I ever! Hay maybe, but certainly not weed!  I’m fucking allergic to it, you jackass!  I don’t even do so much as drink beer because hops is in the same family as cannabis.  OMG!  You were so rude to say that I smelled like weed so loudly.  Several other restaurant patrons stopped eating and turned to look because of your asshole comment.  I do not appreciate the accusation, which you clearly know nothing about!  And what’s more, you know nothing about me, so keep your damn trap shut!  While you’re at it, not everyone in the restaurant wanted to hear you badger your son because he was rooting for Oklahoma State, while Texas was your team.  Let your kid have his own fucking opinion and keep yours to yourself more, you asshole!

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I’m a salmon snob.  It’s Alaskan or bust, Baby!

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Now back to our regularly scheduled programming….

Meet…

Dexter!

 

Dexter is one of the rescue dogs from Burns, OR.  As far as we can guess, he’s a corgi-heeler X.  We had originally planned on taking the little blue merle heeler-X, but I have a friend up in Tacoma that is a vet and she was suffering from puppy-itis.  Well, and her boy just passed away at the ripe age of 14.  So how was I to say no?

Dexter came to us instead.  He’s a year old, neutered and already had a teeny bit of people experience.  However, he’s still very, very shy.  Painfully shy.  As in he hasn’t come out of his crate yet.  Not for water, not for food, nothing.  So, we pushed the food and water closer to his crate to make sure he at least drinks.  He did.  And ate too.

We took him out to potty this morning.  He hasn’t experienced leashes or stairs before.  Nor goats, apparently.  Our little goaties gave him quite the scare!  Since then, he’s just been balled up in his crate.  Not even Copper could get him to come out and socialize!  

Well, I’m sure Dexter will come out when he’s ready.  He’s definitely not starving as he resembles more a stuffed sausage on legs than a dog from a horrible neglect case.  Really, the boy needs a bit of a diet.

For now, Dexter is just hanging out here in the office, where CP and I spend most of our time.  I’ll keep ya’ll posted as to how he’s doing as the weeks go by.

Updated- Well, Now I’ve Gone and Done It!

I was so upset by the HCSAS blog when I wrote this that I left out the most important part.  We are going to foster and possibly adopt 1-2 of these dogs this weekend.  Yes, I know!  I must be mental!  

I’m pretty sure that my husband will be ready to dis-own me when he gets back from his business trip.  I stumbled across a CL posting today here.

Now, I heard on the news about a HUGE animal abuse and neglect story from Eastern Oregon some time back.  I hadn’t heard anything else until today.  Unfortunately, there were about 3-4 neglect cases pretty much one on top of the other and most of the news coverage of this one went by the wayside.

So, today, I went and checked out the Harney County Save A Stray Rescue website as they are the predominate organization dealing with this case.  The situation is much more grim than I expected.  They’re struggling to help in every way possible. 

These dogs need to be moved soon or the property owners will shoot them.  And there are still more than 70 dogs there with no where to go.  No foster homes, no adoptive homes and, unfortunately, no funds to humanely euthanize them all.  

I’m sure many of you have recently made donations to help Haiti.  We’re all feeling the pinch financially, everywhere.  So, if you can, please consider donating to this rescue effort.  Even a small amount would be appreciated.  And if you’re in the PNW, please consider adopting or fostering for your local rescue.

Save a life, adopt a homeless pet.

These little girls are in SW Washington and in desperate need of a foster home. If all goes right, we will be fostering the blue merle.

Breaking News!

The Marine just submitted a statement to the court supporting my custody of Kitty!  You may have heard me let out a whoop of joy this morning.  For that, I apologize.  Even my dogs were alarmed and concerned as I don’t do that, ever.  Well, until today!

The settlement conference is less than 2 weeks away now and I’ve still got to battle it out with his mother, who actually has custody of her at the moment and doesn’t want to return Kitty to either of us.

Things are looking up!  Wish me luck!

The Big Read

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. (I lifted this from Mrs. Chili). The novels I’ve read are in italics.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (parts, not all)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (many, not all)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres (this one’s on my list…)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 The BFG – Roald Dahl
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Black Beauty – Anne Sewell
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

The Corporate Prince and I own several more of these that I just haven’t gotten around to reading yet.  Between us, I’m sure we’ve read about 90% of the list.  How about you?  Have you read any of these?  Are there any you want to read and just haven’t yet?

Life On The Farm

I wrote this last fall and apparently forgot to publish it.  So, I put it here now to keep you all entertained while some big stuff happens here on the farm, keeping me away for a bit longer.  Enjoy!

Here at Blackberry Hill, I’ve found that with the numerous critters and humans running amok, someone is almost always bleeding, puking or pooping.  It’s just part of every day life.

Take the last couple weeks for example:

We bought some orchard grass that was apparently too rich for Maddie – pooping.  I’ve got a pasture with a little extra to pick up.

Luna ate some acorns outside and they didn’t agree with her- puking and pooping.  Her crate was not fun to clean!

Luna is now teething horribly as she is 5 months old and gaining some molars.  She stole my wet shoe, which I had left to dry on the deck.  Mind you, it was wet from cleaning her crate.  Now, it’s stained with dog blood- bleeding!

Rosie often plays too rough with the other cats.  This time Merlin was on the other end of it.  Bleeding again!

George had a hair ball in the middle of the night- puking!  Merlin seems to have them daily.

Freya somehow lost an entire toenail.  Her toe is what?  Yep, that’s right!  Bleeding!

Copper ate something dead outside.  Yup, pooping!

See how my life goes?  It’s a daily occurance for us here.  Oh, wait.  I mean for ME here as I’m usually the one to clean up after the critters.  I really don’t mind.  I just see it as part of my normal daily routine.  After all, the sense of peace this little slice of heaven gives me is well worth all the blood and ick I deal with in return.

This life isn’t for everybody.  As much as the Corporate Prince loves living here, he’s just not as cut out to deal with everyday life with the critters.  Often blood, puke or poop leave him feeling frustration towards the perpetrator and a little sick to his stomach while he cleans up the mess.  And yes, he will clean it up.  Then he will quickly escape into his home office or flee to his office in the city.  He escapes from the day to day routine bits of nastiness I usually deal with.  Now, I’m not complaining or criticizing.  After all, that office job allows me to enjoy the life I lead with all the critters.

Some people just aren’t cut out for the mud and the muck.