Farmgirl At Fifty

Okay, fine. farmgirl at 50 plus. Oh, all right, if you really want to be nitpicky then, farmgirl at 60 minus. I hope that makes all you sticklers for accuracy happy.

Anyway, I have recently tapped into my inner farmgirl. It all started when my daughter gave me a copy of a magazine called MaryJanesFarm. Mary Jane lives in Moscow, Idaho; the same town that my daughter lives in. According to my new friend, Mary Jane, anyone can be a farmgirl. Who knew?

In all honesty I am a "pick and choose the chores I like" kind of farmgirl. I LOVE my hens, they are pretty and they are well behaved and my three older hens lay me an egg each everyday. The other ones are still young and aren't laying yet so I excuse them, however I do encourage them everyday when I go to feed them. Someday I know I will be rewarded for my motherly concern and encouragement.

I love going out and finding the eggs in the same little corner of the coop every time. It's like Easter everyday except the eggs aren't bright and colorful and I usually have to pick feathers off and wash chicken poop off of them. It took me a while before I could bring myself to eat the nice fresh eggs that I gathered everyday. I"d scramble them up for Steve but the thought of actually eating them made me a little queasy. I mean, really, I like my eggs from the grocery store after they have traveled for days and have sat in the storage room in the back of the store. They are already clean and in a carton. There was something a little unsettling about eating a warm egg that just moments ago had chicken poop on it. I got over it!!

I got over my aversion to eating fresh eggs but still cannot bring myself to clean the chicken coop. Instead of letting my sweet hens live in a messy house I talk Steve into cleaning it for me. Men are so cute, you can talk them into just about anything; "Honey, do you think you can go out and clean the chicken coop, I'm in the middle of making those yummy chocolate chip cookies that you love, I'll take care of it next time (sure!)".

I know I will never be a true farmgirl until I don my hip waders and grab my rake and clean the coop myself (it might be awhile before I'm bona fide).

The other aspect of my inner farmgirl includes picking raspberries off of my very own raspberry bushes. Now those really are my babies. I go out every afternoon in search of raspberries that are just waiting for my novice hands to pick. I pick about a handful every time, but I refuse to eat them. I wash them and put them in a ziplock bag and someday I will have enough to make a whole jar of jam...I'm optimistic!

I also have crooked neck squash and zucchini and two whole tomatoes growing.

I am very pleased with myself, but plan on expanding my garden next year. Maybe I'll try my hand at those dreaded carrots!

Laser Light Fun

I'm thinking that perhaps I need to get a life, or at the very least find a new hobby. I am finding an enormous amount of fun in some crazy ways.
Yesterday, along with two of my grandsons, I also had the three girls for a little while. The kids and I were sitting and watching Ghost Hunters International when Tylor pulled out his laser light. Janie was just wandering around the room when Ty started pointing the light so that Janie could see it. Janie wasted no time trying to pick up the light. We giggled about that and then giggles soon turned into humongous belly laughs. Oh my goodness, I can't remember when I laughed so hard. Janie was chasing that light like a little puppy. At one point she bent down to pick it up when Ty moved it under her a little more. She bend so far, reaching under herself that she fell over. No, she didn't hurt herself, but watching her do that was hilarious!
She was also jumping, as only a two year old can try to jump, trying to get the light from the wall.
If I was a better writer and could describe this the way it really was you would be laughing now instead of thinking that I am the worst grandma in the world for laughing at her precious little two year old granddaughter. Honest, it was funny. And since our sweet Dot (our children's little dog) is no longer here we had to find someone else gullible enough to chase a light. This was America's Funniest Videos worthy.

The Good Life?

I was sitting in the front seat of a motorhome, not an RV, the kind with all the comforts of home but the kind of motorhome that other more serious RVer's look at with their snooty noses up in the air. Anyway, here we were motoring down Highway 58 towards our summer vacation in Shaver Lake. Enjoying the drive, I put down my crossword puzzle book that I had been working on and lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes.

I wasn't really thinking of anything in particular when a brilliant idea popped into my head. I don't get them that often, brilliant ideas that is, so this one made me bolt upright in my seat and I thought to myself "what a brilliant idea".

Before I let you in on my brilliant idea let me give you a little background. We go to Shaver Lake every summer and spend a week with some extended family waterskiing, riding jet skis and sitting around the shore visiting. Every year I complain that I don't really want to go. I have lots of reasons that I don't want to go but none of them are very good......so I go.

I don't really believe in camping so every year we have stayed in a lovely rental house with clean bathrooms and a kitchen and everything, well, except for one year when camping with all the dirt would have been preferable to the house we rented. Anyway, this year in an effort to save a little money (in our dreams!) we decided to borrow the father-in-laws RV. I know you might be thinking an RV, that's not really camping. Well, excuse me but if it's not permanent and involves climbing a latter to get to your bed (your bed with the ceiling 6 inches from your head) it is definitely camping!

One more thing you may need to know about me is that I have a cowardly need to please everyone.

This year is going to be different. At this moment I don't feel the need to please anyone but me. Everyone on this vacation is going to have to be responsible for pleasing themselves...I quit. No more Mr. nice guy for me.

Okay, here's the brilliant idea that came to me while driving down the highway. I am going to spend this vacation pretending that I am a character in a novel. So while I am going about my business this week if I happen to encounter some sort of problem or I'm just really bugged about something or by someone I am simply going to ask myself, what would Janet Evanovitch have Stephanie Plumb do. Well, perhaps Stephanie might be a bit much for my family to handle so maybe I'll ask myself how would Jane Austin's character respond to the situation and that's the way I will respond. I will not think about the consequence of my actions and I will take no responsibility for what I say or do this week. I will let the repercussion chips fall where they may.

I feel so free....I'll let you know how this works out for me when I get home.

I Need Help (or so says my blogitor)

I got a note from my blogitor this morning when I opened up my computer and got on to my blog. Now, I understand that some of you are on your own and have no blogitor to correct your mistakes or make suggestions to improve your blog. I would be very sorry for you if I didn't actually need a blogitor. I know I don't pay her enough because she does an excellent job for me. Well in all truthfulness, I don't pay her anything, but then she's my daughter so I don't have to, I just have to love her and I do, so there. So, I think I will post this without spellcheck or anything and see how good she really is at her job. Thank you, blogitor for all you do for me in making my blog a little more readable and if you will continue to correct, I will continue to make many more mistakes.

Disclaimer

This is my disclaimer for my last post. First of all, please realize that I am a blogging novice, a newbie, if you will. Well, I accidentally hit publish when I meant to hit preview. So, no spellcheck, sorry! And about the color of the print, ewwhh. Anyhow, sorry. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Wipeout

Do you have the Wipeout mentality? As I have said before, I am much more of an observer than a player, at least in some instances. One of these instances would absolutely be Wipeout, a hilarious game show on ABC. If you have seen the show, you will know that the people they have on as contestants are NUTS! Who the heck in their right mind would subject themselves to what amounts to be self torture.

Take this fellow, for instance, it may look like he's taking a nice little ride at some benign little waterpark. But don't let this fool you. This guy is planted face first on this moving contraption. At this moment he is probably at the hospital getting his nose put back where it belongs. Now, I have to confess that I laughed myself silly watching this guy fall on his face over and over again. I love watching these crazy people do things to themselves that in all probability will end with them in the operating room, or a body cast.

My favorite "blind date" couple of the night was Ariel and King Neptune. They didn't win, but filled my two hours with glee! I have to admit, though, that this couple (at least the male counterpart) was a tiny bit creepy. Ariel was a high school senior and although I'm not sure how old King Neptune was, he was too old!

I am just grateful that this world is filled with people who will subject themselves to endless humiliation for my entertainment!

Human Testing

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My granddaughter, Eliza, the future "animal doctor" had an ingenious (if not potentially deadly) idea this morning. Eliza was telling me that she liked rainy days at school. When I asked why she liked them she responded that it was because they got to watch movies. I asked her what movie she watched on the last rainy day and she told me it was one about animals. "What kind of animals", I ask. "Poisonous frogs", she tells me. "How do you know if they are poisonous or not", I inquire. "I don't know", says she. Well, I offer to look it up on the internet if we have time before I take her to school. She declines my offer with a "better" one of her own. "We can find a frog and watch it spit on someone and if they die we will know if it was poisonous or not".

Now, I'm not too sure if that's really a good idea but you must admit that it would probably be effective. For now I think I will just search the internet, not as dramatic as Eliza's way but it will get us results.