Want To Buy A Car?

I'm trying to sell a few large items from around the house. Actually we've been trying to sell Joe's Ford Focus since last summer. I've had an add in the paper and online. I only received one call from the newspaper ad which ran for two months. I finally decided to put a sign on it and park it at the end of the driveway. I had two calls in the first few days. One guy showed up the other day while I was power washing. It's kind of hard to conduct business wearing a rain suit and goggles. I did my very best to act knowledgeable and businesslike. He was a guy probably around my age, dressed nicely and well spoken. I thought for sure I was gonna make a sale. As we walked from the house to the end of the driveway, we talked about selling things and how you have to avoid scams and he told me how you shouldn't take cashier's checks from people because you can actually buy cashier's checks at Staples. (It's a long driveway we had plenty of time to talk). He drove it and looked under the hood. All the positive signs were there until my excitement was replaced with "Are you freakin kidding me?" As we walked back to the house he started telling me of his failed 23 years of marriage and how he used to own restaurants and had horses but when he divorced he gave it all to his wife....blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, he can't get a loan because his credit sucks. Welcome to the bank of Patti! His solution was to give me the title to a truck that he owns and I would keep the title to the focus, then he would make monthly payments and probably be able to pay it off in a year. I wanted to yell: "Are you F---ing kidding me????" I didn't though because I thought maybe he was sent by Oprah to test me and see if I would be a good Samaritan and then she would shower me with all kinds of gifts. He told me to think about it and he would call in a few days. I was polite and told him I would talk to my husband about it. In my head I'm thinking; there is no way in hell I'm going to do that. Who does that????? Doesn't he watch TV. There are tons of ads for car dealers where they say: "No money down and we don't care about your credit." Why doesn't he go to one of those??? Better yet, why doesn't he sell the truck that he supposedly has???? Very strange! He must have thought I was a push over maybe based on my attire. Maybe it was the gutter debris that spelled out "sucker" across my forehead. He doesn't know who he's dealing with. I wasn't born yesterday, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, I got his number and it's 1-800-loserrr. Sorry Oprah, I guess I failed your test.

I Need To Get Back To The Kitchen

I mentioned in my previous blog about not cooking dinner for my husband in the recent past. Case in point, I opened up my oven today and found a broiler pan and plate which held bacon and left over pancakes from over two weeks ago. Already moldy! Good thing I found them before Joe did. He's so hungry he probably would have eaten them.

Hooray For Power Tools

It's raining today which is probably a good thing. I have been working like a mad woman trying to get the yard work done and my garden planted. I have neglected the inside of my house for weeks. No one come over, I would be horrified. Joe hasn't had a good home cooked meal in awhile. We've had mostly takeout and eggs. I can't do everything I'm only one person!!!!! Yesterday I worked with my favorite piece of power equipment; the POWER WASHER! Actually it's my favorite outdoor piece of equipment. My indoor favorite is my COMPOUND MITER SAW! Who could have just one favorite when there are so many. I power washed the algae and scum off of the house and decks. I had on my rain gear (coat and pants) and goggles. I thought I was completely prepared to stay dry. What I didn't account for was the water running down my sleeve into my pants when I lifted the sprayer above my head. That was cold! Next time I guess I'm going to have to rubber band the sleeves. It's amazing to me how effective a power washer is. The dirt just melts away. You do however have to be careful. Depending on which nozzle you use, you can take the paint off of things or the skin off of your toes. (Note to self: wear shoes when power washing). You know how when you are using a regular hose and maybe you get grass and stuff on your feet and you take the hose and mindlessly spray off your feet? You can't do that with a power washer. It really hurts. One has to stay vigilant. I get carried away when I power wash. I'll be working on the house and I come by a piece of lawn furniture and I think "hmmmm, wonder if I can clean that?" I cleaned the ladder I was using and the deck box. Oh, and my shoes. One however needs to estimate the distance an object will fly when hit with the stream from the power washer. I had to retrieve my shoe from down the hill. One last piece of advice. Don't clean out the gutters with a power washer, especially after you have just cleaned the side of the house. I had gutter debris up my nose. The best part was using the jet stream to write my name in the dirt on the patio. Now I know why guys like using their jet stream that way. However, with my jet stream I could write the Gettysburg address if I wanted to. Ha, in your face!

Honor Your Mother

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers out there. There really needs to be more than one day to celebrate Mothers. It's a freakin hard job and it never ends. Then you have Grandmothers. It's like being a parent all over again but you don't have any control over them. FYI: It's not a good idea to try and tell your kids how to raise their kids. I don't do that; of course, I'm just trying to warn all you other Grandmothers not to do it. As a Grandmother you need to show self restraint. Besides it's the parents that are going to have to deal with the fall out of their bad decisions (pay back). Remember, they have to learn to parent just like you did. Guess what? You weren't always right either. So no matter how much you want to butt in, give them their space. You raised them, they will do the right thing. Unless of course your an idiot. Then your kids will be idiots too. It's a vicious cycle that is hard to break. As a Grandmother you can however, be a little more adventurous with the activities you engage in with your grandchildren. Like letting them walk around in the chicken yard with no shoes, spraying their hair with white hair paint for no apparent reason, putting tattoos on their foreheads, letting them play in the mud and sand and then hosing them down and finally, letting them paint your toenails and fingernails with a magic marker. What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's. It's easier to let loose with your grand kids because you don't have all the parental worries stressing you out. Being a Grandmother is kind of like getting a do over. You can do the things with your grand babies that maybe you didn't have time to do with your kids. So everyone, be kind to your Mother's today and everyday. Who else would do a job with no pay and little gratitude.

What Do I Do With It????

DUE TO THE GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS IN THIS BLOG, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

I love my life! I have some of the most random strange shit happen to me. Or, maybe it doesn't happen to me, I probably bring it on. Whatever the case it's usually random, weird and funny. Take the one legged chicken for example. Chickens break their legs all the time but most people don't keep them around. They would probably kill them and eat them. I couldn't do that. I took care of her and carried her to where she needed to go and she kept getting better and better. Now she actually puts weight on her bad leg when she walks. She's a fighter. How could I kill her and eat her. It wouldn't be right. It's funny to me that I have a chicken with a broken leg. Which brings me to my random weird story for today.

After my last chicken was eaten by a raccoon, I took measures to prevent it from happening again (see blog about shooting raccoon off the roof). I set out a live trap with bait. I didn't get anything for the first few days after the chicken massacre so I just left the trap set and forgot about it. Today I was in the barn doing my usual chores when I hear a guttural growl. It honestly sounded like a mountain lion. Living in Indiana however, I quickly dismissed that idea and figured it was probably Bear coughing and it was just echoing through the barn. About a minute later I heard it again. You know that if you ignore something, then it really didn't happen. That's what I chose to do. Ignore it. I went about the rest of my chores and was heading to the back of the barn where the bunnies are. I opened the door and found the source of the terrible growls. I got myself a raccoon! I will admit as I walked through the door and saw it, I screamed like a girl and almost fell back through the doorway. I'm so tough. I walked a little closer to the trap. He just sat there looking at me and I noticed that there was blood on his back end. I thought maybe he had hurt himself trying to claw his way out of the trap. I very gingerly picked up the cage; I was afraid he would reach up and bite me. I put him in the back of my pickup on the open tailgate. As I examined him a little closer I saw the source of his bleeding. He had no BUTT! Something had literally taken a bite out of his ass. My plan had been to drive him somewhere far away and let him go. How do you in good conscience let a raccoon go without a butt. All the other raccoons will make fun of him. Not to mention that's gotta hurt. What do I do???? Call Bryan. He must have actually been working because he didn't answer his phone. Shit! now what? Call Joe. I call Joe at work and have him pulled out of a room with a patient. "Joe, I got a raccoon in the trap and it has no butt. What do I do?" A few moments of silence, then......."What do you mean it has no butt?" "No butt. Ass ends flat with a gaping hole the size of a baseball." "Ohhhhhh! Take him 10 miles away and let him go." "You don't think I should shoot him?" "No, just let him go and get out of the way so he doesn't bite you." I don't think Joe understands the magnitude of the raccoons injuries. Plus Joe is very tenderhearted and doesn't like the idea of killing animals. Bryan finally called me back and he thought that the humane thing to do would be to put him out of his misery. I agreed, but I didn't think I could do it. I got two more opinions. One from my Vet and the other from a wildlife rescue center. Both agreed he should be killed. Now what? Bryan called his father-in-law to come over and do the dirty work. I was still vacillating between letting him go and killing him. I went outside to wait for Tommy and when I looked into the cage, there were intestines all over the bottom of the cage and oozing onto the bed of my truck. Gross! Gross! Gross! That was pretty definitive. Nothing is going to live long without it's intestines. The little thing still stared at me and growled when I got close. I took him out by the river and waited for Tommy. As I walked, stringy tubes of intestines dangled out the bottom of the cage. I'm looking at them thinking...Those must be the small intestines and those bigger diameter ones must be his large intestines. Forever the nurse. Tommy got here and I told him to hurry because he's losing his guts. It took 3 shots to the head with a .22 before the thing died. Those little buggers are tough! I felt bad for him, but it was the right thing to do. I wish I knew what got him in the first place. What are the odds that one would trap a raccoon with no butt. Only me.
Rest in peace you little chicken eater. It just goes to show you that if you do something bad, it's always going to come back and bite you in the ass. Let that be a lesson to all of us.

Happy Birthday Sarah

Sorry I don't have any video for you, but Happy Birthday! Passing your last final and being done with your first semester of nursing school should be the best present you could get for your birthday. Right? So does that mean I don't have to get you anything? Just a thought. Have a wonderful day! I Love You.(kind of)

Hunting Season

Hunting season for mushrooms that is. For those of you who don't know about the mushroom hunter's world, I'll give you a little insight from a non-mushroom hunter living with a mushroom hunter's perspective. First off, the mushrooms in question are Morel mushrooms. Their are many varieties of mushrooms found in the woods, all are not edible and can be very dangerous. The Morel has a distinct shape. It is easily recognizable so mistaking it for a poisonous one is next to impossible unless you are a moron. Then anything is possible. Hunting mushrooms is a lot like hunting of any kind. Let's discuss the similarities.

Mushroom Hunting season is around the end of April, first week of May. You can hunt later if you go to Michigan. The season is different than deer hunting season so there is less of a chance you will get shot by a game hunter. Tools required are a mesh bag and a hat. No guns are involved (that's why I don't go). The mesh bag is to collect your shrooms in, plus spores from the shrooms will fall through the mesh to set root for next years crop. The hat is to protect your head from branches. Most people hunt with their heads down so consequently they run into low hanging branches. Maybe that doesn't happen to most people but it sure happened to me the few times I have gone. Maybe I should have worn a helmet. Die hard shroom hunters never give away their hunting locations for fear someone will encroach on their territory, much like that of deer hunters. The debris left after shroom hunting is bugs, mushroom scraps, flour and grease. The debris left after deer hunting however is a lot messier. I found a frozen lung in the driveway one time. GROSS! The other similarity is that you should always get permission to hunt on someone else's property. Joe found that out when someone called the cops on him for trespassing. He was let go after a thorough body cavity search.

Next, it's time to prepare your trophies. Apparently most shroomers have a preferred way of fixing them. The recipes that I have come across involve flour and lots of butter and or cream. Not for the diet conscience. Bread up the mushrooms with flour and then fry them in about 2 lbs. of butter. Call me cynical but I'm pretty sure if you floured up a tennis shoe and fried it in butter it might not be half bad either. They don't taste good raw and sauteing makes them a little chewy. Don't get me wrong, they do have a pretty good flavor for a mushroom but I really don't understand their appeal. I certainly wouldn't pay $80.00 a pound for them. If the truth be told, I think that it's more the hunt that's fun and rewarding than the actual product. It's the tales that are told about the big find that keeps the true mushroom hunters forever on the trail of the elusive Morel.

Oh, remember the Smurf's cartoon? I'm convinced that their houses are Morel mushrooms. They look just like them in a cartoon sort of way. Plus how else would you explain the photo above. Because of Joe there are homeless Smurf's out there. Poor little guys. In my opinion they need to pick a different type of mushroom home anyway. Who would want to live in a house shaped like a penis?

Spring Chores

I know, I've been slacking again. I've been a busy girl lately trying to clean up old man winter's mess. Gettin the old homestead ready for sunny weather. Of course I can't just do the essentials. I have to go a little over the top. I decided to plant a vegetable garden this year, so I made a raised bed garden using cement cinder blocks (since treated wood is toxic) and so far I've brought in a yard and a 1/2 of garden soil. That translates into over 5,000 lbs. of material that I have lifted in the last 3 days. I still have to get another truck load of dirt and another of mulch. Mulch doesn't weigh as much per shovel full, but I ALWAYS get poison ivy when I work with it. As I was lifting the cement blocks (76 total) one by one and putting them into place, I had to ask Joe: "Who's idea was this anyway?" He is very quick to point out that I bring this on all by myself. If it was up to him though the yard would look like a jungle. I told him since he wasn't helping, then he couldn't have any of my bountiful harvest. He can't have any of the vegetables either. I have to go now. I have to get started on the gazebo for the chicken pen.