An eagle and a stray cat....

Not that an eagle and a cat have much in common, except that I saw them both this week near my house! It wasn't the largest eagle I've seen in the last two weeks just sitting in a tree beside the road, either!

This eagle was sitting in a single tree on the side of Highway 17 between our house and Webster City the other day and I was sure it would fly away if I stopped to take its picture, but you can see the evidence that it didn't.

This guy (girl??) showed up this evening and scratched on the glass patio door like it wanted in! I talked to it, and it answered back. Does that mean it's just lost?

Go home, cat, because we have enough fur at our house already! (It's the first time I've seen this one. The people who live on our corner have a black and white cat, or is it calico???)

Rachel (our niece) is FAMOUS!!

Rachel (also known as 'former Peace Corps volunteer to Paraguay') is the Director of "Teen Moxie", and speaks near the end of this two-minute and 21 second video.

Teen Moxie Helps Girls Make Healthy Choices: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Birthday party for 'Grandpa M.' in Des Moines

We celebrated (my) dad's birthday on Sunday in Des Moines. This is Izaac showing his great-grandpa his decorated birthday cake.

Michelle (niece) holding the just-decorated cake. (John at left in the picture, with Bob/Margie on Michelle's right.)

Izaac, Ben and Joe, discussing the important developments in the Cubs' negotiations for trading players.

A 21-second video of Izaac delivering a piece of cake to great-grandpa and singing part of the 'happy birthday' song.

This week in review.....

This the east view from the living room during the blizzard on 2/1/11 about 8:15pm. We were only on the fringes of the storm, but the ferocious winds blew the 5+ inches of snow around pretty well. (It was VERY cold, too!)

The little red truck looks sad buried by the swirling snow drifts after the blizzard.

I have quite a nice fabric stash for someone who doesn't regularly quilt/sew, but this week I was inspired to get out the cute cat fabrics I've been accumulating and make some squares.