Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Ridiculous Dinner

The past month has been so crazy thanks to moving and related miscellaneous. Dan and I have eaten way too much fast food. I mean, when we are out and about at night, having to make an hour and half round trip to the old house for whatever reason, we've gone for a quick dinner rather than a good one. But as time passes and we get stuff done, we've been able to eat more at home than on the road, something for which we are both thankful.

A lot of my cooking lately has been trying to get rid of some older stuff in the freezer. Partially to cycle through stuff but also because Dan and I are splitting a cow with my parents. Yes. A whole cow. We need the freezer room. Tonight, for example, I roasted a couple of wild pig legs. And since it was easier to eat it off the bone than carve the thing, this was what our plates looked like.

Wild Pig Leg

I honestly didn't know how it would turn out, but it was quite tasty. (I rubbed the pork with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and cayenne then put it on a bed of onion, carrot and potatoes with a little beef broth and cooked it at 325°F until it was done.) But mostly I decided to share because... it's a pork leg. On a plate. It makes me laugh.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Slowly but Surely

We are slowly making progress on house things. After weeks of problems, we finally have new locks installed. That's lovely. All the painting is done in the old house and we've had it cleaned and the carpet repair is scheduled for the end of the week. A yard sale and digging up some irises and we should be all set to unload the thing!

In other news, Olive now spends her days out in general pop. She's finished her antibiotic cycle and her stomach is looking fantastic and unlumpy. She still hasn't won over any kitties but at least their displeasure isn't as strong. It's only a matter of time - after all, how can you say no to this face?

Olive

In all honesty, though, Olive is kind of a mess. She's only about a year old so she still has quite a bit of kitten in her. Bitty was the last kitten we've had in the house and she's turning nine this year, so it's been a while. Dude, kittens get into everything. She plays with anything and everything, from catnip toys to coaxial cables to the wall. She hasn't fully figured out the lap thing, yet. The few times she's tried to cuddle, she usually ends up draped over both me and the armrest (sometimes with little feet hanging over) and can only sit still for a purr-filled minute or two. Once she's more cat than kitten, though, I think she'll be quite the cuddler.

I'm not fully ready to leave her out unsupervised or at night, but maybe next week. I'd like to see her interact with one kitty without any hissing first. My money is on Sam. We shall see!

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Poor Olive

I don't think Olive knows what to do with a house full of kitties that don't want to play with her. She's probably about a year old so still rather kitten-playful but all of our kitties are closer to the geriatric side of things. But Olive just wants to play! She's batted at a couple kitties in an invitation to romp and looks shocked and sad when the response is a hiss. Just now, she loped towards Bitty, ready for some rough and tumble playing. Bitty's hiss made Olive leap backwards and fall on her rear. She wasn't anticipating that kind of response! (Though I'm very glad she accepts it! She does seem to be a timid little girl.) I suppose it's a good thing we have a lot of toys for her to play with.

Interestingly enough, out of all the kitties Sam seems the most interested in her playful behavior. They haven't interacted more than a few nose touches (and one Sam hiss) but he's rushed after her with ears pricked in interest on more than one occasion as she barreled through the living room in play mode.

Who knows? Maybe Sam will end up with a friend. I'll just be happy if no one tries to eat her.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Not a Good Storage Spot

Our new mower came with a keychain.

Kids & Mowers

Dan's response: Oh no! I left our kids under the mower!

What Is That Smell?

Olive has graduated to supervised visits outside of her room! For the past two days she's had short trips out but today she's been out and about for about half of the day.

She's fairly unconcerned with the other kitties. She sometimes wants to sniff them and I think she tried to play with Chloe once (who was having none of that), but for the most part, she doesn't really pay them any mind. Most of the other kitties don't like her getting too close (then they like to hiss at her) but otherwise aren't all that interested anymore. Except for Bitty. Bitty has followed Olive around at least three times today alone just to chatter and hiss at her. It's actually pretty funny because Bitty is so tiny and yet so earnest. You can tell that this reaction greatly concerns Olive.

Nom

Or maybe not. Yes, most of her time outside of her room is focused on either following me around, lounging on the rug or viciously attacking something fuzzy or catnip filled.

Vicious

Health-wise, she seems to be doing really well. Her stomach is still a little swollen and warm but it now qualifies as merely lumpy instead of shelf-like. She can even bend at her waist now, which is very helpful for bunny-kicking catnip sharks.

Olive

Once she finishes her antibiotic cycle, I'll take her to the normal vet to get all of her shots. (They couldn't be done before because she had a fever.) Speaking of antibiotics, I hope that is the reason for her current stench. It's not constant (thank goodness or she'd smoke us out) but she does have some pretty bad gas. I mean oh-dear-lord-save-us bad. I'm-tempted-to-air-out-the-house-in-100°-heat bad. It's bad. And yet, it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Tuckered Out

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Celebrate!

Woo hoo! Thanks to several hours of work (mostly on Dan's part; I was moral support), our garage now fits both cars! Before tonight, my car was the only one with a sheltered home.

Of course, after tomorrow Dan's car will likely be outside again because we are getting out new mower delivered. (Yes, we are still hemorrhaging money. Hopefully this is the last of it.) Then once we sell our chest freezer, there should be room for both cars, the mower, the stand up freezer, the beer fridge and the fermentation fridge. Oh yeah, and two shelves, a push mower, two cabinets and a workbench. And a partridge in a pear tree.

Friday, August 9, 2013

I Nearly Forgot!

I had forgotten that I had a few pictures still on my camera SD card. Without further ado, I give you homeless Dan:

Bearded Dan

He is now clean-shaven (since he had to go back to work Monday) and I've almost gotten used to it - he looks so young without the beard!

In other news, the new neighborhood comes with lots of nature. Apparently there is a family of foxes around, two families of rabbits, three roadrunners and even a bobcat. We've seen the roadrunners in the yard (lots of times) and pictorial evidence of the bobcat (from a different part of the neighborhood) but the other beasties remain elusive. There are smaller, less exotic things that we've run into, though. Caterpillars (a ball of which managed to clog the spout of my watering pot - twice), hornets (or wasps - honestly, I get them confused but Dan's gotten stung on the foot and we've killed a few of them inside the house), really huge spiders and little lizards!

A New Neighbor

And speaking of wild beasties, Dan and I have added another one to the inside herd. Say hello to Olive.

Olive

The swollen, lumpy belly is not actually lactation-related as it may look. It's mastitis - inflamed (and slightly infected) mammary glands. When we found her, she was skinnier than she is now (as she's now had almost a full week of regular meals), infested with worms and her stomach was harder and even more swollen. As part of treatment, she's been dewormed, spayed and is on both pain killers and a two week cycle of antibiotics. Hopefully the stomach will be back to normal in another week or two. About which time we will see how she does interacting with the other kitties.

Yes, we are now back to seven. But it's all good - the new house is so much bigger, the concentration of kitties is much lower. We need to increase our numbers just so we can raise our chances of finding a kitty when we need one.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

New House Happenings

Moving is such a beating. Sadly, it's a slow, drawn out beating. Dan and I have a super-long to-do list going (well, combo to do and to buy lists) and it seems like we mark one thing off just to put two in its place. Install the faucet? Check. Oh, but now it is leaking. Put on the list: go to the store, get an o-ring. Reinstall faucet.

Sigh.

On the plus side, we are totally on the downhill portion of the adventure. Super-colorful bruises are starting to fade (though magenta is still easily visible on my knee at least but the majority of our bruises are now green), 98% of the boxes are unpacked (and most of the unpacked things have new homes) and the kitchen is officially cook-able (which is fantastic because we have had way too many meals out lately. We are both sick of it.)

Unfortunately, we still have a fair number of things at the old house to deal with (a few things are still there (Christmas decorations, Dan's brewing stuff), we need to do some cosmetic touch ups and give it a thorough cleaning) as well as a few things at the new house (we need to find a dresser, install the stove hood and put together a bookshelf we got at Ikea). But most of these remaining bits will be further stretched out as Dan's time off of work ends day after tomorrow. Also, normal life things must resume. Like laundry and mowing.

Speaking of mowing...

Sock Line

That right there is Dan, post-mowing the yard. Can you tell why I listed both laundry and mowing together? The back yarn in particular is somewhat patchy and very dusty.

Also, we have almost an acre now yet poor Dan? Push mower. Happily, one of our neighbors came over to help mow. In fact, Dan said the neighbor got all of the front yard save some edging work and the least dusty part of the back yard. Did I mention that the neighbor has a commercial zero turn mower? Dan totally has mower envy. We do plan on getting a riding mower but I can tell you right now it won't be a commercial one. Though depending on how long Dan can wait to get a mower (i.e. until we sell our house) he might be able to get a zero turn model.

Anyway, I still have yet to send out my new address to folks, something I had hoped to get to earlier in the week. But moving is completely beating us up. For example, I'm not entirely sure what I've written in this post. But I've felt guilty about being unable to respond to emails and send an address update so this is my offering until life has less box-related insanity.