Coyote Conspiracy and a Blog Award!!

But first, the kids sporting their new hair dos! Ryan got about 5-6 inches cut off his!!! YEAH! I do wish they'd give Amy a different style though, I keep trying to explain what I want and they do this thing that is popular now with it in short stacked layers in the back and long stringy in the front. That is NOT what I'm asking for people!!

Ok now...

Yesterday we saw a dead coyote on the side of the road. In town. We were headed to our homeschool group's park day at a park where it is known that coyotes, deer, homeless people and wild hogs hang out. So, why do we go there? It is a beautiful park, they've put in a nice walking/bike trail, and cleared out lots of the underbrush. Still there are coyotes, deer and homeless people, we aren't sure if the hogs are still around or not because they tend to go up and down the creekbed to better pastures. A coyote yipped as I passed a thicket along the trail last summer, so close I could have hit it with a rock had I thrown one. A friend of mine, whose backyard borders the park, saw one in her yard with a dead cat in its mouth. When we left the park the dead coyote had been picked up by the city's crew. Now, there was a skunk, a very large one, hit by a car back around Christmastime on an equally busy road. It is STILL there. Nobody cares if there are skunks about. But a coyote? People will start freaking out. So, they came and got it probably within hours of it being hit. Had it been a dog or cat, or possum or skunk it would have been left to rot, I feel sure. It is a conspiracy. Read here about the urbanization of coyotes.

Last night when I walked P-girl, they were shrieking and carrying on across the street and when I went to bed they were howling like I've not heard in a while. I feel horrible for them. Construction of new homes has closed them in tighter and tighter and they have no place to go. Because they have no enemies except people, their numbers are growing by leaps and bounds. This causes huge territorial issues for them, hence the reason the ones across the street can't just pack up and move to the "country". They aren't welcome there. So far, the woods at one end of our block and the pasture at the other end are providing enough food to support a breeding population of probably six. They have stopped terrorizing my dogs and I don't think they're currently in a territory war like two years ago when they were scent marking and scatting all over the lawns. So far we've only known of a few cats disappearing at the end of the neighborhood near the pasture. It remains to be seen what will happen to them. Hopefully something good.

Please visit a Girl and her Coyote for a fascinating tale.

Susan over at Blackberry Creek awarded me this!


I am flattered that someone thinks my blog is excellent. I would also like to point out that ALL of the blogs listed in my sidebar are rated E for Excellent, or I wouldn't have them there!

My blog came about as a way for me to keep myself honest with my weightloss and UFO finishing. Well guess what. I gained some weight back and haven't finished a durn thing yet. But I have discovered this crazy blogworld!! Wow! Many blogs are for information purposes for a person's business, some are craft-only or stick closely to some other topic. Then some folks will blog about their very lives, which I love! I consider some of these folks to be my friends. In fact, I've met two of them in real life(but before we did blogs, I knew them from online email groups, quilting and unschooling respectively). My family had lunch at Barb's(The Quilting Belle) and spent the night with Karen(Leaping From the Box) on our way from east Texas to North Carolina a few years ago.

Here are some other beautiful blogs. They are not in my sidebar because I don't visit them often and they're not ones I comment on(maybe once on a few of them) but they are all just wonderful for many reasons! Check them out and you'll know what I mean. I'm not putting descriptions, I want you to be pleasantly suprised. Maybe I need to add them to my blogroll.

As I See it Now
Miss-Frugality
Honeyflake
Garden Variety
Daysgoby
Dutch Colours
Arkie Mama
Coffee Time Quilt Studio
Em and the Gang
Mostly Adventurous
Adventure Journalist

And of course I have to share a great recipe with you all! We had Indian Rice and Chicken last night. Something I threw together out of pantry and freezer findings. No pictures because we inhaled it, there was NONE left! It was SOOOOO GOOD!!!

3-4 chicken breasts, mine were med-large so I used 3
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped

Brown these 3 things in a bit of olive oil, in a 3-4 quart pot.

1.5-2 cups of brown rice
garlic powder
curry powder
coriander(dried powdered)
tumeric
1 can of chick peas, drained
2-3 teaspoons red wine vinegar(or to taste)

Add the rice, chickpeas and 2 cans of water along with the seasonings to taste(between a teaspoon and tablespoon of all, more garlic than the others).

Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, checking for water absorption about 30 minutes in(you may need to add as much as another can full). When the rice is tender, stir in about 1/2 cup of regular cream cheese. Serve with crackers and a green salad.

Yall have a great weekend!! We have a friend of the girls spending the night tonight. The weather will be super, mid to upper 60s and sunny. I'm thinking yardwork. We really need to get all the leaves off the pool cover and start working on the rest of the pool area. Anyway, be safe and have fun this weekend!!