The Radio Girl

Out on the Deck

This photo kinda looks like a painting to me.

 
It's actually a pic I took this morning from the back deck of the place we're house-sitting right now.  We've never had such a gorgeous neighbour. 

Horse pics always look like paintings to me.  This is a shot I took last year of a mare and colt grazing in an empty lot in Sayulita, Mexico. 

But this is my all time fave Mexico animal pic: 

The Mutt Guarding the Beer Truck.

We've seen this little guy in the very same spot (in that exact position) for the past two winters.  

Chances are he'll be there this year too.

Kittens and Things

The new owners move in Saturday so this was our last weekend in the condo.

Kitty-sitting was fun but painful, since The Monster kept using me as a scratching post. 

Our condo is so empty now that we're hearing spooky sounds and constant echoes. 

The only pieces of furniture left are the bed-frame/mattress, our sectional and a coffee table (that are all going to a friend) and my desk and office chair.

 
The desk is only two years old with a nice finish and really comfy kidney shaped surface.  Our plan is to remove the top from the rest of the desk and trim eight inches from the back of the desktop.  Then we can install the desktop into whatever trailer we buy for a built-in desk. 

We'll also keep the rolling chair (lightweight and very well made) to complete a custom made office space in our trailer/RV.  To keep the chair from rolling around we'll attach two hooks under the desk and strap the chair in with a short bunji cord.  (Yes, I've been working on this plan for awhile  :)

And last night My Fella found a new place in Mexico that we may check out this winter -Teacapan.  I've been busy with the markets this morning but before I leave for work I wanna do a bit more research on that area. 

Hard to believe we're leaving for Mexico in just over a month.

My Fella and The Monster

Love this pic.

My toqued-out Fella looks like the screaming lead singer of one of those annoying rock bands he listens to.  But he's holding a kitty.

Very squishy  :)

Goofy Kitty

Look who I've been playing with all morning.

 
Our buddy Mike went away for the weekend so we're kitty-sitting.  I'm not a big cat fan, but look how freakin' adorable she is.  Her name is kind of silly so I just call her Goofy.

We've had a busy day so far, seeing My Fella off to work this morning.

Then she discovered the fluffy balls at the end of my house booties so we played for awhile.

After that it was time for breakfast.

Followed by recess.

Finally we sat down at the computer for awhile to watch Armtec CEO Chuck Phillips discuss third quarter numbers on BNN.

Apparently Goofy wasn't as interested in Armtec's results as I was.

 
And soon it was playtime again.

I don't know about the kitty, but I'm exhausted  :)

Edited to add this later: 

After another small snack and a quick trip to the litter box, the Monster finally slept.

My Pelican Buds

Pelicans are cool.

Living in the BC interior, we don't see a lot of pelicans swooping around our beaches. 

From wikipedia:

A pelican is a large water bird with a distinctive pouch under the beak, belonging to the bird family, Pelicanidae.  Modern pelicans are found on all continents except Antarctica.  They occur mostly in warm regions, though breeding ranges reach 45° south (Australian Pelican, P. conspicillatus) and 60° North (American White Pelicans, P. erythrorhynchos, in western Canada). Birds of inland and coastal waters, they are absent from polar regions, the deep ocean, oceanic islands, and inland South America.

I look forward to seeing my pelican buddies when we head south in December. 

These guys were hanging out last year on the beach at La Penita, Mexico.  I love the little one chilaxing in the bottom right hand corner of the shot.  He needs a haircut :)

 
This picture perfect guy looked like he was posing for me just before he swooped in for his lunch off the coast of Lo de Marcos.

That same afternoon My Fella and I were eating at a beachfront restaurant when this guy dropped out of the sky and sat down for lunch beside our table.  The waiter informed us that he's a regular customer and they usually serve him from a styrofoam container, in case he orders his fish 'to go'.

But my fave pelican pic of all time is this one.  

You can see it's siesta time for everyone except the rebel pelican in the center who's either yawning or enjoying a huge belly laugh.  Love it  :)

Canadian Taxes

 
At the start of every calendar year I crunch the numbers (employment, business, dividend and interest income) to guestimate my taxes* for the year.  By planning ahead I usually pay minimal tax.

Since my part-time radio gig has mysteriously morphed into full-time, my 2009 employment income is going to be higher than I initially thought.  Almost triple actually.

While I'm thankful for the gig it's really messed up my taxes. 

Normally I get money back, but if my new calculations are accurate I'll be owing about $3700 for taxes in 2009.  Some of that will be offset by deductions through my Voice Biz but I need to brainstorm more ideas to reduce that number. 

Maybe more contributions to this years fave charity, the local SPCA.

Look at that face :)

*Canada has one of the highest tax rates in the world. 

You name it, we're taxed on it:  income, property, gasoline, alcohol, junk food, cell phone and internet service, clothing, footwear, vehicles, RVs, furniture, appliances, electronics, sports equipment, new homes, basically all consumer goods and services.  And the new HST (harmonized sales tax) will be introduced next summer.

Wild Bunny

Our condo is still on the market.

We've actually gotten several offers on our place but they were all too low.  The condo is priced very well for this economy and we're sticking to it. 

We had another showing late yesterday afternoon so we left the house around 4pm to go for supper in a neighbouring beach town.  Driving the back way on a bumpy BC forest service road, we came across this little guy at the top of the mountain.

For a wild bunny, he let me hop out of the car and get pretty close.

I guess he didn't want to leave his snack behind.

We had our snacks at a marina pub on Okanagan Lake.  Here's the view from our table, with the boat fuel shack and the little general store at the end of the dock.

There's a Squirrel in My Shot

Have you seen this pic?

An American couple were vacationing in Banff this week and set up their self-timing camera to take a picture of themselves at the edge of Lake Minnewanka. 

Out of the blue, this squirrel popped into the picture.  Hilarious!

Here's the full story.

Wonder if he's related to this little guy I met in the Columbia Valley a couple weeks ago.

Caddyshack Stunt Double

We're back from our Columbia Valley road trip.

As you can see, I made some new friends.

Doesn't he look like a stand-in from the movie Caddyshack?  

Not much time to post more right now - I'm off to my part time radio gig.  I'll put up a few more pics tonight. 

More Chicken News

My buddy Rock Mama opened my eyes to something very cool.

Knowing how much I want a mini-chicken farm, she sent me a link to a website called Omlet.us.  The site offers advice on the daily care of your chickens, plus breed info and tons of egg recipes. 

But the highlight of the website are these little chicken condos called Eglu Cubes:

 

"The new eglu cube is the ideal way to keep up to 10 chickens in a town, city or on a hobby farm. It is based on the same revolutionary technology as the original eglu with slide out dropping trays, hose clean surfaces, twin walled insulated, no maintenance and our No Foxes Allowed protection. The eglu cube makes is easy to keep a large number of hens and leaves you with more time to enjoy the pleasures of owning chickens."

How cool is that? 

The website also features The Daily Egg Bulletin Board, with the latest chicken news around North America.

My chicken fascination lives on.