Month: September 2016

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Sundogs

Shelly

Sundogs
Left to right: Harriet the Boxer, Frances the Boxer x Pit Bull, and Thomas the Boxer x Klingon

I got into a bizarre discussion on Facebook with a former animal shelter ACO who believes that folks who live in apartments should not own dogs. She thinks that a fenced yard should be required, and that lack of one is dog abuse. (And weirder, she feels that it’s also abusive to have children in apartments.)

Can you just imagine if the millions and millions of city dwellers in the world no longer had dogs (or children)? We would have to kill even more dogs than we already kill, and for what? The lack of a mythical “perfect” home? That’s kind of monstrous.

So here are the three dogs I’ve had while living in my current apartment. I don’t think they look miserable. Sure, in a perfect world, we’d all have acres of flowered fields and enchanted forests to play in, but that isn’t the world most people inhabit, and that’s okay. Dogs are incredibly adaptable, and lucky for everyone, they mostly just want a chance to play, to go for walks, and to hang out with their people.

Photography

Harvestmen

Shelly

Harvestmen #harvestman #harvestmen #spiders #opiliones

This is by way of a test post. I’ve been using the FlickStackr app to grab HTML for my images on Flickr, so I can pop them into blog posts.

The official Flickr app does not allow grabbing HTML. It does have a share to WordPress option though.

ETA: The reason I’m testing this option is that the FlickStackr app has been pulled from the app store by Apple. Hmf. The developer has had his development account shut down, so if the app stops working for some reason, it won’t be updated. On to Plan B!

ETA 2: Now that I can look at how WordPress handles this sort of image post, on the back side, I’m not happy about it as a long term solution. Instead of the image being hosted on Flickr, it’s copied to my WordPress media folder and displayed from there. That eats up storage on my free account. I also just don’t want to store anything of mine in my media folder. It’s a waste, since the images are already stored on Flickr and sharable from there. Hmf. Hopefully before FlickStackr gets broken by a Flickr redesign, someone else will come up with an app that grabs HTML/BBcode. (Or, rather, one that actually works. There are a few that claim to grab Flickr HTML/BBcode, but that function doesn’t work.)

In the meantime, I edited the Harvestmen image to point at Flickr.

Photography

Fog Lifting

Shelly

Fog Lifting #fog #clouds #skies #sky #indianaskies #iu #iubloomington #indianauniversity

We had storms and a ton of rain last night (with flash flood warnings). Early this morning when I walked the dog, it was warm and foggy (and sticky and generally kind of gross). When I went to the kitchenette to microwave my oatmeal at around 8:00, the fog was lifting to the west.

My Garden, Photography

Monday Butterfly

Shelly

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly #flowers #gardens #patiogarden #zinnia #zinnias #butterflies #butterfly #swallowtail #easterntigerswallowtail

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly #flowers #gardens #patiogarden #zinnia #zinnias #butterflies #butterfly #swallowtail #easterntigerswallowtail
Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Happy Labor Day (US)!

I worked today, because I need to save as much PTO as possible
for snow days this winter. I burned through most of my banked time off when Frances was sick, then when I got Thomas I used up the little bit I’d managed to re-bank. (We accrue time off biweekly, instead of getting a lump of time at the beginning of the year.)

So today I worked so I could save the holiday hours. Not the best way to celebrate Labor Day, but it beats having to drag myself to work in an ice storm or when it’s -10F.