Treegans.com: the continuing adventures of KC and Dooz - two vegans living in the woods

another day, another trip to the vet

Our girl Rosie has been keeping us busy recently.  About one month ago she came down with a case of bronchitis.  Two weeks later, "Typhoid Rosie" developed kennel cough.  (Yes, there is a bordetella vaccine that she's required to take every six months - but it only limits the symptoms, rather than prevent contracting the illness.) 

Her cough, while not as frequent, is now lingering into a third week, so she's headed back to the vet's office today for another exam and chest x-rays to make sure there's nothing else going on.

Poor little girl - it can't be fun coughing for a month.  We're hoping she'll beat this soon!

how many days till spring?

We arrived back home on our trip from Texas to find that our "reliable" snow plow contractor was anything BUT reliable.  Despite two phone messages and a follow-up email telling him when we'd return, we arrived home with a couple of feet of four-day-old snow covering our 1000 foot driveway.  Lovely.

Unable to drive to the house, we parked at a neighbor's place and hiked in through the snow, at times nearly waist deep. This was definitely not the way we envisioned our trip ending.

When we called our snow plow guy's office number that night, an outgoing message now referred residential customers to two other contractors - neither of which had the equipment to handle our job.  Perfect.  With help from our friends, the internet, and the yellow pages, - we tracked down a couple of folks who were willing to help.

The first to arrive got about 100 feet into the driveway and determined there was simply too much snow for him to handle.  Next, we spoke with All Season's Landscaping in Landenberg, PA.  Super helpful, understood our situation, and wanted to make sure we got what was needed as quickly as possible.  They placed a call to a related contractor, and within a couple of hours the calvary arrived - in the form of a front-end loader.

So now we're a few hundred dollars poorer, but free to come and go as we please.  Hooray!  Needless to say, our snow plow contractor has been fired. But we let him know that he should use us as a reference.  We're more than happy to tell anyone who'll listen all about our experience. 

the winter of our discontent

We, along with the rest of the Mid-Atlantic region, are getting pummeled by a major winter snowstorm.  We've had a lot of snow this winter, but the Super Bowl Weekend storm is turning into the biggest snow producer of the season. 

We'll take pictures of the scenes as the weekend progresses - you can view them here in our snowstorm photo album.

first snow of the season

We received our first snow of the season yesterday.  Nothing more than an inch or so fell down here near the Delaware border.  It's just enough to be festive, with minimal annoyance. 

Sounds like a great greeting card: "Keep it festive, but don't annoy me.  Happy Holidays."

early spring?

We know it's only the beginning of February, and Punxsutawny Phil has a monopoly such things, but today we discovered our own indicator of an early spring - when no fewer than half a dozen bluebirds appeared on our property.

In our world, if a bluebird sees his shadow on February 1st - spring's gotta be right around the corner!

is that a mouse in your air filter, or are you just happy to see me?

A routine service appointment on Rick's car quickly turned ugly when the dealer called and said: "We found a mouse living in your air filter.  It chewed through the filter and most of your spark plug wires."

Apparently this mouse was slowly eating Rick's car like he was a contestant on a bad reality show. 

We're sorry to report that the mouse was unable to survive on a diet of "genuine GM parts".  Please join us in a moment of silence for the loss of our friend, and for the several hundred dollars worth of automotive parts and labor he digested on his way to mouse heaven.

sioux chef needed

We spotted this gem at a restaurant right around the corner from the house, as we were making our first commute of 2008.  KC snapped the picture on her cell phone and has been passing it around ever since.  She's gotten some hilarious responses to this photo, such as:

"Maybe they're looking for a Sioux and spelled 'chief' incorrectly."
"Tell them to fix that sign, or you'll sous!"

You're encouraged to write your own punchline in the comments section...unless you're a striking member of the Writers Guild.  Enjoy.

rain! delicious, mouthwatering rain!!

For the time since our new landscaping was completed nearly three weeks ago, we received measurable rain at the house, as a line of thunderstorms rolled through the area Wednesday night.  The storms were followed by another round of soaking rains on Thursday, providing a temporary break from the daily task of watering the new trees, while freeing up time to do something else...ANYthing else!

Temperatures dropped down to the upper 40's behind the storm front, offering a perfect opportunity to fire up our gas-burning fireplace for the first time.  Fall has officially arrived in Treegantown.

That YMCA membership starts paying off

During the course of a fairly typical summer thunderstorm Monday night, the power goes out.  We've come to expect this sort of thing in our brief experience here, but power is usually restored rather quickly. 

Fast forward to 4:30 AM on Tuesday (yes, that's what time we get up in order to be at work by 7:00).  Still no power.  No coffee.  No water. 

Crap.

Luckily, the local YMCA we joined two weeks ago HAS power.  They even have coffee.  And what better way to get to know your new neighbors than with an uncomfortable group shower? 

As it turns out, there aren't many people showering at the local YMCA at 5:00 AM.  And that's a good thing...we think.

what is that coming toward us?

more adventures driving home from the CSA.

on the 2-lane road on which i'd previously encountered an amorous wild turkey, this time we see something running down the middle of the road towards us. we slow down and realize it's a goat. a female. with two tiny white baby goats behind. they're trotting straight for us, bleating. the car behind us stops, too, and we all wonder what to do. the goats stop just short of our car and mom nosed the little ones off of the road. a large pickup truck pulled up behind all of us and started honking. the goats took off in the opposite direction, the truck pulled around us and sped by, honking the whole time. the goats turned up a driveway and we followed them. a number of people were standing outside, apparently wondering how to get the goats back. the 3 goats ran right to an older man, and he picked up one of the kids, waving to us and yelling "thank you!"

not really knowing what to do after that, we looked at each other, got into the car, and drove off.

goats. a mom goat with two tiny babies. running down the middle of the road. around 11:30 saturday morning.

we're afraid to see what we might encounter next!