We'll be fine, really!

I love big dogs. German shepherds in particular, I think are beautiful and amazing animals, and it sure would be nice to have someone around Camp to ward off bears and all. However, in the winter, we live in a townhouse, and bringing a dog (especially a big one) into our home isn't feasible. Cats, yes. Dogs, no.

All isn't lost in terms of Camp, though. A few days ago, Caroline sent me a link to this video:


...and I thought, "Hmmm, that cat looks a lot like Bitty," our little tiger-striped girl. It got me thinking and doing a few more Google searches. Turns out that cats are pretty good at chasing off bears!

Another Cat and Bear Video


And this story from the BBC:

I love that photo. The cat just looks so matter-of-fact. Rawr.

So even if we won't be bringing a dog into our lives in the near future, I think we're safe. We have six pounds of hiss and spit on our side.

Rebuilding Denny (Part 1)

We've been looking at rebuilding Denny (the cabin up in the left corner of the hill) in recent years- you've probably noticed that it's been empty for almost a decade and has fallen into a bit of disrepair.

Enter stage left- a super crazy idea for a "log cabin" I found on the internet the other day. (Source, and more pictures: the Thomas Mayer Archive.)


It's not only a log cabin. It's a log pile cabin! The best part is the windows-


What do you think? Would you stay in a log pile in the woods?

If the Earth had rings...

One thing I've been wanting to pick up for Red River is a decent telescope. I've always been fascinated with the night sky, and we have such a good canvas for it in the North Maine Woods. (I'm sure you'll see a "dark sky" blog post from me at some point; the sky near D.C. is a perpetual orange. It makes me sad.)

At any rate, I recently came across this NPR article showing a video of an artist's rendering of what our sky might look like if the earth had rings like Saturn. The comments below the video do point out some potential problems with the idea, but it's more fun to suspend disbelief. (Some of humankind's best ideas came about because people suspended disbelief- I personally like living on a round planet!)



Enjoy!