WingNut

These are recent pictures of WingNut and his friends.

WingNut and AliKat 2-up in the basket.

WingNut really really liked the basket Jane gave the cats here for Christmas.

Here's another one of Wingut and AliKat – They Duet in Purr-Fit Harmony

WingNut and Pippen the Kitten – WingNut the Mentor Cat

WingNut and Pippen at Play

WingNut & Pippen Inspecting the Kitchen Cubboard

WingNut inspecting my reorganized bedroom

WingNut developed diabetes and went into shock yesterday. The vet and I decided to have him euthanized. He was almost 13 years old. I had known him since he was a kitten at the rental house up the street from me. Ten years ago on a cold January when the rental house was vacant I brought him home. He was everybody’s friend here at the house, and very good at grooming the other cats. He was also good at nibbling on my fingers and sleeping on my back. And sitting on the edge of the tub and playing with the bath water. And helping me do just about anything in the house as long as it involved some ear rubs. The ultimate Platonic essence of cat with a chainsaw purr and a terminal case of snuggles. RIP dear friend, you were greatly loved and greatly missed.

WingNut helping me make the bed on Monday.

Winter Doldrums

Not much going on here.  I finally got the driveway, the mailbox and a path to the house shoveled out.  My back has managing all that reasonably well.  Mail was delivered to my house Friday for the first time in 2 weeks – mostly due to road conditions here in my corner of the universe.  Gave the cats some ‘nip, which was met with approval.   Spent Saturday with the Urchin & finally saw Avatar.   It was worth the wait and I’m very glad I was able to see it on the big screen.  I’m behind on my projects list – way behind.  Snow shoveling is both time consuming and very tiring.  And there has been way too much snow shoveling this January and February.   On the up side, I finally got the house refinanced – 6 months and 4 days after the initial approval and with a bank rather than the credit union.  I suppose I should feel joyous but after all the emotional ups and downs of the refinancing process I’m just exhausted.  Glad it finally worked out but exhausted none the less.  Here’s to a Life without Drama – Excitement yes, Drama no.

Noon February 10th

This is the house that Sue bought. It has seen over 74 inches of snow so far this winter. Sue does not live in the UP of Michigan.

This is the view from the stoop of the house that Sue bought. Sue would like to know how far north she needs to go to buy a good snow shovel and how far south she needs to go to find a store that has any snow shovels at all for sale.

Sue is going to take another hot bath before going to work in the vain hope that she will no longer ache all over from shoveling snow. Sue also would like to know how old you have to be before teenage Boy Scouts appear at your door to shovel your snow as part of their Good Deed merit badge. Sue thinks winter should be canceled immediately for lack of interest.

Enough of Snow

Friday I headed out for work 2 hours early with gear to hunker down at work.  And hunker I did, slept there Saturday and Sunday.  Got home Monday to plowed roads to my driveway but no driveway.

So I got up around 1:30PM and started digging.  By 4:30 PM I had a driveway – and very sore back and shoulders.

Another hour and I’d gotten groceries from my much depleted local Food Lion, filled the truck with gas and headed home to cook dinner and get ready for the next go round.

I’ve gotten the laundry and dishes done, cleaned house and slept like the dead.   Had to reset all my electric clocks so I’d lost power at some point but the house was warm and had plenty of hot water when I got home so all was well.  The cats were all asleep like a litter of kittens in the bedroom and the 2 dogs were snoozing on their bed in the kitchen.   And I am most definitely  no longer nostalgic for a Michigan winter.

!@#$%^&* No Water !

I got up Sunday morning to no water at the house. After replacing the 60 watt bulb in the crawl space, snugging up the heat tape cord into its power outlet, and generally checking everything over under the house I came to the conclusion that the water pipe was frozen before the water shutoff valve under the house where the feed line comes up and attaches to the house piping. The ground in my crawl space is frozen, something I’ve never known it to do in the 17 years and 4 months I’ve lived in this house. So I closed the water shutoff valve so if there’s damage to any of the pipes I can find it out by reopening the valve and watching for any leaks. So every couple of hours I checked for water flow, got frustrated when there wasn’t any and generally had an unhappy Sunday & Monday before I left for work. Happily the water was again flowing when I turned it on Tuesday morning when I got home from work and there is no sign of any damage to the pipes. The ground around the water pipe is also no longer frozen. And yes, I’m going to make sure the crawl space door stays closed and the 60 watt bulb stays lit.

N.B. - Pictures from Urchin & Wicket's visit in January are up - check out Jan 22 post.