Cow, Part II

I had the nicest laugh with my mom yesterday about our cow situation.

What? You thought I was kidding? No, we still have a cow. Two houses down from us. We live in a residential neighborhood. The outskirts, but still. I keep trying to figure out why. Why would one have a cow in one's backyard?

I feel like baking a batch of muffins and taking it over, and when they invite me in for coffee, leading the conversation casually to farm animals. (In this scenario, we live in the suburbs in the fifties.) "So, by the by..."

Then I think, what if they're holding it for a friend? Cowsitting? Then I think, what sort of person buys a cow before they've got the space for it? Don't you just walk past the cow aisle if you don't have... a barn?

I thought maybe I could call our town constable (we have a constable, how jealous does that make you?) and say, "Hypothetically speaking, what should one do if one's neighbor is harboring a cow?"

As of yesterday, it's still there. I'll be sure to keep you updated. Ooh! Maybe I can sneak a picture or two!

Love Thy Neighbor

Yesterday Huck got away from me, and the neighbors had a cow!

I mean, literally. Like, "MOO!"

I wonder if it's OK to have a cow in your backyard in this neighborhood? I never asked. It's just a baby. Are they growing their own veal? Because it's not exactly a couple of acres they've got here, it's barely more land than we have. Maybe they're cowsitting?

I love this neighborhood.

On My Mind

On my to-do list

In my yard

Bruce and I discussed bringing another soul into the family (forgive me, I just rewatched the first season of Big Love), and we decided we're ready for it. A kitten is just what the doctor ordered. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your POV), there always seem to be kittens in need of a good home. Lisa's mom's cat just had a litter (today!) and as soon as they're big enough, I'll get to take my favorite home to meet the Linus. Fingers crossed that the Linus won't mind too much.

I was turning off the lights and double-checking the locks tonight before I came in to write this, and I was amazed all of a sudden at how completely happy I really am. Sure, some things could be better. Bruce could be here, the house could be clean, what have you, but those things don't really matter very much in the long run.

Bruce is gone because it's a fantastic opportunity for him to do what he's been working towards for years now, for great pay and benefits. He's not away all of the time, and the time he is away he's getting to spend time with his best friend whom he's seen far too little of in the past year. He was stagnant working from home all the time. The work he's doing, will get to do with his new job is exciting. I love to hear him excited. The house? I'll clean it later.

I'm very happy. I love my husband more every day, whether he's here or in Missouri. I have a wonderful family, most of whom I love very much. I'm going to be an aunt at the end of the summer. There's a Mr. and Mrs. Mallard Duck who eat corn under my feeder almost every day. In a few weeks, they might bring their babies by. My brother is coming to visit this weekend. I have curtains on my windows. The birds like my yard, and for that matter, so do the bunnies. My neighbors are nice, and they crack jokes at me when I'm in the yard. I have a garden that is growing green things to my great surprise. I have a warm cat on my lap and a dog who will be very excited that it's bedtime in a few minutes. My family is healthy and strong. My life is good, and I am a full person.

Food for Birds

My grandpas on either side were avid birdfeeders. On my Dad's side, Grandpa Roy would sit for hours at the big picture window in the kitchen, cursing the squirrels and formulating new methods for keeping the bigger more aggressive birds from his precious songbirds. He kept feeders for all kinds of birds, from the cardinals and jays to the smaller finches. He had feeders for orioles and hummingbirds, and kept houses around the yard for them to use for their nests.

Grandpa Del kept a smaller station, feeding an equally wide assortment of birds. His phillosophy was a little more live-and-let-live, and he read up on his birds, knowing the nesting habits and calls of most of the varieties in our neck of the woods. He had an encyclopedia in his head, and would gladly share all that information with me, if I cared to listen. I did, even though I was young and my patience was short. Grandpa Del had a stutter. To make himself better-understood, he'd often talk slowly and carefully, but his words held much wisdom. I was older when we lost Grandpa Del, and so my memories of him are more vivid. I wish I had these kinds of memories of Grandpa Roy, but I treasure the ones I do keep, and hold them close to me.

For a few weeks, I've been feeding my neighborhood birds. I love seeing their little habits and I'm amazed at how much I remember from my talks with my grandpas. I've been reading up on them, too. My Dad knows that, and last weekend when we were at Grandma's house, he showed me some homemade feeders Grandpa Roy had built. He told me to take one home, maybe fix it up. He told me Grandpa would be so proud. He choked up a bit.

Part of me fought not to fix up the feeder. I thought that every time I looked at it, I'd be reminded of how it was built by Grandpa, and how special that would make it. I realized, though, that I'd be remembering that however it looked. By cleaning it up and painting it a bit, it would be that much more attractive to the neighborhood. Grandpa would be all the more proud of it.

I'm painting it blue. As I paint, I think about how the brush that stained it red was held by Grandpa Roy. I think about the knawed-on bottom and how rough it is to paint, and think about him cursing the squirrels that did it. It makes me mist up a little bit.

Neighborhood Beasts:

• Red-Winged Blackbirds
• Bunny Rabbits
• Squirrels
• Porcupine(s) (Only 1 witnessed so far.)
• Chickadees
• Wild Turkey  (Not the whiskey, the bird.  We've found feathers.)
• Bald Eagles
• Ticks

I'm not too thrilled about that last one.  

When You Write a Post Everyday, You Run Out of Clever Ideas for Titles

Last night was one of those terrible nights of drinking. I didn't feel all happy drunk, but I knew I was intoxicated and I could tell I was being annoying, and it made me mad at myself and I totally should have just gone home but my brother is in town and I didn't want to leave him there alone. That sucked.

We totally found all five gay people who live in this town.

This morning, we visited a house that's for rent by the lake, and the lady offered it to us. Just like that.

The house is pink, and we're taking it. $460/month, three bedroom, huge-ass shed in the back that could fit an army of cars (seriously, at least four), and best of all it's by the lake. There's a trail in the back leading into the woods behind the shed, and if you follow it down, you come out by the lake. It's pretty cool. I'm making grand plans for bird feeders.

The first bedroom we're using as a bedroom, the second as an office, and the third is up for grabs. I'm going to lobby for a crafting/reading/quiet reflection room for myself.

In other news, I have terrible posture and if I keep slouching all the time, I'm going to end up a hunchback. There's a pretty picture, right? I'm trying to correct that.

Baked cookies tonight, chocolate chip. I wanted to get ambitious and make some good ones, but ended up using the recipe on the back of the bag like always. Not as tasty as my molasses cookies from a couple of weeks ago, but still good standbys. I baked them a little too long for most people's tastes, but for some reason I like my chocolate chips bordering on burnt. It's just how I roll, baby.

Oh yeah, it freaking SNOWED here! I bet you weren't expecting that - I know I sure wasn't. All last week it was in the high fifties, and then BAM! we're walloped by a few inches of sticking snow. You should have seen Huckleberry. He wasn't even sure about going outside until Bruce did it first and showed him it was alright. Then it was all typical dog - running around and romping in the fluffy white stuff.

Bruce told me an amusing story about Huck in the snow. Huck's so low to the ground that when he squats to "make water"* his wee is almost on the ground. Well, yesterday, the ground was covered in cold white stuff. He would walk a few steps, squat, get a really surprised look on his face and stand right back up without going. He went through this at least three more times before he hit pay dirt - a patch of snow that was already been trampled down. Too cute.

*I love that term.

We've got some pictures of him in the snow, but the camera is upstairs and so you'll have to wait for tomorrow's post to get them. Have a happy rest of the weekend!

No Harm, No Foul

Earlier today I noticed that there was a beetle in our bathtub. This doesn't really bother me overmuch, because we haven't used our bathtub since roughly 1988, when my little brother graduated to taking showers. Sure, there were those years we used it as an impromptu laundry hamper (because walking three steps and throwing the clothes down the steps into a random pile is just too much work for teenagers), but really, it's been out of commission for almost twenty years. (Jesus Christ, I'm old.) So I decided to let the beetle have his way with the bathtub. No harm, no foul, right? Right.

[side note: For a few weeks now, I've been yelling at Huck for walking around by my computer and crunching on what I assumed were random pieces of the basement. Yesterday, I was doing some laundry down here and noticed that two of these beetles were in close proximity to my feet. The next thing I knew, there was a crunching noise, and I noticed that Huck had followed me down and was munching away at the bugs. Good boy!]

So naturally, being who I am and remembering the crunching, I began to feel a little sorry for the beetle in the bathtub, because unless it wants to crawl back into the drain (which, face it, probably isn't that appealing), it will have to live out the rest of it's meager life in the bathtub. And it hadn't moved in a while. Then I started thinking, no food, no water... It's like dying in a desert made of porcelain veneer. So I collected a few drops of water in my palm and dropped them near the bug, thinking that if it was dead it couldn't hurt anything, and if it was alive it couldn't scramble up the sides of the tub to kill me or anything.

Unfortunately Linus noticed me screwing around in there and jumped in to investigate.



Don't worry too much. Linus lost all interest when the bug stopped moving, as usual. I figure if the bug wants to die quick, he'll just move in front of the cat, and if he wants to live out his days in the porcelain desert, that's OK too. Or tomorrow I'll rescue it and take it outside. You know, whatever.

Miller Brewing

Hi!

Last weekend we went to see my brother in Milwaukee. While we were there, we stopped at the place he was staying to pick up the stuff he had to move. (Hello, moody Tivoing dishwashing obsessive! Thanks for letting Robby stay!) We put the stuff into the car and moved it to the house of the girl who went to Europe with him last winter. (Hello, crazy centipede-capturing, picturesque-computer-owning guy! Roommate to my brother's friend!) It was fab. The guy with the centipede, though? I hate centipedes. Peter is a whack-job for keeping one in a jar like that. It was very nasty.

Then we all went on the Miller brewery tour. It was great. First of all, they're not like the Busch people - they totally understand that the reason people go on the tour is to drink beer. They don't take themselves too seriously - while they were all about the "In 18-something, Frederick Miller did something" references, they stopped themselves short of going into his family heritage in favor of more humorous references to the "Champagne of Beers". It was very worth-while. I recommend it.

We got to see lots of things, including the place where they package the brew. They would have been packaging the brew when we went through, but they weren't, because it was the day they do repairs:



Then we saw the warehouse, where they store about 500,000 cases of beer every day. (This is convenient, the tourguide told us, because Chicago consumes aproximately 40% of that beer every single day.) It was awe-inspiring:



Then we went to drink beer. I got a good picture of Bruce and Robby:


*Edited to show a non-fuzzy picture of the two of them.

And one of me and Robby, too:



Let's please not forget the moment when Robby totally abandoned all thoughts of comfort to lay front-down on the pavement to get the best picture ever in front of a Miller High Life bus:



Then we drank a couple of more beers. I can tell you without a doubt that after this weekend, everyone who's been aching for more pictures of my gorgeous brother will get them. We're going to dress up as pirates on Saturday. Doesn't that sound exciting? I thought so.

HELLO STOP

WE HAVE ARRIVED STOP EVERYTHING IS EVERYWHERE STOP YOU KNOW WHAT'S WORSE THAN MOVING STOP ITS MOVING INTO A PLACE THAT IS ALREADY FULL OF STUFF STOP I WENT TUBING WITH LISA ON MONDAY STOP TUBING IS SORT OF LIKE A FORM OF FLOATING FOR YOU MISSOURI PEOPLE STOP WE GOT CABLE AND THE INTERNET HOOKED UP TODAY STOP YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE ALL THE CRAZY CHANNELS YOU GET ON EXAPANDED BASIC UP HERE STOP LIKE FOR INSTANCE THE VIDEO GAME CHANNEL STOP ARE YOU WATCHING PROJECT RUNWAY YET STOP WHY NOT STOP DO IT STOP BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO STOP HUCKLEBERRY AND LINUS ARE BEING SPOILED ROTTEN BY THEIR GRANDPARENTS STOP I ALREADY MADE AN ASS OF MYSELF AT A LOCAL BAR STOP THERES NO PLACE LIKE HOME TO MAKE AN ASS OF MYSELF AT A BAR STOP WE JUST GOT BACK FROM OUR FIRST WALK WHERE I SHOWED BRUCE ALL OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE WHERE I TOOK SWIMMING LESSONS AND DAVE WAS THERE AND HE TAUGHT ME HOW TO SWIM AND BRUCE THOUGHT THAT WAS PRETTY COOL STOP WE ALSO SAW THE CANDY STORE SLASH OFFICE SUPPLY STORE SLASH JOCK SHOP STOP THESE PEOPLE REALLY LIKE TO MAXIMIZE THEIR SPACE STOP

And I Chose to Live Here

Hey, guess what? If you have some sort of insect bite for a long while and it's not a mosquito bite and you're really not sure what it might be, and so you ask your husband what he thinks it is because he's lived down here much longer than you have and you're telling yourself that it might be chiggers but you're not going to worry about that until it's confirmed by someone else and then he confirms it and so you do a google search for chiggers and you see some rather disgusting pictures and realize that yes, you have been bitten by a chigger or several, and at least you're feeling a little relieved because you know what's causing the open lesions on your leg(s) and stomach, so you can rest easy, don't go ahead and read this page.

It won't make you feel any better about chiggers.

Retribution!

Remember yesterday and the week before, when I was totally bemoaning the existence of myself, if said existence meant living in a world where there were June bugs? Well, my hesitation has passed.



My hesitation is gone the way of the idea of us as a two person (and cat, therefore making us a three person) household. We are now a four-person household (if you choose to use the term "person" lightly, as I choose), and the fourth member of this house (Huck) is not only as upset by June bugs as I am, he's willing to go much further in his general aggrieviation*. That is to say, he's willing to put them out of their misery before they show any signs of misery. That is to say, he will eat them at any and all opportunities.

I can't say that I have denied this pleasure, in fact I may have encouraged him. A few "Good boy!!"'s go a long way with a tiny puppy, you know. Needless to say, I will be consulting the online message board with which I am most familiar as to the ramifications of my actions. Hopefully, the worst 15 June bugs can do to a pup's diet is give him extra fiber.

Cross your fingers.

*I suppose that in my boxed-wine induced state last night, I thought this (the made-up word there**) meant the state of making one aggrieved. The world may never know.

**Looks like it could be a real word, though, doesn't it?

June Bugs

Remember last week, when I was talking about the June bug? My all-time least favorite bug? The bug that got in my shoe in the dark one time and it was gross and I touched it and almost died? It's May, and no one told the June bugs in Missouri.

I was outside reading earlier, and there was a flock of June bugs. A flock, I say! At first there was only one, and then he had idiotically maneuvered himself onto his back (as June bugs are idiotically apt to do), and so that was fine. I was fine with the June bug lying in his semi-prone position, because I knew exactly where he was. And then there were two, and eventually they were both (idiotically) on their backs, and then it was fine then, too. But then three more came by, and they all had a June bug party, mocking me at every turn, flying just close enough to me to make me almost freak out, and then buzzing their disgusting fat bodies back to the light bulb. Speaking of which, what is it that makes bugs fly into the light like that? I like to think it's like that scene in A Bug's Life.

[two mosquitoes fly near a bug zapper; one flies towards it, as if in a trance]
Mosquito #1: Larry, no! Don't look at the light!
Mosquito #2: [entranced] I-can't-help-it. It's-so-beautiful.
[Larry gets zapped, falls]

Anyway, I thought it would be wise from now on to read (read: smoke) in the garage with the door open from now on, at least when the puppy is already asleep. But when I went out there a few minutes ago, the June bug party decided to join me there, too! At least in the garage, there is more space for them to buzz around, and you'd think that would mean they would harass me less. Not so! They harass me equally as much out there. I swear, I'm their entertainment. This one June bug, he flew perilously close to my head, and I smacked him with my book. I didn't mean to smack him hard, I just wanted to re-direct him, maybe make him think about where he was flying and whether using me for his entertainment was really worth it. Imagine my horror when I appeared to have wounded the disgusting bug, and it sat on the cement floor of the garage with one wing askew.

I cry fairly easily, but I'm able to (barely) hold it back when it's a June bug.

I watched it for a few minutes. I warned it that it better get it's act together and stop faking it if it didn't want to be put out of it's misery. I even tapped his wing back into place because I wasn't sure if it was just, I don't know, out of joint or something. I gave him more chances than most people would have given a June bug, but in the end, he was too far gone.

So I smooshed him with the spine of my book.