armlessbear.com

Today was a pretty awesome day

I only watched it on TV in a packed room full of co-workers, but it was awesome and inspiring.
Let’s hope the next 4 years go as well as we all hope they will.

Update on Spike

We finally got him home around 7pm last night. We went to the pet store and bought a large dog-sized kennel to keep him in while he recovers from pain meds and anesthesia, but still have room to get up and move around.

He spent most of his night in there with Clio coming by to smell and hiss at him. Later, we pulled him out and I let him sleep on my lap for an hour before we put him back in there for bedtime.

He’s gone from wildly thrashing around and flopping to actually moving and has gone both up and down stairs. But after he has a fit and burst of moving he flops down and just sort of lays there. We’re not sure if it’s exhaustion or drugs or a combination of both, but he looks sort of sad when he’s lying there all flopped over…

One Cat, Three Legs....

Sometime this morning Spike will have the entirety of his left front arm removed. We can’t call him stumpy, because they won’t leave a stump. They take everything right through the scapula so that the entire arm mechanism is completely gone.

Now you may be wondering how it has come to pass that we’re taking his entire arm off. This is how:

It isn’t surprising to anyone who has met our cats to hear that they often do their very best to run outside at every opportunity. Usually in the mornings we’re very careful because we’re not equipped to have completely outdoor cats.

Yesterday, however, Spike ran outside and literally ran away. I was running late and decided that a day without the creature comforts of a soft sofa and a dish of food might cure him from running outside.

Western Vacation

Our vacation out west photos are now up here.

I may try and turn some of the shots I took into panoramas. If that’s successful, those photos will go up there as well.

High Water Photos

A few weeks ago, I took some photos around Monona Bay of the high water. I put some of the best up here.

It's Stupid Graph Time!

more graph humor and song chart memes

and...

more graph humor and song chart memes

Mama Mia, thats-a-spicy-weed?

In an attempt to enjoy the nice weather today, do some yard clean up, and prepare for the winter storm warning I was doing some raking in the little garden spot between the driveways.
I pulled some dead leaves away and smelled something familiar, yet strangely out of place. I sniffed again and looked at the ground. Fresh, new, tiny green leaves were poking out of the dead leaves. I retrieved a rake and gently pulled all the dead vegetation away. Growing underneath all that dead was a hardy little oregano plant.

I thought the first signs of spring were supposed to be crocuses or tulips, not herbs. I’m not complaining, it’s just… weird, that’s all.

Spring? Sprung? Springing?

Last fall we were inattentive lawn people. No grass was mowed, no leaves were raked in the back. The warm weather of the last few days melted snow exposing our laziness to the naked eye. Soggy, icy leaves covered a significant portion of our backyard. I googled around a bit and discovered that with each passing day we were murdering our lawn. Smothering it, inviting burrowing pests, encouraging moss. Oh, the horror, the shame of it all!

Today I spent 2.5 hours in the back yard cleaning up our mess.
I filled 2 old garbage cans and our compost bin with leaves and there are still more leaves that need to find a home. The 2 densely packed garbage cans are for composting later in the season when good carbon sources are scarce.

Oh my god, someone stole our tree!

Our tree, here this morning, is now but a shadow of it’s former self. By tomorrow afternoon, all that will be left will be firewood.

Speaking of, those of you to whom we promised firewood, come & get it!