Irony

Irony? I think so...

Mid-week kitteh

Normally, Freya and Bailey don't get along very well. Bailey chases Freya and tries to usurp her space on my lap. Poor Freya.

The other day, Freya and Bailey declared somewhat of a truce. At least long enough for me to snap this picture.

Freya says the she is merely tolerating Bailey in her bed.

We'll be back to cute kitteh pictures next week, never fear.

Now, if we could just have a bit of cold weather...

One of the major problems with the house when we bought it was the fireplace. In fact, our inspector said it was in such bad shape that we should not use it and should even consider ripping it out. We're pretty fond of fires in the winter, so we decided to keep it, and we finally got our fireplace repair guy out this week to fix it.

First off, he replaced the damper, which was rusted through. He added a nice little pull chain so we can open and close it easily. Next, he added a bunch of bricks up behind the firebox - apparently there was nothing but space there before! Definitely a fire hazard. He replaced the chimney cap, and re-mortared all of the bricks on the back of the fire box, which were in pretty bad shape.

New damper chain.

Bricks in the back of the firebox have been repositioned and re-mortared.

We'll actually have to have the fire box rebuilt in a few years most likely - it depends on how long the repairs he did to the brick hold up. However, we may end up turning this into a double-sided gas fireplace when we redo the kitchen - it's really not clear what the long-term plans are for the fireplace. For now, it's functional and safe. All we need is a nice cold snap so that we have an excuse to build a fire!

OMG! A DOOR!

Perhaps my earlier rant about the challenges of successfully ordering a French door that swings out instead of in moved something in the heavens, or maybe it's just that we were finally doing business with a company that cared. Whatever, but when Lowe's screwed up our door order this week, they were extremely apologetic. So much so that they put our contractor in touch with the mill that makes their doors, which happens to be about 15 minutes from our contractor's house. He went to the mill, watched them while they made the door, and then brought it to our house and installed it yesterday.

Look! A door!

And because this project is simply not meant to go as planned, as they were unloading the glass transom windows that go on either side of the door, one of the windows tapped the bumper of the truck and broke. Sigh. The new one should be in... you guessed it, next Wednesday.

Until then, this is the new view from my living room. It's gonna look great!

Today our contractor comes back to put on doorknobs and do as much of the trimwork as possible without the second transom window. I'm bummed that he wasn't able to finish the job, but I'm really happy with the way it's going to look when it's done!

Leetle fuzzy things

I found this guy making tracks across the back pasture the other day.

He's a "woollybear" caterpillar, which turns into a Great Leopard Moth.

You don't want to touch these guys, as they can sting you.

Even the chickens were staying away!

Daring Jumping Spider

If you don't like spiders, skip this post.

Yesterday when I was out opening gates for the boys, I came across a rather large black spider with white spots eating a rather large brown spider.

The black-and-white one is called a Daring Jumping Spider. Apparently they're quite common here. And if I'd known when I was taking pictures that they can jump 30 times their body length, I would not have been holding the camera this close to the spider.

Not sure what the brown spider is, but they only come out at night and build very large webs. The spider - and the web - are usually gone by morning, only to be back the next night. We call them "the night crew".

Now, go look at pictures of kittehs or something to get the icky spiders out of your mind. :)

Mid-week kitteh

My hubby travels a lot. Mostly he enjoys the worldwide travel, but I know he's also happy to be home.

Despite all the traveling he does, he still asks for advice on what to pack. Fortunately, we have an expert right here in the house.

Honey, did you remember to unpack the cat before leaving?

Because you know, you wouldn't want all that extra cat hair on your sweater when you arrive in London.

OTOH, a warm fuzzy kitty might be useful as a scarf if you're traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska. In February.

And yes, I am staying home for that trip. I'm not that crazy! ;)