We pulled off the highway in Doolittle Missouri for gas and a bite to eat, saw this Chicken Car and had to have our pictures made with it. Here's Renay!
'Nay and I luv chickens!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Renay and the Chicken Car
We pulled off the highway in Doolittle Missouri for gas and a bite to eat, saw this Chicken Car and had to have our pictures made with it. Here's Renay!
'Nay and I luv chickens!
The Trip Down
We closed on the sale of our house on Wednesday April 9, picked up the money Thursday morning, and hit the bricks before noon in a caravan of three.
Steve drove a 22 foot Penske truck, our dear friend Renay drove a 12 footer, and I drove Sunshine the Bright Yellow Van, pulling a white 15 foot trailer.
There's a story on the trucks.
Okay, I'll tell you.
First, we were supposed to close in late May. I looked forward to being able to go through everything, having a yard sale, making several trips to the dump. We reserved a 26 foot truck to move all our stuff.
Then, around the middle of March the buyers notified us that they had secured a really really really good deal on a mortgage, but they had to close within 30 days to get that good deal. This pushed the closing date into the time range of April 7-17 instead of May 27.
Yikes! Just like that, our prep was shaved by a hefty seven weeks, from ten weeks to three - no time for sorting, definitely no time for a yard sale - just instant decisions to "pack" or "toss."
Let me pause to relay two important things we have learned from previous moves:
1. Sure, you can get a lot of stuff in great big giant boxes, but who has to carry those boxes, and how far? and what happens to the stuff in those boxes when someone drops one because they're too big and awkward or too heavy to carry, or what if the box falls apart because it's got more stuff in it than it can old? Not-too-big boxes are better.
2. Liquor store boxes are a great size in general, big enough to hold a good amount, not too big (as per item#1), but they're not of a uniform size. Short, medium and tall, liquor store boxes come in a whole mixy mess of sizes. Fine if you're moving in your car and a couple dozen pickup truck loads - not so great if you have a big truck to fill and need to do the whole move in one trip. Many boxes the same size are better.
So I ordered 150 file-size "banker" style boxes with lids, 75 longer boxes of the same type, and 50 18x18x12 boxes for things that wouldn't fit in either of the other two size boxes. I ordered these boxes from Uline, by the way, if you should ever find yourself in such a position. They were GREAT, Uline was. If you ever need a bunch of boxes of a uniform size, check them out. Check them out anyway. They have lots of cool stuff and are a very professionally run company. Uline.
My precious daughter Misty and our dear friend Renay came over every day for two weeks, taking time off from work, recruiting other family members and mutual friends to come help, and they were absolute life savers in helping us get packed. No way in God's Green Earth I could have gotten all that done in the time allotted once the closing date was accelerated. Another dear friend of ours, Keith, came on several successive days as well and helped us get packed boxes and furniture downstairs and then helped Steve get the truck loaded.
Trucks.
Trucks, multiple.
We had reserved a 26 foot truck, the biggest you can get without hiring a semi. We went to pick this big truck up, and a couple miles from the rental place Steve became concerned that there was a pretty scary problem with the front end. What a drag it would be to be, oh, miles from nowhere and have the front end fall out from under the big truck, so Steve took it back to the rental place.
They got him fixed up with another 26 footer, and he was about halfway home with that one when the engine light came on. Again, looking at a trip of over 1600 miles - what a drag it would be to have the engine blow, oh, say, in the middle of rush-hour traffic in some hurry-up impatient road-rage city between Cooperstown and Oklahoma City. Such places do exist, you know. No, really. So Steve took that one back, too.
Unfortunately, they did not have another 26 footer. Best they could do was the 22 footer, so that's what he came home with.
4 feet , the difference between 26 feet and 22 feet, doesn't seem like that much, but when you consider the width and the height of the box, we're talking somewhere over 400 cubic feet. That space can hold a lot of boxes.
Steve loaded that 22 foot truck and when it was full we still had a lot of stuff left to load. There certainly hadn't been time to go through everything when we were trying to get it all done in that abreviated time frame, and there was no time to go back through anything, either, now. Criminy, what to do? Leave it all? But I had packed the less-essential things first, saving the things I need most and use most often to pack last. There was not anything not yet on the truck that I could comfortably say I could do without.
After some stewing and fretting, we decided to see if we could get someone to drive a third truck for us, and Steve called Penske and cut a deal with them for a 12 footer.
Our first ask was for our brother-in-law David Bradford, but he was not available on such short notice. Steve and I wracked our brains as to who might be willing, able, and have the time on immediate notice to drive that third truck for us. Between Steve, me, and Renay, I think we, the three of us, know just about everyone in Otsego County, and in talking to Renay, she said she would like to drive that truck! She consulted her family, cleared her schedule for about a week and voila! We were all set! Saved our beans again, Renay did. Go Baby!
So here we are in Oklahoma City.
As I write, we are all set to go out to the acreage tomorrow to see what all needs to be done to clean things up. It looks like someone who has lived there at some time in the last seven years must have collected junk to recycle, and didn't make it to the recycle station with quite a bit of the material. Garage door panels, old appliances, beer cans... Anyway, we're going to go triage and evaluate what is there and what needs to be repaired, replaced, etc.
I thought we would live the rest of our days in Cooperstown, and I love and miss my friends in Otsego County (thank God for phones and emails!), but I must say, I am glad to be back, and am seriously looking forward to getting a garden in. Probably too late in the season to start chickens this year, especially with everything else that must need to be done out there, but chickens next spring for sure. I'll keep you posted.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
We Have Returned to OZ
Back in Oklahoma.
The house on our acreage in Mustang has been rented to several different people over the last seven years, the most recent of whom is in the process of moving out now. He'll be out by the 20th. Now, thinking too much again, I wonder if that means he'll be gone by the end of the 19th, or will it be the 20th? Just to be safe, I believe our plan is to show up on the 21st ready to get some things done. In the meantime, we are trying to keep our hands and minds busy until then.
We have taken temporary lodging in a place called Candlewood Suites, a residential hotel.
The FAA (that's Federal Aviation Administration) has a training center in Oklahoma City, so people come from all over the country (and maybe beyond?) to attend training at FAA here in Oklahoma City. Rather than haggle with uber-expensive nightly rate hotels or long-term apartment lease requirements and whatnot, a lot of those folks stay at places like this.
It's sort of like a cross between a hotel and an apartment. Our unit has a kitchenette with a little two-burner stove, microwave (unfortunately no conventional oven, so no fresh-baked bread for a while), a decent sized 'fridge, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, a little coffeemaker (YEAH!) and two televisions - one in the living room and one in the bedroom. They allow pets, thank goodness, so Muffin and Cookie are here with us.
We expect to be here from one to three months (or longer if required) while we whip the A-frame into shape.
We've been out to the property a few times to look around, see how things are, see if we might run into the soon-to-be-former resident. We haven't met him yet.
I, Mrs. Bright-Side, am happy to report that:
* The chicken house is intact and will only require some cleaning up and a little repair.
* Apparently no one ever harvested the garlic we planted the October before we moved to Cooperstown and it has naturalized! Garlic where we planted it and beyond! So with no effort on our part, we will get to harvest garlic this summer!
On the other hand, a LOT of work will be required to bring the rest of the place up to snuff.
We'll have to bring in a load of gravel to fill in the driveway. It looks like heavy vehicles have driven over it and it is deeply rutted right now.
When we left seven years ago, some agency (I'm not sure if it was City of Mustang, Canadian County, or State of Oklahoma) had come through and cleared back from the road and cleaned out the drainage ditch. I thought they were going to put the fence back in (which they may have done) but there is no fence there now.
The house is an A-Frame, covered with cedar shake shingles. Shingles are warped and loose all over the building and completely missing along the bottom. The apex of the roof has come dismantled, unmanufactured, and without even seeing inside yet, I am as sure as I am sitting here that it leaks in the rain. We'll know more once we can get inside.
After having lived in a big house full of hardwood floors the last seven years in Cooperstown, I had already decided we would pull up the carpet in there and put down actual or facsimile of hardwood flooring.
You try to screen your residents, but people with secrets to hide ... Anyway, one of the renters SOLD the 12x24 metal building we had out there as an out-building! We see that the iron gate that used to be on the front door and one of the front windows are missing as well, we suspect cashed in as scrap metal. Turns out that guy was a fugitive, a wanted man. Apparently the government figured out where he was and he skipped. His day will come.
The central heat and air unit is missing. There are sections of garage doors all over the place, too, out by the sheds and over in the woods. The little shed buildings that we'd used to keep our tools and smaller equipment and where our first chicken house was, are now full of garbage, as if some of the renters had declined to contract with the city of Mustang for garbage pickup. Appliances all the heck over the place... I do know the current/soon-to-be-former resident has had burn-pits out there - one right outside the back door, next to the house with the cedar shake shingles - that was a disaster waiting to happen! He has since moved the burn pit away from the house, but we prefer to avoid burn pits ourselves as the fire danger is way too high.
Anyway, come Tuesday morning we will be out there in our overalls, boots and heavy gloves to triage the situation and fomulate a plan of action. I'll post pictures when I have some to post.
The house on our acreage in Mustang has been rented to several different people over the last seven years, the most recent of whom is in the process of moving out now. He'll be out by the 20th. Now, thinking too much again, I wonder if that means he'll be gone by the end of the 19th, or will it be the 20th? Just to be safe, I believe our plan is to show up on the 21st ready to get some things done. In the meantime, we are trying to keep our hands and minds busy until then.
We have taken temporary lodging in a place called Candlewood Suites, a residential hotel.
The FAA (that's Federal Aviation Administration) has a training center in Oklahoma City, so people come from all over the country (and maybe beyond?) to attend training at FAA here in Oklahoma City. Rather than haggle with uber-expensive nightly rate hotels or long-term apartment lease requirements and whatnot, a lot of those folks stay at places like this.
It's sort of like a cross between a hotel and an apartment. Our unit has a kitchenette with a little two-burner stove, microwave (unfortunately no conventional oven, so no fresh-baked bread for a while), a decent sized 'fridge, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, a little coffeemaker (YEAH!) and two televisions - one in the living room and one in the bedroom. They allow pets, thank goodness, so Muffin and Cookie are here with us.
We expect to be here from one to three months (or longer if required) while we whip the A-frame into shape.
We've been out to the property a few times to look around, see how things are, see if we might run into the soon-to-be-former resident. We haven't met him yet.
I, Mrs. Bright-Side, am happy to report that:
* The chicken house is intact and will only require some cleaning up and a little repair.
* Apparently no one ever harvested the garlic we planted the October before we moved to Cooperstown and it has naturalized! Garlic where we planted it and beyond! So with no effort on our part, we will get to harvest garlic this summer!
On the other hand, a LOT of work will be required to bring the rest of the place up to snuff.
We'll have to bring in a load of gravel to fill in the driveway. It looks like heavy vehicles have driven over it and it is deeply rutted right now.
When we left seven years ago, some agency (I'm not sure if it was City of Mustang, Canadian County, or State of Oklahoma) had come through and cleared back from the road and cleaned out the drainage ditch. I thought they were going to put the fence back in (which they may have done) but there is no fence there now.
The house is an A-Frame, covered with cedar shake shingles. Shingles are warped and loose all over the building and completely missing along the bottom. The apex of the roof has come dismantled, unmanufactured, and without even seeing inside yet, I am as sure as I am sitting here that it leaks in the rain. We'll know more once we can get inside.
After having lived in a big house full of hardwood floors the last seven years in Cooperstown, I had already decided we would pull up the carpet in there and put down actual or facsimile of hardwood flooring.
You try to screen your residents, but people with secrets to hide ... Anyway, one of the renters SOLD the 12x24 metal building we had out there as an out-building! We see that the iron gate that used to be on the front door and one of the front windows are missing as well, we suspect cashed in as scrap metal. Turns out that guy was a fugitive, a wanted man. Apparently the government figured out where he was and he skipped. His day will come.
The central heat and air unit is missing. There are sections of garage doors all over the place, too, out by the sheds and over in the woods. The little shed buildings that we'd used to keep our tools and smaller equipment and where our first chicken house was, are now full of garbage, as if some of the renters had declined to contract with the city of Mustang for garbage pickup. Appliances all the heck over the place... I do know the current/soon-to-be-former resident has had burn-pits out there - one right outside the back door, next to the house with the cedar shake shingles - that was a disaster waiting to happen! He has since moved the burn pit away from the house, but we prefer to avoid burn pits ourselves as the fire danger is way too high.
Anyway, come Tuesday morning we will be out there in our overalls, boots and heavy gloves to triage the situation and fomulate a plan of action. I'll post pictures when I have some to post.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Happy Birthday to Me!
Yesterday I got a birthday card from my parents.
On the cover it said,"I asked the wise man on the mountain the secret of a long life. As my Birthday gift to you, I'd like to pass along his infinite words of wisdom..." with a cartoon of a typical wise man of the mountain - long gray beard, purple robes, sitting in a lotus position.
You open it up and it has the picture of the wise man on the mountain with a big grin on his face, holding a book that says on the front, Words of Wisdom. You open that book and it says, "Keep breathing as long as possible!"
That is so totally something my dad would say!
On the cover it said,"I asked the wise man on the mountain the secret of a long life. As my Birthday gift to you, I'd like to pass along his infinite words of wisdom..." with a cartoon of a typical wise man of the mountain - long gray beard, purple robes, sitting in a lotus position.
You open it up and it has the picture of the wise man on the mountain with a big grin on his face, holding a book that says on the front, Words of Wisdom. You open that book and it says, "Keep breathing as long as possible!"
That is so totally something my dad would say!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
How Did Your Pets Get Their Names?
Our dear old yellow and white cat Muffin was, has always been, and still is "just as sweet as a little sugar muffin."
Cookie got her name because the name Muffin was already taken.
Mimosa (who passed away a few days before this last Christmas) - I know y'all think she was named after the mixed drink called a Mimosa, but we lived on Oklahoma when she was born and there grow leguminous trees called Mimosa trees. They are fast growing and have an exotic look about them (as Mimosa did, come to think of it) and bloom out with countless flowers that look something like pom-poms or those big fluffy cosmetic blush brushes, and those flowers smell so sweet I can't even tell you. I'm sure the drink Mimosa was named after those flowers and so was our sweet little Mimosa kitty.
I had a female cat once, named Ramon. Yes I know it's a boy's name, but I'd heard a song on Prairie Home Companion one time a hundred or so years ago,
"Black, black, black is the color of my cat Ramon,
My new white couch is his home...."
sung to the tune of "Black Black Black is the color of my true love's hair." It was so cute that I said right then if I ever got another black cat I would name it Ramon, and I did, even though she was a girl. Could've named her Ramona, but Ramona is a different character all together. Ramon was definitely Ramon. If she'd been Ramona, that is what I would have named her, but.... Maybe I'll name the next qat Ramona (after Ramona Quimby - you Beverly Cleary fans will understand)
Before Ramon I had a black and white Maine Coon Cat named Valentino. Goodness gracious he was pretty. Long haired, black with a white ruff, looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. Nicknamed "Dinks," he was an escape artist who loved to chase birds and just such a bird led him into the path of an oncoming car, breaking all our hearts, may he rest in peace.
Way before that, my first cat (in my adulthood) was a one of those grey and black tabby cats named Casey after a book I'd read called "Casey" about a horse who was infatuated with cats and wanted to be a cat, but since he couldn't be a cat, he took the name Casey, which stood for K.C., which stood for Kitty Cat. My Casey was a pill. Loved to tear around (wherever we lived), climbed curtains and furniture, liked to perch on top of an open door, if you can picture that. Would fetch those cellophane wrapped cigarette packs if you wadded one into a ball and threw it. He would go get them and bring them back as long as you'd throw them. Loved that crinkly sound they made. I haven't thought of that n years, Casey playing fetch.
When Casey got old we got another black and grey tabby cat who resembled Casey (although they were actually quite different) and we named that one "Eikon" (pronounced "Icon") which means "image" since he so resembled or was, as they say in the south, "the spittin' image" of Casey. we called him Ikie for a nickname.
There was a sweet little grey kitty just the color and shading of a soft graphite pencil drawing. We tried to name her Graphite, but my daughter always called her Grake Itty (for "Gray Kitty")
Oh, when I was a toddler, we had a gray and black tabby named Butch. Butch the Cat. Dear old long-suffering Butch - I dressed him up in doll clothes, tried to roll him around in a doll stroller. I really was afraid for Butch because it was plain that he, being a striped cat, was a baby tiger and everybody knows that tigers grow very large and become dangerous and you can't keep grown tigers at home. I fretted mightily, at the tender age of three, that he would grow up and we would have to get rid of him and I hoped upon hope that the zoo would take him. I don't know how Butch got his name.
Bart the Wonder Dog came with his name - at least the "Bart" part.
Benny was named after Benny and the Jets.
Arrow was named partly for the Nilsson song and mostly for the white arrow that ran from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose. Arrow might or might not come when you called him, but he would always if you called Mom. That dude sure loved his Mom (that would be me.) We had Arrow when Isabella was little and she called him Dojjy Ayo - Dojjy for doggy and Ayo for Arrow, so cute.
Lots more to tell about all these guys, but this is all for now.
Cookie got her name because the name Muffin was already taken.
Mimosa (who passed away a few days before this last Christmas) - I know y'all think she was named after the mixed drink called a Mimosa, but we lived on Oklahoma when she was born and there grow leguminous trees called Mimosa trees. They are fast growing and have an exotic look about them (as Mimosa did, come to think of it) and bloom out with countless flowers that look something like pom-poms or those big fluffy cosmetic blush brushes, and those flowers smell so sweet I can't even tell you. I'm sure the drink Mimosa was named after those flowers and so was our sweet little Mimosa kitty.
I had a female cat once, named Ramon. Yes I know it's a boy's name, but I'd heard a song on Prairie Home Companion one time a hundred or so years ago,
"Black, black, black is the color of my cat Ramon,
My new white couch is his home...."
sung to the tune of "Black Black Black is the color of my true love's hair." It was so cute that I said right then if I ever got another black cat I would name it Ramon, and I did, even though she was a girl. Could've named her Ramona, but Ramona is a different character all together. Ramon was definitely Ramon. If she'd been Ramona, that is what I would have named her, but.... Maybe I'll name the next qat Ramona (after Ramona Quimby - you Beverly Cleary fans will understand)
Before Ramon I had a black and white Maine Coon Cat named Valentino. Goodness gracious he was pretty. Long haired, black with a white ruff, looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. Nicknamed "Dinks," he was an escape artist who loved to chase birds and just such a bird led him into the path of an oncoming car, breaking all our hearts, may he rest in peace.
Way before that, my first cat (in my adulthood) was a one of those grey and black tabby cats named Casey after a book I'd read called "Casey" about a horse who was infatuated with cats and wanted to be a cat, but since he couldn't be a cat, he took the name Casey, which stood for K.C., which stood for Kitty Cat. My Casey was a pill. Loved to tear around (wherever we lived), climbed curtains and furniture, liked to perch on top of an open door, if you can picture that. Would fetch those cellophane wrapped cigarette packs if you wadded one into a ball and threw it. He would go get them and bring them back as long as you'd throw them. Loved that crinkly sound they made. I haven't thought of that n years, Casey playing fetch.
When Casey got old we got another black and grey tabby cat who resembled Casey (although they were actually quite different) and we named that one "Eikon" (pronounced "Icon") which means "image" since he so resembled or was, as they say in the south, "the spittin' image" of Casey. we called him Ikie for a nickname.
There was a sweet little grey kitty just the color and shading of a soft graphite pencil drawing. We tried to name her Graphite, but my daughter always called her Grake Itty (for "Gray Kitty")
Oh, when I was a toddler, we had a gray and black tabby named Butch. Butch the Cat. Dear old long-suffering Butch - I dressed him up in doll clothes, tried to roll him around in a doll stroller. I really was afraid for Butch because it was plain that he, being a striped cat, was a baby tiger and everybody knows that tigers grow very large and become dangerous and you can't keep grown tigers at home. I fretted mightily, at the tender age of three, that he would grow up and we would have to get rid of him and I hoped upon hope that the zoo would take him. I don't know how Butch got his name.
Bart the Wonder Dog came with his name - at least the "Bart" part.
Benny was named after Benny and the Jets.
Arrow was named partly for the Nilsson song and mostly for the white arrow that ran from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose. Arrow might or might not come when you called him, but he would always if you called Mom. That dude sure loved his Mom (that would be me.) We had Arrow when Isabella was little and she called him Dojjy Ayo - Dojjy for doggy and Ayo for Arrow, so cute.
Lots more to tell about all these guys, but this is all for now.
Publish Post
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Gateway to Oz
I had posted my introductory entry to the Yahoo group on Organic Gardening and another member of that group, Jeff FaithWalker, replied saying, "So God is delivering you out of the Hands of us Yankees and sending you to the gateway to Oz is He.......... .hmmmm verrrrrrrrrrry interesting!"
Gateway to Oz - what a great turn of phrase! The idea made me remember the carrots we planted the day of the May 3 Tornadoes:
Some of the best carrots I ever ate were planted on May 3, 1999, a day of a seemingly neverending series of tornadoes.
We had worked a little ash from the woodstove into the row and planted as the darkening sky boiled up from the west. You can keep a garden alive with the water hose, but to really grow, rain is best, so I knew that these carrots having their first watering by rain, I knew that would be good, as long as they didn't wash out. I kept my eye on the sky as the thunder began to rumble and as soon as we got the seeds in the ground I left my dear husband outside to finish putting up the tools and get things closed up and I went inside to look at the weather radar on the TV, see just what was coming, and how soon. Yikes, what a wild ride we had for the rest of the afternoon and most of the night! A whole 'nother story about all that, for sure. But the carrots did great, yes they did. Best carrots I ever ate.
Gateway to Oz - what a great turn of phrase! The idea made me remember the carrots we planted the day of the May 3 Tornadoes:
Some of the best carrots I ever ate were planted on May 3, 1999, a day of a seemingly neverending series of tornadoes.
We had worked a little ash from the woodstove into the row and planted as the darkening sky boiled up from the west. You can keep a garden alive with the water hose, but to really grow, rain is best, so I knew that these carrots having their first watering by rain, I knew that would be good, as long as they didn't wash out. I kept my eye on the sky as the thunder began to rumble and as soon as we got the seeds in the ground I left my dear husband outside to finish putting up the tools and get things closed up and I went inside to look at the weather radar on the TV, see just what was coming, and how soon. Yikes, what a wild ride we had for the rest of the afternoon and most of the night! A whole 'nother story about all that, for sure. But the carrots did great, yes they did. Best carrots I ever ate.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Gardening
I've been interested in growing things my whole life. I remember at the age of four how dismayed I was when my grandparents took out the flower garden next to the house and concreted that space to keep water from seeping into their basement and it always dismays me to hear of someone dismissively removing trees and shrubs simply because they're tired of them.
Several years ago I was fortunate enough to live on an acreage in Central Oklahoma where I had some chickens, a good sized garden with plenty of vegetables and a smaller (but still sizable) garden where we rotated garlic and tomatoes. I made flower jellies from Honey Locust and Dandelion flowers, which I could only do because I knew they had not been chemically treated. Then, seven years ago we moved to a small village in Central New York.
Up here it's two or three zones colder than where I grew up and while I love the cool green summers in Central New York, I haven't quite gotten the knack of growing my familiars in this short, cool growing season. Also, here in the village, my so-called garden is more postage-stamp sized than the all-the-room-you-want garden I had in Oklahoma. I have been able to grow horseradish, chives, mint, lemon balm, parsley, basil, a little bit of garlic - I had a pair of blueberry bushes, too, but we had some work done on the house and I haven't seen the blueberry bushes since the heavy equipment left. As I write, the yard and my tiny rectangle of garden are firmly covered with twelve to eighteen inches of snow.
I thought we'd spend the rest of our lives here, but as it happens, fortune has favored us in that someone has bought our house and we're moving back to Zone 7, to the very acreage we left when we moved up here. I am ecstatic!
I've already researched late season plantings and average frost dates and see that, getting back there in late May or even early June, I can still get several late season plantings going as soon as we get back and be eating some of our own food again by winter.
Onward and upward!
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