Volunteerism

Volunteerism is always good. Needs are met, all the parties involved get satisfaction, and growth can occur.

Here at The House of 9 Lives, we’ve had a couple of very special volunteers to “crop up”. Namely, these guys:

Out of nowhere, two watermelon vines have sprouted and grown in our yard. He and She have never had any type of garden, so these serendipitous little gifts from nature have them really excited at the prospect of a bountiful harvest.

As they haven’t done any landscaping, they tend to throw out fruits and vegetables and bread for the possums and raccoons and other animals to nosh on. Apparently some of the watermelon seeds took root. When She realized what they were, She immediately began regular watering. Now they are loaded with blooms.

They can hardly wait for the blooms to turn into tiny little watermelons, and they have really high hopes for a bumer crop so they will be forced to share them with friends and family. In which case, this instance of volunteerism will really be good. Their need for watermelon will be met, and by sharing the outcome, all parties will be satisfied. And, if these little “watermelon plants that could” continue to do well, there will certainly be growth!

Jazz
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As Luck Would Have It

Every now and zen, He and She are blessed wiz a leetle good luck. I mean, look at how very lucky zey vere zee day I showed up on zee doorstep. Zey zink zey have done me zee favor, but ve all know I am zee one who geeves and geeves een zis relationship. 

He and She have been making zee very strong effort to eat more meals at home. Zee new stove has vreally been getting broken in. As a part of zee plan to eat at home more, zey have been hafing breakfast een as vell. Yesterday, vhen She opened a new box of Honey Nut Cheerios, She vas thrilled to find a prize eenside. And, not joost any prize, but a cash card!

She had not even noteeced zee box een her sleepy state, and came vreally close to zrowing eet avay! Zee values of zee cards zey are geeving avay are $5, $10 and $25. Zee card She got ees only for five doll-airs, but She got twenty-five doll-airs of excitement out of it.

Seence zis all came about as a vresult of zee commitment to eat at home, as luck vould haf eet, zey vill probably use zee card at zee grocery store. Een zat case, I say “tuna for everyvone!”

Casanova
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Cycle-logical Therapy

Once again, the weather was beautiful this weekend. He and She spent most of Saturday working on the house. They are getting the exterior improved little by little. They are so proud of the new paint and shutters, but still have so much left to do. Here is a sneak peak of some of the improvements, but we won’t share the real “after” pictures until it is complete. This is at the back of the house.

The weekend wasn’t all work, though! They made some time for a little “cycle-logical” therapy. (That’s what I heard Bamajama call it). Hey, don’t laugh, it works! When things get a little hazy,

or a little blue,

or, someone just pushed your last button,

a little cycle-therapy is what you need!

Several of their friends came to the house, and they all took out for a little re-charging of their batteries!

Here are some pictures from their ride with Dr. Dirt, T-Will (behind the tree), Bullitt, CC Rider & Aubie, Warsaw Tec, Blue Ice, & Bamajama:

They rode one of their favorite routes that is close to home, Alabama Highway 50. It’s a great curvy, hilly road that while can’t be compared to Tail of the Dragon, is fun in it’s own little way. Since it is so scaled down, they affectionately call it “Tail of the Lizard”.

Their destination was Cock of the Walk in Auburn, where they all ate well and sat around and talked and laughed.  After the meal, they made a quick stop at Bruster’s for a cool ice cream treat.

After that, they took a meandering route back home. They had a great day, and even though the skies looked like this a few times, there was no rain and the weather was beautiful.

It’s a sure bet, there will be more therapy in their futures! There are more pictures from this ride and others here, including each of the individual bikes shown above. You can click on slideshow in the upper right to view them more easily.

We hope you find them therapeutic!

Flirt
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The Gatekeeper

The beautiful weather they enjoyed on Saturday continued on into Sunday. This time, Skeeter and Ohio came to visit, and then they all left on their bikes for lunch at Niffer’s Place at the Lake in Dadeville, Alabama. While they were there, they made contact with friends Bullit, T-Will, CC Rider and Dr. Dirt. After lunch, they all came back to the house, where Nova, Alley, Jazz and myself naturally became the center of attention. Yep, all was right with the world!

When everyone was gone, He and She just weren’t quite ready to call it a day, so they hopped back on the bike and headed off to their worst habit, Bruster’s Ice Cream in Auburn. They sat in the gazebo near the drive thru and were entertained by the things people will order. Like the guy who just kept insisting he wanted a single scoop waffle cone, but couldn’t tell them what flavor, or the woman who asked if they could put caramel on a Caramel-Fudge Sundae. This was all very entertaining as they indulged in their treats.

Speaking of things that make you go hmm – here’s something they saw on their way home on Highway 14, just outside of Lochapoka.

If you look to the left of the driveway, near the top rung of the fence, you’ll see the lower part of a mannequin.

Here it is from another angle:

I don’t know if this is suppose to have some meaning that we aren’t aware of, but apparently, it’s not an original idea! Our friend Ginger over at Deep Fried Kudzu wrote about this place she saw.

While we don’t completely understand the symbolism here, we are all for self-expression. But, I think if I were going to have a gatekeeper, I would want something a little more intimidating than a hosiery model!

Kosmo

Curves Ahead

We finally enjoyed beautiful weather on a day that He and She didn’t have to go in to work. Of course, that meant the Harley was taken out for a little exercise. They met up with Bamajama and rode out Highway 63, across beautiful Lake Martin and into Alexander City. They stopped for lunch at Ruby Tuesday, then dropped in at Carlisle Drugs for a tasty Malted Milkshake. After, that, it was on to the open road. They took Highway 280 to 231 North, and then turned off onto Alabama 25. It turns out that Alabama 25 is a beautiful road and quite popular with motorcyclists of all tastes. She attempted to take pictures of all the many twists and turns, just so you could see how the road winds and climbs through the beautiful scenery. Instead of posting all the pictures She took, I’m just going to share a few with you here. Clicking on any picture will take you to Flickr, where you can see more photos from this ride.

There were quite a few of these:

 

Several of these:

 

And, more than a few of these:

 

At the peak, they were treated to this view:

After descending through more twists and turns, they ended up in the town of Leeds, Alabama, just outside of Birmingham. She thought the downtown area was quaint and charming.

 

Located in Leeds, Alabama, happens to be Barber Motorsports Park. They hadn’t planned to visit, but they rode up to the building and in the parking lot, they got to see a lot of exotic cars, like Morgans, and Lotus (Loti?), and rare motorcycles like a ‘57 Harley Panhead, a Kawaski Mach III – 5 cylinder, a Sommer, and an old Cushman scooter. I would love to share some pictures with you, but unfortunately, after she snapped the one below, the battery in the camera died.

 

They have decided they will definitely go back with a charged battery, and they will pay for admission and see all the wonderful collector’s items inside the museum!

Actually, the name of this post might be just a bit of a misnomer. Instead of “Curves Ahead”, it could actually be titled “Angles Ahead”!

Alley
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In the Dark

In the Dark

Don’t adjust your monitor. It’s just that this is what it looked like around the House of 9 Lives this morning! He and She were awakened at 2:00 a.m. when the power went out. When they realized the power wouldn’t be coming back on anytime soon, they settled back into bed and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately for them (and for us), the battery backup on the television in the living room has an audible alarm. Audible from any place in the house. Beep, beep, beep…..beep, beep, beep…..beep, beep, beep. It was enough to drive a cat crazy! He stumbled into the living room, got a flashlight, and in a very sleepy state was unsuccessful in finding a way to silence the noise. She gave up and got her MP3 player and plugged it into her ears to drown out the sound. That was successful, however, her music selection is not necessarily conducive to sleeping. Right when Nora Jones would have her lulled into slumber, Los Lonely Boys, or Stevie Ray Vaughn would kick into high gear and rouse her to alertness again.

She did eventually doze off into oblivion and when the alarm went off at 4:45, even though the power was still off, the infernal beeping had stopped. Apparently it does have some type of limit.

After showering and dressing in the near dark, and dragging out the door without coffee, they set off to work.

Their goals for tonight: go straight home from work, have an early supper and chill out in front of the TV before an extra-early bedtime. My goal for tonight: research a certain battery backup for a silencing option!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blossom

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Small Assets

Living “in the country”, as we do, affords He and She a lot of opportunities to hob nob with the “neighbors”. They especially like to stop at a nearby goat farm and watch the goats play “King of the Hill” on an old log, or talk to the many cows that are in the pasture next door, or pet the local horses, who, they have found out can rival us cats when it comes to curiosity.

This past weekend, they found out about another baby donkey in our area. This one is a miniature and that makes him especially “prosh”. His pasture mates were very friendly, and she got some good photos. They all came right up to the fence!

Gosh, if she had some of these at home, we would probably never see her. But a pair of these cuties would definitely be an “asset” to The House of 9 Lives!

Boomer
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