Good Moodoo to you

The weather has been excellent for the last few days. So nice in fact I have a pretty sore sunburn on my back and arms. We have been busy trying to get the yard cleaned up and the gardens tilled. Only problem is our rototiller doesn't want to work and i am impatient. We need to bring it in to get repaired, but i have a feeling I will have hand turned everything by then. I've got close to 400lbs of cow, bunny, chicken manure and peat ready to add.Most of the seedling sare growing indorrs. I still have a few to plant.

So far we have snow peas, snap peas, spinach, parseley, basil, Roma & Steak tomotoes, lemon cucumbers, blue lake beans, cheroke yellow wax beans, and purple queen beans, carrots, chives, and lavender . I also have some potatoes that we never used that i think i will try to grow. I wanted to do pumpkins, but it might be too late. I also still want some squash and melons, asparagus, and lettuce.

front flower garden, yes that is still snow!

back flower garden, partially tilled

Side vegetable garden. I think i will do the root veggies here. There are already onions and chives growing here, as well as some mint i think, plus we will need to enclose this one to keep the chickens out (you can see the coup in the background).

Back vegetable garden. This garden is way back by the pond. We didn't touch it last summer so as you can see it is pretty over run with weeds (this is after i raked it). There were a few big rhubarbs here last summer as well as a stawberrry patch, so I will try to keep those.

I also need to clean up behin the garage. We have some blackberries growing wild there. I trying to learn how to cultivate them and would like to get them on a trellis. I saw some gold raspberries at lowes the other day that I would love to mix in with these blackberries.

Flooding and cyclops

The rain just won't stop. Roads all around us are closed due to flooding. The water is washing out the dirt under and on the sides of the roads, so huge chunks are breaking off and leaving 4-5 foot gullies. JR and Alicia's driveway (which is about a mile) is completely washed out and they are stranded in their house. Besides one leak that was dripping onto our on demand water heater and the now raging river in our backyard, we are doing fine.

In kitten news, Shaniqua has grown a pair of balls, and is the first to begin opening his eyes. We now call him cyclops ( and this is my new favorite picture of all time).

Well it snowed again, lots of downed limbs and power lines around the area, we didn't
have any big problems here, except for a few leaks from the
ceilings that we need to patch up.
Bout a foot and a half of snow over the last couple days, but then.......it started raining. Lots. The snow is melting and we have a running river where our little creek usually is. Its gonna be a muddy may.

The babies are a week old today. Nora has decided to move them around for the last few nights. That included bringing two of them in the bed while we were in there sleeping. She brought monkey under the covers with me, so I had to sit her down and tell her that this is not a good place for her babies. Thats monkey and tyrone in the first picture, little doobie and monkey in the second.

Doobabies

Here are Doobies babies at a day and a half. I think their pictures are in order of the oldest to the youngest.


Big Black Monkey Lil Doobie
Blackie (aka Tyrone)
Baby Blackie(aka Shaniqua)
And no, the names aren't permanant, yet.

Scooby Pooped Em!

Nora had her babies last night without any complications. I'll post more later but here is a quick pic of them today. She had 5 in all, 3 solid black, one mini version of her, and one dark grey version of her. Wait until you see the birthing photos, nasty stuff!

WTF?

So remember how I was just saying that the snow was almost all melted. Well yesterday morning was so unpleasantly awoken by the sounds of the plow trucks, and once again we got over a foot of snow. Hmpph>

I need to start shoveling as I am already late for my service accounts. (This entire post was written with a very fat Nora on my lap biting my fingers as I typed because she is being very needy)

Update on the Groceries

Well, we have improved. I'm sure we can still do better, but we have gone from spending $419.56 on groceries in the month of January to $272.00 in February, and then down again to $251.23 in March. While I may be making more than the two trips a month I was originally alloting myself, I have been writing lists and trying to preplan meals. It seems to help. Now i just need to make sure I remember the lists and coupons next time I go to hannafords.

Finally

Holy taco sauce, yes, I am once again typing my blog entries on my laptop. This can only mean one thing, my taxes are done. Finally! Five months later, all of my taxes are filed and I have my computer back.
I plan on adding new posts and pictures this weekend, the snow is almost all melted, nora hasn't pooped any babies yet, the mercy hospital thing fell through, I got a new tutoring position, went down to CT for my grandmothers funeral, one of the chickens went broody, and I have another headache. Oh, and most exciting of all, I ate macaroni and cheese last week!

NOT Amused!

Sooo.........Nora seems to be pregnant. I have been denying it for a couple weeks, but it is pretty obvious now. Shit.

4 Jobs?

Sooooo..... I think I am about to have another job interview. While I have been looking for another job, this one was kind of just on a whim. I filled out an online application and wasn't really expecting to hear back, but i did, and the manager sounds quite interested in having me work there. It is at Mercy Hospital , and yes that is in Portland. So therein lies the problem. This might be a really interesting job and I can probably get benefits, but this will be another hour in, hour out commute. Oh well, I am still going to set up an interview. If I can get the right hours and benfits, I think I will do it. They have lots of benefits including free medical services, medical insurance, dental, eyecare, retirement, tuition reimbursement, and a few others. The position I applied for is a phlebotomy position, but the message I got was 'I have a position that I think you would really like', and 'I think we can help you further your career with your biology degree', so we'll see. Bu then again, it could be a job diagnosing poop samples. Hmmm.

Groceries

Just came across this article.
Take a Bite out of Groceries

I have a headache.

Woke up this mornig with a throbbing headeache, was assigned several chores by Tony as I was still asleep and he was heading off to work. I am struggling to remember what they all are but recall him saying thats the most yeses hes gotten out of me in a while. So i guess i better do them. Please hold. Need more coffee.

Its effing freezing again. We are just about to be out of wood for the umpteenth time. Hopefulle these are the last of the cold days for this year. The poor chickens are locked in the coop right now. Wind chills yesterday were -20 yet they all decided to stay outdoors. Today is a little less windy, so I may let them out when I go out to feed them and dethaw their water.

I worked a full day of inschool yesterday instead of my regular half day. It was sooo boring the one room all day with 7 little asses, i was ready to scratch my eyeballs out. Normally I just do the academic portion, someone else does the reflection portion, and the school police officer does the community service portion. For some reason they had me do all of them yesterday. The reflection portion was espically difficult for me to do. The students answer questions as to why they are in inschool and how their behaviors affect them and other people, etc.... The I sit with them one by one and review them. Out of the 50 or so kids I have had in my classroom, only about 3 or 4 have been placed in inschool for something really 'bad'. The rest were either late to school 3 times, missed a class, unexcused absence, missed a detention, etc. The school overuses inschool I am finding. I have had one girl 4 times straight now. This tells me that assigning her an inschool is not reforming her. Anyway, im bored with talking about work. Oh, but i did get mistaken for a student again yesterday (that #3). Dem Bastards!

The money saga contines. Wait, do you feel that? That sinking feeling? Yes, that is us going under. T got the water/sewer bills for the apartment house. Usually water is about $150, sewer is about $100. These bills come in 3 month increments. This time water was $800 and sewer was $400. So we owe the city of bath $1200 this month. Oh, and the furnaces needed to have some repairs a couple of weeks ago at the tune of $500. O.H.S.H.I.T. Don't ask me why the water bill is so high. T had someone from the city go recheck the meter and sure enough the reading was correct. An the guy said the meter is spinning like mad still. So something must be runnning somewhere. The only thing I can think of is that good old earlimester (the rotting 80 year old deaf tenant who used to yell and me through the walls) maybe has the water running to keep pipes from freezing?? The whole idea of he died in the shower with the water running and no one has found him yet was proved false because we recently recieved yet more good financial news in a letter from him. Aparently he has run out of checks and needs to get a ride into town to go to his bank. He expects do have it done within a week and will then send us his rent check. Let me clarifyy this matter. #1 He is deaf. #2 He has no phone. #3 He has no car. #4 He has no family. Therefore I dont know how he expects this to happen.

Another Reason We're Poor

I've taken to entering all of our income and expenses into an Excel spreadsheet so that we can look at our situation in graph form and gasp in horror.
In January alone we spent $419.56 in groceries . We are two people. Two none gluttonous people.... or so I thought.
I or we have decided that this is way too much so the new plan I have devised is as follows. Every 2 weeks I will construct a meal plan, list all the necessary ingredients, form a shopping list, and stick by the list. So thats it. No more twice a week visits to Hannafords. Two visits a month and i must only buy what is on the list. We'll see how long this lasts.

How to annoy me-

Wake me up 3 times by saying loudly, "I can't believe you're asleep".

Spring Yet?

It be snow!

Shoveling is fun!

Valentine Blizzard

Yesterday was valentines day and maine was hit with a blizzard. Our first big snow of the year. I would say we got about 2 feet. Went snowshoeing in our woods earlier in the day... it's more of a workout than you would expect. Then i fell a couple times and an asscrack full of snow means its time to go inside. Notice the look of enjoyment upon my face.

Afterwards we braised a chuck roast which came out very well.

The boys shared their bed and stayed warm by the woodstove all day. This is their get out of our faces with that damn camera look.

She was raised by squirrels

Nora scooby dooby is a freak of nature. I think before we found her she lived as a squirrel with her adoptive squirrel parents. Anytime she is outside she runs up into the trees.

You have to look close or click on the photo to enlarge it, she up up about 40 feet.

Here she is in the crab apple or cherry or some kind of tree. She climbs up this one to knock the fruit off of the branches. Bodhi has learned from her and makes attempts to climb trees behind her, but can only drag his fatty ass up a couple of feet.

Fiber Stuff

I decided to knit a pair of mittens from Girl Bunny's fiber. For some reason I always knit stuff for myself to fit the exact size of my hand or head.... this proceeds to make everything a smidge too small. No matter how many times i think i am knitting extra rows, the outcome is alwyas the same. anyways here is the start of mitten one.

Fuzzy Buns

The bunnies have had their winter haricuts, finally. I think I should have done it sooner, but I didn't want them to get too cold when we were keeping them on the back porch. Girl bunny (she really needs a name) was first to go. She does very well during the process. I sit her on the ottoman in front of the tv and she will barely move. She looks like a different animal without her fur.

Hagrid's haricut was way overdue. He had a little bit of matting going on behind his ears and around his neck that took some work to cut out. Typically he is the more relaxed of the two, but he gets excited when i am clipping him and want to dig through the ottoman and explore the living room. When he is out to run around the sunroom he spends all of his time trying to find a way into girl bunny's cage. She bites out tufts of his fur through the wires (i don't know that that is so good for their relationship).

The plan is to make an attempt at breeding these two sometime next month. I need to do some more research so that I am ready when the babies are born. I think potentially we already have a couple people interested in buying one and god knows we could use the money. When I bought these guys Hagrid was $85 and Girl Bunny was $65 so it would be nice to recover some cash from them .

chilled chickens

Buffy is slowly healing up. It seems his comb may heal up just fine, but he is losing some of his waddle. It has just shriveled down to a smaller size. It doesn't help that we have been in a strong cold spell since this all started with him. Most nights and morning it has been in the single or negative digits. Days have gotten above 25 degrees in at least 2 or 3 weeks.
We feed him and the girls hot oatmeal in the mornings to help warm them up. I add eggs (with the shells, its their favorite part) and birdseed sometimes as well. Also a little flax seed oil in their water to help them get a good layer of fat but to also make our eggs more nutritious for us. They love to dig through the compost and will often leave their oatmeal breakfast to run to the compost pile.

Rooster recovery

Buffy/Bludo, while not looking worse, still looks the same. He has been outside with the girls for several days now. The first couple day we kept him in there with the heat lamp on, but now we let him out in the morning. His comb may heal, but he is definitely going to loose some of his waddle. It is dried out and folded over. We have been applying bag balm to it at night to try and help a little. I feed everyone warm oatmeal in the mornings, sometimes with scrambled eggs, flax oil, or bird seed mixed in to warm them up a bit. They love to go through the food scraps we through in the compost pile. We are still getting 6 eggs a day, so they must be healthy enough. The biggest issue is keeping their water from freezing. Several times a day i replace their frozen water with warm water.

Stranded......

Round two on new subaru issues. Yes, it overheated again. Once again on the coldest day of the year (this time it was about -20 with the windchill). After leaving the house at 6:30 in the morning, working my job at the high school in windham, then working at the fish store in westbrook, then going into portland to drop off an invoice and fish food, then to scarborough to drop off a fish, and then to saco for a service call.......my car decides to overheat when I am about a half hour from home (its now 7:30 pm). So skip all the bull inbetween and my car is back at the dealership, awaiting it's sentence. Either another repair of a new car (I think this is what is the problem after doing some research http://users.sisna.com/ignatius/subaru/headgasket.html .... don't ask how that will go down. But regardless, I missed work on Saturday bc of this, and now I missed a chance to sub today, partly because i don't have a car, but also bc tony didn't know what the phone calls we for and didn't wake me up (it's an automated system to call in substitute teachers). So i sit at home, not making money we so desperately need and waiting for afternoon to come so I can find out about my car. Hopefully I have it or something to drive bc I have work at the high school in the morning.

First day of work....

So I had my first day of school ysterday. The alarm went off at 5:45 and the rooster decided to help me wake up as well. Of course it had snowed overnight and ws still spit some more flakes so I decided to leave the house extra early (6:30 to be there for 7:30). Good thing i did because the roads were not so nice. .......so, about halfway to work, i switch radio stations only to hear the the only 2 delays in the whole state happen to include windham. School was delayed for 2 hours. Now.. I am halfway there, and as much as i want to, i decide not to go home as to avoid prolonged driving a la snow. I opt to go to the school, and try to figure out what will become of my first day, seeing as my shift is 7:30-11:30 and school won't start til 9:30. Get there and no-one is there. hmph. So I go to walmart for an hour. Moms favorite store. Bought some car moats for the subaru and a notebook. The I sat in a few parking lots for a while. Inschool ending up going forward, I was there 9:30 to 12:00. Five kids in the room, all of whom said and did nothing. It was very boring, but whatever. All in all this job will be very easy.... if only it was more hours. You need 30 hours for benefits, which are paid 100% by the school if it is just individual coverage (medical and dental). I do however get a retirement plan, and can contribute funds to it which they will match, and life insurance (which i don't really care so much for now, but supposedly signing onto it now will make the process much easier). I am also signed up to be a sub and hopefully do some tutoring as well. I did all the paperwork for this job yesterday, it took over an hour. and i have more i have to do at home and bring back. perhaps this is because i finally have a real job (eh, sort of).

Tony threw the rooster back outside. While it is nice and quiet in here finally, he isn't ready to be back out.

We got propane, and have to pay a not so small fee to get them to come out sooner b/c they were booked through next week. Good thing though because is supposed to be in the negative digits on friday.

I leave you with a pic scooby nora dooby.

Shitballs!

Note to Self:
check propane levels more frequently. please and thank you.

Pictures

no snow
snow

chickens first now. (we aint going out there)

scoobies first snow ( i wanna go out there)
my first handspun yarn from the bunnies

Not off to such a great start

So much for 07 being my year....

My poor little honda has had its last hoorah. Yes thats right, I finally drove it into the ground and the its now the little engine that couldn't. Bank turned me down for a car loan, mainly because I am a loser but also due to a high debt to income ratio(refer back to no-one wanted to hire me).Needless,Tony came to the recuse and we were able to get a loan. More debt is all we need. Here is my new mobile. It is a 98 Subaru Forester. (Soccer mom my ass)

Sooooo....... new used car, yeah!!! Well because my middle name is shit for luck, 4 days after purchasing my new car it decides to no longer produce heat and have the engine overheat. O yes, and this happened to be the day it was -10,,,,,, an OH YAH, it happened to be 7:30 in the morning when i was on the way to a job interview. Ass. I called in interviewer to let her know what was going on only to get her voicemail. So after having to pull over every 5-10 minutes to let the engine cool down, and sitting in a freezing cold car, I piddled my way into my interview 20 minutes late, only to hear my message being played in the office as i walked in (i sound like a man on the phone). Great first impression...... so any interview wraps up, I call the dealer, only to be told, even if the problem is something covered by warrenty, it is still up to me to get it there. I am in Windham. Dealer is in Norway. Fuckers. (... its and hour drive). So i call triple A for the second time in a week. An hour later (again waiting in a car with no heat, temp was up to 6 though), my 360 lb tow truck driver shows up. A lovely $100 tow trip and 2 hours later, my car was fixed (for free thank piss). I'll tell you about the engine light being on some other time.

(o i got the job by the way regardless of bing late, more on that later)

Sooo..... Buffy, aka Bludo our rooster has frostbite.

See the black on his comb and waddle. Thats bad. His feet are really red too. He kepps picking on leg up and tucking it into his feathers. Potentially his comb and waddle could fall off where it is black. I read a story about a rooster who lost both its feet to frostbite (its still alive). So.........Buffy is spending some time with us, IN THE HOUSE. WTF. we have a ghetto pen built for him in fromt of the woodstove.Christ, what have i become. I'll tell you about the warm chicken casserole i feed the hens another time.

Speaking of our house being turned into a barn, the rabbits are indoors for the time being. The screened porch is just not cuttin it. Yes they have big fur coats, but their water freezes in about 2 hours and their metal cages aren't so pleasant.

The sunroom is now the lizard fish rabbit room.
Here is bunny (aka hagrid) very furry (where are your eyeballs) with a carrot stained chin.

Yes, I am gay.... I call him bunny and the girl who has no real name I call bunbun. That its, Im calling it a nite.

O and i ate feta tonight. lets see what happens.

ThanksGiving was over a month ago.

Thanksgiving was spent down in Ct. It was a long time ago and I don't remember much. I know I went a bit crazy on the baking and cooking before we left though.

Return of the Jedi

I am back. But only for a short time. It seems that when someone offers to do you taxes for you as a friend for free, this translates to i will do you taxes for you sometime over the span of the next year. My accountant still has not finished said taxes, even though he had my computer for about a month. He gave it back a week ago cause he was going to disney, but now he wants he back again. So I have lots to update, thanksgiving, xmas, new years, all that crapola. Also updates on shitty jobs, running out on leases, job searches, and that sort.