Just fantastic.
Check out this majestic sea captain.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Cute Pictures of Cats
99.9999% of the time I just adore my kitties. Most vet students have an underlying note of "Crazy Cat Lady" hidden somewhere in their personalities, and given free rein we will snatch up every sob-story, abandoned, abused, neglected kitten we can find, and love them like they've never been loved before. However, 0.0001% of the time, my cats turn into carnivorous, fake-plant hunting demons ready to stalk and kill any rogue carpet fuzzies or dangling phone chargers in their paths, and it takes all of my self-control not to make them someone else's sob stories.
I have a small litterbox for my cats in a corner of my room next to my desk. Dahsu, my little smush-faced cat, took a fat stinky crap, covered it up, then leapt DIRECTLY from the litter box onto my desk, spraying freshly shat-on litter all over my notes.
Dahsu also likes to steal highlighters and hide them, so that my freshly-bought Sam's club pack of highlighters dwindles in a matter of weeks.
Dahsu and my roommate's cat, Gibson, like to tear around the house at warp speed, skidding through the corners on the hardwood, knocking off refrigerator magnets as they go. They think it's especially funny to knock breakable things from high places and watch with glee as they shatter on the floor.
Bandit, my other cat, likes to stare at blank walls like there's something inside them only he can hear. All of the sudden, after staring at the wall for several minutes, he will bolt away at top speed and claw his way up to the top of his cat tower like he was racing an invisible demon. He will also bite any body part I leave exposed when sleeping hard enough to draw blood if he is even remotely hungry. When I bolt upright out of dead slumber, screeching in cat bite agony, Bandit plods dramatically over to his empty food bowl, meowing pitifully, and making big doll eyes at me, as if he's been starved for months and even just one lonely kibble would satisfy him.
The other roommate's cat, Oscar, is the sneaky one of the bunch - he waits until 4am to knock over the downstairs trash can in a desperate search for chicken scraps. Oscar only has about 5 teeth left and can still manage to down an entire drumstick before we get downstairs. Additionally, if ANY animal food is left within his reach, Oscar will chew a hole in the bag to get inside. This applies to any and all bagged animal food - he once chewed a hole in a bag of horse hoof growth supplement I left not-so-out-of-his-reach on a table.
Enjoy some cute cat photos. Highlighter thief!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Flower Rockets
I am a sucker. I *know* that all those As-Seen-On-TV things are worthless, overpriced crap. I buy it anyway. I am the target audience. I couldn't turn down these "Flower Rockets," said to have 1,000 seeds in 20 different flower varieties, which will bloom constantly with different flowers all summer long. I thought I was getting 2 "rockets" (the green circle things) for $6.95, so I ordered 3 (for a total of 6). BUT WAIT!! They DOUBLED my flower rockets and sent me 12! I planted them today. I put 3 in one pot, 6 in a big rectangular pot and 2 in another pot with some snapdragons. The remaining one I just stuck in my garden to see what would happen. I'm crossing my fingers that they work!
Spring Gardening
The weather here has finally stabilized a little bit (i.e. not monsooning daily), so I bought a few pallets of flowers and planted them in the sad wasteland that was once my beautiful garden.
In December, everything was still blooming. The caladiums and coleus were on their last legs but still looked vibrant and colorful. The hibiscus and canna lilies were still blooming!
Sigh. I can't wait for everything to bloom again this year!
I planted a few packets of zinnia seeds in late October because I had kind of a bald spot on this corner of the garden and they just exploded within a few weeks.
This canna lily is one of the best investments I've made. I was warned that it might not do as well outside as it would indoors, but it has bloomed constantly since I planted it last May. I just trim up the dead-ish looking leaves and otherwise leave it alone.
Anyway, unfortunately, it RAINED and RAINED and RAINED and RAINED incessantly for about a month so everything drowned, so I am pretty much starting over with spring flowers. I got a pallet of red snapdragons, multi-colored pink/yellow/orange snapdragons, pink dianthus and orange calendulas. I got some light purple wave petunias and blue daisies for pots. Additionally, I planted some orange gladiolus bulbs and some white caladium bulbs (which won't pop up until May probably).
These are the Amazon Neon Duo Dianthus. I got some in cherry and purple. The purple ones are a super vibrant electric purple, almost like a highliter color. They are supposed to get up to 3' tall, and are approx. 18'' now.
The neon Dianthus are in the background. See how sad it looks? :( Stupid rain. I planted a row of Super Parfait Strawberry Dianthus along the front, and a row of red snapdragons behind it. In the middle of this area is supposed to be a hydrangea, but it doesn't seem to like its spot there because it has grown about 3 leaves in 2 years. I keep hoping it'll make a comeback, but it may be time to pull it up. Around the hydrangea I have about 10 "Breast Cancer Awareness" hyacinths that kinda half-ass bloom, but it's really too warm in Louisiana to grow those outdoors.
I planted the orange Calendulas on this side with red snapdragons behind it. There are some black-eyed Susans that should bloom shortly (seeds planted in September), along with some gayfeather that may pop up eventually (they survived the rain but look a bit sickly).
An overview of the whole garden with my super awesome
You can see how freakishly bright those neon Dianthus are. I may have to go get some more!
Along the side here I planted some more of the Strawberry Parfait dianthus, some of the multi-colored snapdragons (they're called like Malibu Beach or something). Closest to the house is a white Camellia and a walking iris that hasn't bloomed in 3 years. I'm hoping this year will be the year!
One sad Calendula! These flowers are so pretty and fragrant but they seem to be a little finicky, although my definition of finicky is that if I don't water them for 5 days and they die, they're finicky. I left them in the little 6-pack containers for a few days without watering and a bunch of them shriveled up. I went ahead and planted them even though some were a bit crispy. I always just cross my fingers and hope they'll make a comeback.
Growing Food from Scraps
I have a lovely garden, but it's been so gross and wet recently that nearly everything has died a slow drowning death, so I've been experimenting with growing some indoor plants. Currently I am attempting to grow celery from a cut stump, and a pineapple. Pineapple plants supposedly take 3 years to grow a fruit, and I'm not sure I have that kind of patience, but we'll see.
The celery started with no leaves and no roots. In one week it had little baby rootlets and a bunch of leaves!
In two weeks it had even more roots and more leaves! I'm gonna wait to plant it outside until the weather here stabilizes a bit.
In two weeks the pineapple had really sprung roots up. I planted it in a pot a few days ago. Can't wait to see what happens!
Aww, Mr. Pineapple looks happy in his new home. That parasitic parsley in the background has been growing without me doing anything to it for 3 years. I do NOTHING to it. It still grows.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
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