Time warp: October edition

We bought some new furniture while my parents were visiting. Cleo supervised while Dad put this table together. Mom and I were working on the chairs.

Ta da! Another surface on which to display glass fruit.

Weasley stole my fork and then started playing with it. Compared to what he's up to now, this is practically level 0.

Things we learned: no more leaving boxes lying around that contain packing peanuts.

This is/was another one of Weasley's favorite tricks. He hasn't scaled the towel rack recently because I think he realizes that it won't support his weight.

Cleo will begrudgingly share the bed with Weasley. She will put up with almost anything if it means she gets to sleep on that blue blanket.

Another basket! This fall was the first time I had persimmons, thanks to Bountiful Baskets. They were delicious.

Josh likes to make sure I know which eggs were hard boiled.

Weasley liked to cuddle/bite Devo.

Possibly the only picture in existence of all three of my cats. Of course, food was involved. Cleo wouldn't be there otherwise.

Weasley was a big fan of cuddling with Devo.

Devo really was the best worst cat. I only had him for 6 years, but in that time he managed to leave his mark in the form of bitten fingers, excessive puking, poo in my shoes to send a message, Sunday afternoon lap cuddles, basking in the brightest sunbeam until fully roasted, chasing Cleo, tripping us, forgetting where his butt was in relation to the litter box, being Mr. Fangorius, being an excellent cross-country road-trip buddy, always being underfoot in the kitchen, and mostly looking far more grumpy than he really was. 

I swear we're still alive

Weasley is checking out the gout stool I found on Etsy. Jaime bought one in VA and I decided that I also needed an antique foot stool in my life.

Speaking of Weasley, he is not tiny anymore! He's not full-size yet, probably closer to 2/3 regular cat size. It must be all those kibbles we keep feeding him. Also, he can jump about 5 ft straight up from just sitting. Nothing is safe.

One bonus of the really short days is that I can catch some really nice sunsets when I'm leaving work. I took this picture last week, and since then most of the snow has melted. Josh says winter is resetting.

Weasley is also a fan of the bathroom. His greatest wish is to figure out how to open the toilet lid so that he can play in his own kitten-sized pool. Yeah, we keep all of the lids shut all of the time.

Cleo does tolerate the kitten. They don't exactly cuddle, but they have been caught in close proximity. It's hard to resist fleecy postal clothes.

This picture of Weasley cracks me up. Josh and I were playing Carcassonne and I looked over my shoulder and saw this - Weasley doing the cat creeper stare.

Anyway, I promise to post more! I have loads of pictures from the fall and winter that haven't made it into an entry yet, plus a very belated holiday update.

Time warp: November edition

Weasley is still adorable. When he is not running around like a maniac, he enjoys sleeping on the sofa or one of the many beds upstairs.

Cleo is still plump and this picture amuses me. Those boxes are still not unpacked and Cleo is going to be really grumpy when I finally get around to seeing what's in them (the labels say 'knick knacks' hence why they're still not open).

It snowed a little bit, and didn't last long. This was obviously before I'd finished cleaning up the container gardens for the season. I've since taken care of those and stashed the pots in the garage for next year.

Another shot of the snow, and some of the leaves were still on the trees. Those have since fallen, and I've raked everything into an impressive leaf pile behind the swing set.

This is not my cat. I went to Austin TX for the annual ESA meeting and got to hang out with Brooke, Christian and their cats. I'd heard so much about Donny and Zoey that I definitely wanted to meet them before I left.

This is my cat. Cleo is enjoying the new cat tree that lives in Josh's office. She is especially fond of the cat hut on the third level.

Kerry sent us delicious Swiss chocolate!

Weasley on the little table in the kitchen. It's a good thing he's cute.

More cat hut, this time with Weasley.

The dining room is finished!

When my parents were here in September, they finished painting the dining room for us. I finally made a decision about what kind of rug to get for under the table (Flor carpet tiles in grey Mod Cow), and we put the room back together.

Finished!

There are only two chairs at the table, because if we put the rest of them there Cleo and Weasley have too many ways of getting onto the table while we're eating. They have terrible manners.

Kitten updates!

Weasley was cleared for integration into the regular population back in early September, and he's been terrorizing Devo and Cleo ever since.

One of his first meetings with Devo, while he was still in bathroom quarantine.

We let him have extended play time in Josh's man-cave when we got home from work. Turns out, Weasley loved attacking socks.

Weasley discovered the joys of sleeping on the sofa.

Cat TV!

Devo is a good pillow when he's not being bitten.

Cat TV again. This is from the end of September and you can see how much bigger he's gotten.

'What? No, I was not just biting his face.'

Weasley stole my fork.

And finally, getting into some packing peanuts.

Don't all fairs come with free kittens?

Yesterday, as part of my job, I drove down to Mission for the Todd County Fair. The weather was awesome (especially for August in South Dakota), and I loaded up the car with insect nets for the kids program. The fair was tiny, but full of the regular fair activities - petting zoo, snow cones, 4H exhibits. There were a few things that I hadn't seen in quite a while, like the cake walk. I think the last cake walk I experienced was in elementary school.

I brought home a ton of cool insects to add to my work collection (giant robber flies, a lubber grasshopper, lots of other grasshoppers, what I think is a velvet ant - the kids did a good job).

There were also free kittens.

I know. No kitten is ever actually 'free.'

This one came home with me.

This is Weasley. I'll be calling the vet on Monday to get him an appointment to make sure that he checks out health-wise, and get him started on his shots. Currently, he's living in the downstairs bathroom with the claw-foot tub. He's maybe 4-5 weeks old, so he's pretty dang tiny.

Devo, on the left, for scale.

Obviously, I wasn't planning on adopting a kitten yesterday but he was in for a tough life in Todd County assuming he avoided the fates of some of his litter mates (unfortunate run-ins with water and dogs). He did well on the car ride home, and stayed in his box as long as my hand was in the box too. For being the progeny of outside cats, he is super friendly and has an incredibly loud purr for his size.

This is also the smallest cat I've ever taken care of. Cleo was about 4 months old when I got her, so she could already handle stairs. Devo was an adult (and now he's a grumpy old man). For being so young, Weasley does already have a handle on the whole litter box thing which is awesome.

Devo is trying to pretend that none of this ever happened.

August?!

Well, so much for July.

I spent quite a bit of time on the road last month for both work and a short vacation. For work, I went to Sioux Falls, Brookings, and Rapid City for a combination of Youth Gardening and Master Gardener workshops. If you're every in Brookings and it's a time of year when things are blooming, definitely stop and visit McCrory gardens. We had a Master Gardener training there and it was so easy to find perennials to talk about and not at all hard to find bees and other pollinators.

After over 6 months of living in South Dakota, I made the trek back to PA for my sister's baby shower. The flights out weren't too bad - I went from an exceptionally tiny Buddy Holly plane in Pierre, to an actual large 7something, back to a smaller regional plane into MDT. Flying into MDT never gets old, because someone (usually a kid) will always ask their parents if that really is Three Mile Island. Yes, yes it is.

PA was delightfully lush and I hit a stretch of days that were cool and mostly not humid. The gardens at my parents' house, Tudek, and Kerry's were all jungle-sized, or at least far bigger than anything I can grow in South Dakota.

My trip was packed full of things to do, including a road trip to Lancaster to see Jess and Garrison Keillor. We caught his summer tour at the American Music Theater and had a blast. Somewhere in picture #7 we're in the mezzanine section forgetting the words to 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.' Like I was going to remember the line about trampling through the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

Now, I'm off to Saint Paul, MN for a meeting that conveniently coincides with the other ESA. This will be my first time in MN outside of the MSP airport.