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December 30, 2007

Looking back at 2007

This has been a very emotional year for our family. My dear mother-in-law, Ann, passed away from lung cancer the day after my birthday. She was a very good mother-in-law. She rarely lectured or scolded, and was mostly very supportive, loving and fun. I miss her a lot. This Christmas was kinda weird without Ann's wisecracking and humor.

Ann left her family with some money. Enough that my sister-in-law, Kathy, was able to get her dream kitchen and great room and more for her house. It is truly beautiful, and I'm terribly jealous of her kitchen appliances!

And we were able to buy this farm. Which is a huge, huge thing in our lives. John can step out the back door and shoot targets from the deck. Our horses live on our property, and John had indulged my love for critters by letting me have guinea fowl, chickens, and goats (the goats are in the future yet).

And I got fired from my job. The company I worked for was doing well, but my own belief is that they felt I was too old to work with the 'company culture'. The majority of employees there are between 22 and 35, and yes, I did stick out like a sore thumb. I am rather angry about how they handled the whole thing - giving me all these false hopes that I could get a position in a different department in the company. But in every one of the 8 interviews I went through, my age was mentioned at least once as a drawback for me moving that department - for example - can I get along with people young enough to be my children.

Yikes.

So now, I am embarking on becoming something different. I will be working for myself. I plan to earn some money by growing herbs and vegetables and flowers here on the farm, and taking them to the farmer's markets, and also by selling my photographs.

If any of you have any connections to Hallmark, American Greetings or to any calendar manufacturing company or any nature magazine, let me know. Also, I'll be selling my photos on Exposure Manager, I'll be making links available in the next week.

So, for me, it's been a rough year, a lot of unhappy things happened, yet good things are happening now.

I suppose I should start writing more on politics, too, seeing as we are going into an election year, and blogging seems to keep my blood pressure down!!!

So, Happy New Year to everyone. May your days and nights be blessed with joy and peace!

Posted by Beth at 1:32 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

The Guineas, they has no brains!

Well, Blanche and Bill refused to come into the Poultry Run of Argghhh! last night. John and I both made valiant attempts to get them off the roof of the pen and the roof of the barn, but we failed.

Now, there is a humongous Great Horned Owl of Argghhh! who lives in the woods by the creek. Said owl has been responsible for at least two (2) Guinea deaths here at Castle Argghhh!

This is why we built a chicken wire roof over the Poultry Run of Argghhh!

Birds need to be under the roof, not over it, once the sun goes down.

Miraculously, both Bill and Blanche survived the danger of the night. They are still sitting out on the chicken wire roof of the Poultry Run of Argghhh!

However, I'm not totally sure it is a miracle they survived. The Exterior Guard (Gunner and Kiki) made several long forays out into the night, keeping the Master of Argghhh and myself awake for a good number of hours, letting them in and out of the house.

Is it possible that Gunner could somehow sense the presence of the Great Horned Owl of Argghhh? Did he bark ferociously to be let out in order to protect our two hapless, and brainless Guineas, Bill and Blanche?

I'm not sure we will ever know, but I believe that Blanche and Bill are grateful to the Dogs of Argghhh! for checking things out during the night.

Myself, I'm miffed at the Guineas and the Exterior Guard for causing me to lose much needed beauty sleep!!!!!

Posted by Beth at 9:14 AM | Comments (6)

December 28, 2007

When I woke up this morning ....

When I woke up this morning,
Snow was on my mind.
Snow was on my mind.
I got icy roads (whoa whoa)
I got big snow drifts (whoa whoa)
I've got birds to feed.....

And I've got horses
down in my field.
Way down in my field.

and I've got work to do, whoa whoa,

I've got guineas, whoa whoa,
I've got snow to plow!!!!!!!!!

When I woke up this morning, Snow was on my mind. Snow was on my mind.

Apologies to Barry McGuire, the author of this song, and The We Five, who turned it into a hit way back in the '60s!

Posted by Beth at 4:27 PM | Comments (2)

December 25, 2007

Some Christmas Photos from Castle Argghhh!

Hal was thrilled with the Christmas Tree. He spent hours looking at the ornaments.

Here is a picture of John trying to convince Gunner that he should wear the Reindeer antlers we bought him.

I'm not sure that Gunner was buying it:

And Barnacle was not happy about having to wait for gifts:

Poor Kiki, who is in the doggy hospital to recuperate from a leg injury, was not amused.

Posted by Beth at 12:38 PM | Comments (4)

December 24, 2007

Caption Contest

I've never tried this before, but I think this picture of Little Girl is just crying out for a good caption.

Posted by Beth at 9:47 PM | Comments (15)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Posted by Beth at 9:17 PM | Comments (5)

December 20, 2007

Guineas checking out the inhabitants of the living room

Heh.

Posted by Beth at 2:37 PM | Comments (3)

December 19, 2007

For the shutterbugs out there

I have been busy taking a ton of photos. I don't have PhotoShop, and I think it is just too pricey, so I went to CNET looking for free photo editing software (Picassa is nice, but cannot add text, etc.).

I found Photoscape. It's great, There are all kinds of things you can do with your photos.

I recommend it highly!

Posted by Beth at 7:27 AM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2007

Petey on Ice

Guess which one is Petey!

Posted by Beth at 12:44 PM

An ice storm photo

I took a lot of photos after the ice storm. Here is one that I took just outside our front door:

Posted by Beth at 7:28 AM | Comments (5)

December 16, 2007

Okay, I'm back now

I love electricity.

It was restored yesterday afternoon, just as John and I were ready to leave the house to go and purchase another generator - John bought one on Friday night, but we needed a second one to be able to do things like keep the chickens from freezing!

We had at least an inch of ice - lost lots of branches of lots of trees, but my hope is that all the trees close to the house will survive. We have hundreds of trees, now that I think about it, but the two Chinese Elms between the house and the barn really lost a lot of limbs. And in the summer, those two elms provide a lot of nice shade.

I also got some great photos in the past week. I'll put the best up tomorrow. I have a love/hate relationship with winter. I hate ice storms that steal away our electricity, but I love ice storms that cause the woods to look like crystal.

Posted by Beth at 5:34 PM | Comments (2)

December 10, 2007

It's always something!

A huge ice storm has been forecast for Castle Argghhh!

In preparation, I am baking and cooking - a cherrypie, a quiche, bacon, another quiche (we have a ton of very fresh eggs!) and I'm digging out the flashlights and candles and making sure the chickens and the horses and the guineas are well fed.

If we lose power - which, according to the news, is likely, all we will have is water - and I think we will have hot water, too, thankfully.

I figure we can warm things up to eat next to the fireplace or just build a campfire outside and cook there.

We have lots of quilts and blankets and it will be a snuggly, snuggly night!

Hopefully, they are wrong, and we will not lose our power, but tis better to be prepared than not!

So off I go, to get all the vittles for the possible darkness ready.

Posted by Beth at 5:02 PM | Comments (6)

December 7, 2007

Pictures

I spent a lot of time outside today. I'm thawing out right now, so while I'm getting warm, I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took today.

I really like this one of Ruby and Rocky - it reminds me a bit of American Gothic - only chicken style!

The guineas are not fond of the snow, so they have gathered under the deck, next to the basement windows. They are complaining loudly about the weather:

I hauled a couple of bales of hay to the horses out in the pasture this morning. Most of the grass is covered with snow, so they need hay. Below are some pictures:

Petey looks like a lolhorse in this pic:

Posted by Beth at 12:22 PM | Comments (5)

December 6, 2007

Snow pictures

By demand of the Armorer of Argghhh! Here are some pictures of the first snow here at Castle Argghhh!

Posted by Beth at 3:06 PM | Comments (4)

Heh.

moar funny pictures

Posted by Beth at 10:25 AM | Comments (1)

SNOW!!!!

We are having our first snowfall of the season. It's really snowing pretty hard. The guineas and chickens all went back into the coop, they don't seem to care much for the snow!

I'll have to go and make sure that the horses can get water in a while and maybe haul some hay out to them, if it snows so much that the grass is covered..

Posted by Beth at 9:33 AM | Comments (3)

December 3, 2007

Monday, Monday

Does anyone remember the Mamas and the Papas? Back when I was in high school, they were very big! Well, Mama Cass was always very big, but my friends and I loved, loved, loved their music.

Mimi Horning, Maryann Pernoud, Laurie Lamberton and Melinda (who's last name I forgot) and I would all sing to the record - in harmony. We were very good! We also sang the Temptations and the Supremes and the Turtles - if any of them read this, I'm sure they remember!

Posted by Beth at 6:16 PM | Comments (4)

December 2, 2007

Satchmo is bunking in the garage for now

So, yesterday morning I went out to check on the chickens and guineas. I was a little concerned because I neither saw or heard Satchmo. I finally found him, soaking wet, roosting on the ladder. He did not look happy. On Friday, Rocky, the other rooster, was picking on him, literally - sorting out the pecking order, I suppose, but Satchmo lost several of his crest feathers.

Rocky had pulled out some blood feathers, too - which means that poor Satchmo had an icky, bloody head.

So I gathered up my wet rooster, Satchmo, and carried him into the house, got a towel and held him and pet him until he warmed up and started drying off. I figured that since it was a rainy day, I'd put him in the garage so he would stay dry - the other birds were not allowing him into the warm part of the chicken coop.

I really thought he would be safe.

John and I left the house to run some Home Depot errands and to do a bit of antiquing (John was very kind to acquiesce to my antiquing jones) and to eventually try the new restaurant in Leavenworth, the Blue Crab Bistro.

Several hours later, we returned home. I pulled up next to the garage and saw that the door from the house to the garage was open, which meant that 7 cats and 2 dogs had access to my one little Bantam Polish rooster, who was supposed to be safe, in the garage.

Damn, I must have done it, because I was the last one out of the house.

I could not look. I went into the house, and checked for rooster remains in each room, then I put the 2 dogs outside and was trying to get up the heart to go to the garage to find what must be my dead bird, when John said that Satchmo was alive - looked a bit frazzled, definitely frightened, but apparently okay.

So, I went in, he let me pick him up and hold him and pet him and talk to him. He started making little rooster sounds back. I brought him some food and water, and he ate and drank, so I figured he would be fine.

This morning, he was feeling good enough to start crowing at the absolute break of dawn.

Posted by Beth at 7:21 AM | Comments (6)