Congratulations, it’s a boy!!

I got up this morning to snow.  It’s beautiful out there.  I could do without the extreme cold though.  Tonight it will dip down into single digits and tomorrow night into the minus.  If it’s the usual deal it will be way worse or not as bad as they say.  If the wind doesn’t pick up that will help.  That last wind was trying to blow down my fence.

I went out and looked and some screws have popped loose and I don’t think the poles are in the ground very well.  Who knows, they may have broken off at some time but it doesn’t look like it.  I’ll probably find the poles underground someday.  They are not square, they look like tree trunks that were used for poles.  This should be easy, I’ll remove the screws, move the poles and put the screws back in.  I try to move the fence but the next pole need to be moved first.  I get that moved a little and then go back to the other panel.  I try to move it and then the other one bends back again.  I pull the fence way, way towards me so it’s going towards the ground and then I slide one pole back and then go back and the other moves ok but something is just not quite right (actually I did this four or five times).  I try to go to the other side of the fence but the  gate was blown to the wrong side of the latch (not sure how, maybe when the fence came apart and shifted?).  After going around the whole house two times I finally decide I need to fix the gate because it’s taking me way too long to keep walking back and forth.  I have to unscrew the latch from the fence, kick the gate as hard and as high and I can to get the gate back on the right side.  The bottom hinge was ripped out of the fence post by the wind (and it not being on the right side).  I can’t get one little part of the gate back on the other side so I go get a crow bar type thing yand try to pry it back on the other side.  I get it wedged in and with a few good kicks it finally goes back to the other side (that took me a half hour).  I screw the hinge in that has come loose and put the latch back on so now I can get back to the fence (maybe an hour later after starting this endeavor).  I take a shovel and tromp through the snow ( around my cute little white picket fence so I have to walk all the way around, I can’t just walk over to the spot I need to fix and why don’t I have my boots on?).  I remove all the screws that are screwed into air because they have ripped out and remove the outer boards, remove the screws, put the boards back and do it again on the other pole.  The snow is piled up against the fence from the storm so I shovel it all out so I can move the fence back further and walk all the way back around again (thank God I fixed the gate so I don’t have to walk around the whole house).  After two more times of trying to bend the fence over and move the poles back and walking back and forth to the other side of the fence I finally get them back to where I think they originally were.  Who knows.  It looks somewhat straight and is far back enough now that it doesn’t look like it’s falling down.  I take the 2 X 4’s and another old broken pole I found lying around and prop them up against the fence.  I go find some bricks to try to reinforce the poles so when the wind blows hopefully the will not move again.  Whew, that was a lot more work than I thought it would be and after two more trips around the house and then two more back and forth around the little fence I think I got my workout for the day.  So, that is the kind of wind we had up here.  Here’s hoping it won’t be that windy again until Spring.  I think there were gusts up to 70 mph.

My wood stove is burning away.  Soon I will be able to turn the gas down because it does a really good job of heating the house.  As long as I don’t let it go out.  I get busy putzing around and then all of a sudden I realize I need to put more wood on it sooner than I did.

It’s going to be a great day to stay in and do some fun things.  I went out yesterday and picked up a few pine cones (the neighbors tree hangs over on my side so there were only a few to pick up).  I’m going to dip them in wax and make fire starters.  Maybe I’ll put a touch of cinnamon oil in them.  It will be a test to see if I can actually smell them or not.

I made suet for the birds yesterday.  I just looked out and there are a bunch sitting on the electrical line up above to hopefully they will find it soon.  They will need it during the next two days. My favorite suet recipe is:

In large pan melt 1 cup lard with 1 cup chunky peanut butter over medium heat.  Add 2 cups quick cooking oats, 2 cups cornmeal and 1 cup flour.  Yesterday I didn’t have any flour so I added a cup of bird seed.  You can get creative with it but the lard and peanut butter is a good base.  Put it in the fridge to help harden it. 

I usually use an old square ziploc container (sandwich size) to put it in the fridge to cool.  I only had one so I used one of those, a 16 oz sour cream container, and I needed something else so I took a large size coffee filter and put it in a bowl.  Today when I put it out I just peeled the filter off and threw it outside on a stump for the smaller birds that are more ground or flat feeders.  I have a wire cage that I hang to put some in and cut the square into chunks so it filled the round cage.

Just looked out and I think they’ve definitely found it.

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Thursday last we took cats in to be fixed.  It’s time to take my new little Squeaky (Meow sounds like a squeaky toy) that came in during the blizzard and minus degrees.  It weighs four pounds now and is almost 5 months old so definitely time to get it in and get the deed done.  I’m sure it’s a girl.  It’s so tiny and we held it up the other day and don’t see anything growing.  Denise has her two barn cats she got a few months ago.  They are females and she was pretty sure way out where they are that no male would find them.  She opened the barn door Wednesday morning and a black cat came streaking out.  It had been trapped in their barn overnight.  So apparently they are not too far away from anywhere for the males to find them so she decided it was time to have them fixed.

It’s about 5:30am.  I’m ready to go and decide I will load up Squeaky in the carrier around 6:00.  We need to get going by 6:30 because it takes 45 minutes to get there and if you get there after 7:30 they may have to reschedule so don’t want to be late.  It’s 5:30 and Squeaky is eating up a storm.  She usually doesn’t eat much in the morning but go figure.  I load her up in the carrier so she’ll stop eating.  Sandy has an appointment for 3 or 4 if she can catch that many.  I have an appointment for three, mine and two of Denise’s.  Denise arrives and she has hers in a large carrier.  We need to transfer them into two smaller carriers because each cat has to have their own carrier or they won’t work on them.  I can see why.  Denise and I are in the kitchen and I tell her we need to stay inside until Sandy comes over so I don’t interrupt her.  My phone rings and Sandy yells, I need you right now.  I have Sylvester (a female but named before it had its first litter) trapped but she won’t come out so I need you to come beat on the house (Sandy found these cool houses she put out to insulate and put the food in bad weather) to try and get her to come out.  I don’t know what the neighbor catty corner across the street thought but we were out there at 5:30 pounding on the roof and sides of it to scare the cat out and there was a little more than some swearing going on.  She finally tried to get out and realized she was running to a trap so ran back in the corner.  I found a big branch for Sandy to try and get her out.  Finally after about 10 minutes we got her in the carrier.  She was not a happy cat.  We loaded her into Denise’s car with her other two and I loaded up Squeaky and we headed off to Sandy’s to put Denise’s two cats in the small carriers.   We got that done and Sandy said she wanted to try for one more cat so Denise and I took off and Sandy would be right behind us.  Whew, we got our cats to the rescue spay and neuter clinic and Sandy called and said she was right behind us with another cat.  Yeah, at least she got two.  It’s not the four she wanted but better than none.

We go to have a cup of coffee at our favorite coffee/bookstore in old town Ft Collins.  Bean Cycle.  It’s owned by a brother and sister and they roast their own beans.  Great little coffee shop.  We stroll around to the kitchen store and then it’s time to move our cars.  Parking in Ft Collins is a pain the ass.  Denise takes off and Sandy and I roam around town all day.  When it’s time the clinic calls and the first thing they say to me is “Congratulations, it’s a boy!!”  We could have sworn Squeaky was a girl.  Just personal preference I like girl cats more than boys.  You don’t have to worry so much about them getting their wangers plugged up with the wrong food etc.   Now if he doesn’t go outside and run away like Brother did to Sandy’s house I’ll have another cat.  Since it’s winter and cold outside he’ll most likely get used to being in here so won’t leave.  I would leave too if someone ripped my nuts off.

I smashed my favorite milk bottle on the tile floor this morning.  I’m upset because it was a cool old milk bottle from Longmont Dairy. It had cows on it.  I like to put my milk in a glass bottle instead of leaving it in the carton.  I’ll have to start trolling some antique stores to see if I can find another half gallon bottle.

Well, that’s all the excitement happening here.

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!