Gibby Likes to Have His Belly Rubbed

I've been spending a good chunk of each day working on Gibby's house - that is, my house at the farm. I've painted the walls and cupboards in the kitchen white and removed the old vinyl floor tile. I'm in the process of replacing the floor tiles with some that look like wood. My neighbor, the sheep/border collie man, is a carpenter, so I'm going to have him help me with some of the work - like building a doorway and hanging a door where the former opening to the pantry was.

I had 1800GotJunk? remove the refrigerator and huge old microwave.from the kitchen I was shocked when they lifted the refrigerator and a skeleton rolled out. The wonderful little cat that disappeared when Gibby arrived must have hidden inside the bottom of the frig next to the motor and died there. I never thought to look there for him. I had the GotJunk people take two other refrigerators that had been left outdoors by my last renter - one of them was still full of old food. I am sooooo glad I had the GotJunk people deal with that mess.

Gibby has been a little confused - kept outside longer than usual, and then brought inside while I work. He wants so much attention! He's getting close to understanding that I won't pet him while I'm working in the kitchen, but as soon as I sit in a chair in the dining room I'm ready to give him my full attention. He throws himself down on the floor - so hard the floor shakes - and I get to rub his tummy. No matter how much time I have, I can never rub his tummy long enough. As soon as I quit, he jumps up and then throws himself down again.

Blue and Patches will go into the house, but George won't. I guess he remembers that I left him there when I went away the last time and he must not remember that its our real home. He lived there when he was a puppy, but he spent a lot more of his youth in my studio above the store than he ever did in the house. Patches is pretty silly when she comes into the house - she comes inside and then immediately goes out through the doggy door into the dog kennel, where she starts barking non-stop because she can't figure out how to come back inside. I have to crawl part way through the doggy door and pull her inside.

I've been trying to leave the interior of the kitchen cupboards alone, but late one night I started cleaning out the bottom shelf in one cupboard. I probably haven't opened that cupboard for ten years or longer. I used a broom to reach way to the back and pull the junk stored there to the front and in the process I found a lost treasure - my grandmother's gold pocket watch, engraved with her initials and the date 1904. My mother gave the watch to me and I lost it about 25 years ago. I regretted losing it so much that I used to dream about it. I had pretty much convinced myself that a troubled teenager, daughter of a good friend, had taken it. I couldn't believe I found it and have no idea how it got into the back of that cupboard.