The Three Amigos... Sage, Dixie & Wingnut!!!

Blustery day here, the tall pines have been swayin' back and forth all day in the breeze. No rain yet except for sprinkles, but we're due for rain this evening, maybe snow once the temp drops enough. Can't wait, the rain is LONG OVERDUE, been in drought conditions here for three months or more, with luck this inbound storm will be the first of many. Guess I'll FINALLY put those two bags of sugar to good use: I bought 'em months ago, after I read that sprinkling sugar on the lawn before a decent rain will increase microbial activity in the soil. WTF, I'll give it a shot, two bags of sugar won't exactly break the bank, and I've wasted more money in the past on hare-brained schemes. The way the soil looks now, I reckon it may be another season or two before I get the yard looking the way I want it. I sank hundreds of dollars into it last year, throwing down heaps of fertilizer and six tons of screened topsoil, but the "lawn" looks worse now than when I started, LOL. Hopefully the rains come and the yard goes off this spring... didn't do a damned thing last year except brown out and die, 10-4??? Soil up here is acidic and it's hard to get things to grow... if I ever grow dope up here it'll be in a raised bed, or in a closet in the house, LOL.

FUNKY GAME LAST NIGHT, BUT ALABAMA WON AFTER ALL... THOUGHT GEORGIA WAS GONNA WIN FOR AWHILE.

There are much better things to do with two bags of sugar than just pouring it out onto the lawn.

All that sugar would do in my yard is attract more hives of ants.lol

HaHa, I copy that, nice still, my friend Doug the Moonshiner would be happy with that setup, LOL. He has a pretty good still himself, a bit smaller so he can cook batches of shine in his kitchen. Hey, we FINALLY got some rain & snow here, the ground got a good soaking last night before the rain turned to snow... still snowing now but it's pretty light, not much sticking to the trees or ground. I took a couple of pics so y'all can see what little snow we have, LOL.



That last shot shows Crackhead scratching his head while chillin' in the cat cave behind the dragon... that old piece of furniture has been in my family for decades, the mesh is a bit thrashed on one side but the kittehs still like the cat cave, I deliberately leave the shelf empty (except for the dragon) so the kittehs can crawl back there and hang out.

Had a fire in the wood stove last night, and it didn't take long for the kittehs to join me in the living room... those kittehs are no dummies, they know how to take advantage of the wood stove, LOL. Check 'em out:



Don't mind the cat toys, got about two dozen cat toys strewn throughout the house, LOL. Oh, yeah, the pot & pan ya see atop the wood stove are filled with water, a trick learned from an old school local to humidify the house, otherwise it gets too dry with the heat. The process ruins the pots & pans, the insides get too scaled out for use in the kitchen anymore, but no worries, these are two old numbers I readily sacrificed for the purpose... meh, the world needs humidifiers, and this is how it's done in the White Mountains.

Some more pics of the kittehs, starting with Crackhead inspecting the poor sewing job on my Chinese AC/DC slippers from Walmart, LOL. Toes are already blown out from wearin' the slippers in the yard, I'm gonna hafta try to sew 'em together again myself, or use an industrial stapler to staple 'em back together, 10-4?



Wood stove got too hot for Jingle Belle, so she relocated to a dining room chair... I still gotta recondition those chairs, another project for this spring. Last two shots show the sky and forest after the storm, mountain air is even fresher than it usually is, LOL. Might hafta get outdoors today and take a hike or a bike ride, sure is beautiful outside and the temp is slowly but steadily climbing...

The AC/DC slippers have about the same lifespan as the $1.00 with free shipping gun brushes! They are all show, no go. Imagine breaking down on Rim Road and having to walk home in em?

That would be painful... hey, check out the "license plate boots" on one of the dancing bears I saw yesterday!!!



I reckon those license plate boots will last longer than my Chinese AC/DC slippers from Walmart, LOL. Don't know how comfortable they'd be while hiking the Rim Road, but they'd certainly outlast the slippers. I know I told y'all that I would start photographing some of the carved wooden bears up here in this area (must be hundreds if not thousands, don't know where to begin), but these bears were made of metal and they incorporated old license plates, LOL. Not really my style, I like the carved wooden bears better, but whoever made these is definitely creative. I liked the painted wolves all over the property, there's one on that box in the last photo... owner had wolves peeking out from bushes and trees everywhere, 10-4?

Had to drive to the Wells Fargo branch office in Pinetop yesterday, so I figured I'd stop and feed the birds at Rainbow Lake, which lies on the way to Pinetop, just a short one-block detour off AZ260. This lake has access issues since it is mostly surrounded by private property, but it has a public boat ramp and fishing pier, though the pier is in shallow water so I don't know how good the fishing is. I don't visit this lake that often, since I have two equally-beautiful lakes closer to my house, and they have trails along their shores. Anyway, I took the last of a can of stale Planter's Peanuts to feed the birds---topped off the can with Rice Krispies & Cap'n Crunch cereal before leaving the house, aye? Well, I arrived at Rainbow Lake and saw a number of birds sheltering under and alongside the pier... the birds started paddling away as I approached. However, once I walked out on the pier and started slinging peanuts & cereal on the water to either side, the birds swarmed toward me and started grabbing the floating snack items, LOL. Birds all across that end of the lake rose and started winging their way toward the pier once the feeding frenzy began... soon I was surrounded by around 200 birds, all squawking away and jockeying for peanuts & cereal, it was like a scene out of "THE BIRDS" with Alfred Hitchcock as director, only the birds weren't pecking me or gouging out my eyeballs, LOL. We had small grayish-black birds, colorful ducks, big ol' Canadian Honkers, it was an impressive assortment... had it been a survival situation, one of those Canadian Honkers would've wound up roasting in the oven in my kitchen, LOL. No worries, I was merely feeding my little feathered friends, some of 'em not so little as y'all can see from these pics:



It gets better too, be right back with more pics, LOL.

Round #2 of Rainbow Lake pics:



Pretty cool, huh? I told y'all there's heaps of wildlife here in the White Mountains, LOL... I can't get enough of it, 10-4?

Watching "MAN IN THE WILDERNESS" with Richard Harris, made in 1971... they still made good movies back then, not so much globalist propaganda being spewed by modern directors & producers. Anyway, here are a couple more Rainbow Lake pics:



Kittehs dreamin' of savory, mouth-watering roast duck & geese:



And of course Crackhead had to pull his "Snoopy the Vulture" impersonation: "DUDE, WE CAN USE THE BBQ!!!"



"C'MON, SIDEWINDER, LET'S START GRILLIN' THOSE DUCKS & GEESE!!!"

Uh-oh, looks like my cheap BBQ cover got torn in the recent winds... I'll hafta get on the Internet and see who makes a good heavy-duty BBQ cover, something outta duck canvas or an equally-tough material. No pun intended with the duck canvas line...

One more round of kitteh pics:



Yesiree, life is rough when you're a cat here at the ol' hacienda, LOL. Same for me, since I was born in the Year of the Tiger (Oriental Zodiac), it's Friday night, and I'm working on a 4L bottle of rotgut vino mixed with 7-Up in wine coolers. Got tired of beer, decided to relive my "high school daze" with this cheap wine & soda... we only drank this cr@p back in the day when the gals wanted to drink wine coolers, 10-4? We used to buy some rotgut vino called "Spanada" and mix it half-and-half with 7-Up and toss in some ice, couldn't find any Spanada so I had to settle for this Carlo Rossi Sangria... high-dollar vino at $10 per 4L bottle, LOL. I kinda miss the ol' Spanada cr@p, I suppose "Spanada" was a contraction of "Spanish Armada"---the label had a cheesy Spanish galleon on it. Had the label been historically accurate, the galleon would've been SINKING AND ON F#%$G FIRE, LOL. Anyway, if this high-dollar Carlo Rossi rotgut vino hits the mark set by Spanada back in the '70s and early '80s, I should be puking buckets by 2100 hours, AYE???

ALRIGHT, YOUSE KNUCKLEHAIDS... ER. I MEAN YOUSE HEROES, TIME TO GET PLASTERED AND WATCH THIS FLICK ON THE 65" CURVED SCREEN, IT'S A $H!TTY JOB BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT!!! OLD CT, I'LL TAKE A BONG HIT O' CHRONIC HERE SHORTLY IN YER HONOR, LOL. CHEERS!!!

Kittehs are bored, action is slow in this Vikings game...

Those kittehs probably slept right through that last play of the Vikings game which will live on in football history. In Philly back in the 70’s we had the Miracle at the Meadowlands. I guess we saw the Miracle in Minneapolis today. What a finish.

Yeah, the game got better in the second half, and that final pass was amazing, just right on the money... I thought the Saints were gonna win there for a moment, but that pass by Keenum (?) was perfect, and the reception wasn't bad either, LOL. Should be a good game next weekend when the Eagles host the Vikings... that'll be a great matchup.

Found Boo in the sink again this morning. Going to leave some water in it tonight.

Good name for a black cat... if I had to rename Jingle Belle, I guess I'd call her Midnight, since she's entirely black. Crackhead would still be Crackhead, there's no better name for him, LOL.

Bad news, Boyz... the absolute worst. I lost Jingle Belle this evening, she accidentally ingested some sort of poison, maybe a toxic plant, I don't know, but I had to watch her slowly fade away despite all my ministrations and efforts. Poor Little Jingle Belle, she was barely over a year old, and so full of life... sweet cat too, I'm really cut up about losing her. She was a ray of sunshine in a life that has been full of bad news lately... hopefully the bad news will pass, but I'll never have my Jingle Belle back again. I did everything I could to ease her pain and make her comfortable, but to no avail... she must have ingested too much of whatever killed her. Thought she might pull through there for awhile when her breathing seemed to improve, but then the convulsions set in and now she's gone. I had her atop a folded towel while she was alive, some water nearby to freshen her lips and soothe her brow, wipe away her tears and clean her up as best as possible during her ordeal. Poor Little Jingles, I'm gonna miss her so much... damn this rotten world to hell. At least I gave her a good year, running free in the forest... and I'm gonna miss her troubling me for water from the faucet in the bathroom. Same bathroom where she died, poor little thing... now I gotta get some rest, that was a long heart-wrenching ordeal. Tomorrow I have the sad task of looking after her one last time. Final resting place for Jingle Belle tonight...




R.I.P., JINGLE BELLE, I'LL LOOK AFTER YOU TOMORROW, LITTLE DARLIN'...

Well, Boyz, soon I'll transport Jingle Belle out to the wilderness and pick a good spot for her... I'd bury her here in my yard, but I don't think my broken heart could bear the daily reminder of her loss. Jingles loved to roam the forest and sun herself where the light shone down through the trees, so I'll find a beautiful spot where she can roam the spirit world and sun herself as she so loved to do. A pretty spot for my pretty little girl, now lying stiff as a board and awaiting burial by my hand.

Hers was a joyous life---there's no other word for it---every morning when I let the cats out, she would eagerly & happily make her way into the yard to chase birds, roam the 'hood, and live the wonderfully free life of a cat in the White Mountains. Yesterday her path crossed with some evil substance which robbed young Jingle Belle of that joyous life... damn that evil substance to hell. It was heartbreaking to watch her slip away despite every effort to save her, and knowing how many long years she might have had ahead.

She fought hard too, struggling to stay alive even as the horrible convulsions gripped her, but the demon poison was too much for her... all her energy and all her will to live were not enough. I've seen a lot of death in my time---good friends, family, me own beloved mum two years ago, and quite a few deaths on the road---but this one has hit me pretty hard, I gotta tell ya. How many deaths does a man have to witness before he can't take any more? I feel so empty with Jingle Belle gone, but I know I have to carry on and move forward despite my grief. My two remaining cats need love and attention too, but today I have to bury my sweet Jingle Belle.

I already prepared her for her final ride in the Camry, I placed her in the cardboard cat carrier given to me when I adopted her, she's lying flat just as she was when she breathed her last. I guess I'll bury her that way too, all I have to do is get cleaned up, don my work boots, throw the shovel in the trunk of the car, and lift Jingle Belle in her cardboard box and arrange her for her last ride. I already cleaned the mess left after the ordeal, I'll do the laundry later when the burial is done. Damn, I'm gonna miss my sweet little Jingle Belle, but this task has to be completed: she's my responsibility, in death as in life, and I won't simply toss her to some cold disposal facility.

I'M OFF TO GET CLEANED UP AND HANDLE THIS SAD TASK... R.I.P., MY SWEET LITTLE JINGLE BELLE, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU...

OMG...
Condolences on the loss of your little buddy.