MMMM mmmmmm Goooood!!

Here is what I had to suffer through tonight at supper. Crawfish etouffe!

Cowboy Bert

Cats

These are the Rabalais cats. We have 5 that live inside and then this summer, Kaye and Mitchell adopted a foster cat who lives on the mud porch in a heated house.

This is Pierre. He is Kaye's cat. He is very bad.

These are the three girls. There is Gumbo on the pillow (white). She is Morgan's cat and is very timid to the point of being scared of everything. There is Simone curled up at the foot (greyish). She is Mitchell's cat and is mentally challanged (bigtime). Lastly there is Punjabe (the darkie). Punjabe is the best one. She is my cat. She is the smartest, the best looking, the best listener, and she takes care of the other cats when there are no humans around. She also keeps an eye on Kaye while I am at work.
This is Zip. He is Mason's cat. We think he is black. He is extremely lazy.

This is Da Pooch Hooch. It is a heated enclosure with a cat door. I made it out of 3" insulation panels and glue. Note the fine craftsmanship. It has an 18-watt heater in it. It is on the mud porch, which is exposed to the elements. It was 4ºF in there when I took these pictures. It is about 75ºF in the hooch.
Da Pooch. When Mitchell and Kaye adopted him, he was really skinny. He has filled right out, thanks to lots of cat food. When you open the front door (from the house onto the mud porch), you are greeted by an almost constant meow. It just keeps coming. It's like he has a coiled meow spring inside of him that he releases as soon as he sees you. Then he tries to sneak into the house. If only he knew what was waiting for him if he ever got in. There are five other cats in there just waiting for a piece of him.

And then we got another foot or so

We are getting some more snow. Our total for this storm is now well over 100" and it has been going on for over a week. These are two shots out my back window towards the pool enclosure. The poor quality is because there is snow in the air (fancy that).

Sledding at the Country Club

I took the boys sledding Sunday afternoon.

Lake Ontario

This is the shore of Lake Ontario near our house. The line that runs from that tree towards the camera is the shoreline. It is about a 15' drop (cliff) to the lake. The lake has started freezing from the shoreline out and once it freezes, it starts collecting snow. You can see that a ways out the snow is not as deep. That is because that area has frozen more recently and not collected as much snow. If you double click on the image, you can see that right at the horizon, there is clear water. Hey, this would be a good background for your computer. Who's ready for a swim?

Kyle, the great white hunter!

It's a dog's life!

There was a dog parade in Lafayette yesterday called "You aint nuthin but a pound dog" and we had a great time.

Mamma and OC have a serious eye condition!

Life around the house

So much snow!!!!

How many days until summer?? I'm ready!

Greg decided to give Mason some instructions on how to use a snowblower. Mason wasn't too thrilled.



We haven't had school all week because of the snow. The boys have had a good time working on their snow fort in the front yard.

Odd snow effect

There is this odd drifting effect that occurs on roofs. On one side of the roof, you will get an overhang that grows and grows. It will continue to grow with new snow sticking to the old snow until it drops of its own weight. It happens only on the front of our house. No other sides. In the back yard, it happens only on the front of the tractor shed. I have to knock it off of the house so that it doesn't drop on anyone (It can get quite heavy). We don't go into the back yard in the winter, so that one just grows.


Here is what the shed's roof looks like without snow. By the way, I know the shed looks like crap, I intend to have a new one built soon.
Here is the drift well on its way.

We got a little over a foot last night.

My Snow Queen

Hey! Don't shake the tree.

Wrassling with the beast.
My blower has a cut that is 33" wide by 24" tall. Drifts higher than 2' require me to drive in and then back out so that the upper snow can fall. Then you drive forward and repeat.....

Icicles covered in snow. It doesn't get any better than this.

Starting to knock the overhang drift down so that it doesn't fall after I finish the snow removal.

2600 square feet of driveway. Yee Hah!
Anybody in the market for a flocked Christmas tree?
We have to move the vehicles over to the cleared part and then clear the area where we park them.

You must be vely vely caiful, grasshopper.

The snow was drifting up against the garage door.

Some of the drift patterns are pretty funny. The front of Kaye's Explorer looks like a cartoon boat.

Anchors aweigh!

Hey boy. You can't drive straight?