Thursday, March 24, 2011

Please, please, tell me..

Please tell me how my Golden Retriever managed to remove a pan of simmering chicken (I was boiling a carcass to get the meat off the bones) from the stove (it was on the BACK burner, for the love of all things tasty!).  He then managed to eat said chicken carcass, bones and all, broth and all, every little bit, and then he left the pan, licked clean, on my bedroom floor.

Where he always discards the pans once he's finished with them.

An entire chicken carcass, people!  That was in simmering water!!

It's a wonder that dog hasn't died.

Yesterday, Lamp, Britney and I took a trip to pick up his ADHD prescription.  When we were on our way back home, Saige called, panicked.  She'd heard the front door open, and heard two guys talking downstairs.  The dogs were going insane.  She called us, and was going to call the cops, but then she heard the door open again and whoever it was in the house took off.  Speeding, I made it home in record time.  You see, our door knob/lock had broken, and in the interim, Saige had replaced the old knob with one we had already.  The one we had, though, was meant for bedrooms or other inside doors, NOT front doors.  Saige was fine, and nothing was stolen or disturbed, which actually bothered me more than if someone stole something.  Because there was no robbery, I have to wonder WHY someone was in my house, and to me, it points to "stalker."  I had Saige out of this house to keep her safe, and it felt like I'd screwed that up yesterday afternoon.

Thank goodness, though, she was fine.

Lampshade and Britney are moving in, for now, anyway.  We feel pretty safe with him here.  Well, he's a deterrent, anyway, simply because he's male.  I'd actually put money on his wife to whomp up on some booty, rather than on him.  He finds that very offensive, but it's true. I wouldn't want to come up against his wife in a dark alley!  (Which is actually kind of funny because she's no bigger than a wisp, but there's something in her eyes--a flash, a spark, a murderous gleam?--that makes me think, "I would not want to fight her.")  They've been doing a lot of cleaning, and it actually makes me smile as I listen to Britney nag guide Lampshade as he cleans.  They've done more work in the past few days, including yard work, than Mr. Clean did the entire time he stayed here.

Britney could beat you up with one hand tied behind her back!  Lampshade tries to hide behind his ball cap.
Anyway, I flew home, scooped up Saige, and we ran out to the Mart of the Wal to purchase new locks and door knobs.  We needed a bedroom one, too.  I picked up a couple bags of potting soil, a raspberry shrub/bush on sale for 5 bucks, and a few seeds to round out my collection of seeds that I want to plant and hope grow this spring/summer.  Saige wanted some flower seeds, and Lamp, as he usually does, wanted corn.  We never have much luck with corn, but by gosh, that's what Lampshade wants to plant!  He's been like that since he was a little bitty guy.  Corn.  I don't even know if he really likes corn all that much, come to think of it!  I think, if it grows, that it must be fun for him to see.  Corn gets tall and impressive, if you're lucky. Something like lettuce must not have the same appeal.

Note the snow shovel on the porch with the gardening implements.  Welcome to central Illinois weather!

I hope that my tomatoes grow this year.  I'm running short on seeds that I've saved.  The Abraham Lincoln heirloom seeds that I have are ones from the original plants my Mom got me, years ago, and this is one of my favorite tomatoes.  Heirloom tomatoes have such great flavor.  They are a billion times better than the hot house tomatoes you get in the stores.  I've written about it before, but one of my favorite salads is to take some homegrown tomatoes, dice them up in a bowl with a splash of olive oil and some crushed, homegrown basil.  It tastes like summer, and is so simple and flavorful.  I love it.  Last year I got basil to grow, but not tomatoes.  I even tried to use one of those upside down tomato planter things, and it did NOT work.  There wasn't enough room, I guess, for strong root systems.  I had lots of stems and leaves, but no blossoms.  No blossoms, no tomatoes.

Some boughten seed starting pots, as well as some I'm recycling from toilet paper and paper towel rolls.

It was so nice yesterday, and has been so nice for the past few days, that we were excited about planting stuff.  SPRING HAS SPRUNG!  Our hearts were soaring with the pleasure of winter's passing.

Then, this morning, it was below freezing.  Sigh. Tomorrow we have a chance of snow.  Mother Nature can be a cruel, hateful tease.  Actually, the temperature started to drop drastically even before this morning.  After we ran to the Wal of Marts, Saige and I drove to the nearby grocery store to get the 3 or 4 objects that I forgot to buy while at the giant establishment, and when we came out, it was gray and windy and very chilly.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm so tired of winter, I wouldn't mind the cooler weather.  During the late spring and summer months, it is too hot to bake, and too hot to cook things like roasts or stews or soups.  Today I'm going to try a soup made with chorizo, white beans, and kale.  I saw the recipe for it years ago, and it looked delicious.  I found a recipe online that seems similar to what I had before, and I'll adapt it to what I have on hand and what I like.   I will let you guys know how it turns out, because I can feel your excitement from here.

Teo is still alive, though he's more like a skeleton than the proud, beautiful, big kitty he was in the past.  He has an amazingly good appetite, surprisingly enough, and of course, that's probably what's keeping him alive.  The antibiotics and pain medications he has are doing absolutely not good.  I hate to sound morbid, but I wish he'd just die.  Now he's in too much pain to move him to the vet's office to have him put to sleep.  It hurts him when I wipe his bottom after he has a bowel movement, poor guy.  But I do wish he'd simply fall asleep and never wake up again.

Well, I'm going to call this enough for now.  Go in peace, be warm and filled!

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