Do You Remember?

I asked my daughter once, several years ago now, what her first memory was. I was actually wondering if she remembered a time when her dad and I were together. Her answer shook me to the core.

"I remember asking you if I could sleep on the couch in the living room because I was afraid if I slept on the top bunk in my bedroom (which was on the second floor) airplanes might kill me."

I was home, on the computer. Tiff was at school. Tsu was at work. I was playing Bejeweled. Tsu and I were chatting over an instant messenger. He said, "A plane just hit the WTC." I assumed someone drinking and flying in a small plane. a few minutes later... "You really need to go downstairs and turn on the TV. It was an airliner. This couldn't have been an accident."

I turned on my old standby, Good Morning America. Diana Sawyer and Charlie Gibson were giving live reports, and as they looked at the cameras and each other i watched in utter disbelief as another plane flew in to the buildings. THEY weren't watching the monitors so it was a surreal moment as tens if not hundreds of people died before our very eyes in that second impact... and then the shock and fear in their eyes as they discovered another plane had hit.

I think I spent the next 36 hours glued to the TV. Peter Jennings kept me from flipping out for like 20 hours. Somewhere during the morning he got an ink stain on his hand. It sounds silly to me when I say it, but... having someone there for that long, giving me the updates, looking and sounding as confused and scared and angry by turns as i was feeling, and so human with that ridiculous ink stain on his hand... it held me together.

Mid-day the next day a group of military planes flew over our house super low. All over the news it was saying NO planes were in the air and the sound of those plane engines terrified me. We now live on a flight path for military aircraft, they fly over about 3 times a week here, and to this day my heart races and I freeze where I am when they go over.

At the time my favorite silly online web site was My Cat Hates You and two days or so after 9/11 they made a post in memory of two cats they know (their own? a friends? a relatives? I can't recall) that were trapped in the evacuated zone close to the WTC and presumed dead. Locked in an apartment, alone, without enough food and water to get by, their world coated in the dust of the lives of thousands of people. i completely lost it. Over those two dang cats. Cats I had never heard of or seen before in my life... commemorated on a silly web site.

Two cats who survived after all, as they stated in an update. Scared, hungry, thirsty.... but alive.

That is what I remember about 9/11/01. Peter Jennings with ink stains on his hands and crying for two cats.... and assuring my daughter that her bedroom was safe, even on the top bunk.

Goat stand, Mouse, gourds, horse braids, and hunting for a job... in reverse order.

This week I was going to start looking for a job, and instead I have spent days on the phone dealing with a completely unrelated and exasperating issue completely not of my doing. *le sigh* One of the towns fairly close to us has a "Michigan Works" office so I am going to make an appointment with them and see if I can get me a lil' job. My kid expenses are going up significantly as she enters the final three years of high school, and i want to buy a few horse things and I'd like to get our debt paid off faster than the 4 1/2 years we are scheduled on now. I might pay extra on the mortgage, i dunno. Plus I need the points for my social security. So we can retire to the mountains of tennessee and live off of our soc sec checks. lol.

Anyhoooo. I braided Brego's mane over. It's gradually been getting less and less tidy and part over here and part over there and part who knows where. So I braided it to one side after coating it with coconut oil. *grin* He is sooo not thrilled.



"Seriously? It has to stay this way for HOW long??"




GOURDS!!! Um, so far I have, out of about 40 plants (half hard shell gourds, half decorative small gourds) one single craftable sized gourd.



I have about 15 hard shells that are this size:



a few that are between (the largest of these is about 4 inches tall. it will make a cute snowman some day i guess):



and about 10 decorative gourds that are actually bigger than the hard shells. *sigh*





There is an itty bitty decorative gourd growing here, can you find it?



and now, here is our cat, Mouse, with her tongue sticking out:



And finally!!! Katherine, my hoof trimmer, is awesome. We chat like a couple of old hens when she comes to trim the horses, lol. I SO look forward to trim days, because I enjoy it when she comes by... Anyway, I mentioned a couple of trims ago that I needed a goat milking stand and she mentioned she thought her mom had one she might want to find a new home for. Jump forward a couple of trims and she brings the stand with her and sends me the news her mom wants the unreasonably high price of... hold on to your seat and get ready for it because this will BLOW YOU AWAY!!!! FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! *falls over*

So, um, yeah. I almost feel guilty for only paying her $15 for it, I would have insisted she take more but I didnt have any more cash on me.



it has wheels on the front and is super easy to move around. the support on the side keeps goats from wriggling their way off the side, as well as adding stability. It's covered in hoof trimmings in this picture, lol.

The front has like a keyhole opening and then a bar that drops down to keep their head in the narrow place until you are ready to let them out. It also has a bucket holder that one of my protein buckets that was emptied out fits into perfectly!!!

Front of stand, open for putting the goat in:



Closed to keep the goat from pulling it's head out:



I gave the goats their dinner on it and was able to handle the ladies teats, even Rosemary and Thyme, while they ate. There were some small fireworks but once the twins realized they were stuck they just hunched their backs up and ate. I may actually be able to milk them someday afterall!! lol. Today I trimmed their feet while they had breakfast. How have I survived since March without one of these????