Hummingbird rescue (another one)

I heard a worried squeaking and knew we had a bird in the house. Sure enough, nAimless had a hummingbird in her mouth. I made her give it to me, it was a male rubythroat, such pitiful chirping! I guess he assumed the transfer from cat mouth to human hand couldn't be good. I went on the porch and opened my hands and he made a beeline for the big holly tree. Yea! I had just fleadoped all the animals so I was REAL glad I'd washed that poison off my hands right away. No telling what Frontline or Advantage would do to such a little fellow.

Two or three days ago I rescued one that had flown in through the open back door and was frantically trying to get out the window. Sounded like a giant bumble bee. They're surprisingly easy to catch.

snowday

At 730 this morning the world outside my windows was white; even the road had a glaze. I took a couple pictures with the cell phone but the signal strength today hasn't been enough to send a multimedia message. (sent later, see below)

Before a trip into town I had a nice long soak in the tub, with the book I'm currently reading, Mary Roach's Stiff, which is a very funny nonfiction about what happens to corpses after death. Really. Funny.

We went to the nearby new Tractor Supply (it's in the old Mal~Wart) this afternoon (and I forgot to bring the cell phone, therfore the snow pix still didn't get sent), and learned they carry all the cat and dog food I've been driving 80 miles to Barboursville to buy. Yea!

Also dropped off stuff at CSS and books at the laundromat, and had lunch at Shoney's.

Still haven't jacked up the wood stove with the unistrut I got for that purpose, so we still don't have a fire in the stove. The electric bill is gonna be high...

Ya well...

The aptly named Klutz rolled off my monitor onto my cuppa tea, knocking it all over my desk and keyboard. I knew a second cuppa tea isn't a good idea, didn't I?

We gotta go to the city for catfood anyway <sigh> ...though so far so good on the keyboard function otta pick up another, just in case.

Home!

Home Sweet Home.

Had a lovely vacation; got home late last night, collected Klutz and Grrrl from the drr today. Was 16F here this morning according to google weather, 22F according to the front porch thermometer. South Florida had a cold snap too: Monday afternoon dropped into the upper 60's.

The first thing Klutz did upon getting home (if you'll remember, she was kenneled b/c of all her missing teeth -- they fed her "soft" food all week) is dive into the dry catfood bowl.

vacation

Here begins a series of blog posts about our Florida vacation. I plan to leave them in "draft" form till we get back home.

Tomorrow, Monday, th'Mr & I will drive to Cincinnati and spend the night in a motel. Tuesday we fly out of Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale, for a WEEK with my folks! Daddy's 70th birthday is November 14th, and we're going to spend it with him and Mom. The following Tuesday, Nov 18th, we'll fly back home.

In the meanwhile Grrrl and Klutz will have to be kenneled. I wish there was another way, but there's nobody I can ask to come in and make sure Klutz eats, and keep Grrrl from roaming the neighborhood.

I'm just grateful we have a wonderful veterinarian who also boards.

Cat woe

Poor little Klutz has been losing teeth for at least a couple years. She's down to one fang, and we both wonder if that's affected her ability to eat dry food. I haven't seen her eat any kibble, and when a can gets open she's always there, eager for it. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to be losing weight.

She also has a persistent ear infection. Medicine hasn't taken care of it. I've been feeding her yoghurt with tuna mixed in. She likes it.

All those ends go faster in company...

The Fair Isle socks are done. Last night at KCYC I finished the toe on the 2nd one, and tonight at East Tenapa (sp?) Mexican restaurant in Milton WV (a Ravelry meetup) I finished weaving in all the ends, and even knat another inch on my pentathlon gansey sox.

The meetup was cool! I hope I get a chance to do that again. I know next Thursday I'll be on my way home for a three-day weekend, but maybe another time.

On a less happy note, my next door neighbor (at the apartment, not at home), Beth, told me tonight her place is infested with RATS! She said they are big sewer rats, she saw them coming out of the woods, and they ate her couch. I immediately put my alpaca yarn in the freezer (oh, did I mention? Last night at KCYC I bought eight balls of Frog Tree alpaca to make a scarf I saw in one of the magazines --Knitter's, I think-- that has stripes which do a cool, open twist at the ends. I'll find a picture and post it soon.) I should probably put the cotton I bought last week (for a gansey sweater, did I forget to mention that too? Six hanks of a lovely blue and one of deep green (for swatching), and a pattern, and a #6 circular) in the freezer too. Th'Mr strongly suggested I get some DCon, but I can't justify killing rats for being what they are meant to be. He answered, "They're not meant to be roommates..."

getting there

All right!
Got up and finished a book while having a tub soak, found the gloves, fixed the cucumber salad, gave the cats their liver, got in an hour of porch sitting split between cross stitching, brushing Winston and taking hummingbird pictures, started the pork roast, went to the bank & grocery while the pork cooked, dosed Grrrl and Nameless, and now I'm logging some bills at wheresgeorge.com.

Still have laundry & packing to do; I could still use a nap, and the closet light might wait another week, but I've cleaned out the fridge and have a plan for some sewing next weekend:

A couple weeks ago I bought two sets of high-thread-count sheets at a yard sale; one is queen and one is double, so both are the wrong size for our full-size bed, but if I cut a strip out of the fitted one that's too big and sew it into the one that's too small I may have two good sets of sheets when it's done. Or I'll be out seven bucks, but that's worth the lesson.

convince me

Well, some time between mowing, pulling weeds in the garden, refilling the hummingbird feeders, shredding cucumbers for cuke salad, planting my bamboo-that-is-not-really-a-bamboo and having a beer, I decided that six months from now we won't even notice the roughly twohundred dollars I'll miss by not going to work tomorrow, and that there's really too much left to do to declare the weekend over. Simple as that.

Laundry is still unfinished, I haven't unpacked/repacked, I have a pork roast thawed that I need to cook, have to finish making the cucumber salad, liver is thawed to feed the cats (I don't like to refreeze it once it's thawed), still have two netflixes to watch, haven't done the first bit of knitting or cross stitch this weekend, my back hurts, I want a nap --a real nap, a daytime nap, not a night-- and a drink, I haven't found the gloves I brought th'Mr from work, haven't done any cat brushing this weekend, Nameless Roadie and Grrrl still need their flea dope doses, haven't been to the grocery yet, I have the light in my bedroom closet still to replace and I'd like a long soak in the tub...

th'Mr tells me the Perseids meteor shower is going on tonight, and if it's clear out we ought to drive up to the Enex Cemetery (where we got married, yes, in the woods, at the cemetery) to watch it. Because that's far enough away from city lights & so forth, which is one of the reasons we got married there -- no traffic noises, etc. So I hopped on line to see if it's clear or cloudy out. Really, right now it's in that grey area between daylight and dark you can't tell if the stars will come out or not. Simplest is go to my google home page and see what the weather says.

Productive

Friday I fixed the lawnmower - like I thought, it was the carburetor float stuck open, but the reason was not because it was "gunked up," like I supposed, but the arm coming from the throttle lever was not hooking up with the piece of wire going to the float. Once I hooked those up together I was able to mow. Got about half the backyard cut down, then moved on to the next project...

Tinkered with the biggest of the window A/C units & decided it wasn't fixable --not by me anyway-- so instead got another one out of the barn and put it in the kitchen window. The bigger one sat in the living room window and would have cooled the whole house, except it only ran once, till I touched it. Someone told me I shouldn't have touched it quite as hard, but I really don't think that's what it was.

Then we made a run to Lexington, picked up th'Mr's new desk and visited the Liquor Barn to the tune of $150.- Beer, wine, champagne, vodka, gin, tequila, rum, jack daniels and wild turkey. Happy camper, I am.

Forgot all about knitnight.

Saturday I caught up my email --that took several hours-- then at eleven I took off for the vet's (to get more flea dope - we'd had enough on hand to do only 3/4ths of the cats and no dog), who closes at noon Saturdays, and made a quick stop at Lowe's for a porcelain fixture for my closet. The switch on mine burnt out months ago. Got one of those, some wood glue for th'Mr's desk project, 50' of 12/3 cable ($16+ cheaper than buying an extension cord, considering I have cordcaps galore laying around getting dusty, some suet (I thought the birds only want that in the winter? Silly me for thinking.) which we're going through as fast as sugarwater, and another plant for the fence row. The plant is an evergreen which gets red foliage in the fall; it's in the bamboo family so it might be invasive. I'll do some research before making the final decision on where it gets planted.

When I got back from the vet/Lowe's run I cleaned the kitchen and woke up th'Mr --he swears during the week he does not sleep past noon like he does on the weekends-- and put together not one 50' but two 25' extension cords.

Then I assembled the desk. That took the rest of the day, since first I had to move out the old desk, clean the floor & wall and paint the wall before I could begin. Today I'll do the hutch; it shouldn't take near as long.

plan rebuttal

Wow, what a lot of plans I had for last weekend.

So here's what happened. When I got to the tub (remember I'd drawn myself a bath) all the water had leaked out. I guess there's another thing to add to the to-do list: put a new drain/stopper on the old bathtub. It'd be more efficient to just replace the whole bath/shower stall, but I'm still holding out for the day we win the lottery and build a whole new house further back in the woods. This one needs a lot of work. It was built in 1923.

So, no bath, at least not right away, which of course threw everything else off schedule. Th'Mr phoned about his monitor --our place in town doesn't work on them at all, so there was no point dropping his off on the way to Lexington. Phoned his drrr and they told him to come in Sep 4 for a CAT scan, so the reasons for the Lexington trip were down to "pick up desk, go to liquor store." Not that we don't have a liquor store in town, but the big one in Lex is so much ...bigger.

We blew off the trip into the city.

C&S arrived earlier than expected, and the little neurotic pitbull greeted them and their dogs. A flurry of activity later she was on her way to the doggydrrr/kennel for the weekend. C&S were in town for the Fiddler's Convention, so C didn't go to the Sparky & Rhonda Rucker concert with th'Mr, nor did S go to knitnight with me. Instead we all went off in three different directions...

I got to knitnight and was the only one there for an hour, till N&T (mother&daughter) showed up. I really enjoy those two. I guess I'm about halfway between them in age and for some reason they both seem to really like me. Th'Mr says it's because I'm just likeable, but I find that hard to swallow. I don't see a lot to like in me...

shakes herself

So anyway, no grocery run, no dinner cooked, no desk picked up nor built, no old desk moved out, no wall painted (and that green doesn't look all that bad)... but th'Mr got his CD, I had my knitnight, C&S had their Fiddler's Convention, and it was a good weekend.

update on the profile photo - last night during movie

Left to right Booger (the huge black cat with a white spot on his chest, sitting on the other chair), Raleigh (grey cat on my right leg), Sapphire (black fuzzy cat on the arm of my chair to my right), Nameless (black cat in my lap), Winston (black cat on my left leg), and Klutz (grey fuzzy cat on the left arm of my chair). Not shown are Roadie, the grey sometime-feral cat and Shorty, the tabby-point Siamese who wouldn't tolerate being that close to other cats.

Funny, we have a cat who hates other cats and a dog who hates other dogs, but they like each other just fine.

where the hummingbirds go

Here's Winston come running to help me take pictures, or whatever else I have planned. Also in the picture are echinacea, daylilies, yellow lilies, sunflowers, and a lot of weeds red and white clover, fleabane, and the bean fence.





The garden gnome was a gift from one of my grandmothers to the other. I was the only thing they shared in common --they didn't even speak the same language. To his right (my left) are echinacea and sage, on the other side is stonecrop, not yet in bloom.




My herb garden has exploded... left to right Monarda, chives, basil, oregano, marjoram, coreopsis, lavender, rosemary (hidden under the) nasturtium.





Coreopsis.





Sunflowers (from birdseed), and Monarda.


My upload thing seems to have locked up, so anything else will have to wait till after the grocery store run.

save the oil

Here's th'Mr's new toy, a charcoal starter I bought him for fourth of July (or, "for no reason but I wanted to buy him something now that I'm working"). For those of you who are not familiar with this sweet gadget, you put the charcoal in the top, smash some newspaper into the bottom, light the paper and wait five minutes, then pour your white-hot charcoal into the grill. No fluid. No charcoal starter fluid. Did I mention, you don't use any smelly, expensive, petroleum-based starter fluid with this thing?



In the background, Klutz is hunting the evil cricket.

Below is a weed. A tall weed. This tall weed dwarfs the sixty-pound dog standing nearby. I was just curious what it would turn into, so I let it grow. I'm still curious. It's still growing.



Clockwise from top: Shorty Winston Grrrl. That's not cat litter, it's birdseed. Note Shorty's front paws are folded (in prayer?); Winston's hind legs are in teenager-lying-on-the-floor-in-front-of-TV mode. Grrrl's a dog.

not this again

It's after two. I woke up at one, when Roadie came to bed for the first time in at least five weeks.

I have managed to clean out a few more webmailboxes, in anticipation of dumping Earthlink to get DSL, so it hasn't been an entirely wasted hour...

Monday we (the job) are going on "four tens," meaning until that changes I'll drive there Monday morning, stay at a hotel M-T-W nights, and drive home Thursday after work. The motel $ spent will cancel out the gas $ not spent. The van is now getting 19.8 mpg (yay), and this week we dropped another $600 into the Dodge, which now runs as good as it ever has. Fingers crossed this continues.

Unfortunately, though I've worked a month now I'm still too broke to buy a few things I desperately need, like wiper blades and a few new bras.

back to work

First week on the new job is nearly over. Yesterday I was so sore I could barely move; today it's pretty much worked its way out. Four months of mostly sitting on my ass at the computer (or in the hammock, or in the "chairtrap," watching movies) makes for sore legs, arms, back when I get back to spending eight hours a day on my feet & climbing around on scaffolding. But, as I said, it's working its way out. I am getting to sleep easier, too. Though the alarm wakes me at four ayem now, the first couple of nights it was hard work to get to sleep before ten (and I'm used to staying up past midnight), but that's a must when I have to be on the road by five. It's already routine to get to bed by eight and read no later than nine.

Lunches so far are sandwiches, brought from home. Eventually we'll have a fridge and microwave in the break trailer, but that's up to the local hands (or the contractor) to supply, not a "traveler" like me. When we do have a fridge I'll start bringing a salad for one break (can then keep a bottle of dressing cold), and leftovers of whatever we'd had for dinner that week, for lunch. But so far I'm okay with sandwiches. We only have two breaks on an eight-hour day: 9:30 to 9:45 and 12 to 12:30. I eat fast, then knit. I'm working on a pair of white socks for th'Mr. I hope they come clean ;) because no matter how carefully I wash my hands before break, the white yarn has become the grey of flyash.

Had car woes this week; Moby Dodge is getting terrible mileage and getting worse: Sunday we filled it up, to the tune of $59. (Remember, I'm driving right at 200 miles a day, round trip) Monday after work I put in $48 in gas and two quarts of oil. Tuesday after work I put in $48 in gas and three quarts of oil, went home and whined about it. We went looking at the used car lots, but of course the only one that was open that late had nothing under $6k on the lot. I'm thinking more along the line of $2k total, $500 down and $100/wk payments. Drove Moby Dodge once again Wednesday, came straight home (it's a 30 gallon tank, $50 fills half of it these days) and th'neighbor had begun work on Astro Van. Today I drove Astro (with a new starter --$100-- and a 3-gallon kitty litter pail of water for the leaky radiator) and was pleased to only put $28 worth of gas in it this afternoon. I only wish the headlights were better.

Today when I got home th'Mr said my cats (*my* cats) had killed two birds today, a cardinal and a titmouse. Bad kitties. Raleigh and Winston have been taking turns seeing me off in the mornings; there's been one of them across the road from our mailbox when I go by, three days running.

th'Mr finally went to the VA Tuesday, about the chest pain he's had at least a month. His doctors in Maysville said there's nothing wrong with his chest (meaning the heart surgery), but they didn't look as closely as the VA doctors did: he has pneumonia! He had a pneumonia shot in January, so it's not as bad as it could be; he's on pills for five days then goes back to the VA.

I have too much to do in too little time (an hour to bedtime now), so I'm going to cut this short now.

wildlife

I didn't take a picture of the millipede. It was crawling around under my windowsill and I scooped it into my bug-catching glass and dropped it into the sunflower bed right outside the back door. Scary-looking thing.




I didn't get a good picture of the deer. Looked up and two does were walking out of the woods to check out the garden. Mixed feelings. Don't exactly want them eating the corn but I get thrilled every time I see them.



While rushing to get a camera to take deer pix I finally identified the clatter going on in the kitchen: a blackbird with cats in pursuit. I'm getting quite good at bird catching. The cats looked disappointed though.



Lastly, the finches had swarmed the closest feeder, and since I already had camera in hand I got a shot of seven or eight of them.

trav'lin cat

We took Shorty with us to Ohio.



She's a great traveler, just gets behind the seat (in the pickup truck), gets comfortable, and takes a nap. If ever I reach back there to pet her, she purrs. th'Mr speculated it's a real vacation for her to get away from all these other cats. I agree. At C & S's she obviously felt it was a six-cat (less), one-dog (more) improvement over home. She and their cat Smokey spent some time "singing" to each other, better than the scream-and-run tactics she employs at home.

Here she is, on the deck, in Ohio...

then there were eight

Monday morning Cuz died. She'd been improving but then slid downhill. Dr D phoned first thing Monday morning to tell me. I said I'd be over to get her; he said they'd have her ready for me. They had her in a real nice zippered canvas case. It was so nice that I wondered if I needed to return it, until I saw her name on it. We dug a hole in the yard and rearranged the bricks from Boo's grave so Cuz could have three also. Slug and Rambo are near the house there, but unmarked, then Boo the Alaskan husky by the maple, Tick the tabby next to him, then Cuz, then Wolf the Siberian and lastly Amos the Neufie. Maybe this is the year I landscape the "pet sematary"

Anyway, Cuz dying was unexpected. She's always been at risk, being so overweight and all, but she's seemed healthy, even a month ago when she had her feleuk test (and passed it). I'm sort of at a loss for words. I miss her.

charity knitting and frost in late May

I made it to the Friday night knit-together yesterday, after a two-week hiatus. Slowly I'm learning everyone's names. I can't put in words how much I enjoy these two hours a week; I'm always sorry for it to end.

Last night I worked on the soldier socks, finishing the initial ball of knitpicks on one of them, which got me most of the way down the gusset decreases. Later, at home, I began a third eight-inch square for Kansas. The first two I'd sent home (as demos) with one of the knitnighters, who works at Dove's (our local women's shelter) and has about half of the women at the shelter knitting.

My six balls of "icelandic laceweight" arrived yesterday. I'm disappointed in the texture --scratchy-- and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it (knit a swatch or two first, I suppose?). I'd planned to use it for a shawl.

th'Mr phoned the drrr yesterday and they told him Cuz is improving but they'd still like to keep her another night.

Last night it was supposed to get down to 36 (with scattered frost advisories), but looking out my south window it looks like lots of things are blooming, so the frost probably missed us. I have a begonia and a cilantro here on my windowsill which I haven't planted yet. I wonder how the big hanging pot of millionbells (on the front, north porch) weathered the night...