All Things Anne

A Hunting We Go
Saturday through Wednesday (21-25) we (Dad, Ben, Joe, Eric, Beth, and I–it’ll be Beth’s first time!) are going hunting where we went last year. Mom and Dad bought a camper trailer to sleep in. It’s small, but it sleeps six, and has a working bathroom, sink, and stove, and it’s certainly better than sleeping in the van and eating outside! Last year Dad made pancakes for breakfast one morning. It was so cold that by the time everybody had their pancakes, the first couple people’s pancakes were cold and the syrup was frozen!

Sometimes Short Stinks
Since Bethy’s hunting now, and since we didn’t have a suit for her, and since she’s still growing and I’m not–at least vertically–, and since my hunting suit is too big for me, we decided to give my suit to Beth, and get one that fits me. Well, we looked at Sheels–nothing. Big Bear was closed that day. The next day we went to Big R, to get Beth a knife and look into coveralls for me. So we went to the knife and gun counter, and a nice man helped us. When we’d decided on what we wanted to buy, Dad asked if they had coveralls.
“Size short,” I said.
“Yeah, but…” the guy looked me up and down, smiled wryly, and said “not in that size.”
Sure enough, nothing was my size. So Dad ordered me bib overalls and a coat from Cabella’s!

A Trip to the White House
Down the road, and down another road, and up a twisty hairpin driveway is the house we call the White House, sometimes qualifying it as “the White House with the blue roof”. We call them the Presidents. Firstly, because we didn’t know their real names, and secondly, because the husband and wife have different last names (but after looking at the stuff on their walls and stuff, I think the wife just hyphens her last names). I tell you what, Mrs. President has a beautiful grand piano! So anyway, today we (Beth, Mom, and I) went. Why? Good question. Beth and I are now…maids. Well, housecleaners (besides our own house). No, we don’t have black dresses with cute little aprons, but I DID feel like a maid when I had my (their) feather duster out! It took us 3 hours, but we dusted what hadn’t been dusted for a long time. It should take us less time in the future!

How I Got Clawed by a Bear Today
The Presidents have a very lovely home, not much bigger than ours, but much better layed out. They have lots of old west-style decorations; saddles, paintings of Indians, paintings of cowboys, western-style rugs, rustic log stair rails, a moose antler chandelier, a deer antler chandelier, etc. Well, they also have a real, live stuffed bear. Not live stuffed. Dead stuffed. And you know bears. Well, maybe you don’t. Anyway, they have really long claws. So I was dusting the railing separating me from the third story and from falling into the piano, and I was minding my own P’s and Q’s, just like that bear should have been. But it wasn’t. I backed into it, minding my own P’s and Q’s, mind you, and it clawed my back! I’m not kidding!
“Ow!” I said.
Mom and Beth were on the stairs. “What’s wrong?” Mom asked.
“The bear clawed me!” I said.
They laughed.
How mean.
Not really.
I laughed too.
Turns out, Beth did the same thing later!

Three And A Half Pi’s
The Presidents have this HUGE black-and-white cat named Blaze. It’s THE biggest cat I’ve ever seen! (I’ve heard of bigger, but haven’t seen them.) No kidding, it’s probably three and a half times bigger than my own cat!
Then again, my cat only weighs half a pound more than the world-record smallest cat (which was only 3 1/2 pounds). Go figure.