I'm on Fire!

I set myself on fire yesterday while trying to burn the trash. I won't go into the gory details. Just be advised that using gasoline, even in small quantities, is not a good idea. But I can vouch for the "drop and roll" technique working. Here is the only real burn from the ordeal. It is on the inside of my left leg just above the ankle. I was very fortunate!

Goony

Is this not the strangest way for a cat to sleep? I'm not sure if it is more comfortable for him to sleep this way because he is so fat or because of his arthritis. This picture makes me want to bury my face in his fur and snuggle with him.

The Last Scrap

Today, I finally have some news to report regarding the craft fair that I hope to enter in October. I finally got all my paperwork back from the state and city that is required to participate. I had to apply for a TPT with the state of Arizona. That stands for Transaction Privilege Tax license. Somehow the state of Arizona has managed to twist everthing around and make it a privilege for me pay taxes on anything I sell. They lost my first check and application, so I had to send it in a second time. Then I found out I had to get a license from the city of Sierra Vista -- an occasional use permit. It has taken 6 weeks to complete the necessary paperwork. I hope it was worth the trouble. Today I sent in my application, and hopefully it's not too late to participate in the craft fair. I'll be trying to sell origami boxes, paper wreaths, and paper stars. Some examples of the boxes can be found at my Etsy shop.

I figured I would get some business cards to hand out at the fair in case I got accepted. So I went to a website to get "free" business cards. Clearly, my mind wasn't firing on all cylinders when I went through the ordering process. I needed my sister/advisor to be here to help me. I chose a lovely card and entered all the information. I didn't want to pay any extra to change the font or anything (after all then it wouldn't be free), and it looked fine on the computer screen, so I ordered them. Of course, I also had them shipped the slowest way possible, which took 3 weeks. When I finally got them today I discovered that people may need a magnifying glass to read the information. Well... at least they were "free."

Canning 101

Okay, so I copied that title from The Pioneer Woman. She had a lovely description of canning strawberry jam. I, too, have been busy canning. Last week, we canned the rest of the tomatoes. Of course, I didn't bother taking pictures. It was all I could do to manage the canning. If you want to see lovely pictures of canning, click on the title "Canning 101," but instead of strawberries and sugar imagine tomatoes and lemon juice.


The garden has pretty much come to an end for the year, so we let the chickens go into the garden to play and eat whatever they wanted, bugs mostly.


Here's an example of one of the bugs that the chickens enjoyed. We pulled this huge caterpillar off one of the tomato plants. The chickens loved it!



I'm glad we had the garden and have enjoyed the delicious vegetables, but I'm ready for a break.

Lizard poop and other thoughts.

Today's blog will be a mishmash of various events from this week.

Today while I was walking outside I found this lizard poop. It was about an inch long, so this was obviously from a large lizard. You can see a crack in the poop. I had already broken it open before I thought to get my camera. Anyway, this poop was near an ant hill. In the past, we have seen lizards just sitting by the trail of ants and picking them off one by one as they walk by.




And as you can see, the poop is full of ant carcasses.










I've been asked to post pictures of the dogs, but their normal pose is sleeping, which is not very interesting. I was able to get them playing a couple days ago, but every time I got the camera out they would stop what they were doing and come over to me.

So this is the best I could do from far away and the dogs moving around quite a bit. I thought this was interesting because Findlay is actually the one chewing on Chani (usually it's the other way around). Now, just imagine them chewing on each other and making the Wookie noise from Star Wars for the full effect.


Last, but not least, one of the chickens has started jumping on our shoulders whenever we squat down. When we stand up, she won't jump off. She just kind of arranges herself so that she can go for a ride while we walk around. It can be kind of painful when she digs her "talons" into your shoulders for balance, and you do have to either wear glasses or not look directly at her. She tends to want to peck at your eyes.