As some of you already know, there was a litter of kittens born in the woods in our neighborhood.  They keep coming around looking for food, so we put some food out for them in the hopes that sometime soon we'll find someone that'll be willing to capture them and at least get them fixed if not find them a good home.  Interestingly, a raccoon lives in the woods too and also likes kitten food, but does not like cameras.

Lily seems to think she's a monkey:

This is Beans.  It is Brie and Steve's newest cat.  He's not quite a month younger than Lily, so as you can imagine, they're best buds.

Remember the Freak Moth?  I'm sure this isn't the same one since it's been so long, but it sure did get the cats attention.

I relized that I haven't posted about Lily yet.  She is our latest addition to the zoo.  She is 1/2 Siamese and 1/2 Black Cat, but she looks entirely Siamese to everyone.  She is an insane little kitten.  I belive she was born on March 17.

More Lily:

This sequence is amusing to me since George is doing his best to sleep in one of his usual spots, but apparently Lily wants to play, so she climbs all over him biting him.  He is amazingly patient, especially with her:

And then when he's had enough, he grabs her and subdues her:

And then holds her down and cleans her.  I'm pretty sure that's not what she had in mind.

George was outside the other day and was stung by a bee.  This picture was taken after he'd been to the vet to get a shot to help him out. 

I think this is the most I've seen at once so far...  they're about 6 inches across at most.  Four turtles on a log in our "lake":

It's funny how CB doesn't mind George so much when he's on the other side of a door...

This is Sneakers, Steve and Brie's cat:

I just thought these were funny pictures of George and Bella.

How ladylike is this:

She made it all the way to the front flower beds.  For those of you that only ever see her on the sofa or near the food bowl, this should be surprising.  And no, we didn't pick her up and put her there.

I think this picture pretty much speaks for itself.  And no, it's not mean to play with a laser pointer around a cat.  Especially when the cat needs exercise...

So I took off on Friday night to go visit my family and some of my friends in Huntsville.  Everybody seemed to be doing well.  My mom had grown some HUGE lillies.  I'm not really sure how she receives mail.  I'm pretty sure the postperson would have to get out of their truck to put it in the mailbox (they request a "clear approach"):

So I met my friend David for breakfast at Little Rosie's.  We used to go there once a week for their incredible breakfasts and occasionally for lunch.  It's one of the things I miss most about Huntsville.

After a while, I met Keith and April for lunch.  We always pick something in Hampton Cove as it is very convenient to them.  They had just finished playing golf:

We went to a place they frequent but I have never been to before.  But you better believe I had heard of it:

If you look these guys up in the Yellow Pages the name of the restaurant is actually "China Cook", but that's not what the sign looks like.

After lunch, I got to see their new house which was incredible.  After spending a bit more time with them, I headed back to Birmingham.  Our friends Nick & Amy just bought a house (in Calera) and they were having a bunch of folks over as well.  I don't have any pictures from their house, but I did steal one of their cat Jasper.  Unfortunately the light was very dim in the room, so I Photoshopped the brightness of this picture.  It might look psychedelic, but you can easily tell that Jasper is putting the hurt on a Yuengling.  Go Jasper.

So for those of you that have no idea what Bocce Ball is, Wikipedia has a decent description.  We had a bunch of friends over to play.  It was actually quite fun.  For those of you that came over, you ate some of this...  can you identify it?  Laura really wants to know, so email her your guesses, seriously, she means it.  Not kidding.  She really, really wants to know.  We thought this was a funny picture:

So Laura and some of the ladies ran off to Crazy Bill's Fireworks.  Not sure how much they spent, but they came back with a large paper sack full of stuff.  One of them was called the "Hen Laying Egg".  We couldn't help but call it the "Pooping Chicken":

Here are pictures of a "Scatering Fish".  Obviously the translator didn't know how to spell "scattering":

And there were many Roman candles:

I guess that after everything was said and done, the cats weren't taking the noise too well.  If any of you happen to know the dynamic between CB and George (she hates him for constantly trying to "play" with her) you'll realize how strange it is that they both decided to hide from the noise under the same end table:

How did CB get a grape?  I really don't know.  I figure it was left behind by someone at our last party.  It was starting to get a little squishy and had loose skin.  Kinda fitting CB had it, isn't it.

So I finally decided it'd be a good idea to chop down the forest of weeds we had in our back yard.  Unfortunately, I had to do it all by hand:

Also decided to pressure wash part of the back sidewalk with Max's pressure washer (thanks Max!).  I still need to do the driveway.  Hopefully I'll get around to that sometime soon:

And finally...  Laura thought she met her maker the other day...  a wasp flew in the house and she was very afraid.  I came home early that day to remedy the situation, but when I got there, there was no sign of the wasp at all.  The next day when I got home from work, Laura had found it and it was doing the backstroke in a puddle of wasp spray in the foyer:

Laura found the littlest butterfly:

I found a little lizard that had climbed most of the way up the house to sun himself:

Wilson stayed with us for almost two weeks around Memorial Day:

Bella in a basket:

Tongue:

Caitlin went a little nuts with the letters from a craft project:

Monkey on a motorcycle?

Why were there ducks in our front yard the other morning?

George voted:

Lizard mating call:

The Force on the Ramblin' Wreck:

George and Bella do laundry:

Got a few funny pictures of Wilson over the weekend.  He's been with us for the past two weeks and will probably be going home this week.

Trooper is the black lab that Laura's parents have.  He is very good at eating anyone that shouldn't be in the house (not quite literally, but his bark will scare you pretty well).

Apparently this weekend they noticed a chunk of his ear missing.  They have no idea of how it happened, but they went to the vet who said he should be fine and bandaged him up.  I always joke that I want to see an animal in a funnel, but really truly, I want an animal to be not hurt even more.

I was told over the weekend that my wildlife pictures weren't as boring to the rest of you as I thought... 

I do wonder what happened to Bud & Emilia...  their domain registration is up in October, so I hope they're close to a computer.  They haven't seemed to do much since they made it to California.

And here's something we've been seeing more and more of while we've been seeing fewer and fewer frogs.  Maybe there's a trend there:

So this weekend Max and Jennifer were both out of town...  we were taking care of their little Pomeranian named Spunkey.  He's about 7 and is totally nuts.  Being a dog though, he's very much a people person and we felt bad just stopping by to let him out to use the bathroom, so we brought him back over to our place.  Here's the little fellow... keep in mind he weighs in at about 2/3 of a Bella, so all of our cats are much larger than this dog:

Having 4 cats in the house at the moment, he was almost immediately noticed.  It didn't help that he insisted on barking loudly and wanted to chase the cats around (this is what he does to any animal, humans included).  Wilson disappeared entirely (we think he went under our bed).  CB ran halfway up the stairs for shelter but stayed low enough she could still see what was going on:

George got "puffy" (his tail is normally about the diameter of one of his legs):

And Bella being the cautious but curious one made sure to stay behind him or at least at a distance and would watch from afar, following him around the house.  She is the only one that ultimately didn't run away and hide.  Go Bella.

I think Laura might want to keep him since he might fit into one of her purses and he coordinates with her hair color.  Just kidding, Laura :)

There isn't much content to this posting...  just a bunch of pictures I liked that came off the camera.

First of all, we're taking care of Wilson over the next little while.  I noticed him stalking something the other day...

Here is his prey up close:

There were also some baby ducks out near the lake the other day:

The rabbit I took a picture of last year is back again...  hiding in the middle of our nicely overgrown backyard:

And something I had never seen before... smaller than a dime...  a tiny, baby praying mantis:

And speaking of wildlife...  here is Spunky (Max and Jennifer's dog) after Max got after him with the clippers:

And finally, a few of the cats.  Here is Wilson trying to hide from Laura:

Here's one of CB/Grandma/The Goat:

And here's one of her in the closest thing she'll ever be to "in action":

Bella being Bella:

And last but not least...  an action sequence of George that pretty much sums up George:

I really wish I had taken a video of her, but then that's kinda mean.  CB had her teeth cleaned yesterday.  Doesn't sound like a big deal to us humans, but apparently it is to a cat.  They put her under (might be more for the safety of the person administering the cleaning) so she was groggy when we got her home last night.  In addition to her normal hobbling around, occasionally her back end would go the opposite way from her front end.  Quite sad.

The one good thing from this is we found out she appears to be in perfectly good health, just is quite old.

It's time to send out another group of cat pictures.  I have good ones of everyone but CB (Grandma).  I'll wait around to get a good one of her with her tongue out.

I think the one of George pretty much sums up how I feel most afternoons.

This is George:

This is up close on what's in the bottom right of this picture:

So as you see, George made a new friend.

Where are Bud and Emilia do you think?

Laura and I were in PetSmart buying some more fish and happened by the cat pens.  There was a single cat sitting there by herself.  Neither one of us could get her out of our minds, so the next day we talked and Laura called the Shelby County Humane Society about her.

That night we went down and adopted her.  She is a 15 year old cat whose owner had to give her up because she was going into a nursing home.  She is a bit crazy (what cat isn't), but very sweet.  And she always seems to be hungry.  Not sure what that's about, but we might should purchase stock in Fancy Feast.

Here she is in all her glory:

Yes, you saw it right....  here is a closeup:

I'm not quite sure why she'll walk around with her tongue sticking out, but it is very amusing to me. 

She has her own heating pad as a bed on our couch.  This is pretty much what she does when she isn't begging for more food:

This picture just cracks me up...  Wilson showing off some tub.

So in case any of you are getting random charges on your credit cards, I think George has figured out how to place orders online.

Is it normal for ducks to have babies in the fall/winter?  I figured it would be a spring thing.  I took this picture on Sunday (10/30):

And here is boyfriend (the lizzard that taunts Bella through the window) shedding, I guess in preparation for the winter:

George has replaced (literally pushed aside) my center channel speaker:

Bella is still quite fuzzy:

And they both still really like Gibson's BBQ.  One of the many things Laura and I miss about Huntsville - decent BBQ:

So I finally got around to pulling our pictures off of the camera from the second half of our trip to Orange Beach.  Had a few interesting ones.

For one, we did take the cats down with us this week and they both made themselves at home in the condo.  Fitting to their individual personalities, each one took to their new environment in a different way:

We strolled on the beach quite a bit and saw a surprising number of sea shells in the water:

We saw quite a few sunsets and it was clear enough to see the moon when it was out:

By the way, this picture of the moon was taken by Laura.  She did not use a tripod or anything.  I'm not quite sure how she stood so still, but this is an incredible shot for someone to just be "messing with the settings, trying to get it to do right".  Way to go Laura.

So Laura and I packed up the cats and headed off to Orange Beach on Saturday.  And when I say packed up, I mean we caught them, rammed a pill down their throats (they loved that part), and when they got groggy, we made them ride in the car for almost 5 hours.  Funny thing about a high cat...  you can tell instantly that they're on something.  I bet this would be a very different world if it worked that way on humans.  Cats look a bit like they're cross-eyed:

You can't tell as much on George since the little eye cover that makes him look cross-eyed is white (so it just looks like the white of his eye in this picture).  You can definately tell that Laura is on something though...  You can see it better on Bella:

They're both back to normal now, but it was amusing but sad all at the same time.  Thanks to drugs though, we made it through the trip without too much trauma.

George is ready for Christmas.  How about you?

So the other day I was getting ready to work and had the feeling that someone was watching me:

So where did Bella's head go?

Guess this is her way of saying she needs sunglasses.

Spunkey - perhaps the only thing in the world fuzzier than Bella:

BTW - he is the neighbor's Pomeranian.

George had a very lazy and warm Labor Day:

What do you do when you're getting Kung-Fu'd by a master?

You wait until he's stuck in his carrier and squish him:

Laura made a new friend this weekend:

This might be a picture from the last time Wilson came to visit, but George will be getting a special visitor for a few days this weekend.  Look out George.

He's only with us through tonight...  but it's been funny having him around.  Here is the slowest he's been all weekend:

Of course this picture was taken seconds before he knocked the bottle into the bathtub, but I'm pretty sure he'd like it if his little non-opposable thumbs could grip that cap to open it.

I just thought this was a funny picture.

Our girl cat, Bella, has taken to sleeping on top of the entertainment center in our bedroom.  Keep in mind the shortest part of the ceiling pictured is 8 feet off the ground and the boards she is standing on are approximately 1 inch wide.  Apparently this is the way she gets up and she jumps down on the bed.  She also apparently does this when the fan is running only a few inches away from her.  A very strange one, that Bella.  By the way, excellent job camerawoman (Laura).

Here's a current pic of my "children":

Wilson should be back next weekend.  I am looking forward to having another cat to torment.  Heh heh heh.

I made a cat tower for Wilson since he seemed to like ours so much when he was over here.  It's mostly plywood and 2x10s (ripped down to smaller sizes) covered in carpet left over when we re-carped our Huntsville house (before selling it).  Can you say lots of fun with the nailgun and staple gun?

The cats ruled the house this weekend.  Here's a picture of Bella successfully hiding from George & Wilson.  I think she aged 2 months over this 3 day weekend.

Here's a funny picture we just took of Wilson:

It looks like we will get some devil kitty love this long weekend - Wilson is coming to stay with us.  Maybe I'll end up with some more bizarre pictures to post here...

The original freak is back in true hissing form.  He should be here through Sunday.  Bella is so happy.

I believe they could not determine for sure where the hive is, so they just sealed up the access holes for it.  Let's hope they don't decide to move farther inside the building.  These bees are apparently the ones that were outside the hive when they sealed it.

This is my next-to-last day at my old job and there is a cleanup crew here to stop a bee problem.  Apparently they have a hive between the brick veneer and the rest of the building.  A few have made it inside, but for the most part, they're interested in the pollen, etc, in the woods surrounding the building.  I think they will try to transport the hive if they can locate and remove it.  Might make for another interesting picture if they have to remove a chunk of brick.

Last night I took this picture of a rabbit in our back yard.  Would you believe this picture was taken near dusk without a flash using a 300mm lens?  (I was a considerable distance from the rabbit).  Thanks to having a manual camera and photoshop for helping this picture look normal under such odd lighting conditions.

Wilson (aka "loaner" aka "devil cat") was dropped off at our house while we were up in Huntsville this weekend...  He is my brother-in-law's cat and is used to being an only cat.  Needless to say, when he's over, one of our cats is always hiding and the other one gets a good workout chasing him around (or being chased around).

I believe there is a guerilla war going on in our yard.  On several occasions I have noticed this squirrel digging up nuts from our yard, taking them across the street, and burying them in a neighbor's yard.  Is it rotating nuclear ordinance to keep other squirrels from stealing it?  Or is it stealing from those squirrels to increase its own military standing within the neighborhood?  And when will our squirrels be coming by to teach this one a lesson?

Another lazy sunday...

Need I say more?

Caught everyone enjoying the sunshine this afternoon.

From left to right:  Bill, Persey, Maggie, George, Petunia, and Bella.

These are pictures taken from our deck of a little hummingbird.  Last night we saw two of them out there at once (but did not have the camera with us).  The feeder is courtesy of my in-laws (thanks guys!).

We now have fish!  Special thanks goes to Rob (of Bud and Emilia fame) for his contribution of two Orange Platys in a "Big Gulp" cup.  These guys survived in that cup for about 3 days, so I figure there isn't much we can do to hurt them.

That's Frank on the left and Gus on the right.  Gus is "tubbier".  Let's hope Frank doesn't grow too much or we'll never be able to tell them apart.

I believe our next purchase will be an algae eater since Rob found out the hard way that Platys eat snails.  Way to do your research, Rob.