Canadian Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Canadian Thanksgiving that is....

The neighbors across the street are Canadian and they invited us over for their thanksgiving dinner. I'm making stuffed mushroom caps - 1/2 will be stuffed with green chilies and the other 1/2 with blue cheese. MMMMMMM

Furry Husband called and he's on his way home.... HOOORAY!

Our favorite goatie family called - most of them are at the Dairy Goat Convention in NY, the 2 left home are milking the herd and wouldn't you know, the milk machine broke. One of them has a permanent injury to her arm which leaves her unable to milk by hand....

I told her nothing is more fun than milking Larson goats and we'd be over tonight and the next few nights if they need us. It's true. You haven't HAD fun til you've milked a Larson goat. (wink)

I cancelled my lesson today cuz I am a big weenie. It's 23 degrees and it began misting - leaving a nice coat of ice on EVERYTHING.

Staying in and making mushroom caps .... along with some cardamom bread sounds much more conducive to today's weather I think.

October Snow

Hmm - doesn't usually snow til Halloween round these parts.....even then it's only enough to ruin Halloween costumes cuz you have to put a coat on, but not enough to stop the trick or treating fun.

Not today!

This is our snow gage. The 300lb concrete dog. I should live with The Trailer Park Boys....

I think THIS snow gage is much cuter... Bye-bye little garden square.... see you next spring. No more purty flowers...

Ponies are snug in their blankets.

Goaties are bedded down in deep straw inside their quonset huts... I threw them hay in their houses so they don't have to come out. Breakfast in bed for the goaties.

All the kitties and the dogs are inside doing what they do best - sleeping.

Snow and Sonoma

Furry Husband left this morning at 5:00 AM. ouch.

He's on his way to Sonoma. He won another wine trip for being such a Super Salesman.

I swear he has a super hero outfit under his work clothes. I know he ducks behind cases of wine to change and there has to be an image of grapes on his chest with a billowing cape. He must have a bottle of wine in one hand and the correct wine glass in the other.

Oh yeah - there are all types of wine glasses depending on the wine you happen to be drinking.

(I'm not picky. If I don't have a paper cup, I drink straight from the bottle....)

He is gonna be wined and dined this weekend.... fancy schmancy dinners, wine tastings and vineyard tours at Francis Ford Coppola's Rubicon Estate winery in beautiful Sonoma CA.

The front page of today's Ft. Collins Coloradoan newspaper says there is an Arctic front coming through today. 40 mph winds, 3" of snow, ice, highs in the 20's. The city has 50 snowplow drivers and 20 plows at the ready.


Somehow this just doesn't seem quite right to me....

Kitty Crack Whore

I am an addict.

An addict I tell you.

Cats.

Kittens.

My horse trainer friend, Rex, came for dinner the other night. Furry Husband made his "better than sex" pasta sauce and mounds upon mounds of pasta. There was garlic bread. Wine was flowing like a river.... I had an Esther Williams movie on the t.v. I love Esther Williams.

Shhhhhh - don't tell anybody it was my 39th birthday. I don't age anymore. Didn't you know that? My fingers are in my ears and I'm shouting LA LA LA LA LA...... seriously. I stopped aging.

Anyway... over the course of the meal and free flowing wine and Esther's amazing swim numbers.... oh, did I mention I had a magic glass that night? It was never empty no matter how much I drank. Isn't that weird? (oh Furry Husband, you are sooooo good to me.)

Well Rex told me she saw kittens crouched and huddled on the dirt road... little innocent balls of fur.... all alone in this world. Cold and crying for their mommy.

She stopped and tried to capture them.

ZING - they disappeared into the tall grass.

She notified our friend Amber since Rex was on the way to our place for dinner.

Amber is tenacious. She is like a starving pit bull with a porterhouse steak. You can't call her off.

Amber took over.

Amber caught the wee darlin's.

I'm gonna go see them tonight at Rex's house but she promises me she will boot me out of her place without another cat.

Did I mention we have 6 cats already? I don't need any more.... but oh, the little whiskers and rumbly purring .... my hands are itchin' to touch a kitten.

My name is Shanster. I am an addict.

Along came a spider....

This cat face spider kept making his web right in the doorway of the milk/feed room. Every time we went in to milk or to make up the horse's beet pulp mash we'd have spider web in our faces...

About 30 min. after the last time we demolished his web, he had it re-built... isn't it cool?

We threw him a fly!

Everyday stuff...

I absolutely believe WHO we are is way, way more important than what we look like on the outside.

That said, I decided I should try to be more mindful of what I'm eating. (I sound so adult here don't I? Mindful... snort)

Y'know - more "whole" foods - veggies, fruit, fiber. Less processed crap like deep fried Twinkies.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not dieting. I don't diet. The minute I think I can't have something, I want it exponentially more. You tell me I can't have peanut M&M's? Heh. I'll buy a 2lb bag, eat them all in one sitting then ask you for more. (I ate a 2 lb bag of M&Ms as a dare at a party in college - so I know it can be done - lucky they didn't have the 45 oz size back in the day.)

I'm simply trying to use better fuel for my engine as I age and my insides get a little musty and dusty.

I found this site that has a free food tracker... http://www.fitday.com/

It's sort of a pain in the ass to input what you eat each day, but it's helping me be more aware about WHAT I'm eating, which is so weird, because truly, I can pack food away like an Iowa farm boy and I'm not usually too discriminating about what I eat.

I'm also trying to move more.

Several years ago, we bought hay from this guy named Schlagel, who was around 70 years old.

Furry Husband and I would pick hay bales out of his hay field. We had to use both hands and hoist them into the truck with effort. We had to take breaks. We fought over who got to drive the truck and who had to pick bales...

One day, ol' Schlagel came out to visit, grabbed a bale SINGLE HANDED and tossed it up in the truck like it was nuthin' - using only one arm. he wasn't any taller than me, it's not like he was some huge Andre the Giant man.

I think Furry Husband and I stood there slack jawed in complete amazement. We STILL talk about that day.

Anyway, Schlagel told me he tried to slow down and he tried staying in bed but he always felt so much WORSE than the days he got up and moved around and THAT my friends is what makes me want to keep moving. I don't need to feel worse when I'm tripping on my sagging boobs at age 70.

Tracking Toe

Toe had his second tracking lesson... I'm totally geeked about it. He did really well - Joelynn lays a track and there is a glove at the end.

Toe gets to sniff the glove and he watches while Joelynn lays the track. You'd think since he watches, he'd run to where the glove is, however, he does sniff and look for the scent trail. We did three tracks total. The first one was straight and then she put in a right hook on the second track and a left hook on the third track in this lesson.

Sniffing the left hook you could tell he lost her trail... he cut across the hook vs. following it around. He stopped, looked at me wagging... sniffed around a little and then BAM! you could see when he found the trail again cuz he was off and running with his little sled dog like intensity. It was pretty cool.

The harness I bought for him wasn't right and since we had 40mph winds last night, I decided to take the harness back and shop for a correct tracking harness. I certainly wouldn't be working horses ...

Besides, Furry Husband called because there was a fire near-by. He said there was smoke and it smelled like a big bonfire at home. He went driving to see how close it was.

Right now it's not so close, but with these 20-40mph winds it could get close fast. There are lots of firefighters working around the clock, homes in Livermore have been evacuated and fire lines are being watched. I hope the winds die down today but they aren't expected to until tonight...

So far no homes or structures have been lost. Keep your fingers crossed for all those in Livermore CO!