new friends

Today I saw two praying mantis (ii, ae, es?) in the shrubs next to my front porch. Here is a picture of one.

self storage pt.2

all of my records look like this

self storage pt. 1

So my storage unit flooded over the summer and today I had to throw about 80% of my clothes away.

I love oberlin

Heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, zucchini and peaches courtesy of the local farmstands.

close encounters

I woke up this morning a sound reminiscent of a big dog scratching on my door. I was really confused and thought that Dave had brought a dog into the house. The noise was actually from a squirrel destroying a cardboard box on the porch outside my room. It was a good thing I didn't go outside to see what was going on and let the squirrel into the house!

This is not the first time I saw a squirrel on my porch.
You can't really tell from the picture but this squirrel was really fat.
The aftermath:

some advice

the bats

There have been a few bat incidents here in Syracuse. On two separate occasions we saw bats in the house but only one bat and one sighting each time. Today was different. Around eight I saw a bat in the kitchen, around nine I saw one upstairs and Amina saw two outside her bedroom. One flew into her protective sleeping bag and she fell to the ground in terror. The bat sightings continued throughout the night. After seeing a bat fly out the front door we thought the house was safe but we were wrong. A bat was hiding in Dave's room. John caught it and here it is.


The bat is actually pretty cool looking and I recommend enlarging the pictures.

On another note, Amina and I got Kombucha scobies and started our first batch today.

the pepper wager

Last week I convinced dave to eat four hot green chili peppers in exchange for a steak and eggs breakfast for dinner the following night.

Dave ate the peppers and began to regret his decision.
I thought it was pretty funny.
Dave ran to the kitchen for relief, we had learned on food detectives that dairy is the most effective treatment for hot pepper burn.
Amina thought it was pretty funny too. Even dave is smiling a little...
Dave moved on to yogurt after drinking all of the milk

I was distressed over the bruise on this tomato.
The Payoff:

So the following night I made a grilled T bone steak with garlic and herb compound butter, eggs over easy from the co-op, grilled toast and homefries with rosemary and garlic.
It was totally worth it.