Niblet's new neighborhood

Niblet's Cottontail Cottage was starting to look a little more like a condemned building, so Santa brought him some new digs!

Here are some "before" shots. Note the top edges--Cookies loves to hop up onto the third floor and chew on the cardboard:

The inside didn't look much better:
Wow. The poor little guy was living in a hovel.

Curb appeal to the rescue!

Here we are, swinging hammers and hauling 2x4s, building a new home for my little Son, Moon, and Stars:

Niblet: You're doing it wrong! Me: Oh yeah? YOU try folding these crazy tabs!

Finally--Niblet's new neighborhood came together! His new Cottontail Cottage:

His new "Magic Dream Cottage"--the street address is 24 Carrot Lane!:

Here's Nibble, hangin' in his new 'hood:

Of course, the kitties had to check it out too; here's Kisses, trying to wheeze on Nibble's gig:

Hey, get out of my magic dream house! Those are MY magic dreams you're having in there!

2008's first meme--a worthy one

Patrick at Hawk Owl's Nest (note that he now has his own domain! a christmas present from his fiancee Beth) tagged me with a very worthy meme that I'd like to put a little twist on. The meme was to name one thing you did during the holidays to lessen your environmental impact. Beth has her own domain/blog, EasyEcoLiving, on which she gives tips for easy things you can do on a day-to-day basis to help our environment. She started this meme.

The Kat and I make an effort each day to really follow the "reduce-reuse-recycle" idea, so at Christmas time, we pull out our well-worn and held-together-with-tape gift-boxes and gift-bags from years gone by (some are as our as our relationship--going on six years!) and we don't usually wrap our presents to each other (unless they're truly surprise gifts).

Here's the twist, though--the holidays are over, and some of you might not have thought to do anything in particular to reduce your enviro-impact. So what I'd like to pass on as a tag to FranIAm, DCup, and Mattyboy (three very cool non-birders whose thoughts about life in these here You-Nited States inspire me on a daily basis) is this:

Try to think of one way you and your family can lessen your environmental impact in 2008. You could consider doing something relatively easy--like giving up paper plates and napkins (yup, more dishes and laundry, but oh so worth it at trash-time)--or more difficult--like trying to carpool more (which can be a pain, but saves a ton in gas money, not to mention in saved emissions). It doesn't have to be hard--it could be something as simple as trying one of those new fluorescent bulbs in your desk lamp. How about it?

Anybody who'd like to offer suggestions (and perhaps follow your own suggestion), please let me hear from ya!

2008's first bird

First bird for the year: Black-capped Chickadee, super early in the morning on 01/01/2008. They were a bit upset at the empty feeders; I had warned them we were going to Ohio to see my baby sister and her two babies, and that the feeders were going to be empty for a couple of days, but these guys insisted they didn't get the memo. I filled up the feeders, put out a bunch of mealy worms from Susan's nephew's mail-order worm business (more on that later), scattered a lot of seed on the ground, and went back to bed.