Crash, boom.

A few days ago Charles and I were eating dinner, topside, and we hear a noise, below. It sounded bad and "breaky". Charles just said, "Kitten Jack." I ran to see what it was. "Breaky" isn't a good sound. I see two cats running away from the sound...Kitten Jack and Elphaba. Hummm... I look around and don't see a thing. I walk around my scrapbook desk and that is where I found it. A HUGE mess of my supplies. Aarrggg!! Murder or the woods? Tough choice!!
Just to give you an idea of how bad this was, here is a BEFORE shot of the scene. I have all my buttons, charms, brads, hard themed embellishments, etc. stored in these lovely hardware bins from Lowe's. This photo was taken right after we moved in and they were still shrink wrapped, but this is how they look normally, minus the plastic.
This is AFTER...
It appears that either Kitten Jack or Elphaba who are both notorious climbers were up in the basement window. A very favorite kitty hang-out spot. So favorite that when they kept knocking down my 12x12 paper holders, I created a shelf/ramp for them to walk on without damaging my supplies. So one/both were climbing on the ramp and decided to take a detour through my supply shelf. There someone knocked over one of those hardware bins, an entire vase full of buttons, a wire basket full of my "bling" and a basket of my felt pieces. Now, for you scrapbookers, the nine bins in question were this: Brads, Small Brads, Speciality Brads, Conchos, Charms, Photo Turns & Hinges, Bottle Caps, Snaps & Nails. Yeah. You can cringe 'cause y'all know what my afternoon "pick up" project was. All those bloody conchos had stuck in the carpet and I had to pick the each and every one from them carpet fibers! Oooh! But I wanted to strangle me a cat. But which one?! Elphaba is pretty much the one who spends the most time up in that window, but Kitten Jack is a kitten and is pretty much "all kitten". So I am gonna go with KJ. And if I wasn't 100% sure here he is returning to the scene of the crime looking all innocent and offering to help me clean up. Yeah! I would put buttons or conchos in their bins and Jack would "help me" by flicking them back out. I see right through you buddy!

"Quarantine" is the pits!

OK, this is yet ANOTHER stray kitten story...

On Saturday afternoon, as Charles was off to do an errand and I was standing on the porch watering plants, a kitten walks towards us from across the big part of the front yard. We watch. She is limping or having trouble walking and both of us just stand there quietly, knowing that this isn't going to be good. The kitten, a rust, black & white calico reaches Charles first and he pats her and says to me, "He's in rough shape." Bad words. I walk over and not only is the kitten in bad shape, it is asking for help. I could tell. This is when a cat who would normally take it's time to get to know you, if at all, will walk right up to you and look at you. They are in trouble and are looking for help. Charles called it "buddy" a few times so I assumed that he "saw" something to tell him it was a boy. (Little did we know that almost all calico cats are girls.) I felt the cat and it was very emaciated and the first thing I do while Charles pets it is to get food and water. I don't care what the implication is, I would NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER let an animal walk away from me that needed food. I couldn't live with myself. Yes, I know the "they'll never leave" mantra. I've heard it a lot from Charles throughout our years together. And guess what, sometimes they DO leave. Sometimes they are just bumming a free meal and move on. And guess what else, sometimes they stay for a couple of weeks and then move on. And, yes, sometimes they do stay. Walter and Luna are the only ones that we've actually kept from a situation like that. Two! That isn't too shabby of a record for a certified stray-helper like myself. (In case you are wondering we are not keeping Jack or this new arrival! They are both looking for good homes, so if you want a cat, let me know!) But I digress in my story here...sorry.

Back to the kitten at hand.

Here she is. You can see that her eyes look terrible. They were watery, milky and had white, floating spots. Her nose was clogged and drippy. It was hard for her to breath, and sometimes it was very a very loud, congested breathing. Her tongue would just loll out of her head every now and then, she was covered in big, poky burrs, she was also covered in her own runny poop and what I thought was some blood too. You can just imagine how gross and stinky she was. Her meow was so pitiful and when she purred it seemed like a great effort. She didn't want to eat any of the dry food I offered, but when I gave her some canned food, she set to. I think that even Charles knew better than to say his famous words, "If you feed her, she'll never leave." She was just too bad off to ignore. He did say that we couldn't keep her, but that was understood, honey! He has to grumble a bit!
Well, we debated on what to do. He called our local SPCA in Wellsboro. They refused to take him. I don't really have a comment about that other than I thought that is what they are there for. I contacted a sweet friend who volunteers at her local SPCA and got some advice from her. Besides giving me the names of some shelters in NY who WOULD take her, she also said that she would have a better chance at the shelter if she went in as a healthy cat. So after more talking with Charles we decided that we could nurse her back to health, hopeful that whatever she had didn't mean that she'd have to be put down. Of course, there was a bit more grumbling from the Charles camp, but just in case you think I have to really push at this cause, refer to the below photo...
I hear Charles talking to someone on the porch late Sunday afternoon. I peek out there and the kitten is sitting on Charles' lap in the rocking chair. He is petting her and saying things like, "It's gonna be OK buddy (he still thinks it's a boy) we are gonna get you some medical help." or "You'll be safe here. We'll keep you safe." and "Don't worry. It'll all be fine. We love 'ya!" Should I tell him that if you tell a cat that you love it, it'll never leave?" HA! When I asked him what he was doing he said, "He just looked like he needed some love and attention. Jen, he has NO place that is his place to "BE". He just looked sad." (Yeah, I know that I have a wonderful, animal loving husband!)

SO! I had an appointment the next day at the vets to get Jack his booster shot and I think I'm gonna either piggy back new kitty or let her go in Jack's place. Our vet has been super busy lately (I think she needs a partner, but who am I to say?) and I was worried they wouldn't take her. They did and this cat was much sicker than we thought. First and foremost, she tested negative for FIV and FelV which is GREAT. She was covered in fleas-immediate Capstar. Yes, she is very underweight. She and Jack are about the same age-Jack weighed 7.8 lbs, she weighted 4.1 lbs. She had an infection which was causing the eye running, nose dripping and congestion. AND she had parasites which was also in the eye and causing the runny poo. What was the most amazing to all of us, the vet included, was that after a very long eye exam, he determined that she had worms IN HER EYES! He said it was very rare (he had never seen it live in a cat) and that they were there because the worms in her body had migrated to the wrong or "abnormal" spot. He couldn't even remember the word for it. So kitten got put on three meds-one easy liquid 2x a day, eye salve 3x a day and a very weird powder that has to be mixed, suspended and given orally thankfully only 1x a day but for 5 days, then wait three weeks and do 5 more. New one for me. What the doctor really stressed is that she is highly contagious. Both to the critters and to us. He asked if we had diarrhea. Yikes! So she had to be but in quarantine. I had four choices: #1-Keep her outdoors. I didn't like that option one bit because she might leave, might run into Luna out there, Luna might eat out of her food dish, food dish on porch and bears is a no-no, and on and on. #2-Put her in the garage. Not a bad option, but I really didn't want to walk around outside at 1:30am to go for the late-night med run. #3-Set her up in a bathroom. Runny poop? 'Nuf said? #4-Put her in the unfinished basement. I have a wonderful pet playpen (a million thanks to Vickie for that recommendation years ago) that I use for the dogs as a winter potty. It was still set up in the basement, so I just lined it with a tarp, folded up boxes, sheets, old towels, a soft and fuzzy rug, a kitty litter, food bowl and a bed. All that stuff is gonna have to be burned when we are done with this, but that's OK. I laid long shelf boards across the top and at first thought that she wouldn't have enough strength to push through. Wrong. She got out quickly, so now the boards are loaded down with heavy stuff so she can't escape. I feel so bad with her stuck down there. Every time I go down for either a med or a social visit she just wants to be loved or held. Both of which I have to do in my homemade HazMat suit! But she is cozy, doesn't have to worry about anything except resting and getting better. I guess if she was at a vet's office in one of the cages she wouldn't have as much space and she'd have all the stress of barking dogs in other cages. So, the Taj Mahal it isn't, but it at least is somewhere she can call home. Until we find her that "forever home"!

Hello Muddah Crop Location Shots

Notes from Camp...

Hello ladies,

We'll meet here for our next "Notes from Camp" update! Stacey traveled up to High Springs for me so that she could get some photos of our facility. You see, I had lots of questions and I didn't want to make the Rangers up there crazy with questions like, "Is there an ice cream scoop in the kitchen?" "What are the amps on the cabins?" or "What kind of pathway runs around the loop?" So off went Stacey on my recon mission! She took hundreds of photos and I found out all kinds off good stuff like, "Yes. There are two ice cream scoops including the "heat in your hand" kind!" "20." and "Dirt partially covered in leaves." So I have decided to share a few of the photos with y'all so you can get even more excited about our wonderful trip to the woods! Enjoy!

(Oh! And if you want to play along with the "I like a visual" game take out a piece of paper and a pencil and draw a pretty good sized, classic shape of a peanut, longways on the paper. Think Mr. Peanut laying on his side. At the top of the paper, just a little bit away from Mr. Peanut, draw a long wavy line.)

This is the outside of what is called, "The Dining Hall", but what we call, "The Crop Room". It is HUGE. Stacey found out that as well as having 2 giant fireplaces on either end of the room, they also have two big heaters on the walls. There will not be a problem with keeping warm in the crop room! (If you are playing the game, draw a medium sized square on the top outer ring of the peanut where Mr. Peanut's waist would be. This is the location of the Crop Room.)

These are two photos that made my Lunch Lady's heart sing! A mass of HUGE pots and a dinner bell. *sigh* I will be a jolly cook for y'all!

Let's call this Restroom Facility #2. There is a men's side and a woman's side. They have pottys, showers stalls and a bank of sinks inside. One of the veteran camp croppers has suggested that we put off showering in the morning and do it in the afternoon. That suggestion is greatly appreciated! (For the game, draw a medium sized rectangle on the outer loop of the peanut at the bottom part of his waist-directly across from the Crop Room/Dining Hall. That is Restroom Facility #2)

This is one of the Leader Cabins. The actual cabin name is Highland Hammocks. You can see that you can drive right up to the cabin. Some of them are a little more set back, but you can get pretty close to all of them. (OK, head to the inside of Mr. Peanut's head and draw a small rectangle where his brain would be. That is Highland Hammocks Cabin. Draw another rectangle to the right of Highland Hammocks, still inside the loop. This is The Infirmary, another Leader cabin.)

This is Ranger Dave, the lovely gentleman who gave Stacey and Joe the grand tour. He is walking on one of the paths around the loop. In front of Ranger Dave is another Leader Cabin called Paynes Prarie. These cabins were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s'. These are such cute and rustic cabins! (Imagine Mr. Peanut's two legs. The right leg would be towards the top of the page and the left towards the bottom. Now draw a medium rectangle, jutting out like his right leg on the outside of the shape. There you have Paynes Praire Cabin.)

These are two of the Scout cabins. I do not know which two, but you can get an idea of what they look like. Some are close together like these two, some are a bit further apart. In fact, one is at the very far end of the loop, set a bit further off in the woods. I do not have anyone bunking there just yet. That might be the "time out cabin" for naughty campers! I just crack myself up! But you can see here also, that you can drive your car close to the cabin if you want. (Our Mr. Peanut will only have a right leg. Sorry dude. I do want you to draw Restroom Facility #1 where you imagine his hip would be. This will be towards the bottom of the page on the outer loop and to the left of Paynes Prarie Cabin. Now put three X's in between Restroom Facility #1 and Paynes Prarie Cabin. Now continuing on the bottom, outer loop make 10 more X's moving along past Restroom Facility #2 and ending up with the last X where Mr. Peanut's head and top hat would be. Those are all the Scout cabins. They do all have cool camp names, but you'll find those out later!) Moving on!

This is a very cute campfire ring. Can't you just imagine all the ghost stories we could tell around it in the evenings? I'll meet y'all there around 10pm! (Head down to Mr. Peanut's guts. Draw a medium rectangle on the inner loop, kind-of where his right hip would be. This will be across and slightly higher up the body from the Restroom Facility #1. This is called the Handcrafts Pavilion. Now, in front of that, still on the inner loop, draw a small circle. That is the Campfire Ring. Remember 10pm!)

This has got to be my favorite building in our camp's campus. It is called the Rec Hall. It has wooden floors, wooden, swing-out windows, wooden rafters and totem poles all along the inner walls. It is just the cutest building and is where we'll be holding classes and maybe something else that is in the works! Very exciting stuff, make sure to watch for those "Notes from Camp" emails! (Pretend that you are walking away from Mr. Peanut's hip and the Handcrafts Pavilion. Over the loop, away from the Dining Hall and towards that wavy line. That wavy line is The Santa Fe River. Draw a medium square between the river and the Dining Hall. That is the Rec Hall.)

And finally on our camp tour this is the view from the Rec Hall. There is a glorious wrap around porch and this is looking off the back and right at the flowing Santa Fe River. This is where you could walk to the 1930's suspension bridge or just sit and soak up the beauty.

I hope that you have enjoyed our little tour. There are still a few things that we didn't see on our tour like the BBQ Pit, the Concession Stand or the spigot. Why Stacey took a photo of a spigot I'll never understand. But, please, let's give three cheers to Stacey for making this tour possible! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-HOORAY!!!

Step One...part one

Step one down my sustainable living path was to a) learn how to put up food (AKA-Canning) and then b) use local &/or in season produce to start to build up a store house of home-canned foods. Well last week I took my fist baby step towards that goal. I put up 6 pounds of clementines! It was so much fun!

I sat in front of the TV and peeled and de-pithed all those clementines and I only ate the ones that I ripped up.

I bought a bunch of jars from Weis & Walmart. I really loved the sticker on the packaging. I'll hop on and off this soapbox quickly-but we MUST buy local when we can and give all the support and dollars we can to American factories!

After that I boiled some water with a little bit of sugar in the bottom to make a light syrup. The stuff that the clementines will swim in until we eat them! I stuffed those clementine segements into the clean & sterilized jars and poured the syrup into the jars using the handy-dandy Bell funnel.

Then I used the air-bubble remover to get out all the bubbles I could. Now, are there any experts here? Cause I thought I got all those bubbles out, but when the jars were boiling bubbles were still appearing. What's up with that?

Then all the jars went into the jacuzzi pot and got boiled and boiled! I pulled them out when they were done, set them on dish towels on the counter and there they sit! A bit after their bath, I could here these little "pops" coming from the kitchen. I liked the sound of that! They look so pretty. Pretty enough to eat! But those are our winter treats when we cannot get cheap clementines around here. So, this weekend I'm gonna make a spot in the unfinished basement and start to store the jars down there.

I think this weekend we are finally gonna go to that blueberry farm. I found one that lets you pick blueberries FOR FREE. You pick a pint for yourself, you pick a pint for them and yours is free. You pick a bucket for yourself, you pick a bucket for them and your bucket is free. How cool is that? Do you think I could train chihuahuas to pick blueberries?

Tourist Season!

Oh, yeah, it's tourist season here in my neck of the woods. I think that last year I was too engrossed in learning my way around town and enjoying the newness of it all to notice that some folks just didn't seem to be from around here. Now that I've been up here a year I can spot the visitors. "Just what," you might be wondering, "does Mansfield, PA have there to bring in the tourists?" Well, besides the many chicken BBQ suppers, the farmer's markets & blueberry farms, Pennsylvania's Grand Canyon and the lumber museum there is plenty to do to and see! In fact just last weekend the NRA hosted their International Youth Hunters Education Challenge in Mansfield!
With just a little over a year of small town living under my belt I can tell you that I am in no ways an expert-heck I don't even own a pair of Muck books yet! But I am assimilating. I've met folks. Made friends. I know where to get a burn barrel and I can give directions to both of the funeral homes in town. One thing that I think I've gotten pretty good at over the last few months is spotting people who are not local. Being that my job puts me front and center in the busiest place in town-The Mansfield Mall (AKA-The Walmart!) I get to see 'em all coming in! Also, being that my job lets me do one of my very favorite things, chat with people, I get to ask where they are from and what brings them to our area. I absolutely do NOT have one teeny problem being nosey!
Well the other day I was giving out samples of Odwall's Mango Limeade drink and I got to meet two people that were, for me, most excellent to chat with. The first lady commented that she grows mangos in her yard at home. "Home" being Pompano Beach, Florida! Ooh! I talked her ear off about my old stompin' ground. Told her about my dad, the lighthouse and Cap's Place. She told me stories about her kids growing up in Pompano. It was awesome talking to her. A bit later in the day a family came up and tried my drink and when they spoke, I have say that like my Aunt A used to say, "it was like a salve for the soul." They were from a small town near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The way they spoke, the words they used...oh it made me realize how much I miss hearing a good 'ole Southern accent. In talking to them I learned where "their people" come from, heard the word "y'all" a few times and they drawled "thank you, ma'am." Such lovely people and I loved chatting with them.
Now I don't know about the rest of Mansfield...but I am not sick of our tourists! Yep, there are more folks around and we don't normally have to wait for the stop light to cycle through three times before we make it through. We don't normally see cars lined up 4 deep at the gas pumps. We never have to wait for a table at a restaurant. But I surely don't think we are about to hang up a sign over Main Street that says, "Benny Go Home"!

Project Life

Kiwi watches and waits for "Daddy" to come to bed every night.
A very cool lightning show over the tops of the mountain. Sadly we never saw a drop of rain from it and we badly need it!
The Wellsboro Town Band baby! It is one of my all-time favorite things to do. This night Miss Morgan came with us and I packed a fantastic picnic supper for us all. The dogs came tonight too, and were pretty much on their best behavior.
Another favorite of ours is to go to Crazy Bob's Harvest Moon Drive-In Theater. I cannot say enough good things about this place. First of all for $6 you can watch two first-run movies. That's two for the price of one. Second everybody brings chairs, blankets, etc. to watch the show picnic style. Hardly anyone stays in the car. Thirdly if you arrive early enough you can join in on a game of volley ball, soccer, Frisbee, etc. In front of the giant screen there are always kids and adults playing something. Fourth, they have a "car-feteria" where you can get all kinds of yummy food! It is simply a great evening!
Shhh! This is the very rare "Husband Yard-Workorous". I'm afraid if we talk too loud we'll scare it away and it won't come back for another year!

Go ahead and laugh!

OK, here is another one of those "Feel Free to Laugh at Jen" moments!

Today is beautiful. Slightly overcast and nice and breezy. It is 79 and just a nice day to be outside. Since I've been working in my basement studio and doing laundry for most of the day we have not been outside too much so on an afternoon potty break I am standing at the top of our hill looking down towards the mailbox. I'm thinking, "There might be more registration forms in there and I want those! But that is where that stupid bear cub was hanging out last Saturday. Is mail worth it?" I look down at the dogs and I can tell that Kiwi really wants to take a stroll, so after I stand there thinking about what I would do if I had a close bear encounter....no neighbors at home now, not a lot of cars on the road right now, who would help? Nobody-that's who. But I decided to hike up my big girl pants and walk down the drive. Loud noise. That will let the bears know that we are coming and to move along, right? If you know me, you know that although I love to sing, I am really quite bad at it. But that never stops me! I chose the Pennsylvania Polka to sing as my "scare the bears" song and I was working it! I was telling anyone/thing who was listening that "everybody has the mania, to do the polka from Pennsylvania" when both Kiwi and I not only heard a loud rustling in the tree line ahead, but SAW a bear moving away! Yep! There was a bear exactly where I thought it would be. Yep! It heard me singing and knew enough to move along-out of earshot, I imagine. But did my big girl panties and brave girl song carry me all the way to the mail box? NOT ON YOUR LIFE!!! I did a very quick, backwards shuffle almost all the way up the hill. See, I did it backwards because I've heard tell that you do not want to actually run away from a bear, just move away slowly while keeping an eye on it! I got the "keep an eye on it" part ok, but the "slowly" needs a bit more work. I moved as fast as my legs could move me backwards and uphill while corralling two barking Chihuahuas! But, lemme tell you this...I kept right on singing! Not even a stinky 'ole bear can stop me when I get a polka tune in my head!


New current score for "on property" bear sightings:
Jen-10
Charles-3