Kitchens and Kittens

There have been many adventures in the last 2 weeks.

Our kitten adventure continues. She has a habit of waking us up at about 5:30a by meowing and scratching on the door. I suppose she could have a more annoying habit, but John and I are already getting into the habit of "it's your turn to get up with her." I guess this means we'll be prepared when we have a little one of our own kind.Last week Sabrina decided that she didn't like being locked out of the bedroom, and so she wiggled her way into our air duct system, and luckily found the vent to our bedroom and not the duct to the furnace. We were able to pry the cover off without too much hassle, but it was quite a surpise to wake up to!

On the kitchen front.... we have countertops! We have a working sink!!! You have no idea how great it was to come home last night and be able to do dishes in our own sink! It's probably been just about a year since we had a working one in this space... crazy. Today I have been working on taking our boxes perminantly out of storage. Excuse the mess on the countertops at the moment...

Announcement

John and I have an announcement to make. We have a new member in our family....

I cute little kitten that John named Sabrina.




















She's just 6 weeks old right now. Her first night in the house was rough - mommy needed to sleep with her on the couch because she was scratching at the door. Hopefully tonight will go better.

Bugs - an update

So, here's the skinny from someone who knows things about bugs in Minnesota. The picture I labeled as "male" is actually a parasititic primitative wood wasp that is feeding on the dead part of the tree. It is called Megarhyssa macrurus. The picture I labeled as "female" is actually controlling this parasite by laying eggs on the larvae of the parasite. This beneficial bug is the Pigeon Horntail, Tremex columba.

Now we can all say we learned something new today. :-)

Bugs

Mmmm... look at what is apparently laying eggs in my neighbor's tree.

"Female"














"Female" side view (click to get better view)



















"Male"




I sent copies to a taxonomy guy at the State of MN. I'll let you know what it is if he responds....

Delinquent

Wow! A lot has happened in our lives since the last posting... I guess I've been a little delinquent. :) So, here's the news in the order that it happened:

1. My aunt Jean's wedding sampler won 1st place at the Minnesota State Fair!

2. We went to San Francisco for a long weekend. The full entourage of pics are under "Our Shutterfly Photos" at the left. The highlights - Trolley Cars!!, Fishermen's warf, Chinatown, boat cruise to see the Golden Gate Bridge (not out to Alcatraz - sold out until Monday), Napa and Sonoma Valleys and the Japanese Garden. Crazy fun!

3. School started today. Ha ha! Suckers without real jobs are back to the grind like the rest of us. ;)