We’ve had several days of unending warm weather and high winds. Apparently a January thaw is normal, but being this prolonged and violent is unusual. Since the dogs need to eat and be cleaned regardless of the weather, I get to go out several times a day and get the crap beat out of me by 50-60mph winds with rain, and sometimes sleet. My rain jacket is still waterproof, after 4 years of abuse (GoLite Phantom, it’s awesome), but my rain pants are breaking down at the seams. I need to get some seam tape, so I won’t be soggy from the waist down anymore!

The morning after the moon was at its fullest, it set just as the sun was rising, making for a colorful backdrop.

Tuesday (just as it was starting to warm up), I tried to make it into town to capture some of the frozen harbor, and maybe some eagles and otters as well. Sadly, I had to brave the Homer Post Office first, which ate up 45 minutes of precious time. I arrived on the Spit just as the sun dipped permanently behind a thick layer of clouds, and had about 5 minutes of usable light to work with. All the otters in the canal scattered as I walked up, so this is all it was able to get. Hopefully it will freeze back up before winter’s over, and I’ll try again.

Skippy has Fridays off, so we spent our time between dog duties relaxing, cooking, and reading. We also let the dogs up on the bed on weekends, so here’s a shot Skippy took of me and my reading buddy.

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Our cat Cousteau likes to look at walls. Seriously. He will just zone out inches from a wall, and stare at it for hours. He also likes to get in bags and boxes (what cat doesn’t, though), and I caught him crawling out of the empty dog food bag the other morning, before I took it to the trash bin.

We got a view of both addictions the other day, when he climbed on our table, sat in an empty plastic bag, and stared at the wall. He even allowed me to take pictures.

Today, I got off my lazy butt and baked some bread. I found the recipe on vegweb, as I needed a recipe that didn’t call for milk. Here’s the result:

I made two loaves. This, the first one I baked (only one fits in our awesome little toaster oven at a time), I kneaded and brushed with egg before placing it in the oven. The second I did neither of those. They both turned out well, with the first loaf being denser and more uniform in texture (as expected from kneading), with the nice sheen over the crust from the egg. It will make excellent sandwich bread. The second has a dull-looking crust, and is textured more like a baguette or Italian bread than sandwich bread. Both are delicious, and both are already half gone in the time since Skippy arrived home from work 30 minutes ago.

I purposefully held off cutting into them until she got home, because I would hate to have her come in, smell baked bread, and hear that I ate both loaves by myself. The sacrifices I make for this relationship…

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It’s raining again, so no pretty sunrises this morning. Instead, I thought I’d share an image of a common occurrence here in the cabin. Our dog Ashlee likes to sleep on the couch. Our cat Jacques likes to sleep, period. Put the two of them together, and you get uncontrollable cuteness:

Too bad they’re both similar colors, otherwise the interlinked legs would stand out even more.

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At least, that’s what it looks like he’s thinking.

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Macgee and Cousteau tend to share cozy time, while Jacques and Ashlee snuggle together. The cats have paired off with the dogs that share their personality traits. Sort of.

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