Happy Turkey Day

'Cept I don't like wine...

Happy Turkey Day Y'all 

November Notes

Think the crust on the pecan pie is a bit dark?

Pumpkins look better.

R made them with me assisting between customers in the feed store.

She always treats me to her selfies when I leave my phone laying around.

LN did a good job on her 4-h Christmas float painting. She added details to birdy after this picture.

How do you get laundry from second floor? I go for toss and throw method.

LN and J a family friend played several board games on Saturday when we visited with them. She had such a good time. Notice neither is watching idiot box but J was listening to college football.

Off to wash windows.

Rats, dogs & stuff...

We have had a terrible time with rats this year getting in the feed trailers we store the grain we sell in. S has poured poison to them seemingly by the ton. The dog hunts them so eagerly he has tore open feed bags also. He's killed one but ya know the saying " see one there's a lot more". Today we were moving round bales to sell. I had to help push one out to where the tractor could pick it up. I was done and waiting on S to bring the tractor when I saw a rat sitting on some boards stored under the feed trailers in a shaft of sunlight. 

The white patch way in the distance is the bast*^d.

Not much better pic but still the sun drenched white thing on the end of the boards.

What to do?

Yep out came the gun. 

No problem cause S is a crack shot. I've not seen him missed 99% of the time. The rat seemed lethargic so we figured he was doped up on poison. The gun jammed, was cleared, shot fired to the right, hmm needs sighted in, next shot closer but missed as well. 

The rat never moved except his head.

What to do?

I say send your great killer dog in. Said dog was behind us totally unconcerned sniffing God knows what in the pasture.

S turned running tractor off. Calls goose the dog. S and goose climb into where rat is sitting. Goose walks in, turns around I swear two inches from the rat and looks at S who doesn't see it either. I'm still watching from original position. I yell to S to look down and finally the rat jumps down and disappears under the boards. S and goose walk away. I was pissed. I yelled " you both need to see doctors cause you are blind and dog is stupid". Very politely and sweetly of course! I look back and goose is now staring at the boards and begins to dig. Whatever you stupid mutt .

S and I decide to get back to loading trailer. We move my truck around and head to tractor. Probably 10 minutes later I see Goose run past and head to the house. I watch and see him drop something by the porch. Sure enough it's the dead rat. 

Good dog! 

Ok so back story. Last Saturday S's truck which is a flat bed we haul majority of our feed deliveries on shorts out and dies. Monday we tow it into place to use unloading 22 tons of feed. The bed acts as a bridge and dock. Tuesday we pay a rollback to haul it to shop. Mechanic calls today to say 2 wires touched and blew tons of electrical parts. It's fixable but not till next week. Grr so S has used my truck mon-wed and has to use it Friday to do weekly deliveries also. I gave him rules. He doesn't do maintenance and I do. Enough about that. 

Back to today. When we went back to tractor after rat it didn't start. WTH seriously? We still needed to load the 6th and final round bale to deliver plus a bale to our cows.  I towed it around the driveway hoping to jump start it but no luck. We contacted customer who agreed to accept 5 of her 6 ordered. I put a square bale to cows to hold them over and S left to deliver the bales. After a fix it all friend came by a few hours later he started tractor on 1st try. We have no idea but are guessing the cellinoid overheated and went into safety mode. Once cooled it restarted. 

All because of a rat bast*^d ...

Well not really but the day , hell the week could have gone smoother.

I leave you with this poignant picture.

Sweet potatoes and varmints ...

I dug the sweet taters this morning. I usually wait till hard frost has been through because well that's what an older person said to do ;) I wanted it over and done so onwards I charged.

A couple of those suckers were huge.

Of course they also were either rotted or a varmint has snacked heavily on them. I uncovered a couple of field mice nests right up against nice big potatoes, rotten messes. There is a big hole beside the greenhouse to so traps and poison time. I have no qualms whatsoever. 

I still managed an almost full wheel barrow of keepers. Some are small but it's fine for lunch instead of the white potatoes which I crave. Funny thing is I hate sweet potatoes. I eat them because I should , not because I like the taste. Funnier thing is I cooked them for my Dad for a good 10-15 years before he said he didn't like them either. He didn't want to offend me so he nibbled enough I thought he liked them. S likes them but only without skin and that misses the point of the nutrition. He also likes them slathered in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Same issue with that method also.

I've laid them out to dry off. Some have marks or splits but I'm going to try to keep them. If they get soft off to the chickens they will go.

The Italian parsley is only thing left growing. It's so pretty. Maybe I'll tear some off for turkey day. I've never preserved it just used it during season. I know, I know, everyone is shaking their heads. Maybe I'll get on that next year.

I still need to finish cleaning up the garden, it's in the list. I partially did it. Still have to roll up plastic from rows. Pull the tomatoes and store cages. 

Now that class is over I'll get to the list. First up is the windows. I can hardly enjoy the sun if the dirt obscures it. 

The list is endless.

Worms grr and bales?

All my ewes are fat and sassy and hopefully pregnant except....

For some reason worms have tore her up. I thought some of it was low girl on the totem pole as she's newest addition. The others push her away but that's not it. She has been wormed with new and different wormer so let's see. If she susseptible then sale may be the answer. So frustrating but I'm crossing my fingers.

In the background of her picture and here you see the well fed ewes. I stay away from fat so delivery is easier but still well padded.

S2 delivered free round bales for cows. New haymaker that is still learning that S2 is helping out.

Very messy to handle but again free to me and man learned a lot . Usually S spikes them and dumps them over fence into feederand I cut strings and keep cows away so they don't get hurt. Lets just say he's being uncooperative. What's a girl to do?

Do it herself. A little less smoothly and more steps involved but mission complete. Girls are happy me included.

Since I know y'all were concerned. Yes camper is winterized thanks to neighbor men. Great guys always willing to help a girl out. 

Still have lots to do but paddling as fast as I can.

It's alive!

Remember that phrase?

It's alive!

For me it should be, I'm alive!

I finished the classroom part of my income tax course today.

I have to take my final exam Wednesday.

Today was review day and we reviewed the whole course of work in a jeopardy style game.

2 teams of 3 (our class is small since its during the day, night class is full) were selected.

My team kicked booty even with 1 member not answering, and another (me) with a headache.

By final jeopardy we were ahead by $3,400.00 of fake moolah.

We won double jeopardy too!

Yeah, our prize was the answers to 2 pages of our final exam.

Woop!

I chose the hardest 1040A case study.

With the answers I figured I could backtrack to the forms needed.

Good dang thing cause I would not have arrived at those answers.

The tedious small lines of worksheets gets me.

I did 80% with no issues but health care and earned income were crazy.

Earned income I figured correct number but filled out sheets till the cows came home.

Health care I was wrong by $2.00 because of percentages.

The rounding up and moving out 3-6 places makes a world of difference.

Frustrating that the instructions say you only need 3 places out on a percentage but to arrive at their answer you need 6 places.

I finished my initial work though so I only have to study some questions.

It's open book so there is no excuse for failure to me.

We shall see after Wednesday.

Then maybe I'll get back to the gym (necessary my pants say), catch up on housework, catch up on barn work, catch up on animal issues, etc, etc, etc.

Oh yea there's a holiday looming I'm told.

 

 



Fav

Grab a handful or so (yes I use my hand) of left over mashed potatoes, add an egg. Smush it (it's a word) together and brown it on both sides. It's my favorite breakfast.

I've had the crappy flu again . It's mostly in my chest. The cough is strong enough my chest is sore. I've sucked down so many cough drops. The positive thoughts  were needed.

I'm almost over it maybe the wrappers gave me a boost!

But this is appropriate also except I'd sub tea for the nasty coffee and good ole Jack for the vodka.