Thanksgiving

As I write this I am still stuffed. Turkey, bread, green beans, cranberries, jello, and PIE. The best part about it is I saw my one and only cousin, Rachel. I must say, I haven't written much about her. She's in her early twenties, almost ten years older than me. But we're the only cousins we have, so we just make the best of it. Well, to make a long story short, Thanksgiving was good. Yum.

Pre-Order Your Ferrets

You will not believe what I saw at the pet store Saturday! We were at the little strip mall, and Mom was getting pizza. It was boring to sit waiting for the pizza to be ready, so I went to the pet store nearby. It's fun to look at the tropical fish in big tanks, the squealing mice, the adorable puppies, and whatever else they have. It's a locally owned store, so people give unwanted baby animals to them. Their stock fluctuates all the time. Someone had recently given them some parakeets, but that wasn't the best part. There was a sign that read: "Ferrets available soon-- pre-order now!" I asked about it and apparently someone was going to bring in some baby ferrets, and, for best results, the ferret should not be much older than six weeks. The ferrets are just a couple of weeks old now, but once they are old enough to be separated from their mother, there's only a two-week window (approximately) until they are too old to be adopted. If they sit around in a pet store for a few weeks, they will be too old to become good pets. So, the pet store is taking orders now. When the ferrets are old enough, they get dumped off at the pet store, where you pick yours up right away. I really want a ferret. They are really cute from what pictures I've seen, and I've read all about them from my pet care book (entitled Great Pets-- but it's copyright is 1976, so you probably won't be able to find it. I got mine at a library book sale some time ago). They can eat canned cat food and the book shows how to build a cage for them. I'm going to ask Mom and Dad about getting a ferret.

Act Like a Squirrel

Ah... Blessed peace. FINALLY, we finished storing up nuts for the winter. What did you think we were going to do with all the stuff from the garden? But, the summer vegetable season is over, you say. However, apples went on sale. Think of all the ways you can store apples, as long as they're on "super sale". Apple pie filling made in bulk and frozen, dried apples, applesauce, apple butter, the list goes on.

The garden turned out great. Here are some lists.

Frozen- grated zucchini, peas, carrots,

In Jars- pickles, strawberry jam, tomatoes, sauerkraut (yum!),

Dried- strawberries, herbs,

In The Basement- potatoes, onions,

This is only a sample of what it was like. It does get dull, you know, to snap the stems off endless heaps of herbs, shell innumerable peas, grate dozens of zucchini, and run apple after apple through the Apple-Peeler-Corer.

Well, I say this as if I was annoyed, but it's nice to have lots of homemade stuff. Soon, all the pumpkins will be ripe!

Sunday Fun

Today was fun.

First, we went to church. During fellowship hour, five people (more or less) said that I looked taller than my mom. You see, my mom is real short, and my dad is real tall, so nobody knows how tall I will be. Dad thinks I'll be six feet tall. Mom says I'll stop growing soon, and be short, like her. I don't know how tall I'll be, but I know I'll be taller than Mom. Well, when we got home, Mom insisted that we measure me. It's official. I'm one inch taller than my mom.

Well, in the afternoon, we watched Room with a View for the second time this week. Mom and I, that is. It's such a great movie. It's both silly and sweet.

For dessert tonight, we had some great cheesecake. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yum!

That's all. :-D

End-Of-Summer Report

Hello again. School's started. So, a quick end-of-summer report.

Sadly, my goldfish Forty-Niner died. He lived a long life for a goldfish. We went to Aunt Sue and Uncle George's farm for a while, and he died while we were away (no fault of the pet sitter, he was looking bad for a while).

At the same time that we were at the farm, we brought back Muriel. She was old enough to go without her mother, and we don't really have room for her.

Also, for a while Allie took care of Goldilocks. She loved her so much I let her keep her.

This year, I am taking Gymnastics classes, and, like last year, I'll be in Girl Scouts. I got made a patrol leader! I'm leader of the Palomino Patrol. Some of the girls wanted it to be the Rohirrim Patrol, but we decided it was too weird.

That's all. I'm having a good school year so far, and summer was a lot of fun.

The Garden

Did I mention that we have a huge garden? Mom planted most of it while I was still in school. Now, we have more vegetables than we can eat. We have: 25 huge zucchini (I told Mom not to keep five plants!), 3 pea plants, 2 cucumber plants, 5 tomato plants (each with several enormous tomatoes), as well as cherry tomato plants, 6 huge heads of lettuce, 2 broccoli plants, 6 heads of cabbage, and a few strawberry plants, plus more onions, carrots, and potatoes than we can count, not to mention herbs. Today ALONE I picked 6 zucchini, a bucket full of peas, 7 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, a head of cabbage, a bowl of strawberries, and I thinned out large heaps of little onions and carrots. I took large baskets of veggies to the neighbors. We're swamped in vegetables. However, Mom keeps up her "isn't it wonderful to have fresh vegetables" attitude. I don't know how she does it. For dessert tonight: zucchini drop cookies.

Inv'ation Req'd

Oh my gosh! I just had an amazing insight into the inner workings of the English language! How come people use abbreviations, like "req'd" for "required", but don't pronounce it that way, and instead say it out the long way? For example, for the word req'd, you'd say rek-ED, or just REKT. And we could have more of them, for investigate, you could have inv'ate said in-VATE. It doesn't make sense to me. Why not just give your mouth a rest and shorten it?

Summertime is Here!

School's out! It ended on Friday. I've been having a TON of fun. I'm going to the pool this evening with Dad. I signed up for the summer reading program this summer. I don't need it, of course, but I did anyway. The library can use it. I'm just in it for the prizes. I just put a batch of popsicles in the freezer. Allie's at the door. She wants to know if I can go to the park. I'm going to say yes.

Crazy Afternoon

Now, here is something interesting. Today, Dad is making dinner, for some reason. He says there's a recipe he wanted to try. Well, he asked me for some help on slicing cucumbers. He had brought home 3 big cucumbers. I have to leave- "Where's the mixing bowl?" he says.

That was Dad, and I had to show him where the mixing bowl was. Then he asked me where the dried mint was, and I told him that we didn't have any. He leaned his head against the cupboard door as if wondering what to do. He was saying "Dang, dang, dang," when I alerted him to the fact that we have fresh mint growing outside. Oh no- I just heard a crash!

The crash was Mary, breaking through the fence. It had a slight weak spot and when Mary saw a delicious bunch of plant outside the gate, she smashed through the fence. Muriel, her kid, didn't know what was happening and bleated for her mother to come back. About that time I raced outside. When I saw what happened, I grabbed the stake and chain I use for renting out goat time, and tried to grab Mary, but she was clipping along and I couldn't catch her until I was halfway into the street. I staked her to the ground, and Dad got Muriel. Well, at least it's quiet now. Oh great- someone's at the door.

Well, DAD answered it, because he got to the door faster than I could. It was two Mormons out with pamphlets, and when Dad got to the door, he innocently said "Oh! You guys! Can I have another one of those Watchtowers? The last one was really interesting!" Well, they didn't have any Watchtowers, because they were Mormons, not Jehovah's Witness. When they told him that, he said, "Oh. Oh well." kind of disappointed-like. When we got back to the kitchen, he said to me "Is my mask showing?" He was teasing! My dad is such a goofball. Oh no-- I heard a "AKKK!!" from the kitchen.

That was nothing much. Dad was squeezing a lemon, and he forgot about a cut on his hand. I think Dad wants some help with dinner now.

After dinner: I don't think I'll have as much fun ever again as I've had today. Dinner wasn't that bad. It was cucumbers in vinegar dressing, along with deli ham cooked in a skillet. There was also biscuits with stuff like lemon frosting in the middle. Not bad.

Mom's Ideas for My Summer

School is almost out, and Mom has big ideas for me this summer. Today, she asked me all about what I wanted to do this summer. This morning: "How would you like to go to swim classes this summer?" My answer: "I'd like that."(I was distracted with brushing Grizabela.) Lunch: "Do you think you would like to go to volleyball camp this summer?" My answer: "Sure, Mom." An hour ago: "There's acting camp this summer." My answer: "That'd be fun." Ten minutes ago: "I wonder if we could get a music teacher for you this summer." My answer: "I think I can manage with you helping me with the piano." (Mom is a piano teacher.) Just now: "The summer reading program at the library is starting next week. It looks fun. The theme is 'Travel the World-- Read!'." My reply: "Does it have good prizes?" As you can see, there's a lot of stuff Mom wants me to do this summer.

Running Poem

Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. So what if I haven't posted anything in a while? Well, now I'm twelve. And today an interesting thing happened. I will now proclaim in verse. I was contemplating writing it in Latin for a while, but I don't know how to say half the words. Well, here it is.

They called me skinny

They called me tall

They called me a bag of bones but that's not all,

They said that I was stupid

They said that I was ugly

But here it is and I'll be lucid-

They challenged me to a race

They thought they'd win- they laughed!

They thought they could make a fool of me

With their deceitful craft!

But I said "You don't know what you're up to,

I can run real fast too,"

They said "The race starts on my mark,"

With a nasty snark.

"Go!" it was yelled; we both started to run.

But I wouldn't give up; at me they would not poke fun.

Running, running, faster and faster!

My feet pounding

Faster and Faster!

I passed the finish line

I won!

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