Random images from our lives recently....

Bathtime for her dirtiest kitten!

We made bread. It came out weird, and with brussel sprout eye stalks.  Delicious, right? 

Who's actually in charge in this house...

... is amply clear from this picture!

New Year, New Projects

2012's been off to a rip-roaring start! After a hectic end to the semester, we had a great holiday and have gotten back into the groove of things here in Virginia (Steph protested me calling it "Ol' Virginee"). We've gotten a lot of work done on the house, including getting our office set--complete with a refurbished morris chair (thanks Mom and Dad!). I have to say after our green chair adventure of last summer, fixing the springs and adding new cushions seems like a walk in the park! We even have all of our books unpacked finally, and our 3rd bedroom is all set up for guests. We'll post some pictures soon, but in the meantime here's some other miscellaneous ones:

Morning is probably my favorite time of day in the house (Steph too!) Here's the view from the kitchen a lot of the time (sunrises and sunsets are absolutely gorgeous here).

Kitty enjoys the morning too...
...and sometimes she shares with the dog. Cutest. pets. ever.
I just thought this was cool. You can see the envelope of steam around the egg before it rises up and off. I also enjoy pushing the french press down in the sun. It's the little things in life :)

Best buddies

We think they finally figured out that the other one is warm.

Big update

Long time no post. Sorry, to the four of you reading this blog. We've been really busy. We've been teaching and designing curricula and grading and furnishing and painting and unpacking and gardening and job applying and research and in general not sleeping much or posting much.

We took this weekend off, though, and that felt amazing.

So FINALLY at long last here are some pictures!


Us, our puppy, and our signed house documents!!

Our house number :-)


Our real estate agent left us a bottle of champagne on the mantel. Here's our gorgeous awesome living room.

Unpacking's been a process. For a while, we had boxes on the puppy's chair and so there was only the couch for all of us to sit on.


I can't believe autumn's almost over. It's a gorgeous season here in VA.

Catsphere

It's hard to be a cow-eating, dog-toy stealing, dog-bed hogging kitty. Sometimes you just need a nap.

Gemini is clearly living a difficult life

We were away this weekend, and a friend from the SCBI was house-sitting for the fuzzies. She got this classic shot while she was studying...

A series of posts!

...are coming up.

Firstly, the cat and the dog have graduated to best friends. This is how they spend their days.

Treat time at the Zoo

This isn't a normal activity here but sometimes it's just funny to tease the animals....
Who said cats and dogs are that different?

Cuddle butts!

Beyond the foot touching, we now have full-blown cuddling (though I believe the cat may have been drunk at the time and didn't realize what she was doing)

Their back paws ARE touching

See! They are touching!

Woodstove-induced peace

It's a miracle!

For anyone who's stayed at our house, watched our critters, or heard pet stories, the miracle is
finally complete- Gemini and Shasta are best buddies. Here's the proof (Gemmy's giving Shasta a bath while cuddling in front of the baseball game)!


Sorry for the poor quality of this movie, but it's worth it:



YAAAAY!

Cat picture

Just 'cause the dog seems to get all the play anymore...


I think she looks like a sleepy yoda...

More interspecies peace!

And this time I have the pictures to prove it. This reprieve lasted a couple minutes.

Dog and cat peace!

Hi all! Happy holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Tuesday!

I'm working from home today because I've been sick, and I just had the AMAZING privilege of being able to watch a sleepy Shasta go up to a sleepy Gemini, give her a kiss, and curl up with her in front of the woodstove!! I wish I had a picture to show you. There is hope, after all!

Of course, Shasta did roll onto Gemmy's tail, which led to yowling, and so it was a very short time of interspecies peace, but still!

News and pictures from this summer

New doggie! (again) We got her from the Huntingdon SPCA, and we had a surprisingly good experience with them. The approval process took only as long as it took to get our landlord's approval, and they spayed her, microchipped her, played with her and gave us a bag of dog treats, toys and food to start out with. How nice!

She's a little black lab mix- maybe with hound of some kind, or collie? I don't know. She's little, though, only forty pounds (soaking wet) and she has a little white strip on her chest, with a very narrow face. Very cute. She's maybe 8 months old, and bounces and chases her tail and LOVES to play. She seems to be housebroken, by some miracle, but that's about the extent of her training. Her name's Shasta (like the daisy).

She really wants to play with Gemmy. It's a shame that the two of them speak completely different languages- when Gemmy says "Go away and leave me alone", Shasta hears "Play with me!" and when Gemmy smacks her upside the head, Shasta gets frustrated and very confused. She leaves the bunny mostly alone though, which is great.

There are lots of things going on- we thought we'd share some images from this crazy summer, and we'll post some of the new house/doggie soon.

We took this in May after visiting our friends T. and M... I love the way that you can see how good Jim is at skipping stones!

We went to Delaware this summer- to Cape Henlopen, to be exact- for 2 blissful days at the beach. Wonderful. The other two pics are from birding with my dad, and it was a beautiful morning in Central Pennsylvania.

After our lease ended, we housesat for a little more than a week at a house with 8 dogs and 2 cats. One of the cats (not pictured) is beautiful. The other, well, he's very sweet.

After housesitting, we moved to our friends' E and A's house for 2 months- which was a blast. (Thanks again!) We did some canning, some chicken-coop building, and ate leeks.

Here's the finished chicken coop. Of course we couldn't leave well enough alone, so we added ears and a tail when E and A were out of town...

,

Then I went out to sea to do some field work for my lab for a few weeks in September - so here's a couple pics... the Gulf of Mexico is beautiful, when there aren't hurricanes.

Our new house- it doesn't look a lot like this anymore- the shutters came off, and the ivy's down now (as per our landlord's request). Moving in was... fun... we had to take a zillion boxes out of the basement and unpack them. It exhausted poor little kitty, who was a big help. Really. We also spent some time cleaning up outside, starting some planting, rebuilding a stone wall, and getting ready for winter. That's when Jim ran across his new (not so) Little Friend, who is a long horned beetle larvae, and is now living in an enclosure in the basement, where he's busy pupating.

We also managed to get up to Ithaca a couple of weekends ago, and go apple picking! I love apple picking! And there's lots of milkweed around, which is one of the most beautiful plants...

Anyway, more later...

Moving?

We finally found a house! It's a cute little house in Pine Grove Mills, and so far it looks like it'll work out perfectly for us. Anyone know anyone who needs a duplex in State College?

It's even got heat vents. We've got ceiling cable heat at our duplex, and I've found it to be inefficient and ineffective. The Land of Giant Spoons has heat vents, too, and Gemini's turned them into one of her favorite hangouts, along with the cushion by the fireplace and the patches of sunlight shining through the window.

Meet the critters!

Gemini my beautiful cat... this picture was taken by my former roommate JC. Guinness is the 9 lb bunny, and Felix is the leopard gecko.