Burnt to a Crisp!

Have you ever blown up a microwave? I know my oldest blew hers up with a baby bottle, but I never thought it would happen to me. I think my microwave will survive but I don't trust it anymore. I put 2 pounds of frozen hamburger meat in my microwave to thaw to make a yummy meatloaf. Set it on 5 minutes and at 40% power. I have done this many times before with excellent results. Its just enough to thaw it all out and have just the tiniest bit left frozen in the center.

I was doing laundry/cleaning/fixing a new home for peeps that are coming next week, when a couple we know came to buy eggs. I went outside to talk to them with the 'wave still having 2 minutes to go. I had no reason to distrust it since it had always preformed beautifully. I think I was outside about 10 minutes. When I came back in there was smoke boiling out around the microwave door. It was at FULL power and had over 4 minutes showing on the timer! How in the world did that happen??

Needless to say, the alarm system screamed out to everyone that there was a fire in the Cuckle Burr Patch! Alarms were going off, the phone was ringing, the cats were running, and the dog was squeeking and barking! Can you say CHAOUS!!!

I had to confess to the alarm system lady that their was no fire, only a burning pile of bovine flesh mixed with melted white plastic bag. I wish that I had taken a picture to show all of you. I am certain that you would have thought it quite impressive. There were 2 little piles of something laying on the turntable and stinking to high heaven. I picked up the phone and ordered pizza. One way to get out of cooking. :-)

New Babies!

Here are the newest members of the Cuckle Burr Patch family. Aren't they just the purrtiest little dawlings you have ever seen? They are just beautiful, though I might be a little on the slanted side. What, you might ask and I know you will, is that blue stuff on four of the little ole heads? Well since you asked, that is Blue Paint, non toxic in case any PETA heads are out there, and that is how the company where these little beauties came from, mark the little boys so you know which ones are the roos. Get it? Blue for roos, pink for chicks. Ok I stretched it a bit, but the blue paint is real and if they will hold still for you, you will see that there are 4 blue roos and 4 non blue roos.

In this group of 4 blue roos there are 3 different varieties of roos. The non blue non roos are all the same and will belong to one of the blue roos of the same family. The other blue roos already have non roos waiting for them. Think "prearranged marriage"! AND guess what? When they all grow up to be roos and non roos, they will look nothing like they do now! They will morph into the most beautiful roos and chickies, and I promise to show you the morphing the entire way. And No, they won't live their entire lives in my laundry basket. They might stay in it a week, unless they learn they can jump out of it any time they feel like it. Besides, I will need to do laundry again this weekend!

Really been a lacky in posting, but I just haven't had the energy. But I did want to share a new buddy that has come to live at our house. Just a couple of pics and I will post later with a story about these little beings.

This little gal has been living at the end of our porch for over a week.



I think she has spun a most beautiful web.

Pics of My Life

Some of my grown girls, with some of the buckwheats.
My youngest granddaughter cant say guinea so she
calls them bikinis. Now we do to.


One of my babies. You can tell how mistreated they are!
He was so bored with the tv show he was watching he
decided a nap was called for.

Guineas....Buckwheats! They are on bug patrol. The
tick population has diminished considerably. They will
also take on snakes, which is bad for my good snakes.
But the copperheads stay away!



A few of the peeps. These are the ones that started it all.
I began with 25 Araucaunas and now I have over 70 of
several varieties. The bug is so bad that I now have 15
pheasant chicks. Will post pic of them soon. And over the
next two weeks will have more peeps arriving. I think I have
lost it, but actually they keep me sane.

There is nothing like watching chickies grow, scratch and talk to each other and to you! When you have peeps and they get upset, you can talk like a mama chicken and they will calm down. Threw that in there in case you want to go talk to some. They listen better than men too!

Secret Service at Wal-Mart??

I had to make a run to W--M--- today. Sigh.. It is usually such a pain to shop there and today was no exception. So many people for a Sunday when the Falcons and NASCAR were both on tv.

Most of the time the strangest thing you will see at the big store is someone wearing pajamas and wearing fuzzy bunny slippers. But today was different. I found out the Secret Service works for W-M!

I was in the sock dept. when I first noticed the little dude hiding behind one of the columns there. He didn't have on the usual dk. blue polo shirt with Wal-Mart Thanks for Shopping With Us on it. It was a white polo shirt with Wal-Mart Thanks for Shoplifting With Us on it. He was even equipped with a little headset and mic and he was obviously spying on someone. I looked, but couldn't tell who was doing something that required such watching.

I picked out my socks while watching the drama unfold. I mean this is a small town in Georgia and rarely anything exciting happens. I needed to pick up a few eats so I headed for the main aisle toward the baby dept. Low and behold 007 was heading the same way! Again, I could not see anyone doing anything more than looking at onesies, but then again I am not a trained spy. This guy obviously knew what he was doing. I swear I could barely tell any difference between him and the columns he kept jumping behind.

Things started picking up as I came to the cereal aisle. There were two spies now! Both equipped with the latest in communication fashion. The woman was hiding behind a display of beef jerkey and the dude was running down the drink aisle. What the heck had these people done to deserve such viewing pleasure?

Then I spotted the objects of their desire...three women, they had a cart that was three-fourths full and they were still throwing things in it. Maybe it was the way they were standing 5 feet from the cart and throwing the long loaves of garlic bread into it that had the attention of the future guards of the president, or maybe it was the way they were spreading out to each pick up some of their needs. I still didn't see the problem. I shop that way myself when I have the grandkids with me. Does that mean that these Barney Fifes had been watching me as well?

By the time I rounded the produce section, the riot squad had grown to four and they were all very interested in rearranging the frozen entree section and making sure all of the potatoes were correctly oriented as they covertly talked into their high tech mics. The bad, bad women continued to throw stuff into their cart.

I was in the checkout line when I last saw the three women, with a full cart of goodies by this time. One of the wannabe cops was then re-organizing a rack of women's shirts. By the time these three industrious shoppers leave, this will be the most organizied W-M in the country.

Just for the record, I never saw these women stuff anything down their pants and they weren't carrying any big totes or handbags. Frankly, I don't know where they would have hidden anything, They had on skin tight shorts and tops. Trust me, if they had shoved a can of beanie-weanies in their attire, it would have been seen.

My shopping trip was over and I will always remember this exciting trip to our local friendly W-M. I bet your Sunday wasn't this memorable!

Buckwheat--Buckwheat!!

Guineas are a type of wild fowl brought to us from Africa. There are various colors with pearl being the most common. Pearl is dark gray with white spots and some white edge feathers on the wings. They have what is called a helmet on the top of their head wattles that hand down from their cheeks. Google it if you want to see one. Some people think they are one of the ugliest birds on the planet. I think they are as beautiful as any of my special chickies.

Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki! This is the warning call of guineas, the “watch dogs” of the fowl population. Another word the females make is “buckwheat-buckwheat-buckwheat”. Buckwheat means we are on patrole and all is well. The males can only make the ki-ki-ki sound while the females can say both buckwheat and ki-ki-ki.

Aren't you glad I am teaching you the language of guineas. If you have never had guineas and hear the racket that they make, you might just think that they are just a bunch of noisy buggers. But there is a method to their madness.

For instance, a few weeks back, when I was home on medical leave, I was walking outside talking and cooing with the chickens. When all of a sudden the guineas broke out with the ki-ki-ki-ki warning. Now up unto this point, it had really not meant anything because they will also break out with the warning when my DH comes out with a different hat on! But on this particular day, the warning was very intense and did not let up.

Curious about what they were concerned with, I went looking. My girls were in the field about 4 feet from the edge of the woods, staring into the brush, and shouting their warning with all their might. As I watched, the bush they were watching began to shake. What evil alien or would it be Jason, was about to jump out and claim another victim. This is the thought that ran through my head in those few seconds before the real monster jumped out. Coyotes!!! Oh no they were back! My girls didn’t flinch or run. They are sooo very brave, but I thought they were going to become the main course for a coyote brunch. It was mid day for heavens sake. Coyotes are suppose to only hunt at night. I started yelling and the coyotes retreated back into the dark of the woods but the girls continued the warning call for several minutes more.

They were gone for now. But would return a short time later with much more devastating results. That is another story to be told on another day.

Needless to say, whenever we hear the ki-ki-ki-ki-ki warning from our security team, we grab the gun and go looking. Their noise is not taken for granted anymore.

So...You Want To Be a Farmer

I live on a small farm in northwest Georgia. We have 10 +- cats, a dog, several chickens of all ages and some of the cutest pheasant chicks. More of God’s fine, fine work. We both work full time for someone else. Hopefully, that will change for me in a very short time.

We try to grow veggies in a natural kind of way, but what we really are good at growing is weeds. Does anyone know of a market for weeds? I think we grow some of the finest in the country. They grow all year long and are very prolific. Ya just can’t kill the varieties we grow.
We have what they call here in Georgia “cow vines”. You can’t kill these suckers. If you get too close they snake a viney limb out in your direction and BAM, they have you wrapped up and begging for your life. I have injected Roundup directly into their flexible green bodies and they have laughed at me! Yes, that’s right, they laughed at me. I ran for my life. The cat wasn’t so lucky.

So if any of you out in blogland would like to have some of these babies for security purposes around your house, just let me know and I will be happy to share the wealth.

When You Just Need Some Exercise

Ya'll know the way a cat will fight and kick and bite and scratch to keep all their special dirt from washing down the drain. Keep that visual. This is the way my queen B cat acts when getting meds. Now I know from experience that downing pills and having cold liquid put in your ears is not a very pleasant thing to have happen, but after numerous bouts of differing sickness, you would think that a cat, they are very intelligent ya know, would know that when you are coming with that little bottle of liquid, that they would realize it was something that would take away the pain and irritation from an ear ache.

Not so with my Tinker! Oh no. She insists that I must be the mama from hades, that the wounds from our last encounter must have healed and that I need to be reminded that her claws are never, ever dull. That I pour the cold fluid in her ear just for the fun of adding new scars to my arms and hands and that a little blood loss would do me some good.

Cats actually have 8 legs. I know in college they teach that they only have four, but obviously the author of those books never gave a pill to a cat. You see, they keep the other four tucked inside and when needed during a wrestling match, they POP out for the attack. Think Alien movies. After much wrangling the medicine is finally in the ears and unfortunately all over me as well. Then the pouting and planning for revenge against mama begins. And unfortunately for me and T, it will all have to be played out the next day.

Oh how I love CATS! One of God’s finer creations.