Life at Hell N Gone Ranch

This is a typical night at our house. I'm all alone on the couch and Pa is buried under a dog pile. At least they keep him warm! Tilly, the black dog, likes her perch because she can look out the window and watch TV at the same time. I've never seen a dog who watches TV as much as she does.

When he's not piled on top of Pa, you can find Harley zonked out on the couch. These dogs don't do a darned thing all day and they sleep all night so what the heck are they doing sleeping during the day?

 Pa made two trips to Reserve, NM to get wood this month. The first time he got a truck and trailer filled with short logs.

 Can you believe $40.00? We love the guy in Reserve!

 The last trip he and Tom got a truck bed full of split wood and a trailer full of 1 inch slabs with the bark still on them. About 12 feet long. He is going to use them to shingle the outside of the room he is adding on to his travel trailer. He's only been working on his room for 3 years. About time he got it done!

 There's a new pest in town! We kept seeing little tunnels here and there around the house and garden. When we dug them up nothing was there. Now we know. I told him to enjoy his meal because he wasn't going to last long. I don't know how many of these ground squirrels are around the place. We hadn't seen them for the past 3 years. They must have heard that we serve gourmet meals and put the word out. I'm thinking the only way we can get rid of them is to buy one of those animal cages, trap them and let them go at Tom's. (Just kidding!)  We don't see them often enough to shoot them with the pellet gun . I haven't been able to hit the broad side of a barn ever since the sight broke off. Pa does pretty good tho.

 Here is our winter stack of wood. Plus we still have lots of logs we can cut and split.

 This is more than we had last year so this should hold us over.

DOG FOOD AT OUR HOUSE:
Cooking all those rabbits for the dogs to eat gave me a great idea. A can of dog food costs close to $1.00 to mix with the dry dog food.

 IGA in Saint Johns had chicken thighs and legs on sale for 69 cents a pound.So we got a couple of bags and cooked them up to use when we don't have rabbits to add to their food. I know, spoiled rotten. and to think of all the starving people all over the world. I usually pressure cook them so I can ground up the bones to add to their food but today I just baked them in the oven. They smell so good, I think I'll have two of them for our dinner. Hopefully the dogs won't mind.

I'm having the neighbors over for Thanksgiving again this year. I found these cute cupcake holders so bought the cut file. They didn't have a bottom so I had to make my own file for that. I'm going to put our guests names on them and fill them with candy and use them for name cards. Not that we care where people sit but I thought it would be a nice little addition. I have some santa ones I will use for Christmas. I sure hope someone gets a house with a kitchen some day out here. Ya know how much I hate to cook!  But we love our neighbors so it is worth the work.
Still no snow, knock on wood. We had some rain Friday night and it is supposed to rain this coming Friday.  Even tho we've had freezing weather, I'm still getting a little broccoli off my plants. They aren't even covered. Tom is still growing lettuce and spinach under row covers. If we ever buy a tractor, I'm going to make me an under ground green house so I can grow some things longer. Yeah, I know, don't hold my breath!  Our freezer is full so I'm waiting till the last minute to buy things for Thanksgiving dinner and then today I read that Butterball is going to have a shortage of turkeys! I haven't heard of any mass die offs of turkeys this year so I think they are saying that so they can hike up the price.
All righty then. That's it for now!

A Rabbit in Every Pot

Two bunnies are currently in the pressure cooker. Pa saw a bunny in the garden this morning so I grabbed Tilly and  let her have at it. When I went to let her back in the  house, there were two dead rabbits and another one running around. It got out before I could shut the gate. Don't feel sorry for the rabbits...for everyone Tilly kills, 20 more take it's place. There are millions out here.Anyway, Tilly has been providing meat to mix with the dry dog food. The dogs love it. I cleaned my first rabbit while Steve was visiting Tom. He was surprised when he got home because he didn't know I knew how. (There's a lot of things I know how to do!) I figure if he knows I know how to do something, I'll end up doing it every time.

It has been freezing in the morning but warms up to the 60's or higher during the day. We've had a few fires in the wood stove. Pa had been saving/hoarding old financial records so I convinced him to shred them and to use them as fire starters in the stove. Works like a charm. He went to Reserve, New Mexico a couple weeks ago and got a huge load of logs. They filled the trailer and truck. The guy charged him $40.00. Such a deal.

Obviously the garden froze to death, pretty early if you ask me. The tomatoes never got ripe so I brought them into the house to ripen in a box. They never got ripe at the same time so I froze them as they ripened. I made salsa and froze it and will cook the others down later. I ended up throwing a bunch away because they were rotting before ripening.

We met with our health insurance man a couple of Sunday's ago. Wayne set up the meeting so the three of us plus Wayne's girlfriend met the guy in a little restaurant in Saint Johns. Due to Obama care, our insurance isn't offered anymore. It was perfect for us since we rarely go to the dr. Now we have to pay out of pocket for 2nd coverage and drug coverage. Luckily Pa gets his one medication from the VA at little cost. I haven't seen a dr. in over 5 years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it is my mantra. After the meeting, we went to lunch at Wayne's place. He is now living with his girlfriend at another ranch just outside of St Johns. I really like his girlfriend and we had a great time.

Not much has been going on. I've been playing a lot of Scrabble on the computer since Pa won't play with me. It's a good way to pass the time while he watches his political shows on TV. I get so tired of all the talk on those political shows. Don't know what he would do without the TV since he isn't a reader. I do enjoy a couple of shows, The Black List, Scandal, Person of Interest, Unexplained Files, and some on the travel channel but give me a good book and I probably wouldn't miss them.

 I made this floating frame as a wedding gift for my grandson and his new wife. I should have found a better place to take a picture. You can see the sand outside thru the frame.

I made this charger plate. I had planned to take it to Show Low to a vinyl business to ask them if they had any scraps of vinyl I could have. If they said yes, I was going to give them the plate. Of course we went to Show Low and half way there, I realized I forgot the plate! I am living proof that as you get older, you memory fades into the background. I always take a list when we go to town but now I'll have to make a list of what I want to take with me.

 I've been working on some under the sea cards. No particular reason, just something to do.

Made this scarecrow to use as a center piece for Thanksgiving. It's made of cardstock. I forgot to look for some miniature hay bales when we went to Show Low. If Walmart doesn't have them, I'll have to go to Flagstaff. I guess if there is a downside to living in the sticks, it's that everything is so far away.

The backspace button fell off my laptop. I found instructions on line on how to get it reattached. Can't get it to stick for the life of me. I had no idea how often I hit that button until it's gone! Luckily there is a little nub sticking up that will work.

Ok, short but sweet. I'm thinking of discontinuing the blog. I have no idea if anyone other than my brother in law reads it. Pa and I have settled into a dull routine so there isn't much to blog about. So let me know if you are interested in the mundane and if you are, I'll post once a month unless something exciting happens.

I heard they caught a serial killer in Saint Johns. Supposedly killed 12 people over a period of time. The local Justice of the Peace got canned because he hid that he had a drunken motorcycle  accident where someone got hurt. The cop who helped him hide it got fired also. That left one cop for Saint Johns so DPS took over the police station until they could find more cops who want to work for peanuts. Even our little towns are as corrupt as the big city.

Bye bye!~