No one said it would be easy.

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Otherwise known as – the teenage car saga continues.

So if you’ve been following the drama, we spent the last 2 months searching for and finally buying a decent first used car for our 19 year old niece. She was given 14 day plates and I repeatedly told her not to wait until the last minute to insure and register her new toy. She assured me she had it under control… which should have set my alarm bells ringing.

It’s a decent 2012 Subaru, but a few things needed to be tinkered with so we made an appointment with our friend/trusted mechanic for last Friday morning. Niece was supposed to be at our house at 9:30am.

At 8:31am she calls, in tears.

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I could hardly understand what she said in between sobs and was terrified she had an accident. Nope, she was fine. Had she hit a cat, a dog, a wombat…? Nope, no roadkill. More waterworks poured, so I gave the phone to husband. All he could get out of her was the car wouldn’t run, so we drove an hour south to find her parked behind a bank looking pitiful.

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She told us she left her college, stopped at a light and when she tried to accelerate nothing happened. If that’s the case I don’t know how she got to the bank down the road… but whatever, she’s 19. 💩 happens.

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Husband got in the car, started it up, no problem. He put it in gear… no problem. He popped the hood and checked the engine, no problem. He drove it an hour north…. flying down I95 at 90mph, no problem.

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Our mechanic couldn’t find anything wrong either, though he did mention something about a sticky butterfly.

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After he said it was nothing to worry about, and told her what to do if it happened again, I tuned out because I caught sight of this:

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His 1960 Corvette convertible getting a little touch up.

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Ooh la la! I love this car.

He bought it for $1,000 in 1970 and she only has 44,000 original miles.

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That’s my definition of sweet!

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To be continued.

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The Photo Ark

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Have you heard of Joel Sartore?

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Arctic Fox.

If not, let me rectify that.

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Tiger Striped Tree Frog.

Joel has made it his mission in life to photograph the approximately 12,000 species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries.

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Brown Throated Sloth.

But Joel’s photographs are different.

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Springbok Mantis.

They’re special.

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Mandrill.

Because they’re portraits.

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Spectacled Eiders.

Stunning portraits of glorious diversity.

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California Sea Lion.

Joel believes if we see these marvelous creatures… we’ll feel something.

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Andean Condor.

We’ll care.

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Sumatran Rhinoceros.

And if we care, we’ll fight to preserve not only them, but the habitats they need to thrive.

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DeBrazza’s Monkey.

Joel is my hero. And I’ve bought all 3 of his incredible books.

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As I make my way through them, I’m going to share some of his work.

Because they make me feel.

Because they make me care.

Not all of the animals are beautiful.

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Common Warthog.

But all of them are perfect… and worth protecting.

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Products no one needs.

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My only question is why anyone makes these things in the first place.

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I prefer my clams in chowder with heavy cream thank you very much.

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Oh, hell no. I can only drink if the BeeGees are playing?

Trust me, if the BeeGees are playing…. I’ll need more not less.

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I’m sorry, but they don’t. Less really is more.

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While this is rather cute? It’s also a great way to take out an eye. Weaponized mallows are over the top, even for me.

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No. Aside from the fact the packaging seems to be marketed for 6 year old girls…

I refuse to wear a perfume named Juicy Bunny on sheer principle.

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Barn, Belgian beer and Brussel sprouts.

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We were back in the barn this weekend and ran the new heat pump for the first time. It’s a big space so it took a while to warm up… but the building held the set temperature all day, which means all our stuff and seal each and every god damn gap insulation work…

Worked.

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But there were still a few more windows to trim and that’s when things went downhill.

There was sputtering, mumbling, cursing and okay…. small pieces of wood may or may not have been flung across the room.

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When the wood started flying? I knew it was time for a distraction… so I trudged down to our crap filled underground nightmare basement and retrieved a treasure we purchased a few years ago.

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A neon bar sign from the Ommegang brewery in New York. We stumbled on them when we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and fell in love with their Belgians.

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https://www.ommegang.com/

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If you’re ever in the area, check out their tasting room in the old barn… and if you’re visiting this time of year? Try my favorite.

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There’s a tavern in Brussels famous for it’s pigeon racing?

Sounds like my kind of place.

And speaking of Brussels…

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When you live across the street from an organic vegetable farmer?

You never know what will show up on your doorstep in the morning.

👍

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Blog number one thousand two hundred twenty whatever, where River chases turkeys.

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Wild turkeys. They’re comical and I love to watch them…

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But then they discovered my deer grain pans.

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I chased them, but half heartedly and with ridiculously cringe worthy baby talk.

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But they’re turkeys, so as soon as I walked in the house and looked out the window? This.

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So I chased them again. And that time they stayed gone for an hour… just long enough for me to put out the nightly deer snack.

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While I don’t mind them coming to eat the dropped bird seed and assorted Casa River insects, they’ve figured out the buffet of deer grain, fruit and fox food is laid out at 3:00pm and this might be a problem.

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The best one yet!

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So I walked in on my husband the other day, and this was what he was watching….

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I knew it was going to be good.

Or bad.

Or so bad, it’s good.

I wasn’t disappointed.

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A walking tree stump reincarnation?

I was in!

Having missed the first third of the movie I can’t give you the background story, but I knew something was going to go wrong when the visiting doctors dug up a tree with a face and a knife in it’s… chest?

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Back at the lab, the lady doctor/heroine whipped out her stethoscope to check its vitals.

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The diagnosis? None. They were stumped… (pun intended) and left the room to confer with colleagues.

Bad idea.

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Very bad.

The rampaging evil spirit tree, which we learned is named Tobanga, ran amok and captured a South Sea native girl.

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And hurled her in the quicksand.

She begged for her life…

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But Tobanga was merciless.

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Bye bye scantily clad native girl.

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Her death stirred up the villagers and they vowed to track the malevolent creature.

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But you know that didn’t go as planned.

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This fellow was tossed into a ravine and impaled….

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Which pissed off the guy in the stunning headband to no end.

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He gathered more natives to dig a pit… and used himself as bait to lure the creature.

Edge of your seat drama. Yessiree.

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Success! We shall stab the beast with our spears..

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Light him on fire and make charcoal briquettes!

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But alas, that didn’t turn out well either.

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Headband guy was doomed.

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And chucked off the side of a mountain.

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And as you know it had to..

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Tobanga then captured our heroine.

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Her fellow doctors armed themselves and were in hot pursuit, willing to lay down their lives for the fair haired damsel in distress.

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(Except for the guy on the right who knows that bitch Karen deserved it for digging up the cursed thing in the first place.)

Bam!

Our hero saved the day with an expertly placed shot to Tobanga’s … heart?

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And into the quicksand he went….

Bye bye Stumpy.

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The natives were so grateful they asked our hero if he would be their village witch doctor.

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And though flattered, he refused… and moved back to Burbank with Karen.

Yeah, you know he’s going to regret that.

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Still driving me nuts.

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I came home from the store the other day and stepped up on our kitchen landing.

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Which is when I saw it.

Do you see it?

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Let me give you a hint…

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We hadn’t seen the little red bastards for a while, but it was right there.

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A stolen apple wedge. Prominently placed where I couldn’t help but see it.

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That bitch is taunting me now.

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Pandemic humor.

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Because you have to laugh. Or at least I do..

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Nothing worse than a wannabe.

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I’m not sure I needed permission, but thanks anyway.

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Poor Rexy.

How the heck did he eat a taco?

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As rabid as some people have been during this election cycle, it wouldn’t surprise me.

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True.

We were going to retire and travel. Now I get excited if the grocery store has toilet paper.

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The perfect holiday ornament for a truly shitty year.

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Grocery store giggles.

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In what universe are these an acceptable substitute for Lays?

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Give me potatoes or give me death.

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Exactly!

And have you wandered down the bottled water aisle lately?

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One puts you to sleep, the other wakes you up.

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I bet this one makes you crave junk food, and I’m not talking about the beet variety.

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But is it?

Is it really….

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Back in the barn.

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The husband was back at it this past weekend.

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Finishing up the (not so) temporary (not so) easy access heat blocker to the upstairs.

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By the time I walked in he had the insulation board attached to the zip siding board …

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Had rigged up small pieces of insulation board on the top step..

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And was busy stuffing Roxul in the small holes.

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And the even smaller small holes.

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Our old doe was munching under the apple trees…

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And Mike Pence was still where no one wanted him to be.

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So much stuffing.

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Please remember… when this barn was built it was not meant to be an airtight and heated space, so there’s a lot of scrambling required to make it one now.

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So when all else fails?

Caulk.

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And then, for the man who didn’t want to use insulation board?

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Another piece of insulation board.

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So yes, there’s insulation board, on top of insulation board, on top of zip siding.

I dare the hot air to seep through that!

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When that was finished and blocked off, it was time to tackle weatherstripping the porch door.

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You know, the free one he brought home from the dump. The one without a frame or threshold. The non standard size nightmare that has gaps all the way around it and at least a two inch above the floor clearance.

Good times.

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Truer words have ne’er been spoke.

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