Sunday Puppies

Today's title is from something Bill said.  His suggestion for our Sunday title was actually something along the lines of "puppy for sale", meaning a certain beagle we all know and love.  I don't think he's too happy with her at the moment, it might have something to do with the fact that she keeps getting on the couch.

Otter is off with BF for the day.  I think she thought that she could avoid housework and having to help with the firewood if and when it gets here.  It might not be today, it might actually be tomorrow.  But she's not escaping anything, there is plenty for her to do.

Otter's remaining hamster died Friday evening.  We expected it, Nadine (the hamster) had been acting odd lately.  When rodents get old, it hits them suddenly and they act a certain way.  We'd been seeing the signs for about a week and Friday afternoon she was unresponsive and her breathing was labored.  We made sure that she was warm and as comfortable as we could make her, then we let nature take it's course.  Which was the only thing we could do.  Sometime that evening, she peacefully died.  She is now buried out in the back yard, along with the other hamster (Helena), 1 mouse (April), 2 parakeets (Aqua and Skyler) and one sphinx cat that belonged to the neighbor.  Otter is ok, it was rough on her but she's ok.  The hamster was about 2 years old, which is a good length of time.  They normally live between 1 1/2 to 2 years.  The previous hamster was probably about 1 1/2 years old.  Otter thinks she's through with small pets, at least for a while.  She'll stick with dogs for now.  She'd love a hairless rat, however.  But Bill absolutely said no to that one!  I would have let her have one...

I went to an estate sale this afternoon but was less than impressed.  I also stopped at a yard sale I saw a sign for, but didn't find anything there either.

It's been pretty cold the last few nights.  Yesterday morning when I went outside to get the paper, the cars were frosted.  That's the first time this season.  The days have been absolutely beautiful.

I might get out and start on the tulip bed in a little while.  It needs to have all the old growth pulled off and that's not something Otter has ever been able to help with due to a specific allergy she has.  She helps with the rest of it, but the clearing of the bed is my job.

My mums in the front are blooming, they are a very pretty deep maroonish color.  I think I've changed my mind on getting mums for the whiskey barrel planter.  I really like them, but I think I'm ready for a change.  I'm not going to do anything about the one mum I have, it's pretty and can stay there as long as it wants to.  But I think I'm going to stick with replanting each spring/summer in the whiskey barrel, and probably go with different things each year.  Or at least that's the plan today!

Otter and I thought that this was funny.  It's from Harry Potter, I think from the new movie.  The point is that they are all redheads!

I just thought that this was funny.  It reminds me of Otter.  Although she's a karate otter, not a karate kitty!  Well, she was a calico kitty one year for Halloween.

This one is strictly about me!

Our spider friend is gone.  As in dead.  The web was empty yesterday morning, then Bill noticed that the spider was out there mid-morning but was barely moving.  We thought maybe he was just not quite warmed up yet because he was moving although slowly, but then later it was pretty obvious that he wasn't moving at all.  But the web was empty the last time I looked out, still there and tattered but empty.  A bird probably got the spider.  I'm surprised he was there as long as he was, as cold as it's been the last few nights.

I have finished all my throw pillows.  I have one small item to finish, a pot holder I made for Froggy but then didn't quite finish before I went to see her.  I took it with me and forgot about it, then I asked her to send it back to me and now I just have to finish it.  It's all made, I just have to put the pieces together.  That's the last thing I have to do, before I let myself start the afghan.  I thought I'd get to the afghan yesterday, but I didn't quite get there.  Sometime this week.  I still have to work on the quilt.  It was on the agenda for this weekend, but Otter slept until nearly noon yesterday (Saturdays are lazy days for us) and today she's off with BF.  Nobody was in a particularly creative mood yesterday, Otter was kind of down because of the hamster and my skin was a little painful so I didn't do much with the yarn.

Our church now has a 9:00 service, they started it a few weeks back.  We started attending the early service two weeks ago, there were 10 people including us.  The minister commented that the first Sunday, he'd only had two people!  Today, there were between 15 and 20 so it's beginning to catch on.  We like the earlier time better.

OK, I've put it off long enough.  Time to go get my shovel and head to the tulip bed!  And then I'll get back to my laundry.

Hamster Tales and Other Stuff

Hamster tail, get it? Yeah, I know. It's a bad pun. But I think it's a cute one. This is not one of Otter's hamsters, by the way!

Lots of stuff going on around here.

To start with, the title Hamster Tales refers to the fact that Otter's hamsters have now decided not to get along. It happens sometimes, they have been raised together which usually will work out. But hamsters are by nature solitary animals and sometimes they will simply stop getting along and once that starts, they seldom go back to being peaceful occupants of the same cage. Otter's two girls have been fine, just the occasional spat, since she got them. However, as of last night, it's all changed. The smaller one has always been the more submissive of the two. But last night she apparently decided that a change of command was in order. She kept attacking the larger one, and it wasn't just a spat. They were seriously fighting. We kept separating them and every time they got back into the cage, the smaller one (Helena) would attack the bigger one (Nadine). We finally realized that they were going to have to be in different cages if we wanted them both to stay alive. A few months back, Otter bought a smaller cage which was attached to the larger cage with plastic climbing tubes. We took them apart and blocked the openings, she had a second water bottle and a second, smaller food dish that came with the smaller cage. This morning, we tried to put them back into the same cage and Helena started another fight so we put her back into the smaller cage. This afternoon, we went to Petsmart and bought another wheel as well as a larger food dish for the second cage. The cages are now seperate and both have wheels, good sized food dishes so they don't have to be refilled every day and water bottles. The larger cage had a climbing tube set up that went to a smaller room and a second climbing tube to an area that can be accessed via a lid on the top. We moved the climbing tube set up with the smaller room to the smaller cage, since Helena was pretty much the only hamster that used it. Nadine has always climbed up to the access area so she's still got it and Helena has the one she always used. Among other things, they are not the same type of hamster although they were sold as the same. But that's not a major deal.

The chimney repair started today. It's a 2-day job. The roofer called Friday evening, he had an opening in his schedule so he was going to start today as well. Billyboy was off work today and also tomorrow, for the chimney work so he told the roofer to come on. The chimney crew left around 5:00ish, they said that they hope to be able to finish up tomorrow but honestly, it might not happen. Because we might get winter weather. The roofers did the back of the house and the side/garage area, they stripped the previous roofing material off and put the felt/membrane down, then the shingles. They did not get to the front of the house yet. They did it in stages in case they weren't able to finish it all because of the afore-mentioned winter weather possiblity. Both of them are planning on being back tomorrow, if it's at all possible. Otherwise, it will be sometime later on in the week or possibly Monday for the chimney and I'm not sure about the roof schedule, but it's similar. The way that the roofers did their job today actually worked out very well, in case we do get bad or wet weather. But we can't use the fireplace yet, it will be 24 hours after they are all done anyway. I just hope that the winter weather holds off enough or is mild enough so that the chimney at least can be finished up tomorrow. The roof can wait a few days if it has to, I'd prefer not to have to wait but it's ok if it can't be finished up tomorrow. I hope that they finish soon, there is a very large truck parked in my driveway and piles of roofing shingles & supplies stacked in the front yard!

I spoke with Virginia tonight. She is doing pretty good, she said that she's been so busy with the kids & moving into her mother's house that she hasn't really had time to process everything. But she's finished up with moving, and now she's trying to get the kids back into a routine. She hasn't been sleeping too well, which is probably normal. She said that she knows it hasn't really hit her yet, but she is coping as much as she can at this point. She misses her husband badly, but she knows that he is with their daughter and that they will all be reunited some day. She wanted me to tell everyone again how much the prayers mean to her.

I have another prayer request, along with continued prayers for Virginia. Miss Dorothy, who I had requested prayers for in the spring when she broke her hip. She has come down with pneumonia and is hospitalized. She's doing very well, I talked to her today, but she is 93 and that makes her more fragile. She'll probably go home tomorrow, but I would still like to ask for prayers for her. Her husband, the young old boss EL, had it a few weeks back. He's doing great now.

Goodnight!

I Know it's Really Spring

Because I've been hearing tree frogs lately. And bullfrogs. And sometimes both at once.

The bluebonnet we transplanted is doing great, it's blooming along with the first one and both have other buds.

Dorothy is also doing wonderfully, she came through the surgery well and I talked to her this morning. She said that they got her out of bed and into a chair, she got a little dizzy but her husband and son got really dizzy! They don't handle anything medical too well, which I thought was really funny and it apparently made Dorothy's day.

The hams have had a good first week with Otter. They are very hand-tame and quite friendly. Although I did get a nip from Helena, but I was adjusting a part of the cage and I think she thought I was about to squash her. They have started sleeping up in their excercise wheel, they keep it full of their bedding and when we cleaned the cage and took the bedding out, they carried more up there. They seem to like their house and they frequently run up the tube into the top area when they see anybody by the cage. The top area has an opening so that they can be reached easily. They seem to like to be petted.

Frasier's ears are bothering him this week. I've had to treat them several times and I'm thinking I might have to get him into the vet if they don't improve in a few days.

I'm very glad that it's Friday.

Surprise!

The first surprise was Maggie's, last night. She came running in to get me, as fast as those little legs would carry her fat body. It was obvious she wanted me to follow her. I had a pretty good idea as to just where she was going to lead me, and I was right. Straight to Otter's room! She "showed" me this strange thing that suddenly appeared on a low table on the other side of Otter's bed. She was very curious about it, then she couldn't seem to understand why that strange thing suddenly got relocated to the top of Otter's chest of drawers! (Because the little, furry things inside of it are not Scooby Snacks!).

The other surprise was mine and Otter's, this afternoon. We found another bluebonnet! This one was several inches away from where the naturalized ones were last year, outside of the whiskey barrel and on the verge of blooming. Bill was about to start mowing the front yard, I told him that if he mowed it then I was going to kick his behind all the way to Texas. Otter said she'd help! We got the shovel and I dug it up, it's been relocated to the whiskey barrel. I hope I didn't kill it, I dug as deep as I could but it was in a "nest" of tree roots. Otter watered it and time will tell. It was wilting, but that is normal when plants get moved. I wish I had seen it when it was smaller, we did look but it was a lot farther than last year's were. I'll get pictures in the next couple of days, as soon as I'm sure it's going to survive.

Otter was surprised at 3:00 a.m. today, by the sound of hamsters running in their wheel. The wheel is actually outside of the cage, the cage is similar to the Habitrail cages with plastic tubes they can climb through and they have to go up a slide and through a small tube to get to the wheel. They seemed to be having a good time in it, when I saw them this morning. We went to Petsmart this afternoon. Otter forgot to get them a house yesterday, animals like that need some place they can snuggle up to sleep in. She got a wooden house that they can chew. They were very curious about it, they were all over it but then they decided that they would rather crawl up the tubes for a while. That's when I noticed that they moved a lot of their bedding material up to the wheel. I looked in on them later and they were cuddled up, sleeping, in the wheel. We'll probably have to clean out the bedding from the wheel, but they still seem to be able to use it for it's intended purpose. I'll probably play with them as much as Otter!

What A Ham!

Two of them, in fact. Otter finally spent her birthday money!

This is Nadine. It's a Stephen King reference, anyone who has read his tremendous book The Stand will get it. (Otter was thinking Raven for the name, the bad guy's alternate form is a raven. His girlfriend's name is Nadine and since the hamsters are females...).

This is Helena. I'm not sure why, but Otter will enlighten me I'm sure!

Nana, they are not mice! But they will be moved out of Otter's room when you visit so you won't have to worry about them.

Otter has been wanting hamsters for a long time, she nearly got them instead of parakeets a few years ago. In hindsight, she probably should have gotten hamsters. She finally decided to see if she could talk her father into letting her get them, and he agreed. She did the research she knew he would ask for, that was last week's activity. Then she called Petsmart and got prices, and also we checked on how they get along since she wanted two of them. We made a trip Friday after work to look at cages. Then she got all of her information together and talked to Bill. And we went to Petsmart today to get them. So far, no interest in them by either dog. Frasier very rarely goes into Otter's room anyway. The girls will not be taken out of the cage if the dogs are in the house, Otter's door will probably be shut even then but the girls won't be taken out a lot. Who am I kidding, Otter will play with them as much as she can! They are pretty well socialized and seem to like people already. They have a life span of about 1 1/2 to 2 years, but Otter's pocket pets generally live a longer life than usual. At least, the mice did. Mice usually live 1 to 1 1/2 years, only one of hers died under two years. One of them lived over 3 years, which is extremely rare.

They are Russian Dwarf hamsters and are about as big as they will get. They might get just a little bigger. They are pretty hand-tame and since they have been raised together, they should get along. Hamsters don't always like other hamsters, unless they have been raised together. It's nearly impossible to introduce another hamster into an existing cage.

I'm sure we know who this clown is! The white part on the side that looks like a circle cut out of the picture is actually the part of the rain barrel that was between me and Frasier. No Maggie picture today, the camera battery died just as I was attempting to take a picture of her. She was nose to the ground in search of a mole. Frasier was probably checking to see if we'd finished mowing the yard.

They're blooming! This is against the back of the house.

Wider shot of the back of the house.

A close-up. They are just starting to bloom and they are going to be absolutely georgeous this year. Quite a few of the ones I transplanted last year are blooming, it can take them a couple of years to bloom after being moved but mine have always bloomed the first year after transplantation. That might be because they are well-established bulbs in the first place and not new bulbs. I know, rhizomes not bulbs! But bulbs is easier.