Halloween 2012

 One of the new tombstones. Sandy blew that one away and is lost!

 Our very own Coraline!

 Embraced my inner Flo!

A Clockwork Progressive!

You did what now?

On a Sunday afternoon in late August, I scrolled through my Facebook and came upon a friend asking for help. This is not uncommon, but this time, I made a crazy decision to say "Yes."  And I opened Pandora's box that will hopefully shut before Halloween.

Now mind you, school was starting, birthdays and weddings filled our September. And our two dogs and our two cats weren't going to be to happy about it, but I said YES anyway. The following Thursday, she came.

Very unhappy preggers and her pool.

An extremely, extremely pregnant Hound-Pointer mix pulled from a shelter that was going to put her, and all of her puppies down.  She had already been picked to go to STAF a month prior, but they didn't know/couldn't tell she was pregnant at the time. But her time was coming up and the shelter she was at wasn't going to let her have her puppies, and the no-kill prefers not to have puppies born at the shelter and for disease that sometimes can be brought in. Just all around safer to have her puppies in a home.  Hence, I said yes.

We had an interesting time so far. She hates stairs, so when we got her out of my basement (where I had grand plans for her and her pups to stay during their time here), she took over our youngest daughters room...and back into my bedroom she came. :(  She could barely move, but when she did Her Royal Girthness would knock anything out of her way.

A week goes by, and we had to take her to the emergency vet when I noticed things going on that didn't seem right. Low and behold they counted 13 puppy skulls....13!!!
We came home avoiding an emergency c-section, and waited another 24 hours. In the meantime I sipped a beer and sat in a calm state of panic. 13!!! The small baby pool was not going to work. So Chris, being the ever so compliant husband, built a welping box in the dark of night, power saws and everything, just late enough to wake all the kids on the street.

The next morning, just as we are getting ready to walk out the door to school, the first one came out.  By 6:30 p.m. we had 10 beautiful puppies. 5 boys, 5 girls.  Two were completely stillborn (hence the yucky stuff that had come out the days prior).

Buffy, Angel, Faith, Xander, Anya, Willow, Oz, Giles, Cordelia and Spike.

They are 5 weeks old now. Playing, biting, barking, and driving me crazy. But they are tons of fun. But I'm tired. Oh so tired.

All the pups will go to the no-kill shelter to be adopted out in the next three or four weeks.  I'm doing my best to not fall in love with one, since there is a promise of a Bernese in my future....or a Cairn Terrier.  Or another Golden....who knows.

After giving birth. She's put on weight since then!

Pumpkins...In JULY!!!!

Our volunteer pumpkin vines have produced 10 pumpkins this year!!! Now, unfortunately due to lack of rain, 100 degree weather and some nasty little vine borers we had to cut them out before they destroyed the pumpkins themselves. So they are out on the front porch until their stems harden and then they will live out til mid-September in our dry, dark, cold basement.

I do have plans to plant one more vine of bigger pumpkins, but the rest of the garden will be for broccoli, herbs, carrots and radishes for some tasty fall stews!  We did get a small (five) zuccini crop, and they were given to friends and family with our last being served for dinner this week!

I have managed to avoid going to Michael's to look at their Halloween decor so far this year, but today during a nasty thunderstorm at the grocery, I slowly walked down the magazine aisles looking for my orange...I imagine next week or two the Halloween magazines will be coming out. Grandin Road has only eight more days until their 2012 merchandise is out on their website.  Alas, I can wait. Maybe.

And we say goodbye.

My father didn't really lose his battle on Monday, July 2nd, 2012, he ended a really good run.  He died in his home, very peacefully, and sneakily during the hours when his daughters weren't around.

The past two weeks having been surprising to me. I've spent hours talking, bathing, laughing, crying some, with my Dad and his family. I spent time with his sisters and got to know them both a little better. I've spent time with my step-sister talking about when we were kids and how much trouble we used to get into with and without Dad around. All in all it has been very, very strange. I never thought I would dive in to be around in his final days, but he was my Dad. Despite years of self-preservation to keep from getting hurt or letting out the anger I've had all these years, I was there in the end letting things roll off my shoulders. I can't say I've forgotten, but I have at least forgiven him.

104 Days of Summer Vacation

Winter never came. Ever. It got cold for a bit after a week of 80's in March which gave me a jump on getting the garden and yard ready for the summer. We even had three pumpkin plants come up on their own, survive and are thriving only to once again take over the entire garden. I did manage to plant some zucchini, lettuce which is all gone, and red onions. There are strawberry plants underneath the pumpkins, and as long as they stay green, they'll be good to go next year.


This year, we managed to remember our 5 year wedding anniversary (we've only forgotten once or twice so far) and for this, we returned to Carolina Beach where we were married among friends. This time, it was just us and the girls, and their favorite uncle in the world.  But our first family vacation together to start summer off right.  Needless to say, it's always been easy to travel with just one kid...two is a whole new ball game. We survived there and back and had a wonderful time.

This summer we have plans, hopefully because it is cut so short. School starts in mid-August (1st grade!) which I can't quite grasp. Why can't school run from after Labor Day til Memorial Day? Or better yet, lets go year round since most kids DON'T have to work on the family farm anymore! Hell, I even have homework and the supply list before school let out. Craziness. Phineas does not approve.

We've had no big changes in the house, or with my father's condition other than massive decline. We are loosing some of our prankster neighbors. I plan to re-paint many of the rooms in our house since it seems we will be here for a few more years.  Then I start thinking about Halloween...but that's another post that hopefully I'll get to this coming week!

Winter, Where For Art Thou?

I have issues with Good Ole' Pawsktawny Phil. He told us six more weeks of winter. Well, I still haven't seen winter. The most snowflakes I've seen this year are hanging in our kitchen window that Fred spent hours on making in November.  We've had two inches of snow and very mild winter. It even made Christmas feel 'blah' because it was barely cold enough for scarves and gloves. I want winter, instead right now, I have orange barrels, giant concrete sewer drains, and bulldozers on our street...I think even they are confused. Don't you know the first signs of that color orange come in spring??


Our poor little street is finally being fixed after 50 years of sending rubber ducks from one end to the other during a light rain. Meanwhile constant beeping of trucks, roaring of bobcats and swearing of construction men is our new normal. 


In the pumpkin den though, we have been working on little projects here and there. Squish is busy talking and waddling around playing chase with her big sister. I've been dreaming of demolishing our basement, but I still need to do so much more to the backyard (and soon the front when construction is done) to prepare for gardening season and no money to do it on!


I did have an interesting experiment. My neighbor never carved two of their giant pumpkins (one orange, one white) so instead of him throwing them in the trash, I rescued them and put them in the backyard in an unused spot. It wasn't until Mid-January that they finally started rotting and the racoons ate the meat and some the the seeds. I'm hoping that just like last year, we get a few plants started on their own.  I would love for the entire back to fill with pumpkin vines and have my veggie garden free of pumpkins! I'm also going to try pumpkins in the front possibly right at the edge of the street once I see the new curbs! It will all be new dirt and torn up so why not?


So until then, I have a few projects I'm starting and hopefully we'll get a Valentine's Blizzard...I'll be ready for Spring by St. Patty's.

Paybacks are a real.....

There is a small prank war on our street that started this summer. The initial victims have yet to participate in the wars, so we are all in for it. Meanwhile, I got mine this weekend.  But lets back up a bit and go through the pranks.
          1. Neighbors A, B, and C Toilet papered the inside and paper toweled the neighbors (D)  car.  Now, I was not apart of this AT ALL. I was in bed on a Friday night while my husband and the neighbors were down the street hanging out. The best part is, Chris did not want the paper towels to stick should a pop up storm come along and ruin the paint, so he removed it.  Lesson learned: Neighbor D needs to make sure her doors are locked when she parks on the street.  And Neighbor D's husband COMPLETELY watched them do it, laughed and went to bed to let her find it in the morning.
           2. Neighbor A went out of town and left me Neighbor B to watch the dogs for the weekend. Come Sunday night, multiple texts from Neighbor A asking how boring our street was without them, and a couple glasses of wine, Neighbor B and C procured 2000 post-it notes and a pack of Sharpie markers. Needless to say, Neighbor A came home to 2000 post-it notes labeling EVERYTHING in their home.  Yes, it was magnificent.

          3. Neighbor B had a birthday. Neighbor A had a giant roll of caution tape.  Needless to say, the house resembled the worst crime scene ever. Yep, Neighbor A and C wrapped everything including the car parked on the street to the garbage can, to the street sign in caution tape. When they pulled into the driveway at midnight it pulled over their garbage cans, the doors had to be cut open, even the mailbox fell victim.

         4. So what was to come to me, Neighbor C. Well, put up a graveyard, and apparently, Christmas comes early.

                                         A Six Foot Santa Claus in the middle of the graveyard.
                                                       They tainted my Halloween.

Fred took off with my camera today...

Squirrel!

An evening last week while we were putting up the graveyard and playing with the decorations, the wind was pretty brisk, and a squirrel nest fell out of our neighbors tree. As we looked slowly to see if anyone was in there, sure enough, there was. As we moved it, the Mama ran out, and we pulled three baby squirrels out of the nest. One ran off, only to take up residence in my husbands truck tire, the second was stunned so he/she went into the box, and the third was in BAD shape, blood and obvious broken legs. Unfortunately, she had to be put down at our local vet. But our second little stunned one, took up residence, with me for well into the evening. 

As night fell, it took up riding around on my shoulder and climbing my head and as some of the outdoor cats lost interest in my little friend, she/he went into a very thick boxwood up close to a house for the evening. As much as I would have loved to train it to 'live' or 'visit' on my porch, I had no business keeping a squirrel. I have seen the Mama building a new nest in a tree across the street, and two little squirrels hopping about and now climbing the tree themselves.

And here she is....

We have one pumpkin that was a success. She isn't very big, but she's whole and has no imperfections!

And then just the other day, we have a second pumpkin who is only baseball size now, but growing quick. It's on my last vine that I thought was dead.  So we'll see how fast she can grow by Halloween!