REMOVED VIDEO

I like this. And I don't mean the long "Dallas" commercial that comes before it.

Post note: The great music I posted somehow got hijacked by "Gangnum Style" or however you spell it, which is fun if you haven't seen it, but certainly not blogworthy. Sorry if you sat through it wondering what the heck I liked about it.

Mom, this one is for you

My mother and I were having a conversation, and I professed to believe that not only were there people who didn't believe in global warming, but that there are people who believe that the information on glaciers melting, etc. where all a lie. I had sort of pulled that out of my hat, although I do believe it. However, funnily (and sadly), I found this article only a few hours later.

Of course, it's possible Daniel is just being a troll, but I still found the timing hilariously coincidental.

Hey Mom!

Look what my neighbor's have:

It's a wagon, not a sedan, but it's the right color, isn't it?

I wonder how many cat traps I could put in that baby. :) This is what it would look like all prettied up.

Sharing some Facebook laughs with my family

Seagull steals videocam

Running out of summer

So many projects to get done. I have this $5 divider I got off of Craigslist--stealing an idea from my sister Kathy, to use it to hide the exercise equipment in my living room. It's not long enough, so I dug out the two shutters I bought a couple of years ago that were the wrong length. They aren't the same length, but with one on each end it should look okay.

I have countless other things I'm tripping over for projects. Wallpaper for the ceiling in one cat room. Painted shelves that have not yet been hung. A half painted landing, with paint cans in the hallway. Oh well. Just keep on chugging.

For my mom

This may be your next Christmas present! A Scarecrow for your pigeons.

Finding a home for my sign

Awhile ago I was searching for a name for my farm, and came up with "Abbey Farm." I talk to my house sometimes, and her name is Abbey. :)

I spent many hours painting this sign for the barn, however it was confusing to people when they came looking for "The Owl House" and they would drive on by. So I brought it up to my porch. I wasn't going to toss it because I'd put so much time into it. It finally occurred to me to give it away to another Abbey Farm.

The internet makes this possible.

So I'm posting it here so I can point people to it. I'll reach out to Abbey Farms, from smallest, to largest, until I find someone who would like it. Then I'll ship it off, and it will have a new home!

Then I'll need to paint a new sign for the Owl House.

The Land of Porch

Ivan periodically exhibits a tyrannical streak. The other day I noticed Molly was hanging out inside on a beautiful day. The door to the screened porch was open. Odd. Then I noted that Ivan had chosen a particularly uncomfortable lounging spot right in the crack of the propped door...so anyone who dared to pass would have to step over him.

Cruel, cruel kitty.

Having the porch screened in has added a new dimension to our lives. It used to be Molly's domain, and still is in the evening when the door is closed but she is clipped out, lounging on her bed. She seems to enjoy having the cats wander out during the day, except if they express interest in her food bowl.

I have my rocker, and a few extra chairs in case someone comes by. The rocker was my ex's, and I feel a bit of a bond with it, because surprisingly, he left it behind. I found it in the barn and figured it may as well rot used on the porch than rot forgotten in the barn. As an antique, it should be safely in a house.

It's where I have my coffee in the morning (bundled in a sweatshirt this past week), where I read in the evening with my glowing Kindle, and sometimes where I bring my laptop to work on a cloudy day when there is no glare. I can gaze down over my wide front lawn, and watch my neighbors take their long rambling walks down the road. Yesterday, two horses came by with their riders. I love my porch and rocker, with Molly standing guard.

Two weeks ago I was scrolling through the furniture section of Craiglist. Without TV, it is my only entertainment.

I clicked on "arts and crafts rocker" and blinked in astonishment.

There was my rocker. Dirt cheap. The finish was more red, and in better shape. I didn't even stop to think. I fired off an email. Sadly I received the reply that he was showing it to someone that afternoon. Oh well. A matched set was not meant to be. Later, however, he emailed back. The woman had admired it, hemmed and hawed about her money situation, and ultimately did not take it.

I met him in the Walmart parking lot and learned that he had refinished the piece himself a few years before. He picked it up, painted black, at a garage sale. I can't begin to imagine all the work that must have gone into the chair, stripping off all that paint from all that decorative wood.

So now the porch is home to two beautiful chairs (click the photo for a closer view). Feel free to come sit in one.

If Ivan will let you.

Watching paint dry....

Base boards (white) and first coat on the stairs (gray/blue). Touch-ups and walls once the stairs dry....

Cleaning up corners

Keeping "selling the house" in mind there are a lot of things I know that I, were I buying a house, would be viewed critically. The house is out-dated and there is not a lot I can do about that. Nonetheless, there are things that people would look at as "work" that might turn them away from the place.

These are also things that would make me happier if they were done, as well.

One of these is the carpet upstairs. Shudders. It was clearly put down (and put down securely) to cover up pine stairs and floors. There is no hope I'm going to find some gleaming oak floor boards under there. This was a pine and hemlock forest...not an oak forest.

The carpet they chose was very utilitarian. Good for kids, very very bad for cats. Cats should never have loop-style carpet. Just a few pulls make it look like crap. To the credit of the carpet, it took 5 years to start looking like crap, but now it really is awful.

However, what it hid is pretty bad. I tend to forget my place is a farm house. The outside looks it, but the inside has been re-done and most of the charming farm features have been ripped out or covered up. Here is what the carpet covered up:

Good old farmhouse stairs.

My mother gave me a brand new gallon of pale gray primer and a new gallon of paint, so I decided to re-paint the landing walls. I personally like the cheerful orange color, but I know it will freak a lot of visitors out. So I will repaint the landing gray, and the stairs a blue-gray (sadly, the stair paint I got is not as blue as I thought, but again, that's probably just as well, for the sensibilities of "normal" people). Until I can afford a runner that I like, I'm going to do something inventive with burlap that I saw online. I need something so three-legged Cricket has something to get her claws into, and also something that will help keep me from wiping out on the stairs.

I considered just leaving them bare, but I've already fallen down the stairs once. Should I fall down them again, I'd rather have something softening the blow. Maybe something like this. But that runner would be around $200 with shipping, and the burlap was only twelve bucks. So there you go.

Oh, here's something cheaper, with only two bucks for shipping, and around $100.

I think I have a $50 credit with Overstock.com anyway.

More later.

How many posts can you title "So much to do?"

Weekends start out so hopeful. It seems like such a large expanse of time stretches before you. Once Saturday is over you have---wonder of wonders!--all of Sunday!

Since getting a "career job" eight years ago, this hopeful feeling has mostly been squashed. Saturday I usually get in my inbox to take care of the things I need to wrap up from the week before. Sunday I jump in to get set up for Monday. All around me is a house that may or may not be messy (depending on how good I was at keeping picked up after myself), and of course people I promised to help, during the week, that now, hey, I REALLY ought to be helping.

Oh well! At least it is a gorgeous day. The kind of beautiful breezy sunny morning you may only get in the east, with all its thick leafy trees and scads of singing birds. Every area has it's own kind of "Beautiful", but every time I contemplate leaving this area, no other regional beauty feels as homelike as this.

This week, the fledgling Spencer Farmer's Market opens. Valarie stopped when she was driving by to remind me, but I actually had it on my radar. Sadly, if you want the fresh Finnish bread, not frozen, you have to be there at 9:00 am, not 10:00 am. I'll remember that the next time I go. I did pick up blueberries, some greens for dinner, and a bar of local soap. I refused to even look at the flowers. As much as I love buying local flowers, I have to remind myself that $8 is a couple of dinners, and there are flowers in my own fields if I would just get out there and pick them.

There was produce, jewelry, and quilts, jam...a nice combination of things for a teeny market. I will start every Saturday there, when I am home.

Alas, they were out of peas. Hopefully Mandeville's will have some the next time I go by.

So I have many many many many things to get done this weekend. The days are now getting shorter instead of longer. Summer will escape me. Luckily I have vacation and plan to start taking Fridays off, which will stretch my beloved weekends to a manageable space of time.

I'm sure my family and friends feel the same. So much to do, so little time. I guess the important part is trying to enjoy those tasks.

It's hard not to enjoy them on a beautiful day like this!

The wonders of Facebook

My high school friend, Beth, posted a true blast from the past on her Facebook page...a genuine award certificate from the Bouquet Lunch Club, which was our lunch table in high school. Rest assured, we were not budding gardeners. "Bouquet" was used quite differently than the common usage, and just mentioning the soap "Cashmere Bouquet" set us off into at least five minutes of high-school variety laughter.

I only re-connected with my friends with the advent of Facebook, and I've been able to get together with them a few times. They are still as good, crazy, and hilarious as ever, despite everything life has thrown at us all.

Not all of my friends are still with us to celebrate these memories, but things like this let me remember them while laughing, which I would think would be how they might want to be remembered.

Click the photo to enlarge it, Mom, there are names there you will know!

Danger, danger! Community garage sale weekend!

I grabbed my packages for the week and headed out to catch the post office before it closed at noon. On my way I encountered a yard sale, so I stopped. A little farther on, was another sale, and another! Oh no...community garage sale weekend! Hide me!

Luckily, early birds had picked things over, and had picked over even more by the time I got my "have to do it before noon" errands run. However, I did scored some fun and useful things:

I've resolved only to buy things I need,already use, or had planned to buy, when I stop at sales. I don't need more "stuff." Amazingly, I found quite a few things I already had on my list to buy. Of course, if I find brand new, quality pillar candles (5 for $2), I always buy them, because they are so expensive at stores and I am a candle junkie. I have also been keeping my eyes open for purple Christmas lights since the strand on my ficus in the great room died, and I refuse to pay $20 now for what I could purchase for five dollars at Halloween. I found a working purple strand at one sale for $1 in a pile of Christmas and Halloween decorations ("Dad! She would have paid $2!" the son protested). A hammer ($1). You can never have too many hammers. An almost new Weber grill ($1), which I had already decided to buy at a store since now, with bears in the yard, buying a new $100 gas grill to replace my old one (given away for scrap metal) doesn't make sense. It would just get tipped over by hungry bruins.

I also found a nearly new blanket (that sort of plushy creepy hotel type) to cut up for the cats since I'm sure cat fur will wash off easily ($2). There was a brand new window screen to replace the smaller, rusty one in the cat facility ($2). An alarm clock (25 cents -- tested, works!) which was on my list to buy this weekend because the one I bought from Walmart a few months ago is so obnoxious and loud that I turn it off rather than hit snooze, and then I oversleep. And there was a new package of candle lantern bags for a quarter--one of those things I always want to buy to line the walk up to the house for my yearly holiday party, then put right back when I see the price tag for them.

I found a new, soft seat for my Schwinn bike ($1). The women who were set up at the Grange, and myself, had a good laugh about fat butts. That purchase took me quite awhile to decide on, since my bike still sits unused this year because the gears need adjusting.

I did break my standard rule, however, and bought three silly things.

There was a bead window decoration that clearly was a waste of money as packaged ($1, bargained down from $3). The thing would have been tangled up before it was even unwrapped. And indeed, since I ultimately unwrapped it, I can attest to this. However I did not use it as intended. I cut it apart and added the beaded strings to the ugly apple tree which is adorned with beads and chimes that come my way.

I also found two little cast iron owl brackets that matched the one I already have in the bathroom (50 cents for both).

Finally, at the last place I stopped, there was this ivory or bone (far more likely) rose for $1:

Since I have no plans to sell it, it doesn't matter how much it's worth, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was worth more than a buck, and would be fun to wear on a neck ribbon this summer. It also matches the earrings from my family that my mother recently gave me.

Then it was time to stop. That was my enjoyable drive through Spencer this morning. I also got to enjoy the warm day stringing my beads up on the tree. I can grill some of my local pork for dinner on the new grill (hmmm...I'll have to get charcoal). This afternoon I'll replace the screen in the cat room, and this evening I can replace the purple lights on my ficus tree.

All for less than $13 bucks. I've so glad all the antiques, etc. were gone, and there was nothing pricey to tempt me!

Hickories Park, Owego

The weekend is moving way too fast, as weekends do. I did manage to get the lawn mowed and trimmed so that it looks reasonably respectable. While having a forest in the backyard can be pretty, trimming around all those trees is a bit of a bear.

I returned two cats to the Owego/Lisle farm, and took the three kittens to the Tompkins SPCA where they will get adopted far more quickly than here. So I have no cats at all in the downstairs section of the barn. This pleases me, since I've been having the nervous jitters about having any cats down there with the bear hanging out.

He came by earlier this week, and then again tonight. It was still light out when he showed up today, and he did run when I yelled at him and he could see me, unlike the other night when he just kept wandering around the house despite my yells. I had been planning on taking Wings over to his new home, but called and cancelled. It's a long walk from the car to the house when there's a bear lurking around.

So far he has left the dumpster alone. I put a piece of wood on top so I'll be able to tell if he tries to get inside.

After I chased the bear off, I yelled "Bear's out!" as loud as I could across the neighborhood. It must have had some impact, because all the parties seemed to wrap up and go quiet immediately afterward. I'm guessing they moved inside.

I stopped at Hickories Park in Owego on my way back from the farm, and had a fast-food dinner sitting on the bank watching the river go by.

I love the smiles

A few years ago, my mother gifted me with family crystal. "Crystal" and "cats" are a disastrous combination, so the crystal has remained safely packed away. In fact, I'd only unwrapped one wine glass so I could see what it looked like. I wasn't even sure what I possessed, but I didn't want to disturb the protective wrapping and risk having something break while in storage in my upstairs kneewall.

I've been thinking about bringing it out, but I don't own a china cabinet. My friend Debra offered a small hutch she had in storage, but I hadn't gotten around to taking her up on the offer.

Then one day, as I idly poked through Craiglist, I came across an all-glass cabinet for $30.

Only thirty bucks? It was way too early on a Saturday morning to call the poster, but then I saw it had been posted just a few minutes earlier. Whoever it was, they were already up. I called, claimed it, and then later in the day I called my friend Nancy, who works at her grooming shop on Saturdays, to see if I could rope her into helping me load it in my car.

Unwrapping the crystal was a joy and a perplexity. The glasses are beautiful, but I'm not sure what they are all used for. Water, wine, brandy, and cordial? I love the tiniest cordial glasses, and all the twisted amber stems. In the gold great room, it's as if I planned the match.

Believe me, I did not.

Do click to expand the photos if your computer will handle it, just to see those beautiful stems.

I hope my mom will be happy to see the crystal finally on display. In fact, when I had friends over, the cabinet was the first place they went. While I may be too terrified to use it, it will at least get looked at.

It occurred to me that there was room to add other family heirlooms I had received over the years, so I took the alabaster doves and the leaded cream and sugar set that my mother had given me, and added them as well.

So now most of my family treasures are in one place.

Molly doesn't care, although she does like the great room on Sundays, since she is allowed on the couch while I read the Sunday paper.

I was going to start out with a rant about taming my paperwork.

Then I got the nicest Facebook post. It's 6am. I'm on my second cup of coffee. I've already got 5 inches of paper on the "recycle" pile as I divest myself of paper that I'm been allowing to assist in disrupting my life. Up pops this cute photo of three kittens:

And you're thinking: "Okay, cute. But not earth-shaking. What's the point?"

(First off, as soon as I see these kittens, my brain immediately starts rattling away, wondering if they are recovering from anesthesia as a pediatric spay/neuter clinic, and if the volunteers made those little wake-up suits...but, not my point)

The point is, the post specifically put on my wall is from a person I knew in high school. She was quite nice to me in high school. However, let's be clear, I was not exactly in the highest social sphere at Norwich Middle and High School. I was lucky enough to have relocated from my childhood school (where I was considered a certifiable cootie girl) to Norwich, where I escaped my past reputation for highwaters and cat-eyed glasses. In Norwich, my earliest friends told me outright that wearing pants with stretch elastic waists would doom me for eternity (I begged for my first pair of jeans on my 14th birthday and got them. Wranglers. What was the name of that store on main street in Norwich? I do recall the wood floors).

There were kids up the social ladder who could be despicable to the mid-to-bottom dwellers. And there were kids up the social ladder who tolerated us. And then there were the handful of kids up the social ladder who somehow had managed to hang out there near the top of the food chain, and still manage to be sincerely nice to everyone. Not beaming nice. Not sticky sweet nice. Just plain good people. I'm not sure how one manages to be "good people" when you are dealing with the horrors of being 17, but lots of kids somehow manage it.

At any rate, I had absolutely lost track of this person in the passage of three decades, until the advent of Facebook. And on Facebook, you have lots of "friends" who are really just people you used to know. I tracked down one high school friend, which meant I was suddenly connected to a vast number of other people in that high school sphere. This was a huge help when reunion time rolled around. I now knew that one person was into running, another person had three kids, etc. I am sure Facebook has improved the high school reunion experience exponentially.

This morning, on my wall, this little cat photo appears. From this particular high school acquaintance who has no real reason to think of me at 6 am other than the fact that she saw this cute kitten photo, knew I work with cats because innumerable cat posts cross her Facebook news scroller that originate from me, and she takes the time to post this photo to me.

I'm sure I wasn't on her to-do list today.

So instead of dashing off a rant about the slavery of paperwork, I'm posting about people just plain being thoughtful and nice.

See what one little gesture will do? I must remember this.

Weekend is coming...

More trash relief! I found a husband-wife business who will come haul away the one pickup truck load of construction type junk I have in my lower barn that can't go in the dumpster. There's a big roll of carpet, some cut up rolls of carpet, old cat trees, and an old cat shelter.

Once that is out of there I can have a load of washed crushed stone brought in to cover the dirt section of the floor. After I get the buckets of old motor oil hauled to the hazardous waste place in Binghamton, the bottom of the barn will be in good shape.

What a relief! I have been putting off trying to find someone to haul away junk because I was worried it might end up getting tipped off in the woods. But these folks do have a permit for a transfer station, and sound like a legitimate business.

While they are here I'll find out if they have the know-how to get the tiller started this spring. If they do, I'll have them back to show me how so perhaps this year I can get the catnip in. Who knows how long it will take to get the farm on the market and sold, so I thought if it turned out I could not sell the dried catnip, I could at least gift it to the many people who make catnip toys for animals shelters.

Spring is coming.

Is it time to move?

Yesterday I got together with a friend in Waverly to have breakfast, pick up some equipment I had lent, and visit her new managed colony that arose when a group of cats suddenly showed up under her house this past month.

I really got a glimpse of how isolated life had become for me, to the point of becoming crippling to the work I want to do. We stopped first at Tomossos's on the golf course, which turned out not to serve breakfast on Saturdays, but whose staff Deb knew by name and who probably would have opened the place up for lunch early for her had we asked. We headed to downtown Waverly to eat at Becky's Diner instead, where people constantly stopped by to say "hi." Then it was on over to the Red Door Cafe--a project of the Open Door Mission in Owego. (Here is their Facebook page)

I asked if they had wireless. Yes indeed they do. Once again, Debra knew everyone by name.

Now, let's be truthful, even if I moved into a small town, I would not be a "knows everyone by name" person. First of all, I have to say the name of every new person I meet aloud three times to have any hope of remembering it. Second of all, I don't have Debra's balance of friendliness, grace, and innate competence. I am a pretty good presenter, but that's not my real side.

Nonetheless, it was clear by just one morning that by living in the country I was missing something I enjoy very much, and that is being part of a community of people who meet regularly by chance, not by arrangement.

Because NYS just hasn't been able to get its ass in gear to make a decision about the natural gas situation, I've been sitting here frittering away my money because I haven't been sure if I should stay or go. I got out of my gas lease because it didn't protect the property, but that also meant not taking the money that might have kept things afloat. I could help a lot more people without the constant stress of trying to pay my bills, and caring for all of this property, if I lived in a smaller house with no land. I'd be closer to people interested in helping out. Yes, I'd probably have more people knocking on my door to help, but if we get this spay/neuter fund going, there would be a network and funding to assist them.

There's a big difference between 58 acres, a huge barn, a huge house, and something like this.

It will take a long while to sell this place, and there's work that needs to be done whether I stay or not. But basically the decision has been made to sell, unless some miracle comes along (a good sound gas lease with good state oversight). Cat rescue will still continue. It may even continue far better than before.

It just won't be here. My dream of a beautiful facility along the creek will need to be given up, but you know, there are other ways to achieve a similar dream that may in fact be more achievable and do more good.

25 neat tips

These are really neat. Thank you to Donna, who shared it on Facebook.

New Years Resolution

To be playing this song on my porch this summer.

And no I never realized Styx had mandolin, accordion, string bass, and tambourine as primary instruments. I don't think I even knew what a mandolin was when I was a teenager listening to Styx.




Years later, with orchestra.

When people get what they wanted...

You can check our Randy Glasbergen's cartoon's here. He went to school with my sister and always wanted to be a cartoonist. And made it. Every time one of his cartoons pops up in a magazine I'm reading I think, "See, you can become what you dream of being." I'm sure he worked his ass off to do it. Perhaps with naps taken strategically.

Really easy, really good vegetable chili

The New Yorker recently had a chili recipe that sounded simple and good---and healthy---so I decided to give it a try. I tweaked it a bit because some of the ingredients were the kind of thing you could only find if you lived in...say....New York City...rather than Spencer.

I was really surprised at how good it is. If you like a mildish chili that nonetheless taste like chili and not like some bland chili imitation, you'll like this.

1 quart good-quality chicken broth (their words, not mine). I used water and two bouillon cubes because I can't afford broth if I don't have it in the freezer. H eated in large saucepan.
1 can diced canned tomatoes. I used garlic/onion type
1 TBLS olive oil
1 red bell pepper diced (green is fine if you prefer)
1 onion medium diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 TBLSP chili powder (make sure it isn't old and stale. You know how that goes)
1 teaspoon cumin and oregano (I made it one rounded teaspoon of both)
2 cans black beans drained (I used good quality/organic. I'll try with cheap beans next time)
1 can corn, drained (recipe called for two. I would not suggest it)
1/4 cup Quaker Old Fashioned grits (my addition. I dislike grits on their own, but they are great to add to stew-type soups. They are fortified so it adds nutrients as well)
Black pepper/salt to taste (my addition)
3-4 drops chili hot sauce (my addition)

To add close to serving:
1/8 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional) (recipe recommended 1/4 cup. That seemed like a "cilantro fanatic's" amount to me and I reduced it).


Saute oil, pepper, onion, garlic, until tender, around 5 minutes
Add cumin, chili pepper, oregano, about 1 minute.
Add beans, tomato, corn, grits to broth in saucepan.
Add sauted veggies to broth in saucepan
Let simmer for 20 minutes or so.
Add 3-4 drops hot chili sauce, salt, pepper. Use restraint. Come back in 10 minutes, taste, and adjust.
About ten minutes before serving, add cilantro.

This was good without the cilantro, if you are not a cilantro fan.

If you like hot chili, I'm sure you can spice this up on your own. Personally, I dislike having to concentrate on recovering from my food while I'm eating it.

This recipe called for 1 oz dark chocolate. Actually, I didn't find that the chocolate added anything to it and dampened to tomato flavor. I would not add it next time.

Feel free to share your chili secrets in comments.