When I do photo posts, do you prefer most of the photos to be hidden behind the cut so you have to click through to read them, but otherwise can quickly move past the pictures to read the posts beneath? Or do you like everything to all hang out? Or does it depend upon what the pictures are of?

Currently I put most pictures behind the cut, so the page does not become obscenely long, and so the load time is a little faster for those with less than speedy connections.

Please share your comments about this weighty subject.

And after you’ve given your opinion about images on my page, you can feel free to give your opinion about other subjects. But only after. Any random opinionating that is not preceded by comments on the requested topic will be disemvowelled.

I mean it.

And don’t forget, disemvowelling is forever, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to put all your vowels *back* after you follow the rules.

Sunday was spent primarily in the kitchen. I’d picked up pie pumpkins in October, but what with getting sick, I had not yet gotten around to converting my squash into puree for pie.

Yes, that’s right. Five pumpkins. We really like pumpkin pie around here.
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So Sunday was spent finally baking down our pumpkins, and, since I won’t be making a turkey for Thanksgiving, making vegetable stock.

I started out working on the stock, since it cooks for quite awhile.
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So here are the pictures of the snow I took today:

Here was how things looked this morning, when it started snowing.

Here was the view late this afternoon.

There is SNOW on the GROUND!

And just because it looked neat.

BTW, these were taken with my old camera, so the quality is not so great. But hey, it’s SNOW!

I’ve modified the Recent Comments bit on the sidebar. It now displays the last 100 comments.

So if you want to keep playing Word Association, you can readily find the last comment there.

It’s snowing! Big fluffy flakes!

I took some pictures of the view out “my” window at work, but I the card reader I keep with this camera seems to have disappeared, so nothing until I get home.

Still, it’s beautiful outside!

ADDENDUM the First:
It’s snowing MORE now! HA HA!

I’ve taken more pictures, but you shan’t see them until I get home.

So today was spent in warm endeavors.

I made vegetable stock, and cooked down our pumpkins. (Tuesday’s post will probably be about this.)

But even hotter–it was finally cold enough to crank up the wood stove! The first fire in our brand new wood stove!

I really like the fact it can be filled from the front or the top.

Hey look! Fire!

More fire! The directions said to start it up slow, and keep it at a relatively low temperature. So only a couple logs at a time, and I’ve been trying to keep the temperature low.

What are the cats excited about? The wood.

This stove is going to be a lot hotter on the outside than the old (jacketed) stove. Hopefully they’ll remember enough to stay away from it when it’s putting out a lot of heat. Because I figure that griddle on top is most likely warm enough to do some damage to kitty paws.

So how is the new wood stove? Pretty awesome so far. It barely smokes–the old stove would inevitable fill the basement with smoke on regular basis. And it puts out a fair amount of heat rather quickly. The only current drawback is that like a cast iron pan that needs seasoned, this is a new cast iron stove that needs seasoned. So the house smells… odd. But it’ll eventually disappear.

And it’s not like the house hasn’t smelled like baked pumpkin and vegetable stock all day.

What with WVU, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the initial distinguishing characteristic of Morgantown–its initial reason d’etre–is that it’s along the Mon river. The oldest section of town–which is still being renewed and once again become an area of town people want to visit–is the Wharf district. Of course no boats or barges have stopped there for years, but still, Morgantown was initially a river town.

What does this mean nowadays? Other than the horrible humidity in the summer, not much.

But every once in awhile we get a morning where the river reminds of of its presence.

Here are some pictures taken earlier this week:

I love mornings where the river is covered with fog, and as you drive up and down the hills, you go in and out of the fog.

As high up as I am, I frequently see the river fog just below me, and I always think it looks fascinating.

IT’S SNOWING! IT’S SNOWING! IT’S SNOWING!

(happy dance)

ADDENDUM the First:

That’s IT?!

So… I chickened out and didn’t take any pictures inside the craft fair. It’s was busy and crowded and I felt like the vendors would think I was trying to steal their ideas or something.

And I can’t take pictures of the loot, because most of it was for gifts.

What you do get is the following:

As you can see, the morning was wet and dreary. But still apple butter was made! That’s what this woman is going–making apple butter in a big kettle.

The wood in the foreground was for the guys who were grilling corn.

But the best part?

Funnel cake! With fresh lemonade! It was too wet and dreary and rainy to sit on the front steps of the lair like we normally do, so we had to go inside, where we were subjected to some man doing horrible renditions of pop songs.

But even that couldn’t dull the joy of funnel cake!

And by the time we were done, the sun had come out, just for a little bit.

Mountaineer Week Craft Fair!

I answered only for Kat, and not Kit.

(via Jim)

ADDENDUM the First:
Here are the results for Kit:

I believe these results are entirely too high.

Kit isn’t smart enough to plot anything.

We interrupt Kat in his hidden window seat. Here he can watch not just the birds at the bird feeder, but also the traffic going by.

She’s sitting still! And not against a background the color of her fur!

My grandmother turns 91 today!

Happy Birthday Grandmom!