Ooh, that's cold.....

As promised, I think I too would make the same face if I had just dangled my nuts in the snow..........

Winter Wonderland.

I apologise, as always, about the lack of fresh material on the blog. This is not because I have nothing to write about, exactly the opposite. There is so much going on that and so much to blog about that I don't have a second, and when I do, i don't know where to start. I promise to try to catch up....

Over Christmas and new year we were fortunate to have had a lot of snow. This kept our hoard of visitors from Warmer (and wetter) climbs thouroghly amused. Hopefully all the events from Christmas will be detailed by myself and a few guest posts over the next few weeks. In summary, a great time was had by one and all.

Now to fresh material, and snow. Last week, we were spared the storms that hit the north of Norway, but it did snow solidly from Monday evening until Saturday morning. I would estimate that heading towards a meter of dry fluffly snow is lying on the ground.

Between me and Mrs Longship, we found the time to get some pictures including a quick ski trip to a vantage point of the property, from some prepared ski tracks on the other side of the valley.

Attached, for you enjoyment are a few of these photo's. The snow is so deep and fluffy that Peggy almost has to swim through it. She manages this just fine and it doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest.

You may also wish to refer to my recent post on More Power for some unplanned winter motor antics.

In my next post, you can look forward to a picture of a cat with very cold testicles............

We put them in and we took them out....

It seems that we got our weeks wrong. When we inseminated Anitra for the second time, rating the chances of sucess as very low, we didn't keep a log of the insemination date. The correct date, it appears, meant that she was due around new years eve.

Everything did not go to plan. Anitra started with a discharge, perfectly normal except that it was tainted red. 2 days later, too long for normal, there were still no signs of contractions or pressing. Finally on the 1st of 2006, the first water bag appeared, again followed by an abscense of contractions/pushing. 2 hours later after a trip to the clinic we begun with the now inevitable cesaerian. This progressed well, the first kitten out being healthy and very lively (as it still is now), the second and final being, sadly, dead with a externally herniated intenstine. This combined with fact that it was facing the wrong way was almost certainly the cause of all the problems.

This problem, I am informed, is not uncommen in the animal kingdom and it would seem that after our incredibly good luck to get her pregnent we have been dealt our share of bad luck at the delivery.

The single kitten was accepted by it's mother after a night of hand feeding and after a couple of days struggling is now enjoying unrivaled access to milk and hence sporting a round belly and gaining weight at a rate of knots..... Pictures will appear in due course on www.starsprung.com