Cuties

Recovering nicely from their operations.

Ginger (L) is the boy and George is the girl. Clearly, sexing kittens is not among our talents. They laugh at us at the vet's office.

"Ginger Baker!" I want to yell. "George Sand! Rebel cats who'll never conform to your archaic provincial notions of gender roles!"

Anyway, now they are both "fixed".

Looks like I'll be really busy between now and Christmas, filling soap orders. My dreams are filled with boxes and tape. Visions of shrinkwrap, bubble fill and packing peanuts dance in my head.

It doesn't feel normal, not having the time to write here or to visit other blogs. I miss being able to record the small things. It's been dry... it rained... but not enough... the swamp area is almost completely drained... there were four huge male turkeys in the backyard... I snuck out of the craft show to see part of the Veteran's Day parade and was surprised to become so emotional... Mom's been here, helping me wrap soap. See you later.

Why doesn't she call?

Bad dog. Very, very bad dog!

Christmas Craft Shows

We're at the Homestead Hollow Christmas craft show in Springville this weekend with our handmade soap.

Then the next week it's the Christmas Village Festival in downtown Birmingham.

Afterwards I will probably want to lie down and rest for about a month, but that will probably have to wait until January.

Frigatebird!

Another one from my sister's Caribbean cruise. She said that the Magnificent Frigatebirds (Fregata magnificens) followed the ship into port, and that she saw as many as thirty at a time.

These seabirds came well inland (to middle Alabama at least) during some of the recent hurricanes in the gulf. Charles Kennedy, president of the South Alabama Birding Association, spoke recently on Weekend Edition about hurricane birds. (His birdhouses are wonderful, by the way.) There's also an article about post-hurricane birding on the SABA site, here.

This bird is one of my favorites to see in flight. I'm not sure which is more exciting, a Frigatebird or a Swallow-tailed Kite. And a day when you see both is truly spectacular and rare.

Grim Reaper

Cutie pie niece, a.k.a. the Grim Reaper.

Not exactly your traditional little girl's Halloween costume...

For more cute Halloween kids, check out the blog of Art Lad, who's the same age as my nieces. Poor kid, he was sick and couldn't go trick or treating in the awesome cheetah outfit his Grandma made him. His sister, who dressed as a fox, was going to collect candy for him. I hope it worked!

It's...

The new Circus of the Spineless is up at Snail's Tales. Go see!