Assorted ramblings

My friend Joanna mentioned on Facebook this morning that she wished she had room service so she wouldn't have to get up and make coffee.  I told her Cliff has had room service for years; he always drinks his first cup or two of coffee in bed.  Last week I even gave him a bell to ring, because when he's in bed and I'm in the computer room with the furnace running nearby, I can't hear his feeble morning voice letting me know he's awake.  


This is the week Cliff's Social Security shows up in our bank account, and I am almost trembling with excitement!  The only Dave Ramsey envelope that has any money left in it is the dog-and-cow envelope:  It's a sad day when my dog has more spending money that I do.  I wiped out our clothing envelope by buying shoes and a coat last month.  I think this is the first time that particular envelope has ever been completely empty; we don't spend a lot of money on clothes.  (Those who know me in real life, or who have paid close attention to pictures of me on this blog, are saying, "We know; we could tell.")
Cliff will work four ten-hour days this week, which is going to seem strange.  I don't know if I can remember how to properly assemble a lunch for him to take to work.  Actually, I rather dread it.
I'm hooked on John Sandford books.  I've always liked the CSI shows on television, and Sandford's "Prey" books are a lot like that, only with more suspense and quite a bit of downright fear!
The grandson was here yesterday to check on his wildlife camera.  Last week he drove his jeep down into our deepest canyon with no trouble at all, so he figured there wouldn't be a problem doing it again.  Unfortunately, the little bit of snow on the ground changed things for him and he ended up stuck at the bottom of our deepest canyon.
Heather, his girl friend, was with him when they slid down the hill; he wanted her to sit in the Jeep and steer it while he winched the Jeep up, using chains wrapped around a tree.  It sounded to me and Heather like a recipe for disaster; I told him to wait until Cliff arrived home from Kansas, but he wanted to do it himself.
Heather wanted no part of Arick's plan, so he woke up Tyler, our neighbor, and enlisted his help.  Their efforts were successful.





Thanks to Heather for taking my camera with her and being the photographer.  I can't stand to watch stuff like that; it makes me a nervous wreck.  
This isn't Arick's first rodeo.  Almost five years ago he got in a much worse mess with his truck; you can read about it HERE.  
Oh, Cliff sold the 550 Oliver to a long-time friend.  When he sells a tractor to someone he knows, he always gives them a month to use it and decide if they really want it.  So it's sold unless Don changes his mind.  Cliff's tractor fund is looking pretty good lately!

Random: sick dog, Rolex watches, Internet friends

I was awakened at 2 A.M. this morning by Cliff saying, "What's the matter with that crazy dog, anyway?"  
It isn't unusual for Iris to have a restless night and jump in and out of the tub in the bathroom off our bedroom, so I just rolled over to go back to sleep... and then smelled dog-breath.  Peeking through barely-open eyelids, I saw Iris had her front feet on the bed next to me and had her nose about two inches from mine.
First I told her to go to bed, but then I thought better of it and got up to see what was going on.  I followed her through the dark living room and let her outside.  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized there was "something" on the carpet in three places:  Obviously I had a dog with a tummy-ache.  I let Iris back inside when she scratched on the door, and moved her bed from the computer room into the bedroom, right beside my bed.  Normally she refuses to sleep at my bedside, but this time she seemed happy to be there and curled up in a tight ball.  I guess it's true, misery loves company.  I did a quick Spot-Shot scrub of the soiled places on the carpet and went back to bed, but I only dozed a little the rest of the night.  I'm not worried about my dog just yet; dogs do get bellyaches sometimes.   


We were watching Law and Order SVU this week.  We record all our shows on DVR so we can zap the commercials, but I couldn't help but notice that the main sponsor of the show now is Rolex.  I even stopped the DVR so I could watch a commercial.  
Don't these people know we're in a recession?  Who can afford thousands of dollars for a watch, in a day and age where nobody wears a watch any more?  Someone on Facebook pointed out that lawyers like to wear Rolex watches (status symbol, I guess).  But surely real-life lawyers don't waste their time watching Law and Order SVU.  I'd think they have enough criminal action in real life.  
A little searching online tells me that Rolex watches can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000.  I can think of so many other good things I'd do with that much money.  


Let's think about blogging friends for awhile.  You know, about the way we get to feeling as though we know a person whose blog we've followed for years.  
I've read "My Life and Times" for quite a long time.  Patsy lives in Arkansas, is retired, and has some physical limitations that keep her mostly house-bound.  Her opinions on politics make me smile, and sometimes laugh out loud.  She often mentions her relatives, especially her sisters, a couple of whom have their own blogs.  In her blog, she calls them by name; but when they comment, they are Sister-three or The Fourth Sister, etc.  So I'm trying to figure out which sister is which all the time, because I'm beginning to feel like I know this whole family.  Some of the comments they leave on one another's blog entries are hilarious.  
They all gathered at a funeral recently and a picture was taken of the group; I left a comment for one sister that I was curious as to what names went with the faces, and she satisfied my curiosity by posting the picture with the names written on each person.  I saved it on my desktop; now when Patsy mentions a sister by name, I double-click on that picture and see who she is talking about.    
When I do things like this, Cliff says to me, "You gotta get OUT this house!"  


We won't mention his obsession with Craigslist, will we?

Random

I was seeing bluebirds throughout this past winter until the heavy snows and super-cold temperatures began in late December; that must have driven them away, because I haven't seen them since.  Sparrows have been attempting to claim the bluebird house, but I tear the nests out as soon as they are begun; for three days now, there have been no pesky sparrows in evidence.  Perhaps they've decided to leave the house empty for bluebirds.  Last year it took us until July to get the sparrows out and bluebirds nesting there.  
I need to dormant-spray my fruit trees, but every day is either too windy, or rainy.  Try as I might, so far I've never ended up with worm-free peaches; it's so very hard to stick with the schedule for spraying, thanks to the weather.  I've had two different people tell me they only spray when the trees are blooming:  Dear Lord, no wonder honeybees are dying!  Anywhere you find directions for spraying your fruit trees, it will tell you NOT to spray during blossom time (except for the fungicides, which are fine).   That's when the bees are doing their work.  If that's what I have to do to have blemish-free fruit, forget it.  
I am far from an organic gardener.  While I admire those who are able to raise wonderful gardens without using pesticides, fungicides, and other forms of poison, I've found if I want tomatoes and cucumbers and squash, I'm going to have to drag out the old skull-and-crossbones.  I look at it this way:  If I were buying these things at the store, they'd have the same poisons (or worse), not to mention a nice dose of salmonella on the side.     
Back to rainy weather, we've had a long run of that around here.  Three years ago we thought we'd never get this trailer house hauled in because it wouldn't stop raining, and it's been wet ever since except for a month-long drought last fall.  
I'd rather have too much rain than too little, although it's hard to get a decent motorcycle ride in with all the rain.  
We're still pondering what to do about our lack of freezer space.  I can't believe we gave a big deep freeze away because it was never more than 1/4 full; then I immediately began gardening again and we started butchering a steer every summer.  We're debating whether to watch Craigslist for another small, used freezer, or just go ahead and deal with the lack of space as we've been doing.  If I had more space I might freeze some tomatoes, and I wouldn't have to can so many.  Everyone who's done it says tomatoes freeze well.  
I contacted Direct TV and got rid of the expensive movie channels; there just aren't that many good movies made these days, and we seldom watched any of them.  I do keep an eye on Turner Classics, which doesn't cost extra, because some of those oldies are great.  I recorded "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" and watched it last night.  My, how times have changed!  
Spencer Tracy was dying when this movie was being made, and received a best-actor award posthumously.    


Have I mentioned I'm one of the suckers who acquired an Ipad just three weeks before they came out with the Ipad II?  Yeah, somebody just shoot me.  The Ipad I bought is now selling for $100 less.  
By the way, yesterday Sophos, which I follow on Facebook, informed me of yet another free antivirus for Macs, so we have a choice.  You'll find it HERE.    This also led me to a site that mentions the thirty best free Mac programs to download; this might be useful to some Mac aficionados users.
Aficionado is a word I could never spell on my own.  I used spell-check in order to get it right, then decided it wasn't the word I wanted anyhow; it's OK, sometimes I enjoy using the strike-through option. 
 I think perhaps I'm a worse speller than I used to be, simply because I depend on spell-check all the time.  


Alrighty then; was this random enough for you?

Totally random

When I'm showering, as I was this morning, I always tip my head to let water into my ears; a nurse-practitioner told me that would prevent ear-wax building up and having to be removed, something I've had trouble with a couple of times.  
This got me thinking about earaches, which I've never had.  People who have had them, though, tell me the pain level is on a par with a toothache; I've had plenty of those.  I remember as a child waking in the night with that incredible pain and waking my mom up.  Her remedy was to have me hold an aspirin on the afflicted tooth.  Yuck.  But I was desperate, so I did it.  It helped, of course, because the bitter aspirin made its way to my stomach.  Perhaps the idea of holding it in my mouth made it work faster by dissolving it, but I read somewhere that it isn't a good thing to put aspirin against a tooth.  It erodes the enamel, I think.  
My son had earaches frequently when he was a baby, and throughout his childhood; there's nothing worse than seeing your baby in pain and being unable to do anything about it.  
I think the only time my daughter had the problem is when she got "swimmer's ear" in summer.  
When I was a kid and visited my Uncle Leo's farm in winter, you could bet at least one of his kids would have cotton sticking in one or both ears.  Seems like all four of those cousins had earaches at times.  I think the cotton was there to keep ear-drops in the ear, and cold air out.  
This brings to mind the way Cliff's mom, a hillbilly from way back, pronounced "ears" as "yairs".  And "sink" was "zinc".  
Cliff had an interesting childhood, but it would be a breach of privacy to tell many of the tales.  His family put the "fun" in dysfunctional.  
He does have happy memories of playing with cousins; I'll have to rehash those with him and perhaps share some of them.  
His Aunt Faye and her husband once worked at a peach orchard in a distant state... or was it an apple orchard?  Cliff still remembers the delicious fruit he ate when his family visited them.    
Which reminds me, we're out of ketchup.  I seldom use the stuff, so I don't always notice when we're getting low.  Cliff is absolutely addicted to ketchup.  I've had people suggest that if my cooking were any good, he wouldn't smother stuff in ketchup.  You can imagine how that makes me feel.  Anyhow, as over-salted and bad for him as ketchup is, he all but drinks the stuff.  I think he told me once that his parents got angry with him because they actually did catch him drinking it.  
So, being out of ketchup is an unhappy event for Cliff.  Not only that, but we're out of milk.  
"But Donna, don't you have a cow?"  
Yes, but because mastitis ruined one quarter and severely affected another, and because of the severe weather we're having, Bonnie isn't giving much milk at present; I figure her calf needs that.  


We're using the Dave Ramsey envelope system, remember.  And the grocery envelope has stayed totally empty since Thanksgiving.  The only way the system works is to stop buying when the allotted envelope is empty.   
Oh, it's easy enough to borrow from the dog's envelope, but she paid for the Christmas tree, for pete's sake; how much should a dog have to give up for her humans?  I happen to know Cliff's billfold is bulging with money (he called from work last night to tell me he'd left his wallet in a back pocket and asked me to fish it out of the dirty clothes, so yes, I counted his money), and trust me, he'd gladly foot the bill for his ketchup.  We haven't retired yet, so there's plenty of money outside the envelopes.  It's just the principle of the thing.  
Besides, any trip to the grocery store entails at least a nine-mile drive.  Our car gets twenty-six miles per gallon, so a round trip of eighteen miles would cost us a couple of bucks, which makes the milk and ketchup fairly expensive.   
I'll let you know how this all turns out.  
I'll betcha this is my most random post ever.  I'm not even sure it makes sense.

Random pictures, random thoughts

Remember the lovely tulips right outside my front door? The ones of which I was so proud?

Not so pretty now. If they'd go ahead and die totally, I'd dig up the bulbs and replant them. You can see I have marigolds in front, and there are some other flowers on back that haven't bloomed yet, between the tulip rows. But really, the brown, dying tulips are what catch my eye when I step outside.

Granddaughter Natalie took this glamor-shot of Cliff baling hay on the Mahindra tractor we're babysitting for the brother-in-law. I hope Pat takes time to look at this, because he's never seen his tractor without the bucket-loader on the front.

Cows always look so awkward when they're at rest. Bonnie was chewing her cud until I approached her; then she starting thinking there might be a bite of sweet feed for her somewhere, and got all alert.

She's sniffing my camera in hopes it's edible.

I received an interesting anonymous comment from someone reading my blog around 3 A.M. today: "Gosh dang this must be the most interesting blog I ever read."

Why do I think that comment was made tongue-in-cheek? I mean, it was left on an entry about my garden, for heaven's sake.

Winter isn't over yet and other random stuff

The horses think it's spring. This morning they were out grazing, and when I called them to come and eat their hay, they were in no hurry. In fact, Blue was farther out than the other two, and didn't accompany them at first. Before long I'll be keeping Blue out of the pasture for most of the day, since he has a tendency to overeat. Spring is prime time for founder.

Yesterday I turned Secret out so she could get a taste of green, and she stayed out for about five hours before she came back up, bawling at the gate of her pen until I let her in. Yes, she's spoiled.

Cows can't nip the grass off as short as horses do. Did you know cows have no teeth on top, in the front? And they swallow their food virtually whole, waiting until they find a comfy place to stand or lie down to regurgitate their dinner and chew their cuds.

There really aren't many nutrients in the grass this time of year, so I'll keep feeding hay as long as they're eating it.


This is our local forecast for the next few days. Looks like there will be a slight hold on the grass-growing.

Muhd asked me why barns are red, so I went to Google and found the answer HERE.

The Kansas City Star lays people off about once a week; I think printed newspapers are about to go the way of the dinosaur.

Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun are up for sale. Anybody got any good news?



The other day I told Cliff, "I feel fat, old, and toothless."

He answered, "You're not toothless!"

Very funny, Cliff. Ha. Ha.

(I'm not toothless, by the way. It's just that I have a tooth missing near enough the front that it shows. I'm working on getting that taken care of. I hate dental issues, and I really dislike holier-than-thou dentists who seem to think we're all millionaires; just make me a partial, already.)