Thankful 5

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~



Pets
Things -2

I've been blessed in my life thus far by being able to have a wide variety of pets.

Now some people have told me that some of my pet stories are sad, but I look at all of them with good memories of being able to spend time with the pets, sure we had a couple bad streaks when I was little with stray dogs coming and going as our pets as well as the constant rotation that happens with barn cats.

I figure the best way to cover this is to touch briefly on some of the most memorable pets in my life

Buck - Buck was a big black dog and the first pet I remember having, he was hit on the road when I was 4 or 5

Furball -  a big gray fluffy barn cat we had when I was 6 or 7, he would come when you called his name

Muffin - muffin was a little fluffy white dog that was dumped on our road and we took in, we only had her for 2 days before she ate some poision, Dad liked her so much he even took her to the vet but it was too late

Mousetrap - Kong's mom and a kitten making machine! She once had a little of 11 that she took care of all of them, as well as a litter of 9 she cared for. Kong was from her first litter of only 3 kittens. When we got Mousetrap, Casey had a cat who was her sister named Kieko, but Kieko went crazy, Mousetrap was the longest barn cat we ever had 4-5 years.

Fudge - Can't have a pet post with out Fudge or Peppy, We got Fudge the summer before I went into first grade and would have him for over a decade, until the Summer of 2007 when we lost him in a tragic accident. He was a great little dog who was loving and cared for us. He patrolled the house and farm with the best of them despite his smaller size and was the "bark" in the team he and Pepper made.

Peppy - Fudge's best friend Peppy was orginally my Grandpa's dog who basically came to live with us and hang out with Fudge and us kids. She was super fast when she was young, and would run back and forth with the car going to the farm keeping up the whole way at 35 mph. They became a tag team one winter when it snowed hard and because of the ice on the roads Fudge could keep up, they were rarely apart after that. Later in life she slowed down quite a bit and became a fixture on our poarch, still keeping an eye on everything going on.

Fudge and Peppy

Kong - Our crazy cat, and the first inside pet we ever had. I make up tons of stories about him, but he does have one amazing story of his own... He once excaped outside and lived over 5 weeks lost in the corn field before he found his way back home, much skinner but over all fine.

Pepper - We bought Pepper at the Brookville Flea Market, she was small enough we carried her around in a clothes basket. She was picked knowing she would someday have to replace Peppy. Which she has now, she is a nice dog though very timid. It's sad that an accident with a horse has given her a bad leg. She still runs the show here making sure everything is in its place.

Jack- Though we didn't have Jack long I think something needs to be said about him here... Jack was a big black lab and was really too much for my parents to handle, I was living in Indy at the time and Casey going to school at Franklin. Jack was Pepper's first friend as a replacement to Fudge and he was up to trouble all the time, from chewing on metal cogs and taking out the internet to his most famous act of being kidnapped and held for ransom.... (some neighbors picked him up thinking he was someone elses dog, then he was taken to the pound where we had to bail him out) Mom gave Jack away to a family who he lives happily with as an inside dog now.

Sparky - Sparky is our beagle puppy, full of energy and out to sniff things out, he unlike Pepper likes other dogs so he likes it when the neighbors dog wanders over sometimes. Its funny though when he sees one of us coming or outside he will hurry to run off the neighbor dog because he thinks that is what he is supossed to do. But we know he is friendly with them when we aren't around.

Sparky on the day we got him last November

Living on a farm I've also had a variety of other animals as "pets"

Rabbits

Pigs

Chickens

Goats

Guinea Pig, a Fish & Hamsters,, though they aren't farm related

Rolling Along

So its been almost a week again since I posted, so I thought I should take some time to just jot some things down, It'll just be a quick couple topic update I guess.

Work has been semi-stressful leading up to next weekend. We are having an Antique Apprisal Fair at the museum and I guess this is my first big project. It has been a little tricky since I wasn't there to begin with and only got handed the reigns of this back in March. While I'll admit that there has been a few things I've maybe procrastinated too long on, this still would have been stressful either way. Right now I'm just hoping enough people sign up to come to the show. One thing that does suck is the fact that this week I've paid for some of our advertising for the show out of my bank account, it'll get reimbursed as we have a grant to help pay for the advertisements. It just not that fun for me, as someone who worries about being broke, having a big chunk of money sitting out there waiting a couple weeks to be payed back for, this month being a bad month for that as I have to pay for my car insurance here in 2 weeks.

Life has been busy but good, Erin's grandparents left for there summer of travels earlier this month so her place has become our main place to hang out since we have the whole place to ourselves and the fact that there isn't anyone at her house to take care of her dogs when she is gone. We have finally plowed through the first season of Prison Break, a show she has now officially got me hooked on, and have started the second season. We are also working our way through the Harry Potter series of movies so that I will be up to date when the final movie releases this summer, as I had never payed much attention to the books or movies. (I think I read 50 pages in the first book and had seen the first movie)

Erin has also been cooking me dinner when I go over there. She denies she is a good cook, but just this week she made a good casserole and some really good Hawaiian Meatballs. I'd never heard of Hawaiian Meatballs until I met her and her family, but I like them. Add in the fact that she makes good lasagna and she is a good cook in my eyes!

Overall though its just been really nice to get to spend so much time with her these last couple weeks, even if most of it has just been laying around, watching movies, playing cards and/or talking about plans for the future and all that jazz.

I do need to mention that one day when we were hanging out at my house, June 9th which was my Dad's birthday, we took a walk back to my Grandpa's woods because I know Erin likes the woods. It was funny walking through the really tall grass with Sparky and Pepper. Pepper snorting along because she was really happy and tired, it is a really funny sound she makes. The funny thing though was when we were coming up the back lane to my Grandpa's barn lot and the horse and mule were coming down. As soon as the dogs see the horse/mule they react in two totally different ways.... Pepper (who has had a run in with a horse last year) darts between me and Erin and sits down looking for protection.... Sparky turns and runs away as fast as he can.. it was hilarious! Once he stops we are able to get him to come back closer to us and I grab Rosie's (the mule) harness, because she is the mean one, and hold her so Erin, Pepper and Sparky can pass... however as the horse is moving past and I'm letting go of Rosie, Sparky once again bolts the other direction and the horses take chase. I thought they were going to smash him for sure so I had to run back and make sure he was safe. Luckily he made it to a pile of junk he could hide in before the horses trampled him, and I was able to chase the horses off to get him to safety. Poor little pup I'm sure he was terrified but it was really funny to see.

At home Dad has officially baled all of the hay fields first cuttings, which is good for him. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get to help him as much as I thought I would as it seemed he was always baling and unloading on the days I had to be at work these last couple weeks. That meant I didn't make as much money as I'd hoped to, oh well it'll all work out.

Mom has started to clean the house now that she is home for the summer and they have locked the teachers out of the school all summer due to construction. Normally she runs into school at least twice a week and spends those days doing stuff there. It's good that she has turned her attention onto throwing stuff away, we aren't hoarders, but we do have a lot of clutter and junk that just needs to be pitched so the house looks nicer.

We also got some barn kittens, and maybe getting more from someone who works with Erin. I don't have any pictures of them to post right now.

Last weekend we hung out at Brock's and watched Alien and Aliens with Brock, Russel, Chantel, Joe, Bruce, Casey, Erin and myself. It was a good time even if Erin didn't like the sci-fi movies. Steve if you read this if Macy is at your place sometime we should have a movie night or something with Macy, Erin, you and me.

As a random add on about last weekend I was on the roof of the historical society, helping the insurance agent check our roof for hail damage from the big storm that hit a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't get to climb to the top of the roof as I had to hold the ladder for to move up to the next level of one section of the roof. But I do enjoy climbing up to taller places.



I guess the last thing on my mind is the fact that Erin's mom and step-dad are coming to visit her in just a little over two weeks now. I'm usually not nervous to meet peoples parents but I'll admit I am a little nervous to finally meet her Mom, who is the most important person in her life. As Erin has said we have totally different senses of humor so I hope I don't just come across as too weird. Oh well Erin says their is nothing to worry about but we will see in a couple weeks.

Really I don't have too much more news to post about right now that I haven't already talked but in previous blogs this month. I will say I'm working on finding a new blog series to do for next month as I do think its a good exercise to make myself write stuff more often even if they are random little comments.

Pepper and Sparky again!

Taken two weeks after we got Sparky!

Sparky the Puppy

In November we got a new puppy, Sparky!