Over ten minutes of exciting vole action! Fun for the whole family! Entertain your kids with our new fun interactive game by printing out the scorecard below and then watching the following videos!
==========================================================================
Number of times Pidge falls into the water bowl:______
Number of times Pidge falls into the food bowl:______
Number of times Pidge falls overall:______
Number of times Pidge simply has a fit:_____
==========================================================================
Play now for your chance to win absolutely nothing!
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Meanwhile, Pidge has been released back into the wilderness. There is a place on the edge of town where a cow pasture meets some brambles, with a little foresty spot and a stream. It's got about every possible voleish habitat included within a small area, so it should be as good a place as any.
Run free, Pidge!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Well, rats.
The cats invited in a visitor.
Critter 1
Critter 2
Critter 3
Critter 4
Critter 5
Critter 6
The Beast in action.
I'm not sure yet just what I'll do with it. Its current temporary home:
Lair
Not the best or the most luxurious, I know (that water will be all over in no time, I suspect), but I'm thinking it will do for the occasion.
Critter 1
Critter 2
Critter 3
Critter 4
Critter 5
Critter 6
The Beast in action.
I'm not sure yet just what I'll do with it. Its current temporary home:
Lair
Not the best or the most luxurious, I know (that water will be all over in no time, I suspect), but I'm thinking it will do for the occasion.
Monday, December 22, 2008
King of the Mountain?
Second tallest peak in the state. Home to a unique and weird ecosystem. Gateway to three different states. Really big lump of rock. Paletop Mountain is all of these. But especially the latter. And it was calling to me. . .
And so I went.
It was a fine sunny day, with temperatures at ground level of around 5°F / -15°C and a windchill of a good bit lower. But that just meant that I wouldn't have to worry about being bothered by ticks, snakes, and mosquitoes. Just the occasional disoriented yeti, but nobody cares about them.
Amazingly enough, I decided to start at the bottom of the mountain and work my way upwards. The heavy snows of past weeks got massacred by a day of 70°F / 21°C weather a little while ago, so most of the going was free of snowdrifts. There were copious amounts of ice, however.
Icicles 1
Icicles 2
The lower parts of the mountain and the surrounding area are heavily forested with lots of big leafy (in the non-Winter months at least) deciduous trees of various kind, and also with lots of big non-leafy non-deciduous rocks.
Cliff
Trees
The source of one of the area's main rivers is also near the base of the mountain, and so there is plenty of wet stuff around for people less dignified and amazing than me to fall into.
Cascade
Though the weather was well below freezing, most of the water was moving along fast enough that it wasn't turning to ice. That didn't stop it from freezing when it splashed onto things, though. Most of the rocks in and around the river were covered in a casing of ice.
Icy rocks 1
Icy rocks 2
Icy rocks 3
Weird ice shapes
River
More river
Yet more river.
A slightly different River
Somebody thoughtfully provided a few bridges, too, which are no doubt greatly appreciated by all the rabid animals.
Bridge
Bridge, the sequel
Bridge, the sequel to the sequel
Bridge, the prequel to the sequel's sequel's sequel's sequel
And for your viewing pleasure: running water!
And so I proceeded up the mountain.
Trees
Trees and rocks
Weird frozen drainpipe in the middle of nowhere
Rocks and trees
Giant subterranean squid monster
Big trees
Deciduous trees
Deciduous rocks. . .no, sorry, those are more trees. My mistake.
After about twenty miles I hit the deciduous treeline, above which deciduous trees get really scarce. There's a grassy gap above there, and then a bit further on a totally new ecosystem of conifers takes over and hides the very summit. This grassy belt is part of what gives the mountain its name; partly it's called Paletop because it often has a cap of snow on it, but even in the Summer the sides of the peak near the top look very pale due to all the grass in comparison to the dark forests on the lower slopes.
Upon hitting this treeline, the weather changed a bit. It had been steadily getting colder the higher I climbed, and at this point the cover of the trees suddenly vanished and the wind had free rein. The windchill dropped down to about minus forty degrees (at which point, interestingly enough, the designation of "Celsius" or "Fahrenheit" doesn't really matter), which cooled things off a tad. But the really interesting thing was the air itself. From this point on in the photographs you might notice little sparkles here and there, or even mysterious ghost lozenges (related to the ghost orbs, but pointier) floating about. These were due to the alien mind-control rays refracting in the camera lens and-. . .
Wait, no, that's. . .ummm. . .wrong. (Whew, I almost gave the plot away there!) What those strange shiny specks and spots really are is ice. Though it was a mostly clear day, there was still a bit of moisture in the air. And when that air got up to the treeline level on the mountain, that moisture precipitated out of the air and suddenly turned into little flat angular bits of ice which then fluttered about and either landed or else just as suddenly disappeared when they reached an area out of the wind. They were appearing all around me at times; I was basically walking around in the very beginning of a snowcloud before it reached the stage of actually being cloudy.
Ice crystals also kept trying to form on my camera, which led to me having to be very quick to pull it out, frame the shot, take the picture, and then stick it back in its warmish case before the viewing lens and the optical lenses got all covered over. When that happened, I'd have to sit and thaw out the camera before carrying on.
When I got ready to take the first picture in this area, I pulled off one of my cumbersome outer gloves as I had been doing earlier. Literally within less than five seconds I lost all feeling in my fingers. I put the glove back on again, which is rather tricky to do when you're trying to put it on over another glove and when you can't tell where your fingers are (and you're hoping that at least the fingers are still attached somewhere, and not rattling around loose). When I got back down the mountain again and took off my gloves, I found that around that point I'd started bleeding rather messily from the cuticles on that hand. Not a pleasant experience.
At least I had a large vacuum flask of hot tea to keep me thawed out overall.
Non-deciduous trees! Woohoo!
Oh, and some more deciduous ones
Your fearless guide!
The stragglers of the old trees and the final conifer belt
Scenic view
More scenic view
A viewic scene?
This was looking down with the highest telescopic setting
More scene
And more
A rock, for a change
There was lots of ice building up on surfaces exposed to the wind in this area.
On dead flowers
On shrubs
On trees
On the overall landscape
On this guy
But I was not daunted, and ventured onwards. I had some cold-weather goggles, but even so I had to occasionally thaw out my eyelids when the eyelashes from one eyelid started freezing to those on its partner. I'd gradually end up with more and more of a squint, and finally I'd get tired of peering around through little icy slits. I tried at one point to see if I could pull my hat down over my eyes and warm things up that way, but the hat, balaclava, and all the rest were pretty much frozen into position. So I made do with taking off the goggles periodically and standing with my hands pressed over my eyes until the ice thawed. Then I'd madly try to wipe away the water before it refroze within a few seconds. I did briefly consider pouring the hot tea over my head, but decided to hold on to that as a backup system if the other didn't work.
More mountain views
And more
Snowy rock
An eagle doing an impersonation of a blurry speck on the far right
Green sprouts in the snow
A family of rocks admiring the view
A really big rock
Frostiness
Nearing a clump of conifers
They lurk in wait
Another vista (should you look at it using Windows?)
And another
A safe path?
Conifers, big and small
A renegade non-conifer
Zombie conifer
Frosted trees
One last look back
There's not really a clearly-defined line between where the grassy bit ends and the conifery bit begins. There tend to be little islands of the conifers surrounded by little strips of grass at first. Most of the very summit is totally covered in the trees, though. I tried to zig-zag around a bit to find some of the grassy bits amongst the trees, however, because the last thing we need now is another fifty photos of trees. Even so, I had to wend my way through a few good foresty areas.
Into the conifer woods
Surrounded!
The trees! They're everywhere!
Even there!
But there are apparently safe routes. . .
. . .to freedom!
More mountains
And more
More zombie treeishness
And more
Flowercicles
Trees and grass and rocks
Grass and rocks and trees
Rocks and trees and grass
There were chunks of ice sitting about
And a this tree posed for me
Looking down into the valleys
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
Reminds me of Scotland!
A cluster of nervous-looking conifers
A marker stone, marking something
Stuff
The horizon
The horizon being attacked by trees
Another grassland
And a briarland!
Siamese trees?
I half circled around the very peak and came up from the far side to see what was to be seen. The last hundred meters or so of elevation displayed yet another boundary zone: things went from being somewhat icy to totally covered in ice.
Iciness
More iciness
This is a big rock that is just too isolated and picturesque to have occurred naturally. I think that somebody moved it there. Or it migrated. Who knows?
Picturesque rock
And now for a little sense of perspective. In the above photo, there is a darkish-coloured mountain peak in the near distance that I was looking down towards when I took the picture. As a point of comparison, that particular peak is:
Almost exactly twice as tall as Talyuberlup Peak in Australia.
Six times taller than Arthur's Seat in Scotland.
One-sixth as tall as Mount Everest.
One-eighteenth the height of Olympus Mons.
One-gadzillionth the distance from Earth to the tribble homeworld.
Paletop Mountain is actually not an isolated peak; it is just the tallest in a ridgeline that forms several peaks.
The next lowest peak on the ridge
And the next lowest after that
Other unconnected ridgelines and peaks
And so I finally went up into the conifers and to the peak. There's not really any view from the very top, though, other than of lots of ice-covered trees. Maybe next time I'll bring along some stilts.
The tip of the top
I survived!
The trip back down again wasn't too hard. I just threw myself off the summit and rolled down.
And that concludes our highlights of Paletop 2008. Be sure to tune in again this time next year for. . .probably nothing much.
And as a parting thought before you leave, I present you with. . .
A genuine lolcat!
And so I went.
It was a fine sunny day, with temperatures at ground level of around 5°F / -15°C and a windchill of a good bit lower. But that just meant that I wouldn't have to worry about being bothered by ticks, snakes, and mosquitoes. Just the occasional disoriented yeti, but nobody cares about them.
Amazingly enough, I decided to start at the bottom of the mountain and work my way upwards. The heavy snows of past weeks got massacred by a day of 70°F / 21°C weather a little while ago, so most of the going was free of snowdrifts. There were copious amounts of ice, however.
Icicles 1
Icicles 2
The lower parts of the mountain and the surrounding area are heavily forested with lots of big leafy (in the non-Winter months at least) deciduous trees of various kind, and also with lots of big non-leafy non-deciduous rocks.
Cliff
Trees
The source of one of the area's main rivers is also near the base of the mountain, and so there is plenty of wet stuff around for people less dignified and amazing than me to fall into.
Cascade
Though the weather was well below freezing, most of the water was moving along fast enough that it wasn't turning to ice. That didn't stop it from freezing when it splashed onto things, though. Most of the rocks in and around the river were covered in a casing of ice.
Icy rocks 1
Icy rocks 2
Icy rocks 3
Weird ice shapes
River
More river
Yet more river.
A slightly different River
Somebody thoughtfully provided a few bridges, too, which are no doubt greatly appreciated by all the rabid animals.
Bridge
Bridge, the sequel
Bridge, the sequel to the sequel
Bridge, the prequel to the sequel's sequel's sequel's sequel
And for your viewing pleasure: running water!
And so I proceeded up the mountain.
Trees
Trees and rocks
Weird frozen drainpipe in the middle of nowhere
Rocks and trees
Giant subterranean squid monster
Big trees
Deciduous trees
Deciduous rocks. . .no, sorry, those are more trees. My mistake.
After about twenty miles I hit the deciduous treeline, above which deciduous trees get really scarce. There's a grassy gap above there, and then a bit further on a totally new ecosystem of conifers takes over and hides the very summit. This grassy belt is part of what gives the mountain its name; partly it's called Paletop because it often has a cap of snow on it, but even in the Summer the sides of the peak near the top look very pale due to all the grass in comparison to the dark forests on the lower slopes.
Upon hitting this treeline, the weather changed a bit. It had been steadily getting colder the higher I climbed, and at this point the cover of the trees suddenly vanished and the wind had free rein. The windchill dropped down to about minus forty degrees (at which point, interestingly enough, the designation of "Celsius" or "Fahrenheit" doesn't really matter), which cooled things off a tad. But the really interesting thing was the air itself. From this point on in the photographs you might notice little sparkles here and there, or even mysterious ghost lozenges (related to the ghost orbs, but pointier) floating about. These were due to the alien mind-control rays refracting in the camera lens and-. . .
Wait, no, that's. . .ummm. . .wrong. (Whew, I almost gave the plot away there!) What those strange shiny specks and spots really are is ice. Though it was a mostly clear day, there was still a bit of moisture in the air. And when that air got up to the treeline level on the mountain, that moisture precipitated out of the air and suddenly turned into little flat angular bits of ice which then fluttered about and either landed or else just as suddenly disappeared when they reached an area out of the wind. They were appearing all around me at times; I was basically walking around in the very beginning of a snowcloud before it reached the stage of actually being cloudy.
Ice crystals also kept trying to form on my camera, which led to me having to be very quick to pull it out, frame the shot, take the picture, and then stick it back in its warmish case before the viewing lens and the optical lenses got all covered over. When that happened, I'd have to sit and thaw out the camera before carrying on.
When I got ready to take the first picture in this area, I pulled off one of my cumbersome outer gloves as I had been doing earlier. Literally within less than five seconds I lost all feeling in my fingers. I put the glove back on again, which is rather tricky to do when you're trying to put it on over another glove and when you can't tell where your fingers are (and you're hoping that at least the fingers are still attached somewhere, and not rattling around loose). When I got back down the mountain again and took off my gloves, I found that around that point I'd started bleeding rather messily from the cuticles on that hand. Not a pleasant experience.
At least I had a large vacuum flask of hot tea to keep me thawed out overall.
Non-deciduous trees! Woohoo!
Oh, and some more deciduous ones
Your fearless guide!
The stragglers of the old trees and the final conifer belt
Scenic view
More scenic view
A viewic scene?
This was looking down with the highest telescopic setting
More scene
And more
A rock, for a change
There was lots of ice building up on surfaces exposed to the wind in this area.
On dead flowers
On shrubs
On trees
On the overall landscape
On this guy
But I was not daunted, and ventured onwards. I had some cold-weather goggles, but even so I had to occasionally thaw out my eyelids when the eyelashes from one eyelid started freezing to those on its partner. I'd gradually end up with more and more of a squint, and finally I'd get tired of peering around through little icy slits. I tried at one point to see if I could pull my hat down over my eyes and warm things up that way, but the hat, balaclava, and all the rest were pretty much frozen into position. So I made do with taking off the goggles periodically and standing with my hands pressed over my eyes until the ice thawed. Then I'd madly try to wipe away the water before it refroze within a few seconds. I did briefly consider pouring the hot tea over my head, but decided to hold on to that as a backup system if the other didn't work.
More mountain views
And more
Snowy rock
An eagle doing an impersonation of a blurry speck on the far right
Green sprouts in the snow
A family of rocks admiring the view
A really big rock
Frostiness
Nearing a clump of conifers
They lurk in wait
Another vista (should you look at it using Windows?)
And another
A safe path?
Conifers, big and small
A renegade non-conifer
Zombie conifer
Frosted trees
One last look back
There's not really a clearly-defined line between where the grassy bit ends and the conifery bit begins. There tend to be little islands of the conifers surrounded by little strips of grass at first. Most of the very summit is totally covered in the trees, though. I tried to zig-zag around a bit to find some of the grassy bits amongst the trees, however, because the last thing we need now is another fifty photos of trees. Even so, I had to wend my way through a few good foresty areas.
Into the conifer woods
Surrounded!
The trees! They're everywhere!
Even there!
But there are apparently safe routes. . .
. . .to freedom!
More mountains
And more
More zombie treeishness
And more
Flowercicles
Trees and grass and rocks
Grass and rocks and trees
Rocks and trees and grass
There were chunks of ice sitting about
And a this tree posed for me
Looking down into the valleys
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
Reminds me of Scotland!
A cluster of nervous-looking conifers
A marker stone, marking something
Stuff
The horizon
The horizon being attacked by trees
Another grassland
And a briarland!
Siamese trees?
I half circled around the very peak and came up from the far side to see what was to be seen. The last hundred meters or so of elevation displayed yet another boundary zone: things went from being somewhat icy to totally covered in ice.
Iciness
More iciness
This is a big rock that is just too isolated and picturesque to have occurred naturally. I think that somebody moved it there. Or it migrated. Who knows?
Picturesque rock
And now for a little sense of perspective. In the above photo, there is a darkish-coloured mountain peak in the near distance that I was looking down towards when I took the picture. As a point of comparison, that particular peak is:
Almost exactly twice as tall as Talyuberlup Peak in Australia.
Six times taller than Arthur's Seat in Scotland.
One-sixth as tall as Mount Everest.
One-eighteenth the height of Olympus Mons.
One-gadzillionth the distance from Earth to the tribble homeworld.
Paletop Mountain is actually not an isolated peak; it is just the tallest in a ridgeline that forms several peaks.
The next lowest peak on the ridge
And the next lowest after that
Other unconnected ridgelines and peaks
And so I finally went up into the conifers and to the peak. There's not really any view from the very top, though, other than of lots of ice-covered trees. Maybe next time I'll bring along some stilts.
The tip of the top
I survived!
The trip back down again wasn't too hard. I just threw myself off the summit and rolled down.
And that concludes our highlights of Paletop 2008. Be sure to tune in again this time next year for. . .probably nothing much.
And as a parting thought before you leave, I present you with. . .
A genuine lolcat!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Remember, Remember, the Something of November
A few weeks ago I went climbing around in the mountains a bit near the little village of Angry Waters. The town's not really more than a scattering of houses along a stretch of valley, but it's some of the scarce reasonably flat ground in the area, being on a small plain between two rows of tall hills. The weather was still being Autumnal at the time and the strong winds hadn't started yet, so the trees still had a goodly number of leaves on them.
The area is very rocky, with all sorts of odd rock formations to go climbing around on and strange looking boulders sitting around in random arrangements. Yet the trees still manage to cope, exploiting any little crack even in sheer rock walls. And so the Appalachians have been gradually worn down to what they are today.
Not long after that day, though, Winter decided that it wanted to make an early start on things. So we had sleet, and snow, and sleet, and snow, and sleet, and more snow, and lots of wind as well. By the time the latest snow stopped falling, we had about half a foot of it piled up on the ground. The birds have not been pleased, and now spend most of the day camped out around the bird feeders squabbling. The kitten, on the other hand, is finally in her element. Sort of. At last she blends in to the scenery, which before only Abby could really do. But her amazing new camouflage abilities come at the cost of having to drag her little fuzzy tummy through cold wet icky snow. And so both of the beasties have been spending most of their time indoors of late, getting into whatever mischief they can find and demanding that one of us make the snow go away again.
The garden is pretty much no longer gardeny, being some low piles of dirt with tattered shreds of dead vegetation poking out of the snow. At least the lawn won't need much mowing now. And the grape vines keep getting turned into rather interesting ice sculptures.
I decided to go out for a walk along the same route I took on my walk in October, and to see what some of the same scenes look like after all the snow. So here are photos taken from approximately the same angle as some of the October photos. I leave it up to the reader to match picture with picture. . .
Trestle Bridge 2
Farm 2
Slope 2
Pasture 2
Trail, part 2, part 2
Crossroads 2
Lake 2
Ice Crystals 2
I also took a few other photos while I was out there.
Dragon tracks!
1
2
3
Clouds.
More ominous looking clouds.
Farm stuff.
PreChristmas tree!
You can't fence in the snow!
Last Friday was the day of Wolf Hills' big annual Christmas parade. This year it was only about half the size as it was in previous years, due to various changes in registration requirements and fees. And for a little while there was some question as to whether or not the parade would even happen, what with all the ice and snow (that's what you get for constantly playing songs like "White Christmas" and "Let it snow!"). But I took a walk around the town around midday, and saw that the various vendors and workers were out preparing for the event. So the parade was still on.
The town was all decked out in its holiday finery for the occasion. Even the trains in Necromancerville were looking festive. Nobody had bothered to decorate our newly acquired Official Town Caboose, though. It still looks as bedraggled as it has all along. But workers had been working workerishly for the last few days putting up all sorts of wreathes and tinsel and weird things around Main Street and the different parks elsewhere, which looked even more Christmasy with the scattering of snow that still remained.
One of the town inns.
The Farmer's/Farmers'/Farmers Market, some banks, and mountains in the distance (beyond which is Angry Waters and its valley).
Main Street.
The Theatre, complete with magical tree growing out of its roof.
A lurking gazebo.
The "new" Methodist church.
A door. . .to another dimension?
A house that I like.
Our renowned county courthouse, complete with generic Confederate Soldier Monument.
The view southwards down Courthouse Hill.
Mother Nature does not approve of speed limits.
It is an annual tradition that the lady whom I'm boarding with host a whole swarm of her relatives from the area. She's the only member of her close family who lives in town, so everybody gathers at her house to have a big dinner, gossip, and watch the Christmas parade. That evening the house's population went from two people, two cats, and one millipede to over two dozen people (including a large number of hyperactive kids from 4 to 9 years of age), two traumatised kitties who spent lots of time hiding, and one millipede who didn't care what was going on as long as he had his zucchini.
So we ate and talked, and talked and ate, and ate while talking and talked about eating, and I ran around with the kids a bit, and I helped the cats hide a bit, and then all the kids and about a third of us non-kids went out to see the parade. It was after dusk by then, and windy and below freezing, so we were all bundled up rather heavily. Two of the kids didn't even have Winter clothing, so they were wrapped up in pretty much every spare blanket that the house contained and sort of waddled down the street without the ability to use their arms or hands.
The kids fussed around long enough that they missed the first quarter hour of the parade (and they were most put out at the thought of all that candy being thrown around that they missed out on), but since the parade route was passing by just around the block from the house we were able to find a good spot on the sidewalk to watch the remainder of it passing by. It wasn't the best conditions for photography, but I took a few pictures anyway.
There were probably about 60 floats in all, pulled along by pick-ups or built onto flatbeds.
1
2
There was also a long line of fire trucks and ambulances from Bridgeplace, Ash Sham, Smelly Springs, and many other area towns. I have no idea how many cats remained stuck in trees overnight due to the lack of on-duty fire trucks in the region.
Then there were marching bands, who were marching along rather quickly to try to keep warm in the 15°F wind. The police cars blocking the intersections added a nice otherworldly glow to things. And if you look closely in the middle of this picture, you'll see a short girl trying to play a French horn while wearing gloves, which reminded me of a certain person whom I know of.
After much loot in the way of candy, plastic throwing discs with the names of banks emblazoned upon them, and vague rambling religious tracts had been gathered, the assembly returned home and thawed out in front of the fireplaces with hot chocolate. Eventually everybody extraneous left (much to the cats' relief) aside from three of the kids who were spending the night. And so peace once more descended upon the town of Wolf Hills.
The area is very rocky, with all sorts of odd rock formations to go climbing around on and strange looking boulders sitting around in random arrangements. Yet the trees still manage to cope, exploiting any little crack even in sheer rock walls. And so the Appalachians have been gradually worn down to what they are today.
Not long after that day, though, Winter decided that it wanted to make an early start on things. So we had sleet, and snow, and sleet, and snow, and sleet, and more snow, and lots of wind as well. By the time the latest snow stopped falling, we had about half a foot of it piled up on the ground. The birds have not been pleased, and now spend most of the day camped out around the bird feeders squabbling. The kitten, on the other hand, is finally in her element. Sort of. At last she blends in to the scenery, which before only Abby could really do. But her amazing new camouflage abilities come at the cost of having to drag her little fuzzy tummy through cold wet icky snow. And so both of the beasties have been spending most of their time indoors of late, getting into whatever mischief they can find and demanding that one of us make the snow go away again.
The garden is pretty much no longer gardeny, being some low piles of dirt with tattered shreds of dead vegetation poking out of the snow. At least the lawn won't need much mowing now. And the grape vines keep getting turned into rather interesting ice sculptures.
I decided to go out for a walk along the same route I took on my walk in October, and to see what some of the same scenes look like after all the snow. So here are photos taken from approximately the same angle as some of the October photos. I leave it up to the reader to match picture with picture. . .
Trestle Bridge 2
Farm 2
Slope 2
Pasture 2
Trail, part 2, part 2
Crossroads 2
Lake 2
Ice Crystals 2
I also took a few other photos while I was out there.
Dragon tracks!
1
2
3
Clouds.
More ominous looking clouds.
Farm stuff.
PreChristmas tree!
You can't fence in the snow!
Last Friday was the day of Wolf Hills' big annual Christmas parade. This year it was only about half the size as it was in previous years, due to various changes in registration requirements and fees. And for a little while there was some question as to whether or not the parade would even happen, what with all the ice and snow (that's what you get for constantly playing songs like "White Christmas" and "Let it snow!"). But I took a walk around the town around midday, and saw that the various vendors and workers were out preparing for the event. So the parade was still on.
The town was all decked out in its holiday finery for the occasion. Even the trains in Necromancerville were looking festive. Nobody had bothered to decorate our newly acquired Official Town Caboose, though. It still looks as bedraggled as it has all along. But workers had been working workerishly for the last few days putting up all sorts of wreathes and tinsel and weird things around Main Street and the different parks elsewhere, which looked even more Christmasy with the scattering of snow that still remained.
One of the town inns.
The Farmer's/Farmers'/Farmers Market, some banks, and mountains in the distance (beyond which is Angry Waters and its valley).
Main Street.
The Theatre, complete with magical tree growing out of its roof.
A lurking gazebo.
The "new" Methodist church.
A door. . .to another dimension?
A house that I like.
Our renowned county courthouse, complete with generic Confederate Soldier Monument.
The view southwards down Courthouse Hill.
Mother Nature does not approve of speed limits.
It is an annual tradition that the lady whom I'm boarding with host a whole swarm of her relatives from the area. She's the only member of her close family who lives in town, so everybody gathers at her house to have a big dinner, gossip, and watch the Christmas parade. That evening the house's population went from two people, two cats, and one millipede to over two dozen people (including a large number of hyperactive kids from 4 to 9 years of age), two traumatised kitties who spent lots of time hiding, and one millipede who didn't care what was going on as long as he had his zucchini.
So we ate and talked, and talked and ate, and ate while talking and talked about eating, and I ran around with the kids a bit, and I helped the cats hide a bit, and then all the kids and about a third of us non-kids went out to see the parade. It was after dusk by then, and windy and below freezing, so we were all bundled up rather heavily. Two of the kids didn't even have Winter clothing, so they were wrapped up in pretty much every spare blanket that the house contained and sort of waddled down the street without the ability to use their arms or hands.
The kids fussed around long enough that they missed the first quarter hour of the parade (and they were most put out at the thought of all that candy being thrown around that they missed out on), but since the parade route was passing by just around the block from the house we were able to find a good spot on the sidewalk to watch the remainder of it passing by. It wasn't the best conditions for photography, but I took a few pictures anyway.
There were probably about 60 floats in all, pulled along by pick-ups or built onto flatbeds.
1
2
There was also a long line of fire trucks and ambulances from Bridgeplace, Ash Sham, Smelly Springs, and many other area towns. I have no idea how many cats remained stuck in trees overnight due to the lack of on-duty fire trucks in the region.
Then there were marching bands, who were marching along rather quickly to try to keep warm in the 15°F wind. The police cars blocking the intersections added a nice otherworldly glow to things. And if you look closely in the middle of this picture, you'll see a short girl trying to play a French horn while wearing gloves, which reminded me of a certain person whom I know of.
After much loot in the way of candy, plastic throwing discs with the names of banks emblazoned upon them, and vague rambling religious tracts had been gathered, the assembly returned home and thawed out in front of the fireplaces with hot chocolate. Eventually everybody extraneous left (much to the cats' relief) aside from three of the kids who were spending the night. And so peace once more descended upon the town of Wolf Hills.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Over the Hills and Far Away
Well, a little while ago I ventured forth into the wild wild world on a business trip. It was lots of fun, spending about eight hours driving a van with an excessively automobileaphobic woman in the passenger side seat. Every time I'd speed the van up, she'd gasp and cringe and flail. Every time I'd slow it down, she'd gasp and cringe and flail. Every time I'd go around a gentle bend in the road, she'd gasp and cringe and flail. Every time I'd gun the engine up to 80 mph and fly along narrow mountain roads in the rain and fog, she'd gasp and cringe and flail. It would have been bad enough with that alone, but a couple times in her flailing she managed to hit the gear-shift and suddenly we'd be coasting along in neutral. And she refused to sit in the back of the van instead. But we all survived.
A brief rundown of things I got to do during that week:
1. See lots of lightning
2. Watch George Washington deliver a rousing speech to a group of militia, whereupon they marched forth against and opened fire upon a pair of defiant squirrels (at Colonial Williamsburg)
3. Go on a Williamsburg ghost tour, but not see so much as a phantom orb
4. See a bunch of disembodied Presidential heads
5. Ride in an AH-64
6. Watch surfers panic because they can't tell the difference between dolphins and sharks, and watch dolphins laugh at silly surfers
7. Heroically rescue kittens from a giant construction roller (okay, so the roller was turned off at the time, but still. . .)
8. Duel with crab claws at dawn
9. Learn that Post Offices are considered strange and mysterious and near-mythical objects in eastern Virginia
10. Goose geese
11. Watch a small airplane almost crash by trying to land with the nose pointed up at about a sixty-degree angle (Note to pilots: it's not a good thing when your airplane starts trying to fly backwards into the ground)
One day we all had to go out to an island that could only conveniently be reached by boat (they have an airfield, but it is sort of dismantled at the moment). And so we left harbour a little while after dawn and bravely set off upon the briny sea. It was a nice calm day, though a bit foggy and cloudy. There were lots of pelicans and herons and the like, and I got to watch them swooping about and catching fish. About ninety minutes out I saw a peculiar looking ship on the horizon ahead. I pointed it out to the captain, and he decided that since it was only slightly off our course he'd chase it down so we could get a good look at it. And we did.
It was a replica of the Godspeed, one of the brigantines that had been used during the founding of Jamestown. We overtook the ship, everybody waved at everyone else, and we went on our way.
Godspeed 1
Godspeed 2
Godspeed 3
Godspeed 4
Godspeed 5
I glanced back as we were leaving her astern, and I saw this view. I took a picture of it, because I thought it looked all nice and symbolic.
The journey back again was a lot sunnier at times, aside from the intervals of rain and clouds and fog and other non-sunny things. I took a nap on one of the life rafts on deck, and impressed everybody by sleeping right through one of the rainstorms (unlike everybody else, though, I had actually thought to bring along some weatherproof clothing). We didn't see any other ships until we were going through the inlet, whereupon a big menhaden fishing boat came around a headland and followed us in. Once again, there was much waving. They eventually passed by us and headed off to their fishery where a bunch of sister ships were already unloading their catch. It was interesting seeing all the huge conveyor belts covered in fish, with bright silver "waterfalls" of menhaden dropping off the ends into waiting trucks. Smelly, too.
There were also the ruins of many earlier menhaden processing plants along the river, spanning three centuries. Most of them were just little jumbles of brick and rubble lurking in the underbrush or sticking out of the low water. One was entirely gone except for its smokestack, which stood all alone on a long low spit of land.
I was staying in a nice hotel for that week, at least. Instead of being one big building, it had what was basically a neighbourhood of townhouses. So I got to stay in a suite with a living/dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a raised (I was on the second floor) patio, and an evil tea-kettle that, no matter how you handled it, would spill as much boiling water all over as it poured into your cup. There was also a free indoor and outdoor pool, tennis court, miniature golf course, volleyball court, shuffleboard court, hiking trail, and formal gardens. And a non-free spa, restaurant, and gym (not all in one, though).
Hotel 1
Hotel 2
Hotel 3
Hotel 4
Hotel 5
Hotel 6
Hotel 7
Hotel 8
And here, if you look closely, you can see that I was busy following my evil Illuminati agenda:
At one point while I was out roaming around I saw a squirrel bounding madly straight down the road. I have no idea where he was coming from or even where he was going, but he was going down the wrong side of the road and ran at least one stop-sign.
I made use of the shuffleboard court and the miniature golf course. I always enjoyed shuffleboard. I think that it is one of the great underappreciated pastimes. The miniature golf was okay, too. I played it through from start to finish in about an hour, and even made several holes-in-one. Then, since I had unlimited time there and was all alone on the course, I played it backwards (both from the last hole to the first, and backwards on each off the little greens). Then I played it using the golf club like a billiards cue, which actually works amazingly well (a number of holes in one go, and I averaged two shots per hole). And then I spent a while just whacking the ball around wildly. At one point I managed to make a hole in 1/3: I hit the ball, it bounced off that green onto the next, hit an obstacle, leapt into the air, landed on yet another green, and rolled into the hole. Beat that, Tiger Woods!
And here, for all your enjoyment, is a self-portrait from in my suite's little foyer.
The drive home again was pretty much a repeat of the earlier one, but with the sun in my eyes instead. I think that more vehicles need to be made with driver-selectable ejection seats.
A few further things of note, not related to the trip:
1. Abby now loves me. We are friends.
2. Here's a photo of Gustav doing a Tarzan impersonation. There are several digital thermometers on his terrarium, and they have sensors on wires that go into his lair. He managed to get one so that it was dangling down loose, grabbed onto it, and started swinging.
3. Smerk is a total hottie. I mean, wow! Woohoo!
A brief rundown of things I got to do during that week:
1. See lots of lightning
2. Watch George Washington deliver a rousing speech to a group of militia, whereupon they marched forth against and opened fire upon a pair of defiant squirrels (at Colonial Williamsburg)
3. Go on a Williamsburg ghost tour, but not see so much as a phantom orb
4. See a bunch of disembodied Presidential heads
5. Ride in an AH-64
6. Watch surfers panic because they can't tell the difference between dolphins and sharks, and watch dolphins laugh at silly surfers
7. Heroically rescue kittens from a giant construction roller (okay, so the roller was turned off at the time, but still. . .)
8. Duel with crab claws at dawn
9. Learn that Post Offices are considered strange and mysterious and near-mythical objects in eastern Virginia
10. Goose geese
11. Watch a small airplane almost crash by trying to land with the nose pointed up at about a sixty-degree angle (Note to pilots: it's not a good thing when your airplane starts trying to fly backwards into the ground)
One day we all had to go out to an island that could only conveniently be reached by boat (they have an airfield, but it is sort of dismantled at the moment). And so we left harbour a little while after dawn and bravely set off upon the briny sea. It was a nice calm day, though a bit foggy and cloudy. There were lots of pelicans and herons and the like, and I got to watch them swooping about and catching fish. About ninety minutes out I saw a peculiar looking ship on the horizon ahead. I pointed it out to the captain, and he decided that since it was only slightly off our course he'd chase it down so we could get a good look at it. And we did.
It was a replica of the Godspeed, one of the brigantines that had been used during the founding of Jamestown. We overtook the ship, everybody waved at everyone else, and we went on our way.
Godspeed 1
Godspeed 2
Godspeed 3
Godspeed 4
Godspeed 5
I glanced back as we were leaving her astern, and I saw this view. I took a picture of it, because I thought it looked all nice and symbolic.
The journey back again was a lot sunnier at times, aside from the intervals of rain and clouds and fog and other non-sunny things. I took a nap on one of the life rafts on deck, and impressed everybody by sleeping right through one of the rainstorms (unlike everybody else, though, I had actually thought to bring along some weatherproof clothing). We didn't see any other ships until we were going through the inlet, whereupon a big menhaden fishing boat came around a headland and followed us in. Once again, there was much waving. They eventually passed by us and headed off to their fishery where a bunch of sister ships were already unloading their catch. It was interesting seeing all the huge conveyor belts covered in fish, with bright silver "waterfalls" of menhaden dropping off the ends into waiting trucks. Smelly, too.
There were also the ruins of many earlier menhaden processing plants along the river, spanning three centuries. Most of them were just little jumbles of brick and rubble lurking in the underbrush or sticking out of the low water. One was entirely gone except for its smokestack, which stood all alone on a long low spit of land.
I was staying in a nice hotel for that week, at least. Instead of being one big building, it had what was basically a neighbourhood of townhouses. So I got to stay in a suite with a living/dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a raised (I was on the second floor) patio, and an evil tea-kettle that, no matter how you handled it, would spill as much boiling water all over as it poured into your cup. There was also a free indoor and outdoor pool, tennis court, miniature golf course, volleyball court, shuffleboard court, hiking trail, and formal gardens. And a non-free spa, restaurant, and gym (not all in one, though).
Hotel 1
Hotel 2
Hotel 3
Hotel 4
Hotel 5
Hotel 6
Hotel 7
Hotel 8
And here, if you look closely, you can see that I was busy following my evil Illuminati agenda:
At one point while I was out roaming around I saw a squirrel bounding madly straight down the road. I have no idea where he was coming from or even where he was going, but he was going down the wrong side of the road and ran at least one stop-sign.
I made use of the shuffleboard court and the miniature golf course. I always enjoyed shuffleboard. I think that it is one of the great underappreciated pastimes. The miniature golf was okay, too. I played it through from start to finish in about an hour, and even made several holes-in-one. Then, since I had unlimited time there and was all alone on the course, I played it backwards (both from the last hole to the first, and backwards on each off the little greens). Then I played it using the golf club like a billiards cue, which actually works amazingly well (a number of holes in one go, and I averaged two shots per hole). And then I spent a while just whacking the ball around wildly. At one point I managed to make a hole in 1/3: I hit the ball, it bounced off that green onto the next, hit an obstacle, leapt into the air, landed on yet another green, and rolled into the hole. Beat that, Tiger Woods!
And here, for all your enjoyment, is a self-portrait from in my suite's little foyer.
The drive home again was pretty much a repeat of the earlier one, but with the sun in my eyes instead. I think that more vehicles need to be made with driver-selectable ejection seats.
A few further things of note, not related to the trip:
1. Abby now loves me. We are friends.
2. Here's a photo of Gustav doing a Tarzan impersonation. There are several digital thermometers on his terrarium, and they have sensors on wires that go into his lair. He managed to get one so that it was dangling down loose, grabbed onto it, and started swinging.
3. Smerk is a total hottie. I mean, wow! Woohoo!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
