A Big Butt Problem

Posted June 11th, 2013 by kerri and filed in small house living
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If you’re of a cer­tain age, you will most likely remem­ber the tele­vi­sion ads of the 1970s that showed the Native American cry­ing over the trash left in what was a pris­tine setting.

A child of the 60s and 70s, I was taught young to try to con­serve energy by turn­ing off all of the lights in the house when I wasn’t in a room and not to litter.

That’s why it is so mad­den­ing to walk down our road with the dogs tak­ing in as much unspoiled nature as pos­si­ble and see trash.

On a half mile stretch of our road yes­ter­day, I picked up no less than a half dozen newly tossed cig­a­rette butts and the rem­nants of a blown out bal­loon on a string.

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A Tale of Two Turtles on World Turtle Day

Today is World Turtle Day, so I think it’s fit­ting that we were able to save a box tur­tle yesterday.

Dale called me yes­ter­day morn­ing and said, “I have a box tur­tle in a box.”

Ok, I’ll bite. “Why would you have a box tur­tle in a box?”

He was in our bath­room, and I’m going to bring him home and let him go.”

In your bath­room at work? That’s weird,” I said.

Better than the skunk they found in there a few years ago,” he replied.

It was a fine idea to bring the tur­tle here, con­sid­er­ing that there are busy roads all around his job and not only that, he works with some really imma­ture and evi­dently cruel people.

Some of the other men at his work tossed a huge snap­ping tur­tle around a cou­ple of years ago until it died.

When I told a friend about this, she said, “Grown men?” Yes. Sadly.

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Working for the Weekend, Not Through the Weekend

Posted May 21st, 2013 by kerri and filed in small house living
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Our cove as look­ing from the lake's main channel

 

You know the old song, “Working for the Weekend”? Operative word is for, not through.

I have never been the one to answer the call of house­work when there is some­thing else I could be doing, and this past week­end was no exception.

On Saturday, we did have to go and do gro­cery and bank errands early in the morn­ing, but we got side­tracked as well vis­it­ing a cou­ple of antique stores and pawn shops. We rarely buy any­thing, as we didn't on Saturday, but I still like to go “junking.”

On Sunday, we had a zil­lion things we could have been doing around the house – spring clean­ing, fin­ish­ing the clothes rota­tion, laun­dry, yard work, installing the win­dow air unit…the list goes on.

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Snake Bit

Posted May 17th, 2013 by kerri and filed in small house living
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Sade with Dale and Kerri /Photograph by Kevin Pieper for Mother Earth News

 

I have a new the­ory: All I have to do to ensure one of our Six Pack gets hurt is start a big project.

Tuesday, I was rotat­ing the closet from win­ter to sum­mer clothes. It was unbear­ably hot that day; we hit record highs in the 90s, just two days after hit­ting record lows.

I heard Dale pull into the drive and Sade run off of the deck to greet him. She loves lying in the sun on the deck. About 5 min­utes later, he called for me to come outside.

I climbed over the moun­tain of clothes ready to be packed away and found him stand­ing with a shovel over a snake.

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