Waldo on Vacation

You might be wondering what our critters do while we're off cruising in Mexico.  Well...I'll tell you...they go on vacation too.  Waldo & Suzy stayed with their cousins Lizzie & Wrigley in Corona.  It's a cushy life at their cousin's house:

Now that we're back home, we're having a heck of a time keeping the dogs off the couch & the bed.  They sure learn bad habits FAST!!!  I wish I could teach them other things as quickly.  I don't think Waldo wanted to come home, but we made him.  Now he's got to sleep on his dog bed on the FLOOR again.  (Don't tell him the number of the ASPCA--he might be tempted to report Noah & I for animal cruelty!!)

Buckskin & Noah Go Cruisin'

Buckskin & Noah recently went on a 7-day cruise to Mexico.  They sailed out of San Diego on Saturday, December 12, 2009 on the ms Oosterdam & visited the ports of Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta & Cabo San Lucas.  Here are a few shots of Buckskin in their cabin & on the balcony:

Buckskin & Noah decided to go high-class this time, so they stayed in a fancy deluxe suite.  It was great:  private breakfast & lunch, free laundry & dry cleaning, expedited boarding, 24-hour concierge...a person could get used to the high-life real quick.

Noah has recently become obsessed with farmville on facebook, so when we hit our first port of call, our first stop was an internet cafe--he was going through withdrawls & needed to get his facebook fix.  Here he is:

When we hit Cabo, we decided to take an off-road Rhino tour & I'm really glad we did.  We drove along this absolutely pristine stretch of beach and got to watch as a pod of whales swam by right off-shore spouting, blowing and breaching.  It was beautiful:

All I can say is wish you were here!!  It was a great get-away, super relaxing & a wonderful break from the Wyoming winter.  I think we can make it until spring now...

Good-Bye, Emily!!

I've been putting off writing about this, but here goes:  I had to say good-bye to my very special friend, my cat Emily, two days ago.  Yes, Emily was almost 14 years old and she'd had a good life, but the two of us had been together for a VERY long time & we'd become quite attached to each other (almost literally)--and she was also VERY fond of her dad, Noah.  Emily slept beside me on the bed every night, she lay on my lap when I watched TV, and she sat patiently (often for hours) on my desk while I worked or played on the computer.  Anytime I called her, day or night, she'd come running immediately, meowing all the way.  She liked to lay on Noah's chest when I wasn't home. And she's the one who gave Noah the stamp of approval when we first started dating.  The first time he asked to come to my place I told him, "OK, but my cat won't like you!"  She'd always hated my dates, but she was in his lap purring before I knew what had happened, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Emily started showing signs of not feeling well very suddenly on Thanksgiving Day, and it was all downhill fast from there.  We took her to the vet last Friday and he said either kidney failure, end-stage diabetes or cancer &  he didn't hold out much hope in any case.  We brought her back home, hoping to let her go in her own time, but she couldn't eat, and by Tuesday it had been over a week with no food, she was skin and bones and could barely croak out a meow--though she still tried--she'd always been a talkative gal.  But she could still put out a pretty good purr right up to the end.  She spent her last night at home sleeping between Noah & I under the covers, then on Tuesday morning, I wrapped her up in a blanket and Noah drove us to the vet's. I was with her when she was put down--the vet sedated her first, so she didn't know or feel a thing--it was all very peaceful.  So...another good friend gone to heaven.  At least she's got good company up there: all her big brothers:  Ernie, Zeke, Easy, Bear, Odie and Bo.  Good-bye, Emily.  I love you &  miss you very much!!!

Thanksgiving Day

Just a quick Thanksgiving note.  Noah & I celebrated a quiet day by ourselves.  I cooked our Thanksgiving dinner, and for once EVERYTHING turned out perfectly:  the button on the turkey even popped up--that NEVER happens.  Here's an aerial view of our meal just before we tore into it:

I made the photo extra-large, so it would make you extra jealous:  we had roast turkey with aromatics (Noah won the turkey at the turkey shoot on November 7th), Brussels sprouts roasted in brown hazelnut butter, garlicy green beans, homemade cranberry sauce, homemade sweet potato pie, and sparkling grape-blueberry juice.  It was delicious!!  And Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year, mainly because I LOVE turkey and cranberry sauce.  Not only did I have it for lunch on Thanksgiving, I had some more for dinner that night as well.  THEN, I had it for lunch and dinner yesterday, and guess what?  As soon as I finish this entry, I think I'll go have some for lunch--with a piece of sweet potato pie for dessert.  Yep, that sounds great & I'm hungry, so I'll talk to you all soon. 

Bye for now!

Buckskin

P.S.  You can see Suzy in the bottom left corner of the photo trying to figure out if she can make off with the turkey before anyone notices!!

Remodeling the Basement

Before I go any further with this post, you might be wondering why I am making all these entries today.  Well, the MEN have all gotten together at Phlegm Boy's house up in Montana for a post-Thanksgiving manly-man reloading party:  no women allowed.  Oh, but wait...there will be a SHOPPING trip for the WOMEN next Saturday.  Only two problems with that:  1.)  I HATE shopping, and 2.)  I have to work (thank God!).  So Noah is off swapping tall tales with the guys and casting lead bullets & I'm here with a free day to catch up on my blog.  I've had several things to share and talk about, but I haven't had time, so today seemed like the perfect day to catch up.

Anyhow, now that I've got that off my chest, I'll proceed.  Noah and I have been hard at work remodeling the basement from a big empty space into a beautiful master bedroom.  Now before you get too excited, it's not quite finished yet.  It's actually taking a bit longer than expected (we thought we'd knock it out in 4 weeks last summer)...but it's taken a bit longer.  The first glitch was the fact that the floor slab was seriously cracked and needed to be removed.  That invovled about two weeks of jack hammering followed by another two weeks of hard labor removing all of the broken up concrete and digging out about another 6 inches of dirt from the space.  Then the slab needed to be re-poured, and of course the concrete had to be brought in in wheelbarrows.  After the slab dried, there was the framing and then the electrical.  Noah has got that place wired with more lights than the White House Christmas Tree.  Next came the drywalling.  We've been working on that for the last couple of weeks.  With a last final effort, we were able to complete the drywalling on Thanksgiving (except for the window wall--we can't do that until the new door & window are in, but that side's easy).  So here's how it looks so far:

What's the next move?  New door and window, finish the drywall on that side, then ceiling insulation and installation (we're going to hire out the ceiling installation--thank goodness!)  We've got a guy lined up to tape and mud the walls (one of my former students at the college--a good way to meet good people), I'll paint, and then we've got our tile guy ready to lay tile on the floor.  It should be spring by then, so we're going to put a new cement patio outside (and my hot tub), and then we'll be ready to move in.  I'm thinking around June 1st or so.  Happy day!!

How We Keep Ourselves Warm Around Here

For those of you from So. Cal, you may be unfamiliar with some of the contraptions we use up here in the Great White North for keeping ourselves warm during the cold winter months (I know I was!!)  Our best defense against the cold is our handy, dandy pellet stove.  What is a pellet stove, you ask?  Well, let me show you.  Here is a picture of our pellet stove:

The pellet stove burns compressed wood pellets which we buy at Walmart by the ton:

Last winter we only burned about half a ton of pellets, but I was working full-time at the college, so I was staying warm at work & Noah was toughing it out here without any heat.  But this year, with my new job, I'm at home most of the time, and I'm not as tough as Noah--I like to be warm.  So, Noah went out and bought me 2 tons of pellets.  The only downside is that we've now got pellet bags stacked up all around the house:

AND:

We've also got a few left in the garage from last year.  This picture represents some of Noah's more creative pellet stacking.  The coldest wind blows out of the northwest--and straight through the doggie door and into the house.  Noah thought if he stacked the pellets around the dog door, it might keep some of the cold wind out.  It was a good idea in theory--but it's not really working as well as we might have hoped...  So there you have it...how to survive a Wyoming winter with your buns still intact!

Pumpkins

For those of you who follow my blog, you may recall my post of September 30th when I was forced to hastily harvest my garden because of an impending snow storm.  You may also recall how upset I was at having to bring in all of my pumpkins while they were still green.  I put them in the kitchen window and hoped for the best.  Well...that seemed to be just the thing for them, because they all turned a beautiful shade of deep orange.  I belong to an on-line poetry writing community, and every Sunday we write and share "flash poetry" in response to a prompt provided by that week's moderator.  A flash poem is one that must be completed in 1 hour or less.  The Sunday before last, the prompt was to describe an image in our favorite room of the house.  I immediately knew I wanted to write an ode to my orange pumpkins, and I thought I would share it with you.  Enjoy!

"A Fellowship of Fall"

A fellowship of fall...

My 30 pumpkins

Picked before their time

One drear October afternoon

As an early snow was falling.

Now they sit, autumn orange,

Huddled in the thin sunlight

That shines through the kitchen window.

Slouched crookedly

To the left and right,

Trailing dry vines,

Twisted tendrils,

Withered leaves.

A fellowship of fall...

Small, round;

Tall, slender;

Elegantly elongated;

Squat & proudly pregnant...

Picked before their time,

And brought inside

To fill my fall

With their exquisite orangeness.

 

 

The Joys of Hunting Season...

Hunting is a whole new world for me, but it's one of the main reasons Noah wanted to move up here.  Hunting season started in the middle of October, and though it's beginning to wind down, it's not completely over yet.  Yesterday was the last day of deer season, but antelope season is still open & Noah has gone over to Kaycee today to see if he can get one last antelope.  (I must admit that antelope meat is tasty--I didn't know if it was going to be any good, but turns out it is!)

This part of Wyoming is one of the prime hunting spots in the US.  Hunters from all over the country and even the world flock here every fall to hunt.  It's the last big tourist event of the year.  Once the hunters clear out, things are pretty quiet until the summer tourist season opens again in late-May.

Anyway, hunting may be fun for the hunters, but for non-hunters like myself, hunting season means just one thing:  meat processing.  I'd never processed game meat before, but I did have some ideas about how it was done:  I envisioned surgically-scrubbed instruments, people wearing pristine white lab coats, surgical gloves & masks, and some type of white, gleaming, immaculate, germ-free environment.  SURPRISE!!  Ain't nothin' like that!!  After the animal is shot and gutted, Noah strings it up in our grungy garage and lets it hang there for a day or two to "cure."  Once the carcass is cured, Noah dismembers it with his meat saw, knife and/or machete.  This process is not for the squeamish as it is accomplished with a lot of loud cracking and squelching noises...

That's an antelope on the left and a deer on the right.  Note the super-sanitary surroundings!!

After Noah  dismembers the carcasses, we have to wash the parts with a mixture of vinegar and water to remove any hairs that may still be clinging to the meat.  Then Noah starts cutting off small pieces for me to feed into the meatgrinder.

Here's Noah cutting the meat off an antelope haunch in preparation for grinding.

Buckskin Lily grinding the meat.  (Don't be fooled by the staged smiles--this is hard work!!)

After all the meat is ground, the next step is packaging.  Noah portions the ground meat into seal-a-meal bags, and Buckskin runs the sealer.

Noah putting the ground meat into seal-a-meal bags.

Buckskin running the sealer.

After all that hard work, it's time for the best part of all:  cleaning up!!!  Since Buckskin is such a good cleaner-upper, she gets to tackle this step, and she always does so with great enthusiasm:

Here's Buckskin trying to clean out the insides of the meat grinder.  Fun!!!

But all the hard work is worth it in the end.  Noah & Buckskin are now stocked up with all the deer, antelope, and elk they can eat.  Whew!!!  I think they'll survive another winter!

Unfortunately, Shirley Shot was not able to be here to help with the butchering this year (and she did such a great job last year!!)  I think we'll have to bring her up next year to help Noah again--it's a shame to let her miss out on all this fun!! 

Everyone's invited to our house for dinner...we've got plenty to go around!  Just let us know when you're coming...Talk to you all soon!!

Love,

Buckskin & Noah

2009 Incheon 40 TESOL Course Wraps Up!!

Buckskin Lily has, sadly, been absent at the last two monthly shoots.  That's because she's been otherwise occupied teaching a TESOL training course for 28 of the the Incheon 40 Teachers.  The course was a 30-hour intensive taught over 5 Saturdays starting on Saturday, October 3rd and concluding yesterday, November 7, 2009.  As always, working with these fine ladies and men was a joy--they are the most wonderful and enthusiastic students any teacher could ever ask for--and I enjoyed every minute I spent with them.  This is one of the best jobs in the world!!

Anyway, with their permission, I snapped a few shots of them on our final day of class for use here in my blog.  On this day, we were exploring the use of music, drama & art in the ESL/EFL classroom.  As always, I like my teacher trainees to experience the activities they will be asking their students to engage in first-hand.  Everyone jumped into their roles with both feet.  There were a lot of laughs yesterday.  And, I hope, a lot of good learning as well.  Like I always tell my students:  good learning should be fun!!!!  Here are a few of the choicest photos.  Enjoy, everyone!!!

As always,

Buckskin Lily

Here's "Little Sally Ann Thunder," bride of Davy Crockett

These guys are performing their rewrite of "Bingo" (and they threw in a few dance moves to go with it!!!)

"Bustin' a Move!!"

Here's the Big Bad Wolf making friends Middle School-style.

OK...now what?????

"The Hair and the Tortoise"--yes, that's HAIR...this is a re-enactment of a Jon Sciezcka "Fairy Tale" from The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Stories.  Perfect for those with a well-developed sense of sarcasm...

Well...that's all folks!  Hope you enjoyed the pics & thanks to all the wonderful Korean teachers for being such good sports and wonderful students.  It was a blast!!!

Let's Go to Billings!!!

Monday, October 26th was a big day for Buckskin and Noah--they loaded up the pick-up and hit the road for Billings, Montana for a day of shopping in the big city.  It takes about 2 hours to drive to Billings from Cody, but it's always an interesting drive with  many beautiful, interesting and (sometimes) unusual things to see along the way.  One of the first highlights of the drive is beautiful, ever-changing Heart Mountain.  It never looks the same twice--sometimes it's snow-covered, sometimes it's not; sometimes it's covered by clouds; sometimes it's pink in the sunset...it's always something new.  On Monday, storm clouds were building up behind it creating a very pretty effect:

A little farther up the road is the thriving metropolis of Clark.  Actually, the "town" of Clark has only one business:  the lovely Edelweis Saloon which is a very popular watering hole for bikers during the summer:

Heading further north, the road crosses over the winding Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River several times.  This section of the Yellowstone is named for William Clark of Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery who traveled this river (along with Sacajawea) on his return trip to St. Louis in 1806.  Lewis and Clark separated on their way back, so they could explore more areas of the country, and Clark's explorations took him through this area--pretty cool!

Proceeding even further north, we cross the border into Montana and seize the opportunity to play the lottery!!  Wyoming has no lottery...

One of the biggest towns along the highway is Bridger, Montana--named after famed mountain man, Jim Bridger.  There are several sculptures honoring this famous Wyomingite in town--here's one of them:  (I think that Indian is saying, "You're going the wrong way, white man!")

When driving to Billings, it is inevitable that someone will be driving some piece of farm equipment down the highway.  Not sure what this is, but it might be some kind of sugar beet picking implement--they were picking what is left of the sugar beet crop--there was a lot of damage done when we had our unseasonal blizzard/cold snap earlier this month.  Darn that global warming!!!

One of the more unusual sights is this giant cowboy dude with his scoped rifle outside the Fort Rockvale Casino.  (Note the cannons on the roof behind him): 

You know you've finally arrived in beautiful Billings when you see the oil refinery.  You really need to smell it to get the full effect, but you can use your imagination--it's really lovely (if you like that kind of thing):

When visiting Billings, you musn't miss The Big R--it's the Nordstrom's of Montana & Wyoming--you can get anything there:  seeds, horseshoes, irrigation equipment, guns, bows & arrows, clothing, furniture, bedding, horse supplies...the possibilities are endless.  Here's Noah running inside to pick up some wormers for the horses:

And even after a full day of dining and shopping, there is still more fun to be had:  on the way home we were able to spot all kinds of excellent wildlife, including this nice deer buck and a few of his harem:

That was about it for Buckskin & Noah's trip to Billings.  It was a fun and exciting time as always--you never know what you'll see when you drive to the big city.  See you all next time--bye for now!!

Love,

Buckskin

Sunday Brunch at the Irma Hotel

Hi, everyone!  Well, Noah & I had an exciting day today.  We headed to town for brunch at the Irma Hotel.  The Irma was built here in Cody by Buffalo Bill in 1902 and named for his daughter, Irma Cody.  Here she is:

Anyhow, the Irma has an all-you-can-eat buffet brunch on Sundays with prime rib at the carving, baked ham, buffalo brisket & ribs, and lots of other goodies.  Noah loves it, and we'd go there every Sunday if I'd let him...but I'm good with 1 or 2 times per month. 

The restaurant was originally the saloon, and the original bar is still there.  The bar is a magnificent affair--a gift to Buffalo Bill from Queen Victoria of England.  The original cash register is still there as well, though not used.  The bar is currently decked out for Halloween, but here's a shot of it:

There's something new I've learned about living in a small town:  I need to always look my best whenever I go out, because I ALWAYS run into someone I know--ALWAYS!!  Like these two nefarious characters I saw today at lunch.  That's Lucky Bill & Flatnose George--two of our Cowboy buddies:

And here they are again at the carving station getting some of the prime rib (Noah says the prime rib is excellent, so I take his word for it not being a big prime rib fan, myself):

And here's something I bet you don't see everyday--it's not every eating establishment that has mounted buffalo heads in the dining room, but the Irma does (along with elk, antelope, deer, bobcats, etc. etc....):

So that just about wraps up the excitement from here for today.  Noah & I are headed up to Billings tomorrow, and as promised, I'll fill you in on all the highlights as soon as we get back.  I've got to go cook some dinner...I'm getting hungry!  That brunch has worn off already.  Enjoy what's left of your weekend & I'll talk to you all SOON. 

Love,

Buckskin