Portrait of Cat in Constant Motion

I know that there are already a bazillion photos of adorable kittens on the interweb, but can the world ever really have too many pictures of adorable kittens?  I think not!  Recently, as I was playing with new Newt, and thinking how cute she was, I decided that I should take a picture of her now, before she outgrows the little kitten look.  You know, for my scrap book blog.  However, I have not been able to get any non-blurry photos of her because she will not hold still! 

When we first brought her home she was very snugly and still, but she was also scrawny and starving.  Now that she's been fed plenty of kitten chow, she's in constant motion, which makes it very hard for me and my cell phone camera.  You would think, considering cats and kittens are the most represented species on the world wide web, that cell phone manufactures would realize that we all want to take pictures of our cats, and make a special photo setting for this.  I tried to get her to hold still by baiting her to a jar with kiffer residue.  But when I squatted down to frame my shot, she stopped investigating the jar to see what I was up to.  Back up, you are too close!

No, not with your tongue out, silly cat.  

She jumped from the floor to my shoulder, so I thought I might be able to capture her selfie style.  Nope, too wiggly.  

Nope, too much forehead, not enough kitten.

Stop purring and rubbing on my face and just hold still for one second!

Ack, my glasses! No, no, no, I don't want a picture of that end!   

So close... just one more shot and I'll have it...

Grrrr!! 

I finally resorted to holding her in the air with my left hand and trying to take the photo with my right hand.  This is not the cute pose I was hoping for!  Oh well, I'll either have to get a better camera or try again sometime when she's asleep.  

Ceiling or Viking Ship Hull?

Last weekend Brandon and I got the majority of the upstairs ceiling boards installed.  As you can see, it was extra challenging because we were working around the now exposed beams.  Each board had to be snaked into place, before we each took an end so we could fit the tongue and grove together.   Each board that went up required that we move our ladders, step up, make a measurement, step down, cut the board, slide it in place, step up, install over our heads, and tack into place.  Every once in a while one of us would give thanks that we didn't buy a bigger house!  

I like the way the beams cast shadows on the sloped ceiling.  

To bridge the gap at the peak, we nailed up a four inch wide board, which will match the window trim.  I doubt we will view the ceiling from this perspective very often, since it requires a ladder, but I like the way it looks with all those lines running to the chimney in the center of the room.  

Does it look like an upside down boat to you?  It does to me.  I can imagine vikings with oars sitting on our ceiling.  

Chicken Drama in the Barn Yard

I'm working to introduce Mrs. Hall to Rosie and Egret.  At first, I would open the door to the chicken coop and let Mrs. Hall go in to mingle.  As you can see the photo above, Mrs Hall was mostly interested in checking out the feeder, and the new chickens stayed as far away from her as they could in such a small space.  Since no one got pushy or mean during these brief interactions, I decided to try letting the new chickens out of the coop to explore the yard with Mrs. Hall.  

I opened the door and took a step back and Rosie and Egret sauntered out and immediately began scratching for tasty bugs in the grass.  

Mrs. Hall joined them in the shade of the asparagus bed, and for a few moments everything was peaceful and I had hope that they were going to be the best of friends.  Like the three musketeers, only without swords.  Mrs. Hall and Rosie were busy scratching with their heads together when they must have found a particularly tasty treat, because WHAM!, Mrs. Hall nailed Rosie right on the back of the head with her beak.  Rosie cried out, and ran to the left, and Egret ran to the right, so that they were separated by the asparagus and blackberry beds.  

In the video above, taken moments after the attack, you can see that Rosie and Egret are still separated and even though it was Rosie who got hen pecked, when Mrs. Hall aggressively approaches Egret, she feels trapped by the fence runs and squeaks.  Rosie, hearing Egret's distress, begins to cackle.  Soon everyone is clucking and cackling.  Oh, the drama!

To ease the tension, I led Mrs. Hall to the breakfast area for a snack, and coaxed the newbies back together, which calmed everyone down.  When I watched the video just now, I realized how much my back yard looks like a barn yard!  The grass hasn't been mowed, which the chickens appreciate.  The brown patches in the grass are where the chicken tractor stood for a day before I moved it.  The grass recovers pretty quickly, but it's still not the manicured lawn loved by suburbia.  The combination of overgrown garden beds and cackling chickens adds a nice touch to the barn yard ambiance.  

Gone Electro Fishing

Now this is my kind of fishing!  My coworker is wearing a back pack electrofisher in the photo above.  Notice that it has a long tail that trails in the water behind him.  This is a steel cathode.  In his right hand is a pole with an aluminum ring on the end in the water.  When he presses a button on the pole, a current passes between the ring and the steel tail, and the fish in the immediate vicinity of the ring get a jolt.  This shock temporarily stuns the fish, and they float so that we can scoop them up with a net.  No wonder I have no patience for fishing with a hook - this is so easy it's cheating!   

For the past few days, I've been scrambling over creek rock carrying a bucket of fish and a net behind my coworker while he shocks fish and we scoop them up in our nets.  Not everyone can say they make a living by going fishing!

Of course, when most people think of going fishing, they don't usually envision having to walk long distances on slick rocks with a forty pound back pack, or think that they are going to be in small polluted streams next to the highway catching minnows instead of cruising in their bass boat on a lake or casting their flies to the sound of the babbling brook.  We could hear the steady stream of cars and the packs of neighborhood dogs instead.  But still, we caught hundreds of fish.   Hundreds of very tiny fish. 

Fish identification is a skill that takes study and practice, which I rarely do since I've always worked with people who specialize in fish, so I naturally become the bucket holder and note taker.  My coworker is so good at fish identification that he can scoop a fish from the bucket, call off it's species name, and put it back in the creek as fast as I can write it down.  I believe the fish in the photo above is a stoneroller, which is a common fish that can tolerate poor water quality.  Stone rollers have their mouth near the bottom of their face, so they are one of the easier fish to identify.  

This little beauty is a longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis).  It looks similar to a green sunfish or a bluegill.  I think the color is fantastic, and rivals those of tropical fish I see in aquariums.  

This fish is a silverjaw minnow (Notropis buccatus).  These are easy to identify because they have strange metallic sensory organs on their jaw, under the eye, which my coworker described as making them look like Skeletor, who was He-Man's nemesis.  You might have to zoom in on the picture to see what he's talking about.  

Our objective is to assess the fish population of the stream, but sometimes we unintentionally shock other critters, like crayfish and frogs.  This little bullfrog was so stunned that let me flip him on his back so I could examine the pattern on his underside.  

In just a few moments he was able to move again, and was giving me the stink eye for the indignity that we caused him.  

This pickerel frog didn't appreciate being shocked and man handled either, and hopped away on wobbly legs.  

So many of the streams I get to explore for work are in very poor condition.   They are just plain gross, really.  The water is polluted from runoff from road and parking lot oils and salts, there are pipes spewing unspeakable substances, and the substrates (cobbles and gravels) which the stream life need for shelter and reproduction are covered in mud and sediment from bank erosion and stream disturbance, cows are mucking around in the creek, algae is taking over the stream because of the nutrient runoff from fertilizers, septic systems, pet poo, and livestock manure, and there is trash everywhere.  From a distance, everything may seem okay, but I'm convinced that if more people spent time playing in creeks, and really thought about the fact that the same stinky water in this "ditch" on the side of the road is the same water that we eventually have coming from the tap, we would be so thoroughly grossed out that we might demand a better system.  The frogs and fish would appreciate it too.  

Chicken Scotch Challenge

I think we invented a new game!  It's working title is "chicken scotch" but Mrs. Hall and I are still open for suggestions.  The idea for this game came to me as I watched Mrs. Hall walk along the sidewalk where my niece had drawn a hop scotch game using sidewalk chalk.  I thought it was funny to see a chicken on the board, and then I thought it would be even funnier to see if I could get her to step into each square by pitching kernels of corn.  

I quickly realized that there is more skill involved in chicken scotch that I predicted.  First of all, corn kernels bounce, so unless I was extremely close, it was hard to get the corn to land in the square I was aiming for, and secondly, Mrs. Hall wouldn't concentrate on the objective of the game, which is not to stuff your face, but to win, and kept wandering over to corn kernels that were outside the squares.  Focus!  

I gave my self the advantage of not requiring that she step in each square in sequence, but as long as she stepped in each square at least once, then I was on track to game completion.  Once I successfully negotiated the board, I realized that to truly make this a game, I should have timed us to see if we could beat our own time.  Even better, would be challenging someone else to a game, and see if they could beat our best time.  Who wants to play?  

Mrs. Hall is ready to play any time!  

Funny Spam Comments and Pretty Flowers

Last week, when I learned that my parents were coming for an unplanned visit, I did some speedy clutter pick up and mucked out the most embarrassing dirt.  I didn't want to do too good of a job though, because there's always a good chance the state of my housework will benefit from my mother's visit if I let her see the desperate state I've allowed things to become.  I stopped myself from bringing my two huge baskets of unmatched socks into the living room and telling woeful stories about how the kids at work make fun of my mismatched ankles.   

One of the things I did to prepare for the visit was to take a trip to the garden with some scissors so I could refresh the flowers in my blue vase, and then stand around arranging the flowers and taking way to many pictures of my flowers.  Why do I care if my socks are matched when I have flowers to admire?

Speaking of admiration... if I ever need to boost my blogging confidence, all I need to do is read my spam comments.  One of the neatest things about this blog is that there is a "comments" tab I can select from the blog design page, that lets me see all the comments that have been made in order of when they were posted.  This means that if someone comments on an old post, I can see it without having to scroll back through all the old posts.  I don't get very many real comments, but I click the tab regularly just to make sure I haven't made a new friend who isn't afraid of leaving a comment.  Also under the comments tab is a place where all the spam comments go.  This spam is obviously computer generated generic comments, probably not from an English speaking computer, that have an embedded link that probably gives me a virus or steals my soul or something,  I don't ever click the link so I'm not sure what shenanigans they are up to.  

Even though they aren't genuine, sometimes I like to read them because they are so funny.  And so complementary!  Here are some examples: 

"Excellent publish, very informative.  I ponder why the opposite specialist of this sector do not understand this.  You should continue your writing.  I’m confident, you have a great readers’ base already!  Also visit my blog…"

Yeah, what's up with those opposite specialists, anyway?  I will continue my writing.  Thank you. 

"Hello my loved one!  I wish to say that this post is amazing, nice written and include almost all significant infos.  I’d like to peer more posts like this.  Feel free to visit my website…"

Isn't that sweet?  I will try to always include almost all significant infos.  Thank you!

"Along with the whole thing which seems to be developing within this specific subject material, your points of view tend to be rather stimulating.  However, I beg your pardon, because I can not subscribe to your whole theory, all be in stimulating none the less.  It appears to us that your remarks are not totally rationalized and in fact you are your self not even completely convinced of your point.  In any event I did appreciate examining it.  Feel free to surf my blog…"

I agree.  I am never totally rationalized or completely convinced of my point, but I make it none the less!  I'm glad someone finds me rather stimulating.  

"You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find thiss topic to be actually something whch I thin I would never understand.  It seems too complex and very broad for me.  I am looking forward to your next post, I will try to get thee ang of it!  Feel free to surf to my homepage…"

Yes, I must admit, my topics are actually very broad, and actually very deep.  Especially when I go on about my chickens or my tomatoes!  ha!  I'm sure you will get the hang of it.  

My photo turned out to be blurry, but during the visit with mom and dad, we popped open a bottle of hard apple cider that Jamie, Joe, and I made from apples from Joe's grandmothers tree last fall.  It was so tart and dry that it made my cheeks ache, but it was lovely and bubbly, and I was excited to use my champagne glasses.  

Okay, one last spam comment, just for giggles: 

"Having read this I believed it was extremely enlightening.  I appreciate your taking the time and energy to put this information together.  I once again find myself spending a significant amount of time both reading and leaving comments.  But so what, it was still worth it!  My weblog…"

 "Extremely enlightening"?  Really?  Aw, shucks. I too find myself spending a significant amount of time on this blog, so I'm glad you thought it was worth it!  

The Labor of Labor Day and the Discovery of Giant Mole Mounds

In preparation for the labor of Labor Day, and a visit to our little farm house project by our good friends, Brandon and I took the time to pick up most of the construction debris in the downstairs of the house and put away some of the most dangerous looking tools that we habitually stumble over while we are working.  I even unplugged the air compressor, which has a bad habit of re-pressurizing with out warning, making an incredibly loud noise that gives everyone a jolt.  Once the construction site was tidied, I threw a table cloth over our mangled old work table, and all of a sudden, this place sort of looks like a house!  Brandon even finished installing the ceiling fan in the living room, which made it seem even more like a real room.  Remembering to bring light bulbs so we could turn the light on would have been nice, but I'm not complaining.    

When I look at the photo above, not only do I see the new ceiling fan, I see the stairway that we built with our friends, the ceiling we leveled and installed one little strip at a time, the window on the right, that Brandon put in where there was no window, the floor Brandon and Dan worked so hard to jack up and patch together after the termites had their fun, the beam our friends gave us that we used to hold up the second floor on it's posts, insulation and bits of drywall, and the door we installed in a place where there was only a wall.  We did all that! It's not perfect, for sure, or finished, or even what everyone would want, but I'm excited to see it all coming together.  

Look what we found just outside the front door.  Mole mounds!  They lead from the back yard all the way around the house to the front, under the pear tree.  Once it rained, they were soft and muddy, and luckily they are strategically placed so that on trips to the house from the campfire I can step in the mud and track it inside the house.  

Seriously, how big is this mole?!  The mounds are bigger than the dog!  Should I be afraid of what is under the ground?  Could it be a giant sandworm descended from Dune? 

One the Sunday before the holiday, we were given a reprieve from the rain just in time for a campfire dinner of hot dogs and various homemade hot dog toppings - home made ketchup, pickled watermelon rinds in mustard, and grilled garlic and tomato creation.  In true summer style, we started our feast with watermelon and ended with a cooler of tasty beverages.  Since we were out of gas for the grill, Brandon roasted the dogs on the campfire using the rack from the grill.  

The other exciting farm house news is the functioning shower.  It has hot water and everything!  A quick stop at the Dollar Store and we had a curtain rod, shower curtain, and rug.  Being able to wash the grime and sweat from house demolition and construction is wonderful, and even with stickers and tape on the shower walls and the unfinished state of the bathroom, it felt luxurious to take a real shower.  

We needed a shower too, after working to reorganize the lumber piles in the barn, disassemble the old kitchen sink, and put up insulation in the ceiling of the upstairs.  It truly was a Labor Day! 

Meet My New Chickens!

Introducing - Rosie and Egret, my two new chickens!  These are likely two of the chickens hatched in the incubator in my office, from eggs laid by Joe's chickens, just in time for Easter.  Notice that Rosie has pink legs and Egret has orange legs, otherwise, they look like twins.  They are still babies really, and won't be old enough to lay eggs until the end of October.  

The new chicks have been given the chicken tractor, and are staying cooped up for a few days to make sure they know where to come home to sleep.  I don't want them to pick up any bad habits from Mrs. Hall, who after years of being a good chicken and sleeping in the coop, now prefers to sleep on top of my cement elephant.  

 Oh yeah, Mrs. Hall, I'm talking about you!

If you would like to hear Mrs. Hall explain her feelings about the new intruders in her house, turn up the volume and watch the video above.  This was their first face to face meeting, and overall, I think the conversation went pretty well since only a few feathers were ruffled.   

Despite being handled by my nieces when they were very small, these chicks aren't used to me, and unlike Mrs. Hall, who was raised by me since they she was a few days old, these new chickens were raised by their adoptive mother (or maybe their real mother), one of mom's hens who hatched chicks at the same time and allowed us to sneak in some of my incubator orphans.  So, how do I tame a chicken? Step One: I begin cooing and talking chicken baby talk at a distance from the coop, so as not to scare them, but to capture their attention. Hello chickie wickies!  Cluck cluck.  

Step Two:  Harvest tasty tomato treats on the way to the coop, and let them see that I have the goods. 

Step Three: Offer the bribe to establish status as Food Lady.  Who wants and tasty overripe tomato?  See, yummy treats happen when you hear me say "chick chick chick".  

Step Four: Back away and watch the wary chicks learn to love tomatoes. With my chicken wrangling skills, I don't think it will take long before these chicks are eating out of my hands!  And eating my garden!