otherearths_outthere

thankewverymuch.

Firstly, there was someone working in the shop when Max wasn't home. I get a little twitchy about people out here when I'm alone, but the guy was vaguely familiar and actually had the key code to open the shop door, so a quick text to Max and I'm ok again. Just locked my front door behind me.

Then, after Max came home, when I went out to move the sprinkler, I noticed an elderly man sitting on a bench that we have underneath a tree. Just sitting there chilling, NBD, except we have a lot of neighbors who don't appreciate boundaries. So I approached a little hesitantly and asked, "may I help you?" to which he answered,

"are you an Epperson ?"

"yeee-ah"

"are you Jennifer?"

"Yee-sss"

"Is Max around ? I'm Joe Blah blah blah and I wanted to talk to him."

Well, finally! Ive heard the name before, so I led him back to the house, and Max was delighted to see him

Finally, I was walking Grrr after dinner and heard a ruckus in the garage, when I went to investigate I found a goat, stuck somehow in the corner. We couldn't get him out, even after tempting him with carrots an apples. I hope he finds his way out tonight.

And now for a double gin and some chocolate



http://www.mediafire.com/file/25e5u5qab4jo5u5/IMG_3309.mov/file

And I’m not talking about booze. Yep. It’s time for the annual bleggghhhh to hit and boy, did it hit hard. Christmas itself was great with one glaring exception. But yesterday I had to be social twice. A 3-hour lunch with Max’s brothers and wives and another evening doing.

I was trying to clean up a bit, but gave up. I also had to remove myself from Max’s presence, because even his breathing was annoying. I really only get like this when I’m beyond tired.

So the day has been spent with an old dog at my feet while I try to read all the McShep Secret Santa. Equilibrium should be achieved soon. Soonish 😊

Before we took our trip, I gave Rufio a bath and put some flea killer on him. (Gotta be gorgeous) Just last night I found he was infested again. It’s been barely two weeks! I tried to reach my friend who happens to be a vet, but no go. So Max suggested Petco. One young man was very knowledgeable and helpful. We gave Rufio a Capstar and when we got home he had another bath and some more topical medication. The young man also suggested putting baby powder around the are he sleeps. We don’t have baby powder, so Max suggested Gold Bond. Apparently distant relatives used to show Huskies and used it. An Internet search turned up all kinds of people saying that they use it on their doggos for many things. So I sprinkled it on to are only carpeted area and Rufio went really NUTS. RUNNING around scratching the carpet. Occasionally whimpering. Figures my dog would be one who doesn’t tolerate the stuff. After I put him on my bed, he settled down, and I vacuumed the whole are over and over. All good until 4:00 a.m. when he decided to go nuts again. So I took him out to pee, rinsed him ( I didn’t think he actually got any on him) and woke my husband up by vacuuming viciously again. At four a.m.

He is much better today, but I feel terrible and an idiot.

When it’s annoying to live here, I call the town Bumblefuck. When it’s not too bad, it’s Podunk. Today it was Podunk. We had only one helicopter lift off. It rattled dishes on the shelves, but it didn’t practice flying in circles like they do a lot.
At the end of our afternoon walk, we found the Fed Ex guy on our property. Rufio ignored him for a bit. It was only after I told the guy, “I don’t know if you should be relieved or insulted that my dog is not paying attention to you” well of course, then Rufio ran over to the man who crouched down to pet him. Rufio was doing some major sniffing and Mr Fed Ex said, “you must be smelling the other animals “ and I said, “oh, you must get a lot of animals in this area” to which Mr Fed Ex replied, “oh yeah, just the other day, I had goats in the back of the truck”. Surprised, I said, “surely you don’t deliver animals”. No, of course he didn’t, they just climbed in while he was delivering a package. He had even started to drive away before the goats made themselves known. Apparently he has had chickens climb into his truck on occasion, and seen lots of stray cows, goats, even a llama. But there was once a donkey in the middle of the street that Would. Not. Move. No matter what he tried. And a lot of the roads around here are very narrow, some not even paved, or just barely. Finally inspiration struck and he plucked an apple off a tree and coaxed the donkey to the side of the road. Then as he was pulling past the donkey, the donkey started to follow him, but just as he was trying to figure out What. To. Do. Now, the donkey turned up a gravel driveway and apparently went home.

5 years ago when kid #5 and I moved to Oregon, there were absolutely no stink bugs. Two years later we became inundated. I just hate them. I posted previously about one that damn near fell into my dinner plate as he was wiggling his stupid little legs in his death throes

Today The Colonel found them in the main circuit breaker in the fuse box. They messed up everything, lights, The Colonel’s power tools and worst of all the well. We are entirely dependent on the well for all of our water. It took forever to get the damn things out of the fuses and wiring. I hate being without water. I had just started a load of laundry and had cleaned out the wood stove and pellet stove and was more than ready to take a shower. We have things fixed for now, but The Colonel is worried about how to prevent this from happening again.