Mother Earth Monday - The 3 R's

Alright - today is going to be an easy one! R-E-C-Y-C-L-E! This is the one that most people (try) to do and know the most about. We recycle just about everything that our county will take. Plastic, glass, paper, cardboard - we do it all. Unfortunately our recycling center only takes 1 and 2 plastics and we use a lot of '5' plastic with yogurt and butter tubs so we try to reuse those as much as possible - paint tubs, water containers for washing out paint brushes and even containers to start seeds in. Whatever works - even ones with lids can be used to store leftovers. Be creative!

Since moving into a bigger house we have been able to expand our recycling. We started out with one recycle basket and have now grown to 3 that we use to sort things to make taking it easier. They are separated into: (1) plastic and glass and metals (2) paper (3) cardboard. I try to make sure when I bring in the mail, I sort through it at the bins and ditch any junk mail.

So here are our lovely bins - they are right beside the cabinet where our trash can is located and doesn't take up too much space or is in the way. Since we have started recycling, it has cut our garbage literally in half - no joke. We take trash once every other week and only 1 bag at that and we take the recycling when it's full - usually once a week or so. We rinse out all of the containers that once contained food - if it's glass or a tin can we will sometimes run it through the dishwasher if it's full to make sure they are clean (so it doesn't smell or attract bugs (or cats and dogs))

Another thing I do to help with the trash and I feel is part of recycling (the 'reduce' part of the 3 R's) is I pay almost all of my bills online and for most of them I receive 'e-bills'. This means I pay all of my bills through my bank's website and most of the companies send me a bill through my e-mail and I pay it directly online without receiving any paper statements at all. I can still look up all transactions or billing so I am not missing out on anything. I can see EXACTLY how much money I have in my checking account, which checks have cleared, and what bills I need to pay and when. It has helped keep me more organize and think of how much paper I have cut back by (1) not getting bills mailed to me and (2) not mailing them back for them to dispose of!

For those bills I do still get (but can still pay online - they just don't offer the e-bill services) I keep a basket next to my computer -

These bills get put into the basket after I pay them and when the basket is full, it gets shredded and then recycled with the paper (be SURE to shred first!).

I try to make a difference in my workplace as well. As I mentioned before, I am a teacher and this year our school started buying plastic milk bottles for school lunches instead of the cardboard cartons we all grew up with. I became very upset at the amount of plastic that was being thrown away in our school every day (we have more than 800 students and many students buy extra milks!). I taught my kids how to recycle their bottles and we kept a designated recycling container in our classroom and I would take it down the street to the center whenever it got full - it was on my way home and too me a whole extra 2 minutes to do that. Some of the other teachers followed suit and to my relief, our school took a positive step forward and now has recycling containers in the cafeteria! Yea school! I am so proud of you ;)

So, there you have it - the 3 R's in the Morrison household - Reduce, Reuse, and most importantly Recycle!

To leave you, here are some quick recycling facts :) (more found here) Happy Recycling

• 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
• Americans throw away 44 million newspapers everyday. That’s the same as dumping 500,000 trees into landfills each week
• Every year we save enough energy recycling steel to supply L.A. with nearly a decade’s worth of electricity.
• The 36 billion aluminum cans landfilled last year had a scrap value of more than $600 million. (Some day we'll be mining our landfills for the resources we've buried.)
• Glass never wears out -- it can be recycled forever
• If every American household recycled just one out of every ten HDPE bottles they used, we’d keep 200 million pounds of the plastic out of landfills every year.
  

Signs of Spring Part 2

After raining on and off all night, this is what we were greeted with on our way out the door early this morning!

This is our peach tree in our 'mini' orchard. When we moved in we planted a cherry, peach, pear, and apple trees on a bit of land beside our driveway that the former owners had just let grow up with weeds and dreaded blackberry bushes (we are still fighting those things). We de-weeded, mowed, round-uped and pulled blackberry bushes and now we have a nice little 'fruit garden'!This is our first bloomer of the year! Now I have to watch close for frost but they are tough little trees. Just thought I would share some color on a gloomy and chilly Saturday afternoon!

Signs of Spring

I just wanted to share our first sign of spring!

This is our little lilac bush we planted when we first moved in around this time last year. Look at those little leaves. Yea! I am always glad when my plants make it through the winter :) Don't look at the nasty grass (or lack of) in the background. That is a work in progress. Grass is hard to grow for a weed!

As for another update - I think my tomatoes have been on the 'roids. I am going to have to start getting pots ready to transfer them soon. The peppers aren't faring as well but there is still hope for them yet! Bring on the gardens!

T-Shirt Tote

Thanks for so many of you that were concerned for my well-being yesterday after my harrowing escape. I am recovering but I will always be wary and make sure the door is propped open before entering another unmanned garden section!

Now, on with the show! My mother's friend Sonya sent me the neatest idea for making tote bags for groceries and other things. It is from Martha Stewart (of course!) and she uses an old t-shirt to make a really easy (and really spacious - I was surprised!) tote bag if you don't want to buy any or really like the idea of being crafty AND recycling at the same time!

I made one in about, oh, 5 minutes tonight as my 'test' bag and I have to say I am really impressed! I used a large t-shirt and couldn't believe all I could fit in it! I tried to lure the cats in to see if they would fit but they wouldn't have any of it. Ok - so here's my finished tote -

Yes that is a plant sticking out...the cats wouldn't stay still to put in it.

It's kind of hard to see the cuteness of the bag from these pics. The t-shirt was really old and soft (it was from middle school - enough said) so it wouldn't stand up very well (unlike Martha's perfect bags - of course).

So here are the quick instructions on how to make one of these beauties -

1. Turn a t-shirt inside out and pin the bottom seam closed

2. Sew a seam across the bottom to close it off - forming the bottom of your bag

3. Turn shirt right-side out. Cut a larger hole at the neck line (I used half of a large mixing bowl to make a half-circle to cut).

4. Cut sleeves off straight down the seam

5. Fill with various groceries and/or cats. They like it - trust me.

Here is the link for Martha's instructions and a video where she walks you through the VERY complicated steps (haha) Tote Instructions

I really like mine but I think I am going to make a smaller one for when I only have to get one or two things at the store. The only downside I have found so far is that they are pretty stretchy if they are older cotton shirts so probably wouldn't be best for heavy items. Maybe using an old tank top would be good for a smaller one! I wish I was the one that thought up all of these ideas!

Trapped!

Ok, so I almost died today. Well, that's being a little dramatic but I did have a very nerve-wracking experience. This happened, of all places, at K-Mart.

I know what you are going to say, but I love K-mart. I can go there and (1) It's never crowded (2) I can find neat stuff that I wouldn't normally think of (3) they usually have half the store on clearance because not everyone can relate to #2. Well, those things worked against me today. I was tooling around checking out the Easter sale (because I am a poor teacher and buy all of my classroom decorations AFTER the holidays) and also looking at some of the neat garden/flower items they had to try to get some ideas for my summer flower gardens. I wandered into the back separate room garden section when IT HAPPENED. The door going out to that section shut behind me. No big deal you might say - that is until you go back to leave and IT'S LOCKED!

So, smarty me thinks that maybe I am just blond today and it's a push, not a pull. Wrong - I was most definitely locked in! So let me refer you back to point #1 of why I like K-mart...It's never crowded. You would think that SOMEONE would walk by the door and go 'hmm, what is that crazy girl doing knocking on the door and flaying her arms?' No, not today. I had seen one of my fellow teachers in there minutes before and I could see her a LONG way off and was trying to give her mental signals to come let me out but alas, our teacher psychic power was on a break. I shook the doors, I pounded on them, I yelled...nothing!

I swear I was in there for 10 minutes before a cashier on her way to get potting soil for a little old lady found me and released me from my garden prison! It's a good thing the little old lady didn't go back to try to get soil! They might have found her body the next day! Honestly, I was going over in my head what I would do if no one ever found me. Call someone? Who exactly would I call (Uh, yes, hello K-mart? Um, yeah I am trapped in your garden section). I even toyed with the idea of breaking the glass on the door with the handy fire extinguisher.

Anyway, I am free and had to buy 2 bags of leftover Easter candy to sooth my stressed out soul! Logan told me I was being overly dramatic, but he doesn't understand....he wasn't there...the garden gnomes were starting to organize themselves...

Cute But Deadly

She may look cute and innocent but is deadly....for my seedlings. I had to move the greenhouse into the spare room because "someone" used it as a window seat. Luckily there was only one casualty. The rest are traumatized but will survive, updates to come on the 10:00 news...

Mother Earth Mondays

I am going to try something new for Monday posts (well as new as I can get meaning I have only done this for about 2 weeks now!). On Mondays I am going to try to share something that Logan and I do or want to eventually do to help protect our environment and make our lives a little cleaner and happier! From here on out, I declare my Mondays as "Mother Earth Mondays"! Hopefully I can spark some of you to adopt these easy ideas!

Today I want to talk about going to the store and....plastic bags. Eeeeek! According to reusablebags.com, each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. How many of you have something around your house that looks like this :

The bags we have around the house are reused over and over and then recycled. Our Wal-mart has a very convenient recycling box right as we go in so we recycle them as much as possible. Plastic bags when put in a landfill don't decompose like, say, paper or food decomposes. It breaks down into toxic chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. Those bags that don't even make it to the landfill can be deadly to wildlife - especially sea animals such as turtles.



So, we have started using reusable bags for our shopping. I had a few from living by myself in Banner Elk in college that I had gotten at Lowe's Foods that have wonderful side pockets. I recently got an insulated bag at Whole Foods for around $3.00 to put my cold and frozen items in and (thanks Dad!) just got a whole mess of bags from Food City for around $1 each. Many Wal-marts have also started to sell reusable bags for around $1. Many grocery stores now give you a small discount when you bring your own bag - a million years ago when I was in college, Lowe's Foods would take off around $0.15 for each bag you bring of your own. It doesn't sound like much but the next time you go to the store, count how many bags you used and multiply that out and see how much you could be saving!

It may seem hard to remember to use the bags at first - especially for random or emergency "I forgot milk" trips to the store but have been good at putting the bags in the back of the car whenever we finish putting our groceries away. I like the looks I get at the grocery store from the bag boys when I lay my bags up on the counter and announce "I have my own bags, thank you" :) They'll get used to it!

For those of you who are crafty, you could even make your own totes if you don't want to buy them. I cruise the clearance fabric at Wal-mart and got about 4 yards for $1 a yard and have my bags cut out for some extras. I should get about 4-6 bags out of that. I just looked at how my pocketed Lowe's bag was and pieced it together from there. I am sure there are some patterns out there if you want them! It doesn't have to look pretty - as long as it gets the job done!

So, there is my first Earth Friendly post - I will keep them coming on Mondays! If anyone has any ideas they use, please feel free to share them. Stay warm on these first few days of chilly Spring (it's currently flurrying here!).

For some more information about plastic bags and their impact, visit : http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1499

Spring? Spring!

Just a quick post to say Hooray Spring! We woke up with a dusting of snow on our porch this morning. Eeek! That's not what I want to see on the first day of spring! Now that there is a slim-to-none chance of us having any more snow days I am ready and running for spring to be here. We planted grass seed on our sad yard so I am looking forward to the green.

To end, these are some neat pictures I took last spring/summer. I thought he was so neat and no I am not scared of snakes and got pretty close to this boy before he slithered off into the grass. (Spiders are a COMPLETELY different story). Look at that balance! Neat...I am ready for the wildlife to start waking up and moving around - yes, even the snakes :)

Garden Season

It's not even the first day of spring yet (tomorrow!) but already we are planning our garden for the summer. I wish it was as easy as spreading some seeds out in the ground but we have to do some planning to make sure everything gets what it needs.

I started tomato and pepper seeds this past week so they will have time to grow and be ready for the ground once the warm weather sets in. Last year we did Roma and regular 'big' tomatoes and this year is about the same with a little expanding. I have planted Romas, Big Boys, and a mixture of heirloom tomatoes (just for the fun of it) out of curiosity. It was a mixed seed packet so I will be curious to see what comes up! I am rooting for the striped purple ones! I also planted cayenne, jalapeno, and bell peppers.

We have planned on the calendar when to plant certain things and written them down so that way if something was planted too early (or late as in the case of the pea catastrophe) we can tweak it next year. So far on the garden 'roster' we have the tomatoes and peppers mentioned above, corn, black beans, wax beans, and black-eyed peas, lettuce and spinach, spaghetti squash, onions of all types, radishes and rhubarb. I am sure there's more - we don't grow a whole lot of a lot of these - just enough for the two of us to eat. Other stuff like the peppers and tomatoes are used for canning and freezing - we are just now using up the last of the tomato sauce I canned last summer and we have enough canned green beans to last through the apocalypse!

I will keep updated how the growing grows! Here is our first little sprouts coming up:

Future tomato plants! Grow my pretties grow!

Here is the 'cleverly' camouflaged green house. If I don't cover it, the cats sit on it to look out the window. Learn from experience!

A Girly Weekend!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made it back safe and sound yesterday evening from a super fun and relaxing weekend with one of my closest girl friends! My sister-in-law danced at a dance competition in Durham, NC this weekend and I jumped at the chance for a ride down that I didn't have to make all by myself! We left early on Friday afternoon and Becca picked me up in Durham (in the ghetto - seriously - never again....)

We spent the evening relaxing and I showed her some of my knitting I was working on and she asked me if I would teach her. Heck yeah! We buzzed into Wal-mart and picked up supplies and after taking a relaxing/energizing walk in the neighborhood...we knit!

Saturday we packed full of activity since it was really our only full day together since I had to meet back with the in-laws after lunch on Sunday. We had breakfast at the farmer's market in Raleigh and I think I turned Becca's little boy Trent into a strawberry fiend. Sorry! We then headed over to the flea market and poked around but couldn't find any good deals but the weather was beautiful and we got some great exercise and fresh air! Becca did find some awesome cheapy yarn (I turned her to the dark side with OCD yarn shopping) and some great beads. More on the beads later...

Trent slept the whole time at the flea market so we took him to the park to wear him out so we could hang out and have some girl time. Here are some cute park pics -

Trent realllllllllly wanted to play basketball! "If only I was a little taller...."

All boy... enough said! Look at that red hair!

Swinging with Aunt Ashley (before the motion sickness kicked in - I am such a wuss!)

After dropping Trent off with his dad for lunch and nap time, we (the girls!) headed off to Barnes and Noble. By this time it was POURING rain! We had excellent timing. We spent 3 1/2 hours sitting in super comfy chairs, drinking coffee, eating ginormous cookies and knit-knit-knitting! I started Laurie's (aka Aunt Purl) 'Magic Scarf' and am LOVING it! It looks so cool and I can't wait to finish it! I have a million knitting projects going on right now. I had taken my sweater-in-progress with me but I didn't feel like I could teach Becca to knit with that since the pattern is pretty complex and of COURSE those were the only pair of needles I brought so I bought a new pair and some pretty/soft/CLEARANCE yarn and started the scarf of my dreams - hehe. Here is our super relaxing knitting girltalk day:

Becca concentrating on her first-ever knitting project! She is a fast learner!

My pretty scarf-in-the-works! It's a bit hard to see but it's a very pretty basket weave pattern.

So that was our mighty fun and fine weekend! (I won't mention the over-indulgence on wine Saturday night...) The trip back home wasn't bad and before we headed out, I stopped at the really cute and fun Locopops in Durham with the in-laws. Oh - before I forget, Becca makes super pretty beaded necklaces and made me one I rocked today - I got so many complements on it! Thanks Becca! Here's the necklace and another pic of my wonder-scarf:

Note - only 3 more days until I have some spring-break! Oh boy I need it! Off to catch up on some laundry!! Happy Monday!

Horse Sense

Alright, this is my final 'pet post' (for now anyway) to introduce our horses to you! My husband is the horse person - he grew up (literally) on horses. They grew up riding and camping out with the horses so boy was I in luck after we got married!

Our first horse is Daisy. She is an 8 year old Quarter Horse (with we think a touch of Paint in her) although we can't be 100% sure because she isn't registered. Actually neither of our horses are but since we won't be professional horse breeders any time soon it doesn't matter :)

Daisy is Logan's horse - although we both ride either horse, we still have 'ours' that we prefer. Daisy is pretty easy-going but can be VERY stubborn and hardheaded! (Hmm...maybe just like her human?). Logan hopes to start training her to barrel race as soon as it gets warm!

Here's Daisy (she is considerably chubbier now! Big girl likes to eat!)

My horse is Brisco. He is a 4 year old Thoroughbred. He is very young and had a LOT of energy. He has come leaps and bounds since we first bought him - he (and I) have learned a lot! We believe (from listening to our vet) that he was probably an 'in training' race horse and had an injury to his hoof (it's a little oddly shapen but nothing that bothers him now) and that is why he was sold. The idiot that sold him to us told us he was a Quarter Horse - um wrong. We knew that when we bought him but it was funny that he would even think to tell us that. I guess people aren't inclined to buy a Thoroughbred around here because they are a little more high strung and not as easygoing as Quarter Horses.

We have learned an interesting quirk of his - he is TERRIFIED of cows. Not just nervous around them - totally scared to death! He shakes and trembles and tries to run away from them. It's a little funny when you think about it but not when you are riding him! Poor Nervous Nelly!

Isn't he gorgeous! I thought so too! And yes, that is my arm...Let's just say I don't 'photograph well'...Hopefully in the spring and summer I will be able to show a lot more pictures of our 'horse adventures'. We just got a horse trailer so I am sure we will be going out often!

So, to leave you, here are some lovely horse pics! I will be back after the weekend - hopefully with some adventures to share! I am going to visit one of my best girlfriends in Cary, NC and we always have a blast! Have a good weekend!!

A beautiful farm scene in our back pasture (back before it became a desert last summer and when we still had grass!)

Silly Brisco - he's like a dog - he loves to follow you around and be rubbed on! I am sure he would live inside if we invited him in!

This was taken a day or so after I first got Brisco - we had gotten him in February or early March and it was about 20 degrees here! Look at that pretty headset - he was obviously started English but is a Western boy now! Yee Haw! Where's my hat?

Easter Bunnies!

This might be a quick post - today has been a whirl-wind of a day. It started at 7:30 this morning when my alarm DIDN'T GO OFF! We have one of those fancy sets itself type clocks where it updates itself through a computer chip. Well apparently the geniuses didn't tell the chip that this is a leap year, so the days of the week were off on the clock (something I didn't notice until THIS MORNING). Well, we have an alarm that goes off on the weekdays and a separate one that is set for later on the weekends. To make a long story short, the clock still thought it was Saturday and didn't go off this morning at it's normal weekday time. Luckily I rolled over thinking - boy, it should be about time for the alarm to go off. Yeah...an hour ago! So I ran around like a mad woman and went in to work sans shower. TGFH (Thank God For Headbands). Oh. and I think I have pulled a muscle in my back. Awesome...

Ok, so the next pets you will meet today are the two foo-foo bunnies. They both, like all of our other animals, have interesting stories to tell if you will listen. So - here's the first bun bun -

This is Latte. He is the first of our 'stray bunnies'. Back in our old Shoe Box house we lived in (literally the size of a shoe box. ok maybe not literally but it was really small. 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom and 1 closet. no seriously - 1 closet) he wandered into our yard one day. Now, as you can see from the picture, he is OBVIOUSLY not a wild bunny. We think our rednecky neighbors were fattening him up to eat him and he was lucky enough to escape (and since we have 'Animal Suckers' written somewhere in our yard, he came to us.) He is very tame as far as bunnies go and lived in the house for a very long time after we found him (or he found us). I sadly don't have any old pictures of Latte - these were taken today. I honestly used to have more - they were lost in the 'computer apocalypse of 2004' I believe. Latte was a good house bunny and was litter trained (to his cage - not to cat litter. FYI - cat litter is bad for bunnies because they might eat it - always use natural materials for bunny litter - but not cedar chips - that makes them sick too). But if you have ever had a bunny they are not the nicest smelling animals. Especially male bunnies. Enough said. He lives outside now with his brother - our next bunny -

This is Baxter. He was another stray bunny. Logan found him down town in our local park when he was a tiny tiny baby. Once again - obviously not a wild bunny. We think he was probably dumped there sometime after Easter and when the kid got tired of a wild rabbit. Baxter is close to the opposite of Latte. Latte likes to be rubbed and pet and hugged on. Baxter wants no part of human involvement what-so-ever (except for bringing him food, water, and hay). He tried to be an indoor bunny for awhile but was so wild and unhappy he finally got moved outdoors into the bunny condo. Now - once again for those of you who haven't owned many rabbits - male rabbit + male rabbit = death and destruction. Male rabbits don't get along with one another living together SOOOOOOOOOOOOO - both of our rabbits have been neutered and are the best of friends now. It's amazing what happens when all of those raging male hormones are taken out of the mix huh?

So to leave you - here are some pics of the bunnies - my favorite are when Baxter was trying to be an indoor bunny - note that he believes he has found his mommy...

What??? I'm invisible!!

Are you my Mommy? Nope - too brown-y. (Beau is praying it's not another cat)

Kissing or tasting....you decide.

You are DEFINITELY my Mommy! Best of buddies shown here!

Dog Days

So Blogging is a little more obsessive than I once thought. I am waiting for butter to soften for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies so what better to do than write about our next batch of animals - THE DOGS!

Before I get to our current dogs, I have to go back a little ways to after we first got married and mention Gracie. We adopted Gracie from the horrible place they like to refer to as the local animal shelter. Let me just say that this is NOT a Humane Society nor is it a humane shelter. I am not going to get into this rant right now but we adopted little Gracie from there, a week later she got very sick (Parvo) and died because they were not treated in the way animals in a shelter should be treated. Here is a pic of poor little Gracie - at least she had a good week living with us!

Alright, now we can move on to our doggies now. I had to mention Gracie because she led us to Beau. Gracie spent about a week at the vets office with no success and after she died they mentioned at the office that when we were ready to get another puppy, they knew of someone that was trying to give away a litter. This family had recently experienced a house fire and could no longer keep the pups (they were going to keep the whole litter - yikes!). So we drove off to the FAR (and I mean FAR) end of the county to look at the puppies. We had just intended to check them out but how can you go out and not come back with them? Well, we did!

Beau is a beagle/whatever/mutt mix and is ALWAYS on the go! He has energy to spare and runs circles around us constantly. His birthday is on Halloween so it's easy to remember and was 4 years old this past October. He loves hiking and being out in the woods or for a walk or even a swim down at the river. He hated the water until about 2 years ago when we camped down by the river and were swimming. He decided to give it a try and swam the whole weekend! He now has his own life jacket so he doesn't tire out his poor little legs! Here is good ole Beau as a puppy:

For our next hound we have to go back even farther to before Logan and I were married and had only been dating for a few weeks (in 'real people' time - in camp time it felt like ages. More on our 'meeting' and 'camp courting' another time). I was working at a camp (HPC!) as an Adventure Coordinator and was leading a group of campers on a 3 day backpacking trip. We had just gone out and were hiking up Unaka Mtn. (near Roan Mtn. on the Appalachian Trail) when a tiny black puppy ran up to us. Naturally I figured her owners were right behind her. Nope! She must have been abandon on or near the trail. She was skinny and COVERED with fleas. Now - you try telling a group of 7th and 8th graders they can't feed and take care of a cute stray puppy! Hence the name "Appy" for the Appalachian Trail stuck!

Well, she followed us the whole week (and when here little legs were too tired to follow, she was carried) and ended up going back to camp with us at the end of our trip. Now, how I convinced our camp director to bring her back with us I will never know but he let her come back and Logan's parents came to pick her up that weekend to take her home with them. They talked about keeping her for awhile but they had an older dog that really couldn't handle a puppy (especially a needy, attention starved one) so she ended up going to live with another family.

Fast forward 2 years and she is back living with us. The family that she lived with were gone a lot and she was a bit of a handful so they asked us if we wanted her. We had had Beau for a few months at this point so we agreed to try it out and if it didn't work, we would find a good home for her. Well, we found a good home - with us! She and Beau instantly loved each other and are still attached at the hip every second. She is a very smart, very hard-headed dog and has a tendency to get into trouble, go exploring (over the hill!) and chase things but we love her dearly and wouldn't trade her for the world. We just hate we haven't had her all along! She is so kind-hearted and sweet and loves to be hugged on (and would be a lap dog if she wasn't 80 pounds!). So - here's Appy:

As you can see, she doesn't realize she is as big as she really is! Alrighty, so to finish up, here are some more pics of the doggies on some of their adventures and around the house - hopefully the butter is melted so I can start the cookies. Don't worry - I will eat one (or two) for you!

They are such cheesy photo-posers! They always know when we have the camera out! Appy's eyes really don't glow - I promise.


Getting ready to go camping at Massie Gap - our favorite backpacking spot. Appy loves being a pack-dog. Seriously. She told me she did. Unfortunately no one makes backpacks to fit oddly sausage-shaped dogs so Beau has to go without.

Beau is fearless - here he's mountain climbing. A benefit to not being weighed down with a backpack I guess?

Cleo's fear of dogs is no match for her obsession for fleece and heat. Beau is confused I think that she is so close!

The Kitties

I decided to keep everyone on the edge of their seats and do a 'group' of our many pets a day so not to give you too much excitement all at once! (Plus with all of them, it would just be way too long and wouldn't get as much out of each of our 'babies' as I want!). So today I chose the kitties...

This is our very first baby Cleo. She was adopted from the animal shelter in Banner Elk, NC when I was still in college and Logan and I were still dating in the fall of 2002. She lived secretly (shh - don't tell the cranky neighbors) with me in my apartment with the occasional trip to Virginia on holidays to stay with Logan. She is a Siamese mix although the older she is getting, the more grey/tan she is getting (does fat change coat color?). She was bright white with lynx points when she was a baby! (I'll have to dig up some old pics of her and scan them!). She is by far a Mama's girl although she will snuggle with Logan from time to time.

Cleo definitely has the Siamese attitude which I tolerate a lot more than Logan! She is a very solitary kitty and hates strangers - she hides in the back for hours when we have company. I am sure some of our friends are doubtful she even exists! She makes it very clear when she has had enough petting/brushing/being looked at and if you misread the signs (ahem - Logan!), she gets a little bitey. Even though she is a Miss Cranky Pants, she is by far my 'special' girl - I might throw up a little when I say this but we definitely have a bond between us and put up with each other!

Ok, now that I sound like a complete dork/crazy cat lady, let's move on to the other kitty baby!

This is Gabby. We have had her for a little over a year now and she is probably about a year and a half old - she was maybe around 6 months when we got her last Winter. Poor Gabby had a rough start to life but you would never be able to tell with her attitude! She is the sweetest kitty and loves to be pet and hugged on.

We got Gabby from a lady who worked with a woman we went to church with. She had found Gabby on the side of the road in Abingdon when she was a tiny baby. She was soaking wet and very sick and she spent a LONG time at the vet's office while under her care. The woman couldn't keep her because she had several cats of her own and was looking for a good home for her. We had been considering getting another cat for a few months (Cleo kept trying to talk us out of it - she was fine being an 'only kitty') so when we were asked if we were interested, it didn't take us long to agree. Logan met the woman and picked our newest member up! On the way home, Logan noticed there was something that just wasn't right with her....

She is completely D-E-A-F!!!! Cannot hear a lick! It really hasn't been much of an issue with her though since we keep both of the cats indoors. She still runs, plays, and sleeps as much as any normal cat although she does have some quirks! Sometimes she will get 'lost' in the house and because she can't find us or hear where we are, she will do this loud sonic boom meow trying to figure out where everyone is! It's normally pretty funny - that is until it is at 2:00 in the morning and we are asleep. She has gotten much better about it though and doesn't get lost as often...

Cleo pretends like she hates Gabby but they are pals for sure. Many a time I come home and they are curled up in the sun together or are having a joint bath. Gabby also encourages Cleo to get some exercise by chasing her around the house!

So there are the kitties! Here are some more pictures to enjoy to get to know these two a little better! Next up...the dogs!

Cleo is obsessive with my Vera Bradley. It doesn't matter where or what it is, she is on or in it. Here I was packing to go somewhere and she decided I had forgotten some things!

Snuggling AND bathing - this is rare - kind of like capturing Bigfoot on camera!

We see who rules the roost here - I think this is like chickens' pecking order...Whoever is up the highest is the leader.

NO - this is NOT the normal state of our house! This is when we moved and Gabby is checking to make sure everything is packed safely...

Introductions Please!

Well, I caved in! I had planned for some time now to start a Blog of my own after being a 'blogstalker' for awhile now. I figured that one day when I had kids I would start one as a way for everyone to keep up with the 'youngins' but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to start one BEFORE all of that (maybe to make it routine, maybe to make me feel more important - haha - who knows?)

Let me start out with a little about myself since I like to know about the people I read about, I figured others might like the same!

My name is Ashley and I am 26 - almost 27. I live in a small town in Virginia. I moved here when I got married in December 2003 because this is where my husband is from. I grew up in East Tennessee on a farm. When I was younger I always wanted to live in a city - just because I had never experienced that kind of lifestyle - but the older I got, the more I craved the 'country' lifestyle. My husband and I just bought our own piece of land a year ago - 12 1/2 acres as our 'starter farm'. Not much of a farm but good for us for now!

We have quite a few animals living on our 'mini farm' (and in our house...). We have 2 dogs - Beau and Appy. Beau is a beagle/mutt and Appy is a German shepherd/lab mix, 2 cats, a turtle, 2 rabbits, and 2 horses - a Quarter Horse and a Thoroughbred. I am seriously going to have to devote a whole posting to our crazy animals and introduce each one. Characters I tell you! Characters!

My husband and I live very naturally and as Earth friendly as possible and are very proud of our 'green' lifestyle (although we could improve this and add on greatly!). We grow a pretty big chunk of our own food and I spend my summers gardening and canning and freezing (oh yeah - I am a teacher by the way - so I get the summers off! I don't intend on this blog being about teaching for practical/privacy reasons however!). It is such a good feeling knowing that I grew and took care of what is going in our bodies! We recycle close to everything that comes into our home that we can and are able. A lot that doesn't get recycled gets reused (remind me to show what we do with those awesome cat litter tubs!)

A lot of our recreation and hobbies revolve around the outdoors. When it is warm, we do a lot of hiking, backpacking, camping and thanks to our super horses, trail riding. My husband Logan seems to think we are going to get into barrel racing and pole bending the horses so we'll see how that goes! I also like anything and everything artsy and crafty! I was an art minor in college and spend a lot of time painting, drawing, scrap booking (not as much as I should!) and recently have gotten back into knitting since there are so many cool and neat patterns available now!

Hmm, I think that was a pretty good introduction! The more I type the more ideas I am getting so bare with me while I figure everything out and find out where I want this to go! Hooray! Have a good weekend!!!