New Computer! Hallelujah!

Thank you to our friends, Sarah and Chris, for our wonderful new computer that doesn't turn on and off on its own, or shoot sparks! And I have a monitor big enough to see what I'm typing! hooray!

Hummingbird Heaven

While Mom and Dad were here, Dad noticed a hummingbird out in the brush. So I put out my feeders and boy howdy, have we been thoroughly entertained! I think we have at least 6 or 7 different birds fighting over my two feeders and the cats are loving it! I tried to put a video on here of gypsy...but it wasn't loading right...it was sideways anyways, kinda hard to watch.

The Fence

The fence is coming along. Dad helped Curtis with getting a "sample section" made and then they used up the rest of the materials from the first load and got a good running start on a few more sections. It's a slow, frustrating process as we can actually watch some of our newly placed posts start to bend and warp! I dug one out the other day that was really bad and that is really hard work! I hope we don't have to replace very many of them...I just want it to be done!

Pumpkin

This is Pumpkin. She actually belongs to one of my co-workers who is unable to keep her because of her father's allergies and a "too-interested" family dog. If she's able to find a cat-friendly apartment of her own, she'll take her back. If she doesn't, we'll find another home for her. She is a very sweet, petite, beautiful cat with the cutest little meow! She plays with Hobo and Gypsy now after a looong warm up period although the playing is still filled with hissing and yowling. She tolerates the dog (although she's peed on his bed a few times...which could mean she's unhappy about him...or unhappy about my corn based litter) but she'd rather he not come near her. She loves people and doesn't like being by herself so we couldn't keep her in the foster room (kept biting carpet by the door), so we've got her set up downstairs. Other than spilling her water bowl (and the peeing on the dog's bed) she's an easy keeper, already spayed and declawed, so we dont' mind having her around:) Oh, and she likes the fishies! haha

Summer is coming to an end...

My summer has flown by...I can't believe how many camps we did this summer! I made it through Computer Camp and it really wasn't as bad as I'd decided it was going to be. Pretty basic and we had good field trips, thanks to my friend Sarah and her crew, and our IT specialist at work, Tim.

My last several camps went really well. My friend Kristen and I had the Eastern Kentucky State Parks Girls Travel Camp that was really fun even though we only had 6 girls. I think if we'd had more girls than that, we wouldn't have been able to stand all the whining! They all survived the trip despite the fact that we did try to kill them with campfire cooking, large insects and hiking adventures.

My last camp of the summer was Horse Camp...the one I'd waited all summer for:) It went splendidly. Kristen was with me again and my parents both came along to volunteer. We rode at a facility near my house called Lonestar Ranch and they were really wonderful with the kids, teaching them some horsemanship and basic riding skills prior to our trail ride. We also went to Churchill Downs, a Quarter horse show at the fairgrounds, and the Kentucky Horse Park, where we did another trail ride (not recommended). The kids had a great time and I think they really learned a lot about horses! We'll definately repeat this one next year!

In front of the Man O' War statue where he is buried along with his son and grandson.

One of the competitors at the Summer Hunter/Jumper event that week.

One of my favorite breeds, the Friesian.

Playing Catch Up

Curtis writes:

As you can tell we have found it a little difficult keeping up with the blog these days. Rachel is currently in “Computer Camp” and getting ready for next week’s travel camp visiting various Kentucky state parks. The last two weeks for both of us has been work, work, work…this is a very long post as I can be very long winded but hopefully it catches everyone up!

I just finished up one of the longest weeks in my season. After returning from the annual Hardacre summer pool party I jumped right into the Triple-A All-Star Game and festivities here in Louisville.

Rachel and Chip in the pool

We had a Home-Run Derby on the 14th and the actual game on the 16th. It was a very stressful time for everyone on staff as 2 years of planning came down to just three days but everything went extremely well. I was in charge of “holding down the fort” at the office during the three days and hosting/organizing four parties in relation to our events. Luckily, the team had a couple hotel rooms downtown at the Galt House for the staff to crash as we were putting in 14-18 hour days. After all of the festivities were over we headed into 8 straight home games to restart the regular-season. There is an end in sight as there are only 2 homestands left in August! Louisville Slugger Field, home of the 2008 Triple-A All-Star Game

Ophelia is still going strong and is crazy as ever (the fun kind of crazy). She seems to be kicking her cold/eye infection and is negative for feline leukemia. This means she has been getting some “general population” time with our animals. She, Hobo and Gypsy chase and tackle each other until Tyson gets too interested and Ophelia puffs up and runs away. Another week or so and she’ll be spayed and hopefully adopted very soon. We will also be working on getting Shamrock's cats up on PetFinder.com. Currently, only their dogs are on the website and the cats are adopted through local pet stores.

A very regal-looking Ophelia

An update on our first litter: all four have now been adopted. Heidi was the first to go and went to another Shamrock foster’s sister in Florida. Henry was next going with a woman from Louisville. We were getting worried about the remaining two, Helene and Hans, as they were not getting adopted very quickly. But as soon as Rachel and I discussed about taking them back to foster again they were both adopted together to a nice older couple in Louisville. We hope to receive pictures in the future!

Nebu, now Milo, has been adopted by Leslie and Travis (Rachel’s sister and her husband) and seems to be settling in pretty well. They had been looking for a cat for a while and Milo seemed to fit the bill. If it doesn’t work out, we would gladly take him back though!

My fence project has been slowly, emphasis on slowly, moving along. It’s been hard to work on projects at home when we both basically live at work for much of the summer. I hope to get all the posts in this week when Rachel is gone.

The next few weeks will be busy, again, but fun. Tomorrow, Rachel’s cousin, Scott Dubois, is getting married so we will be driving up for the day but returning home that night. We have lined up many visitors in the month of August and hope everyone gets to come down. 1) Leslie will be helping Rachel with her travel camp next week. 2) A couple of my friends, Joe and Jared, are headed down next weekend to visit and go to the Willie Nelson/Dave Matthews Band held here at the stadium. 3) Rachel’s parents are coming in for a week or so and will help with Rachel’s last camp of the summer, “Horse Camp” (I’m sure she’ll blog about that one quite extensively). And, 4) My parents, Kimberly and her boyfriend might make a trip down to catch a game and go over to Holiday World as well.

I’ll be sure to upload some pictures of some of the described events. Our computer has been on the fritz so that could be a while. Thanks for checking in!

Greta, Grace and Ophelia

Before I left for the bike trip, we took in three more foster kittens. Two sisters, named Greta and Grace and another female of about the same age, named Ophelia (she was rescued from someone who tried to drown her). While I was gone, the two sisters struggled with coccidia and despite Curtis' efforts to keep them medicated and hydrated, Grace died on the Saturday night that I returned. Greta was doing alright until Monday night when she wouldn't eat, so we took her to the vet the next morning. They gave her subcutaneous fluid and changed her meds but she didn't regain her appetite and started vomiting later than evening. She didn't make it through the night and we buried her next to her sister. It was so sad and frustrating because they went downhill so fast and we felt so helpless.

Fortunately, Ophelia seems very healthy and will soon be able to be spayed and put up for adoption. She is a very social kitten and cries for us when we leave the room, now that her roommates are gone. Here is a video of the three girls when we first brought them home.