Y'all Miss Me?

Well, i sure miss you.  Been a wild ride around these parts.

Have had a few things going on.  Some of it happy and productive, some of it just a part of life.  All of it taking up lots of time.

Couple of highlights include two days at Susan Dear Susan's house canning chicken noodle soup with home made pasta (my right arm now has a Popeye look due to cranking the pasta maker all one afternoon.)

We have also spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the breach in the fence is that Sparta is using as an escape hatch.  It would seem that he has discovered girls, and swings by to hang out in the kid pen that goes into the doe barn three or four times a day.  AWwwww, isn't that cute?  Not really.  He is becoming rather manly (read:  smelly) and i have breeding plans that do not include him this year!!!  His other hang out is in the south  pasture.  On the up side, all the time in the south field is making him fat, which is great because i am about to decide that he is jumping the fence, so sooner or later he will be to big to clear the top (i hope.)  And if he doesn't clear it, i won't have to worry about the time he spends with the girls, anyway.  If he is jumping, he is being crafty about it.  Waits until we turn our backs.  At least Maud is honest about her shenanigans.  She looks you right in the eye as she clears the fence.

In other news, Sancho required extra love and attention for a couple of days.  He was braying at a slightly higher pitch, and swishing his tail a lot, looking toward is backside like, "Hey!! Something just isn't quite right, here!!"

The bovine hot tub is all but dry--there is more water in the pink pool, so Ellie May shooed Jesse and Owens into the duck yard with Isabell and the Bobs.  Isabell kinda rolled her eyes.  Poor girl.

Have been getting the two legged kids in the swing of school work again, and that is always fun.  Ellie May does her thing, but i have to sit on Jethro.  This generally takes a chunk out of one's day that could be spent on manicures or admiring one's shoe collection.

This is just skipping a rock over the surface of the lake that is my life right now...just enough to whet your appetite for whatever is going to pop out of my brain next time i get to sit down at the keyboard.  Been doing a lot of driving, and unfortunately TxDot frowns on typing while navigating their roads, so i have not been able to put down my many thoughts in post form, and most of the ones i have thought of have evaporated into some kind of mist, anyway.  Sorry, guys.

Sancho Got A Headache

Warning:  This post pertains to an indelicate subject matter and possesses a certain absence of appropriate sympathy.  If you are prone to The Vapors, i suggest you wait for the next posting.  Thank you.  Chickory Blossom

Poor Sancho.
Everyone say AAaawwwwwwww.

Vet made a barn call, and now we have to rename him Sandra.  Or Sasha.  Or something a little less macho than Sancho.  We have 6 to 8 weeks to think of something cute.  The floor is now open to suggestions.

The vet was setting up and sterilizing everything, and in the process moved about a 2 gallon ice pack out of his way.  Jethro asked what it was for, and i told him it was for Sancho.  Vet grinned real big, but Jethro didn't think it was very funny.

Sancho musta known something was up, and he wasn't having any.  We had him in the sweetgum pen in plenty of time for him to calm down, and we gave him apples, but when the vet walked in the pen, Sancho went ballistic.

The vet roped him, and Sancho promptly jumped the fence, and then circled the entire perimeter of the property at a dead run, three times.  Vet and i just stood there watching him, but the vet didn't appear too excited, just said  he would run himself down sooner or later. 

After a bit, the vet and his assistant got in their truck and followed him down into the paddock next to Grumpy McFarlan's place.  They got him cornered, and then it looked like Sancho jumped the fence.  About that time, Grumpy came out of his house and headed over.  I was just CRINGING, as Grumpy is not a cat i want to swing.  Fortunately, Sancho was on our property, albeit in the absolute farthest corner of it.  Grumpy was just coming out to offer assistance.  Didn't catch whether he wanted to help the vet, or if he was offering to dig a hole. 

By the time i got down there, the vet had Sancho knocked out and had commenced the [clearing throat] procedure.  Poor Sancho was just laying there, quietly whining, as you could imagine.  When it was all over, i got a look at the [ahem] removed items, and said, "Wow!"  Vet looked at them, and said, "Yep, those are big ones.  Even for a donkey."

That could explain the agressive turn he has taken this summer, hence need for The Procedure.

Poor Sancho.  And then, as if he hadn't suffered enough indignity, i had the vet give him a pedicure. 

Well, he was already knocked out!!  I figured it was as good a time as any.  And i didn't have them painted red.  But i could have, to go with his new moniker.

What was really interesting, was that George and Ralph were all over the scene until the Vet pulled out his knife.  Then they were nowhere to be seen.

I am telling ya, those are the smartest dogs i have ever had.

BFBC Pill Poppin' Potty Stoppin' Food Tour '11: Part II

Six Women Of A Certain Age on a road trip is not going to be a quick trip. 

You understand this, right?

A little less than an hour after departure, we made our first stop.

A potty stop.

And, of course, because we are who we are, food had to be involved.

We all enjoyed the pause that refreshes, then grabbed a little sustenance to get us through the next hour.  On the way out, we accosted some poor gentlemen and had him take our picture.

You all know that i am, well, let's just say that in my world, the sky is just a little bit bluer and the grass is just a little bit greener than in some other folks' worlds.  Got my own perspective.  

And I am okay with this.  Love me or leave me. 

Long ago and far away, i put together a photo essay of Sonic Drive-In's.

Sonic is a regional phenomenon, and back in the sixties and seventies, every small town worth it's salt had a grocery store, a gas station, and a Sonic (Mickey D's didn't hit the rural south until well into the eighties, we used to judge how cosmopolitan a town was by whether or not they had a McDonalds.)  Thing was, every single Sonic used to look exactly the same.  Something about taking a picture of the exact same structure in lots of different little towns appealed to me.

Well, on this trip, something about taking a picture of us every time we made a necessary stop appealed to me.  No explanation.  I just thought it would be funny.  I am pretty sure i am the only one that saw humor in this concept.  But, being as how this is the

BEST FRIENDS Book Club,

and these are my BEST FRIENDS,

they played along without complaining.

And i love them so much more for it.

So we load back up after our first stop, and Chef Cathrine, who will heretofore be known as Condiment Cathy, asked if anybody needed anything.  We are nothing if not prepared for any food emergency.

Before the car even got rolling, i look around and see that fully half of us are digging out our bottles of ibuprofen, and tossing back a handful.  Thus the Pill Poppin' part of the trip. 

Sorry, it doesn't get anymore exciting than ibuprofen. 

Don't forget, we are all Women of a Certain Age.  Reflux and blood pressure medicines are a walk on the wild side.

Another hour and change and we arrived at the Mozzarella Company, which you are now well familiar with. 

As we walked out the door of the the cheese factory and headed to the car, we saw this:

Let me just state for the record, that it is a darned good thing i never knew about this place when i lived in the metroplex, as it probably would have cost me my retirement.  Rudolph's is an old fashioned meat market where everything is aged to perfection, and cut by hand.  AND they make their own sausages.  Everyone took home some meat (to go with their cheeses) and the reviews have been a rave.

We are a Book Club, so we felt it a moral imperative that we stop off at a Book Store. 

To all you folks that don't have a Half Price Books store, we are so sorry!

If you can't find something at a HPB, it hasn't been printed.

This particular one is the flagship store, and contains--and i KNOW i exaggerate sometimes, what with 74 foot long copper headed water rattlers and five billion tons of cheese and all, but cross my heart, their printed matter states that this store is--53,000 square feet of books.

A little piece of heaven on earth. 

The Shrinking Violet Contingent (that would be me) lobbied the poor manager of this store to run upstairs and tell corporate  that they needed to put a branch out in East Texas.  He was very good natured about it, smiled and waved at all of us, and accepted my request form.  But there was an outside chance that he was merely placating a bunch of crazy broads. 

Last week I took Ellie May for her first visit to this particular branch, and thought she was gonna cry when she walked through the door and took it all in.  I have never seen her so emotional. 

We walked past the information desk in front, and i was gonna apply a proven gas lighting technique to try to get a decent book store in East Texas--hoping that i would not be remembered, and they would think there was a huge crowd of voracious readers just waiting to buy books from them (which there really is,) and the manager looked up, grinned real big, and pointed at me before i could even say a word....and said, "East Texas, I'm working on it!"

I fully expect them to be breaking ground by Thanksgiving.**

There are so many books in this place there is no room for a restroom.  Nahhh, actually, that end of the building was being renovated.  So they had the world's largest Johnny-On-The-Spot outside the back door.  The rest of the girls were weenies, but The Baas and i had to brave it, because, frankly, the portapotty on steroids was far less daunting than the embarrassment involved in NOT stopping would have been.

And, it was a new experience.

We survived it, anyway.

As you might imagine, Lunch on the BFBCPPPSFT '11 had to be something spectacular.

And it was.

Oh my, was it ever!!!

Miss J saw this place featured on a show on the food channel, and i have to say, they should just give Arcodoro Pomodoro the whole darn network.  It was amazing. 

For right now it is gonna be whirled peas, but check back, because i have a picture of one of the meal presentations that will make your mouth water.  (Did you forget that i am still technologically challenged?  Just a little reminder.  Couldn't tell ya why it didn't load, but there ya go.)

And Then....

AHHHhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Central Market.

Words do it no justice.

If you can't find it at Central Market, you probably don't need it.

And, as luck would have it, it was Hatch week, where you are completely surrounded by all things Hatch Chili. Hatch sauces, Hatch bread, Hatch butter, Hatch Jack, Hatch tortillas, Hatch brownies, Hatch you name it.   If you have never had a Hatch, even if you don't like chili's, do yourself a favor.  There is nothing like 'em.  And they only happen once a year. 

I could spend hours--HUH, strike that--Usually spend hours in the bulk isles--spices, grains, legumes, coffees and teas--I usually form lasting relationships with the Foodies in these departments (that is what they call the salespeople here, and does that tell you anything?  A grocery store that has SALESPEOPLE on every isle?)  Stuff from all over the world, and they are so generous, you can taste ANYTHING before you buy it--they just pop open a jar and hand you a spoon.  And the PRODUCE....Oh My.   My eyes are starting to leak just thinking about it.  It is just such a lovely welcoming place filled with lovely happy people and lovely delicious food.

AND, if you happen to shop so long that your blood sugar starts to wane, you just park your buggy over in front of the Central Cafe, and drive yourself insane trying to decided what to choose from the miles and miles of prepared foods cases (i am back to embroidering the story again....it is not really miles, merely several thousand feet of fridge cases.)

You have heard the old saw:

Shop 'til you drop, then sit down and buy shoes?

Well, at Central Market, it is:

Shop 'til you drop, then sit down and eat sushi.

The Final Stop was at Whole Foods Market, and i am sure i don't need to tell you what fun THAT was since Whole Foods has gone national.  Many moons ago, i used to shop at the original store.  Apparently i helped them build an empire.

But look at that produce back there...can you blame me???

There were actually other pictures taken here, but...um...it was really late in the day, and we were all tired and a little goofier than usual, and i love these women, and think that what happens in the Whole Foods Produce Department should stay in the Whole Foods Produce Department .  (But don't worry, girls, i will bring them to the next meeting!!)

Many, many thanks to Miss J for serving as cruise director, and to the guy that invented texting for making her job easier (we would all scatter to the four corners, and would periodically recieve texts from Miss J telling us that the bus was pulling out in 5.  What a hoot.  How did we ever keep our groups together before?)

What a Splendid Day.

When are we gonna do it again?

**Gotta tell one on Susan, Dear Susan and I.  A couple of years ago, we were desperate for a non medicated chicken feed for our meat birds, but non medicated feeds are frowned upon in these parts..  Separately, we paid a visit to a particular feed store, and requested the one we wanted.  Then we each made several phone calls asking if they carried the feed.  Voila!  The store started carrying what we wanted.  I felt kinda bad gas lighting them, but we spent a small fortune at that store, and we were desperate!!

Anyone that wants to help us get a decent bookstore out here in East Egypt (literarily speaking) can feel free to call up Corporate at Half Price Books.  We will be eternally grateful.

BFBC Pill Poppin' Potty Stoppin' Food Tour '11: Part I

I am a member of a book club. 

The Best Friends Book Club. 

Yes, it is true. 

I know how to read.

The really great thing about THIS book club, is that books are just an excuse.

It is really all about the food.

You see, we pick our books based on the menus we can derive from them.

We do a pot luck supper when we meet each month, and bring dishes that pertain to the theme or locale of the story.  We read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and everybody brought dishes made with potatoes.  Read the book whose name i refuse to mention but the [sordid and very small] gene pool was from Italy, it was Italian food.  Sometimes we go a little nuts.  When we read The Zookeepers Wife everyone brought German food.  Except me.  I brought the stuff to make White Russians in honor of the Rooskies liberating Warsaw.  That particular meeting was longer than most of the rest.  And i don't seem to recall much discussion about the book.  Which was very good, by the way.  The book.  The adult beverages were too, but i was talking about the book.

We have been threatening to take a road trip for quite some time, and last month we finally did it.

And a Grand time it was.

I will explain the trip's moniker in Part II.  Right  now we need to get down to the important part.

 Cheese.

The second stop on the BFBCPPPSFT '11 was the Mozzarella Company cheese factory (the first stop was a potty stop, but as i said, we will cover that later.)

Anyone within 500 miles of Dallas should plan a detour to visit this fine establishment.  The cheeses were amazing, and the folks there were very tolerant.  And nice.  But with six women descending upon them, and all of us being the shrinking violets that we are, i think their most outstanding trait was tolerance.

Yes, they really do sell cheese to the public--we proved it!

The factory is in an old, artsy part of downtown called Deep Ellum.  Apparently the building that used to give people a place to rest before moving on now gives cheese a place to rest before moving on.  You would think a building that old would have learned another skill.

You KNOW i loved this little guy!  Yes, they make goat cheese.

This momentarily upset me.  The lady is pouring whey directly into a drain in the floor.  You know we don't waste anything around these parts, and whey is fed to the animals, as it still contains unharvested nutrients.  The first splash drew a sharp breath from me, until i realized the volume of whey that would be produced in the process of making the five billion tons of cheese they make each day.  Have to say, there would come a point where i, too, would dump it down the drain.

And here is the assembly line where the curds are being cut, formed into balls, and then tossed into the big white tub.  Their hands were like lightning, and their aim was true.  Was all very cool.  Can't wait to return. 

Luck, Be A Lady

I went in for my morning swim and the girls were all atwitter.  Seems the weather dude forcasted a 30% chance of rain for the next five days.

In other parts of the world, people go, "30%? Bah Humbug!  Pack us a picnic Marge, we're headed to the lake!"

Here we get out our umbrellas and look expectantly to the sky.


On to other excitement.

This was my Summer of Three.

I made three trips to town a day.
The two legged kids went through three sessions of swimming lessons.
We averaged three trips to the library each week.
I only ran the canner three times.
I had three pairs of shorts.
Three pairs of shoes (sneakers, flip flops on their third summer, and a pair of mud boots.  HA!!! Like i needed those!)
Three pair of socks.
There were other threes as well, but i won't risk embarrassing myself by discussing my drollies.

The most annoying three was the socks.  I got bent out of whack about a month ago, to the day, because, once again, i had no clean socks.  Found a twofer sale, and bought two six-packs of socks.  That would be twelve pairs of socks.  All different colors, so i would know which one was missing.

This morning--barely a month later--i go to put on my shoes and socks, and whaddaya know....I find A pair of socks and about six singles.  Where did they all go?  I don't leave my socks laying around...i put them directly into the laundry pile.  Is there really a sock monster living in the washing machine???  I don't even think i ever wore the orange ones....This is the great mystery of life.

Einstein wasted his life and genius on all that math crap.  If he had REALLY wanted to serve mankind, he would have figured out were all the socks go.

How To Identify a Bob

I was telling Susan dear Susan about Isabell and the Bob's, and she asked if we had sexed them yet.  I said we had visual confirmation that one was a female, but the jury was still out on most of the rest of them, as i hadn't yet worked up the nerve to go in search of dangly bits.  Susan laughed at me and said that the drakes have a curly tail feather.  I knew that the curly tail feather was an indicator, but was unaware that it was definitive.  She said it was.  I said that in that case we had a whole bunch of Bob's.  What are the odds.

Here you see the definitive evidence that this Indian Runner Duckie is a Bob.

 I am going to assume that THIS is definitive evidence of a particularly virile Bob.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Here are a couple of shots, as promised, of the wildfire that was behind our house early last week.  TexDoT has been rebuilding a tired old bridge on this road all summer, and they cleared and burned a wide swath of land for the construction site earlier in the spring.  I whined and moaned at the time because we had trouble with the displaced wildlife, and why did they need to cut so much of the timber, anyway?  Now i am so very grateful because it served as a firebreak between the burning bushes and us.

The green things you see below are no longer green.  Now they are black sticks.  There are still several spots that are still smoldering today.

Didn't get really great pictures because we were doing drive bys, but i think you get the idea.  And for the record, i just wanna say...Let's hear it for our firefighters, and especially those volunteer firefighters.  They are my heroes.  I cannot even imaging battling the kinds of blazes they are dealing with around here, let alone doing it in this heat.

So the fires down the road are out, albeit smoldering, and i get up Saturday morning and head into the kitchen and see THIS out the back door... 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that my heart skipped a beat.  I was instantly panic stricken and went running out the door in my jammies and bare feet.

What would you think if you had been living in fear of wildfire all week long and you saw this before you got your hands on coffee?

You sure as heck wouldn't have expected it to be THIS, now, wouldja?!?!

The Duck Formerly Known As Bob

Bonjour. 

Zis ees not a disguise, and my name ees not Bob.

My name ees Phillipe.

And you, my dear Eesabell, are charming and lovely.

Let me wheesk you away from zee tedium of all zose Bob's.

We shall make bee-u-teeful museek togezer on my island hideaway.

Or at least in zee peenk poool.

Will The Real Isabell Please Stand Up

It would appear that the wrong duck was named Isabell. 

We have had to reclaim the name from the crested runner and bestow it upon this girl.

The crested duck is now a Bob. 

Not a Bobbie.

Apparently it was always a Bob, we just didn't know it.

It also appears that we named the other four appropriately.

Poor Isabell was very busy the other day while all the Bob's were trying to....um....ahem....

win her affections.

Don't know how that girl is gonna have time to sit on a nest.

Guess i'm just gonna have to make omelette's.

From Dry Bones To Disco Inferno

Remember the Bovine Hot Tub? 

This was last week.

There is even less water this week.

Jesse and Owens stand up in it and the water doesn't reach their little bellies.

This is--or rather WAS--our little pond.

All the duck weed that took over last spring is GONE, now!

There are not enough "Y's in

DRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

to describe this bottom of this pond.

And then there is THIS heartbreak.

The dead one in the middle is the Grand Oak.

It was a beautiful, OLD tree, the trunk approximately 10' circumference.

Gone.

And now we have wildfires. 

 Stood on the back porch last nite watching the flames lick up. 

Don't even have any idea how many acres it has consumed, but it has burned for two days and was 3/10ths of a mile from the house last night. 

Helicopters were dumping water all day, and roads were shut down all around us on Monday. 

Smoke is thick and heavy. 

Animals are skittish, and the displaced wildlife is running up on us.

Coyotes were next to the house early this morning.

George and Ralph were very, VERY busy last night.

Have pictures i will share next time i can get to the computer that will let me download from my camera.  It is amazing.

I was in Missouri last week, and it is lush and green there.  Saw pastures being mowed and raked, and more than once saw round bales rotting in the field, tall grass all around them.   Livestock was fat and healthy looking.

I was discontinuing a water delivery service, and returned the empty 5 gallon jugs, and one full, unopened one.  The burly guy at the warehouse picked up the unopened one and carried it off.  I turned around just in time to see him rip off the top and start dumping the water on the ground.  Before i could even think about it, i screamed,

"NOOOOOO!!!! What are you DOING!?!?!?!?!?"

Burly man popped up with at very startled and somewhat frightened look on his face, and told me that by law he was required to dump the returned jug of water.

By this time i had recovered my senses, and was completely embarrassed, apologized profusely, and explained that i was from a place experiencing extreme drought, and we were ever so slightly concerned with water conservation.

I bought the whole darn thing and brought it home with me. 

Listened to that bad boy jiggle in the back seat for 550 miles.

It made the trip home take way longer than the trip up, coz i had to stop and tinkle every 60 miles.

But i just couldn't bare to see it go to waste.