Those Wide Open Spaces

This post has taken four months to write, so bear with me.
Originally started April 14, 2014, not long after the winter from hell finally started to go AWAY.
So, those wide open spaces...

That Fern Valley lives upon, are so close, and yet a dry ocean of continent away. I love to travel.
On foot. Although I'd be all over flying, if I could just sprout some mutant wings. Anybody see the movie "Avatar"? OMG, I want me one of those. I see all the good movies about 2 years after they come out, being a non-movie goer...

I could travel HorseBack, but we all know where THAT ends up, with me.
barb + barn/horses = More tragedrama that costs me fortunes in either stress and/or money.
More Feymus Shamuses that I'd have to ignore. More equines stuck in stalls, ignored for months at a time. More ammies trying to kill themselves.

Some of "those" horse-people, so puffed up with themselves. (I do NOT MEAN YOU, dear reader, unless you are one of those, of course:) I don't puff up, indeed, I try to take up as little space/time as possible.
Keeps me closer to the edge:)
Every time I DO puff up, I hit my head, accidentally, always. Instant humility, every.single.time..

I've been reading like a maniac, another failing I have, in that I prefer to read actual books, being a dinosaur.
The last book was great!  "The Eye of God" by James Rollins. Really cool ideas in there, all gleaned from science and stuff. My kind of book.

My memory is really fritzy these days, must be all the snow and stuff. It could also be "here we go to la-la land" too, but each day is still a challenge :)

I've been FaceBooking the really big stuff, because really, why does another continent need to know about Stanley and Dad's latest adventures?

Of COURSE, a cat found me here. Of course. Orange tom-tabby, I called him HeyJoe, or HeyBuddy, or just HeyDontChaseHimBlaze.
I have insufficient funds to neuter, vaccinate and (bonus!) repair injury to Hey's hind-leg, and it rots my eyelashes. Me, the saviour of all creatures great and small :) Okay, Spayer/Neuterer of most creatures... WHATever. Hey is not allowed indoors, thanks to MH :(  Blaze HATES this cat, super jealous of him, for some silly reason. Okay, it doesn't help that when Hey first started coming around, I encouraged both dogs to chase him away. Hey's just a little guy, and he's bery friendly.

Hey disappeared throught the ice-storm, didn't see him for a month, thought he was gone, but he came limping back. Hey lives in the playhouse, that thing is built better than the house I'm typing in (I LOVE YOU, HOUSE!!). Hey now is using Stanley's cage. Door open, of course. Just yesterday I inserted said cage into said PlayHouse, which is a bit drafty, but dry and sheltered from most winds, with thick rubber matting on the floor/ceilings. Solid as a rock! Hey has an old sheepskin rug from Joanie, it's kind of falling apart anyway. His very own Playhouse with warm den, and Hey still comes over and begs for attention, lonely little guy. You have no idea how hard I waffle over this poor little cat. (uh, oh...)
Of course, I'm feeding him, and that HAS TO STOP. Yeah, right.

Stanley, my cat that lives with Dad, has cost a small fortune lately. Worth every penny, silly old scrawny cat. Dad's bestest buddy these days, which makes me happy. Dad loves to tell stories of what Stanley has done that day. It's his excuse to call me whenever he wants, because he knows I'll talk about Stanley anytime.

Blaze thinks it's completely illegal for for me to be changing the rules about outside Cat, and Hey doggedly (teehee) keeps trying to make friends. Hey has already figured Flip out, Flip won't bother him, unless he runs. She does try to hypnotize him, staring at him solemnly. Flip turned 11 years old on Feb. 23! Poor old girl. Her hips are not good. I know they are not good.
Hey makes outside play a little more difficult/complicated/guilt-ifying, because this cat needs to have a home, and I cannot offer/afford him one. Blaze likes to wind herself up about Hey, (What's HE doing here?? Can he play BALL? NO! Will he RUN??") and that's not a behaviour I need to encourage.
You think I'll call the ????
Nope. I know what happens to cats. I'm tired and broke. This small town can clean up its' own mess, I'm just a tenant in a house, and HEY.
I love this house.
Postscript to poor old heyJoe. he started getting angry, and I knew I had to banish him, so I did, with a lunge whip. I still have one, actually tried to get him to play with it, early in our brief friendship, but he was horrified. When he bit me hard, twice, (I had gloves on, I am no fool), and then started acting like he'd attack the girls, I said, enough. He wanted to come inside. I have a cat, his name is Stanley, and he's bleedin' expensive! Worth every penny. Speaking of pennies, then I promise to be quiet for a bit.

So I have a PSA for all humans needing to save pennies, which we have taken out of circulation, because our sad leaves are taking over. My older but shorter sister has passed her domestic wisdom on to me. Cold water for soaking. Cleaning. Rinsing your hands! Try this domestic engineering experiment. Take your dirty dinner plate, and put it in the sink. (get off the larger bits, fcs.) Run cold water into the plate, let it soak. Walk away. Give it some time, like 10 minutes max. Come back, that plate is ready to rinse, and place in the dishwasher, for it's subsequent "superSterilized" clean in my beeyootifull dishwasher, which ONLY runs when it's full. Laundry too. Think about it. Do germs like warm, or cold? Where do you find germs? Besides the pond in summer!! My POINT is, use more cold water. Save yer pennies. Not that they're worth anything, apparently.

ancientness alert.

I have GOT to change the names on these videos, I mean, do I REALLY want this to become an "adults-only" blog? Sheesh, the videos that come up on the side of YouTube, and as suggestions at the end?! Ewww. I wonder if "my" good old horse's name makes it creepy too. Honestly, people's minds!
The previews are NOT for children's eyes. Unless they are studying to be veterinarians, of course:)

That's Kodiak. That's me. I was young, and OH, so spry :)

Other Self Questions

LOL, I have no idea why the blog still pings, until I start re-reading some of My!! posts that come up on the stats feed. Yes, I'm pathetic. I check for pings. I read my own blog.
Right now, I think only the one sister is pinging me. I figure the others are just bloggers' way of keeping me from quitting, you know, a little ping on the head or something...

DANG, I was on a writing roll back then. I miss those days of easy typing, when it just billowed out of me, or bellowed, I guess.
Flip was sick today, and kept me up half the night, then helpfully threw up her entire dinner and breakfast onto the shop broadloom. Thank dog it's cheap. I wish we'd insisted they remove all the broadloom at the new shop
I am so digging cleaning up vomit with one wipe, as opposed to major freakin' surgical intervention. That's at new house, you see. ALL hardwood or tile (not brand new, very well doggynail used, but just fine!
I'm ridiculously enjoying being a house-cleaner. The object of cleaning looks cleaner when I'm done. I have a full-sized ironing board, and it floors me to think I just typed that. I even used it for a week or so. I've backed off, as my hands were/are really starting to (stifles whine). AND I discovered the medium setting on a dryer, a new fangled invention indeed.

Ah, well, only way to keep the fingers fit is to use 'em, right? I've been using the heck out of them, and they've been paining me a bit. Okay, a lot. Doctor knows I won't take medications, so she just points out that I have arthritis. As you can maybe imagine, this keeps my hands from frivolous work, such as not-so-creative writing. I'm out of practise, and my guilt level triples when I type. I could be doing work for my company, right now. Or cleaning my pretty new/old rented house. Or doing laundry. Pruning, I have a ton of pruning to do. All finger/hand intensive.

Never mind I've been up since before 6am and worked all day, home to cooking dinner and giving dogs water/food/play, and and and. The hours in the day have shortened again, and that's just part of time and it's vagaries.Whine successfully quashed... Whew!!

The girls have settled in very nicely, really. I have a list of things I love about new house, and realized I had nothing on the bad side of the list. It's all good. Now, there IS some bad, but it has nothing to do with the house. My new little old town is putting in sanitary sewers, and ayup, they're working right out there.. Noisy!! Getting used to road noise has been a challenge. It's constant, through the day, and starts every morning about 5am. At least, that's when I wake up... But I usually wake up early, so it's NBD.
Blaze loathes the soil compactor, giant vibrator that sounds like a giant is walking towards you.
Flip isn't a fan either.

I will tell you this. It's been a secret for a while. I have a perfectly reasonable fear of happiness. I very rarely allow my own self the emotion of happiness, except where my dogs and work are concerned. Every single time I've ever allowed myself a smidgen of (I can't name it, or..) something really bad happens. I mean, it's just SAFER this way! I can still feel okay. I just don't feel (backspace x5) that. Weird, huh?

No wonder I've taken this blog private, off and on, jeesh, I really am that schizo old aunt, now!


Good ol' SarcastaBitch. For the family reading, which is the only reading to be done, SB, (female humanoid with horses) early in our internet horse-related dialogues, thought I sounded like, um, that crazy aunt. Which I AM, but that's besides the point. Somehow!

Funny. SB's doing great, which is great! I hope all my readers that still brave the blog (and especially those that don't brave the blither) keep doing great. It makes me...
You know.


It's a very cautious optimism I'm feeling, so don't worry.
p.s. This was originally written late november of 2013, and edited a bit (much). I'm kicking it into 2014, for obvious reasons.
I am SO glad 2013 is OVER.
I hope this video loads. A reminder for me of what spring is going to sound like, if it EVER returns again..

whew.
Triskie-phobe out!

Crickets and Choirs

For some unknown to me reason, I can't post you-boob links anymore. Gloogle "Crickets-medicine songs by David Carson and the Little Wolf Band" for me. Listen to the sounds. I left a comment, and I'm still spooked, a little bit.

It doesn't sound fake to me, because I have heard much the same "angelic choir" sounds in the spring, summer and fall at the farm, when the frogs and other various musical animal were really shouting out their practiced, ancient choruses.

Weird, eh?

Totally. So, have I proved my alien status yet? Can I go home now?

Where was I?
I think I'll always carry a part of the old worm farm with me, and I hope I carry this part the longest. I'm glad my tape-recorder brain will be able to repeat this. It helps me to breathe. Life off the farm is predictably, and not all un-pleasantly, different. Noisey, busier, more domestic engineering required, to the 12th power, I figure. My hands say WHAT? I flex them mercilessly. They twist  a little harder to retaliate, what a battle our own bodies are!

But it is grotesquely wonderful, how much I appreciate this new address. I never thought a garage would complete me, but there it is. How shallow is that? Just because I allowed the old bathroom to continue to disintegrate, (since good old LL's wouldn't fix the absestos tiled kitchen floor) shouldn't mean that I must scour my new bathroom every day with my eyes, never allowing it to show any signs of anything for very freakin' long. But I do.
BOY, I do like to clean. Which reminds me...

I will blame my non-readers, as I often do, until pings have reached zero on the loser scale. Once I'm sure no-one is out there, I do believe it's safe again. We shall wait and see...

To my eyes widened, my niece has been pinging me. Family doesn't get it. Do another post, they say. Family reading isn't the SAME. I can always say ANYthing to family, whereas here on the netlandz, notsomuch. It's different. I am a writer, I just never wanted anyone to know I can write. It's my secret. Silly?
Totally.
Hey, when Rob Ford and a teenieweenie are the Canadian symbols of "we made it!"?
I know I'm pretty safe here in blog land.
EVERYbody's on faceBooks, or lInkIn or tweeteredTwiters. texting. Glllassing. I mean, c'mon! What is humanity doing out there?

I'm cleaning. Imagining a few crickets.

OH, on that subject, and because no-one reads here, whew, I must put out a consumer alert.

TO ALL CONSUMERS OF BATHROOM TISSUE (BT)
AKA TOILET PAPER (TP).

Please do NOT consume, btw. I mean, consume, as in, you know.
Keep out of reach of children and dogs and you in the middle of the night.

IF the package states a performance level of "confidence"?

It means "prepare to sandpaper your arse."

Just for you newbies out there to BT/TP consuming, I mean.

Reduce, re-use!

OH, better mention an animal, since older dog is rearranging her bed (underneath the table, at my feet, prime RE) for the millionth time. The last beds to be bought for a while, I hope. These dogs love to beat up on their beds. Lift'n throw the pillow around is the latest idea, Blaze has of course picked up on Flip's tradecraft. The more comfortable/durable the bed, the less they seem to "like" it, and the more it needs thrashing. Flip's been toughing out living in a kennel again, her low opinion of the new back yard evident. She paces the perimeter, and carefully stashes poops in places I'd never think of. And disapprovingly watches as I keep the yard clean of poops. She foils me regularly, often using Blaze's distraction of my attention. Sisters are handy for something.
Flip misses her 5 or so acres of free dog poop.
I don't. The old place is defintely not inhabited right now. My heart still aches for the pretty natural ecosystem we were forced to abandon, the birds and squirrels and other creatures that regularly left their presence known. I know the ice storm will have dealt some heavy blows to the trees around both ponds, prime habitat for the woodpeckers that loved our feeders.
But 24 years is just a couple of rings in our bark, so onward and upward, right?

Totally.