Found them.

Not much happened today. I did get a nap in. I made a vet appointment for the kitties. They are going to get spayed and neutered on Dec 2.

After work I went to the local grocery store and found my French style green beans. I bought 2 bags just in case I want to make the dish again anytime soon.

Wow, I just realized that I had a pretty dull day. How was your day? As dull as mine?

Sunday but not a confession.

Oh boy. I went to 2 stores today looking for French style frozen green beans for the green bean dish that I'm to make for Thanksgiving. I will try another store tomorrow and see if they have them. My twin sister says that you have to use the French style beans. I can find them canned? But that goes way past of what I am willing to use in the dish. ( Note, this is not the dish that has can of mushroom soup in it)

Other then that I got all my Thanksgiving dinner shopping done. Last year I waited till the Wednesday eve to do my shopping and the stores closed at 6pm and I was a the Wal-Green drug store looking for canned pineapple, which they had.

It was a good day in Church today. But I did nod off. They keep it way, way to warm for me. I have started drinking ice tea before the service in hopes that that will help. I think I need to drink 2 ice teas. I was invited by folks to come to their house for Thanksgiving dinner, which was very nice of them.

I have been lax in bringing food for the potluck we have every Sunday. Today was going to be the same but I thought about what I had in house and cut up about 5 lbs of potatoes and roasted them in the Church oven with garlic and other stuff. All gone but the dirty pan. It's hard to think about what to bring each week that wont over tax your budget too much but will be filling and tasty.

Long day.

Today Tainter and I went to the big city to stand in line and get our cookbooks signed that Pioneer Woman just put out. We stood in line for about 3 hours till we got up to the table that PW was at. She is a very nice person. I asked her if her mom ever scolded her about things that she has written. ( Hiney tingles ) She laughed and said not her mom so much but her Grandma would call her up and scold her.

When she first came out she answered questions that people had put into a box for her. You could tell that she was nervous but she did good. She also did a very heartfelt thank you to all the people that have read her blog over the years and the comments that they had left.

She also announced that she was going to write a 2nd book. It will be Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. But it will have more in it and also part 2, her married life. Speaking of married life, her husband MM was there and also the 2 young boys. I think that MM might have gotten more attention then she did!

And everybody that stood in line got a free T-shirt.

OK, enough about that. Let,s judge people OK?

Why do men wear scarves as part of an ensemble? I find that very odd. I saw 2 men wearing them. Maybe meterosexual? I did see a man with a "man" purse!

What's up with super skinny boys wearing skin tight,stove pipe jeans with wide white belts? And get your bangs out of your eyes! Where did the good old days of real baggie pants go to? I think I like that better then the skin tight!

Young girls with their breast exposed! Cover up, it makes you look cheep. Also don't wear tight pants when you're plump. Muffin tops don't look good on anybody!

The lady a few rows behind me. Yes, I know that breast feeding is natural. I really don't have a problem with that. I think that you should feed that kid anywhere. That being said, toss a blanket over yourself. I didn't really want to see your boob when your kid lets go.

Also they were filming a show while we were there. Mall Cops. I think for the Cops TV show? You know "Bad boys, bad boys, which ya gonna do when they come for you?" So that added to it all. It seems to take a lot of film crew to do it.

All in all if was a fun but long day.

Duds

I was chatting with my friend Kellie the other day ( OK, we chat every day ) and we both agreed that we sure have gotten duds in the book department lately.

I made is more then halfway through Julie and Julia and every time I picked up the book to read I just had a nasty taste in my mouth like sour milk. I did not like the book. I stopped reading it. I hear that the movie was good. That might be the first time the movie is better then the book. She ( Julie ) was not a person that I can "get" "understand" or "relate" too. I realize that it's her book and she can write about what ever she wants to but I felt that Julia Child had almost no part in the book. Other then the recipes that were being made. Did you read it? Did you like it? How about the movie?

I also read ( and I did finish ) "Ice" by Linda Howard. I normally enjoy Linda Howard. Her last book "Burn" was kind of boring but "Ice" was snooze ville! Maybe being born and raised in AK and now living here in WI I just can't get on board with the bad weather as part of the plot. The story took place over 2 days during a ice storm ( Oh that's so scary! ) I felt that both that good guys and the bad guys had no depth to them. Very flat characters. Like a warm flat soda or pop or soda pop or soft drink.

This is not part of the list of duds.

I got the Pioneer Woman's cook book. I read it the other night.( Yes, you can read a cook book.) It felt very much like her blog. I have seen all the recipe's on her blog. I had heard that she had used readers recipes that had been sent in. I don't think that at all. Sure, maybe the mac and cheese is somebodies somewhere but, we are talking about mac and cheese! Can you own the recipe for that? I think that over all it's a pretty good cook book. I will use it for some of the recipes.

One thing that I did notice was that she did not acknowledge the people that read her blog. Maybe I'm being petty. It's the age old question. What came first? The chicken or the egg? Yes, she blogged and well enough that she got a lot of hits. But, if she didn't have the hits then she would not have gotten noticed and gotten the cook book deal. I just think that it would have been nice if she had said thanks to all of us that have read her blog and gave her words of encouragement. ( OK, not that I did but I saw others that did)


I'm still going to the Twin Cities tomorrow on Saturday to get my book signed and also eat some sushi and sashimi.

Goat feet.

There will not be any pictures of this as I don't have 20 hands that can hold a goat and take a picture at the same time.

Every morning when I go feed the goats they hang their little goat hooves over the pen. I could see that they needed to be trimmed up. Today was the day I did it. All on my own. Yes, I was a little worried. I have never done it myself, only seen it done once.

The first step was to move the goat stand so that I would have better light. Where its normally at is in the corner. Well, that was a wrong move. Who knew that goats are so set in their ways? ( Not me!) I put the feed in Maggie's dish and opened the pen. She went to the dark corner and cried maa, maa as her stand and food had disappeared! I grabbed her collar and took her to the stand and showed her the grain and she went right back to the corner looking for it! ( Maybe she is really dumb?) I again took her by the collar and led her to the stand and hoisted/pushed/dragged her onto the stand. Ahh, her grain, life is good for Maggie again.

I put my hand on her back leg, moved it down to her hoof and picked it up, she went "weak" in her other leg and sat on my arm! I elbowed her in the butt and she stood back up. I was still hanging onto the hoof. I scraped all the poop out and started to trim the hoof. The nail was kind of rolled under so I got the trimmer under the nail and cut, cut, cut, off came the nail. Goat nails are kind of bendy and seem to be chewy ( Not that I chewed! ) so it was kind of a sawing/cutting thing. I know the blade on my hoof trimmer is very sharp. I think that it's the nature of the hoof.

I was working fast as I wanted to be done before she was done with the grain. Got all 4 done and she was not half way done so I went back and trimmed some more. Also I was calmer this time. Each time I picked up a hoof she would lean her body wight onto me so I would have to elbow her to get the weight off me. Very hard to bend, hold and cut with a goat on you. When I was all done her feet looked nice and neat, very dainty looking. I think a subtle pink polish would look very smart on them. Nothing garish! Something understated.

I put her back into the pen and got JuJu out. Same scenario! Went to corner, had to drag to the stand,spilled grain, had to push/hoist/drag onto stand. ( JuJu is a big boned goat ) Once on the stand JuJu became a grain whore (sorry mom but she is! ) I think that I could have put a saddle on her and she would have just kept on eating. Being that I just did Maggie, this trimming went smoother. She did try and pull her hoof away one time but I just said NO! and held on firm and she stopped. I think that she would look nice with a bright red on her hooves. Something that would really "pop" and say "look at me"

Now that I have done this I wont let such much time go by. I'm sure it's better for them if I did it more often.

One other thing. It's hard on the lower back to be hunched over. I wonder if I hoisted them up and had their little hooves hanging out? I will make my millions with a new goat hoof trimming apparatus. Off to the design room.

Show and Tell.

At the library I have developed a friendship with a patron. She is a home schooling mom and wanted to learn how to make soap. She has been wanting too do this for a while but was leery of working with lye.

I went to her house this morning and made a batch of soap. She wanted plain soap but then when I was there and talking about soap we ended up making a Honey & Oat soap. I gave her the friend discount and just charged her for the cost of supply. She just wanted a natural soap for her family to use. She has no desire to make soap and sell it.

This was also good practice for me. I have had some other people ask if I could show them how to make soap and now I know that all my soap making stuff will fit in the one tub that I have. Other then the mold that I pour the soap into. It was pretty simple to pack it all up and go.

I had a lot of fun at her house. She has 3 girls and they know I like rocks and we looked at rocks for about an half hour. Each of the kids had a bucket that were full of rocks that they have collected over the year. Yes, I brought over a few of my rocks to show them. Hey, we rock people like to show off our rocks! ( Yes, maybe I'm off my rocker too)

I happen to over hear one of the ladies that asked me to teach them tell another person about her plan on selling soap. She has a sister that has goats and want to go in to business. Hummmmmm..... What I plan on doing is this. I will show them how to make soap. But I'm not going to give them my recipe for soap. Nor am I going to give them all my contacts on where I get my supplies. I had to do my own leg work and I don't want them to compete with me with my own recipe.

The person that showed me how to make soap did give me her recipe and in exchange I took a bunch of pictures for her for a web site that she was going to build. I also told her that I was going to sell soap and would understand if she didn't want to give me the recipe. She and I live way apart from each other so we wouldn't have been in the same market and she was hoping to move and has now done so. ( Moved to SC ) I feel that the lady that I'm going to show soap making too was trying to hide from me her plans.

Am I wrong? Am I being mean?

Stink O'Rama

Boy Howdy does it stink at my house tonight! I do feel a little vindicated though. While Mom and Dad were here they got to smell that smell when Farmer Brown fertilizes his fields. Farmer Brown did the field North of me when the folks were here and my Dad could not believe just how bad it was! Now Farmer Brown is doing the bigger fields that are West and South of me. On my way to work this morning I could see the big stinking pile of cow crap steaming in the morning air.
To me, it was just a big pile of crap. I'm sure to Farmer Brown it was a big pile of goodness for next years crop. It took Farmer Brown a few days to do the small field before he got it plowed under and the smell was gone. Bigger field I think means that I will have a longer time smelling the stink. Ahhhhh life in rural Wisconsin. Breath deep and take all the country goodness in! ( gag gag )

I just got of the phone with JuJu and Maggie's match maker. If all goes well they will get picked up on Saturday and have a fabulous time on a hot date. Not sure how long the hot date will be. Maybe a month or so to make sure that they "date" ( wink wink) It will be strange having them gone. I like my goats and I will miss them. I am sending them both on the date. I hope that they both don't have twins in the spring time. Oh, and the reason that they will spend that long of a time with them is that I don't have a trailer so I can't just take them by when I see that they are ready for a "date".