Super V

The original, and enhanced by NDJ...

Welcome Home V

We brought V home early this afternoon. She was a champ and decided to sleep peacefully the whole way home despite being overdue for both feeding and changing. Dog introductions went fine; Líle was a little intimidated at first bust warmed up quickly. V even grabbed her a little.

Family Resemblance?

Can you tell we're related?

International Bavarian Of Mystery

The Time: The last, desperate throes of the Cold War.
The Place: An untapped trove of biodiversity.
The Hat: What can I say?

Fiat Pond

NDM's dream of a real koi pond have finally come to fruition. Four feet deep with a waterfall and a stream, the deed is done.
As many home improvements do, this one began with spray paint.
Here I am pretending to help dig the pond. In reality it turns out that I actually could have -- even four feet down there is nothing underneath the Saint Augustine grass but sand.
I liked the pond well enough as a simple quarry in our front yard, but we had to press on.
It took about two weeks from start to unlandscaped finish.
The top of the waterfall gives us a nice view over our HOA battlements.
Up close it still looks like a bit like construction zone, and it will clearly take us some time to naturalize in the pond's margins.
We have seven small koi in the pond right now. After a week acclimating they are just beginning to feel confident enough to show themselves.
The fantail makes it really obvious that these things are basically trumped-up goldfish.
So far we seem to have one day-blooming and one night-blooming pad. We'll see how many water plants we can stuff in there once the pond gets more established.

Office Reborn

This Thanksgiving thanks to a visit from SAM I was finally able to move my desk into the room that is supposed to be my office. The massive and heavy barrister's desk couldn't make it through the door, which is one of the reasons I cut a big hole in the office's wall.
I had to build a device to keep the desk from destroying the drywall at the bottom of the hole since there was no way two people could dead-lift the desk.
I also needed to pick up a second furniture dolly so we could move the desk from the far bedroom to its staging area in the family room. The desk would only fit in one orientation, and it cuoldn't rest on its curved decorative front, so the fronts of the drawer sections were the only viable transport points.
Once in the family room we flipped it on its 2" thick slab of a top and lifted it up onto my carpet-covered temporary shim.
After that it was pretty easy to slide it into the office and lower the other end onto the floor.
It actually turned out to be pretty easy once the plan was in place.

(My father is to thank for suggesting how two old and feeble men could maneuver the desk into place on their own. In gratitude I have made sure he wasn't one of the movers.)

Tell-All Picture

I have no comment. No comment!

Worms

Here, revealed on video for the first time, is the newest stage of NDM's mania for composting.

Exciting Ice Documentary

This is some footage I just shot with a nifty little Flip camera my parents got us for our civil anniversary. It shows my downstairs furnace exhaust and the condensation problem that tripped a pressure sensor and deprived us of heat a few weeks ago. It really builds up these huge ramps of ice! Clearly the snow-covered bucket of dirt is badly misplaced under that PVC.

Líle makes a brief guest appearance in the lower left corner of the footage. She's star material!

The Eleventh Day of Giftmas (11 of 12)

It was an exhausting holiday for many of us -- even those of us who weren't up all night working on emergency plumbing.
Only Líle kept her energy level up the whole time. When nothing else was going on, she could always tensely point out the window at the cold-puffed squirrels.
'Dolon preferred sacking out on the visiting pillows.

The Ninth Day of Giftmas (9 of 12)

After some intense gift opening and eating, the puppies entered the squared circle for some action.
They really love the new el cheapo rug we got for them. Rough-housing isn't easy without traction.
A few hours of that and suddenly the dogs are pretty well behaved... Although, even all tuckered out, Líle is going to the trouble of standing on top of me to assert that she, not 'Dolon, is my real owner.

The Seventh Day of Giftmas (7 of 12)

We all gathered around our massive red counter for the Dawn of the Stockings. This picture was actually taken by yours truly, so doubtless has many issues of composition, lighting, and et cetera.
Líle needed help with her stocking. She's such a gentle little girl when she isn't knocking people over at the door and licking them to death.
'Dolon, on the other hand, yanked out the best part of his stocking and ran away with it in about three seconds.

The Second Pictures of Giftmas (2 of 12)

There was lots and lots of baking -- so much that I was barely allowed in the kitchen. My only role was to pinch hit for kneading the bulichka. I've been merciful and chosen a fairly innocuous photograph. The manufacture of this sweet roll calls for squishing pats of butter into a huge mass of dough by hand, and I have some really unappetizing closeups of that which illustrate the strange sensibilities of my photographer.

The Hammock's Last Hurrah

NDM managed to get a lot of good studying done in the hammock this year. A huge amount of studying if she was dreaming about zoo boards. But the hammock isn't just about work; it is also Líle's rocking magical licking cradle and puppy gas emporium.
Until next year, hammock!

Dogorama (Pets)

Here's a mess of random puppy snaps, mostly from the last month. This lead photo, however, is from the distant past when we still had a microLíle. She's bigger than 'Dolon now.
'Dolon won't get on the hammock, although he's happy to jam his head through the ropes to get his licks in. Líle isn't worried about unstable footing at all, though -- especially if there's a person around to jam a paw into.
Here the dogs give thanks for the bounty they are about to receive.
Another puppy-Líle, sitting on her divan. She's three or four times that volume now.
Here's a current Líle -- although her hugeness is of course dwarfed in this photograph my Cylcopean might. This is her Cute Death Ray posture.
'Dolon was ecstatic to get another visit from my parents. He totally crushes on my father.
These are the kind of puppy kisses I try to avoid.
Nothing is more fun than a kong in a pool of cool, clean water...
Relaxing in their twin beds after a long day.
Farewell, puppies! Until next month!

Couch War (Pets)

Every day another battle is fought in the war for dominance of our couch.
The innocent are the ones who invariably suffer the most.
Every night, as the conflict settles into another cold war phase, I dream of a lasting peace.