April 16, 2010

  • He Lives Another Day


    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    I say that *tongue-in-cheek* because he's really walking a thin line here still.  Today he got up at oh-god-thirty and hit the road to explore two more areas about an hour away from us.  Skyline is about another half hour further north from where he was.  He really liked the area and figures it's probably perfect.  Has lots of streams running through both of them and several ponds that he saw.  He claims he didn't rush through either place but, when he went to come home, he was shocked to find out it was just a little after 11am.

    When he walked in the house about 12:15pm, I was shocked.  I really hadn't expected him home until 2 or 3pm.  I was also hoping that he might hear a couple of rifle shots (or perhaps have some irritated hunter shoot him...LOL) that might discourage him but, at this point, I think that's futile.

    I took the baby shopping with me at Walmart again today.  I went to pick up salad fixings and a few other things.  I also got suckered into buying Chewlee another Barbie doll.  I DID try to talk her into a different doll which she liked and wanted.  But, when I told her she could only have ONE of them, she chose Barbie. *Sigh* 

    I really don't think she's old enough for Barbie but the Princess says she takes them into the bathtub with her to play with.  Her favorite dolls are two baby dolls but they can't go into the tub with her.  One of them is a soft doll with a hard plastic face (you know the type I mean) and the other talks and has electronics involved.  She is so cute how she plays with them.  She rocks them to sleep and puts them under the covers on the guest bed when she's here.  She even shuts the door so they can sleep peacefully.  ROFLMAO!  It's just too cute to watch.

    Baron finally did the unthinkable for the very first time.  He jumped up and knocked her down.  She went face forward onto the driveway and the Princess thought she hit her mouth.  She grabbed her to check and see if her mouth was bleeding (and was worried sick about her teeth) but she had slightly turned her head and has a nasty bump on the right side of her forehead.  It turned black and blue in nothing flat even though the Princess and I  both tried to keep ice on it.  She wanted no part of that.  I had even wrapped it in a towel that was slightly wet but I think it was the pressure even though I tried hard not to press down on it.

    Now the Princess is worried that Chewlee will be afraid of the dog but I think she's just mad at him.  She gets that way at times even when he hasn't done a thing to her really.  If he gets near her food to sniff at it, she will get really mad at him for it.  She's even smacked him a time or two on his hind end when he sniffs her bottom.    She will yell and tell him *NO!*  Not that it sinks in to him because sniffing is what they do.

    I went out and inspected some of the fruit trees the Beast claimed he *thinned* and found several that need more thinning.  I know it just breaks his heart but when I just added a little weight to some of the branches, I knew they wouldn't hold up to what he had on them.  What he did was thin out where there were two close together.  You want to do that but you also have to think of the weight of the various fruit, too.  The ones that need some serious thinning are the plums.  We have one more nice day that we're promised and that's tomorrow.  I guess I will go out there and try to get that done.  The cherries should be fine and the apples look fine, too.  We only have a couple pears so that's another bunch that don't need much but rain....not a lot of it, just a bit. 

    The nectarine just finally lost it's blossoms so I will give it a week and then take a look at how that looks.  Also the sweet peach (that's what it's called).  The only flowers left are on my dogwoods.  I love looking out my window at them.  We have one white one and one pink one.  The pink one hasn't grown much but it amazes me at how many flowers it has every year.  The white one didn't have as many as I remember it having last year but it's hard to really tell since its grown quite a bit.  It might be the same amount but seems less because the blossoms aren't all bunched together.

    We have a few regular hummingbirds visiting the feeders.  They took a look at the new one and weren't stopping for a drink for quite a while.  But I saw a couple using it today and that made me happy.  I might have to swap places with one of the other plants on the crooks since I keep running into it when the umbrella is up.  The Beast thinks that's funny but I sure don't like the way it feels.  Especially when it's full.  I might move the tomato plant over there.  The think is, it's the feeder that has perches for them to use when they feed and I figured I might even get a chance (in time) to get a picture of one of them on it.  If I change places with the tomato plant, you can't really see that, let alone get a picture of it with a hummingbird on it unless you are down in the yard.  The chances of that are slim to none.

    I'm just exhausted for some reason today.  Of course, it might actually be because of the shopping with the baby...LOL.  She always has a million questions about what everything is that she points at.  Plus I got her a Sponge Bob Golden story book so she was showing it to everyone and holding it up like the teacher at school does.  She was pointing out to them some of the characters and she had everyone laughing.  It was THAT cute!  Today it was the book that she didn't want to give to the cashier but the cashier brought the scan gun out into the aisle and Chewlee let her scan it.  You would think she was afraid it was going to be taken away from her or something.

    Okay, I'm going to call it a day now and get this posted.  Love you all and I hope your day is a good one.  Smile often and try to laugh a few times at least.  It's good for your health and your soul.