An Unfortunate Deer In A Small Town

This is not the actual deer.

A week or so ago, we went to our house in town and there was a little mule deer in the yard, laying down. It watched us warily, but didn't move. We circled around it completely, checking on our ripening pears, apples, etc. The deer didn't budge or even seem very nervous. Our house is a block from Main Street, so maybe it was used to people?

We should have guessed there was something wrong with it.

On Tuesday, I took H-Bomb to preschool. Sawed-Off and I ran some errands, and then I noticed something in the yard. I thought, oh! it must be that deer, maybe it's asleep. I walked closer, and it was dead, flies a-buzzin' dead. Gross. I knew that if #1 came to town and it was still there, he might feel compelled to take care of it himself. But, being that our house is in a town, I felt like there should be someone on the town payroll to take care of these kinds of things.

I didn't know who to call, so I called the Sheriff's Office. They told me to call The City, it's The City's responsibility.

I called The City. They told me to call the Police.

I called the Police. They told me to call Some Guy. But then they checked with Some Guy while I was on the phone, and he only takes care of roadkill on the highway. They then told me I should call the Dept. of Wildlife guy. Told me the Sheriff has DWR's phone number, which neither one of us could find in the phone book.

I called the Sheriff back. He gave me DWR's office and home numbers, and said if DWR won't do it, call him back and he'll "push some buttons. It's really The City's responsibility."

So, I called DWR at both office and home, left some messages. Went to pick up H-Bomb from school, an hour or so later still hadn't heard back from DWR.

I called the Sheriff again. Told him I hadn't heard from DWR, but I'd really like the dead deer out of my yard. He said he would "make it happen."

The boys and I went for pizza, ran another errand, and guess what? No dead deer in the yard. Finalmente.

I bet The City is real happy with me.

Progress, Part II

Concrete footers went in on Monday! Today the footers have dried and cured and Contractor is busy building the forms for the foundation walls! Maybe I will get out there later today and take a picture. It is really starting to look like something!

Stranger Danger on the Ranch and Beyond

So I've been talking with H-Bomb about strangers. We get lots of people who just come down here, ignore the "Road Closed to Through Traffic" and the "Stop" signs and just drive on in. Some of them are lost, most of them are tourists, some of them are card-carrying "members" of ABEG who think because they donated $10.00 to the cause four years ago, they have a right to "look around" the ranch. Most of them are idiots. Let's just put it this way: I have a dog who protects our house and family. I do not call her off unless I know you or you can explain yourself, so you better stay in your damn car. I'm just sayin'.

Then there are all the friends of C.G.'s and friends of friends and...it is endless.

I first explained that strangers are people we don't know. I told H-Bomb that we don't talk to strangers, we yell "STRANGER" and run away to find Mommy or Daddy or someone we know. It was going pretty well, the quiz, until I got to the question: What do we do if someone tells you they lost their puppy, and will you help them look for it?

H-Bomb has a soft spot for animals. "We would need to go and help them find their puppy! Because they would be sad without their puppy!" Oh boy. I tried to explain it further, but this is very confusing for a four year old.

The confusion has become compounded in recent days. Yesterday we drove around looking for C.G.'s dog, which the day before hopped out of her truck at the pizza place in town. So, driving on the mountain, of course I stopped and asked anyone I saw who was camping, four wheeling, what-have-you. As we drove up to someone's camp, H-Bomb asked, "Mommy? Are they strangers?"

Crap. Yes, they're strangers but we need to ask if they've seen C.G.'s dog. I suppose if they aren't friendly, I'll run away. Crap. Crap. This is sounding lame, and it doesn't really make sense either. It's not okay for someone to ask you about a dog, but we can ask anyone we see about a dog? See what I mean??

Then, we finally got home, no dog, and were approaching the ranch when I saw a strange truck driving down the drive. I sped up, we had to see who's going to the ranch when we're not expecting anyone. H-Bomb: "Who is in that truck? Is it a stranger?"

Well, let's go see. It was a guy, who I had met once before who is an old friend of RanchHand (R.H.) and Wifey. Guy (this alias may be used again in the future for other people not in the picture enough to earn their own distinction) is here to work on the finish on C.G.'s new cherry staircase. Guy starts talking to H-Bomb a bit, while we showed him how to get into C.G.'s house. H-Bomb is being shy. I say, "now H-Bomb, Guy isn't really a stranger, he's R.H. and Wifey's friend." (but technically he is a stranger to us!!)

See how complicated this is? Sometimes I think this is too much. It's really hard. And it is scary. Just stay close to me, H-Bomb and Sawed Off. I'll protect you with my mama bear fury.

Progress

Once ABEG was satisfied that Contractor was neither a terrorist or a supporter of terrorists...

(I'm not kidding, refer to section 14. CERTIFICATION REGARDING MATERIAL SUPPORT AND RESOURCES TO TERRORISTS. Well, you can't refer to it because I'm fairly certain the contract is not meant for public eyes)

...Phase I work on our house could begin. But trust me when I say, Contractor had to agree to this provision. This is an insane world in which we live, people. Even in this small town, where most likely the contractor has lived and worked for his entire life, and indeed has completed projects for ABEG in the past, he had to swear on a stack of Books of Mormon, probably, that he is not and does not support the crazies. While I also share concern about terrorists, I find this oddly amusing.

Regardless, work has begun. There is a huge gaping hole behind our house, ready for concrete footings and foundation to be poured sometime next week. It is exciting. They encountered a couple mystery pipelines while digging, but nothing important was broken in the excavation process.

Phase I entails basically the foundation and exterior of our addition, with windows, doors and a new roof on the entire house. (the interior will be Phase II) Sixteen feet back is the absolute farthest we could take our addition, and while it's not humongous, it will just about double our current living space. It will give us a master suite (complete with two separate closets and bath), kitchen and dining room. I think besides the master suite--our king size bed will actually FIT!!--I am most excited about the kitchen. It will be a real kitchen with a bar, an island, and counter space galore. We will have storage room to spare! It will be like a miracle.

Oh I cannot wait for Phase II to begin.

It's ~SALSA~ Time!

~Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa~
~Roasted Tomato-Serrano Salsa~

I forgot to take pictures of the process, maybe next time. But we've been harvesting tons of tomatoes and jalapenos and serranos from our garden, so today was the day to make salsa...

I ended up having enough tomatoes to make four batches. It doesn't look like very much, but it is about 8 cups. I won't post the recipe, but I will tell you what is included:

Tomatoes
Jalapeno or Serrano peppers (I made 2 batches of each)
Garlic
Coarse salt
White onion
Cider Vinegar
Juice of Limes

The peppers are spicy again this year, so the salsa is fantastic. Most of the ingredients are roasted, giving it a fresh, complex flavor...I love it. I'm gonna go eat some more. (you know it's good when your nose starts running)

The tomatoes just keep coming, and we have hundreds of peppers, so this won't be the last time by any means.
~YUM~

Log House, Before Pictures

Well, ABEG has gotten it together, and I spoke with Contractor yesterday. He will be here this morning to get started on Phase I of our addition. I thought it would be fun to post some "before" pictures of our house, from all angles.

(front)

(East side)

(back)

The addition will extend the back of the house out 16', for the entire length of the house. It will make it a bit closer to the other houses on the ranch, but ABEG did not go for our second story addition idea. So this is our compromise.

(West side)

And apparently the work is finished for the weekend, already. We helped the contractor hand-dig all the electric/gas/water lines, and dug up some rocks from an old patio and a satellite TV cable. He went home when it was determined that we wouldn't be able to start the backhoe without a new battery and better jumper cables. Work to resume Monday.

It's A Small Town, After All

So a while ago, I complained to the Febreze people (I think technically Proctor and Gamble) or maybe I just commented to them that it sucks that their sprayer thingie on the bottles always leaks and drips and runs down your hand and send huge droplets of Febreze onto whatever you're spraying. Seems like they could fix that pretty easily. They sent me two coupons: Free Febreze, Any Size, Any Type.

Today, I took my two coupons in to the teeny-tiny local grocery. I purchased two huge refill size Febrezes, they're free, might as well. Now, these coupons don't look like a standard colorful, Sunday-newspaper-type coupon. They were the standard manufacturer's coupon, complete with watermark and hologram-type things. So, I hand the checkout girl my coupons and tell her they're for the Febreze.

**Rest assured, it will take you less time to read this that it took for me to get out of that damn grocery.**

She looks at them. For a long time. She scans one, and the register asks her to input the amount. It is painfully obvious what she needs to do here. The register display says: "Enter coupon amount." She calls someone up to the register.

Someone else comes up, looks at the coupons. Reads them. Notices the "one coupon per purchase" rule. I say, "so take one Febreze off, I'll do a separate purchase." No problem, right? They are acting put out. A line is forming behind me. They scan the coupon again, and after discussing it, they enter the price: 7.99. Then they discuss whether to take the 2nd Febreze off. Then they finally take it off. I pay my bill. And only now does it get interesting.

She scans the Febreze bottle that she previously removed from my cart. And she stands there. And the other woman stands there. AS IF they have never before seen this Free Febreze coupon that just happens, miracle of miracles, to be EXACTLY THE SAME as the last coupon. (gasp!) I say, helpfully, "just scan it in like you did the last one."

The 2nd woman says, "She doesn't want to mess anything up." I say, "...mess anything up? It's a COUPON, just scan it like the last one." (I used to work in a grocery store, I know these little tricks) They call ANOTHER PERSON to come up and help them. I kid you not. I look behind me at the next person in line, shrug and mouth the words, "It's just a coupon??" And she laughs. H-Bomb, on the other hand, is hungry and tired after preschool and is getting antsy. He wants to go. I say, "Honey, I'm sorry this is taking SO long. We'll be able to go soon."

The 3rd person comes up. Luckily I recognize her as a Woman with a Brain. The other two ask her what to do. She says, "Just scan it and see what happens." Can we get a group "DUH-HUH" up in he-yah???

Everyone practically holds their breath (except for me and the brainiac) as she scans the coupon. Again, the register asks, "Enter coupon amount." She looks at her two co-workers and asks, "7.99?" Um, yeah, that's the price. The brainiac says, "she will pay the tax." And the total comes to $0.52.

And I should have just put it on my credit card, I really should have. Or I should have brought my purse in. The same way I should have realized that the coupon said "one coupon per purchase" before I tried to use the two coupons for two products at the same time. But, I said, "I'll go get the 52 cents out of the car." And the checkout girl looked questioningly at the braniac. And the brainiac said, "just close it out and take the money when she comes back." I start to run out. The second clerk says, "what about your Febreze?" I tell her I'll grab it when I come back.

Now, not only do I have frozen groceries that I need to get home, I have two boys that are anxious and hungry and don't understand why we have to go back in the store and why they can't just have an animal cracker in the jeep. THANK GOD I had a freakin' dollar in my purse. I normally don't.

I run back, pushing my cart with the boys in. I wait for another transaction with that clerk, and then hand her my dollar. She looks at it. Smoothes it out. Puts it down. Pulls out her cell phone. Starts...typing? Even the clerk next to her says, "Hey, what are you doing?" She doesn't respond, but then starts to open the cash drawer. "I say, OH--Calculator." The other clerk laughs and says, "Yeah, we don't have calculators here. Ha-ha! Did you think she was texting??" "I didn't know..."

Now, here is an aside. I personally believe if you are in ANY kind of position at all where you have to deal with money, whether you work in a bank or a store or a strip club, you should HAVE TO KNOW how to make change.

For this transaction, there are myriad ways to calculate, in your head or even on your fingers, the difference between $1.00 and $0.52. I assume most of you reading this can think of three different ways in your head (and indeed probably saw where this was going about four paragraphs ago) so I won't bore you. She used her little cell phone calculator, and determined that she had to give me 48 cents back. Thank goodness she was able to count out those 48 cents without calling for backup.

After all this, I said Thank You. And she ignored me. So I said it louder, more sing-songy, very politely, again, "THANK YOU." And she ignored me. She turned away from me, toward the other clerk, and said, "I am hungry."

Girl, it ain't my fault they hired you for a job you don't know how to do.