Temporary Pets

So while Max, Spike and Kitty are with Mom in PA, I have to make due with temporary pets. My alpacas!
Farmer Jon opened up the pen and now they are in hand-feeding range again! Yay! Mr. Bighead was very excited to see me....
And, after the initial excitement, I was old news again and it was back to grazing....

We're Back! And I have LOTS of Pictures!

We were back in Minneapolis last week for some business meetings, just getting back this morning. While we were there, we took some time to visit the Sculpture Garden downtown. We enjoyed it, but it seemed to be a little run-down, and could use some general maintenance.

My favorites:

Oh, and lookie at me!

The famous Cherry on a Spoon!
One of my other favorite oddities is Milk in a Bag. I have never heard od such a thing until I first move to Minnesota:It's milk! In a bag! Hahahaha.

We had a really pretty sunset and cloud show last night before we left. This was taken from the hotel room:

I'm sorry...a WHAT limit...?!?

Looks like some hooligans were out and about in this neighborhood! We spotted this while we were driving around today killing time while someone was looking at the house.

I really like clouds, so I also snapped these:

The enormity of the sky always amazes me.... :)

Have you ever done this...?

Have you ever buried a statue of St. Joseph in your yard when trying to sell a house? Or have you heard of anyone doing it, and it working?

Here's the history:

Most commonly, a statue of St. Joseph is placed inside a protective cloth and buried upside-down in the front yard. People differ as to whether the statue should be upside-down or right side-up, and whether the yard should be the front yard or back yard, but worrying about such things is unnecessary.

Then a prayer to St. Joseph is said. One popular version of a prayer for this purpose is:

Oh, St. Joseph, guardian of household needs, we know you don't like to be upside down in the ground, but the sooner escrow closes the sooner we will dig you up and put you in a place of honor in our new home. Please bring us an acceptable offer (or any offer!) and help sustain our faith in the real estate market.

When the house is sold, God and St. Joseph are thanked, the statue is dug up and given a place of honor in your new house, and you tell others about the powers of St. Joseph's intercession.

OMG Rain!

Finally, a good rain!
It came with lots of wind too! That's our trash can being blown across the street in between the mailbox and the For Sale sign:
Then the sun came out in the middle of the rain - always cool!
The down side was that the wind knocked down some trees, which knocked out power to the entire neighborhood. So, we had no power from 7:30 pm to about 4:15 am. Wee!

Local Farmers Market

We went to the local Farmers Market this weekend. I hate to say it, but after the Farmers Markets in Minneapolis, it's a little disappointing.
The stuff that was there was pretty nice, but there just wasn't much, and the prices were not nearly as attractive.

These sunflowers were very nice though:
But these ones weren't:
Oh well, at least we saw some puppy dogs:
We sent a care package of home-made doggie treats to Max and Spike earlier this week. I think Grandma is giving them a little too much Pupperoni!

New Visitor!

Joe yelled to me from the kitchen to look out back this evening....and this is what I saw!!

BUNNY!! It was sooo cute! And a young one. It was just hopping around exploring the back yard.
Apparently word got out that Max is in Pennsylvania and all the wildlife is now invading his domain!

Friday the 13th

It's Friday the 13th! Who's superstitious?? My Mom is. Some of her biggest ones:

• Black cats (and to think she has Miss Kitty! Eek!)
  
• First person through the door on New Years has to be a tall, dark haired man
• When walking, 2 people have to walk on the same side of a pole or post. It's bad luck if you split up.
• Don't you dare open an umbrella inside the house!
  

Anyone have any superstitions?

Even More Pics from Minneapolis!

The Minneapolis Farmers Market is a great place to pick up flowers and plants for incredible prices. Here's a sampling of what they had:We also ended up at Cabela's while waiting to meet up with Joe's family for dinner one night (Famous Daves - yum!). Inside the store is a vast taxidermy collection:

Tag, I'm It!

OMG I've been tagged! Tree tagged me for my very first meme - exciting! So here goes!

Rules that I have to post:
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them each a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I like heavy metal music.
   
2. At the office, when I drink herbal tea, I have to have 2 stirrers in my cup. I don't know when I picked this up or why, but I can't use just 1.
3. I am terrified of walking on frozen lakes. I have a fear of falling through the ice and not being able to get back to the surface opening.
4. When I was 16, I had a lung collapse for no apparent reason, while watching TV.
5. I have to touch everything I see.
6. I sang at my brother's wedding.
7. I don't drink or smoke.
8. I am left-handed when it comes to writing, but right-handed in most everything else (golf, baseball, bowling)
   

I don't know 8 people to tag, so I shall add that shortly. Is that breaking the meme rules?? If so, I think that makes me a rebel, which is very hawt.

Bug of the Month

It's Bug of the Month time! I found this guy clinging to the back garage door this morning:
I've never seen anything like, so I snapped a few pictures...
I did a little research and found out this is a Leopard Moth! Very cool.

Something Else New

While Joe's sister and hubby were here, we decided to check out a winery in Leesburg. We'd never been to one before, so we weren't sure what to expect.

I was excited because they talked about exploring their wine cave! I think caves are cool, so I was really looking forward to that.

Unfortunately, it was not quite what I was expecting. Instead of walking deep into a cavern, we went down a small ramp to this "cave":
This was taken from about 5 steps into the "cave" from the winery front door. That's not a cave! Caves don't have garage doors! I want bats! And pitch black!

Oh well, they had nice wine kegs:
On the way out, we had Joe stop along side the road so we could at least say we saw some grape vines in up close:

Back to Minneapolis...when we were there last week, we checked out the new (to us at least) international market. Was interesting. It's also where we saw the guy with the pink flamingo bike and pink outfit. That was topped only by this:

Joe: Go ahead, guess what that is.
Jeff: Um. Fried pig intestines?
Joe: Nope.
Jeff: Fried turkey skin?
Joe: Huh-uh.
Jeff: Ok, I have to look.

...

Jeff: Oh my....well, I would not have guess that.

Sights from DC!

Joe's sister and her husband are in town for a few days, so we did some touristy things in DC today.

First up - the Smithsonian Castle:
This was the original Smithsonian, and today houses the information center. It's really a beautiful building.

While we were in the Museum of Natural History, we came across this:
We're not exactly sure why it was there, but yes, it's a coffin. In the form of an airplane. According to the sign, Christmas wrapping paper was used to make the designs in the windows. Ok.....

We lunched at the Hard Rock Cafe:
Mediocre at best.

Here's a statue of General William T . Sherman.:Guess who that is hanging around with the soldier at the base.....!

And of course, the White House:
Probably working on some new sentence commutations inside or something.....

And finally, the Korean War Memorial:
All in all, a great time. Though I think Minneapolis is cleaner and more robust than DC. But I could be biased at this point :)

Sights from Minneapolis: Round 1

There's always tons of stuff to see and do in Minneapolis. We took 117 pictures in all! Some of my favorites are below.

The Mary Tyler Moore statue:
Some interesting metal sculptures at the Minneapolis Farmers Market:
There was some bike event going on...I'm not sure what it was, but this guy was there:
That's very...er...interesting.

We also drove by the place where Joe and I met:
And no, it was not a salon when we met there. I've never been to a salon. Ever. It was a coffee house, and Joe's apartment was right across the street. Our eyes met and that's all she wrote :)

Did you miss me...?

Ok, did you notice I was gone? We took a trip:
Do you recognize this city?
Here's a little closer look:
Care to venture a guess where we were last week?