All About Me

Hello, my name is Rusty.  This is my story.

Me, in my younger days.  Don't say anything about my ears.

My first friend, Silver.  She just up and disappeared one day...

Other friends I've had over the years:

Chickies, mouthwatering...

                                    

Kiki, she disappeared one day, just like Silver.

                                    

Pyewacket, cute little fella, don't know where he went either...

Now it's just me, and the humans.

It can be lonely at times.

But the peace and quiet is pretty nice.

And I have the laps all to myself.

Having the human's undivided attention has its pitfalls though.  Baths!  After scratching them to smithereens they're sorry for doing this to me.

Winter is boring.  I spend my days climbing onto the roof, trying to get into an upstairs window...

I wander the roof, until I find a window with a human behind it, and then I meow incessantly and claw at the window.

This time I saw one at a window I can't get to.  I didn't know what to do!

Then, I made the mistake of looking down.  Whooooaaaa...

But mostly in winter, I just sleep.

Sometimes on the dryer.

Sometimes by the fire, as close as I can get.

This is my "don't mess with me" pose.

I really prefer spring and summer, when I can go out for my morning nibble of grass...

...hunt for pesky varmints in the garden....

...and beyond...

...and of course, engage in one of my favorite pastimes, birdwatching.

Don't worry, I just watch, mostly.  They put this stupid bell on me and it doesn't scare the birds, but it throws me off my game.

Well, that's my life.  It's pretty rough.  In my next life I'm going to be a sloth.

Good Friday the 13th

On This Eclectic Life, learn about Only the Good Fridays and then you will know why I'm calling this Friday the 13th a good friday.

Fridays are always good because it is the end of the work and school week and we will soon be enjoying some free time, and an extra wink of sleep.  This weekend we are going to watch a concert, where Jr. will be playing in a saxophone quartet.  I heard them practice once, and it was beautiful; I love quartets.

The sun is shining!  That is very good.

I'm reading a good book, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle.

This is a very relaxing book, and one I need to memorize so that I can stop being a jerk, (oops, I hope that wasn't too negative).  Or maybe I can just remember this:  We are all one.

It's true that the more open you are to others, the more joy you will experience.  I have been witnessing this myself when I'm out and about.  Normally I tend to ignore strangers. But I've been paying more attention for a few days, trying to live in the present.  On Wednesday, a woman in a parking lot made my day.  She was voicing everything about the frigid weather that we're all feeling, saying she had to park way out from the store, away from the ice so she didn't break a hip, and that the cold was probably going to last into July and she'd have to cancel her vacation plans!  She cracked me up and I appreciated her diatribe, even though it was essentially negative.  Everyone is talking about spring out there, and everyone is anxious for it.  We're simple creatures, awaiting the return of the sun and life.

And here it is...It's...Alive!  

The Thyme and Lavender, growing right under the snow.

It's 18 degrees and sunny at 9:45 am.

Clear and cold

This morning it was -10 F.  A bit chilly.  Whoooweee!

                                      

From 2009-03-10 moon

Yesterday morning I got up just early enough to see the moon setting in the west.

 
 

From 2009-03-10 moon

Followed by the sun rising in the east...

From 2009-03-10

It's 10 degrees, with sun and clouds at 10:00 am.

From 2009-03-10

Rusty's walk

Rusty's walk, cont.

It's a blizzard out there!

I took the above video last week when it was warm and we had a little thaw (oh how I miss it!) Rusty, as usual, would not cooperate with the director. In order to get him to walk forward, I had to walk as well, so please excuse the shaky camera action.

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I've been thinking about changing my template so I can get bigger pictures. Like the beautiful ones on Robin's Nesting Place . My pictures will never be that pretty unless I get a Canon EOS 50D with a 75-300 lens, like Robin uses, and learn to use it with her skill, but at least they'll be bigger!

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At any rate, she inspired me to put up a slideshow of my favorite flowers.

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I'm adding some more fabulous blogs to my list over there > There's a great variety of locations represented now: Idaho, (of course), California, Colorado, Hawaii, Texas, Indiana and London!
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I've also added some new websites lately, that help you find organic food in your area.
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If anyone knows of a good organic gardening website, please let me know. One that answers those important questions, like is it ok to use ashes from the fireplace on the garden, when you've been burning newspapers and stuff with inks of unknown origin on them? My guess would be no. I have yet to find a safe, easy, and effective form of fertlizer. It's the easy part that gets in my way. I have not committed to a serious composting system yet, but I know this is the best way to feed the garden. My system consists of a pile out in the open right now, where compost happens in geologic time.
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It's 19 degrees and snowing at 10:00 am.

The Long Goodbye

Sometimes winter just doesn't know when to leave.  Though technically, it still has every right to be here until the 20th, which is the Vernal Equinox this year.
The winter poll told me that most people read in winter, and a few go quietly mad.  Watching TV just makes me go noisily mad, so I try to limit that.  We did enjoy Hercule Poirot on Netflix all winter, and a few movies.  The ones I like best are the oldies like Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and The Thin Man series.  So we rented more Cary Grant, William Powell and Myrna Loy films, which are nearly always good.  

We liked Ghost Town, which came out last year, but most new movies are a disappointment.  We just saw Coraline and it was interesting, but the villain and the storyline were way too predictable and stale for me.  We did like Wall-E, even if it was rather chilling.  Brrrrr!  I need warmth and humor and sunshine in winter, not visions of horror and devastation and piles of trash.  Robot love does not warm my heart.  But as a cautionary tale, it was a hit.  

Speaking of trash, we went to the new transfer station yesterday to recycle.  It was neat and clean and easy, with separate shiny bins for cans, plastic and paper for your sorting pleasure.  I will be returning often.  I never thought I could love a dump, but this one is special.  They take all plastic, except #6!  I think I may write them a love note.

Moon + Venus

The moon and Venus were together on February 27th, they seem like a good pair.  Venus is leaving our sky and will be gone by the end of March until 2010.  Goodbye Venus!

The crescent is pretty by itself.

Thanks to J for taking the pictures.