Rain, Mud, Stone, June

The stores have stayed busy longer than usual and again I find myself wishing I could just close them down, but I can't.  They still pay all the bills and there are a lot of bills.  Dennis has made a little bit of money with his furniture,  Not enough that he could even hope of supporting us with it but enough to buy himself some new electric tools to use.  He was just asked to make 10 Adirondack chairs and 4 tables for a new restaurant opening up here in town.  The job will pay him 1400 dollars.

There's been little work on the Cob house but there has at least been work.  I think that says a lot since I've been dealing with Spring Rush in the seed stores, weeks of flooding spring rains, a mofo of a urinary tract infection, and the redevelopment of a painful heel spur.  The doctor wants to do surgery but once again I said no.  I have a number of reasons for saying no.  #1 This is the third spur I have had on this heel in my lifetime.  They are painful but they do eventually go away on their own, they also eventually come back on their own.  Paying thousands of dollars for a doctor to

slice open my foot and grind the thing off will not prevent it from coming back either. #2 I would rather limp through my daily choirs and projects than waste time recovering from surgery that may just create more problems than it fixes.  #3 After my best friend from High School (a 35 year old Vegan woman who seemed perfectly healthy other than her congenital heart defect) had a stroke on the operating table and died in a coma a week later I am absolutely terrified to go under the knife.  She was strong and healthy and I am not.

As far as work on the dob house goes I have foundation for the eastern wall dug and filled with rubble we recycled from building sites (stuff that would have ended up in land fills).  The hardest part about digging into the ground in a forest is the web of tree roots on the surface.  Its like trying to dig through a fishing net.  I have learned to cut squares out of the surface.  I use my shovel to cut out a square in the surface of the ground and then just lift the mass of roots and topsoil out before I continue digging.  Because the ground here in the Ozark foothills is rocky I've only had to dig a 4 inch deep foundation.  And now for some humor.


Yesterday, I was back in the woods picking up some rocks for a project. A knat started flying around my face. With a rock in both hands I started trying to swat it away. I heard it buzz past my ear and swung my hand (rock still in it) to swat it, and hit myself right in the temple with a rock . . .  I was dizzy for a few seconds and I have a sore spot this morning but no bruises. I wanted to share this so everyone could have a good laugh.   I certainly did once I could see straight again.

Natural, totally safe flea and tick treatment for dogs and cats

I have been dealing with a sick cat lately.  She had to be on antibiotics for over 2 months and I did not want to put the flea and tick treatment on her while she was sick because it always makes her feel bad and not want to eat for 2 or 3 days.  A friend of mine recommended using lavender essential oil.

You simply put a drop on it on the back of the cats neck just like the other oil based flea and tick treatments.
  I can't use lavender.  My step daughter is allergic to it.  It causes her to break out in hives so I went on a search for an alternative.  The first one I found was Eucalyptus oil.  I bought a bottle at a health food store for a cheap 6 bucks.  My friend says she uses a drop of oil every two weeks, but she also lives in a subdivision in the North.  I live deep in the country surrounded by forests and mountains in the South where mosquitoes get large enough to carry off small children.  I decided to apply it every other day.
  It worked, and very well.  So well that I also
use it on my 150 pound English Mastiff.  I put a line of it down his spine instead of a drop between his shoulder blades.  He doesn't seem to mind it too bad.
  I soon learned that Eucalyptus irritates a cats skin.  It seemed tolerable.  They would scratch at the spot for a few minutes after application and then go on as if nothing had happened.  I recently picked up a bottle of Balsam Fir oil.  It cost me 9 dollars for a small bottle so I'n using it strictly on the cats.  A single drop on the neck of three cats every few days is a very small amount and the single bottle will probably last me a year (making it a lot cheaper than anything else I've used).  I continue to use the Eucalyptus oil on my Mastiff with great success as well.  I haven't seen a flea or a tick one on any of my animals and unlike previous years its not costing me a small fortune.
  It also makes them smell nice.

Bad Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

I found this photo on Facebook so if its yours and you want me to credit you please let me know.  Just don't ask me to remove it because I think its cool and I'd kind of like to keep it up.

I am always on the look out for story lines that are different.  It doesn't matter if its  movie, a TV series, an eBook, whatever.  I cannot stand when a writer rehashes the same old damn story with different characters or whatever.

The picture on the left s an example of the kind of things I want to see.  A sexy red riding hood and the big bad wolf appears to be her lover.  That would make an awesome story line.  Its almost along the lines of the movie "Wolves I Have Been" which I watched as a teenager and loved.

The stories I write are always based on dreams I've had.  There are a few reasons for this.  The number 1 reason being is because I tend to have very vivid, detailed, and bizarre dreams in a regular basis I might as well make use of them.  #2, People are always telling me I should turn my dreams into books.  #3.  Some great works of literature are based on dreams.  I' not saying my writing will ever be great works of literature because I don't think I'm THAT good, but its a formula that seems to have worked in the past so why not try it again.

There's a storm on the horizon.

I haven't written in months and I'm feeling a little artsy with my words this afternoon, but there really is a storm on the horizon.  The sunny spring sky has slowly been turning grey all afternoon and when I was outside a little while ago I heard the distant sound of thunder.  I LOVE the sound of thunder.  It doesn't matter if its far away or right over my head.

Today we found a nice store that is very excited to have my husbands beautiful furniture made from pallet wood on its floor.  I'm happy for him.  I know its what he wants because its what he loves to do, but I'm a little worried about the time he spends making furniture taking away from the time were supposed to be spending on our new cob house and I have serious doubts about how much money he will be making from it.

I guess he could say the same thing for my books though.  I've only completed and published one and I've only sold copies to people I know.

Here we go!!!!! Wish me luck.

Butterflake Herb Bread Loaf

I'm kind of a homemade bread fanatic.  I love the make it, smell it, eat it, exc.  I found this bread recipe on a website and I'm going to try and make it for dinner tonight.  Wish me luck,.

Review of the Movie Oblivion

I didn't like it.  It started out great and had lots of promise but then it skidded into "I've read or seen this story line before and it was done much better".  Having an all star cast does not make a story that's been told before and better into a better movie.  I'm sure they guaranteed themselves a profit having Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman in it but it doesn't make it any better and I'm glad I watched it for free on SolarMovie.is.  IF you have nothing else to watch or haven't watched or read many scifi stories then by all means watch it, you may not be familiar with this plot, but I have.

Its time to plant seeds.

I woke up to a gorgeous spring day but so did everyone else.  I walked down to the greenhouse and pulled out some seed trays and brought them up to the house.  I planted some Red Tiger Artisan tomatoes I bought last year an forgot to plant, some Genovese basil (its really the best kind), some Yellow Pear tomatoes (sweet, heat tolerant, and produce in abundance), and 18 of my favorite cucumbers Marketmoore 76 (heat tolerant, high production, and makes big 8 inch long slicing cucumbers.

  I planted 10 Marketmoore 76 Cucumbers one year and had so many cucumbers they were going bad before I could eat them all. I had so many i ran out of room in the fridge and had them piled up on my kitchen counters.  I was dieting and resisting eating them all day like I would have liked to do.  I have since found out that those suckers are only 8 calories each.  I could have eaten 30 of them a day if I wanted too ( and trust me i wanted too).

 I've been craving garden fresh cucumbers like crazy this year though so I planted a bunch of them.  That's probably it for my vegetables.  I might plant some dill, but that's a big might. The only ornamental I planted were some Jerusalem Cherry's which are supposed to grow in the shade.  I planted them for the shade garden.  I might plant some lady's mantel and yellow bleeding hearts for the shade gardens but that's another big if.  Last I enjoyed buying abused plants from the Lowe's sale table more than growing them from seed.

  My husband is working away in the wood shed.  We're going to cover the walls of the guest bathroom with recycled pallet wood.  Were putting different finishes and pains on them and them abusing the beck out of that finish to increase the recycled look.  I also plant to use rusty tin panels on the ceiling . . . Assuming I can find any.

  Since it is a beautiful spring day today's planting spurt will probably be the only chance I have to get outdoors.  I haven't written anything in we;; over a month and it irritates me.  I need the stores to make a living but I would so much rather be writing to make that living.  If my big eBay store was still going I could outsource all of the harder stuff like editing, exc, but its not still going.