Krazy Duck Lady?

My day started innocently enough, spent too much time on the computer and then realized I should accomplish something with my day.  Then realized that I didn’t have as much time as I thought and I had things I needed to do. 

One of my main goals this week was to go to my local grocery store and turn in my coupon for a free turkey.  I had to earn it by spending a certain amount in their store and tracking it.  I was so happy to get my coupon!  I went home and put it in a safe place.  You know those safe places, the places so wonderful that even you don’t know where they are!  Turkey Day came and went and I paid the full sale price for a medium-sized bird.  Then on Friday a miracle happened.  I found the coupon!  It was in a sensible place after all, well – somewhat sensible if you follow my irratic thought patterns….

I made a shopping list and went to the store yesterday.  It seemed really important that I go to the store but nothing on my list seemed that important.  It was then I realized that I had left my prized turkey coupon at home! So I got the rest of my items and went home. 

Luckily I didn’t need very much at the store today because I didn’t have much time, but my treasured coupon expired today!  I gave the kids tasks and told them to be ready to leave when I got back.  I got in the car, backed it up, got out of the car, went back in the house for the stinkin turkey coupon (but at least I remembered the safe place it was in) and headed out to the store again. 

I picked up the hot dog buns that I had also forgotten yesterday and headed to the meat department.  The mound of turkeys was missing.  My stomach sank.  I had mentally prepared for my second Thanksgiving dinner and the joy of eating it for free!  I summoned the courage to ask the butcher if they had any more in the back and sadly they didn’t.  They had put out the last remaining turkeys in pieces – a pack of legs, a split breast and packages of parts.  I hopefully asked if they had a bunch of turkey hearts in the back.  Perhaps I was a little too hopeful or maybe it was an odd request but he seemed to take a step back from me after that.  I quickly explained that it was for my dogs and he relaxed a bit.  That’s when he asked me if I had one of those “coupons”.  Seems like he had dealt with a few disappointed shoppers today hoping to score some free tryptophan. 

Then the best news – I could use the coupon as a gift card for $20.  Cool, what was I going to spend it on?  Just groceries or a splurge?  I looked around and thought about different things – filet mignon?  candles from the gift section?  or meat for pet food. 

I bet you can guess which one I picked!  And you’ve also been wondering about the title.  I chose to buy a duck and I’m going to grind it up for the cats.  I was so excited about this idea.  From working at Muddpuppies I knew that it’s important to rotate protein sources but my current budget is a little more suited to sticking with chicken.

Then I had my eureka moment – how much would it cost to raise my own ducks?  What does it take to raise ducks?  I’ve been playing with the idea of raising chickens this spring.  I like the idea of raising food for my family – both us and the pets, where I know what it was fed and what kind of life they had. 

From what I’ve read, I can raise ducks for about the same cost as chickens.  Chicken meat costs 99 cents a pound, duck $3.49 a pound.  Hmmm, I have to do a lot more research, but it looks like a yard with poultry is in my future!

New Cat Pictures

I’ve been uploading my rescue pictures to my facebook photography site lately and have been neglecting this blog.  I went back to Volunteer Humane Society last week and took pictures of everyone.  Here is a link to the pictures – unfortunately you have to have a facebook account to see them.  If you’re on facebook, become a fan of Kit Cat Photography to keep up to date on all the kitty faces!  If you’re not on facebook and want me to post kitty pictures here, please reply to this post and if enough people want me to, I’ll post them here too.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=264991&id=164861987359

Happy Turkey Day!

I know, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but things have been pretty boring with me and my pets.  And that’s not all bad!  Considering that I used to be a permanent fixture in my vet’s office and I haven’t picked a vet here yet, I’ll take boring.

I’m typing through a tryptophan coma so we’ll see how far we get.  I really should’ve posted something yesterday because it was cooking the turkey that made me think about posting again.  My husband was cleaning the bird and pulled out the neck asking what do we do with it?  Before I started feeding raw, I would’ve thrown that thing away.  In fact I once had a turkey neck in my freezer for a year because I was saving it for a friend who fed raw.  She finally convinced me to thaw it out and feed it to Jake and Lexi.  I honestly didn’t know if they would even eat it or know what to do with it.  To my surprise they gobbled it up!  (pun obviously intended)  It was the slow start of my gradual introduction to reluctantly giving my dogs raw food.

I still can’t believe how much I went into this dragging my feet and now I can’t imagine feeding my dogs any other way, and they are very happy about that!  Feeding the dogs is so easy, and less expensive than feeding a commercial grain free kibble.  I truly earn my title of Krazy Cat Lady.  It’s not that it’s hard, it’s just time consuming.

I’m now preparing food for them on a weekly basis.  The girls are gorging themselves on it and their allergies/irritable bowel issues are doing so well.  When I try to give them canned food they are tending to give it back (yuk).  The boys are coming around to eating more raw.  Max loves it and anything that I can get Max to eat, he’s gonna get.  He’ll be 17 in a couple weeks and I really never thought he’d get this far.  Every day I’m amazed to find him still alive, but as long as he’s interested in eating and doesn’t seem to hate life too much – Ok, I’m getting sidetracked about something I really don’t want to talk about  but is on my mind far too much.

So I was very excited last week when my local supermarket had a sale on whole chickens!  They were apparently overstocked because they were on sale and had another discount because the next day was the sell-by date!  I got some interesting looks as I checked out with 7 whole chickens.  We had one for dinner the next day (whole chickens are great in the slow cooker), one got ground up and the rest went into the freezer.  I’m really excited that I’m feeding 6 cats for around $5 a week!  (plus a few cans of food here and there when I don’t get enough thawed in time)

I’ve picked up some tips in my chicken grinding adventures.  Buy young birds, even if the bigger birds are on sale.  Those bigger bones are much harder to chop up.  Let the dogs eat the big bones, I’ll pay to chop up smaller ones!  Also it’s a bit easier when the birds are a little frozen.  Thawing in the refrigerator overnight is optimal.  The first few cuts will make your fingers pretty cold, but the grinder has an easier time and it seems easier to chop up the bones.

The good news is that I still have all of my digits although I did try to chop through the back of my finger last time and cut my nail in half.  This time I only bled a little and I was almost done grinding, so that wasn’t nearly as eventful as the big slice.

I hope that everyone had a great Turkey Day and is thankful for all of the four-legged blessings in our lives.

St. Louis trapping news!

Awesome article about a woman who I am proud to call a friend!
I hope that everyone takes time to read this and realizes that killing feral cats does not help the problem go away. The statistics speak for themselves!

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_30841081-bfe3-5924-83cd-8694d8e150c7.html

Me & my digits are just fine!

Sorry for the absence – it’s been a crazy couple of weeks around here.  I know that you guys were worried that I had actually killed myself in making more raw food for the pets, but I’m happy to report that I’ve ground up 2 more chickens without any injuries!  (well, the chickens probably wouldn’t agree) 

We had so much company – it was wonderful seeing everyone but it was a shame that it couldn’t be spread out more.  My sister from Milwaukee came to Boston for a conference, so she came a day early and got to see the new house.  Then I got lost in the rain driving her back into Boston and the next day I got a GPS.  I can’t believe I didn’t get one earlier – what an amazing invention, especially for people like me who can get lost in their own yard.  I used it to drive to Salem and back through all kinds of back roads.  We won’t talk about the fact that I still managed to get on the wrong highway ramp and had to turn around at the next exit, but at least the GPS told me where to make that U-turn!  And we really won’t talk about the time that I still got horribly lost trying to find a restaurant, but that wasn’t entirely the GPS’s fault.  I didn’t have the address plugged in and thought I had an idea of where I was going, but it got pretty ugly so we really won’t be talking about that!

So I did have a great weekend in Boston with some of my internet friends!  We’ve been talking for about a decade.  We’re all part of a national group called Mothers & More.  It’s a support network for moms in all stages of mom-hood and was a real life-saver when my kids were little and we were moving around a lot.  Now we talk about having teenagers and can get away for fun weekends.  A couple of the ladies have actually been out to the house to meet the infamous Jimmy. 

Ah, the infamous Jimmy earned the reputation of Ninja Dog during my last round of company.  My in-laws came to stay for a week and a bored Jimmy is a bad Jimmy.  We did a lot of sight-seeing.  We went to Rhode Island for a day, to Boston for the Freedom Trail, to Cape Cod and to Walden Pond.  Jimmy was home and getting more and more bored by all of this.  Add to that the week before was constantly raining.  So Jimmy got into trouble more and more each day.  One minute he’d be contentedly playing with his toys and the next minute he’d be bringing you something from a room he’s not allowed in.  Or we’d just hear him crunching on something and have to dash up to see what he had.

So now the company is gone and life is getting back to normal.  Jimmy had a bit of a better day today since I made raw food for the cats.  Lexi and Jimmy sat patiently watching me chop and grind the chicken knowing that eventually I would drop something, and they weren’t wrong!  And like little kids watching mom make icing, they got to lick the bowl!

I know it maybe sound gross to have the dogs lick the dishes – but it’s much easier and less disgusting to wash things that don’t have hunks of raw meat stuck to them.  And the dogs love it.  And it’s healthy for them.  And it’s good training – by holding the bowls and utensils while they lick, I’m reinforcing that I’m in charge and the giver of all things good.

Bad Boy!

Yup, this is a post about Jimmy!

Here he is posing with the carnage.  Our garbage can is temporarily residing in the hall closet until we get a more secure one.  It used to be that the garbage would get vandalized if there was something especially tasty in there, but lately it’s a nightly thing.  And it’s not like he’s starving; he’s turning into a bit of a chunky monkey!

Today I got the dogs out in a break in the rain.  Jimmy has seen our fence as a challenge that he knows he can solve.  He tests all of the posts daily and every so often he finds one that will budge enough for him to slip through.  Lexi never tries to escape, she’s a good girl.  But today, Jimmy managed to get the gate open and both dogs went for a little explore. 

They didn’t come when I called them, which really freaked me out because Lexi always comes right away.  I’m not sure where she was, but suddenly I had 2 very wet dogs!  It was drizzling a little bit and they ran past every little tree that was dripping.  So, when you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!  I grabbed my camera and we explored the woods at the back of our lot.

The overcast day was wonderful saturated light for doing close up pictures of the fall leaves.

Check out these wet puppies!  The smelled as bad as they look.  Boy did I wish that I could throw them in the car and drive to Muddpuppies for a bath!

I took a look at the wet dogs and decided to take a few more pictures in the yard.  I’m not usually a fan of hanging out in the rain, but it was too much fun capturing all of those raindrops!

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Irish got adopted!

In my last post I had a picture captioned “when Irish eyes are smiling”.  I had taken pictures of him during a training session and they helped get him noticed and led to his adoption.  That just makes my day!

So here are some pictures that I took yesterday of Maddie, another horse looking for a home.

Horsing Around

I spent the day at the barn yesterday taking pictures helping groom horses.  It was such a gorgeous fall day!

This horse plays a game – he makes you chase him around before he’ll let you catch him.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but once he had his fun, he was all kinds of sweet!

I like to call this one “When Irish eyes are smiling” – his name is Irish and I get to take pictures of him again tomorrow!

I also got to pet all the babies too!

He looks like a giraffe!

He looks so tough!  The babies have their own little herd, complete with the little horsie drama that always happens.  It’s nice seeing the younger foals standing up for themselves.  This little guy was telling the other guy – back off, I’m not taking any guff from you!Jasmine is so pretty!

They’ve grown so much, but are still such babies!  It was all, eat, eat, eat and then nap time!  I think I’ll hit the hay – literally.  After a 5-minute cat nap in the sun he was ready to play again.  Jimmy had to eat around him.

Dixie is a special little pony.  She was very weak and ill when brought into rescue and has had to wear special boots to help her feet heal.  She is a success story and after being on stall rest she got to go out and enjoy the sunshine!  Totally warms your heart!

Here she is in the morning light, feeling the wind on her face.

Playing with Pictures

Ok, time to experiment with putting pictures up on this new blog!

This is Izzy, one of the rescue horses.  Flymasks are funny!

This is Dixie.  She was severely injured when brought into rescue and was on stall rest.  Yesterday she was able to be on turn out again for the first time.  She looked so happy being able to feel the sunshine and taste the grass!

Then there’s Bobby, the Chincoteague Pony.  I just can’t stop taking pictures of him!

Don’t try new things on a Monday

There were so many possible titles for this blog and I apologize for the delay in writing it, but my finger has finally healed to the point where I can comfortably type again.

So possible titles:

Is it really better to cut yourself with a sharp knife?

People who think it’s better to cut yourself with a sharp knife haven’t done it lately.

I’m bleeding, but my cats are worth it.

Does adding my own blood to the raw diet improve it in any way?

Do my cats understand cursing?

Ok, in all seriousness I was able to convert a whole chicken into a big bowl of ground up grossness.  The good news is that my cats think that it’s wonderful.  The other good news is that Max doesn’t seem to throw up my homemade raw the way he does quite often with the prepared stuff (that’s a whole other category of grossness!)  So let me walk you through the 47-step process and try to spare you some of the mistakes that I made.

Step 1: Procrastinate and write a blog instead of getting started.

Step 2: Get all materials and ingredients out and have a natural smile on your face – this is going to be a fun adventure!

Step 3: Use the sharpest knife you own to try to hack the leg off of a chicken.  After mild cursing, hold the leg alot as if it’s the Olympic torch!  You have just achieved victory over the chicken!

Step 4: Put the leg into the meat grinder.

Step 5: Wait for something to happen.

Step 6: Nothing happens – smile leaves face, but you are not defeated yet!

Step 7: Try a piece without bone, it grinds just fine, decide that your meat grinder isn’t tough enough for bones and that you need a commercial grade grinder.

Step 8: Thoroughly wash your hands.

Step 9: Google commercial meat grinders.

Step 10: Pick jaw up off the floor after seeing the prices and google directions for the grinder that you have.

Step 11: Figure out that everything has to be cut up into inch square pieces.

Step 12: Google sharp knives.

Step 13: Look at bank account, find gift card for Kohl’s.

Step 14: Google directions to Kohl’s (I’m new here!)

Step 15: Put chicken in refrigerator, wash hands and get in car.

Step 16: Get out of car, go back into house and get the new street locator map you just bought because you don’t quite understand how that interchange in Leominster works (btw, don’t pronounce the “O” in Leominster if you don’t want to sound like a newbie!  And they don’t like when you do the Saturday Night Live accent ie: The Steve-ster, too easy to say Leo-minster”)

Step 17: Drive through areas that you think are probably right and sing along to the radio – today rocks!

Step 18: Nothing looks familar anymore, pull over and look at your map.

Step 19: Realize that you’ve driven off the map and are back in the boonies.

Step 20: Dry your tears and head back to where things look familiar.

Step 21: Notice the tiny little street sign blocked by a bigger sign and turn toward Leominster.

Step 22: Look in the mirror of the car before getting out – it wouldn’t look good to be purchasing a sharp knife with a tear-stained face.

Step 23: Shop for knives – find a good big sharp one and pick out kitchen shears because they’re half price if you buy a knife!  And since there’s a gift card involved, why not!

Step 24: Walk by the fall kitchen towels, pick out a pretty one.

Step 25: Walk by the men’s clothes, pick up a clearance swimming suit for your boy.

Step 26: Happily check out using the gift card.

Step 27: Pull out credit card – the gift card only had $15 left on it.

Step 28: Go to Cold Stone Creamery and buy an ice cream cake for the other child’s birthday – also using a gift card, that sadly only had $10 on it.

Step 29: Drive home, get lost twice.  This makes you too late for the school bus, but hopefully the boy child who fits into man-sized clothing can let himself into the house on his own.

Step 30: Get home, hide ice cream cake quickly and find no boy.

Step 31: Panic and realize that you have a message from the boy on the cell phone.   Message came in while you were in the boonies with no reception.

Step 32: Try to listen to the message while hubby calls and tells you to go get the boy at school, get grumpy, leave sharp new knife on kitchen counter and go get boy.

Step 33: Get home and get all supplies out again.  Reassemble meat grinder (parts were soaking in soapy water while you were gone)

Step 34: Re-reassemble meat grinder.

Step 35: Curse loudly, re-reassemble meat grinder.

Step 36: Slice chicken leg – the new knife cuts through the meat like butter.  With a little pressure, it cuts through the bones.

Step 37: Keep meat grinder grinding, chop chicken and feed through grinder.  Be amazed at how the knife and grinder cut through the bones!

Step 38: Talk to the girl-child and turn your head just a little.  Feel the knife go through your finger like butter.  See the top of your finger flapping around.

Step 39: Wash finger, scream “Bad Words” since it’s best not to curse in front of the children.

Step 40: Resume cutting chicken with paper towel wadded around your injury trying to keep it clean and stop the bleeding.

Step 41: Kids get hungry and ask if they really have to eat that.  Make real dinner for the family in between chopping chicken. 

Step 42: Finally finish the last bit of chicken in the grinder.  Mix it all together so there aren’t so many patches of organ meat or skin, YUMMY!

Step 43: Start cleaning the kitchen – this made a much bigger mess the first time than it will in the future. 

Step 44: Portion the raw chicken into ziplock baggies.  Run out of ziplock baggies, start using misc. tupperware.

Step 45: Actually offer the new raw food to the cats.  They dive right in and it’s all worth it.

Step 46: Take the cap off of a beer, sit with feet propped up and drink – repeat.

Step 47: Let your finger heal all week and finally write a blog about it!