TGIF - Bad Dog / Weather Edition

I lied about my dogs being awesome. Finch is still pretty awesome, but Hobbes is officially on the shit list.

This morning he attacked both the ducks, one in the pond, one in the barn. As far as I can tell they're okay physically, although there are some loose feathers floating in the pond. But Mother Ducker, the little female, is looking particularly traumatized.

So jumping on the dog shaming bandwagon:

Hobbes will be on restricted yard access for a while now.

In the spirit of bad dogs, please enjoy this video of a guilty dog.

I was searching for an image of that awful chihuahua from that one Dog Whisperer episode, and two things cropped up. First was the realization that when I'm typing "chihuahua," I mentally pronounce it "chi-hoo-ah-hoo-ah" in order to spell it right. Every. Time.

The second thing that cropped up was this image in a Google search for "chihuahua dog whisperer:"

No comment.

It's been raining for a full week here, and is forecasted to continue through the weekend. Blugh. I have a few songs up my sleeve to tide me over til the next sunny day. One of my favorite sun-related songs is "Light and Day", by Polyphonic Spree.

And of course there's "Keep on the Sunny Side of Life."

This song, that never fails to lift my mood, should clearly be included in any time capsule left for future humans to find.

What are your pick-me-up songs when it's gloomy outside?

Duck PTSD

At the risk of sounding like a crazy pet owner....my dogs are awesome. They crack me up all the time.

For example:

I went to put the dogs away so I could leave for work this morning, and realized that I had left Finch outside after feeding the horses. She likes to dawdle outside doing her own thing, so I figured I'd have to yell for her. But this is what I saw instead:

Waiting patiently

Example number two:
When the ducks are on land, the dogs like to watch them but don't care that much about them.

However, when the ducks are in the pond, it's like they're made of sweet, delicious, unattainable bacon.

The dogs circle the pond, dipping their front paws in at various points, wading in to their bellies on the shallow end, whining when the ducks are still out of reach.

Neither of the dogs like swimming, so it was pretty entertaining and harmless to watch the ducks nonchalantly gliding around while the dogs went crazy on the banks.

Until I was momentarily looking away and heard a big commotion. I turned around to see this:

Hobbes was terrorizing the ducks, separating them which made them even more traumatized. I called Hobbes over to the edge so he would get out...he had wide eyes that seemed to say What happened?? What do I do now?!

I figured he had accidentally fallen in and just decided to go for it while he was in the water. Except that the next time we were all outside he launched himself in the pond again, effectively cannonballing the ducks into chaos.

Poor ducks.

Closing Time

Guys, I OWN MY FARM.

MySpace-level font was required.

It finally happened. Five months late, but it happened. Blonde Bomber Acres is legit!   My feelings upon closing:

It's been a helluva two weeks (let alone 5 months waiting to close), and I am grateful for so many things and so many people.

• Shout out to Bro-da, who graduated college last week and turned 23 today!
• Shout out to Dard, who is still alive!
• Shout out to Megan and Graeme, who are buying a house!

Last but not least, it's muthatruckin' Friday and I bought a farm!!!

My overall feelings about life today:

(As a reminder, come celebrate with me next month if you can...I'd love to have you there.)

TGIF 5.3.2013

Another Friday has rolled around. Yippeeeee!!

I had a minor panic this morning as I thought about everything that needs to be done before the shindig next month. I've been taking my sweet, sweet time getting the wallpaper down, so I need to hurry up and finish that and paint the walls, as well as paint the bathroom. I also need to fence in the other pasture, build a compost pile, take down the wheelchair ramp, stain the deck, kill the cattails around the pond, rake, mow, yadda yadda yadda.

But instead of doing all that, I'm going for a ride tonight!

- A little bit of life reassurance:

- Another dancing dog:

- The creepiest things kids say to their parents. My favorites:

• I was sound asleep, and at around 6am I was woken up by my 4 year old daughters face inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, "I want to peel all your skin off".
• I was tucking in my two year old. He said "Good bye dad." I said, "No, we say good night." He said "I know. But this time its good bye."
• There was one little girl that I was keeping a close eye on, mostly because of how withdrawn from the other kids she was. I noticed she was playing with a babydoll in the kitchenette, rocking it back and forth and singing to it. She then took the baby, shoved it into the play oven and slammed the door shut. She turned around, looked straight at me, and said, "Sometimes bad babies go in timeout" in the creepiest little girl voice I've ever heard before smiling and running off.

- A picture to make all of us feel better:

Have a good weekend, everyone!

The Best Day EVER

I came home yesterday to a package on my steps.

Guys, I was not anywhere close to prepared for what was inside.

It was........WOLFCAT

How do I even describe Wolfcat? Do I describe its origins or its beauty first? Let's go with beauty.
Wolfcat is a taxidermy masterpiece. Probably made out of rabbit fur, it is a mother wolfcat (complete with a gazillion plastic nipples) with a pup/kitten in its mouth. You really just have to see it to believe it.

Wolfcat is a wonderful, terrible family tradition. It (she?) was picked up at a flea market by my sister Megan for the first family Christmas Yankee Swap. Our aunt who organized the swap was none too pleased (even though that's crazy, given Wolfcat's stupendous nature). So Wolfcat mysteriously found its way into her car and we thought that was that.

Until sister MC got married. Our aunt's family's wedding present to her was....can you guess it??...WOLFCAT IN A VEIL.

Best wedding present. Ever.

 

Then Megan got her doctorate and Wolfcat reappeared! This time it wore a tiny graduation hat and robe.

  

Those are tears of joy, of course.

 

Wolfcat's true glory.





That was 3 years ago. I had honestly forgotten about Wolfcat.

UNTIL TODAY.


Please behold the newest member of Blonde Bomber Acres:



I really can't explain in words how happy this makes me.



(Funny story: I had a new friend over last night that wasn't quite up to speed on how strange I am. It was interesting trying to explain the taxidermied bear and Blonde Wolfcat...)