StrangeRanger

Merry Christmas to All

We hope everyone has had a Merry Christmas, or a perfectly rewarding December 25th for those not into the Christmas vibe.  It's been a long and busy day here at Chez Ranger.  LadyRanger is a bit under the weather and not up to many festivities, but Maddie has more than held up her end of the bargain.  She's been enjoying the boxes and tissue papers that have found their way to the floor.

But guys....I wanted Real Estate....

She did seem to love the bags....

Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

We gave Maddie a new catnip stuffed fuzzy carrot and a new tub of 'nip.  She played with the carrot for a moment and then went digging for the tub.  Here are a couple of (poor quality) videos.  Blame the cinematographer, not the star!

 

We're off to the winter palace tomorrow, so a healthy dose of catnip and treats will be needed to soothe Maddie once we arrive.

We hope you all have had a lovely day on top of a lovely week.  Thanks for visiting.

The Twelve Days Before Christmas...

...are difficult, trying, tiring days.  And (not to put on airs or anything) especially so for an elementary school teacher.  As a result of the tiring days, today's blog post will simply be a pic of dear Ivy demonstrating that which I shall be doing much of today.

The maximum sweetie.

Wish me patience and endurance.  Two more days of school a-coming.

Energy Efficient

Much has been made of the general efficiency of the modern feline.  They don't waste lots of energy.  They save it up until they want to expend it, then they do so, achieving their aims with the minimum expended.  But what most humans don't know is that they are efficient in their use of energy that comes from sources other than internal.

Without a doubt!  See?  I'm only using enough solar energy to heat one half of me!  'Cause, y'know, the other half isn't chilly.

This way I don't waste precious solars. 

Umm...Maddie, the sun's energy is practically limitless, you know.  Giant ball of fusing atoms?  Lasting for a few billion years?  We really don't need to worry about wasting solars.

Stupid human...if the sun's energy is limitless how come it only shines on half the bed at once?  Answer me that.  Doofus.

0.o

I don't think I'm going to get into this with her....<backs away from the cat>

Fine then!  Begone primate, you're harshing my vibe.

As I was saying.  Cats = Energy Efficient!

One Tough Plant

One of the cardinal joys of summer here at Chez Ranger is LadyRanger's herb garden.  We (she, mostly) harvests herbs and dumps the fresh yumminess into whatever we happen to be eating that day.  We (she, mostly) makes PESTO (NOM!!!).  We (she, mostly) grows lemon-thyme for fish and risotto (see previous "NOM!!!" annotation.

One of the gems of the herb garden this summer was the parsely.  Not only did it have a lovely, vibrant flavor, but it grew like a champ.  Grew so well that we just couldn't bear to pull it out of it's pot and pitch it during our end-of-the-season-clean-up.  We left it in the pot to see what would become of it as the weather turned cold.

 
et voila!  Here it is, a bit the worse for wear but here it is.  And this is after many nights w/temps in the 20's.  We don't know if it'll make it through the whole winter, but we're not betting against it.  Superior genetics, obviously. 

Christmas Shopping

Did some Christmas shopping yesterday.  Stayed far, far away from the Mall.  Still awfully tired.  Did manage to get a couple of perfect gifts though.

First off, we got all the necessary items for LadyRanger's yummy yummy fruitcake!  Hah!  I hear your scoffing!  But this is not the sodden log of filler that most fruitcakes are.  This is a delicious, spicey, fruit-and-nut-laden cake soaked in apple juice and brandy.  A delight to the tastebuds.  And hey, Maddie endorses the ingredients.  Not everything we bring home gets the cheek-rub of approval.

The other item we brought home that won rave reviews was....Paper.

This butcher paper wrapped a couple of cheap restaurant wine glasses (for which we confess a fondness).  Maddie immediately claimed it as her own.  The paper has been at the foot of the bed all night.  Thus, everytime our cat changed position or got up to go on cat-patrol, we heard it.  Worth the sleep disturbance to let her have soemthing she loves.  Paper.  On the blanket stack.  In the sun-puddle.  How is that a bad plan?

 
Begone.  Your camera-y thingie harshes my vibe.  I'm resting on paper.  On the blanket stack.  In the sun-puddle.  I'll attend to you later.

I'll try to get a pic of her in a new box soon, but it's charms are not as great as that of the paper.  Who knew?