Move over, Reno!

The fame is spreading here at Netherfield! Reno was simply the first of our stock to go Hollywood! (I'm sure someone will be contacting me soon about writing a cookbook, for people who don't have kitchens.)

We received word last month, that Tucker the Wonder Dog, and his sister, Tasha the Judge-Nipper have gone global!

2012 Welsh Corgi Calendar from Brown Trout



Taken almost two years ago, my little rodents' picture made the cover! I told Handyman, we now have celebrities pooping in our yard!

I know there have been several catty comments going on around the water dish, about the "younger set" getting all the attention. But we are doing our best to keep everyone on the same pay grade.

I did make a complete fool of myself at Tractor Supply, showing the clerks my dogs. They were like, "Oh, you have corgis." I'm going, "No. These are actually my dogs."

They say, "Those are your actual dogs?"

Me: "Yes! It's so exciting."

Them: "Cool. Here's your change." They were clearly in awe.

So, since my dogs' photo is by far superior to several of the other months, I have already cut up my calendar. Using the cover shot to cover up the ridiculously bad January selection. February is a cute blue merle Cardi, so I will go with that. March is, of course, MY DOGS, so that will do. June is #1's best friend's dog, Sparky, so we will keep that one. And all the rest will probably be hidden.

I am not one bit of a stage mother. Don't think it for a second. The girls haven't minded giving up their beds for the corgis at all.

Menu Plan Monday--AGAIN!

In trying to upgrade my organization level this year, I am trying to stay on the wagon with Menu Plan Monday at the very helpful blog I'm An Organizing Junkie. She has product reviews, challenges, giveaways, ideas and encouragement. And I pretty much need all of it. Her links are pretty great as well.

I used a menu for the last two weeks and both of them were very modest--just little scraps of paper with two-word titles of recipes. But it made a big difference, no only in my stress level, but my demeanor throughout each day. Since I wasn't stressing about feeding my family at the end of each day, I had more energy to take on the big things, like chicken bathing and 47 doggie trips outside and shoveling horse manure!

Here's my plan for this week--gratefully, mostly stolen from OrgJunkie and her links:

Today, Monday: Pasta Fagioli soup with breadsticks--this is a very good Olive Garden knock-off recipe, pretty simple, great results.

Tuesday: Crock Pot Thai Chicken Never tried it, but it sounds good and my mom left me a bunch of frozen chicken legs when she left for FL last week.

Wednesday: Beef and Vegetable Noodle Bowl This is a link from Orgjunkie's Family Favorites list. Pasta makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? It helps a lot here. And I love the yellow box Barilla pasta, although my friend DF can't use it due to nut allergies, so beware.

Thursday: Mexican Lasagna My recipe came from the Saving Dinner cookbook by Leanne, at FlyLady. I do add some add'l stuff, like hominy or corn, if I have those. This makes a FULL lasagna, so be prepared for leftovers. There are a zillion variations, so you can make it however your family likes it. Just google Mexican Lasagna if you've never made one before...

Friday: Crockpot 40 Clove Garlic Chicken Once again, taken from Orgjunkie's family faves list. Worth a try--can't be worse than fish sticks and tater tots. And I got a new super dooper crockpot for Christmas! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Do yourself a favor, and put something down on paper, just a teeny step forward on the organizing path, and let me know how it works for you!

I had a wonderful weekend scrapbooking and being away from the grind for 48+ hours. Being away for even a little while always perks me up to dive back into the fray. I was sad to see Kurt Warner and the Cards go down in such an ugly way, but New Orleans is a worthy opponent to lose to. Won't surprise me if Kurt retires now.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Colts get their revenge on the Jets--who are only in it because they got a big fat gift on a silver platter, from the Colts!! Guess what?? We're taking it back! :)

My New Year is just getting started...

Due to family illness and the glorious weather, our holiday season dragged out for quite awhile. Which isn't always a bad thing. It was fun, there was lots of food and I got a boot dryer!

What woman doesn't want/need a boot dryer?! Any woman, like me, who treks to her barn and henhouse four or more times a day, needs a boot dryer. I also had to pull out the YakTrax I got last year. These are stretchy traction devices for the bottoms of my boots. My chickens are envious, but I think their little toenails would get in the way.

It wouldn't be winter here at Netherfield/Neverdone if we didn't have a chicken in the kitchen and this year is no exception. One day last week, I was setting out the little banty hen who has decided to go broody (it's winter you moron!)and I discovered she had been sitting on/in a broken egg. Ugh. It's way too cold for that. At first I set her outside to get some water, thinking I had pulled out all the egg bits. But a Rhode Island Red came over immediately and started pecking at the little gal, so it was off to the kitchen for a grooming session.

Keep in mind that we do have a slop-sink bathroom off our kitchen, so I am not talking about bathing a chicken in my kitchen sink! And what morning would be complete with bathing a chicken. Chickens are not big on bathing, even when they need it and this little gal was no exception. She was fortunate to get a warm water bath and I discovered her entire belly is completely bald! She has made a big brood patch on her belly to keep the eggs warm!

So then I got started blow-drying. Other than becoming alarmed when she could see herself in the full-length mirror, she LOVED being blow-dryed on low. She almost sprawled out on my lap to help! And there's no better smell for your kitchen than a boot-dryer on high with a little blow-dried chicken on the side!

Every day is another mind-numbing routine of busting and refilling water bowls for chickens, barn cats and horses. There is a heater in the horse water tank that runs on a timer and this week I have been shoveling clean snow into the tank. If it would ever get warm enough to melt just a little, the snow on the steel barn roof will melt and channel into the tank. But for now, it's easier to shovel powdery snow than to haul water out there.

The barn cats sit faithfully on their little heating mats and eat their canned food quickly. Whatever freezes in their dish, I give over to the dogs to remove! Keeps them busy and entertained.

Then there's the never-ending process of emptying the muck tubs of their frozen loads. The colder it is, the more the horses stand in the barn and fill their stalls. I got in a little bit of trouble last year for breaking too many muck tubs by dropping them on their sides to dump them. Cold and plastic don't always work well. So my solution this year--always have Handyman dump the muck tubs. It's worked great so far.

Remodeling

Remodeling--it's fun, exciting, expensive, and educational! We tell people all the time about the cartoon, that I carry in my daytimer AND have taped to our refrigerator--but mostly just burned into our brains--that shows Satan standing at the "doors" to the underworld. There are two choices for the poor bum waiting on the brink. One portal reads, "Burn for all eternity" and the other says, "Live in your home while you're remodeling". Satan quips, "Pretty much a toss-up, isn't it?!"

Yep. Well, I think so. As Handyman tore into the dining room wall after church, the rest of us shielded our plates from debris and I threw newspaper at #1 to tape over the heat vents in the floor--(which lead directly to our $10 million geothermal heat pump!)

#1, being a seasoned remodeling baby, went right at it, taping protection down. When it comes to heat, we women are pretty possessive and protective. We'll take every micro jule (or BTU or whatever) we can get.

I was proud of my little women. Nobody batted an eye as Daddy started yanking off planks of drywall while we ate. In fact, #1 got into it. It was a stress-reliever for her. What did surprise me (silly me), was that #3 didn't know much about how much we've done to the house that she lives in. She thought it had looked like this since we moved in!! Yikes!

Obviously, babies do not pay close attention to fiber-cement siding, custom window trim and the quality of interior doors. She did not realize that the nook used to be an outdoor deck and that the big spot of particle-board subfloor in her bedroom is where #1's closet was. She didn't know that her bedroom originally had one ridiculously small window AND a set of patio doors!

Fortunately, Handyman did insist that I make a remodeling scrapbook of this monstrosity we call home. During #3's short life, Daddy has been busy building the barn, the fence and now the treehouse, and she's seen very little work on our actual abode--a fact not lost on Handyman. I whipped out the scrapbook and showed her how the house looked when we first looked at it. In a word--ick.

I told her how we didn't move in for a month, while Daddy ripped up the original 1971 shag carpet, with the original 1971 cat pee stains. How he even ripped up the subflooring in our bedroom and we moved in with no carpet on the replacement subfloor.

I told her how that first winter, we only had the shower in the bathroom off the kitchen-the one with NO heat vent--to use. And how we took her sisters to Grandma's once a week for a bath. I showed her the pictures of the front doors, with the hideous blue siding and solid metal doors, that were the first thing to feel the crowbar when we came.

I think she was a little impressed. She quickly grew accustomed to the big orange extension cord trailing through the rooms and adapted well to the sawzall running while she played downstairs.

As I have seen time and time again, Handyman is much more organized in his processes (THANK GOD!), than I would be. I woulda cut the hole in the wall at 1pm, just to experience the thrill of light coming in, (and heat being sucked out!) But not my guy--he spent most of the day measuring and marking. Then he had to move some wiring around. Then he moved the insulation and built the header and framework, AND installed it, without touching the siding on the outside.

Then, I just happened to find a text from Hayfield Owner, from 3 days previous, asking if Handyman had gotten the window put in? And I just happened to text back that window installation was actually in progress at that very moment, if he was bored. Fortunately, Hayfield Owner was bored and he and his kids rode their bikes over, and stayed for dinner, PTL.

I'm sure if Handyman had continued on with me as the assistant, there would be a lop-sided hole in the wall, with garbage bags taped over it, while he had to go to "paying work" for four days. The window would be leaning up against the wall, with doodling on it and laundry stacked on top of it.

Handyman was able to move forward more quickly with knowledgeable, capable help and they ended up even saving the siding, to make a quick restoration of the outside. The new window went into place at about 8pm, rather than the predicted midnight. And boy was I glad there was someone besides me to stand on the scaffolding and heave it into place!

It was a little less than exciting since it was dark outside when it went in, but I think it got the remodeling bug going again in Handyman. Not that the treehouse is actually finished. There's that whole railing for the bouncy bridge, and railing for the porch side with the 14' drop. But, hey! They're kids! It's exciting for them, right?!

I would post pictures of the window, the sent-from-above helper and the Handyman in his bathrobe cutting insulation, BUT, #1 fell with my digital camera and it hasn't been happy since. So all those pictures are on this archaic device called a film camera and I'll have to drive somewhere to get them "developed".

I will leave you with a picture of the upcoming, massive project, which requires the assistance of knowledgeable people called, structural engineers! But, you can also see from this shot, what the entire house looked like, aesthetically, in the beginning. Unfortunately, you cannot see that the window trim is rotted and falling off, and the windows have lost their seals, etc. And you cannot smell the smell that sent the realtor back to her car--(it wasn't that bad.)


Wish us luck!

UPDATE!

Pencil drawing: red ribbon--glad to get something, actually.
Water color: Blue honor group!
Charcoal portrait: Blue honor group, reserve champion!

Dog Obedience: big beginner dog, blue ribbon
Little, experienced dog, blue honor group, champion in his division

Dog Agility: big beginner dog, red ribbon and red ribbon (after slipping free of the collar and gamboling around the ring until Mom had to enter the ring to tempt dog to stop humiliation of #2.)
Little, experienced dog, blue honor group, reserve champion in standard agility and GRAND CHAMPION overall of his agility division, AGAIN. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah-oh yeah-oh yeah!

:) Off to sell snow cones and cotton candy!!

'Tis the Season

...for the 4H Fair! Wooo hooo! We entered fine art this year, which is really, really appropriate for us, since our entire house is papered with home-grown, fine art. Really. I finally convinced them that some of this needed to be displayed elsewhere. Last summer I walked them through the display hall saying, "See, you can do this. Yours is this good--you need to enter." I'm such a non-competitive, easy-going mom.

So when #1 exited her school building this spring with a spectacular 20x20 charcoal portrait, as soon as I could lift my jaw out of my lap I said, "There's your 4H fair exhibit!" It is a great, great picture.

Well, #2 is no slacker in the art department. She has a big fat notebook full of fashion drawings, no joke. This girl is Vera Wang in saddle shoes. So she draws a really sweet pencil drawing--on copy paper. Wouldn't have been my first choice, but she did it without my input and it's done. So, I head off to Michael's to find a frame for it. Fortunately she left a lot of blank space at the bottom, so I could trim it to fit an 8x10 frame. (Didn't know there was an aisle with 8.5x11" document frames--that comes later.)

So I trim the picture and we get it into Frame #1 (this will be important). The 4H handbook says all frames must have wire to hang them. But since I just give the book the cursory one-sweeping glance, I fail to note that the wire has to be screwed into the frame itself. This becomes critical...

My 85 year old grandma is here to visit and watch the dog shows. I don't talk to her much because she is always bent over sweeping up dog hair or loading the dishwasher...poor woman. She babysits, cleans up, teaches embroidery and expresses great interest in trampolining, garden beetles, chicken activity and evening foot scrubbing.

So, I load up 5 children (babysitting for the fireman down the street who lost his wife last year to BC). So I have them for 24 hrs. every third day. Sweet little boy and girl, between #2 and #3. We're all in the car, except Grandma, who is sweeping up dog hair. (I'm thinking she's looking forward to 1 hour of silence as we go to fairgrounds to drop off art.) #1 is in front seat putting wire on brackets of #2's picture frame.

#1 pulls just the wrong way on the wire of the frame and breaks glass as I am climbing into car with five children and two large framed artworks. (#1 did a watercolor at a class at the library as well as the charcoal.)

No problem! We can just hit Michael's on our way to 4H fairgrounds. We must be there by 7 pm to drop off and it's only 5 pm. So off we go. #1 stays in car with #3 and NB (neighbor boy), while I go in with #2 and NG (neighbor girl). I now find the aisle with the document frames (wouldn't have had to cut picture!!), which I now buy. #2 and NG convince me to buy $1 calendars for them all to color while we are driving...

Back into the car, #1 goes at the framing thing with vigor (a little less vigor perhaps, to protect glass in frame #2). Frame #2 is a document frame, MADE FOR 8.5x11, so now the picture has been trimmed a little too much. TOO BAD! It's going in. White space be darned!

Off we go. We arrive at the fairgrounds with the approximately 200,000 other county residents who are hauling in artwork, furniture, and any other non-living project you can imagine. I bring my five little chicks in with me and we proceed to fill out our little cards (Mom, how do you spell charcoal?)

4H Fine Art Steward approachs us almost immediately to let us know that our wire hangars are not correct on two of the three projects. Thankfully, they have provided a table with screw-eyes, wire and tools to correct such malformaties as must be pretty prevalent, since there is a waiting line for the work table.

#1 gets her watercolor frame re-rigged quickly. That girl is handy. Then we go to work on Frame #2 while the other chicks hit the water fountain. (Stay together little chicks. Don't hang on the ropes that divide the lines little chicks. Stand still you little cretins!)

We realize that Frame #2 is not made of wood. It's not even made of a natural material, unless compressed cardboard counts as a natural material. Our fingers begin to show the strain of twisting little bitty screw-eyes...we give up and whine for special treatment.

We are taken to the Matron of Fine Art, who shows a teensy bit of leniency in allowing us some extra time TO GO TO WAL-MART AND GET ANOTHER FRAME! She said it--GO TO WAL-MART AND GET A WOOD FRAME.

Little chicks, get your little hineys back in the car, no you cannot go through the tents, no you cannot have a snack, put your eyes on those calendars!!! True, Wal-mart is just around the corner, but it's Super Walmart, so that means the parking lot is akin to Disney World and I'll need a map to find picture frames.

This time I take #3 (the loose cannon with a piercing whine) with me and everyone else stays with #1 in the car. What would I do without #1??? We find the picture frames and I pick one that says in bold letters "Solid Wood". But we're in Wal-mart for cryin' out loud. What are the odds that I will leave with one, singular item in my hand???

We pass the back-to-school displays and there are crayons for 20 cents--now can anyone pass that up?! And they go with the $1 calendars I bought at Michaels, right? And we're trapped in the car for another drive--I wonder if Dave Ramsey sees it this way?? So four boxes of crayons go into the bag, forgive me #1, and we're off.

Back to the fairgrounds. The entire tribe piles out and I hand them off to #1 to take through all the empty fairground tents, while I head back to the dungeon, I mean fine art area to begin my labor for Rumplestiltskin...did I mention how helpful #1 is?

Back to the table, it is now 6:30. There are a paltry few little screw eyes left and still the parents surround the table, twisting and hammering. I begin on frame #3 in earnest and believing that since I am lawfully joined to the handiest man on the planet, this should be a breeze. After all, my proximity to him for almost two decades should have rubbed off a little.

Sure enough, the first screw eye is seated in a reasonable amount of time, what with having to share the one little hammer with three other sets of parents, on a plastic banquet table. I did take the precaution of removing the glass and the picture from the frame while I droned away.

Screw-eye #2 was not to be done. Indeed, I did not see one shred of evidence that frame #3 was made of anything different from frame #2 once we delved beneath the paint...it still looked like powdered something or other. I fussed. I spun the frame around the eye. I tapped the eye with the hammer. I pressed and turned and spat. Well, not really.

Finally, some kind soul at the other end of the table took pity on me--it must've been my hair--and came to my rescue. And she did use a teeny, weeny nail to make a starter hole for the stupid screw eye. (Handyman would have thought of this.) Let me say that the nail was so teeny that I had to hold it with needle-nose pliers while the other lady whacked at it. I kept expecting the glass to somehow slide off the table to the floor, but it held. And suddenly, she was finished. She did it.

Then I realized there was no wire left on the table, so I dispatched #2 (who had by this time come in to check on me) back to the car to retrieve the wire off frame #2. She returned with a wire barely long enough to make, but there was no stopping me now. I pulled the wire through and put those needle-nose pliers back to work pinching the wire around itself to close it.

Meanwhile, Frau Blucher the steward (not really--she was extremely patient and helpful), was bringing in some coated fence wire from her truck (I am not kidding about this) for the parents who were still there trying to get little Suzie's pictures corrected appointed.

Let me summarize: At this point I have paid about $20 to frame a pencil drawing on copy paper. This is one expensive little ribbon--she'd better win.

On to the dog show--bring your own baggies!

A three-hour tour...

Lewis, Clark and Sacajawea put in just south of the driveway.
As they head for the rapids, a friendly Mandan watches...
...and helps them over a shallows.
They turn east at the juncture with the overflowing creek.
and approach the notorious poultry penitentiary, nearly submerged.
Passing between the garden plot, piled high with "horse product" and the chicken "pen", they continue eastward, toward the "fort".
A friendly "native" joins the little band.
Another low spot. Lewis has to drag the dugout.
View from the fort.
Approaching Trail's End.

Results are in...

With apologies to #1, I only have pictures of #2 and Princess Tashi during the agility show for today's post. I was the ring steward in the Novice ring where #2 was showing. #1 was showing two rings away from me and I could not leave to photograph her, sooooooooo her pictures are all trapped in an ancient format call "film" that will require me to actually drive my SUV somewhere--increasing my carbon footprint, drop off a long roll of celluloid that must not see any light, wait for several hours and then retrieve said pictures. What a hassle! But they should be great when we get them.

#1 and Tucker the Wonder Dog, were champions in Standard Agility and Obedience and blue ribbon in Jumpers Agility, AND GRAND CHAMPION in Agility overall! Hoooooooweeeee! All that jumping up on the dining room table must have helped! ;)

#2 and Tashi the Princess, in their first year of competition, received blue ribbons in Standard agility, Gamblers agility and in Obedience, even though Tashi tried to nip at the judge--several times--during stand-for-examination. Her sit-stays and down-stays were perfect; so that carries a lot of weight and covers a multitude of "standing" violations. :)



The menu plan was a terrific help! I stuck to it through Friday, except we DID NOT eat fast food at the dog show Monday night. I decided we weren't spending more money because we had taken ourselves out to eat on the weekend before, on the spur of the moment, and it cost us $50 at a very modest hometown Mexican place. Sooooo, it was PB&J with some snacks thrown in. At the end of the night, the little food booth was giving away nachos with meat, as we were beginning to tear down the rings, so that helped out.

This week will be a little wild--we're supposed to pick up a small amount of hay tomorrow, still have shopping to do for upcoming wedding getaway weekend and get house prepared for house-sitters (friends who want to try out the whole hobby-farm thing).