Not enough dog photography in your life?

I promise that Duncan and I, along with Logan, Jody, Chris and Lindy, will attempt to fill this void. But in the meantime, get your fill at The Pioneer Woman. Her most recent Photography Assignment was to post our favorite pet portraits. Go, enjoy, make squealy noises.

Snowpocalypse, meet El Nino

After reading Jody's blogs and talking to Log and Jod (mind the loooong o's) about the crazy crazy weather they are having, I was reminded of just how ginormous the US is and how incredibly different the Atlantic and Pacific coasts can be.

While Logie and Jody are stuck under two feet of crazy blizzard, lovingly named the "Snowpocalypse," Dunc and I are enjoying the warm temperatures that are part and parcel to a Pacific climate patten known as El Nino. If you aren't familiar with El Nino, this video should be quite helpful and informative. Or if you actually want to learn about it, check out these guys.

To demonstrate just how different the weather between the two coasts can be, this is what I did today:

Yes, it was 60 degrees today and I went running in shorts and a t-shirt. Although technically I am just sitting in the front yard with Oly Bear. But I promise you, I did run and 'twas warm. El Nino, you are awesome. And Oly, you are too.

If only you wouldn't play so hard to get... jerk...

We can video "tape" animals too!!!

For your viewing pleasure, some videos Dunc and I finally downloaded from the flip cam. Of course most are of animals.

BUTTERS!

IZZY!

The myth and mystique of the Pumpkin

The Fun Level

OLY! (This one is real long, but Oly was feeling left out of the video scene, and he looks real pretty in the sunlight.)

Sleep sitting up!

Beet Murder

Oh yes, you read that right. Beet Murder. We just so happen to receive an overabundance, or a perfect amount of abundance... or perfect amount of bundance? Anywho, we get a lot of beets in our farm box. Typically, I am a roasted beet type of girl, but we had about 10 small and medium beets on our hands begging to be eaten.

After a bit of googling, I found that it is not only nutritious but delicious to eat beets raw. Enter THE SPIRALIZER!!! (Another awesome Christmas addition to the kitchen--thanks again Dad and Thonky!) I have yet to nickname this kitchen gadget, but you can bet your boots it will get an X-Men themed name to join the team of Professor K/Xavier and Wolverine. Probably a villain, being murderous and all. Vote?

1) Mr. Sinister - he just so happens to be "a master manipulator" and pretty much an all around evil genius.
2) Astra - she can "reduce her density in order to become intangible"
3) Sabretooth - obviously, he has some very sharp teeth, among other awesome mutant capabilities. And I do like the idea of having rivals amongst my kitchen gadgetry.
4) Spiral - perhaps too obvious?

But back to the murder. I give you the scene of the crime:

Death by spiralization. Delicious and beautiful.

We have your standard red beet, the chioggia beet and some turnips! All spiralized to perfection.

But what to do with these spiralized beauties? 

SALAD!

We tossed all the veggies together with a Seestor Katy inspired dressing.

I believe it was for Christmas Dinner that Katy served us a salad with a "parsnip dressing". Wanting to replicate the delicious flavor, I gave big seestor a call and she gave me instructions on inventing my own veggie based dressings. So I threw a bit of parsnip, a few cloves of garlic, some carrot top greens, olive oil, salt and lemon juice into Wolverine, et voilà!

Well sort of, I may have scraped the sucker clean before remembering that I just invented (in a way...) a new tasty treat and should document it. But you get the idea. Right?

And it was delicious. Although quite pink... those beets are good at coloring EVERYTHING.

Alas, the spiralizer only took care of 5 beets. Enter the old stand-by, roasting!

There you have it. An evening of delicious beet destruction.

And to finish it off with a pun... Just BEET IT!

We may or may not enjoy photographing our animals... maybe...

It might be apparent that Duncan and I really like our animals. 

It isn't? Well we do. 

Oh you want proof do you? 

Okay, so 90% of the pictures on our camera look like the following:

I call this one "nose" 

I call these ones "toes"... 

(I'm very creative when it comes to naming pieces. I do love how Oly falls asleep in the best positions. 

Like this one, with all his feet neatly in a pile. Good dog)

"CO-HABITATION"

(Much better than Butter's preferred form of co-habitating 

which involves attacking Oly's face, legs or tail.)

"Smooshedcatfacepie" by Duncan (He is better at naming... I will try harder.)

"Kitten Nose?" "Hanger face?" (I really need to get better at this. But I do have some context for this one. This is Butters being very helpful as I cleaned and organized the closet. He attacked the hangers and clothes I had on the bed, then burrowed beneath the clothes and passed out. Good cat.)

Okay, this series I am calling "I can has focus" and are all of Butters looking out the window. But what is he staring so intently at? Any guesses?

(Seeerious focus here. I can't even distract him with my lens in his face.)

What is it, you ask? Kind of obvious actually....

A CROW!

I think the crow knew that Butter Butt was watching and couldn't get at him. What a jerk.

And there you have it. Animals are awesome and only one (or two) of the many reasons why having our new lens ROCKS!!! More photos of other things besides animals to come. Well more things AND more animals.