Hot Chicks

It's that time of year, honeys...

and they are EVERYWHERE! can't go into a store without seeing them. Hearing them. MUST LOOK!!! no matter how hard I try to stay focused... So I took pictures to remember them by.

and in case Leghorns aren't your type, I have more bodacious beauties:


They run around the bins like little bugs, get tired, and fall into each other sleeping. Mostly they sleep propping their heads up on their beaks, and I even saw one fall asleep beak-first on top of another chick's head. LMAO. Some look up at me intelligently, wondering...

and here's one after my own hippie heart - not real, but I drive by it now and again and it always makes me smile!

IF YOU NEED A DOSE OF CUTE AND FURRY

Yes, my horse wears his heart on his ass. Go figure.

The Grove Girls are OVER

Well, honeys, all things come to their end... a bicker here, unkind action there, and BOOM! one roommate is asked to leave... a month later, I go away for a week to visit my mom in CA and look for work down there, and BAM! the other one moves out. No warning, to me OR the landlord!

It was hard for a long time. Things haven't been going well since November. And both times, before each roommie moved, it was ME, I had said that in order to let peace reign, I would be the one to leave. So here I am, the last Mohican. Wrong tribe, but you get the idea.

A new day dawns.

The Stuff of Life

Here it is, honeys...

I unloaded my truck into a big bag, and brought the bag in the house. For a long time it just sat there, then I had a thought... what's in YOUR wallet?? Ha- well, take a look!


From the center, the purple blob you see there is a velvety zip-up hoodie, surrounded by a peach shirt and another grey hoodie. The large blue blob above it is a plush throw, and to the right of that is another blanket.

Going down you'll see my shopping bags (reduce, re-use, recycle!) and to the left of that, the softest towel ever! brown on one side and blue on the other. Going toward the upper left, you'll see a half-drunk bottle of wine, two six-pack carriers, a Round Table Pizza location flyer, and three pairs of shoes... my faux vinyl boots, my suede yellow walkin' shoes, and my blue jellies!!

With a nod to Dena, for once listing items she had in her trunk, I thought this may say something about me if I could only read the items, like tea leaves in the bottom of the mug...

What do you see? I'd like to know!
Thanks!

Greetings from the Farm!

Oh my goodness, things have been irregular in the household. The whole situation needs an Ex Lax.
Any and all insight and comments would be welcome as I go through yet another change, another trip into the unknown ...

Early February I came back from a much-needed few days away from the Farm to find that one roommate had traded a couple days with me on the schedule - not just without asking, but even without INFORMING that the day after I got back I was expected on duty... and that the other roommate had turned my heat completely off in my room while I was gone. Not a big deal, unless you consider I usually have the heat on about 65 and otherwise it gets to the upper 30's, which not only can damage my CELLO (as all you stringy artisans know these instruments should be kept in a semi-constant environment) but my Army-induced arthritis in my neck and back is HELLA painful at those low temps, and it takes SO LONG to heat a room up 30 degrees with a baseboard heater...

So that was it. I told them peace out and I would find another place. I wasn't getting along with one of them anyway and the other is a manipo-holic, lying, tyrant of a princess. I gave the owner my lowdown, citing irreconcilable differences, and in a twist second only to the ending of REMEMBER ME, the owner told me she would rather kick THEM out and that I should stay. She supposedly gave a 30 day notice the first weekend in February.

Then I thought about being there 24/7 and decided since one of those roommates USED to be a friend, perchance we could solve issues between us (wow! what a concept! working something out instead of running away! but it is SOOO HARD honeys...) and she could stay with me.

I was supposed to go to CA to visit my mom in the care home beginning March, and spend time with my brother, now that he is talking to me again after 3 yrs of having cranial-rectal syndrome (he had his head up his ass). But since one roommie was on vacation and was SUPPOSED to come back, and we hadn't heard from her, I didn't want to leave the other for a week of doing horses herself so I told her I'd put it off til we heard from the other.

Well, it so happens that the vacationing one DID contact the other roommate, who just didn't see fit to inform ME so I could visit my mom(she has a thing about relaying messages, just 'isn't her responsibility'), she just let the other one come back at her leisure after I had J come down to help, since I had been covering the roommie not just on her vacation but the previous 3 weeks when she had hurt her foot and couldn't work on the farm.

...and since the one hadn't talked to the other yet about her needing to leave, and since it was the end of the first week in March, I sat her down and explained the situation to her. It was very amicable despite our previous head-butting (we are actually a lot alike) and both discovered that our roommie and ex-friend x 2 had lied and misled both of us on numerous occasions. Great. I just kicked out THE GOOD ONE. F%#@!!!

The one who is allowed to stay is the lying devious one, and the one who has been hot-headed, but honest and hard working, is out. But to the detriment of the first one, since I put off visiting my mom til next week, when she will have NO help taking care of the horses for 8 days. She doesn't want me to go, but I will not put off my family any longer - especially since she ruined her chance when the 3rd roommie was still around, in her short-sightedness.

ADD to the fact that the orchard people have been spraying in the fields. The first time the owner wanted the horses in for two days, then more sprayers came out - I contacted her and asked if she wanted the horses indoors for this one too but she never got back to me. They were there for two days and I figured if it was dangerous she would have said something. then I began to find dead birds on the property, and began having dizzy spells. over the next week it got so bad I was kneeling in front of the toilet and got so dizzy I would fall to the ground. I contacted her a week later and she said she'd find out what it was from the orchard manager.

ANOTHER week goes by and I'm ready to just pull up stakes, I wasn't even sure I would be able to drive to the store to get more groceries! I called her again to ask what she'd learned and she was upset at me, telling me I should call the guy myself cause she works all day and is busy!

Well that was it! I packed up and headed to WA, and spent a couple days recuperating. My symptoms began to subside and so I asked J to take my shift last weekend. J found the guy's phone number in a drawer at the house so I called him, only to find out they sprayed Lime Sulfur - a completely organic compound (like cyanide gas!), but extremely dangerous and fatal if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed thru skin. He got a dressing down for not warning us before he sprayed, but he is somehow of the opinion it is safe, so that is what the owner thinks too. I'm pretty sure there is something illegal about spraying chemicals without notice to residents. I'm going to look into it. Peeps are depending on me!

Sunday Morning

Sunday, and sunny... well, partly. Trying to get into the 50's and so heater still necessary... the boys are happily munching down the grass in the yard (they are still wearing their coats too!) I'm listening to music by Stars of the Lid... ambient and lazy, honeys... a tummy full of peanut-buttered garlic bread (oops, I think I just lost a couple of you), watching cat sleep... and my emotions are like the ocean: waves of one beautiful feeling after another, created from the thin, forever-calm, continuous line at the horizon. Thought I'd share with a pic that KINDA resembles this feeling, if any two-dimensional image can relay the myriad quantum actions inside us...

It Was a Good Day

Today was one of those normal, albeit punctuated, days, the kind that are nice to have just to laugh and relax a bit and stop WORRYING about every damned thing...

Nevermind that my tax check to the US Treasury bounced, OOPS four days ago... or that I had to borrow money from (here it goes again, hate the term) ex husband to cover the truck payment while I shop for food at the dollar store again til next week's unenjoyment check... ;o)

When I got home from errands, I had barn chores to do, so what else makes the time go faster and more enjoyable than bringing a double dose of the best BLOODY MARY ever... and my cat! Since the berries are coming back from their long winter sleep and apparently 'need' insecticide, we've had to keep all the horses in the stalls for two days. Having gotten the message that the HAY DUDE now wants to spray fertilizer on his fields (and the pastures) tomorrow, we must keep the horses in aNOTHER two days... and they get their feet trimmed Friday so IN AGAIN... that is almost an entire week in the stalls when they are used to traveling across acres every day and they are FRUSTRATED!!

So I let them out in the lower pasture for a couple hours while I scooped the poop and cleaned the barn... only to witness one of the funniest home videos ever. Sans video. Happy was running with a couple other horses around the pasture and came to the gate end, only to find the space running out quickly! So he shored up and tried to pull too short around, ending up slipping onto his side and sliding another couple feet (which would have been embarrassing enough in front of everyone... and in case you didn't know, they DO get embarrassed!) only to bump his beak into the water tub at the last... you KNOW I was laughing my ass off. Which of course meant he hadn't hurt anything but his pride in the process.















It is one thing to describe, it is another to understand how incredibly HILARIOUS it is to watch a horse do something silly, only to be caught ashamed about it, oh honeys I wish I could relay the amount of tears flowing out my eyes from laughing so hard!

The barn eventually became clean enough for the horses to be brought in, and Cat was there at the door surveying each one as I led them through to their awaiting food... she is such a good girl. Finally we walked back up to the house, me stumbling and inebriated, she picking her little pink paws thru the gravel and mud, as the first sparkling stars of twilight appear.

It was a good day.