Experiment in odors....ick

Back in June I officially gained my title as 'Crazy Cat Lady'.

                                Sprockett and Tuki

Believe me, I never had the intention of having this many cats at one time, but it happened. 2 feral kittens needed a home. And sooooo....I took them and named them Freddie and Flossie. From the Bobbsey Twins when I was a kid. I mean after all, when you have five cats, what's two more???

Well STINK!!! That is what two more does! I added another litter box but even WITH the Arm and Hammer Slide litter that has GREAT odor control, it gets stinky very quickly. It also gets very expensive very quickly. A large box is about $23.00 and I am going through one and a half boxes a week. I really have a problem paying for clumpy dirt for someone to shit in. (I shouldn't have used that word. Sorry.) But I do! Bad enough I have to clean those boxes twice daily, but to pay that much money is nothing short of irritating.

So looking over my options....I can't get rid of any cats! I love them too much. I can't go to a cheaper litter. I actually like to LIVE in my house. As it is with the Slide litter, there are nights I sleep in the living room because the stink of someone laying a new bomb in the litter box is enough to make me gag. It is getting to the point where I need to wear a gas mask to sleep in my own bedroom! Add to that the fact that the stupid litter clumps and gets into the cat paws between their little pads and they track it EVERYWHERE. I have tried every mat out there and nope. I still got kitty litter on the floor, in the sink, in the bathtub, (cat boxes are in my master bathroom), on the carpet in the bedroom, on the book shelves, in my bed. Wait. What? Yep. I have a couple of cats that love to hide beneath my covers and when they can finagle it even WITH me tucking in the sheets so tight you can bounce a penny off of them, those little buggers still manage to get between the sheets.

Enough is enough when you have to wash your cats paws to get the clumping litter from between their little pads. Sooooooo......

I finally had an epiphany. My barn does not smell and I only scoop there ONCE a day. Why is that? So I finally went out and got a bag of wood burning pellets that I use for bedding in the stalls. (I use the wood burning pellets because they are about $5.00 a forty pound bag whereas the Equine Pelleted Bedding is $12.00 a bag and it is exactly the same thing. Probably safer because the wood burning pellets have to be rated for humans.

I replaced all the cat litter with pellets. They are not so small they get stuck between their little pads and they don't track them all over. A few on the floor now and again, but it isn't as bad as stepping on Legos. The pellets dissolve into saw dust once they get wet and that stuff sifts to the bottom of the litter box. I still have to scoop poop out of there, but I only have to do that once a day now. At first I was sifting all the pellets and dumping all the sawdust, but I finally came to the conclusion that it is easier to just leave it and dump it all and put new pellets in every 2 to 3 days. Just depends on how much those cats drink I guess, but it is working! No more horrid smells wafting through the house. And no more clumping cat litter between my sheets.

I thought I was such a genius. Until a video came up on my YouTube feed. DOH. I guess people have been doing this for some time now. They are actually layering pans, drilling holes in the top one and sifting the sawdust out. Which is a lot easier than taking out the intact pellets with a pooper scooper like I was doing. Whatever.

I just like the woody smell. Much preferable to wearing your prepper gas mask to bed each night.

Revenge

Today was windy. VERY windy.

Which is not all that unusual for the area I live in. We are known for our winds. Yayness. Wind means that all the trash from my Bozo neighbor blows up against my fence and is plastered there until it makes its way up the fence and over. And then I get to pick it up and actually dispose of it.

I love my place. I do NOT love my neighbors. And shame on me because as a Christian I am supposed to be doing just that. And I know I am not supposed to make excuses but I find it very difficult to LOVE someone who poisoned my German Shepherd. And the bastards made sure I was not there, able to help her. My poor pet sitters! Yes. My sweet Vanna is no longer with us....I just cannot handle it without wanting to jump my fence and beat the flying crap out of them. I also know that I am not supposed to take revenge. Vengeance is MINE sayeth the Lord. But I am having difficulty with that.

Precious one. My sweet Vanna. You were the bestest companion and protector I have ever known. We ALL miss you very much. I miss your goofy antics and your frantic excitement to do whatever I asked you to do. I miss the security you brought to my home as well. My life is forever changed because you were a part of my family and I promise you, I PROMISE YOU, that I will adopt another homeless and abused German Shepherd in your honor and remembrance. Once I get a privacy fence up to insure safety. And yes. I promise I will follow God's command and leave the vengeance for Him to take care of. I am torn between praying that it happens and praying for their souls. What kind of soul could be so cruel and have no conscience?

I am just glad they cannot hurt you anymore and that you are not hurting anymore. The only thing that is hurting now is my heart. I love you. I always will.

 I'll see you when I get there NanaBanana.

Butterflies

It has been sometime since this has happened. I have butterflies in my tummy. Don't have a reason to have them, I mean it's not like I am going to Disneyland tomorrow or any adventure really. But they are there and it makes me happy. Happy to know I can still feel things like hope and happiness.

Sometimes, things get so rough in life, you forget about cool stuff like that. I hope that I can experience stuff like this as long as I live. It is difficult to live your life without hope!

I recently changed jobs. It wasn't something forced, I wasn't laid off or fired or booted out, nothing nasty. Well nothing nasty on my part, but I was just fed up and without a job lined up and a trip to Colorado planned, I simply did it. I put in my 2 weeks notice and although it was not something I looked forward to, I worked that notice out and left with my head high. The day before I left that job, I had another in my pocket and would start when I got back from Colorado. Talk about good timing! I just made a phone call and there it was. A job in my pocket.

Sometimes you just wonder, on the down side of it that is, WHY you worry at all. Or WHY you would put up with a workplace that treats you like a pile of dog poop in a cantaloupe patch. All I know is that a job that I dearly loved was made intolerable by others who thought and fought against me. Even though I saved their butts from getting closed down. On the upside, I am just glad to be away from there and in a job that is quite possibly going to be the best I have ever had.

God is good! So here's to butterflies in your tummy! I pray that you get them too!

HOW in the heck is it already OCTOBER?!?!

Life.

It moves so quickly. Sometimes it feels as though it moves with the speed and determination of The Terminator. Seeking to destroy. But here I am. Still hanging on and running for all I am worth!

Fall is forever my favorite season but I will never understand why the biggest changes in my life happen in the fall. This fall is no different. I am grateful to my heavenly Father for this upheaval in my life, for it is a good one. Me? I am a rut person. I enjoy the same old-same old, so to get me to make an actual move requires God to really allow something icky to happen in my life to pry me out of the comfortable rut I have made for myself. But I gotta say I LOVE this move....now that I know what is happening that is. Didn't exactly like all that icky stuff to get me here, but know what? Good riddance. And on with the career move!

Problem is icky stuff makes me not want to write in my little blog. I just cannot see clear when all that stuff is going on and although I really dislike all the happy-happy-joy-joy-never-ever-say-you-have-bad-things-happen garbage that you read on so many blogs, I don't really want to be the one who gripes all the time. So I just don't write. But writing is good for me as to write helps me to settle my thoughts, so I have determined that I just need to write more. I need to use this blog to remind me of where I have been and catalog my thoughts and plans and dreams.

So here I am. Hopefully to stay active and while not all the time happy, at least stay positive. We shall see how far this goes.

Is it finding yourself or just remembering who you are?

TWENTY SEVEN YEARS.

It has been 27 years since that breakup of a relationship that took it all away. I did not realize THAT was what it was, but when you become a single mother with an ex-someone who tries to thwart your every move, you can lose who you are through having to remain tough.

I am not a tough woman. Strong, but not tough. Smart and resourceful, but certainly not tough. I have always had a marshmallow heart for my children and it was difficult to play the "tough love" game to get them through those horrid teenage years. SO glad that time is over and even more glad to know that pushing them made them take responsibility and not be a child at 35 living in your mother's extra bedroom. Although they would say differently, God and I know the truth.

Moving back to Arizona from Colorado has been wonderful. Colorado is such a beautiful state! But not for me....for an Arizona gal, that is like 9 months of winter and 3 months of summer. And I love the green and rain, but holy cow! Not THAT much! I am much more suited to a desert sunset ride than a snowy, up to your cinch, ride. I love my Arizona. And I love where God chose to place me.

I have a home I love, I have a job I adore and I have all my animal family. But finally having a home, rather than moving place to place means nesting and that is something I haven't done in a long time. Choosing furniture, making a garden, putting up a barn....I haven't done that in earnest for 27 long years. These past 5 years have been a trial as I try out one look after another in my mind only to find that they are not me at all. But FINALLY. Finally I remembered who I am and what brings me happiness when I step into my little home.


This blog I write tonight, I write for me. For that time, if it ever comes, that I need to remember all the things that brought me through the past 5 years BACK to the woman I am. The woman I had forgotten existed. The woman who loves classical music. NOT country. The woman who loves saving and caring for animals and gardens. The woman who prays for the children she bore and still loves.  The woman who loves the Hollywood Regency furniture and wears boots and lacy socks with her dresses. The woman who loves and trusts a great and mighty God. The woman God has blessed beyond all expectations.

These photos are for me. To remember. To remember ALL of it...

 

 

 

 

Thank You for the adventure, Father God. I love You.

Laughter at all the wrong times.....

Odd how a memory will all of a sudden POP into your head.

REALLY bad when one does that as you are in church and you are trying desperately to not break out in laughter. Yeah. It happened to me today.

I went to church today, Saturday, because I just wanted to have the day at home on Sunday. Got lots to do and not enough time to do it in. You know the drill.

So during worship time, there we are singing and a certain song comes up and of course it brings the funniest of memories to my mind. The song was "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand" and the memories flowed from there.

I have a daughter. She will be turning 35 this year. I don't speak of her much to anyone. A long time ago, I learned the best way to handle not having anything nice to say is just to say nothing at all.  Better that way. But there was a time when she was cute and precocious and oh, so sweet! I know I may be biased, but I don't think there was ever a little girl that was as cute as her. She was quick and bright, inquisitive and I always knew that lurking behind that little smile was a creative and curious mind.

When I was a younger woman, I had boundless energy. Always on the move, making and creating and I LOVED being a Mom. When my children were little, at bedtime I would sit between their open doors and read them books. We covered so many different books, but their favorites were always from C.S. Lewis.....The Chronicles of Narnia. So much magic! When I read "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" to them, they were enchanted and many summer days were spent in the back yard with swords and imaginations.

So I did what any Mom would do. I built them a "Dawn Treader". Smack dab in the middle of  what would be a sand box. A HUGE sand box. I made the sail out of red canvas and on it there was a big Aslan, right in the middle. It had a poop deck and a ladder and I never did get that ships wheel to stay on correctly, but they loved it.

When it came time to fill the sand box with sand, we talked about it. Did they want white sand? Did they want sand that looked like a sea shore or just plain brown sand? What? I remember her answer clearly, as if she uttered it only today.

"Well I just want the kind of sand Jesus has. Not that stinking kind."

Wait. WHAT???

I questioned her as to what she was referring to and she broke out in song, belting out these words....

"On Christ the solid rock I stand! All other ground is stinking sand! All other ground is stinking sand!"

I had a really difficult time in church today. To not bust out laughing like I did that day long ago.

I guess the moral of this story is......If you are building a sand box for your kids, make sure you don't fill it with STINKING SAND.

Because that would be icky.

Crapolla

After careful consideration and many frustrating moments along with a few choice words, I have decided to completely redo my fodder growing system. The first one was too small!

I have 8 horses, (for now) which means for 15 pounds of fodder for each horse a day, I need to run 56 flats per week. YIKES. My old fodder system only ran 30 flats per week. Which is still a lot, just not enough.

So last night, after working all day on the old system, I took it all apart and am re-configuring it today. Hopefully, I can have it up and running tonight because my horses LOVE their fodder.

Photos and instructions to come. (Yeah right).

Easter blessings to your family on this wonderful, wonderful day!

cate