Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Sonny aka Sunoco
Look at the last picture on my last post. See that cute, fluffy, white & black little kitten on the right named Sonny? Remember how I said he loves to play in the junk? The other day he fell in a bucket of motor oil!! Weldon and I must have spent close to an hour trying to clean him up: GoJo, Joy, Palmolive. We didn't have any Dawn! (I wonder what they used at the Valdez oil spill?) When we got him as clean as we could, we sprinkled him with baby powder and that fluffed up his fur a bit. I held him till he stopped shivering and then took him back to his playmates. He was so embarrassed! He wouldn't eat with the others and he just sat by himself on a haybale. The poor thing. He appears to be doing fine now - eating and playing, and we hope someday his lovely white fur will be white again. We trust he won't carry emotional scars :-)


Thursday, July 13, 2006

Time for some MEWS!
It doesn't matter how busy we are, chore time always includes kitty time. Below, you will see Dagwood and Blondie. Dagwood has been sickly (a sad but natural result of having a "herd" of cats), but he seems to be getting better. This hot weather is hard on the little tykes.


The older cats don't have names, but since I came to the farm (9/25/04), I can't resist naming the kittens. I had never been around cats or kittens to any great degree, but watching them has become a highlight of my life on the farm. When they get hurt or killed, or get sick or die, I vow to remain detached and never let them into my heart again. Yeah, right .... To the left are mama Spitz and her baby Licorice. I'll write more about Licorice another time. She's a hilarious favorite!





On the right you will see our junk yard kitties: Sanford and Sonny. Instead of having her babies in one of the barns, their momma, Kit Carson, had them down the road apiece in a big pile of junk :-) Even after moving into the hay barn with most of the other little ones, Sanford and Sonny love to play in any junk they can find.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Let the Pickles Begin!
I told you I would have to start making pickles :-) Edith prepared the jar on the left yesterday and I did the jar on the right this morning. It's not a difficult process, but it takes 16 or 17 days before they are ready to be canned. If I do another gallon or 2, I might have to find some more counter space. And now, let us muse for a moment on pickles ....

Thursday, July 06, 2006

A MOTHER'S LOVE
This morning, as we headed to the milk barn in the pouring rain, I noticed my mother-in-law picking cucumbers, a plastic grocery bag over her head. Now, there's a gardener! and a mother who loves her son! I say that because, of the 30 to 40 quarts of pickles she makes each year, fully a third of them are for my husband. Not counting breakfast, Weldon doesn't think it's a real meal without his mother's sweet pickles. This year she will teach me to make them. The other day she said, "It sure would be easier to buy pickles in the store." My response: "You just figured that out now???"