"That Smell"

This post just has me walking around singing the chorus of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "That Smell."

"Ooh, ooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you."

Ok, ok...I know that last line is a bit creepy, but fitting. In the past 24 hours there has been a horrid stench developing in our kitchen. At this point, you may as well commit me...I'm slowly losing my mind over the awful (and I mean AWFUL) smell. I have taken everything out of our fridge and cleaned, pulled the fridge out from the built-in cabinets, used more bleach that should be allowed for a closed room, and yet the smell doesn't go away. Charles has crawled under the house, looking for signs of ANY thing that might have died in the crawl space...nothing.

The next morning, I vaguely remember skimming the safety booklet we got from Suburban Propane when they filled up the propane tank that runs to our furnace. It said something about a propane leak in your home will smell like a rotten egg or dead animal. VOILA! So I call the propane company and they go into panic mode, tell us to shut off the tank outside and evacuate the property. Within an hour they have a technician at our home with all of his tools showing absolutely no leak at all~but he doesn't forget to drop off his $75 service call bill.

Back to square one. At this point, I'm not opposed to ripping the cabinets to the left of the fridge out...we think we have narrowed it down to that location. The only logical thing that I can think now is that one of Hutch's (our mouse visitor) cousins is dead under the cabinet. My idea of going at the cabinets with a sledgehammer gets out-voted and, mush to my opposition, a plan of "Wait It Out" goes into effect. If it's a dead mouse, the smell will go away in a couple weeks.

If I make it that long, I will let you know how it goes.

One of those surreal moments...

Just took all the dogs out, a few minutes before midnight. It's so quiet out here, no cars, no sirens, no street lights. The moon is full tonight and you can see everything. The only noise the dogs and I hear are the five horses next door and the coyotes yipping in the distance.

It was so surreal to me, standing at the fence with the horses, just listening, taking it all in. It's amazing out here...one of those moments that I could stay in forever.

My best friend, the designer!

My best friend Shelby is working very hard on starting her very on residential design firm. Of course, we are going to be the first clients in her portfolio!

Not only is she responsible for picking out the fabulous colors in our home, she has created a very detailed plan for the guest house bathroom and is now working on a plan for our kennel. Both buildings have been fun to design since we are basically starting from scratch.

We've been able to spend LOTS of time at Lowe's together (filled several carts) and having lunches to discuss details. The best part is that we buy all the supplies, drop them off at the house, and a few hours later come back and they are installed. Thanks Charles, Mr. Paulk and Dad~you guys are the best!

I can't wait to see the finished products!

The color scheme and some finished we picked.

Friday Night Lights

We've been stuck in the house most of the week due to the ice on the roads, so last night we got to join some of our great friends, the Hussey's, Hinz's and Eanes' for dinner at Henry's Louisiana Grill in historic Acworth. That area reminds me SO much of historic Norcross-love it! We had a blast and enjoyed visiting with everyone.

I was exhausted when we got home so it didn't take me long to make my way to the bed. As soon as the light switch turned off I saw something out of the corner of my eye...THE MOUSE WAS BACK!

I jumped out of bed as fast as possible, screamed, and watched the little guy race around our bathroom and into the water closet. Of course my mind was trying to come up with every possible way to catch him and all I could think of was TUPPERWARE...So I sent Charles into the kitchen to grab some while I "guarded" the door. Of course, as soon as Charles left the room, Mr. Mouse came sliding out from under the door towards me and slid around to head for our closet. By this point, the tupperware was thrown across the room and I was on the bed.

So after some strategic planning, we started taking (one-by-one) the boxes out of our closet. We basically picked up ANYTHING that was on the floor and stood on lookout that he didn't run out of the closet while we were moving things out. Once it was all moved, the mouse was no where to be seen---not even under the dresser that is in there. We were looking everywhere with the flashlight.

A few weeks earlier, I had bought some humane traps to put around the house to catch the little bugger. Since we hadn't seen any sign of him, I figured he made his way out or at least down into the crawl space. Tonight, we grabbed the humane traps and put them in the closet and lined the front of the closet with boxes so he couldn't get through.

In just a few minutes, he popped his head out from the dresser! He was a gutsy little thing~popping out every few seconds to watch us watching him. He ran out far enough to sniff the dog food that was in the trap, but just couldn't figure out how to get in it. After about 10 minutes of this, I came up with a new strategy. I ran to get some thread and tied it to the top of the trap and propped it open in hopes that he would enter through the top.

No more than two minutes later, he headed right towards the trap and crawled in. I let go of my end of the thread and the top fell closed. Charles grabbed it and put some tape to hold it closed for the night. Since it was about 1 AM by this time, we put Mr. Mouse, trap and all, in the guest bath tub and shut the door until this morning.

This morning we scouted out a new place to let Mr. Mouse go. We decided to take him to a barn on a big lot across the pond. Charles and I walked over there to let him go. Don't worry-I packed him a "doggie bag" of snacks so that hopefully he will stay there a while instead of making his way back here. Oh Mr. Mouse, you were cute, but you are MUCH cuter outside my house. Hope I don't run into any of your relatives anytime soon!


Opening the trap



Hiding in his new home



The mouse's new digs






Snow Around the Farm

Our house

Gazebo and pond

Bogey in his Walkin' Wheels

Finnegan

Finn racing down the driveway

The barns

Horse and rider in the snow~so cool!

Snow, Football and a Few Spare Dogs...

We all got PLENTY of warning for the snowstorm that came in Sunday night. A few hours before the snow began falling, we were outside with my parents who stopped by to say hello, and two dogs stopped by. One was a shepherd mix who was overly friendly, and the other was a terrier, who was too afraid to come near us. After some maneuvering, we eventually corralled him in the fences and got a leash on him. Since he was the smaller of the two, I put him in the car and drove to a few of the neighboring houses to see if any one recognized him.

In case you didn't know, a found dog is a GREAT way to meet your neighbors. The lady next door asked me to come ride horses with her, the people across the street told me all about the previous owners of our house, and the weird guy down the street plays a bass guitar and would only talk to me through the glass window next too his door. I don't blame him. The ten pound terrier and I did look pretty threatening!

So after about an hour of knocking on doors I came home with no leads. Looked like these two were hunkering down with us for the storm. Since it was wash night for our gang, we threw these two muddy puppies in line for a bath too. They got a nice meal and settled in for the night.

Within a few hours of sunset, our yard had several inches of snow and it was still coming down fast. By Monday morning, we had SEVEN inches of snow. It was beautiful! We played, raced around, and just took it all in. What a great day to kick back and prepare for Monday night's BIG GAME. My Auburn Tigers were playing the Oregon Ducks for the National Championship. Charles, myself and SIX dogs sat around the fireplace and TV for the nail-biting game. Of course Auburn came out with a win~couldn't have been more proud of my Tigers. :)

Tuesday came and went...still sitting around doing nothing. There was so much ice on the road it was impossible to get out. FINALLY Wednesday got here and the vet that was listed on the Shepherd's tag opened at noon. I called and got the owner's contact info, called them, and the pups got picked up that afternoon. It turns out they live a few miles away and aren't even owned by the same people. The dogs we had been called Rosie and Newton (for Cam, of course) were actually Lady and Dodger, and they were next door neighbors who had recently begun taking "field trips" together. Their owners thanked us with some honey from their bee hives and fresh eggs from their hens. So Lady and Dodger are now safe and sound at their OWN house! At least I know where they live for the next time they show up.