71 Degrees....WHAT??? LOL

NOT today but tomorrow for sure - or so "they" say...

Today we're supposed to reach 61 degrees and tomorrow, for real, we're supposed to reach 71 degrees. I don't know if that's considered normal or not for this time of year and I don't care. LOL I didn't realize how much I missed wearing just one layer of clothes, one pair of socks and only a lightweight jacket -my good old standby, the gray hoodie.

I only turn on the heater in the mornings and by the time I leave work, I can actually crack the window just a bit. It's still cool air when it comes blowing in the window, right? lol The sunglass purchase came at just the right time because the sun has been shining brightly since Sunday and from what "they" say, it will be like this through the weekend with only a slight chance of showers Friday night or Saturday morning. SWEET.

I was soooooo hoping that my Burpee seed and plant catalog would be in the mail yesterday but alas the mailbox was empty :(   I did notice, however, that the grocery store, Lowe's and Fred's all have seed packets available for purchase should I so choose to pick up a packet or two. I'm trying to hold off until the catalog gets here so my choices are greater. It's one of those true tests of my patience I must say.

For the record, the mystery plants from last year (Allium) have sprouted from the ground and are about 4 inches high. That's just the leafy part, of course, since we all remember well how long it took for the darn things to bloom last year. Can you believe come March 26th, I will have been living here a year? Wow, time really does fly when you're having fun or as I once read hanging from a frog statue "time is fun when you're having flies." LOL The blog sure has come far since way back then... I'm glad you stuck with me and encouraged me to continue. Reading some of the archives brought back those earliest days and reminded me of the beautiful springtime season lurking around the corner for me.

Winter takes it's time coming and going here in southwest middle Tennessee :) (that's what they call it on the radio here where we live lol) and it's silly to think it's over just because we're enjoying some warm temperatures. From what I've read and heard we could still get more snow. That's hard to imagine looking outside right now but never say never.

I spoke with Kelly yesterday and she said that while it is chilly in the mornings for those of you in Florida, the afternoons are already getting up into the 80s. Wow - even though I do fondly remember those days, they get pushed back further and further with each writing. I spoke with Bud yesterday too and he said Tammy Jo had gathered up a bunch of stuff so she too could decide what to plant at the house...she's looking at tomatoes and peppers.

I told her not to forget the banana peppers. As I recall growing those one year they came up taller than I stand and I had so many peppers that I didn't know what the heck to do with them all. I put them in everything. If you ate my macaroni or potato salad that year, you ate banana peppers. If you ate my spaghetti or ziti or anything Italian, you ate banana peppers. If you ate chili or hamburgers or deviled eggs, you ate banana peppers. I pickled jars and jars of them to use on sandwiches throughout the year. I even put them in my homemade salsa. And still they kept growing... I think I felt about those peppers that year much the same way I feel about the snow this year... ready for it to quit. hahahahahahahahaha  I actually don't mind the snow as long as I don't have to drive in it...

I spoke with Dizzy Debbie Monday and she filled me in on her vacation in Florida. She said she was having a great time and she really enjoyed visiting with everyone again. I spoke with Ernie and she said it was really good to see everyone too and that she's going to try and stop in more often because everyone is just so NICE down there and she had so much fun.  :)  If you can't have fun at the Oriole's, you have problems. lol

The consensus seems to be then that NASCAR has sunk to a new low. So far, I have heard from four people who are in agreement with me on my opinion of the "new" way of racing. I'm going to reserve further judgement until after the Daytona 500 but it's not looking good for NASCAR. I hope all fans who feel the same way have registered their complaints on line. I haven't been able to access the site but I'll keep trying.

I've got 2 pounds of shrimp in the freezer for Sunday's "shrimp on the BarB." They'll be drenched in fresh garlic, hot sauce, seasoning salt, cilantro and black pepper. I still can't find the skewers that I use for the grill but I'm hoping to find them this weekend. I can cook the shrimp in the oven under the broiler but they are just so much better on the grill... hence the name "shrimp on the BarB."  :)  just ask Ernie, William and Britney, Sydna, Marcia, Dizzy Debbie and her son Brian... YUMMY!

For my birthday, my Mom gave me a gift card to Borders so before too long, I'll have my hands on some new books to read. If you're interested, I'll blog about them. I won't tell the whole story, just enough to get you intrigued. If you decide you want to read the whole book, I'll be happy to send it your way. I only ask that you pass it on so someone else can enjoy it as well. I typically read murder mysteries but you never know...something else might catch my fancy this go round.

As you know Colt has the nickname of Houdini and in living up to his name he escaped his collar and chain twice yesterday. The first time, Wally caught him. He took him for a walk and then chained him up again. Then when I got home, sure enough there he sat right next to Ruger who was still on the chain. He didn't appear to want to run and since he has learned to come to us, I figured I might as well give it a try. I called him to me and over he came right up to me - whew!! We know very well that could easily have gone the other way...lol

Colt sat down and let me pet him. I couldn't hardly hook him up yet because his collar was missing and his chain was so entwined with Ruger's chain that I had to untangle them before I could do anything with Colt. Jeez those little guys can make a mess of things! Round and round that chain was wrapped and the only way to unwrap it was to get Ruger to go under and over it time and time again. He was funny doing this because he thought he was playing. I tugged on his chain and he jumped over Colt's chain, I tugged, he jumped (the chain was on the ground...) and so on for however long it took. All the while this was going on, Colt was nipping at Ruger and trying to pounce on him. I gave each of them a doggy biscuit and they finally relaxed enough to sit down and eat them.

While Colt was eating, I found his collar under the leaves and hooked it back around his neck. With the chain now hooked to his collar, I went to pet Ruger one more time. The little monster jumped up and scratched the heck out of my arm. You may or may not know it but I have what I call "old lady skin." Mine does the same thing Joyce's skin does. It bruises easily and it always looks much worse than it really is. This time was no exception. I have big red scratch marks (about 3 inches long) right in the middle of my forearm. He didn't even act like he felt bad about it... lol Silly puppy!

Chains untangled, puppies eating their biscuits, I was off to feed the roosters. They are acting really weird these days but as I have no real experience with roosters, I've no idea what is going on with them. They have always shunned Roo and that still holds true only now they won't let him eat with them AT ALL. They run him off as soon as he approaches. I just started feeding them on one side of Dizzy's apartment and then I feed Roo on the other side. Only he and I know it's happening. Those other Rooster Thugs are too busy chowing down to notice that he and I are on the opposite side.

There is one with a white belly, one with a fully, freckled, belly, one with a patch on his belly and one with a fully, black, belly. Then there's Roo - he's a black belly too but he's easy to identify. So now that Roo stays far away from them, the fully-freckled belly rooster picks on all the others. He mostly picks on the white belly rooster. When I fed them the other day those two ruffled their neck feathers, stretched up as tall as they could, made some funny garble kind of sound and then went at each other! They pecked and clawed for just a couple seconds and it was all over with. What the heck that was all about is a complete mystery to me! Life with roosters is never dull :)  lololololololol haha

I went back up to the cabin and cleaned off my shoes...puppy poo and rooster poo, it just never ends. I changed into a t-shirt (yeah, it was that warm), took out my contacts and got ready to go to the barn. Wally was down there working on the Bronco so I thought I'd go see if I could help...help watch that is. I'm no help at all when it comes to actual "mechanical" help. I know it and he knows it and we no longer expect much out of me on that level. I know when to leave well enough alone as far as that goes. I don't know why this paragraph has the white background...?

I took off on the 4 wheeler and enjoyed the ride through the holler with the calmness of the day settling in on the woods around me. I saw no deer, I saw no hawks, I saw not one single squirrel or rabbit. That was very unusual for the holler. Even so, it was a nice ride and before long I pulled up to the barn and Wally came walking out. He was covered in grease... he had been working on that thing all day and it was dirty, dirty, dirty I tell you! EW no wonder I'm not cut out to be a mechanic...you have to touch that stuff.

He worked for a little while longer and then we went home. Curtis had come by earlier in the day and we had two huge slabs of ribs in the refrigerator. I think we'll cook them on the smoker this weekend but just looking at them made me hungry. I already had venison out for dinner so the ribs would have to wait.

We put the puppies on their leashes and headed off down the driveway. The roosters had already flown up into their respective trees and were cock-a-doodle-doing back and forth as we took our daily walk. Roo has taken to sleeping in a cedar tree down past Dizzy's apartment so he crows, then they crow, then he crows and on and on until they finally sleep. Our walks don't seem to bother them one little bit.

When our walk was over, we put the puppies back on their chains, made sure everyone had plenty of water, turned on their night light and headed for the cabin. I washed my hands and started dinner while Wally got a shower. We both smelled like dirty puppies...lol still not warm enough for them to have a bath.

I browned the venison tenderloin then added some John Boy and Billy marinade and half a beer. I chopped up and added some green pepper, some onion and some mushrooms. I sprinkled in some garlic powder and black pepper and then turned all that juice into a nice brown gravy. We had the venison and gravy with some whole wheat yeast rolls and sweet baby green peas. It was a little too salty for me (and it takes a lot for that to happen) but all in all very tasty. The venison was as tender as it could be and the peppers and onions had just a little bit of crunch to them. In hindsight, I should have added some broccoli but it didn't occur to me at the time. It was a very low calorie, low fat, nutritious meal that we both enjoyed and felt just the right amount of fullness having eaten it.

The whole wheat yeast rolls aren't half bad when you cover them with dark brown gravy... lol!

We ate our dinner as the sun set through the back porch windows. The roosters had quieted down and the dogs were all in their dog house. I rocked in my rocking chair while Wally lounged in his recliner as we watched tv and waited for bedtime to come. We watched a show called Pioneers of Television and it was really good. It talked about how the late night talk shows came about and had old clips of all of them. It was cool to see Johnny Carson back in the day. I'm sure he would think the same of me hahahahahaha

As I stood looking out the front door this morning, while it was still pretty much dark there was some light from a soon to be full moon, I saw four little rabbits run out into the front yard. That's the second time in a week I've seen them... I sure hope they aren't building nests up under the porch. If the dogs catch wind of that, we might not have any baby rabbits come springtime.

We still see the deer from time to time. There are three who tend to hang out together and still one of them is very small. She must be a deer midget or something. She never grows. To her benefit, she'll probably out live all the others - seems to me the hunters in these parts are out for the big game animals - she's too small to be anyone's trophy deer. Good for her - even I wouldn't have the heart to take her down.  See - I do have a heart.

It's Wednesday and we're supposed to go to Pee Wee's Place. I'm still hoping to get in the race pool and I know one person who is giving up his spot. He said he wanted me to have it but, unfortunately, it's not up to him. It's up to Pee Wee to pick who gets it. I don't know that I'm on her good side enough to get the spot but if we don't show, we won't know. So off we'll go....ha ha you didn't know I was a poet, did you? lol

In as much as I would love to continue writing today I have that darned work thing to do... annual mandatory training is due and all that. Once again I must leave you but I'll be back with more of our antics to share before you know it...

In honor of Neccy who insists that I "come home, come home" whenever we speak or email, here is your quote for today...

"A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double." ~Toni Morrison