Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day brought unseasonably warm weather and no rain.

Mr. "I-had-two-accidents-on-Christmas-Eve" Rusty got a long walk around town.

Rusty is playing with a new puzzle toy in the holiday theme. Since Nim destroyed his other two puzzle toys I think he was exceptionally happy to have a new one.


I got Rusty a Purina Busy Chewnola for later. It is a chew I never would have bought myself, but someone gave it to me as a puppy-welcome gift for Nim and Nim was too young for it. Rusty loves the darn things.

Taking these photos of Nim made me realize that somewhere in the past few weeks he has really started to look like an adult dog.

Nim's puzzle toy is birds in a bird house.

Such beautiful spring-like weather.

Decorating

As soon as my parents left their house this morning I packed up the dogs and headed over. Today the high schooler, the sister that traveled to Africa and myself decided to decorate their tree and the house. If they read this blog they will know before they get home. Otherwise...

The dogs did a lot of sleeping while the house was decorated. Now in fairness, I got caught up in my knitting and mostly supervised. In fact, I don't think I contributed to the decorating effort at all. The other two sisters did amazing.

Then it was time to take Christmas photos of the dogs in front of the tree (especially since this year I am not doing one myself). This was not without problems. Nim wanted that hat all day long.

Finally we got him.

Then I carried Rusty up two flights of stairs to get his photos done. This week I found out he is 59 pounds (I tried to blame his winter coat but the vet made me weigh him) which is 4 pounds overweight for his weak back-end and now he is on a diet, much to his dismay.

His sit-stay is a problem.

But as always, he eventually pulls it together. :)

Impasto Shawlette

The pattern for this project came from Interweave Knits, Summer 2010 issue. I used a mix of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, Berroco Comfort DK, and Dale Baby Ull for the yarn.
For the first time ever I finally had to block a project. This shawlette has a lacy quality to it, but it isn't super delicate. The blocking is mostly to get some of the rolling of the edges out.
Once you were done switching colors it was a pretty quick knit at that point. And a good project if you only have small bits of time which seems to be my year this year.

Snow and dog torture

The snow never did let up yesterday. Although today it has finally stopped, but it is so cold you feel an instant headache and panic when you are outside.

By morning I had up to a foot in places and a good 8 inches generally. Turns out, Rusty does actually get cold and he doesn't like the current yard conditions one bit. Now that it is so deep he really doesn't slip anymore because instead he is practically swimming it.

Of the photos I got in the early morning - only Rusty's are really for public viewing. Nim looks like I am torturing him in his photos. You can tell Rusty is annoyed and he is looking straight at me so I can understand the words coming out his eyes and ears.

It probably didn't help that I laughed at Nim when he peed because he still couches more and with the snow level he was practically resting on it so he had to keep looking down between his legs.
So later in the morning I put a jacket on Nim and we went out again. Truthfully, even I am not really thrilled to be outside all that long, but I don't need accidents in the house. Besides, Nim needs to condition to be my winter hiking dog.

You will notice that he likes to stand with one leg or another up.

Avoiding all eye contact:
:)

Snow Day

So after weeks of freedom even when I had to leave the office, the x-pen came back out. And why? Because my 6 month old puppy is back on the chewing. Supposedly his skull is growing too fast and it makes his teeth hurt.

Nim's brain to body to leg ratio is apparently all wrong right now and he alternates between falling, crashing into things, and aggressively chewing.

He actually got stuck while we were trying to turn a corner during lead walking in class on Sunday - he kept rapidly picking up different feet while standing still. Then he started just jumping straight up in the air until his body was more or less around the corner and we kept walking.

What is left of my checkbook:

Nim laying on his pillow and avoiding eye contact after I threw adult temper tantrum over my checkbook:

Nim is firmly in suspicion of his environment stage which is a perfect time for the first snow. It is hard to get any photos of him looking straight on because he is so busy tuning in on every noise.

He had a hard time with the peeing on the snow for some amazing reason and would dart around looking for dirt.

He was prancing his feet quite a bit.
This is what he looks like when he stalks me:
And Rusty? Well, I can't say he likes the snow much, but at least he probably has seen it. The sad thing is the trouble he has staying on his feet in it. A lot of falling.

I am teaching him to let me cover him in the kennel which he is moderately tolerating. I put a jacket on him yesterday for our walk and he dragged behind me. It will take a few more tries to figure out if that was the jacket or if he was having a bad walking day.
And lastly, enjoy this blog: Hyperbole and a half. The current post is about "Dogs don't understand basic concepts like moving". It really is wonderful. It is worth the drawings of the simple dog's thought process versus the "helper dog."

We have all known or owned pets like these.

And finally...Mount Kilimanjaro

You will notice in the summit photo that she is smiling. And she makes it look realistically like a happy moment, when in reality it sounds like summit day was incredibly hard. In that photo she is actually not feeling well at all.

Seeing the photos makes it look like an amazing climb that I would love to do. However, hearing the summit account (which by the way, look up several blogs with brutal first hand accounts and you will see the illness is far from an unusual reaction) gives me pause.

Then there is the problem that I am a complete baby about being cold.
I absolutely love glacier photos.
This tent camp photo is so beautiful:

Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater is one of those geological wonder locations. It is known as the world's largest intact caldera. The crater is the center point of a large conservation area. This conservation area is actively working to balance wildlife and human interaction including tribal rights to resources.

PBS has a nice write-up on the conservation area and the geological history of the crater.
I rarely think of baboons as cute, but when a baby rides one...how can that not be?
It is hard to imagine just driving somewhere and seeing any of these animals completely in their own habitat.

Lake Manyara National Park

Prepare of an avalanche of images while I feature a place I have never been. The photos are so fun. It is nice looking at photos like this and realizing someone you know was actually there.

Lake Manyara National Park was a destination along the safari my sister took prior to her climb. Because it is centered so much on tourism, it was hard to find more of a general information site on the location. It was established as a habitat to protect elephant herds and hosts a large amount of animal and plant diversity. Approximately 77 square miles of the park is lake when the water is high.

For more information:
Lake Manyara National Park Web site.




Why have a sign, when you can just paint the rocks you will hit if you take the sharp corner too fast: