Couch finds second life at Grassroots Festival

Anyone recognize this?



I'll try and find a photo of it when it was at my place.

Grassroots volunteers were looking for furniture to give a new life to old furniture in a cool way for their musician's lounge. They came and rescued the poor orange couch from my barn. I don't know how much furniture they ended up with, and what the whole lounge looked like, but the couch sure came out great.

I hope it goes home with someone or they use it again next year.

They are looking for similar (ornate wood frame) furniture that needs a second life. If you have any in the Finger Lakes region, let me know and I'll send Stephanie's email address.

Thanks for sending the photo, Stephanie. And I hope everyone who went had a great time at Grassroots.

Blueberries

I'm not a big fan of blueberries from the store--even so-called 'fresh' ones. It seems like they are always bruised and warm, not to mention expensive. Today I was coming back from Ithaca with a load of cat litter. It has been raining all weekend and I've gotten very little done in the line of house projects. At the "BLUEBERRIES" sign I paused and turned right. I'd been meaning to check this place out for years and today seemed like a good day.

I drove up the hill. And up. And UP. AND UP! I finally found the place, and I was the only one there. The owners came out on their deck and when they heard I only wanted a pint, waved me toward the bushes. "Just go anywhere." I guess if I'd been after gallons they would have sent me to where the most berries were ripe.

Oh, it was beautiful. Rows and rows of blueberries about 1/4 ripe. It was raining just a little bit, the paths were all mowed, and the blueberries just rolled off into my hands. I only had five bucks on me and didn't know how much they were, so I only got about a pint and a half. I came back out to my car, tapped my horn, and the owner came out to weigh my berries. He was only charging $1.85 a pound, and I had less than a pound. I gave him two bucks and told him to keep the change.

If anyone wants lots of blueberries, I'll be happy to help you pick on some cool and cloudy day. I forgot to put a hat on (yes, there were a few deerflies) but picking would go fast.

When I left, I discovered that if I continued to follow the road, it dropped me right at the end of my own road, and it was only three miles home.

I'll be going back.

Dog days of summer

Literally. Summer and Jack have come to stay for the weekend. They are easy-care dogs (Jack slurps up his four pills along with his dry food). I can't walk three dogs at one time, and Molly has been surprisingly patient about being left clipped on the porch. No barking, no whining.



It's a lousy weekend to have dogs. Hot, humid, rainy. Luckily there have been enough pauses between the showers to walk them, although we had to wait quite awhile yesterday evening. They are good dogs, and it's almost no bother at all to have them here.

Bear doesn't think too much of my impromptu porch gate, made out of a screen door laid on its side. Molly did a classic header right into the screen (bonk!) when I let her run around in the side lawn unclipped and then called her back over. Even though she'd been on the other side of it all day, I guess it didn't occur to her that it was also there when she came back up the steps at full tilt.

That's gotta hurt. But it's hard not to laugh. Don't worry Molly, even humans do it.



Speaking of Bear, he went in for his post-fight-with-Skinny Bear FeLV/FIV test, and (happy days!) was negative. So he got his first FELV vaccination and I'll take him back each month for a retest. I'm sure my vet thinks it's overkill, but I can't imagine what it would be like to wait six months, discover he's positive then, and wonder at what point he started shedding the virus in my house among my other cats. Nope--I'd rather pay $40 a month now with one cat, then drag five of them in later on.

I'm not going to even try to plan what I would do if he tested positive down the line. I guess he'd live in the Great Room or the downstairs of the barn. But at this point it's just not worth wasting brain cells on a future that may not happen.



I watched The Bucket List last night. I should watch more movies. They jerk my brain out of my day-to-day rut. Fiction quite often has good messages. I tend to get down on "media" because TV is so incredibly bad, in general. I don't mind fiction when it is clearly fiction. I do mind contrived "reality" that encourages people to compromise reality in search of a "better story." So when I pop in a movie and get to watch something like The Bucket List that is entirely contrived (you aren't being asked to believe it happened) but has good messages (friendship, discovering yourself and the world, having to go away to learn your greatest gifts are often home), it's sort of a relief. A little mini vacation right in the living room.

I have books to read (thank you Kathy, if you ever do get a chance to read this) but I haven't cracked the open yet. I really should.

On that note, it's Sunday morning and I have lots to do. The birds are impatient for their feeders, and Owlie is yowling his head off in the barn (so glad I have no neighbors!) asking to be released from his quite-spacious run into the nonetheless-much-larger cage room.

He'll have to wait until the kittens romp, first, and I go to Ithaca for cat litter. Oh, poor Owlie!

Reunions, friends, fires

I am totally tuckered out after a trip back to Norwich for my 30th high school reunion. Sometimes I wonder how the majority of kids survive high school. Now, with most of us safely on the far side of 45 and closing in on 50, so much of the high school angst is gone. Facebook had brought many of us up to date, so it wasn't like walking into a room full of strangers. And then I had a slumber-party-catch-up with Lisa and Sandie, wine glasses in our hands, until 2:00 am. It wasn't nearly long enough, but I do get through DC at least once a year and must make an effort to stop in and see them.

Before the dinner I stopped in for a short visit with Mom, and this morning before I left I picked up my sister Kathy and we had breakfast. I made it to Ithaca around 3:00, fed the Fast Food and South Hill ferals, and then came home and jumped on the lawn tractor. Then it was up to the cat facility to clean and play, and then off to the kennel to get Molly. The house is a wreck and it's been "clean as you go" tonight, grabbing the vacuum cleaner and scooping up loose items to stuff them back where they belong. I rely on my weekends to get things in order for the upcoming week, and that didn't happen!

We have rain coming in again, just as the wood had finally dried out in my firepit, so I treated myself to a fire, bear or no bear. I don't want winter to roll around and feel regretful that I never enjoyed the summer. I started blogging out there, but Molly kept making me nervous by going on the alert, so I finally blew out the torches and left the fire to burn out (yes, dear family, I am keeping an eye on it and will water it out before bedtime)





I think I really need to revisit high school, and my high school friendships. Dig through the yearbook. I was out of touch with everyone in the 90s, and while they were hashing out our high school years, I put them entirely on "hold"---basically I just stuck them in a memory box where I expected them to stay. Therefore I learned far less from high school and those friends than I might have. I guess it's never too late to catch up.

Holiday are good for...things you should have done months ago

I have today (the Monday following the 4th of July) off. There are of course the tasks that can't be put off - taking care of the cats, mowing the lawn, doing some laundry.

Then there are the tasks I've been putting off for months. July 4 is the Summer Wake-Up Call date. It's all downhill to winter from here. Finishing the paint on the house, doing remedial work on the roof and my unused chimney are summer "to-do-list" items that had better be attended to now, or they won't be attended to at all.

Worse yet are the tasks you actually spent money on months ago because you perceived them as urgent, and then never completed.

On this list I can include the auto-powered air compressor (to fill my truck tires, bike tires, wheelbarrow tire, and two-wheeled cart tires). I purchased this many moons ago because it was VITAL that I have these things to complete my summer tasks.

I never even took it out of the box.

Today I wanted to wheel some wood in my wheelbarrow but the tire was too soft. I wanted to move some pallets out from the barn to the house to start work on the cat enclosure, but the two-wheel cart tires were soft. And I caught sight of my somewhat-squishy silhouette in the mirror today and resolved to get on my bike but...you guessed it.

I dug the brand-new compressor out of my blue truck today, all set to finally fire things up.

Of course, the battery needed to be charged first. 16 hours.

Sigh. The new battery charger is now plugged into the great room outlet, charging, and all my tasks requiring the wheelbarrow, cart, and bike will remain undone another day.

My second purchase was a pair of jackposts for the house and barn, since both are sagging. Bear has pushed the still-boxed post--intended for the house--off the porch rail at least three times. I fish it out of the grass and hoist it back up on the porch rail...but don't install it. The spidery basement may be the cause of my avoidance.

I've tripped over the post in the barn countless times. My excuse there is that I don't want to scare the barn swallow babies out of their nest too soon.

They left their nest today, so that excuse is gone.

Fall is coming, people! What's on your list that you've been putting off?

The rebirth of a happy cat

As I've mentioned before, since Norma, Nellie's buddy, passed on, Nellie has been including herself in the household instead of remaining upstairs glued to Norma's side. She made Norma's lonely scared-kitty life much better, but it's quite nice to see Nellie get to live a normal pet-kitty life now.

She's a tubby cat (as she wanders over right now with her tail in the air). While she does wrestle with her brother, with everyone else she is affectionate and remains a great hot-water bottle for any cat who wants someone to cuddle up to. Every encounter with another cat usually begins with her walking over and planting a good solid lick on their forehead. In the rare situation where this results in a swat, she just gives them an offended look and stumps off to find someone who will appreciate her ministrations.

She also wants to squeeze into bed with me at night, but she manages to do this while I'm asleep and don't notice, and at least it doesn't result in kitty tiffs, as it did between Ivan and Ditzy.

It's good to see her comfortable.

Visiting an old friend....

...my dentist.

When a chunk fell out of one of my teeth that had previously had a root canal, I finally sucked it up and called the dentist. I had not been to one in 8 years.

As I he peered at my xrays, I wondered if I might get a small miracle, but it was not to be.

"I expect you know you won't like what I have to say," he mused.

"It's a lost cause, right?" and he said yes, the tooth had to go. I said "Well, it's my own fault."

So I had my first tooth pulled.

Let's just say it's a lot faster than a root canal, and a hell of a lot cheaper, too.

Let's also just say it's good none of you are here, because I am quite tired and grumpy. Excedrin migraine formula works quite well, by the way, but the ups and down as it kicks in and then wears off every six hours is a real bummer.

I can't whine much though, because Sara's husband had three teeth pulled at the end of last week, and I had dinner with a friend who has had three pulled in the past.

However, I will whine a little, 'k?