Not so typical morning

After explaining to you the day I witnessed in the Big City, I thought it would be funny to consider what a City Person would think about one of my days.  The moment I start thinking along these lines, I start having anything but a typical day.

Man In Charge off to work.  There is not a lot that I do to make that happen, I just witness it.

I really do love all that you do for me Man in Charge.

Next, I try to wake up my Full-Timer.  The semester is over, and it is not an easy task these days.  It is almost like she is in a coma.

In the mean time, I start cleaning up the kitchen a little because not everything got done last night.

blah...not a favorite chore.

After making three trips to drag my Full-Timer out of bed, she finally shows up.  I ask if she can let the dogs out because they are still waiting on me.

Belle, my sweet little beast, must have been doing her real job, which is watching for the cat.  The minute the door was open she took off screaming around the corner.  She looks happy here, but she can sound vicious when she is in hot pursuit of the cat.  By the time that we realized what was happening, she was gone.  She was out of the yard and heading down the street.  Mind you, I have had no coffee at this time.  I haven't even made the coffee yet.  I also have no shoes on, but am forced to go after this little monster. 

The minute she hears my voice, she know she is in trouble.  She stops and turns back round. The only problem is that she has someone that completely looks up to her, following right behind her. That someone should under no circumstances, ever leave the yard.  At the moment that they meet in the middle of the road, they both know that they are in big trouble.  Belle comes back to the driveway and stops.  She knows she is getting a spanking, but she will be damned if she is going to walk all the way back to the house to get it.  Flower, on the other hand, takes a more practical approach.  She decides to just come back into the yard and do her business.  Acting as if she has no idea what my problem is, and, "Oh, hey!  What are you doing out here?  Are you mad?  At me?  What's the problem?  I was just hanging out with Belle."  After they get their lectures, they both head to the house like nothing has happened, and, "Oh, by the way, what's for breakfast?"  This is only made funnier by the fact that I have a third dog.  A dog that we had to look for once this was all over because we had no idea where she was.  This dog, the good one, that only occasionally sneaks things out of the trash, went back to bed.  She tends to have more of a, "Wake me when it's time to eat." attitude.  

Once we had all the mongrels wrangled, inside, and eating their breakfast, I was able to make the coffee.  I love coffee.  I need coffee.  I love hot coffee.  I love Iced coffee.  Not so much on the flavored coffees, but I can handle a latte or similar coffee beverage on occasion.  Once the coffee was on, we split up the chores.  My Full-Timer was headed to the barn to feed and clean stalls.  I was going to finish up the kitchen chores and make syrup for my bees.  Yes, I have added something else that needs to be fed to my menagerie.

After a little practice, I finally have the syrup making thing down.  I am supposed to make a 2-1 syrup ratio with sugar and water.  Sounds easy enough, but we are doing a 2-1 by weight.  Still not totally difficult, especially if you know a gallon of water weighs a little over 8lbs.  I know this because my husband used to run a water bottling plant. 

You know, back in the day when it was cool to carry around a bottle of water?

Loving power tools like I do, I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for this task.  I know some of you were worried for a moment with that statement, but I consider small appliances to be power tools.  It makes it a lot easier to convince someone that you need a small appliance if you refer to it as a power tool.  Especially if the someone that you are having the discussion with is a tool junkie.

Ladies, you know the type of guy I am talking about.  There is not a single project that can be started without the purchase of a new tool.

I have no problem with purchasing tools, or being a tool junkie.  Truth is, a little of that has rubbed off on me, especially now that I apply the term to kitchen appliances as well. 

See what I am saying?

I don't really care for making things daily.  If I can make a batch of something in bulk, and then use it over a period of time.  I am all over it.  The syrup thing falls into this category.  I put 5lbs of sugar into my mixing bowl, and then add 5-5 1/2 cups of boiling water.  I mix this using my whisk attachment, but only on low speed.  This seems to dissolve all of the sugar better than the regular mixing attachment.  I turn it on, then walk away.  Once I can see through the syrup, I know the sugar is dissolved.  I start with 5 cups of water and then slowly add more if I need to.  I go ahead and bottle this syrup using quart size jars.  When I head out to feed the bees, I just grab two jars and a wet towel.  The towel is to clean off the feeder lids when I get out there.  Then I just bring the empties back and run them through the dishwasher. 

No problem, right?

On this particular morning, I am standing at the counter as the mixer is running.  I am looking out the window.  Really, I am just waiting for the coffee pot to beep so that I can get my morning fix.  When who do I see coming down the driveway?

I knew he had to be out there somewhere because the dogs had been after him.  I suspect he had been hanging around the house waiting for his own breakfast when the chase ensued.  Well, he was waiting no longer.  Here comes my little guy.  My little guy that is already starting his summer slim down routine by shedding ridiculous amounts of hair.  My little guy that really has the shortest legs I have ever seen on a cat.  My little guy that has a huge Field mouse in his mouth.  Like, I had to really look to figure out what it was because it was so big.  He has his head held high.  He has a definite swagger going.  He doesn't even glance at the house as he walks right down the middle of the driveway.  He knows there are stupid dogs that have already gotten a spanking today, probably watching him go by.

Take that, stupid dogs!

He heads all the way around the drive to the barn.  The barn where my Full-Timer is cleaning the stalls.  As I shift from one window to the other, he gets to the door with his trophy.  Just as he gets there, she comes out with a bucket of water to empty.  She sees him.  He sees her.  He drops his prize at her feet, as if to show it off.  The mouse starts running around in circles.  He starts after it.  She gets out of their way, looks at the house momentarily, then turns and goes back in the barn.  I know exactly what is running through her mind at this time...

"I am not dealing with that."

I step outside at about the same time that he catches his mouse again.  He sees me and stops.  Simultaneously two chickens start fighting in the middle of the pasture.  I mean, going at it like roosters.  I am distracted by this activity, trying to figure out what their problem is.  They continue to fight for what seems like forever.  Just as I am considering putting some shoes on and running out there, another hen from behind the barn comes up and puts the smack down on both of them.  That was that.  They all three went about their business.

My attention goes back to Kid.  He has dropped his prized possession again, but it isn't moving this time.  I notice that a dog is sticking it's head out the door behind me.  Kid notices the same thing.  All of a sudden the mouse decides to stop playing dead and takes off under the horse trailer.  Kid forgets the dog, and the pursuit of the mouse ensues.  I tried to yell at my Full-Timer because this would be the only moment she could stop the murder that was about to take place, but either she didn't hear me or she was ignoring me.  Either way, he wasted no time catching his prey once more.

When she came in from the barn, she was telling me all about it.  I had to tell her that I watched the whole thing happen.  She said she looked down at him, and said, "Kitty, that is so sad."  Then left him to it.  After he finished doing whatever it was that he did, he came inside the barn looking for his breakfast. 

Talk about a rat race.

It is not even 9:00 yet.