Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

It's Monday, folks, which means that it's time for... pictures from the Unfarm of course! I call this one "You snooze, you lose." This is another common sight on the Unfarm - Maximus knows that the dogs get some canned food mixed in with their dry food during dinner time and he wants in on the action. The canned food is actually an incentive to get Maia to eat as her appetite has shrunk over the years - she is 18 now and entitled to a little special treatment. For her part, Maia is convinced that if she holds out long enough something even better will magically appear in her bowl. These items might include ham, chicken, eggs, cheese... you get the idea. So while Maia procrastinates Maximus takes advantage of her lapse of attention and scarfs down bits of meat and gravy until he is caught and sent out to the living room with his consolation prize of canned kitten food.

Tasty Vegetarian Chili

I'm not usually a huge fan of chili but this one is pretty good. A few notes: I tend to like my food more on the mild side so I only use one tablespoon of chili powder and I like my vegetables best if they are small enough that I can't recognize them as actual vegetables unless viewed under a microscope so I tend to chop the pepper and onion pretty small. I have also found that I like the chili a little bit more moist than this recipe turns out so I just add in a small amount of water (approximately 1/8 cup to 1 cup chili) into my individual bowl before I eat. That way people can choose the amount of liquid they want with their chili. I eat this plain, but it would probably also be good with a little bit of shredded mozzarella sprinkled on top and melted, or sour cream.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 chopped bell pepper (3/4 to 1 cup)
1/2 chopped onion (about 1/2 cup)
1 (15 or 16 ounce) can of 50% less sodium garbanzo beans
1 (15 or 16 ounce) can of cannellini beans (white kidney beans)
1 (29 ounce) can of gold hominy
1 to 2 tablespoons of chili powder (depending on how spicy you like it)
1 (14.5 ounce) can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook until tender, about 4 or 5 minutes. Drain and rinse well both beans and the hominy and add it to the pot along with the chili powder. Stir and cook about 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato sauce and roasted tomatoes (undrained); add the brown sugar and stir. Bring the chili to boiling then reduce the heat, cover the pot and let it simmer 25 minutes. Stir occasionally. Serve warm. This recipe makes enough for about 4 servings.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

 

Pip, taking a nap

Pip again, cuddled with a towel and heating pad

This one is Squeak, she was a little bit older than Pip

Squeak, look how tiny she is!

These are a few photos of Pip and Squeak, honorary Unfarmians who were with us for a short while. They were wild baby cottontail rabbits that the neighbor's cat (Chico, the terror of the neighborhood  I've mentioned before) caught somewhere and brought, still alive, to the neighbor's doorstep. They gave the bunnies to me to take care of but they were very little - Pip didn't even have his eyes open yet - and they both passed away last week. It takes very little time for me to fall in love with an animal and both of these two wriggled their way into my heart in a matter of minutes. Squeak lasted several days but even top notch vet care couldn't save her. I am having them cremated together and the urn will be placed in my room next to all my other children. I fear that by the time I am 80 I will have to add another room to my house simply to store all the urns from my pets. At any rate, I hope you enjoy looking at these two cuties as much as I do.

Rat TV

Maximus has always been a fan of quality entertainment. He finds great joy in sitting down in front of the TV to watch whatever might be on. And I mean RIGHT in front of the TV - he sits two inches away and blocks half the screen. This situation is advantageous to him because it satisfies two cat loves at once: being entertained an making a nuisance of himself. Of late, however, he has found a new channel to capture his attention: Rat TV. Now before you go checking your cable listings, I regret to inform you that it's a local channel, only available here on the Unfarm. 

It is a regrettable fact that if you have animals, especially chickens and ducks, who eat their food outdoors, or you regularly leave food out for birds and squirrels, you are at risk of attracting rats. The fact that we are near both a forest and a pasture, and that we have a shed the rats can hide under doesn't hurt either. So in the evenings, once the kitchen is quiet, our resident rat (I would not go so far as to name him an Unfarmian, though) can be found scurrying around on the back deck, fattening himself on what little bits of seeds or duck food has been knocked onto the ground. While the humans on the Unfarm look upon these nighttime forays with dismay, Maximus finds it quite entertaining. He will plant himself in front of the large sliding glass doors and watch his regularly scheduled programming of Rat TV. And thus far, his program has not been cancelled as this particular rat has been quite crafty at avoiding any traps we have put out. Either that or he just has no taste for peanut butter. 

I should note that I do not approve of killing animals, but it is dangerous to have rats in such close proximity to us and our animals because of the diseases they may carry (and the chickens have absolutely no interest in taking on a rat for a roommate, as they are keen to do when the winter cold sets in.) So when we find it necessary to rid ourselves of rodent interlopers we use the snap traps because they kill quickly, as opposed to poison which is slow and painful. Plus, given our success rate (which is low), it would seem that the traps give the rats a sporting chance. More often than not, the rats get away with a free meal. 

So until our rat gets sloppy, or develops a craving for peanut butter, Maximus will be spending his evenings watching his favorite show. After all, it's somewhat interactive and there are never any reruns. The only thing missing now is the popcorn.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Dos, not to be confused with Una, showing off her mastery of energy conservation. Why bother sitting up to eat when you can lie directly in your food, cutting out all that bothersome bending and reaching? Dos was the only other squirrel who would come when I called and take treats from my hand, and could be recognized by the notch missing from the top of her right ear. Sadly, Dos passed away a couple months ago and I buried her under the beauty berry bush in the front yard. I still miss that little squirrel!

Interior design on the Unfarm

I generally consider myself to be a fairly decent, if amateur, interior designer. I can organize, tidy and toss furniture around to create something that most people are generally happy with. I am well known for my regular, minor furniture rearrangements - we have a summer look and a winter look for the living room. I am also well know for my major room rearrangements, which may or may not include new furniture, wall colors, and decorative painting. These transformations typically take place when I am left to hold down the fort on my own while the rest of the family is out of town for a few days. If you are a regular reader of this blog you may remember some of those projects. The kitchen, office, and TV/sewing room have been the most recent victims of my I-think-I-can-handle-it-itis. It is a terrible affliction that warps my thinking causing me to actually believe I can pull off a complete redo in only a few days with no help, and not have to spend the last few hours before my parents get home running around the house frantically trying to get paint to dry and clean the disaster zone I have created of the rest of the house. Spoiler: I am never found relaxing with a glass of lemonade or reclined on the couch with a good book when my parents pull up in the driveway. Sweating, breathless, and hiding rags and cleaner behind my back is a more accurate image. It may take a few days for my parents to come around to the new look, but as far as I know, they always do. 

"This placement will do quite nicely. Yes, the chi is good here."

Unfortunately, not everyone has been pleased with my designs. Apparently, my skills as a designer do not translate over for the lagomorph crowd. The rabbits are decidedly unhappy with where I choose to place things. The litter boxes, for instance, are always placed under the water bottles to catch any drips, the carpet is on the opposite side of the cage and the food bowl is in the middle. This is clearly not where things should go, and Ginger makes sure to let me know what she thinks of this arrangement. As soon as I put a fresh litter box in she will grab it with her teeth and hurl it about her cage. This almost always ends up with the hay strewn about all over the cage floor, the litter box on its side in the center, and her food bowl is often dumped out and can be found under one of the mounds of hay. Having done so much work redecorating her house she will then plop down on the cage floor previously occupied by her litter box, stretch her body out and kick her legs to the side. This is Ginger speak for, "I am thoroughly satisfied with how things are."

Ginger playing "king of the mountain" sitting on top of her upside down litter box. She thinks this is the best way to arrange her cage. As you can imagine, I disagree.

My response to her redecorating is to uncover and right her bowl, put her litter box back in its place, scoop up all the hay, and deposit it back into the litter box. The entire time I am doing this Ginger is squeaking and grunting at me and charging at my hand. This is Ginger speak for, "what do you think you're doing?!? I just got that all arranged and now you're messing it up! The feng shui was perfect! How is the chi going to flow in here now??"  I suppose I shall just have to resign myself to the fact that in all likelihood I will never be hired as a professional interior designer for the lagomorph society. I will have to content myself with maneuvering couches and painting walls. Speaking of which, the hall closet really could use a remodel...

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

The chickens will sneak squirrel food whenever they get the chance, so the sight of them walking along the deck railing is a fairly common one.

Maximus: our newest arrival on the Unfarm

As you may remember, last year the Unfarm took several hits including the loss of Aspen, bringing our cat population down to one. Or half, maybe, because Mynx is rarely seen by anyone but myself and you cannot really pet her, let alone pick her up.  She is convinced that any attempts at affection are in truth a thinly veiled threat: surely we mean to harm her in some horrible manner and she screams bloody murder until we set her down and she can bolt back under the bed. 

Mynx's attitude combined with the loss of Aspen six months prior had me thinking: perhaps it might be time to start contemplating the addition of another feline to our household. Mynx did seem to be lonely, after all - she had taken to spending an unnatural amount of time outdoors hanging out with Chico, the neighborhood riffraff who technically resides next door but is regularly seen throughout the neighborhood terrorizing other cats and all small creatures that creep, crawl or fly. Hardly the kind of character we want Mynx associating with, even if he does seem to have a soft spot for our spotted softie.  

It seemed, therefore, serendipitous that last November I should receive an email from our local cat shelter, announcing that they too would be participating in the Black Friday madness: all of their black or mostly black cats would be available for adoption for the bargain price of $10, a whopping 90% off the usual price. Being the good bargain shopper my mother taught me to be, I could hardly pass up a deal like that now could I? The only real question was this: how to narrow it down to just one...? 
 

Maximus in a rare moment of stillness

My sister and I spent an arduous hour trying to decide which cat would become the newest member of the Unfarm. There were all manner of choices: sleepy kittens, playful kittens, striped kittens, spotted kittens, solid kittens, male kittens, female kittens and every combination thereof. Holding kitten after kitten was a tiresome, tedious task but we somehow managed to persevere, eventually settling on a small, black kitten who was in a kennel by himself, sitting quietly beside the door. (We had learned our lesson, you see - we chose Aspen because he was the "spunky" kitten in the litter, and I am pretty sure that most of his adult life was spent plotting ways to inflict harm upon his human captors, so this time around we went for calm and quiet.)  Acknowledging that this would be a companion for our Mynxy cat, we were also looking for a younger, male cat who might pose the least possible threat to Mynx. 
 

Max loves to play with plastic bags

The name Maximus was settled on in part because it went so well with Mynx and we headed home with our newest family member, bracing ourselves for the fallout: we had not asked permission to adopt Max knowing that had we asked we would have been told no. Mom's reaction was fairly predictable: she feigned dismay but spent an awful lot of time cuddling with something that "we can't possibly keep." Dad's reaction was exactly as predicted. We told him to close his eyes and hold out his hands. He did as requested and the second we set Max into his hands he burst out with, "Oh no!" and looked crestfallen to say the least. 
 

Max enjoys kitten food, long walks on the beach, and watching TV

Despite the odds, my parents came around to the idea of Max becoming a permanent fixture here on the Unfarm (this process was likely easier for Mom than it was for Dad) and part of the deciding factor may have been the effect Max had on my sister. She had been in something of a bad mood - which is putting it mildly to say the least, and she can be quite scary when she's in a bad mood - earlier in the day and Max was more effective (and faster acting) than Prozac on her sour mood. Kitten adoption fee: $10. Kitten food, toys, and assorted supplies: $54. Changing my sister from a fire breathing dragon to a cuddly teddy bear: Priceless.

Footnote: Thus far, Mynx has not appreciated our efforts to give her a companion to spend her days with and looks upon Max as some kind of tiny terror with ADHD whose main goal in life is to ruin hers. 

Despite what Mynx thinks, Max really does look up to Mynx. He is often seen making a careful study of her and trying to follow in her footsteps.

Construction finished

In case you haven't noticed, this blog has been under a bit of construction of late. The template I really liked appears to have inexplicably gone missing from the internet and I was forced to scramble to try and find a new favorite template which took FOREVER. You have no idea how many templates are out there. Do I use a blogger standard template, have someone design one for me, try uploading a free template off the internet, or try and learn to code so that I can make my own template? I contemplated learning to code for exactly 2.7 seconds. Not gonna happen. I find I lack the patience to learn to code, plus I graduated, remember? The fine print on my diploma states that I am no longer under any obligation to study anything. Ever. For any reason I choose.

I decided to wait on having a template designed for me, especially since my brother, who is usually my go-to guy for all things tech is off on a Code for America project for the next 10 months, and it is hard enough to convince him to help when he is in the same zip code. The fact that he is now 600 miles away means he is thoroughly out of my reach. Goodbye free coding help.

I then spent approximately 38 hours looking through the thousands of free blog templates and attempting to get at least one to work, and after all those hours I put in I was still dissatisfied with the result: the short lived red blog template you may or may not have seen on here in the previous couple of weeks.

So back to standard blogger templates it was and after a bit of searching I finally found one that I think will work for the time being. I probably should have saved myself a good deal of wasted time and increased stress by sticking to this idea from the beginning but that's just not how I roll. I like to waste time, get stressed out, yell at anyone and everyone, and end up going with the simplest option anyway. Hmm, I wonder if I could get that printed on a t-shirt...

Sewing needle tote tutorial

Because I can't seem to resist a sale, I have amassed an impressive collection of sewing needles; but I hate the packages they come in - those stupid plastic holders never seem to want to surrender the needles without a fight. Annoying needle packages + fabric scraps I wanted to use up + a chance to procrastinate on the things I should be doing = a sewing needle tote tutorial!

Step 1: Gather supplies. Some felt fabric, mine was 4x7 inches. Cotton fabric, I used a piece 17x21 inches, a cutting mat and rotary cutter - regular and pinking (or fabric scissors), a sewing machine.

Step 2: Iron your cotton fabric, then fold in half, right sides together, leaving the third side open.

Step 3: Turn right side out and press the open edge under about half an inch, toward the inside of the fabric pocket.

Step 4: Topstitch around the entire piece.

Step 5: Fold each end in to meet in the middle, on the long edge.

 

 

Step 6: Fold the bottom and top edges in towards the middle, forming a pocket.

Step 7: Measure the size of the folded fabric. Mine was 8 inches long, 4.5 inches tall.

Step 8: Cut some felt slightly smaller than the folded size. Use pinking scissors or a pinking rotary blade if you want to make it look nicer. I cut mine 7 inches by 4 inches.

Step 9: Take a pin and mark the center of your folded pocket.

Step 10: Cut a piece of ribbon long enough to tie around the pocket. 

Step 11: Sew this to the center front of the pocket

Step 12: Organize your needles by pinning them through the felt sheet. (Or sheets plural, if you are anything like me.)

Step 13: Unfold your pocket fabric and put your needle sheets in the center of your fabric. Fold the pocket up around it and tie the tote closed. Voile! You're done - go enjoy your new tote.