Time, lots of time has passed since I was a blogger.  Time passed and I have changed, but those of you who know me well, know that time doesn’t even have to pass for me to change.  Sometimes I do it in the blink of an eye.  Don’t you feel sorry for my man.  Women are hard enough to “understand” but it’s really not fair when I change my opinions and ideals like a cuttle fish changes her dress.  What can I say?  It’s who I am.  Several things do remain the same.

• I love God.
• I love my husband.
• I love my kids.
• I love homeschooling.
• I love watching movies.
• I love these bullet thingies.

These are the steadiest parts of my life.

So what’s different about today?  I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking I just need a place to put my thoughts down and show off pictures of my kids and visit with you folks every once in a while.  I sure don’t have time to do this everyday, but I think it won’t hurt to try a “when I have a minute” approach.  Again.  So, here I go.

Okay, so today was hard.  Not the “heart-rending” kind of hard.  The “boy-howdy do my feet and back hurt from all the work” kind of hard.

This morning the kids helped me check (wait a minute, I have to do math, yes, it does hurt a little, I’m gonna get out the calculator)(11 cartons x 18 eggs per carton) ok, about 200 eggs for freshness using the “does it float or sink” method.  Then we took them and gave them to some of our friends and the staff at our local veterinary clinic.  I never told y’all at the time, but when Trixie died the nice folks at our vet. clinic sent me a very heart-felt card and everyone on staff signed it and wrote a little note.  People, those folks had only seen Trixie twice.  They’re just good people.  Anyway, we took 7 cartons of eggs to them and took 4 cartons to town for friends.

The bank was next on my list and I had completely forgotten that it was the first banking day of the month.  Lo-o-o-o-o-ong line.  And the A/C in the car quit.

After that forever chore I went to drop off some kids and a couple of pizzas and pick up the husband to go out for lunch.  What a nice time we had, just the two of us.

Then off to Sam’s Club.  Just me and my 2 littlest kids.  The littles are now 8 and 11, so it’s not like I went to Sam’s with a couple of toddlers, but you can’t tell my feet and back that.  My feet and back think they did ALL THE WORK ALL DAY LONG.  Granted we did have a big haul at Sam’s, but …well, not sure why.  I guess it’s the floor at Sam’s.  Sucks the strength and energy right out of a person, can I get an AMEN on that?

So part of the huge haul was two rotisserie chickens.  (I knew spell check was gonna flag me on rotisserie.)  Anyway, brought those tasty birds home and plunked them into the crockpot to keep warm until the rest of the family gets home in a couple of hours.  Then we’ll heat a couple of cans of ranch beans and dig in.

Until then I’m gonna sit on a cushion and put my feet up.  I might read a book.  I might try reading a book with my eyes closed.

Thanks for listening.  Maybe next time I’ll put some photos of the kids on.  For now I think I’ll try to get one from my phone.  Never done that before.  Cross your fingers.  (I don’t even know what “cross your fingers” means, I just said it to rile Perry.)

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Trixie was a wonderful pet.  She was completely devoted to us and us to her.

Hover over the photos for additional commentary.

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Well, the weather is fine ‘most every day right now.

Trixie-the-Wonderdog loves, Loves, LOVES being out front with us, however, she still has a bit o’ friskiness in her so she wears the leash just in case she gets any “ideas”.

Why on earth she decided that she needed to get under my rocker I’ll never know.

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How many gerbils live in my house?  D. 60,  How many would you like?  (I wonder if chickens eat gerbils?  Just a thought.)

How many Butterfly larvae live in my house?  F. 3  Sally Mae is giddy!

How many rabbits in my backyard? A. 14  Foo-Foo has a new litter!

How many birds in my front room?  E. 12  The boys really need to get on with building the aviary.  I’m so sick of birds in the house!

How many snakes live in the den?  B. 4  (I’m  not a snake photographer!)
How many tarantulas live in my dining room? C. 1 (Nor am I a spider photographer.)

I’m glad y’all had fun playing my little game.  We do have  more animals than this.   There’s Cannonball Jack’s lizard.  And don’t forget Trixie-the-Wonder Dog. I think that’s all.  Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now.

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Ran a bit of fever yesterday and this morning so I stayed home from church this morning.  Sally Mae was up till midnight watching a movie, so she stayed home with me, bein’ as she was still sawin’ logs when Hubs and the Cowboys left.

So, we’re havin’ a fine time here at the ranch.  I’m messin’ ’round on this here blog and Sally Mae is watching Christmas movies (she does this year round).  Well, I walked through my bedroom and just happened to glance out the window and could not believe my eyes.

Trixie-the-Wonder-Dog was chasing something around the backyard, through the weeds.

Which, by the way, are getting kinda tall, some Cowboy should take the weed-eater out there tomorrow.

Anyway, hopping around the weedy backyard, half a step in front of Miss Trixie is one of my $$$breeder meat rabbits$$$.

“Trixie Lee!!!”

Only I have to be careful, or she’ll think I’m encouraging her in her efforts to save the family from this horrid beast bunny!

Good grief!  The last thing I needed to be doin’ this morning is running around my back yard trying to snatch my $$$bunny$$$ out of my dogs jaws!

Thankfully, Trixie came when I called her.  Amazing!  I know.  So, I shut her in the house.

And you have to know, that my first impulse is always to call the boys for help, but they’re good boys and they’re sitting in church hearing some good preachin’ ’bout now.

Drat!

I mean, good.

Good Cowboys!  Go to church.  But, um. . .

Sally Mae?  Can you come out here and, WAIT, put some shoes on dear.  Ok, come help me corner Daisy so I can put her back in her cage? Please? QUICK! Before she slips into the neighbor’s yard where their BIG DOG PROBABLY WON’T LISTEN TO ME AND WILL PROBABLY EAT MY $$$RABBIT$$$! ! !

Ok, no, I didn’t scream the scary bit about the neighbor’s dog out loud.  Did I mention that I have a fever and should not even have to get my own glass of water much less have to die of  panic in my back yard chase an actual rabbit IN REAL LIFE!

Not really what I had on the agenda for the day.

We have a little, flimsy fence around the rabbit area of our yard and this flimsy little fence did one useful thing.  It kept Trixie out of the rabbit part of the yard.  The thing it did NOT do was keep the free ranging rabbit IN the rabbit part of the yard!

So, I had Trixie ensconced in the house.  Sally Mae was finding crocs that match.  Daisy was trying to run me to death.  But the really redeeming factor about rabbits is that they are stoopid.  Remember the part of the Peter Rabbit story where Mr. MacGreggor is chasing PeterRabbit and Peter runs into the garden shed to hide?  I always thought that was such a dumb place to go.

Peter, you could get cornered in there!

Well, Daisy did the backyard equivalent.  She ran and “hid” behind some tomato cages that were stacked by the wooden fence.  I wanted to laugh but I was too grateful.  I guess she really thought I couldn’t get to her there, or maybe she was just tired.

About the time I grabbed that rabbit Sally Mae showed up to help.  She got to hold the cage door shut while I replaced the feed hopper.  I don’t know if  Daisy can knock it out of place or maybe it got bumped last evening when the Cowboys were feeding.  I think we need a bit o’ wire holding those deals in place.

And I think I’m gonna lay on the couch now and watch The Sacketts.

• All rabbits locked safely in cages – check.
• Trixie, head of rabbit security, sleeping by my feet – check.
• Tylenol on board – check.
• Sunday supper in the crockpot – check.

Th-Th-Th-That’s all folks!

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A change in her rations and a dose of wormer and she’s back to her old self.

And even though her old self is actually kinda gettin’ up there in dog years, (which I will go to the grave not knowing or caring how to figure out, )(I am just happy that she and Slim were born in the same year, saving me the trouble of remembering how old she is, same as Slim, easy) she’s very spry.  I’m sure that’s due to her Border Collie heritage.  Not full Border Collie mind you, I do have some sense in my head.  But enough so that she has a pretty good herding instinct and lots of guard dog sense.

But it kinda goes downhill from there.  She finds it to be of the utmost importance to guard us from our next-door neighbor, our friends and all squirrels.

And when the kids were younger (and hence, shorter) she would herd ‘em when they were out in the back yard, depending on her mood, either to the back door or away from it.  Now that the kids are all bigger than her she doesn’t try to herd them anymore, but it was cute and scary when she did.

Anyway, back to the squirrels.  We have one tree by our back fence where a certain squirrel hangs out just to taunt my Wonder-Dog.  You know how squirrels are!  And poor Trix, she never gives up.  This feud has gone on for years.  Mostly it’s the barking, but there is also some chatterring and a bit of chasing, but the squirrel is on the top fence rail for that part of it and has NEVER fallen off, even though Trixie has resorted to hurling her whole 20 pounds at the fence in an effort to dislodge old “Nutsy” (yes, we watch the Disney Robin Hood) he always stays on that top rail running to beat the band.

Neither animal has learned a thing in all these years.  They go through this whole routine EVERY TIME THEY SEE EACH OTHER!

So, when I started typing this post they were at it again.  Rowdy wanted to know how long squirrels live.  Well, I had to google that.  It was one of those times I had to confess,  ”I know lots of useless facts son, but squirrel longevity ain’t one of ‘em.”  I’m guessin’ he’s ready for Nutsy to ride off into the sunset, so to speak.

I found the cutest site with many, MANY, many useless facts about squirrels and nothin’ else.  Very cute, and handy for my current querry.

A few minutes ago I went out back and snapped these pics.  If I left her out there she would bark until Nutsy decided to abandon his post which might be a while.  I’m sure he gets a big kick outta driving my dog mad.

Anyway, I got to lookin’ at my pictures and I’ll be hanged it I can see a squirrel in that tree!

No, no, no, we are not gonna do this!  Trixie, if you start barkin’ at imaginary squirrels…

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New plan needed.

And what with all the green, hairy STRESS from Rowdy gettin’ all hurt I really had a hard time processing the fact that I had some ham in the fridge and some potatoes in the pantry and I possess the ability to make a white sauce.

See what I mean?

Makes perfect sense on a normal day.  But Wednesday was not the typical day and I even consumed some sugar because it was in the chocolate bar I ate.  And everybody knows that when you have stress you need chocolate.

I really don’t know how to get around the sugar in the chocolate thing.  I’m not gonna eat artificially sweetened chocolate.  Even typing that phrase made me make a face.

Back to the point, or rather how ’bout I begin to form a point?

Ham and Potato Casserole for a Stressful Day Dinner

You’ll need:

• 2 cups diced ham
• 8 (or so) potatoes, peeled and sliced
• ½ bag frozen peas

and for the white sauce:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 3 or 4 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 boullion cubes (I really don’t know how to spell that, is it right?)

Preheat the oven to 375°, spray the casserole dish with oil.  I used my dutch oven, which is just a covered roasting pan, but it’s round so I call it a dutch oven.  (Don’t know if that’s right either.)

In a 2 qt. saucepan melt the butter over medium heat.  Then add the flour and stir it into the butter.  Let that cook for about a minute and then add the milk, salt, garlic powder, and b. cubes. Stir it pretty good until the lumps are minimal and then stir it every couple of minutes so new lumps don’t form.

While the sauce is thickening put a layer of potatoes into the casserole dish, next add a layer of ham, and a layer of peas.  Do that again until you run out of stuff.  You could even add some diced onion at this point.  (I was gonna, but I set the onion behind my tea cup and forgot about it until I was cleaning up and the casserole was already in the oven.  Oops!)

Now stir that sauce one more time and pour it over all the potatoes and stuff, pop the lid on, and shove it into the oven for an hour or until the potatoes are tender.

This was delicious!  I might make it again tonight!

Trixie-the-Wonder-Dog was on high alert for incoming, airborn bits of ham fat.  For really fabulous treats that are even remotely meat related she goes all out and catches the bits in mid air.  Very gymnastic!  It’s quite impressive!  And no, she is not a chupacabra, she just gets a really bad case of red-eye in most photos and sometimes it looks wicked-cool so I didn’t edit.  You’re welcome!

Here’s your link back to Food on Fridays.

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Really, she does.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m about to have a seizure or something and she’s trying to warn me about it.  She sticks to me like glue!  I have to know all the parts of my house that I can grab in case she gets too much underfoot and I trip.  She really and truly is my constant companion.

We have trouble getting good photos of her because she’s black and the camera can’t see her in much detail.  But she’s also very shy of the camera, she doesn’t like the noises it makes.  So, to get these photos of her was a real trick.

I’d like to say that she was distracted because I was there talking to her.  But it was her other love.   My only competition for her affections.

That nasty old thing.

Good thing she doesn’t have to choose between us.  I think it would tatter the fiber of the Universe.

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