• Creatures,  Ramblings

    Her Dirty Paws and Furry Coat

    In our farmhouse in Iowa, we had a lot of mice. A lot of them. In fact, whatever you think is a lot, make it a lot of that amount. We could hear chewing in the walls of every room. There was mouse poop everywhere. We would see multiple mice every day. We set up a camera in the kitchen to record them overnight, and you can see three at a time, I believe, in one of the videos. I can’t seem to locate the recordings at the moment. They were everywhere. I love animals, and I did not want to kill these innocent little lives, just going about how…

  • Food,  Ramblings

    Tally Me Banana

    Note: Please excuse this awful photo full of darkness and overexposures. The lighting in this refrigerator is straight out of Saw. Right now our new refrigerator is sitting in the kitchen, properly blocking access to the kettle I use to make my fancy instant coffee every morning (a relatively new habit). It’s resting upright, as instructed, for six hours, before we will move it into place and throw the old one into the Goat Shed. It’s taken quite some time to finally get the refrigerator here, but now that it’s arrived, I’m extremely excited. There are still some feelings of trepidation since the fridge remains encased in its dirty cardboard shipping…

  • Creatures,  Ramblings

    You Know I like My Chicken Fried

    We’ve decided to buy a full refrigerator, or a freezer-less refrigerator if you like that better. Our not-quite-full-size one can no longer handle the amount of produce we’re buying. I’d show you but it’s way out there and I’m way in here, and you really should have asked before I sat down. You’ll just have to trust me. As a kid, I abhorred folding and putting away my clothes. So I’d shove them into any drawer that wasn’t clogged, making it so when you pulled the drawer out later, clothes would spring up like a jack-in-the-box. That’s almost how our fridge is at the moment. We have reached maximum capacity.…

  • Creatures,  Ramblings

    Sunshine Beating on the Good Times

    It was early May when I first noticed a scrawny grey cat hobbling around with an injured back leg. He could barely make his way across the yard, each step clearly causing him a lot of pain. There was no way he’d be able to escape if one of the neighboring ranch’s dogs went after him, and they’ve killed a number of their own cats, or if a coyote or wolf caught sight of him. So, I did what anyone who’s me would do; I suggested we trap him. Brian bought a raccoon trap, we baited it with a couple cans of wet cat food, and we waited. That evening it…

  • Food,  Ramblings

    Yes, We Have No Bananas

    Note 1: This is not a sponsored or affiliate post. Note 2: There will be a lot of links, follow them if you wish, don’t if you’d rather not. You have the power here. Note 3: This is another iPhone picture. I haven’t touched my actual camera in forty years. Note 4: Nothing in said photo is from Thrive, but I’m using it because it’s food, and who’s going to stop me? We have joined Thrive Market. Sure, it’s just a place to do grocery shopping, but you don’t have to leave your house, which I find especially nice, and almost everything is cheaper than retail, even compared to our local…