Last weekend I had a visit from Leigh - an old friend from Alaska who's been living in Atlanta for almost ten years now. Oh my lord, is Leigh pregnant! Very pregnant! Ready to drop any moment. In fact, she even had a contraction while she was here. She woke up Sunday morning and realized that if she didn't come visit me that day, it would be months before another visit was possible.
So she loaded her little girl, a couple calzones and her giant pregnant belly in the car and drove out to Spenardo del Sur to spend an afternoon with me and the critters. Nothing makes me so acutely aware of how limited my current social circle is like spending time with a "real" person.
One of the cats, Moonpie, had kittens earlier this week. I need more cats like a need a fucking hole in the head. I have far too many cats for an almost 40-year-old never-married woman living alone in a trailer in rural Alabama.
To complicate matters, Moonpie decided to have her kittens in the chicken coop. Found her one morning while collecting eggs. She was nursing her newborns in a corner nest formerly reserved for egg laying.
Moonpie loves the chicken coop. She's often followed me in there, usually following me out when I leave. Once, I unknowingly locked her in there. I returned a few hours later to find her sitting on the roost with a few of the chickens.
I'll have to move her out of there soon. I'm going to Michigan for a few days and the chicken coop will be locked the entire time. There'll be no free-ranging for the birds until I get back - easier for the person who'll be tending the birds while I'm away. Besides, my alpha-male rooster, Gimpy, is starting to get annoyed with having a cat in his kingdom.
Me and a couple neighbor-cousins are driving to Michigan for the first weekend of August to attend my parents' 50th anniversary party. Should be back in time to celebrate my 40th birthday. Most likely, I will spend the momentous occasion drinking cheap beer, sitting under the stars, tending a bonfire, accompanied by far too many cats.
Still no sign of baby goats. They should be born very soon. Hopefully it doesn't happen while I'm out of town. I also hope to get one or two more batches of baby chicks before summer's over.
Sorry for the lack of photos in these last few posts. I'm still stuck using this turn-of-the-century computer and I have yet to even see if it's compatible with my camera. I'll get around to figuring it out soon.
For those interested, my website archives are still available over at RanchoSpenardo.com. I may soon have that domain name point over to this new blog. I'm still hoping to find a computer made in this century that will allow me to go back to posting at the original site. I have so much going on right now that I really don't even want to deal with any of this computer shit. Ugh.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Ick - a tick!
Just took off my boots and found a tick had hitched a ride on my leg at some point today. I don't understand how these little arachnids can burrow their head beneath your skin and you just don't feel a damned thing. Not sure how long it had been there - less than eight hours for sure.
At least this one had the decency to attach itself somewhere I could easily reach. The last tick I got managed to attach itself to the center of my back - directly beneath my bra clasp.
You can't just brush a tick off. You need to pull the fucker out with tweezers. This is impossible to do when it's in the dead center of your back. I drove down the hill to a neighbor-cousin's house and had him remove it for me. It's a little embarrassing to show up unannounced at someone's house and ask them to get pull a bug out of your skin. But I've known this neighbor-cousin since we were little kids and he has far more embarrassing tales he could tell about me.
The other extra-creepy thing about ticks is that they are extremely hard to kill. Can't just squeeze 'em. My method of choice is to drop them in a shot glass full of rubbing alcohol. Even then, it still takes about ten minutes for them to die.
Another neighbor-cousin, Bocephus Boomhauer (my second cousin once removed that I met last fall after his release from prison), killed another rattlesnake on his property this morning. I was driving to one of my odd jobs when he flagged me down to show me the dead snake - all four feet of it, stretched out on the tailgate of his pickup.
He's always warning me about rattlers. I'm pretty sure half of our conversations have been about rattlers. I know they're around and I'm always cautious of that, but the only two I've ever seen were both dead - killed by Bocephus. Today, he also warned me again about a large rattlesnake that's been seen crossing between his brother's property and the back edge of my woods. "Big around as my leg!" he tells me. "Big around as a stovepipe!"
At least this one had the decency to attach itself somewhere I could easily reach. The last tick I got managed to attach itself to the center of my back - directly beneath my bra clasp.
You can't just brush a tick off. You need to pull the fucker out with tweezers. This is impossible to do when it's in the dead center of your back. I drove down the hill to a neighbor-cousin's house and had him remove it for me. It's a little embarrassing to show up unannounced at someone's house and ask them to get pull a bug out of your skin. But I've known this neighbor-cousin since we were little kids and he has far more embarrassing tales he could tell about me.
The other extra-creepy thing about ticks is that they are extremely hard to kill. Can't just squeeze 'em. My method of choice is to drop them in a shot glass full of rubbing alcohol. Even then, it still takes about ten minutes for them to die.
Another neighbor-cousin, Bocephus Boomhauer (my second cousin once removed that I met last fall after his release from prison), killed another rattlesnake on his property this morning. I was driving to one of my odd jobs when he flagged me down to show me the dead snake - all four feet of it, stretched out on the tailgate of his pickup.
He's always warning me about rattlers. I'm pretty sure half of our conversations have been about rattlers. I know they're around and I'm always cautious of that, but the only two I've ever seen were both dead - killed by Bocephus. Today, he also warned me again about a large rattlesnake that's been seen crossing between his brother's property and the back edge of my woods. "Big around as my leg!" he tells me. "Big around as a stovepipe!"
Friday, July 18, 2008
Laptopless
I knew it would happen someday. I just didn't know that someday was going to arrive last week. My laptop went into a coma.
Fortunately, I had another computer in storage. Unfortunately, it is a hamster-wheel-powered machine that runs Windows 98. I got it through barter last year just in case anything ever happened to the laptop.
This computer is too old to work with the software I'd been using for my website (as well as most of my other ancillary devices) so I've switched to Blogspot for now.
Stay tuned...
Fortunately, I had another computer in storage. Unfortunately, it is a hamster-wheel-powered machine that runs Windows 98. I got it through barter last year just in case anything ever happened to the laptop.
This computer is too old to work with the software I'd been using for my website (as well as most of my other ancillary devices) so I've switched to Blogspot for now.
Stay tuned...
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