Part 2

It's a beautiful day. Thank God the sun is shining and helping melt the snow a little bit in the places we shoveled. It took us over 2 hours just to clear the ten feet of sidewalk to the cars and then get all the snow off of them and clear all around them. We're still waiting for them to come and clear our street.





The dog on the other side of the fence lives somewhere behind us. He always comes to see if Ramen is outside. It took a lot of effort for Ramen to get up the slope in the backyard because the snow is so deep.

Lots of Snow!

The crazy part is it's only 10 a.m. and it's supposed to snow a lot more all day!

First Snow

This is the first time it's snowed since we moved into the house. Love the snow on the trees!


The view from my desk:


Backyard One:


Backyard Two:

Useless Pets

Lying in bed this morning I kept hearing a scratching noise. I had closed the cat's in/out window and figured it was one of them wanting it open. A while later I woke up enough to realize all three pets were in the bedroom with us - so it couldn't be one of them making the noise.

Great. I got up and went into the laundry/storage room and heard the scratching. Went back into the bedroom to wake up Nerdstar and then to explain to the pets just how useless they were!

I'm pretty sure Little Man brought this mole in and then got bored with it. Silly had no interested. And I don't think the dog even heard it. Ugh.



It was almost three inches long. We put it in a big bucket with a lid and then decided I'd take it down to a very big field about a mile from the house and set it free. We just couldn't kill it.

About two weeks ago Little Man did manage to kill a baby one and bring it in and leave it in his food bowl. So this probably isn't the last of them.

Boobies

Our ornithologist friend thought of us when she saw this and brought it back from Ecuador.

View Boobies.

Silly on Desk

I wish they were more clear - but this is my cat Silly aka Queen Silly Butt (because there's not a silly bone in her body!) This is just after the sun has come up and she's sitting on the corner of my desk while I websurf.

Fall

Absolutely gorgeous! I love this big tree in the front yard. Yes, my yard is already full of leaves. No, I don't really plan to rake them up - maybe never, but certainly not before every single leaf falls off the tree!



This was the start of our first fire in our fireplace. I think the foil is going to work just fine to help catch the ashes and make it easier to clean up. It also helps create a nice glow with the reflected light.



And these - sigh - oh so yummy. These are oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from a recipe I've been using for over 25 years. They make my mouth happy!

Dinner and Dessert

Just a simple roast chicken that Nerdstar made some good rice to go with. Can't go wrong. She'll use the broth for all kinds of stuff.


I've been wanting to eat some good pie lately, and as with most desserts, I find I like mine better than most. So, I found this recipe for lemon pie in my old Good Housekeeping recipe book. No, there's no meringue on it because I'm not a big fan of it, cool whip is just fine. It's cooling in the fridge, I'll let you know if it turned out ok. I tasted it before putting it in the fridge, it might need to be a little more lemony next time.

VA State Fair

This is a 851 pound pumpkin.


This is the biggest rabbit either of us has ever seen!


A cute pile of baby ducks.

Ready!

Barton Springs

Yes, in addition to all the dogs there that afternoon - this dude had his snake with him!



The bottom of the creek area is all slimy and slippery. I'd had her hand over the camera and her wallet and such because I had a feeling she was gonna end up all wet. Close.

Empty Creek

This is pretty much how the trail looks these days. It's for hiking and biking. It's about five minutes from downtown.


So sad... Nerdstar's standing in the bottom of what used to be a great little pooling area to splash around in. There used to be water all the way over the top of those rocks.

Breakfast at Magnolia

Nerdstar's veggie omlette. You just can't see how many veggies are in there.



Mine, should have just had two breakfast tacos instead of one and one pancake.

Dog Sitting

We're dog sitting this weekend. It's a first for us, although Ramen has stayed at this dog's (Daisy) house before.


Ramen's looking the camera. Daisy is looking away.

Another one of Daisy.

Little Man is under the desk doing his cat growl thing.

Jealous?

Unbelievable

Backyard Jungle

Not sure how much you can really tell in these pics. We've got about a seven foot slope in our backyard - so I'm standing at the top at the back fence where I've had to do a lot of branch trimming. We've also got this one kind of crawling vine that has thorns and literally attaches itself to everything with these little things that wrap around fences and branches. I'm going to have to find out a good way to kill it.

I love all these trees though.

Ramen at the Beach

He's saying "GET ME OUT OF HERE!"


How cute is that face??

Art

This is some of the art we saw at Artomatic a couple of weekends ago.

There is no way for a picture to do these two justice. I really want this first one, but I'm pretty sure it's a few thousand dollars.





Love the use of rubber duckies!


This one is made out of Red Bull cans.