Winter Happened Over Night

So I've been kind of MIA for a while, and I apologize.

Winter happened since I posted last, and I pretty much just stay curled up in a blanket when I'm not working.  I refuse to turn on the heat in October.  Absolutely refuse.  I did get new-to-me skis last week, and I am getting really excited for the snow to fall.  Snow is already covering the taller mountains out here, but it will be a while before the resorts open to skiers.  I could climb to the top and ski down anyway, but there are no lifts running yet.  Pity.

I have a couple of projects going on that I'm trying to do at the same time.  We'll see how well that works.  I won't tell you what I'm doing yet, but I promise to let everyone know when I finish them.  In the meantime, I posted some pictures from the summer.

I think this is my favorite picture I've taken out here so far.  It's so stark and beautiful that I can't help sharing it with you.  Also, I never got my pony when I was a child.  I'm still upset about it.  I may need a therapist.

This is from my epic hike on the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park.  Indian Paintbrush is everywhere.  The pink is such a wonderful contrast against the grass and rock up here.  I really love living here.  Everyone should visit at some point in their lives.

This dog is weird.  Her name is Xena, and she has an underbite.  I tried a new effect with this picture, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I'll have to try it on more pictures before I can be sure.  Do you like it?

This is the original, fresh out of the camera picture with no correction at all.  What do you think?

Also, shortly after I took this picture, Xena was covered in green and purple spots, courtesy of colored bubbles.  Fun, colorful, non-toxic, colored bubbles.  Strangest toy ever.  I'm pretty sure the bubbles stain clothes.  Xena came clean, though, so I can't be sure.  

Is everyone else as impatient for winter as I am?  I'm freezing, but I still can't wait for snow.  I'm sure I'll regret that statement in May when it is still freezing and snowing and gross, but I just don't care right now.  If it's going to be cold, there should be snow on the ground.  

Ok, I'm done ranting.  Come visit me, people!  I miss all of you.  Really.

-Erika

98 Degrees and Rising

It has been really hot in Rochester lately.  Like, record-shattering highs in the triple digits hot.  Yeah, even hot enough to fry my brain cells into thinking a boy-band related title would be a good idea.  

Our air conditioning wasn't working until yesterday, so we have been living in the basement with the lights off like cave-dwellers who aren't used to sunlight.  So pretty much my normal behavior.  The dogs have been lethargic to say the least.  Sniper found her perfect respite, though.  

It's apparently nice under the tree.  No one could find her for a while, though, and I thought she ran away.  Nope.  She's just crazy.

Even with the ridiculous temperatures this week, our flowers have thrived.  The roses all bloomed.

Our first rosebud appeared on Sunday, right outside of my bedroom window.  I braved the sun in a black shirt for the first rosebud.  I hope it's grateful for its 15 seconds of fame.

The rest of the rosebushes have erupted in thorns and shades of red and pink.  The wind was even kind enough to knock them all down onto the patio so I didn't have to wade through the garden to get some good pictures.  (It has also been crazy windy here) Thanks wind!

I love this picture.  I think I'll tell my mom to keep the roses around.  

Still trying to remember that thorns hurt, 

-Erika

Things in my yard

I was going through my pictures from this Spring and I realized that my yard is actually quite interesting.  We have pretty trees, pretty flowers, a lazy dog, a hyper dog, and sometimes really gross dead-things.  Here's a quick overview of my yard from April until today.

We have a couple of plum trees, and this one is my favorite.  You can see it from the kitchen, and sometimes Penny sits under it looking adorable.

She wasn't feeling up to the walk to the front yard when I took the picture, so there is only a pretty tree.  Sorry.

We had daffodils in the gardens, too.

This one reminded me of an egg.  Probably because I hadn't eaten breakfast yet when I took the picture, but whatever.  It's still pretty.

Almost every time I take a picture of Penny she is laying down.  The following two pictures are no exception. Here's some back story about why this is so disturbing, though.  Spencer and I woke up to find the dogs gone.  The gates were closed, but there was apparently a gap in the fence they had crawled through.  After looking for them for about a half an hour, the neighbor said they were behind his shop.  We found the dogs.  They barked at us, because they forgot who we were.  We brought them home and realized they needed a hosing.  They really don't like the hose, but they made it.  Penny went right back to her usual stance of laying wherever the hell she felt like laying.

This meant she dug a little spot for her in the dirt, walked in a couple of circles, and lay down.  Soaking wet.  In loose dirt.

Awesome, Penny.  Really awesome.  She got another hose down after that little incident.

Today, I went to look at the pond.  There was a fish floating in it.  The fish was alive the last time I saw it.

Not so much anymore.  No more fish for us.  Sniper wanted to eat the fish, but Fabian gave it a little fish funeral instead.  Sometimes I just shouldn't ask.

Happy June!

-Erika

Moving Day

Well, it's official.  We moved.  Saturday was the Big Move Day, including a large moving van, two trucks, a van, and my old car.  We had everything unloaded by 2 o'clock, and nothing broke.  Overall, the day was successful.  I still haven't unpacked all of my clothes yet.  That prospect is slightly terrifying, but I'll work through it.  My mom and I have almost everything in the kitchen organized and put away.  We'll see how long it stays organized.  

I need to share several things from Saturday with you.  If and when you decide to move all of your belongings (including large pieces of furniture and appliances), try to avoid having any type of engineer help you.  My grandpa helped us move, and he's an electrical engineer.  We had one of his friends help, too, who is also an electrical engineer.  Both of these men needed to oversee every part of our move, especially getting our large couches out of the basement.  This usually led to a lengthy discussion about how to move said furniture and whether we needed to take a railing or two off the wall.  It was fun to watch the first time it happened.  My mom got rather frustrated, though.  I just giggled and kept the dogs out of the way.  

Another bit of advice: if one or two of your movers has a bad back or bad knees, tell them to stay as far away from the action as possible.  Especially if they are they type who needs to help all the time.  They'll just get in the way or injure themselves more.  You'd think this is obvious, but it needs to be said.  There were some problems when Fabian tried to help move furniture.  We had to give him some pillows to carry so he wouldn't get in the way.  It worked out in the end, though.  

We all ended up sore and tired by the end of the day, but we're finally living in only one house.  The dogs are still a little confused, but they'll figure it out.  They're adorable.  They followed the furniture in and out of the house all day on Saturday.  I'm sure they didn't want to be left there all alone.  They only got a little muddy from the rain.  

They're great.  Unless you have to drive them somewhere with both of them in the front seat of the car with you.  That might not have been the best choice, but whatever.  No one died, so it's all good.

Enjoying the new house (finally),

-Erika

Different Personalities

We currently have two dogs living at our house.  Occasionally my uncle's dog comes to visit, she visits my blog from time to time as well, but she doesn't live with us.  And I don't think I want her to.  My dogs are perfect without another doggie friend to distract me.

These two dogs have two distinct personalities.  We adopted both from the local animal shelter, Paws and Claws, and we're not totally sure what kind of dogs they are.  I don't care.  

Penny is a wonderfully huge dog with lots of slobber and droop.  She probably has some St. Bernard in her.  Seriously, her paws are as big as my palm.  She's devoted, needy, and lazy.  She has her "spot" at the house.  

That's her spot.  She lays there all day long, watching us inside or watching Sniper run around the yard.  She's usually aloof, and she's camera shy.  The only way I can get her to look at my camera is with a telephoto lens.  She refuses to look at me otherwise.

Sniper, on the other hand, is part Pit-Bull, part whirlwind.  When she's not asleep, she is exploring outside or running around in circles.  Or chewing on things like shoes, slippers, remote controls or Legos.  Clearly things that should not be on the ground when she's in the room.  

That football isn't going to last long.  It's already flat.  The other dog is my uncle's.  She's a good punching bag for Sniper.  Penny won't put up with Sniper's antics for long.

Sometimes Penny moves somewhere else to lay down.

She moved into the yard because the sun was shining and her people were playing frisbee.  She likes to be close to her people.  Spencer likes to spoil her by rubbing her belly.  She's slightly chubby.  

Sniper was actually laying down for a couple minutes, too.

She needed to chew on something, and she can't do that while she's standing up.  She'll be back up when someone throws something else into the yard for her to chase. 

 

There she goes.  Trixie actually got the ball, but Sniper took it away from her.  She's good like that.  

Penny doesn't even move if you stop petting her.  If she's sitting by you, she'll nudge your hand to remind you she's still there, but she won't do much else.

Yes, Spencer, she's a good dog.

So is Sniper.  We can actually pick her up.  Kinda.  She's a licker.

In spite of their clear differences, Sniper and Penny are perfect.  I don't know what I would do if these two weren't so entertaining.  I'll be happy when the rain stops and they're no longer muddy, though.

I'm off to spoil some canines.

-Erika

Easter Madness

So, Easter was on Sunday.  We had an Easter egg hunt, and I did the honors of hiding the eggs while everyone else was at church.  One great thing about where we live is that we frequently have piles of brush in the yard.  Piles of brush are really easy to hide things like eggs in.  It was pleasantly hilarious watching children (They're not really children, as the youngest is 13, but I don't care.  It's an Easter egg hunt.) scrambling around in the woods and brush trying to get eggs filled with jellybeans. 

We also have rose bushes and other prickly things in our garden, and I'm not very nice in the morning.

I would apologize, but my uncle was not the only one laughing at the egg hunters.

Spencer found a shovel and used that in his hunt.  I guess tools are acceptable.  Monkeys use them, too.

We also have lots of places to hide eggs that could possibly be out of reach for a 13 year old.

Not so.  My cousin did indeed get that egg, even with Spencer trying to tackle her.  We're slightly competitive.  

Another fun place to hide Easter eggs is where no one would normally look.

Yep.  I did.  Also, from this angle, you can't tell how banged-up my car is.  It's win-win.

With all these children running around, someone needs to supervise them.  Right?

Enter Grandpa Austin.  He's just doing his job.

Penny needed to supervise, too.  She was busy watching the other dogs to make sure they didn't eat any eggs before the kids found them.  She failed in this job, though.  I found three broken-open plastic eggs with dog slobber all over them.  Clearly she couldn't be bothered to get up.  

After our eggs hunt, we decided the dogs needed some Easter flair.

Yep.  She was as mad as she looks.  She got her bandanna off within seconds.  She hates having anything on her.

Sniper, on the other hand, didn't even notice.  She was a little confused when we tied her bandanna on her, but she went right back to jumping all over us to get a jellybean.  

She slept with it on that night, too.

Hope your Easter was as fun as mine was!

-Erika

Easter Preparations

For everyone that didn't already know, Easter is this Sunday.  I'm not religious, spiritual, or whatever, so Easter is more about getting together with family for me.  This means I get to make the house pretty and smelling delicious while everyone else is at church in the morning.  Yay!  We've already started putting decorations around the house.  

This bunny is somewhat terrifying and hilarious at the same time.  He (it has a bow-tie, so it is male) squeaks when you squeeze him, and he's three feet tall.  I think this is a little excessive, but we've had him for years.  The dogs think he's a new friend to play with.  I like hitting people with him.  It's win-win for everyone.

For Easter dinner (dinner? brunch? I dunno.) we're not having ham or lamb.  My brother wants steak, so we're eating a lot of beef this weekend.  It's his birthday, so I'll let it pass.  My job for this feast is to bake bread.  I tried out a recipe for Irish soda bread to see if I could actually make something passing for bread.

The final product actually turned out!  It's delicious and perfectly dense.  One tiny loaf is like 2 pounds of bread.  I'm excited.

Penny's job is to look pretty.  She's doing a pretty good job practicing so far, dontcha think?

I wish I had her job.

-Erika

Soggy Socks

It's no longer snowing, but I'm still soggy.  In other news, I went to lunch with my old roommate, Melinda, on Friday.  Yes, I'm just now getting around to writing about it, but I had to get over the snow thing first.  

Melinda and I are on a mission to find a Mexican restaurant to rival our favorite from college.  A restaurant of this caliber is proving elusive in Minnesota.  I think it is because there are zero restaurants in gas stations here. I dunno.  We ended up at an Ol' Mexico in the Twin Cities area.  I won't go back, as I had a couple issues with it.  First, the margaritas were less than mediocre.  I make better margaritas and I don't have a blender.  Second, a very nice young man offered to make us balloon flowers.  Kinda hokey, but I didn't mind that part. It's a family restaurant.  I minded the balloons.  I'm terrified of them, because they make loud noises when they pop.  They will always pop.  

Needless to say, I refused the balloon flower.  Melinda did not.  

The object of my phobia sat in my car for twenty minutes, and I had to deal with seeing Melinda carry it up to her dorm room.  With KEYS in her hand.  Whatever.  I'm over it now, and I will avoid anything with balloons for a very long time.  

On a happier (for me) note, my dog is evil.  She stole my mom's boyfriend's shoe.  Normally she will just chew anything she finds into little shreds of its previous existence.  This time, she just carried it to the other end of the yard, leaving Fabian to hobble across the damp grass in his sock to get it.

I laughed.  And took pictures.

I could have helped, but I didn't want to walk across the yard.  And this was kinda funny.

Seriously, the dogs just looked at him like they had no idea why he wasn't wearing both shoes.  Or why he was telling off Sniper for taking the shoe.  Obviously she was chuckling in her head.

Clearly, she is a devious one.

Back to Winter

It's snowing today.  This is not good.  The weekend was beautiful.  It was sunny, somewhat warm, and it didn't rain.  My mom and I terrorized our dogs, too.  They did not enjoy it at all.  

Sniper didn't know what was going on or how to walk while wearing a shirt.  She needs some shoulders if she ever wants to wear a polo again.

Penny was somewhat distraught.  She kept trying to bite me as I was putting the shirt on her.  It's kind of adorable that she fits into an extra-large men's polo.  She looks good in blue.

After we dressed up the dogs, we went to the new house to move stuff around and make dinner.  

This little robin was not afraid of the dogs.  At all.  I was amazed there were even birds in the yard once the dogs jumped out of the car.

Or the birds aren't afraid of the dogs because this is all they do.  They'll chew on a stick if it is already close to their mouths.  I'm not sure they're real dogs.

That was over the weekend, though, and weather in Minnesota changes without warning.  It's thirty degrees and snowing today.  Wonderful snow.

Seriously?  I moved furniture in this crap.

At least it's somewhat pretty until it melts.  If only it weren't April 19th.  This is unacceptable.

In other news, my grandmother is adorable.  My mom and I were talking about my cousin's upcoming confirmation, complaining about the 8am service, when grandma chimes in with, "Is that the one where they go in the pool?"  Nope, that's a baptism, grandma, but thanks for your insight.

My grandma, the theologian.

Refusing to shovel,

-Erika

First Tromp Through The Woods

Well it's finally nice enough and I have enough time to go walk through the woods with the dogs.  I lost my job on Friday, but I start a new one in a week.  I'll call it a vacation instead of a cut-back.  So, since I have all this free time, I decided to go out to some acreage my grandpa has and bring the dogs with me.  It's a wonderful place for them, since there aren't fences or leashes and there are usually dead things for them to roll in.  More on this later.

On the way out, we stuffed three dogs in the back of my mom's Kia.  Two lay down and took a nap, but Sniper is a very attentive dog.  She looks out the front whenever she's in the car.  She also decided to lick my ear.  A lot.  Thanks, dog.

When we got out there, this greeted us:

Yes, it is, in fact, a deer carcass.  We usually find several dead things scattered throughout the woods in the early Spring.  The dogs drag them back to our cars for us.  It's like they're bringing us presents.  Gross presents.

There's a little creek that runs through the woods, but it's usually dried up by mid-April.  It was kinda cold, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Three minutes later, my feet were covered in mud and were very soggy.  My shoes are waterproof, but only if they aren't submerged.  Whatever.  The dogs liked the creek, too.  Penny and Sniper jumped over it.  Trixie ran through it and splashed around.  I don't know what her problem is, but she's weird.

She chews on trees.  Clearly, she has a problem.  Also, that was the mud I decided I could walk through without any problems.  It was DEEP.  Not good.  Trixie was black from her belly down.  Sniper was a bit more wary about the mud.  Penny was off laying down in the grass, probably chewing on the deer carcass.

This trip out to the woods actually did serve a purpose.  We were collecting sap for maple syrup.  Yes, my family is the crazy one that makes their own syrup.  Gallons of it.

We have four or five trees with this set-up.  Pound a spout into a tree, rig a hook underneath the spout, hang a five-gallon bucket on the hook.  This works best when you are wearing a 20-year old flannel shirt and look like my grandpa. 

After we got all the buckets (and by "we" I mean "grandpa"), my mom and I walked through the trees with the dogs.  They attempted to chase rabbits, I tried to get the mud off my shoes, and my mom tried to identify plants.  It's really hard to identify plants when everything looks like a stick.  

The dogs found something else to roll in, too.

Trixie rolled in it, but Sniper thought she was being dumb, so she pounced.  We found the dead thing later, and I think it was a squirrel.  The bottom half of a squirrel.  Tasty.

Mom found some interesting-looking things, even if she did look a little lost while she was looking.  

Nice sweater, mom.  See how grey everything is?  It makes the moss stand out, though.  I can't wait for actual leaves on everything.  We'll barely be able to walk out there in a month.  

I don't know what this is, but it looked cool.  If anyone knows what kind of tree this is, let me know.  I'm curious.

This little patch of moss was peeking out from the snow and dead leaves.  This is the only green out right now.  

Dead trees are covered in weird mushrooms.  There were five of these on one tree.  This one is as big as my hand.  

After our walk, which ended up being several hours long, the dogs got tired.  And hot.

Penny lay down right in the snow.  And started eating it.  She didn't want to get up, and I don't blame her.  It got warm out there.   

Three snow piles later, and she was a happy dog.  

So happy for Spring Break!

-Erika