I love living in the country

So, i was having issues with my water again. Basically, it smells like Yellowstone National Park. Not the best smell, unless you LIKE the smell of rotten eggs. I called our local water guy, and he came out on his way home from work, loaded up our filter thingy (i'm pretty sure that is the technical term) with cholorine and water, and we should be good to go now.
As Pat was leaving, i asked him how much we owed him. He said "aw, nothing, this is no trouble for me." Well, this is the second time that Pat has refused money from us. Luckily i was baking zucchini bread for the husband today, and had an extra loaf. So, i paid Pat in zucchini bread. You know you live in the country when you pay the water guy in baked goods. yes, it is not hard to understand why i love living here.

Seriously, what the frak????

These dogs...what is IT?????
Tonite, after their insanely nutritious meal, they went out into the yard for a few, and came in smelling like crapola. again.
I instantly thought "they've been dining on a shit pile. again." But no...i have figured it out, after rinsing both of their mouths out with apple cider vinegar. yeah. Pretty sure they hate me right now. Last week i was gardening and weeding, and filled a bucket with weeds. I forgot to dump it in the compost pile, and it sat there and filled with rainwater. And baked in the sun. and created it's own little micro-compost-bin-within-a-bucket-that-smells-like-a-shitpile. The dogs have been drinking the shitpile-smelling soup from the bucket.
Seriously....what is WRONG with them????? i am so grossed out by them, i feel like i am walking around in a haze of disgust and general pissed-offedness towards them.
They are lucky they are cute.

These Dogs are Trying to KILL Me

I have been walking the dogs a lot in the lower field lately, as the grass has been mowed and hay has been harvested. I thought the dogs LOVED this walk...but i may be wrong. Yesterday, i think they might have been trying to tell me something.
I normally walk down the river with them, and then we turn and head back to the house. Fred normally lingers at the river for a bit, and then races to catch up with us. Well, yesterday i got to the top of the field, and noticed that Fred was not by my side. I looked down into the field, and the little shit was rolling in shit. Coyote? Fox? Elephant? Who the hell knows. I got him home, and hosed him off, and sprayed him down with "Key West Guy" doggie deodorant. He still reeked, so into the shower he went. It was very painful for both of us. But, the end result was worth it.
After dinner, i took the little mongrels back down into the field for a walk. Normally, Henry is either rightinfrontofmetrippingmeup, or rightbehindme. I got to the top of the field, and noticed he was nowhere to be found. I look down into the field, and Henry is EATING the pile of shit that Fred had rolled in. GAG.
Now, Henry is normally a perfect prince. He does NOTHING wrong. Except eat wild animal shit every so often. Honestly, i would rather he chew on my newest pair of shoes than eat wild animal shit.
This is not a sign of a diet deficiency. My dogs eat better than the vast majority of HUMANS...and not humans in the WORLD, but humans in frakking Beverly Hills. Seriously, they eat an insanely nutritious diet...the Volhard Diet, to be specific. Henry is just groddy. What can i say...he LIKES wild animal shit.
Nice.

Ok...so now i will take this time to write about my NEW favorite tv show. Aside from the Dallas reruns, which i cannot seem to get enough of (I was a Dynasty watcher back in the day...never did watch Dallas...what was i thinking???) I am LOVING the TBS show "My Boys". When they were first promoting this show, sometime last year, i was a hater. The network did a HORRIBLE job...it looked so annoying, and the clips they showed were the worst. In fact, the clips they show now are STILL the worst. Well, after reading Pop Candy's (my fave entertainment blog) review of the show, i decided to give it a shot. OHMYGAWD....best show ever. for now, at least. Or at least until they bring Buffy back. Or Veronica Mars. sigh. Can we get a moment of silence? anywhoot, Single girl sportswriter, living in Chicago...her brother is Jim Gaffigan, who i heart..so funny, cute roommate, and dorky cute guy friends. the show is clever and witty, and i watch it over and over again. And it is clever and witty in a good way...not in an annoying "Friends" way. I love it as much as The Office. Well, not really...but almost.

A little vacation....

My mom and i went to visit Boldt Castle while she was here on vacation. We also went to Singer Castle, but all my pictures got deleted my some idiot on the boat ride from Singer to Boldt. That idiot would be me. I am techno challenged....Jitterbug..doo doo doo doo, Jitterbug, dooo doo doo dooo. Have you seen those ads for the Jitterbug phone? It is a cell phone for old people who are easily cornfused by technology. Well, the husband now likes to sing that song to me. It has become my theme song.

Anywhoot, here is a pic of the boat landing at Boldt.

Singer was a cool castle, and fully decorated...but you have to take a guided tour, which i just HATE. So, by the time we got to Boldt, we were very happy that they just cut you loose on the tour. You can picnic on the grounds, and walk all througout the castle on your own. It has never been completed. Boldt built it for his wife, but she died shortly before completion. He was heartbroken, and never finished it. There is a real estate law in NY state that the island can never be lived on, and the castle may never be completed. It is a very romantic and tragic story. but they really dorked it up by piping the theme from Titanic throughout the castle. I felt like doing a little ballet dance through the halls as it played. The husband and i did that when we snuck into the Grotto at one of King Ludwigs castles in Oberammergau, Germany. The grotto had Wagner piped in. Pretty funny. If you're a nerd. Which i am.

Fricken sweater taking for gawddamned ever

If you ever have the urge to knit the Celtic Cardigan, by Oat Couture....think twice. All those left and right twists will suck the life blood right out of you. Last night, i knit on it while watching Atonement (wow...can you say depressing movie??) and i knit a whopping 4 rows. Time to pick up the husbands always lovely Garter Stitch Aran Pullover. That pattern ROCKS.

Special Biotic Community

That was the title of a recent assignment in my Principles of Natural Resources class. I hemmed and hawed for DAYS on this assignment, because there are so many places that have special meaning to me. I really contemplated putting down Andermatt, Switzerland. This was a town that the husband and i stopped in one time while on vacation. It was a completely random stop, and turned out to be one of the best places we have ever been. Way up in the Alps, at the foot of the Rhone Glacier. We were there in the summer time, right after we got Henry. He was a little Mountain Goat on that trip, hiking all around Andermatt with us.

Well, it is much easier to do the research on a place in the US using USGS data, so had to scratch Andermatt as my place. Instead, i picked another place that i LOVE. Rocky Mountain National Park. I think we were there exactly one year ago today, too. We try to go up every time we visit Colorado. The husband likes it when i drop him off on the Front Range, at the base of the road leading up to Estes Park, so that he can ride his bike up. Must be nice to be a phenomenal athlete! The dogs and i meet him at the top, and we go about our day from there. Henry likes to swim in the stream in the middle of Estes Park, and Fred likes to dream about cutting loose on the tundra on the top of RMNP.

I love mountains, and the more extreme the range, the better. No wonder why the husband and i loved Switzerland, and the Alps in general. Any Alp'll do. French ones, Swiss ones, Austrian ones, even German ones. And when we cannot be in Europe, the Rockies, Cascades and Sierras are the destination of choice. I love 'em.

What I'm Watching Next.....

http://doctorhorrible.net/

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog....Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and Neil Patrick Harris...what more could a girl want???
DO tune in....it is going to be perfection!