road building, kitten vetting, and moving

The "road" to our land has been flooded for ages now. Mom's acquisition of a truck had made this far less of a problem... then yesterday and today a fellow with a bulldozer (hired by someone else who owns land down that "road") attempted to fix the flooded area. Unfortunately, he apparently didn't have any idea how to fix the road. Yesterday, mom was getting ready to leave the land shortly after he'd started working on it. He encouraged her to go through an area that he had finished, and her truck promptly sank into the muck, and she had to be towed out. Dumping loose dirt into water just creates mud! Apparently bulldozer guy didn't quite understand that. We got out there this morning to discover that things were even worse. We actually had to walk out to the land, squishing through the muck. When we were finished, mom finally gave in and bought a dump truck full of crushed rock. It still has to be spread. We're hoping bulldozer guy will be able to do that without royally messing it up. We might need to buy another load. We'll see.

It didn't cover the whole area, but we're hoping it will when it's spread.

This afternoon we took SugarPie (the kitten we found on July 5) as well as Blondie and Trixie (found just the other day) to the vet for their shots... then afterwards mom took Trixie to her new home - adopted already!!

SugarPie and Blondie
Trixie - who has been adopted!

Tomorrow Charlie, Mochi, and I will move to Orlando. My internet and cable are not going to be turned on until August 6th :( I'm sure I'll be camping out at the nearest Starbucks for the wireless, but I'm not sure if I'll be blogging until I'm online at home. So if you don't hear from me over the next week, that's why.

more cats, more kitsch

It never ends, you know. We had just adopted Sammy the puppy out. I had hung out at my mom's until a little after midnight watching the Olympics, then set out for home... only to discover two little kittens sitting in the road a couple of blocks from my mom's house, EXACTLY in the same place where I had found the puppies several weeks ago. Arrrrrrrgh. So there are now two more kittens in my mom's house. They are very friendly, playful, and super adorable. We've named them Trixie and Blondie.

Trixie (left) and Blondie

Trixie (front) and Blondie
I had some errands to run down in Jacksonville this morning, which meant I got to traverse that stretch of US-1 again, and I got to snap some images of two lovely little kitsch spots I missed on my last trip through:

Sunset Motel, Callahan, FL


King's Cocktail Lounge, Hilliard, FL

The adoption of Sammy, and cool Tifton kitsch

Sammy, the little black puppy, has been adopted! Mom and I drove to Tifton, GA yesterday in order to deliver her into the hands of her new owners. I'm very excited and relieved to have found homes for Sammy (as well as for his sister, who was adopted a few weeks ago), as I had no idea what I was going to do with them when I left for Orlando

This was taken with my cell on our way to Tifton. Sammy was sound asleep in mom's lap.
After seeing Sammy off with her new owners, mom and I decided to explore downtown Tifton, where I took some fun photos of the local kitsch:







If you're ever in Tifton during a nuclear attack, there is a fallout shelter of unknown capacity. It's located down some dubious steps and behind a locked door. No idea who - if anyone - has the key.
In the community of Kirkland, in between Axson and Pearson, sit the remains of the old Kirkland school.

For some reason, the interior of the school is filled with gigantic empty food cans. (And I've had the peaches come from a can/ they were put there by a man song stuck in my head ever since I took this!)

Kayaking the St. Mary's River

Yesterday my mom and I loaded her two kayaks into the back of her truck, and drove down to the GA/FL border to kayak along the St. Mary's River. Logistically it was a tad complicated, as we had to leave my car at the take-out at Scott's Landing in Boulogne, FL, then head back north with the truck and kayaks to the Traders Hill Boat Ramp just south of Folkston, GA. The trip from Traders Hill to Scott's Landing is 5.25 miles, which we covered in a leisurely 2.5 hours. We stopped to swim at a lovely sandbar, and hopped out to picnic at a private boat ramp just west of US-1. The day was gorgeous, if rather too hot. I didn't take my DSLR (having just had it re-built after getting it water-logged), but I did bring my point-n-shoot, so you can see where we went.

Yes, the hat is ridiculous, but in this sunlight, it was wonderful.
My kayak at the Traders Hill boat ramp
View from the Traders Hill boat ramp

There's my mom!

We stopped at an excellent sandbar to swim.

Railroad bridge
Approaching US-1

My mom at the takeout point at Scott's Landing

The Inhumane Society

Back in January, I started writing about the events in my life that occurred from November 2008 through March 2010. I'm not finished. I'm nowhere close to finished. I'm a little over 70 pages in, and have only made it into March 2009. I've decided to start posting what I've written so far online - mainly as a way to motivate myself to keep writing. Also, please send me your comments/criticisms/corrections! Anyway, you can check out The Inhumane Society by clicking here or by clicking on the image above. Let me know what you think.

two adoptions and a roommate!

Mama Cat (left) and her daughter Velvet were both adopted today by different branches of the same family! This makes me so incredibly happy :D
Poor little Sammy still needs a home! She is incredibly sweet and snuggly, and really, really wants to be a house dog. Unfortunately, she'll become an outside dog in a week and a half if no one adopts her, as there are too many critters in my mom's house as it is, and I can only have Mochi and Charlie in the place I'm renting in Orlando.
Mochi will be relieved once he's away from Sammy. He's very patient and playful with her, but I caught his expression right as Sammy jumped up on the bed...
...although it looks like this in my room a lot these days.
As I mentioned above, I will be leaving for Orlando in a week and a half! After all the madness with apartments that refused to rent to students or that wanted absurd pet deposits or had totally incompetent apartment managers, I opted to rent the townhouse belonging to my friends M and A (who now live in California). Unfortunately, the rent - which equals their mortgage payment - was over my budget. I've spent the past several months trying to find a roommate. This was rather challenging, especially since I don't currently live in this place and many of the people who were interested wanted to come over and look at it and meet me in person - and seemed thrown off by the whole 'Sorry, but I live in Georgia' thing. I have finally secured a roommate - her deposit arrived today. She's from California, and will be arriving in Orlando a week after I do. This works out well, as it will give me plenty of time to move in and get Charlie and Mochi settled. Here's what the place looks like:


This is a rough schematic, drawn from memory. It's not to scale or anything.

of trucks and kitschy photos

After all the shit that went down last Friday with mom's truck, we had to start her truck buying quest over from scratch. Last Saturday we drove to Jacksonville to check out a truck that was advertised as a 2008 Ford Ranger, 5 speed manual, 25,000 miles. Mom had called to make sure that the truck was indeed on the lot before we drove the hour and a half to the dealer. We got there, fully intending to buy a truck, only to discover that it was an automatic – my mom had her heart set on a manual. We had thought to call to make sure the truck was on the lot; it hadn’t occurred to us to confirm that it was indeed as advertised. At least on the drive home I was able to get some cool shots of kitschy old broken-down motels and bars along US-1.

Yesterday we drove four and a half hours one way to Winter Haven, FL in order to check out a 2011 Ford Ranger, 5 speed manual, with 29,000 miles. (Ford no longer makes the Ranger, so it’s not like you can just order what you want from your local Ford dealer.) This time when we called to confirm that it was there, we also confirmed that it was indeed a stick as advertised. They assured us that it was, but I was still concerned that we might be driving all that way for nothing. Luckily everything worked out, and my mom was able to purchase a nearly new truck that is still under factory warranty. Woohoo!

Mom in Winter Haven, FL with her new truck

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take any pictures of the highly photogenic kitschiness along Hwy 301 between Ocala and Starke because it was raining :( Sigh. I will definitely have to make that drive some day when the weather’s good, because there’s a lot of interesting stuff to shoot in that stretch. Ahh well – here’s another truck picture for you, taken this morning after we drove out to the land:

Little Solomon checks out the new truck.