Wednesday, September 5, 2012

So that's what's up

It's been a rather weird day today...kinda matches my mood. I'm feeling fuuuuuuunky. Can't put my finger on it. Sat down and put together a Candy Corn garland for the shop - been telling myself to get one done for the past two weeks. Yeah, still dealing with that whole motivation thang. At any rate there should be some more Candy Corn available in the next couple of days. I'll post a note to let everyone know when...ya know, just in case :)

We had a pretty heavy storm that blew through this afternoon. I ran outside to drag the trash cans in before it hit and as I was traipsing through our overgrown lawn in my floppy, fuzzy pink slippers that are a full size too big, dragging the trash can along behind me - a gigantic spider crawled out of the grass and ran across the tip of my slipper - the slipper that I promptly vacated and left to the spider's devices. 

Actually, I vacated the slipper, made a mental note of where the little SOB went, and then ran inside to grab my camera. You know, cause it makes so much sense that I'm scared to death of them but want to stick a camera in the face of each one I come across. I actually located it again and it turns out that it was a female spider. 

Here she is:



That's right. Not only did I manage to not have a heart attack, find her, and photograph her.... I managed to successfully capture her without any harm coming to her or myself....or her gigantic egg sac she is carrying. Hence the whole 'female' thing. I'm just assuming.

This is one of the two large types of spiders that occasionally find thier way into the house - we have tons outside, these are the only ones that I've seen indoors though. We get Wolf Spiders and these - which are Fishing Spiders. Would you believe me if I told you this was a small one? Body was about 3/4" long...and it had a leg span of about 2". I've had bigger in my living room.



This third shot is blurry, but it's the only one I have that really shows the size of her egg sac compared to her. My camera's battery died right after this one.



Mister Man and I took her to the creek on the other side of our neighbors house and let her go. Hopefully she won't find her way back.

I mentioned the storm earlier. It hit us hard for about an hour, but no damage. Right before the storm hit though, there was an insanely still moment, and then this strange wind that blasted all the leaves from the trees straight up into the air. I caught the tail end of it here...




So. Stuff like that happens here.

Those seem to be mostly leaves from our trees. Our neighbors hate our trees - you can probably guess why. I'm not too sure what they are...we've heard Sycamore and Birch. At any rate, they drop leaves and branches (like huge honkin' branches) all the time. It's already time for us to start raking them up. Blech. I had blisters on my hands at one point last year from yard work - all because the stupid leaves. We tried just running over them with the mower, but then that just created a mulch that covered the grass and killed it off, resulting in a very muddy Winter and Spring. Muddy is no bueno with three dogs. So we've settled on raking. We figure it's a healthy way to get out and exercise. I hate exercise, and I need to start to doing more of it. Blech.


Anyway. That's me for now. Just whole whole buncha excitement.

I am off to harass my husband into watching Bad Girls Club with me. Yep. I frickin love that show. Can't even find any part of my that feels guilty about it anymore.

Have a very, very nice one...

Monday, September 3, 2012

Rainy Day Weekend

What a rainy and sleepy weekend! Hurricane Issac paid us a brief visit. We were told to expect anywhere up to 4" of rain before the holiday was through, so we rented some movies, did our grocery shopping early Friday morning (making sure we bought some candles this time), and prepared for a cozy four day weekend at home. We didn't get anywhere close to 4" of rain. We got more like 1" over the entire weekend. Nothing to write home about. But we were still content to have a relaxing weekend at home. We baked plenty of noms, watched some funny movies and a reeeeeeaaally crappy one (Silent House), played plenty of PS3 and gave out tons of tummy scratches (I didn't even get out of my pjs all day Sunday...it was perfect).  All in all, a pretty fantastic weekend.

While we didn't get much rain, we had lots of humidity and plenty of clouds. Lots and lots of fluffy clouds. That got me thinking about them. Clouds on the brain and all... Started perusing some cloud crafts on the web and came across some really cute projects. I was in the crafting mood yesterday so I decided to start on a little something something for our bedroom...

Here's a little peek of the WIP...


It's going to be tough to release Mister back into the work world tomorrow. I'd much rather keep him home snuggling on the couch and kicking the crap out of some poor fool online in Borderlands... At least it'll be a short week - only three days and then it's his normal three day weekend! Not too shabby, and nothing I can complain about.

Other than that, things are pretty slow around here. We've just been trying to get some things taken care of around the house. Since we've decided to sign another year lease at the place we're currently renting, we're breaking down and fixing up some of the things we'd stubbornly refused to before now. Renting blows. 

On a brighter note - it's almost Fall!

Last year I tried to not bring out the holidays too early - tried not to overkill it. But this year....screw it! I can't tell you how miserable the Summers are here for me. I'm always covered in mosquito bites (which I'm rather uncomfortably allergic to) and the heat/humidity is just friggin gross. I look forward to Fall and Winter all...year...long. This is serious business and I am so happy it's just around the corner! Hot cider, pumpkins, scarves and fireplaces... Bring 'em on!

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

'til next time...

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Yummy Bacon Waffles

Yep. I'm on a bacon kick this week. Turns out yesterday was Kraft's National Bacon Day, and I didn't even know it. Complete coincidence that I posted the Banana Bacon Cookie recipe yesterday. Come to also find out that this week is National Waffle week (I honestly don't know why I know this...but I do), so what do you think the logical conclusion was?

That's right.

Bacon Waffles.


Figured it was an awesome excuse to have Bacon Waffles for dinner last night.

So we did.

Want the recipe? You know, just in case? They're pretty damn good. Mister Man swears.

Bacon Waffles
Adapted from Allrecipes
Makes: An insane amount of waffles - consider only making half if you're feeding 2-4 people

Ingredients:

10-12 slices Peppered Brown Sugar Bacon - recipe follows
3-4 tblspns plus 1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
3 cups flour
1 tspn baking soda
1 tblspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
2/3 cup Canola oil
1 tspn pure vanilla extract

To make the noms:

Peppered Brown Sugar Bacon

Preheat your oven to 375°. Arrange the bacon on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking oil.** I actually cook my bacon on a cooling rack that has been sprayed with cooking oil placed over a 9x13 metal pan that has been covered in foil. It allows for the grease to drain away from the bacon and helps with clean up**. Combine pepper with 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar, then sprinkle mixture generously over bacon, coating well. Bake 10-15 minutes or until bacon is crispy and the brown sugar is caramelized. Remove bacon from oven, place on a cutting board. Cut into small pieces and set aside.

I could seriously stick my face in that plate of bacon. 

Preheat waffle iron. Whisk flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, canola oil and vanilla extract in another bowl. Fold the two mixtures together, make sure to not over mix - the batter should be slightly lumpy. Fold in the bacon pieces.

Pour your batter into hot waffle iron coated with cooking spray and cook until lightly browned. 

Serve with butter and warm syrup. If your so inclined, reserve some bacon pieces for garnish. :)


I have to mention again that this recipe yields a ridiculous amount of waffles. Cooking for just the two of us, I would have halved the recipe had I known we'd end up with so many. Not to worry though. You can just pop those puppies in the freezer and heat them in the toaster the same way you would an Eggo Waffle!

1) Cool waffles completely  2) Place cooled gigantic mountain of waffles in a single layer on a baking sheet and flash freeze - or place in the freezer for roughly 30 minutes to an hour. 3) Once frozen remove from the baking sheet and store in a freezer bag or air tight storage container. 4) When ready to eat, just pop in the toaster like you would any store bought frozen waffle and enjoy! I'd recommend not allowing your waffles to defrost before placing in the toaster oven. They tend to get mushy if that happens.

Seriously, nothing beats homemade waffles in the morning. Mister Man likes to toss them in the toaster while he's mixing up his protein drink and making his coffee. My lazy butt is usually still in bed when he leaves (before sunrise), but it makes me feel better knowing that he's at least gone off to work with something warm in his belly. A homemade something warm in his belly. :)

There might be another batch of waffles in our future this week. Might as well replenish our stock of frozen ones, and National Waffle Week is as good an excuse as you get to mess around with fun recipes!

Hope you are all having a fantastic and safe holiday weekend my friends!

'til next time....

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Banana Bacon Cookies

Man, bacon tastes good with anything. Freaking anything. Banana Bacon? Who'd have thunk it?

Well Libbie Summers did! I actually found a few recipes for Banana Bacon Cookies online, but most of them seemed to be derived from the recipe from her The Whole Hog Cookbook, so I'm crediting her with the idea!

Of course, I have to tweak my cookies ever so slightly, and I like to make smaller batches of items since it's just Mister Man and myself currently. So the recipe below is slightly different than her original (yield 30 cookies), which you can find at the Spoon Fork Bacon blog.

These cookies are very soft and more reminiscent of banana bread than a cookie. So don't be surprised at the texture of the final product. The batter is on the thinner side, but I found that using parchment paper and keeping to a heaping tablespoon of batter for each cookie kept it from spreading out too much while baking. I strongly urge you to use the parchment paper! It makes a big difference in this cookie. Also, the amount of bacon in this recipe almost doesn't seem like enough. Increase it if you're a true bacon lover and want to indulge (we did).


Banana Bacon Cookies
15 cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 bananas, mashed (approx. 2/3 cup)
8 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped  - set aside small amount to use as topping

To make the noms:

1. Preheat oven to 400°.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, using a hand mixer, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in the egg until fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla. Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture, then mix in the mashed bananas. Mix ingredients well. Fold in the bacon.
4. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet approx. 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with bacon pieces.
5. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until slightly browned. Completely cool cookies before storing them in an airtight container. Cookies will keep in the fridge up to 1 week - in pantry up to 2 days.



They are delicious and I think that the light banana flavor compliments the saltiness of the bacon perfectly!

I hope you get a chance to try the recipe and like it as much as we do.


'til next time, my friends...

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Spunky Little Deer

 

The other day my friend Dee posted a video on her Facebook page of an area in our town called Coffee Tree Lane where dozens upon dozens of deer congregate each evening to graze. After I saw the video I couldn't resist dragging Mister Man out there to watch them. We've been out almost every night for the past week. The first time we drove up, I almost had a heart attack. There were more deer that first night than any other and of course I didn't have my camera with me. They were everywhere. I stopped counting at 40.

I managed to remember my camera the next time we went - but of course I'm as hard on my camera as anyone could possible be and it's a little broken right now. As in, the trigger is taped on with scotch tape right now, and it's not focusing all that great. So only a couple of the pics came out.




You know me though - I'll be back and armed with a better camera next time! :D

The thing that I most wanted to show you though is this video I shot of one of the fawns going hog wild and running several laps around one of the fields. We're pretty sure he was just feeling a little spunky and was playing. It really is cute though. Try to ignore the line running down the right side of the video. I'm pretty sure that happened when I dropped my camera the time before last....or maybe it was the time before that....



I think my favorite part of the video is when Mister Man breaks out with the Forest Gump and Bambi's Dad voices....

I have some more cute video - I got some of a mama and her two babies eating apples and the babies couldn't put the apples in their mouths so they were stomping on them to break them up which was uber-eek, and another video of one of the does getting a bit pissy with us to the point where she stomped her hooves and blew at us. I'll save those for another time though.

Saturday was my birthday. I'm old now. Spent it with Mister Man, my little brother and his wife. It was a nice mellow day. Then on Sunday, while cutting a rope to tie up our tomatoes I sliced my leg open and had to go to ER to get nine stitches in my inner thigh. Yep. So that was fun. I was almost going to gross everyone out by putting a pic of it up...but to be honest it was so bad I almost passed out every time I looked at it. I'm typically okay with other's people's boo-boos...but when it comes to my own be prepared for a massive meltdown. The damn cut is only about three inches long, but it gaped open about an inch to inch and a half and you could see all the leg fat hanging out...did I lose you yet? LMAO! But I now have proof that I do have fat on my body. Mister Man and I saw it for ourselves. :D Man, that's another thing....you just aren't meant to look at the inside of yourself...I could have died happily never knowing what my leg fat actually looks like.

But, all stitched up and in relatively no pain. Can't ask for more than that! It is going to put a damper on some of our Summer activities over the next couple of weeks though. We had some river fun planned, but I'm not supposed to get it wet, so everything is on hold for the next two weeks.  Maybe since I'm stuck at home taking it easy, I should get my ass in gear finishing up all the holiday items I started for my store last year....and just never got around to finishing.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and that you are all gearing up for a great week!

'til next time...

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My fancy new kitchen curtains

I finally got around to making the kitchen curtains I've been talking about putting together since we moved into this place 10 months ago. We had some family come out and stay the weekend, so I used that as motivation to get off my butt and turn the sewing machine on again. I am literally thrilled with the way they came out.


Our kitchen is pretty white washed and bright, and my intention is to fill it with color. So I used some bright fabric that I had laying around - I'm a crazy fanatic about using my 50% off Joanne's coupon so I can hoard fabric for projects like this - and threw together a quick pattern. Pfffft. I wouldn't even call it a pattern. I basically just hemmed all four sides of a square. Actually, it was a bit more complex than that. I had to make sure that I had the right measurements for the window, and then had to make sure that each of the different colored panels measured up correctly (not so easy to do for someone that can't cut or sew a straight line), and then I did a rolled hem...not to mention we had to rehang the curtain rod because the previous tenants had hung it with the left side about 2" lower than the right.... 


But I managed to get them somewhat lined up and hung!


I have to laugh because under this window is a sink full of dirty dishes that I've been avoiding all day.

I was too lazy to change the thread out while I was sewing, so I just picked a color I liked and went with it. Turned out the contrasting teal was a nice choice!


And last, but definitely not least, I threw together a colorful little pom pom banner to hang above it.


I think it really dresses the kitchen up! They have inspired me to finally start decorating this place. I have such a hard time wanting to decorate or fix up a place we just rent...but we've decided to see if we can sign another year lease while we get everything together to purchase a house, so I'm finally giving in and attempting to make her pretty.

'til next time my lovely friends...

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Bloggers Beware


We've all heard quite a bit about the possibility of being sued for posting someone else's picture on the internet without the owners consent. This goes beyond the world of blogging, to include the world of Facebook and Pinterest, among others. It's something I've often had small panic attacks over but never really done anything about, lumping myself in the 'it'll never happen to me category'. 

Well, after reading the article written by romance author Roni Loren in regards to her experience of being sued for using a random internet photo in one of her blog posts.....I think it's time to err on the side of caution. I strongly recommend you pop over and give her post a quick read through. She has some very interesting information in it. You can find her article here.

As for me, well, I'm cleaning up my blog posts. Slowly but surely. I have very, very few posts with other people's photos in them. But I still feel the need to go through each past post just to make sure I haven't infringed on anyone's copyrights. Better to be safe than sorry. And I'm still up in the air about Pinterest - even though they've changed their Terms and Conditions. I haven't deleted my account with them, I just haven't used the site in a long while. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter? I'd like to hear them.


Completely random picture of my Otter Pop.
But it's MINE!

'til next time...

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Damn Nature, You Scary!

It's been a pretty eventful Summer this year so far! Storms up the wazoo, lots of activities and excitement, and the critters....oh, the critters. They have been rearing their heads again, only this year because we're further out in the country we're seeing much, much, muchmuchmuch more of them. Are you prepared? Because there really have been quite a few of them - and you know me and my pictures...  :D

We had a lot of branches piled on top of our fire pit from the storms, when we moved some of the branches to light it up we found two snakes curled up together. They were your basic Eastern Garter Snakes, harmless, and I really have no clue what they were doing. Mating? Planning to take over the world? Who knows. One was much smaller (only about a foot) and more brightly colored than the other...


The second snake was wider and around 2 feet long - stripes were a bit wider and coloring more muted.

We chased them off so they didn't get burned and now they are currently living under the branch pile on the side of my yard.


While trying to get to some of my tomatoes we came across this Yellow and Black Agiope (Orb Weaver)  that was in the way. It was about 2", so needless to say I went without my tomatoes that day.


CICADAS!!!! Need I say more? No! But will I? Of course!

I absolutely love Cicadas. Occasionally they can get a bit annoying when they're pumping Al Green and all worked up for their sexy time (they can get LOUD), but for the most part you just hear some light rythmic whirring or thumping coming from the trees. This is the first one I've seen in Kentucky (you can hear them everywhere - but they remain out of sight). I'm not too sure why he was in the grass, except maybe he was just coming out of the ground where they pupate. At any rate, I picked him up and set him on our largest tree. As soon as he hit the bark he started climbing until he was out of sight. Their big green eyes and the light dusting of gold on their back always strike me as so pretty.

Another fun bug I learned about by having it fly directly into my face is the Tiger Bee Fly. First off, I love that name. It's awesome. If I were that fly, I'd be rockin' that name. 


Second....look how big that damn thing is!!!


These next guys, I could dedicate a whole post to, and probably should have. These are Robber Flies. Two different types of them - and for the life of me I can't find their specific name. If anyone can help out please leave a comment.

I'd never heard of a Robber Fly before a  month ago. We were out at the farm for 4th of July and I kept noticing these large bugs that looked like a cross between a dragon fly and a wasp swoop out of the sky and attack honey bees in mid flight. They would grab the prey with their strong legs, often time tumbling to the ground with them, and then use their legs to hold them still while piercing a part of the body with their beak and injecting a paralyzing agent. When I came home from that weekend I started noticing them all around our house. I keep seeing varying accounts of how big they get - the ones around my house seem to be between 2-3" long - but I haven't caught one yet to measure it.

This one I found hanging on the front of our house, just outside the front door. It is similar to the type we saw at the farm in Indiana. It was munching on a Yellow Jacket, and as I watched it turned the Yellow Jacket several times to inject different areas of the body. 




Now that looks like it would hurt if it bit you. They aren't supposed to be aggresive towards humans, but I hear they will bite if handled and it hurts! One site I found has a first hand account of a very large Robber Fly taking out a small hummingbird. The person was able to rush out and save the hummingbird, but that is just a testament to what strong and voracious predators these guys are.


Most of the articles I came across stated that it was common for them to hang by one leg while they were feeding

Now, this darker one is the kind of Robber Fly I'm used to seeing around the house. This isn't a great picture - if you want to see one in more detail I suggest this picture. We have lots of these guys. As a matter of fact I accidentally let one in my kitchen the other day and it was like having a really fast, pissed off, loud, dragon fly buzzing around. I hung out on my back porch for a bit that day....traumatized. 


There is a rather large wasps nest in the facsia of our house that we haven't taken care of yet and I'm pretty sure that's why I'm seeing so many of them. A large portion of their prey is wasps and I've seen them take out quite a few. So while I scream and run at the sight of them, I won't complain too much. Btw - that isn't a stinger on the black Robber Fly. This is a female and that is her modified ovipositor, or what she uses to lay her eggs.

Then there is Mr. Dung Beetle...why do we have a Dung Beetle? Well, I'm not really sure. There are some cows up the road, so maybe he just wandered off.



I'll leave you on a cute note, the sunflowers that I planted right outside my kitchen door are in full effect (and killing me with all the pollen - note to self: don't plant close to house next year). They've finally started attracting some Goldfinches. Yay! I've been wanting some, and these are the first I've seen in Kentucky. When we lived in Yorba Linda, we had a flock of about 20 that would come every single day and feed. I've missed them.



Wow. Are you still there? That was a lot of photos. And you can imagine all the creepy crawlies I see when I don't have my camera handy! The weather is still warming up though - just entering the dog days now. So I'm sure we'll be seeing even more in the next month. Have any of you guys come across any weird or wonderful bugs around your homes?

'til next time...

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The greatest oak...

...was once a little acorn that held it's ground - Author Unknown

A huge storm ripped through our area on Friday night - it was a pretty bad one. I looked out the window at one point and nearly had a heart attack. I couldn't see my back yard. Even though there were no sirens going off I completely panicked thinking we had a funnel coming down right on top of our house. Got so panicked that I turned from the back door and attempted to run down the hall to get my husband...but I ended up smacking face first into the corner of my dining room/hallway wall....got the nice bruise on my hip to prove it. It wasn't a tornado, but this big storm managed to do quite a bit of damage around us. In our immediate area there were roughly 2000 people without power for over 24 hours. It knocked trees down everywhere, including one in my back yard, which, of course, fell directly on my neighbors roof and took out a large portion of our chain link perimeter fence. The tree didn't punch through my neighbors roof (luuuuucky us), just messed up her windows, gutters, some shingles, her air conditioner and her riding lawnmower.... I guess it could have been a lot worse. 


We managed to cut most of the tree up yesterday, but now I have a huge stump sticking up out of the ground. Lord only knows how long it will take our wonderful landlord to take care of it and fix the fence.... We'll be lucky if it gets done at all. Landlords in Kentucky are simply the worst. THE WORST. I can think of another word for them besides 'landlord', if you catch my drift. 


Not only did our tree fall, but we managed to leave all four car windows down on our Scion and it got completely flooded. The radio finally came back on but it was shorting out for a full day, and the headliner had to drain.... We basically had three large fans set up in our car for about 10 hours yesterday. Seems to have done the trick though - no mildew smell and everything feels dry. 

We did drive around town a bit to check out some of the other storm damage and we came across a heart wrenching sight. Anyone that lives in Frankfort is familiar with the huge oak tree that stood in front of Highland Christian Church on Versailles Rd. I can easily say it was one of the most picturesque trees in the area. Over a 100 years old, it stood on the crest of a hill, right where the setting sun could light up it's branches like fire. 



My crappy cell phone shots on the fly out the car window simply do it no justice whatsoever

Well, it's gone now.


Sad.

When we were there taking these pictures, we were talking to a little old man that was looking at the tree also. He said that he can remember when this church was in a tiny little white building just up the street. They moved the church to this location about 50 years ago and built it around the tree - and according to him, 50 years ago this tree was as big as the day it fell.


Ignore the fact that I'm smiling in all these pictures. I'm most certainly not happy that this bad boy went down. It's just really hard not to get excited and a little pumped when your up against something so old and just.....magnificent. 


Mister Man looking down the barrel of the tree trunk. It was almost completely hollow - which is why it went down so easy, of course.



I did manage to grab a small little Branch with some leaves and a couple acorns on it, so that I can press the leaves and save the acorns for some unknown future purpose.

What can I say? I'm nostalgic.

That was pretty much us this weekend. We were supposed to be camping up at Natural Bridges, but this storm threw a monkey wrench in those plans. Another time.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
'til next time...

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

We need your votes! Pretty please?

Toyota is doing something pretty fantastic right now. Each day for the next 55 days online voters will get to choose between 5 organizations that are up to win a new car. Every day a winner is chosen of the five organizations featured and voted on that day - and then the next day 5 different organizations are up to win! This has been going on since May and it's part of their Toyota 100 Cars for Good program. At the end they'll have given away 100 cars to 100 different charitable organizations that are desperately in need of them. I can't get over how awesome that is.

So here's my part of the plug: Today only, our Humane Society is up to win a Toyota Sienna. This is the only day that you can vote for them - and I wish I had gotten around to posting this sooner to give people more of a heads up (hindsight). If any of my readers could find some time to pop over before 11:59ET today and vote for the Franklin County Humane Society, I would appreciate it more than you'll know. It only requires that you have a Facebook account, be over the age of 13 and a legal US resident. All you have to do is log in to your facebook account and go to this link (which will not take you out of FB - the voting is done on a FB page):


I have also placed a widget at the top right of my blog page that you can just click to go right to the voting.

The reason I am asking this from you is that our shelter has had a tremendously rough couple of years. There are have been many changes with shelter managers, and conflicts amongst staff and board members - all this has led to the facility nearly being shut down several times in the last few years. Having not only managed to persevere and stay open, they have managed to cut their euthanasia rates from 60-80% at the end of 2010 to just 11% in the last 6 months of 2011! This is FANTASTIC news - unfortunately it doesn't mean the amount of homeless/feral/turned-in animals has gone down, it just means that they are doing what they can to house more animals in their shelter. They only have the funds to have a vet on staff one day out of the week, so most veterinary or emergency care for the animals is received through vets in town. Can I tell you that they are doing all this without any car? The only transportation they have to rely on is that of volunteers and employees to transport the sick or injured animals, transport to new rescues, pick up supplies, and just basically run errands for the business in. 

A new car would mean a world of difference to this organization, but more importantly it would mean the world to the animals of Franklin County - like this little girl that was brought in a couple weeks ago with a broken leg and horrible wounds to her head, leg and paw and needed a volunteer to drive her in to town for medical treatment

..or this girl that has a foster available on July 7th, but has no way to get to her new foster mom. So the Humane Society is putting the call out for anyone with a car that may be able to drive her where she needs to go....


Can you see how winning this car will help immensely?

Again, my friends, if you can find the time to pop over to Facebook today and cast your vote for the Franklin County Human Society, it would mean more to me than you can imagine.

Thank you so, so, SO much