Comin' home

I'm heading home (as in the homeplace, where I grew up, got fed, nurtured, and spanked) on Sept. 12 and will stay through the 22. Can't wait to see my people! For those who want to bother my property while I am gone- don't even think about it. Down here in the south, we take tresspassin purty serious.

Be careful what you believe...

Thank you, Thank you, sniff, Thank you. This is the happiest day of my life! I am so proud to represent the people of potato country, the land of my father and my fathers father and my fathers mother and my fathers mothers father and my, well you get the idea...

Yesterday, I recieved the surprising news that I once held the title of Miss Idaho. The nice lady responsible for this lovely rumor has kindly spread the news over a number of years to hundreds of people- enough it sounds like that I may be truly famous one day. To think this could have continued to be my legacy for years to come- had I not been in a conversation with someone else while she was nearby and she overheard me telling them I was from Utah. "Utah?!" she says "how can you be from Utah- I thought you were miss Idaho!" Giddy with delight, I halfheartedly exclaim (as my head begins to grow) "Oh no, not me, I'm from Utah, but my dad's from Idaho. Where did you get the idea I was Miss Idaho? Goodness me (blushing, come on keep those compliments coming), I don't know where you would ever get such an idea!" She replies that she's been telling people that for all these years. (She has known me for 15 or so).
So anyway, I just felt I had an obligation to set the record staight, in case the news has drifted out to any of you (you know, the possibility this has made me famous all this time unbeknownst to me). I choose to live with integrity and do not want the world to think I am something I am not. Potatoes should never be represented by an imposter, so though I love potatoes dearly, I leave them to their true representatives, all the real Miss Idaho's, those past and future, who truly deserve this title. My final note would be to thank any of you who actually believed this or would have believed it had you heard it. Thank you for believing in me. I would feel even better if you would have believed I could have been Miss Texas or Miss California- not that I think Miss Idaho any less of a beauty queen, it's just that, you know, all those ones who became Miss America, well there are lots of Texas's and California's in there, you know...

What would you do if you hadn't eaten for two days?

Remember these adorable little boogers?

Well... they have grown into these kinda cool looking things called chickens.

They are neat, but can be a huge pain, especially since they are free range chickens (so far that is the plan anyway). They have acres and acres of woods filled with the most luscious of bugs and plants and everything a bird could want to feast on. But no, the greedy little things- they come right to my flower beds looking for who knows what and tear up all my hard work. They poop on my porches, and generally are just enjoyed more by me when they stay in their assigned territory. Which is never...

So anywhoo, to get to the point of my story- these little rascals won't leave the dog food alone either. When we feed the dogs, the chickens scurry over, fighting for every last morsel they can get those little peckers on. This would be a good time to explain that my dumb dogs just are no help at all in scaring these critters away- they just lazily watch the carnage without batting an eye. So we have decided that the dogs get fed in the evenings after the chickens go home to roost. Well, learning new habits sometimes takes time, and sad to say, the poor dogs have been forgotten a few times.

Yesterday, Joe asked Isaiah if the dogs had been fed, and it seems the dogs had gone without food for two days. So the lecture begins and goes something like this, Dad: "Isaiah, that's terrible. We can't forget these poor dogs. I can't do all the thinking for you. Now what would you do if you went without food for two days?" Isaiah: (matter of factly) "If I were them, I would just eat the chickens!"

Me: (silently in my own head of course) "Good answer! I could only hope the dogs would come to that conclusion someday- preferrably when the chickens are hard at work in the vegetable garden eating away at the tomatoes, or when they are in the flower bed digging up my newly planted flowers. 15 chickens should last about two weeks if the dogs shared one a day...