she's just saying...

Eggs of all colors

These beautiful eggs are from the chicken flock at the Museum.

Why do we have chickens at a Museum, you might ask. Well, I'll tell you.

The museum has a "living history" component, in other words, actors who dress up in 1870's clothing and interact in character with the visitors. We have a homestead with a cabin, barn and stable where they hang out. Included are wild mustangs, heirloom goats (not kidding) and chickens. Therefore, the eggs.

Their subtle varied hues are so beautiful that we didn't need to dye eggs this year. We're admiring them til tomorrow, then we'll eat them and appreciate them from the inside.

April 1 breakfast

April 1 breakfast, originally uploaded by Meltrier.

I got Henry pretty good with this one.

I told him we were starting a new all-vegetable diet: no sugar, no dairy, no butter, which cuts out about 50% of his food intake.

His face fell as he started to work through it, though he did pick up a carrot and start chewing.

I know he's working on something for me for this evening. Luckily he's not very good at keeping a straight face.

He took a zucchini in his backpack for an April Fool's snack in class.

Puppy brain

OK, no more badgers, at least til next week. Unless they spring a surprise visit, which they like to do.

Going down the requests list, how about a puppy? Or a small pony of a dog with puppy brain?

This is Fida (feminine for Fido, get it?).

She's my friend Mary's dog who visits us on weekends, along with Mary. She's huge - incredibly long and flexible, but is still a puppy through and through. A furry black tornado swirling through the house, picking up various random items in her path.

Given that Flash intensely dislikes other dogs, we were worried about his reaction at first, and he did nip her a few times to put her in her place. But he's realized she comes with Mary, who he loves, so he tolerates her. Actually, he doesn't tolerate her, she just doesn't exist to him. They live in parallel universes. Flash senses a disturbance in the force, but carefully ignores her physical presence.

It's a good approach. If annoying things won't go away, just decide they don't exist.

Badger of the day

Bonnie, originally uploaded by Meltrier.

This is Bonnie. She's nicer than Clyde (yesterday's B.O.T.D).

an armful of badger

an armful of badger, originally uploaded by Meltrier.

Today's OCBP*

This is Clyde, who is coming out of torpor and is a little cranky. The badger-wrangler is the other Melissa here.

*Obligatory Cute Badger Photo

kitty donut

kitty donut, originally uploaded by Meltrier.

In response to the overwhelming (5?) demand for kitty posts, here's today's OCKP.*

This batch was from last year.

*obligatory cute kitten photo

How not to hold a baby

Henry and Clementine, February 2009

Escape from Antcatraz

The inevitability of this post was set in motion the moment the ants arrived in their tube, ready to get busy and start farming.

They've actually been pretty lethargic ever since they realized that their frenetic digging and tunneling ended them up in the same blue gel, a few inches away. Since then, they've hung out down in the clubhouse, apparently on strike. If we open the lid and blow softly on them, they get stirred up and run around for awhile before the futility hits them again and they go sulk.

Things being how they are in a (almost) ten-year-old's room, it was surprising it took this long for a flying stuffed animal to knock the farm off the bedside table and upside down on the floor, with a crack in one corner and the lid knocked sideways. Screams of panic brought me tearing into the room, where instinct caught hold and I started stomping on escaping ants. (I justified it to Henry by saying it was illegal to let them loose in the wild and we'd start an epidemic.)

We probably ended up with 8-10 casualties, a paper towel stuffed into the hole and the ants taking attendance and reconstructing their gel towers. Henry doesn't want them in his room anymore, and I have to say I spent the next half hour brushing imaginary ants off my arms and legs.

Everyone's a little shook up from the event, and I'm counting on a knock on my bedroom door at 2 in the morning due to nightmares about ants swarming over the bed.

Hoarfrost

Hoarfrost (n): A deposit of interlocking ice crystals (hoar crystals) formed by direct sublimation on objects, usually those of small diameter freely exposed to the air, such as tree branches, plant stems and leaf edges, wires, poles, etc., which surface is sufficiently cooled, mostly by nocturnal radiation, to cause the direct sublimation of the water vapor contained in the ambient air.

Hip--hip--hippeastrum!

I'm doing that good-gardener thing and logging my amaryllis cultivars in order to remember them when I resuscitate the bulbs next year, or, more likely, order new ones.

So here is "Naughty Lady" (who names these things?):

A dwarf, single flower, not very distinguished except in extreme close-up.

And the stunner: "Rainbow":

which is far more stunning than my meager little photos can show. A double (at least) multi-budded big flower display that breaks your heart with its beauty.

Another shot:

More to come, as they continue to bloom...

Down on the farm [caution: disturbing images]

If you're ant-phobic, you might want to skip this post.

Update on our 30 28 new gal pals. (Dropping like ants around here.)

They're weirdly fascinating, and truly exhausting to watch. After digging to the bottom of their gel and building a girls-only clubhouse down there,

they're now branching out with the tunnels they're known for. We were holding our breath til they finally broke through to the top of their first tunnel, but they didn't seem too excited. They just kept going.The digger ant in front gets tired now and then and takes a nap right where she's stopped, so others just push up past her to keep up the pace.

Some of them simply run up and down the tunnels -- I can't really tell what their assignment is.

Others haul gelballs around on the surface, building up their escape route to the lid.

I can sit and watch their little world for long periods. It's haunting me, honestly.

I worry about their diet, though the booklet says the gel is edible and all they need. Should we drop in some sugar crystals at happy hour? What else do ants eat, other than picnic food? Or will that just distract them from their main purpose? (which is...)

The shipping form has strict instructions against letting them loose, but I think one escaped on the pokey stick provided to help start their tunnels. I'd hate to be the person responsible for causing invasive-ant-species havoc in Central Oregon. 

I'm also concerned about their (and our) mood if they start dying off. We're supposed to take out the dead, which the ants carry to the surface in a little funeral procession. It's going to be pretty depressing around the clubhouse when half the gang croaks.

I now feel responsible for them, on top of the cats, dog, fish, occasional kitten, child and garden. (I'd worry about my worms, too, but I can't find them.) Really, just what I need, another source of guilt and stress. If you're considering an ant farm of your own (Kathi D), you might want to think long and hard about what you're getting into. J.s.*

*just saying, of course.

the light at the end of the tunnel

Club Ant, or, We have 30 new pets

Henry received that classic boy project for Christmas, an ant farm. In case you don't have a nine-year-old, ant farms are now very hi-tech with edible (by ants) gel and disco lighting. 

We had to order the ants separately, and have been waiting and worrying about them in this cold shipping weather.

They showed up yesterday in their special ant tube, looking all crumpled and dead. We were really bummed and I was steeling myself for the customer service call and the ant return shipping , when we detected an antenna or two waving feebly.

I popped the cap and the fresh warm air must have been resuscitating, because they started to stir. We got their new compound ready and dropped them in. They all woke up and ran around like crazy, waving arms and legs and trying to storm the lid.

Since it was nighttime and they'd had a grueling flight, we thought they'd like to relax and party a little, so turned on the blue lights and cranked up the tunage.

They were clearly organizing for the great escape when we went to bed.

The booklet said that it might take them one or two days to start tunneling, but our ants ignored the instructions and got busy. Overnight, they found a fault in the gel by the side wall and carved out a little ramp and a long drop with a landing area at the bottom. They carried gel boulders up to the surface and started re-landscaping, building little hills and slopes and rock piles all over.

Henry of course wanted to name them. The booklet says they're all female. "This includes all the ant workers, soldiers, etc. that you find outdoors. Male ants are created only as needed by the colony for reproductive purposes and they die shortly after mating."

Hmm. Maybe they've got something there. Just saying.

Amaryllis, not!

From Wikipedia:
Hippeastrum is a genus of about 70–75 species and 600+ hybrids and cultivars of bulbous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas from Argentina north to Mexico and the Caribbean. Some species are grown for their large showy flowers. These plants are popularly but erroneously known as Amaryllis, an African genus in the same family.

I reserve the right to remain erroneous.

The Four Ages of Amaryllis

Bob makes the front page

We're so proud...

 

more animals

NC rocks!

Asheville airport. What's the deal with all the rocking chairs anyway?

hotel phone

Ringtone: Bliiing! bliiing!
Headed to North Carolina...

"Amaryllis by Morning..."

Poetic license there. More like amaryllis by end of December, if I'm lucky.

Brrr! It was cold last year!

I love amaryllis. (I think the singular and plural are the same here). However, the better ones are absurdly expensive. Most years, I scrounge around trying to find bulbs on sale, but by that time, it's too late to have flowers by Christmas. I've also bought the "reject" started bulbs at our local garden centers - that works, but they come with pots and are pricey even on sale. And I always attempt to resurrect a few bulbs or plants from previous years, though normally I get tired of taking care of them by August and they wither away.

This year I found an amaryllis site on line (yes, this is how I spend my valuable free time) that had an assortment of 10 bulbs for a very reasonable cost. I prepped the potsand awaited the shipment, and they arrived Wed.

Very exciting. I'll post photos as they progress.

Pumpkin/Muffin

© 2004 Melissa Hochschild

Old Dog Blues

Sounds like a song title, and it probably is.

Flash dog turned twelve this summer. He's still crazy and obsessed, just not as long. Still loves to charge around for the frisbee and ball and do his tricks like a frisky young pup, but come nighttime, he's a stiff old boy. He's had an intermittent limp for the last six months or so, and it's getting worse. So I hauled him into the vet's again this morning to examine his leg further.

So today he's consulting with an orthopedic specialist and getting x-rays. Of course, $400 just for that - no diagnosis or treatment yet. Ah well. What can you do?

He's been my faithful companion since he was seven weeks old. There was a time when he understood more words than Henry, then it was like having two toddlers, one of whom barked. There were some very trying days during that period and I went so far as to investigate another family for him (Flash, not Henry), but we learned to get along as a pack. My dream was to one day sit on the front porch and watch them play together, and that's now a reality. Flash is happy and snappy and wimpy and limpy and lovey and shovy all at the same time, to which I definitely relate. He's a good dog.

classic Flash shot

Leaving the vet's, I had to tear myself away from a flyer that read: "Want to raise and show a pig?"  I would dearly love to raise a pig -- thank god for suburban CC&R's.

Short fall

What was it I was saying about getting the gardens and deck ready before snow fell? Oops, too late.

I left work tonight after an exhibit opening in a snow flurry, and it was accumulating on the ground. This was 5 miles south of town; it was dry at my house. But it was real, legitimate, heavy falling snow. This may be the earliest I've seen it here. Wow. Button up and hunker down: winter is inevitable.

I really don't like being cold.