Ever since we got our dog three years ago, our cat, Luna, has chosen to stay in the basement during the day. She only comes up at night when I and the dog are safely ensconced in the guest room with the door closed. She sleeps with Husband in the master bedroom, and wanders freely around the house. In the morning she returns to the basement for the day. The dog has no access to the basement.
Kyrill is not an aggressive dog. He is just curious and wants to investigate the cat. She has always been timid around other of our pets, even the cats, and doesn’t like a long, terrier nose sniffing her all over. I didn’t want to force them to engage with each other out of respect for Luna’s discomfort. The header photo is of Luna before we got the dog. She liked using the hanging rug as her climbing wall.
Over the past several months I noticed Luna and Kyrill booping their noses together through the gate that keeps Kyrill from going in the basement. I was very surprised a few weeks ago when I came home from work and found her sleeping on the upstairs bed in the master bedroom. The dog roams freely around the upstairs all day and can hear a bug crawl across the floor, and would have heard her jump over the gate. Kyrill just ignored her and did not give chase. She spent hours on the bed. He is able to jump up on the bed, but didn’t.
Last weekend I went into our study upstairs to work on the computer, and Luna followed me in with the dog. I made Kyrill sit while I petted both of them. Both sat by my chair while I worked. When I got up to leave the room, Kyrill came with me and Luna stayed for a few minutes and then went back downstairs.
I have no idea what has brought about this new show of cat bravery. I can only hope that it continues and she can finally come upstairs and spend more time with us. I like our increasingly peaceable kingdom.
Who have been your bravest or most timid pets. What fears have you or your pets overcome?
I am afraid I made a grave error with my last purchase of loungewear. I bought a really soft and fleecy cardigan that I wear over pajamas. The texture is very similar to fluffy cotton socks. Our dog is obsessed with stealing and chewing socks. Who do you think made off with the cardigan belt the minute I got it out of the package? I got it back before any damage was done. Now, though, I am afraid Kyrill thinks the cardigan is a big sock for him to chew!
Husband tells me that I am not allowed to cook in the cardigan as it is a cream color and he doesn’t want me to stain it. I confess that I do cook in my pajamas sometimes. I never wear them out of the house, though. My usual outfit is a sweatshirt with corduroy pants and soft socks. I wear those to work, too. I only have one pair of sweatpants. I only “dress up” if I have to testify in court as an expert witness.
I am still assessing what clothing choices I will make now that I am not working full time. I don’t think I will stock up on much more “loungewear”, especially if it is soft and fleecy like socks. I am drawn to comfy but not baggy, pants, and soft sweatshirts. I am taking care to keep my new cardigan out of Kyrill’s reach, along with all the other things he loves to steal and chew like socks, pens, papers, and eye glasses. Terriers certainly are good at helping us always put things away!
What is your favorite “loungewear”? Any memorable work uniforms?
I’m reading a memoir right now (Thirty Rooms to Hide In by Luke Sullivan). In the early pages, the author paints a picture of his life growing up with his five brothers in Rochester in the fifties. Here is an interesting passage on bedtime:
“Bedtime was indeed death. Even the rituals were the same: the preparing of the body (the solemn washing of teeth, the funereal donning of pajamas), the readings, the occasional prayer, and finally the inevitable darkness. All that was missing were Hallmark sympathy cards arriving in the mail.”
I never really thought about bedtime in terms of rituals but in my world, it’s probably the most consistent rituals that I have. Teeth, pajamas, highlighting items done from my to-do list, making a list for the next day, med/vitamins, daily entry in my “good things” journal. Once I’m actually settling in, there is the arranging of Nimue’s blanket on my side of the bed; her ritual is to settle in for about ten minutes, knead a few biscuits, purr while getting some scritches and then heading to her favorite bed on top of the radiator.
Almost forgot the “bang” treat for Guinevere and the yummies for Nimue… this usually happens between teeth and jammies.
Get your long johns out for this coming week. Better yet, just stay inside until next Saturday. Nature is trying to kill you this week.
No further progress on the bathroom this week, still waiting on the countertops. We heard the electrician was on vacation last week, and when I pestered the boss electrician yesterday, he said two guys were on vacation and he’d get them out when back. Huh. Are they still on vacation or is he bluffing me? Could be either one.
Good thing our neighbors went on vacation again so we could do some more laundry.
The guys put heavy paper down on the floor when they started remodeling, and that’s still there, so we stopped the Roomba at the first of the year. Thank goodness for cordless vacuums, am I right?? So Much Dog Hair! My goodness…
Out in the shop I’ve finally figured out what I want to do for bolt storage. I cleaned out under the shop work bench, (That’s Luna helping me in the header photo) which hasn’t been cleaned out in 30 years, and I bought some good heavy duty storage bins to replace the old anti-freeze jugs we’ve been using since dad cut the sides out of them 40 years ago. I lined up a few bins that I’ve used over the years to see the progression in storage:
I’m not sure where the metal cans came from. They were up in the old shed ‘attic’. Dad made the yellow antifreeze jugs, I went to the small red bins, and now I’m doing the clear ones.
When these wear out it will be someone else’s problem.
A month ago, as egg prices were increasing, I thought I better look into getting chicks ordered in case they’re months out like they were a few years ago. To my surprise, nothing seemed to be delayed. I put 40 or 50 chicks in the cart, but didn’t want to order yet.
And then the company sent an email saying they’ve been overwhelmed, the website is down, and they’re not taking any more orders for this year. Well heck. I thought it seemed too good to be true. I started looking up other hatcheries. All seemed to be months out on orders. I know the local Fleet Farm will have chicks this spring, which is new for them. And the local Tractor Supply always has chicks, but again, this year, better get there as they’re coming off the truck to get any. And I saw even some of the local grain elevator will have chicks, but they’re also saying, ‘First come, First served’. Way back in the OLD old days, Rochester had two full-fledged chick hatcheries, and one of the buildings is still there, subdivided into multiple small businesses.
I haven’t seen the local elevators have live chicks in many years.
I found a small hatchery out in Willmar, MN that could get me chicks in April, and I got my order in. I did ponder just hatching my own. Guess I still could. I hope the new place is able to follow through.
I mentioned to daughter that we’re giving her Monday off because it’s Presidents Day and the college is closed. Kelly still has work, but daughter and I can take the day off. Then I proceeded to tell her about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, asking what she remembered about them. I suspect sometimes she claims no knowledge because it’s easier than telling me what she does know. I told her about General George Washington, being the first President, and the dollar bill, and then started on Abraham Lincoln and the civil war, and his assassination, which led me to question the difference between murder and assassination (yep, politics, that’s what I thought) — and then I got a phone call which took a few minutes. When I got off the phone, daughter said, “What about having Monday off?” and I got the giggles. All of this information and she focused on what I said ten minutes ago?? I guess I should have known her priorities. And then, two hours later, she texted me a paragraph on Abraham Lincoln. Hmm! Maybe she was listening after all? Now I’m really curious: did she look that up herself or did they talk about it at her program? The kid never stops fascinating me.
This rooster was waiting for me to put corn out. 2 PHOTOS
Notice his comb? Not the traditional one you pictured in your head, is it.
And this rooster:
He got frostbite on his comb. He’ll be OK.
Did you know, there are 9 different types of rooster combs.
My current batch of chickens is really not cold weather hardy. Last week I was getting 12 – 16 dozen eggs / day. Then the weather got cold again and I’m down to 4-8 eggs / day. Some varieties are more winter hardy than others. The fancier the breed, the more ‘delicate’ they are. I’m sticking with tried and true this spring: Black Australorp and Barred Rock.
WHAT ELSE IS THERE ABOUT CHICKENS SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT?
Last year our local college terminated the Theatre, Music, and English departments. There is a rather fine auditorium at the college that has remained pretty silent and unused for the last while. It is in the main building on campus and is surrounded by the library and classrooms. There are multiple ways of accessing the other rooms and hallways from the auditorium.
The Badlands Opera Company is putting on Into The Woods in a couple of months. They often use our church sanctuary for their productions, but this time they are using the college auditorium. Last week the Opera Company folks paid a visit to the auditorium to scope out the place and see what they would need to do to get it up and running. There is a loft above the stage that was used for costumes and props. It was left in incredible disarray by the theatre faculty as a sort of “screw you” to the college administration. Much to the Opera Company folks surprise, they noticed a cat sticking its head from out of the loft ceiling. They also noticed a litter box and the personal effects of someone who had been squatting in the loft.
They phoned the police and campus security, who secured the auditorium and found another cat. Both cats were taken to the city animal shelter. They also figured out who had been living in the loft and had him get his stuff out. I don’t know how long the guy had been living there. The college is upping its security. The Opera Company folks decided that they would only go to the auditorium in groups of three from now on. It was interesting that public comment indicated more concern about the welfare of the cats than the fact that someone had been living in the theatre loft. I hope they are comfortable in their new digs at the animal shelter.
What is the most memorable hotel you ever stayed at? What hotelwould you like to stay in if you got the chance.?
Luna managed to rip a chunk out of her frisbee on Thursday. And that put me in mind of the quote “broken, but still good.”
Last Sunday we saw the musical ‘Parade’ at the Orpheum. Oh. My. Goodness. It’s a musical about the 1913 trial – and subsequent imprisonment and lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American from New York, living in Georgia. A musical? Yes. One of those stories that needs to be told. That you probably never heard of. The entire production was fantastic. Look him up.
It was a beautiful week on the farm. I took Tuesday and Thursday off to prune fruit trees and do some outside stuff. My day went off the rails about 10AM, but it was still so nice to be home and outside. The chickens are loving it, I guess. We got 13 eggs on Thursday! Evidently, this batch is not so ‘winter hardy’.
Our bathroom is getting there. Floor tile installed and they’re working on the wall tiles. Monday they’ll set cabinets.
Our dog Luna. Boy she loves life. She’s an early bird, and really does not want to be touched after about 11 PM. That’s her sleep time.
But any time after 5 AM, she is excited to go. Wherever we’re going, whatever we’re doing, she’s going with. I call her my white shadow. This week we’re back to the frisbee. As winter began, I had taken all the frisbees into the machine shed so they wouldn’t get lost in the snow, and that’s why we had moved onto sticks outside. For the time being, we’re back to frisbees. She gets a better workout because she must chase the frisbee further than I can throw a stick.
She doesn’t seem to have vertical observation. I’m not sure if she can’t, or she just doesn’t, and she’s lost the frisbee more than once because she’s looking the other direction when it comes back down. I’m guessing she’s only watching about 10 feet in elevation. It was a pretty big deal on Thursday this week when she actually caught the frisbee at her head height. Twice! She’s come close a few times before and it may have been the combination of a lucky throw and timing on her part, but you could tell she was pretty excited about it.
These are heavy duty frisbees; they are very thick and the knobs around the outer edges give her a good place to grip, and they will hurt my fingers trying to get it back. We’re still working on the release part. Also Thursday morning she finally managed to tear out an entire chunk. And that’s how I got to the phrase from the movie ‘Lilo and stitch’, referring to family, “It’s little, and broken, but still good”.
It seems to fly just as well, even with a chunk missing.
If you haven’t seen the movie ‘Lilo and stitch’, I would highly recommend it. It originally came out in 2002, our son was ten, our daughter seven, and it is the story of an older sister trying to raise her younger sister. It provided us with many wonderful quotes and fits of laughter. We recognize the stubbornness on both their parts, and the older daughter screaming into a pillow in frustration, while the little girl also screamed into a pillow just about put Kelly and I on the floor in laughter. The social worker, Mr. Cobra Bubbles (Once worked for the CIA. Convinced an alien race that mosquitoes were an endangered species. He had hair then.) He tells the older sister “Thus far, you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patience. “ I love that line.
Reading the quotes on the IMDb website filled in so many lines that you don’t always hear in the movie. There are many very funny background lines that are almost throwaway lines. Sometimes it’s the tone of voice that’s used. David Ogden Stiers plays an alien named Jumba. Partnered with a nerdy scientist alien Pleakley, the two of them are the comic relief.
JUMBA: “WHAT? After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? JUST LIKE THAT?”
STITCH: [Alien language] “ih”
JUMBA: “Fine!”
PLEAKLEY: “Fine? You’re doing what he says??”
JUMBA: “He’s very persuasive”
PLEAKLEY: “Oh good! I was hoping to add theft, endangerment, and INSANITY to my list of things I did today!“
JUMBA: ”Haha You too?”
Lilo: “Oh good, my dog found the chainsaw.”
Of course the quote, ‘damaged but not broken’ can be a metaphor for so many things. There’s several books with the title of ‘damaged but not broken’ and it could be a battle of cancer, or it could be your relationship with God. One can make it even simpler and just apply it to everyday life.
SHARE EXAMPLES OF BROKEN BUT STILL GOOD. OR “CAN’T vs. WON’T”?
YA doesn’t like a big fuss made about her birthday. This year she did request a birthday breakfast at one of her favorite places – The Lowbrow – but that was it.
This is hard for me as I love making a fuss. In my old job, everybody was in charge of someone else’s birthday. Card and treat. For the last several years of my employment, I had Norma’s birthday. Norma loved having a fuss made over her almost as much as I loved making a fuss; we were a match made in heaven. I miss those days.
Anyway, YA doesn’t ever want a gathering, a cake, a fuss. About five years ago I made a banner that I hung up in the dining room and then I added balloons for her age. She allowed this so that’s my go-to these days…. I hang up the banner and put up the balloons.
I figured out that year that I could extend the festivities a bit by celebrating the dog. YA is 20 years older than Guinevere so all I had to do was take down the “2” balloon, leaving the “5” balloon up for the dog. It’s the only fuss that Guinevere gets; she doesn’t even like the balloon. If you take it down to show it to her, she runs out of the room.
This year, with Guinevere turning 10, I did have to get a “1” balloon to make her age correct. Seemed a little silly to buy a balloon for the dog, but I did it anyway. Since I’m not making a big deal about Norma anymore, I guess the dog gets the attention!
Not much happening on the farm this week, it’s been pretty cold.
The chickens are appreciating the fact there is / was no snow- or very little snow, so they’re still able to go out and move around. They get up against the south side of a building and stay in the sunshine and I try to spread their corn out in those areas. I did get nine eggs the other day, so production is slowly coming up.
Luna is still trying to find another rooster to play with her, but they are not interested in this activity.
Our bathroom and laundry room remodeling is progressing. Rough in plumbing has been completed, the fans, ductwork, and dryer vent have been installed. A little more demolition happened with the downstairs bathroom ceiling and the closet of an adjoining room being removed to allow access for pipes, which of course means the bathroom downstairs is gonna end up with a fresh paint job as well. “It all started with a new bathroom fan.” And that’s probably OK since it hasn’t been touched since the house was built in 1968.
At least the sink and toilet are not pink.
Striped wallpaper on the hot pink walls. Pretty much it’s just been me and daughter using that bathroom and I always kinda liked it. We’ve always joked about my mom painting it that way and she says it wasn’t her idea. I would expect she got a couple gallons of pink paint from somebody. We laugh that upstairs it’s 2020 but when you open the basement door it’s 1968 again. Our little time portal. That bathroom even has a wooden toilet paper roller! Speaking of which, we’ve started using bamboo TP. It’s OK!
It’s also unfortunate the cold weather coincided with tearing out the ceiling sheet rock and removing all the insulation in this area. They have plastic up on the ceiling, and zipper plastic walls, so it’s only cold in this area.
It also strikes me as a bit of a paradox that when it’s the coldest is when the electric company turns off the heat. Part of the dual fuel program, and I know it’s for the greater good, I know it’s all part of conserving energy and keeping the rates low, but that’s a big picture thing and it’s hard to keep in mind. For a lot of people.
Luna is getting frustrated because it’s been too cold for her to stay out and get the exercise that she would like. Daughter has decided it’s too cold for her long walks, too. I do play fetch with Luna and whatever stick I find while doing chores, and Luna loves running with that, but then she gets distracted by something else and leaves it lay somewhere until we find it again the next day. Course there’s always another stick in our yard.
I have been talking the dogs for walks. Through the woods or down the creek or across the pastures.
And that’s been nice. It reminds me of how often I had to walk out and get the cows for milking and I wonder if that chore made me so grumpy about walking? As a kid, it was one of my chores to go get the cows. As I got older, it was just part of the job. Often, they’d come home by themselves, they knew it was milking time. Cows love routine. We share that.
DID YOU SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN? GOT ANY GROCERY STORE MIS-ADVENTURES?
My parents and I always opened our presents on Christmas Eve after church. That was a German tradition from my mother, and also cleared the way for Christmas with family on Christmas Day.
We usually headed for Magnolia, MN late morning on Christmas Day to either my paternal grandparent’s farm or the farm of my dad’s younger brother a couple of miles east. My dad’s sister and family would come from Sioux Falls, and we would have a huge meal (usually turkey and all the fixings), and then we children would have to wait until after the dishes were done to open presents. That was a long wait! Late in the afternoon we would head to Pipestone, 25 miles north, to whichever of my mother’s family would host Christmas. There usually were no presents, just a big meal and lots of desserts.
Yesterday we spent time in Brookings opening presents, taking turns cooking, napping, reading, doing art projects with our grandson, and listening to grandson read aloud the various books he received (Cat Kid, Wild Robots, or Dog Man). He also received some pretty wonderful art kits which he started to use right away. It was very foggy outside, and we didn’t go anywhere. We watched The Muppets Christmas Carol after eating the French Canadian tortiere that grandson and I assembled and baked. He was a good dough pincher. It was a restful day. The Westie and cat napped on various soft blankets. No one had to wait for the dishes to get done before opening presents. We cleaned as we cooked. We listened to Christmas music on MPR all day. It was a great time.
What were your family gatherings like when you were a child? What were some of your favorite presents?Who did the dishes?
Earlier this week, my son texted me to say that he was home with our grandson, who had a sore throat, and had just cleaned up after his West Highland Terrier, who had brought a very large, very dead, cottontail rabbit into the house. The dog caught it in the backyard. Our son put it in a garbage bag and threw it in the trash can outside.
This is the second kill Baxter, the terrier, has under his belt. Last year he caught and shook to death a squirrel at my son’s in-law’s house. Baxter is a senior dog, about 10 years old. He is in good physical condition, but I am surprised he was fast enough to catch a rabbit. He was pretty dirty when he came in with the bunny, so Son had to give him a bath. Son is very grateful Baxter didn’t try to eat the rabbit. In true terrier fashion, shaking something until it is dead is reward enough. Had he chewed on it, Baxter would have needed medicine for tapeworms.
Our Cesky Terrier has great hopes of catching and shaking one of the rabbits that infest our neighborhood. His favorite pastime when we sit in the living room is to play tug of war with some of his floppy dog toys and then shake them violently when he gets them from us. No rabbit would have a chance. I am happy he hasn’t brought anything dead into the house. Many years ago one of our cats caught a bird and brought it, still living, into the house. it looked as though someone had been plucking chickens in the dining room before we were able to get the bird away from the cat and release it out of doors.
Trail Baboon 