More Harvey

Does this go under "weird places kitties like to sit" or "my pet is smarter than your pet" ? (Notice he has finished some of the "Demanding" level puzzles!)

Don't mind my broken car in a ditch...

Yes, I was driving and taking a picture at the same time... I apparently have a streak of stupidity larger than I previously thought, or I have a new-found, unconscious death wish... hmmm. Must investigate this further to make sure I don't kill myself in my sleep or something like that.

But anyhoo, the reason I almost killed myself a few times: I believe that the sky out here is beyond "normal." My theory is that it has something to do with the mountains... but I know nothing about meteorology or astrophysics, so I am really just guessing. But the sunsets and such out here are absolutely stunning. These pictures just don't do it justice.

SNOW DAYS!

Well, more like one full snow day and two more days that had a two-hour delay. Though really we didn’t get very much snow. John says that we are on the OTHER side of the mountains from where the snow comes from, so it is rare that we get blasted with the bad weather. I guess it won’t be too much different from living at the beach with all the false hurricane alarms every summer. :P Though it has been fun for me to get in my car in the morning and see the temperature read “12 degrees”… BRRR! I don’t care who you are, that’s cold! :p

Shocking Puppies

Electrocution is fun! Well, before the SPCA and PETA come and hunt me down, let me clarify: we got an invisible fence for the yard to keep the puppies from running out into the street, and we are currently in the phase of "teaching the puppies to run back into the yard when they hear the warning beeps." So in reality we have only shocked them each once. Now we are reinforcing the threat of shock. (BF Skinner, I love you and your operant conditioning). Not as cool sounding as real electrocution, but less "animal cruelty getting Anne put in jail."

John says that the installation guy went through the first training round with them yesterday, so I missed zapping the fluffers. But if their behavior is anything to go by, they do not want a repeat performance! Dogee has already learned to head away from the beeps; Inu goes nowhere near the border at all; and Maile hasn't learned the boundary yet, but knows "beeps are bad" and cowers when they start. The guy said that for the next several weeks, we need to lead them up to the border until the warning beeps start, then praise them mightily when they move away from the fence. This way, you only will need to zap them once and they will learn that the fence is bad. Apparently, their collars have a "zap" setting and a "beep only" setting. If your dog learns that the fence is not something to be trifled with, then you can leave their collars on beep. Maybe the shock setting is for the stupid dogs who don't quite get it...

Sucky part is, we can no longer just pitch the puppies out into the yard when they have to pee, since then they have no reinforcement when they interact with the fence and all your training gets negated. So, they get to be leash walked around the yard... in the cold... and the rain... stupid dogs needing to pee when it's 33 degrees and rainy! (I am not exaggerating: schools are closed today because of possible icy death coming for our faces, and I had to walk the dogs this morning! grrrrr)

Mom Gets Another Sweater

I am officially enabling Mother by making her another FABulous sweater. This one's isn't out of Blue Heron, but Rowan's Felted Tweed #147 ("herb"), done on Knitting Pure and Simple's pattern #241: "Neckdown V-Neck Shaped Cardigan." I just love KP&S! No frills, no fru-fru, no difficult-just-for-the-sake-of-complexity stitches, but great sweaters all the same.

So far, Mom has been the only recipient of sweaters I've knitted. Some day, I'll make one or two for myself. :P Actually, I've got several on the books for me (Sublime and Lorna's Laces, of course), but Mom gets quite fussy when she "commissions" a sweater and isn't getting it in a timely fashion. Yes, we use the phrase "commission" because she is just as friendly at the local yarn shop as I am. She wanders the aisles, petting and admiring, and we hear "Oh, isn't this a nice yarn" a lot. Then she gives me a look as if to say, "I brought you into this world, fed you clothed you, educated you, went to marching band competitions and Girl Scout meetings ... the least you could do is knit me a sweater!" :) So Mommy's sweaters always get pushed ahead of mine on the To-Do list.

Here's a close-up of the yarn that I took, and then some I stole from the internet. It really does lose something in the photo.