Need more bloggable material...I'll find some soon.

I haven't blogged in a while because I had nothing really to say - and I wouldn't want my small number of visitors to get bored...now they probably won't even visit because I haven't blogged in quite a while...
To prevent this entry to my blog from being a complete bust, I'll post pictures of some of the residents of the Rees Conservatory of Animals - otherwise known as the City Zoo.
In order of when they came to our family:

When got our first apartment in Winthrop, MA a block away from the Winthrop Beach, we adopted Mittens (she is double-pawed - 6 toes) from the North Shore Animal Shelter. She is by far, my favorite (don't tell the others). She was our first pet together. Mittens picked us when we got to the shelter - she tapped me on the shoulder through the cage bars.









We got Cisco to keep Mittens company after the tragic death of Chini, our pet chinchilla, Chilla's little baby. He was adopted through the same shelter that we got Mittens. He's our good eater - actually, he should join weight watchers - he's ginormous - at least 20 lbs. And he's a meower. Mittens doesn't meow that much but Cisco meows every morning to get his can of Friskies.






He shares that can of Friskies with his buddy, the ever-elusive CocoaPuff. She got adopted from the Metro South Animal care and Adoption Center. She's got some issues - like licking all the hair off her back paws. And taking up the carpet with her claws (which won her a trip to the vet for declawing as a kitten) She's the epitome of fraidy cat...she hides under the bed until the kids go to sleep and then she'll come out at night - she's not BFF with Mittens but Cisco is her buddy. I've sworn up and down that the choice to get CocoaPuff is the reason why we ended up with 3 kids - more on that later. And yes, she is sitting in Adam's pants on our bed...nice.

And then there are the dogs:



This is Buster. He's a purebred Pembroke Welsh Corgi. When we bought our house 5 years ago, we decided that we should open a zoo - we already had 2 cats (they'll be posted later in this entry) - and I had never had a dog so we got Buster. He was 5 months old when we got him on a major sale at the pet store. Since he was so cheap, we got him a girlfriend......





This is Daisy, Buster's girlfriend, also a purebred Pembroke Welsh Corgi - mother to Buster's 8 puppies. Yeah, we were crazy enough to let them have a litter together. The average litter is supposed to be 3-4 puppies. We didn't breed them really, just let them have a litter so they could have something to talk about when they get old. Daisy had 3 females - Moppet, Lucky and Cookie - and 5 males - Rocky, Apollo, Spike, Hobbes and Dodger. We found good homes for everyone (thank goodness!!!). She did a fantastic job raising the pups. Most of them looked like a mix of Buster and Daisy but Lucky, Spike and Apollo looked like one of Buster or Daisy's parents who was black, white, brown and red.
Buster is about twice Daisy's size...he's too big for a Corgi while Daisy's very petite for a Corgi. Daisy was 4 months old when we got her and we brought her home at the same time we got Buster. He was on sale for cheap and we got her with a $50.00 discount...


Finally, the dumbest dog ever created - Odie. We bought him, mainly because we can be the dumbest people in America - who needed another doggie? Not us, but we justified this purchase of a canine by "gifting" it to my father-in-law who's such a good sport for being my children's secondary caretaker....Odie is dad's dog - he just lives with us - and escapes from OUR yard and drops a load in MY scrap room. I have too much on Odie to post here - he'll get his own post I'm sure. He may want to start his own blog, who knows....he'll probably want me to take his pictures for the blog.

Anyway, I'm sure when I finally post this entry it will have 8/11 as the date and it took me 2 days to post anything. As for photo commentary, the doggie pictures are by far better than at least Mittens' and CocoaPuff's photos - I took them with my Canon while CocoaPuff's pic was shot with my point and shoot Konica Minolta. My mom took the picture of Mittens with a disposable Kodak. DSLR's give you a lot of flexibility - artistically - because you can change your lens. But they are bulky and take a lot of edu-ma-cation to learn to use. Point-n-Shoots are great because they fit in your pocket but artistically, they limit you. Whichever you use, light is the most important thing to correctly when taking pictures...I'm not a flash fan but use it for the safe shots...I'm gonna be forever learning how to use natural (or available) light to shoot...that's ok. I'm just hoping that my Rebel xTi can keep up with me.