tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58243385636839090332024-09-01T03:27:13.901-07:00Join us in our adventure from city slickers to farmers on our modern day version of Little House on the Prairie. The CRITTER Project is our green living plan for a sustainable farm, featuring large-breed dog rescue, pit bulls, yaks, goats, chickens, gardening and wind farming. Since we're foodies, you'll also find recipes and information on cooking and preserving food.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-50706237244111458372013-05-07T10:24:00.002-07:002013-05-07T17:09:36.271-07:00

The other day CK was going through some photos on his camera. "I found a picture of your mixer," he told me over the phone. It made me want to cry all over again. The mixer, a gorgeous Kitchen Aid was an early Christmas gift from Quantum in 2009, the year before we moved to Colorado. He has a habit of knowing exactly what kind of gift I want more than anything. It's simple really. Give me

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-58599014277332951942012-11-01T07:42:00.004-07:002012-11-01T07:42:56.718-07:00

The rest of the drive was thankfully uneventful. We couldn't wait for it to be over, as we made our way through Orlando, taking notice of the new stores that had sprung up since we were gone. Our condo (which had been renovated slightly since we'd moved) was gorgeous, but disconcerting in it's differences. Our new roommate, J is super nice. The dogs are a bit confused (especially whenever

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-90372281605312333892012-11-01T07:41:00.001-07:002012-11-01T07:41:32.591-07:00

We reached Columbia around 2:30 or 3 and couldn't find a place to pull over and park for the rest of the night. It took us until freaking 4:30 in the morning before we found somewhere safe to stop. Meanwhile we'd considered the possibility that since things tended to happen in 3's, did 3 deer in total count as 3's, or did 3 INCIDENTS of deer count as 3's? Turns out it was the later, and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-39609882178820592242012-11-01T07:39:00.000-07:002012-11-01T07:39:12.676-07:00

We kept ourselves awake by imagining blogging about our journey and then sending an email to the Shelby County fathers. "We realize that the two adjacent roads with the same numbers probably didn't occur during your administration. However not correcting the situation is highly negligent. Are you incompetent? Uncaring? Or just clueless?" The full moon had gone behind the clouds and the road

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-89526630244371048832012-11-01T07:35:00.001-07:002012-11-01T07:35:31.317-07:00

"Okay this is more like what I expected Birmingham to look like," Quantum said, as the city hove in sight, a mass of twisting highways, ramps, bridges and huge, ugly high-rises. Rt. 280 portended ill from the beginning. Although a well-tended 4 laner, it was studded with stop lights every quarter mile or so, for miles and miles. "If this is going to be like that for the whole trip, maybe

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-65513622718448177692012-11-01T07:12:00.002-07:002012-11-03T18:57:40.528-07:00

Somewhere near 40 miles to Birmingham, we crossed over the border into Alabama. While we were still informed on an imperative and frequent basis that this was the future home of the I-22 corridor, signs letting us know how far it was to Birmingham (which we'd been informed of regularly back in Mississippi) seemed to go missing. On this trip (as on our original journey to CO) we noted that

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-41767333419471565592012-11-01T07:09:00.005-07:002012-11-01T07:09:54.965-07:00

The journey to just before the border of Arkansas was long but relatively ok with the exception of tired eyes and butts that were sore from sitting on the same part of the seat for hours. We pulled into the parking lot of a gas station/truck stop/casino. Q checked the fluids and noticed that there seemed to be a major leak between where you add radiator fluid and the radiator itself. We

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-16659114988801935102012-11-01T07:06:00.002-07:002012-11-01T07:06:17.941-07:00

Waking up at 5:30, we warmed up the car. Suddenly, Quantum noticed smoke billowng up from the engine. An hour or so later it was determined it was the water pump. We called around and found that one guy could order a new pump for us. We could have it Tuesday! ACK! Today was Saturday. Fortunately another place had the pump in stock - a bit more expensive, but we couldn't afford to wait till

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-25722112344774475722012-11-01T07:03:00.002-07:002012-11-01T07:03:16.516-07:00

The first day of the journey passed easily enough. Quantum and I joked about the "historical markers" (which we never did seem but which signs for appeared every several miles or so) and the trend of some of the farmers to purchase the same maddening color of red paint. We figured some enterprising salesman had a huge vat of paint to sell. In Texas we also took note of the lack of actual "

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-13661400902105169572012-11-01T07:00:00.002-07:002012-11-01T07:00:52.157-07:00

Quantum arrived in Denver around 8 Tuesday night and I picked him up at the Loaf & Jug at 6:30 the next morning. (The bus didn't get into town till nearly 4am and he didn't want me driving in the dark.) He'd been gone an entire month, and it occurred to me that we'd had Karma longer with him away than with him there. Our first job was to get the cap on the pickup. The thing weighed a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-6619444820975410552012-11-01T06:56:00.000-07:002012-11-01T06:56:23.853-07:00

After having contacted several places, we finally found a home for the yaks. Grateful as we were to find them a new home, and not have to feed them anymore (since we were seriously running out of funds) it was heartbreaking letting them go. Sean, their new owner has about 250 head of yak in Alamosa. He's a sweet guy and they should have a good home with him. He wanted to learn their names,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-18243178573231242422012-11-01T06:52:00.001-07:002012-11-01T06:52:31.753-07:00

I'm not proud of myself about this incident, but such is life. With little money left to feed the yaks, we were selling everything we owned that we didn't absolutely need to take with us. Unfortunately very little of what we had was actually sales worthy. I managed to get $100 for the water tanks, $75 for the auger and $100 for the propane tanks. Way below what everything was worth, but we

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-45879721094382349582012-11-01T06:47:00.002-07:002012-11-01T06:48:24.827-07:00

After I ran out of gasoline for the heater and internet, M (and CK) had been nice enough to put me up "for two weeks," M said. A week into it, I was losing my mind. Besides our spending a day and a half hiding from the landlady, M had an enormously bad attitude He has an elderly (14 years old) dog, Bear, and he obviously had some fantasy that my dogs were sort of like his - laid back, barely

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-32837090747527945522012-10-31T17:26:00.004-07:002012-10-31T17:26:34.983-07:00

As if the the incident with the dogs wasn't enough, RY again called up CK's landlady and this time told her about the fact that there were three cats living there. At least we're pretty sure it was RY, since CK's cats stayed in his room, and no one but RY knew that they even existed except me and M, the roomie. CK's roomie had not informed the landlady about the cats. This didn't sit well

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-12050995927434048352012-10-31T17:22:00.006-07:002012-10-31T17:23:16.496-07:00

Back before we moved to CO, we'd had a jewelry making business, and as part of that had purchased a few hundred dollars worth of silver casting grain. During the fire, we lost it (along with everything else). We often talked about where it might be, but somehow, we had never braved the pile of ash, broken glass and twisted metal to look for it. As broke as we were, I needed to find the stuff.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-89173039817015344582012-10-19T13:14:00.000-07:002012-10-19T13:32:48.109-07:00

We thought we had found a home for the yaks. In fact it sounded so good that we let the guy lead us on for a full week. (He seemed to be having trouble with his phone.) So I finally got ahold of him and here's what he wanted: We give him all four of our yaks. He "takes care of them" then keeps two of them. The two he wanted were our breedable females, Yazoo and Yeti. Which would have been

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-63561142458287342412012-10-12T07:28:00.000-07:002012-10-12T08:16:21.599-07:00

Left to right, here's Zen, Karma and Bushi, sacked out on the bed. The biggest danger here is being licked to death or getting sleep deprived because of Karma's snoring. Thank you @KellyRipa for suggesting that I'm a gangster because I have three of the most wonderful, gentle and sweet dogs in creation. Now Raz here (ignoring the evil giant pit bull, Karma) just MIGHT be considered

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-62702838375350709442012-10-12T06:40:00.001-07:002012-10-12T06:40:28.489-07:00

Working Dogs Show Off at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital The dogs at the expo included police dogs, guide dogs for the blind and a one-eyed therapy dog who visits sick children at a hospital. Nice to see a program that teaches kids respect and love for animals.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-24835409547858849122012-10-11T16:36:00.000-07:002012-10-11T16:36:27.950-07:00

This isn't the first time RY's done wacky stuff. It's just the first time he's been caught flat out. Last winter our yaks got loose, and were missing for a few days. They went up to A's a rancher acquaintance (who we met because of the first time the girls got escaped) but in the meanwhile RY shows up saying that someone had called him around midnight sounding drunk and saying "this is

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-61424357163385189462012-10-11T15:38:00.000-07:002012-10-11T15:38:17.369-07:00

Is this how some pit bulls get bad press? I really hadn't wanted to talk about RY but... Because I can't afford gas for the generator right now, and the nights have been freezing cold, I've been staying with CK (our former roommate) and his new roommate M at their house in town. It's challenging being here with 3 dogs and 2 cats and I've had to go back and care for the yaks every other

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-61088309518387254642012-10-10T09:47:00.000-07:002012-10-10T09:47:59.117-07:00

I haven't even had a chance to write a post introducing our 3rd rescue pit bull, Karma. (I'' do that soon.) She's a wonderful sweet puppy, and we adore her, but one thing we found out...she doesn't like yaks. Karma the instigator. *sigh* The yaks had been on walkabout for about a month, so Karma had never met them. The coyotes were howling one night and we saw SOMETHING flash past in

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-59041709849013292302012-10-10T08:07:00.002-07:002012-10-10T09:54:38.411-07:00

As if trying to rehome the yaks wasn't traumatic enough, out dog Bushi developed a large hematoma (blood blister) as a result of last week's inadvertent yak vs. dog fight. (I'll post about THAT trauma in a future post.) Bushi really prefers to wear hot pink. This morning I spent my waking-up-should-be-drinking-coffee time attempting for about the 5th time in18 hours, to make one of CK's

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-28273825150809462472012-10-07T13:11:00.000-07:002012-10-10T09:55:39.492-07:00

Ferdie As I said in my last post, we were trying to sell the yaks. We're devastated by this. But now it's worse. We'd contacted the breeder who got Yazoo pregnant with Ferdie and hoped he could help us. He thought he could find a home for Yeti and Yonkers and would keep Yazoo and Ferdie himself. (And we'd hoped we could buy back at least those two once we return to Colorado. Yonkers

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-72452120522944954112012-10-07T12:23:00.002-07:002012-10-10T09:56:50.156-07:00

Just when things were starting to go well... I haven't been updating this blog because the changes have been coming too fast and we're still reeling with the punches. This May or so, Quantum's mom, "J" started exhibiting the symptoms of Alzheimer's related dementia. J lives in Florida, and since we moved here, the plan was for her to come out and be with us. She didn't have much keeping

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5824338563683909033.post-55258985362717111212012-09-01T12:48:00.001-07:002012-09-01T12:48:25.783-07:00

A correspondence between PETA and a woman who had planned (that's past tense, thank goodness) to leave her fortune to them when she passed. A Letter to PETA is a well-put answer to PETA's (imo) despicable treatment and villification of Pit Bulls and pitbull-like breeds. Friends don't let friends support PETA.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1