Old Rusty Stuff

Love the old rusty stuff that has a story, some of these are finds from wandering
around here looking at the ground, couple old harness hardware pieces from up in the barn,
and old rake heads that can be repurposed for lots of things.
Have a large rake head saving to make a wine glass holder,
just need to find the right base.

Need to get busy painting the wall on the right
since I scraped all the peeling paint off, projects, projects .....

Mud Boots .... A Good Thing

I am so tired of wearing my mud boots in the summer, but after mud came foxtails, so boots protected my socks.  Last night I spent an hour chasing Bella around from pasture to pasture trying to bring her in to feed her.  Kinda awkward when you just stuff your toes into old tennis shoes and don't lace them up.  Tonight I decided to be proactive and put her on the porch before she got away.  So I fixed the dog food pans, gave the dogs their food and went to put empty cans in the recycle bin.  Kept hearing a very strange buzzing noise, thought it must be the solar motion center light that did not come on.  No, went and got the flashlight ........ it was a 3 ft + RATTLESNAKE, trying to hold flashlight and shovel and get snake, snake won and got away.  There is only about 20 ft between my back door and the building behind the house, and now there is a RATTLESNAKE loose in the area.  But sure glad I was wearing my mud boots.  The doggy door is now closed and locked and a shovel is right by the back door.  And believe me tomorrow morning when I go out I will be wearing those big clunky mud boots.

at least I can see Bella in the dark

Close to Fall

Much cooler weather this morning, nice light breeze in the air, so much nicer than last few days when it was already hot at chore time.  Heard the familiar honking of Canadian Geese, looked up to see a flock of 7 flying south.  Can't wait to start planting cool weather veggies, lettuce, chard, brocolli, sugar peas and snap peas.  Only problem I had last year with the peas is I never had enough to cook.  Everytime I would go water I would pick them off the vines and eat them right there.  Guess I should plant more vines.

Sloppy Concrete Work

When I moved here I noticed some sloppy concrete work in a couple of places.  Now I am thankful for the sloppy concrete and want to add more.  I hate trimming feet on sheep and goats, and if they are kept on soft ground their feet need constant trimming.  The sheep in the pasture with the sloppy concrete never need their feet trimmed.  Previous owner used a concrete culvert pipe about 2 ft tall, filled the center with concrete and made a nice water trough, then dumped left over concrete about 2 ft around the outside of the pipe, leaving a rough surface.  Anytime the sheep go to get water they are wearing their hoofs down on the rough concrete.  This could also be done at gates or alleys where stock moves back and forth.  Ahhhh another project on the to do list.

%$%^#%^%$^$% SHEEP

 2 new lambs last week, both rams, went out this morning 2 more lambs, both ewes, went out tonight ............lambs everywhere, there are now 7, finally figured out who belongs to who, now I just hope one of the moms figures it out tonight, one was with this mornings lambs and one was way out by the road by itself, it was checking out the roll of wire to see if it was his mother. Checked on them a bit ago and looks like one of the other moms is willing to accept the one I found out by the road. There is one ewe out there that could use a skate board under her, think I will be getting some milk replacer Tuesday morning.

Naming Things

Had to update my blog name here ............ Dropped one of the "D's" since I found an old reprint of the newspaper and it's name was spelled Tidings.  All other postings remain the same.

The reason for the name Tombstone Livestock ........... there was an owner here previous to the one living here when I purchased it whose nephew worked for a cemetery and saved the temporary grave markers.  These markers look like they were made out of a single bag of concrete and have the name of the deceased and the year they were born and the year they died, just the year, no month or day.  There must be 75 or more here somewhere.  A lot of the markers I have found are from the '70's and '80's, however there has to be some here that are a lot older.  There are 16 of them alone that make up the 2 bottom steps before the concrete steps to my front door.  I have also made a patio out of some of them.  And, I used 2 broken ones outside the crawl space door in case anyone ever has the desire or need to crawl in under the house. The apartment out back was build on them instead of a foundation, and one of the barns is built on them.   The apartment was built prior to 1948 because there was a local water color artist that painted a picture of my house from the hill above, and it is published in his book and the painting is dated.  I assure you no one is buried under any of them.

The reason for the name Tombstone Tidings .......... my grandmother used to write articles for a local paper in the early 1900's and as I remember Tidings was part of the name of the paper.

And then there is the reason I named the Border Collie Dollar ........ our first Border Collie was named Penny, the next one cost more so we named her Nickel, well at my age I don't have time to run thru the rest of the pocket change so I skipped right to Dollar.

Trips to the Mailbox

Lately AARP has been sending me a new membership card monthly, I don't reply, so another month goes by and here comes another membership card.  Now I did join AARP long time ago, didn't read their magazine, didn't find any benefits that I just could not live without so I never renewed.  Now why don't they get the idea that I am not interested. 

Another annoying bit of mail was all the address labels I get.  I finally started replying without sending money asking to be taken off their mailing lists.  I have enough return address labels that will last me way beyond my years left here on earth.  I have even used them to identify my books, casserole dishes, anything I need to get back and yet I still have an abundant supply.  I have ones with dogs, cats, snowflakes, lady bugs, frogs, flags, flowers, whales, butterflies and I can't remember the rest.  I sent 23 requests in one month to 23 different charities asking to be taken of their lists.  I think they are finally getting the message.  I will only need more labels should I decide to move and that is not likely.

I take the Sunday paper only, just cause it has the store ads, not that I want to buy anything from them but once in awhile I do.  But then on Tuesday I get a mailbox full of paper that I just drop in the recycle bin, one is CVS Pharmacy, but then I read that one on Sunday, oh and then, all the pizza coupons, from Pizza Parlors that I don't care for their pizzas plus they don't deliver way out here beyond the sidewalk.

Every week I fill a large bag or two of just junk mail or advertisements I don't want.  Now there is a place where we could save a tree or even a forest.

I forgot ... semi monthly I get a card from the Neptune Society for me to set up and appointment to make arrarangement for my cremation.  Do they know something I don't.  Every other month they are pushing me to make that decision.

September has arrived

I can tell by the gunshots, today is opening day of Dove season.  Can't believe it is September already, where has the time gone.  Soon it will be time to carve the pumkins for Halloween, Thanksgiving Turkey dinner, and then comes the Christmas tree and before long everyone will be singing Old Lang Syne.