Weekend

My Saturday was spent in bed, all day long. The summer flu, or as you may know, most of those cases of 12-24 hour summer flu are actually food poisoning. I was trying to remember what I could possibly have eaten since I eat mainly fruits and vegetables. Suddenly remembering I had to run errands from work the other day and grabbed a take-out sushi, I was certain it was the sushi. I sure was ill. Then I heard today that tomatoes are causing food poisoning, I am almost sure that I hadn't had a tomato in over a week.

Sunday we spent the day at the Expo Center in Sacramento enjoying the Horse Expo. It is a huge event, a fun-filled 3 days for the horse junkie. Jerry went Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. He bought way too much stuff. He likes to shop much more than I do. He did get good stuff though. Sunday we picked out two large framed prints for walls in the house that needed pictures.

I spent my day off yesterday, organizing the master closet. It is done. It is good. I don't use color coded hangers, but it is still good. Also did laundry, gardening, house cleaning, etc.

Finally had a chance to bath the beast. The dog has been in the 'dog house'. He took off after a skunk on the property Wednesday night, would not come back to me, and got skunked full force directly in the face. He 'then' came running back to me, whining, squinty eyed, and trying to rub his skunk-stinked body on my jeans. He got in a few rubs before I got in the house. He was banned from the house, until last night after his de-scenting.

The kittens are doing fine. They have a large wire crate to be safe in while we are away from home and to be safe from the wild energy of the dog until they are larger. Cort carries his large rubber Kong toy to their crate and drops it there for them, hoping for playmates. I don't let him play with them yet.

Today was a busy day at work. Nothing exciting, a pleasant day.

Welcome a New Blogger

Drum roll please.......

There is a new blogger on the block with an excellent 10 year old boy sense of humor.

He was a guest blogger here last month and he loved getting comments.

Please welcome my very favorite Grandson at Sequoia Canyon.

A Contest

Be sure to visit Coffee Bean's blog. She has a contest going on. Plus she's pretty good reading and did I mention funny?

Critters: Domestic and Wild

I hope that the 'cuteness' of the following picture makes up for the 'grossness' of yesterday's pictures.



I brought the two kittens home tonight. The orange and white is "Billy (the kid)" and the calico is "Annie (Oakley)". This picture was the last one with their litter mates. They are settling in well here at home. Billy is an adventurer and quite cuddly. Annie is more shy and skittish. Cort met them briefly. I'll keep him away from the kittens until they are more confident and can put up with his excitement.

Today's main subject concerns this tree. It is an old Oak tree next to our house. It has boughs missing and some interesting knots, holes and bumps. I just love the character of this tree. With the cooler nights, we leave our bedroom door to the outside open. Cort, very clever dog that he is, can open and close the screen doors to let himself in and out. We don't mind, it saves us getting out of bed to let him in or out. Yes.... the dog sleeps in our bedroom, but he has his own bed, on the floor. Recently, nightly, the dog raises a fuss at this tree. Jerry claims to have seen a big raccoon run up the tree.

Last night, Jerry was all excited, he was listening at the tree and heard all kinds of mewing and scratching sounds in the trunk of this old tree. I am not sure what inspired him to put his ear against the trunk to listen in the first place. But hey, he does stuff like that. So of course, I had to listen too. At about 4 feet above the ground, the trunk sounded hollow and you could hear baby critters in there. We're guessing coon babies. Jerry wants to look. Hmmm, maybe not a good idea, momma coons can be cranky. But we get out the ladder.....

Jerry climbs up, I don't really like heights and that was pretty high, plus I don't wanna mess with any wild momma critter. Bats were circling him too, we have some big bats. I was worried that if a critter jumped out at him, he would slip, grab the branch and pop out that danged shoulder again. Someone around here has to worry about stuff like that.

Can you see what is down in that hollow trunk? Click on the picture to enlarge it. A big momma raccoon and 2 - 3 baby raccoons. I love that tree, what a perfect nursery. I hope the coon family moves on when they can, that they get tired of the dog harassing them, and I hope that THE EXTERMINATOR doesn't hurt those masked babies.

THE EXTERMINATOR

Gophers beware!

This is what I stepped on as I walked out the door onto the back porch.

Cort was proud and protective of his 'kill'.

I was showing just a bit too much interest so he took it away.

What a good dog for helping us with the gopher population explosion.

What a mess our property will be as dog exterminates gophers.

Sunday Roping and Gardening

This afternoon we had our second roping practice and lessons. There were 10 horses this time, all in one arena; ropes swirling, horses galloping, the mechanical steer being pulled around by a quad; pure chaotic bedlam. On top of all of the commotion, I wore spurs on my mare for the first time ever. She was in a snit about the spurs and fretting about the constant action. I suffered through several of her bucking tantrums and then we got down to business. It was fun but painful, I twisted my back yesterday carrying boxes and am paying for it today. I am a wimp.

Did I mention that Jerry was worried about not being able to rope when his shoulder dislocated last week? Well he roped. Needing a bit of a break, I reined into the center of the arena to join Jerry chatting with the arena owner. Jerry laughingly says to me, "hey I just had one of those hot flashes like you always have." Huh??? I'm thinking I heard wrong, but then I noticed his cowboy shirt is drenched with sweat. And he LAUGHS as he tells me that while roping, his shoulder just popped out of it's socket and then back again. He says he got really queasy and almost passed out, but just got sweaty instead. I married a freak folks. Because later he takes his turn at chasing and trying to rope wild roping live steers.

Not me, I roped only a tame mechanical steer. We made it home safely. Rinsed off the tired sweaty horses. Jerry cooked dinner. And now we are settling down for the night. The weekend went by way too fast.

I took garden pictures to share. Our vegetable garden is truly pathetic. Very little of the seed we sowed has germinated. I was hoping to avoid pesticides but we have bugs. I hate poisons but we have gophers. Lots of gophers and they have now discovered the garden.
No carrots came up, no beets came up.

We have plenty of cucumber plants now. I'm supposed to thin them to one per spot, but I cannot.


There are three tomato plants and they look better than anything else. I planted romas, better boys, and cherry tomatoes.

This is a very lonely little lettuce. I planted two rows with two types of lettuce. This is it, one...

We have bean plants coming up beautifully, they are feeding the bugs. I can't see any bugs, I don't see any grasshoppers, but those leaves sure looked snacked on to me.

In the past week I have visited friends with marvelous green thriving gardens. I am envious.

One recommended spraying the plants with a mixture of water, dish soap and vinegar. I'll try it tomorrow, if that doesn't work, I am declaring war and will use insecticides.

It sure doesn't look like I'll have to learn how to can excess vegetables this year.

Updates

Since I haven't been posting very regularly and often have trouble posting comments. I'll answer a few questions here.

Thanks for all the expressed concern for Jerry's shoulder. He is feeling fine most of the time and hasn't slow down at all (such a surprise) . He has not been able to schedule an earlier appt. with his physician, so won't know when he will get an MRI scheduled.

Amy didn't get the job here in California. She continues the search. I know she will eventually get her ideal position in the ideal place for her and Tristan. But I still hope that that place is not far from here. I plot of awful awful things, such as buying Tristan a horse and telling him it's here waiting for him..........


I have decided to adopt the two kittens. Jerry saw them and also thought that I 'needed' them. I loved the idea of cowboy type names. They are being called 'Annie' (as in Oakley) and 'Billy' (the Kid). They live at a technician's home and will be ready to come home with me next week.

That's all I can think of right now. It is way past my bedtime. Good night and Happy Trails.