Started Playing 1.9 pre 2

This is the first time I'm playing a pre-release version. I heard that I could herd and grow my own animals.

I was spawned in an area between desert and swamp, and got to see half-rain half-sunny weather. I like deserts because I use a lot of glass in my buildings. I saw a cow, a sheep a chicken in the area. I went down to mine and the Cow disappeared. Maybe it died in one of the water pits. The sheep I sheared for wool and I don't know where it either. The chicken is still alive. I got 2 eggs from it. Food was a bit short for a while. But I had enough bones to make enough wheat to feed myself.

I dug down all the way to the bottom the slow way. I've been digging diagonally down making a 3x3 tunnel. It's slow but it's quite pleasing to the eyes. Here is an old version I made: http://imgur.com/a/iMMbW. 

I got a few spider's eyes but I don't know what to do with them yet.

I'm thinking of building a dome soon. I'v been seeing many interesting circular and spherical buildings posted on reddit lately I was especially impressed with this one. 

So someone posted link to this article on how to make a sphere in minecraft and it was quite interesting and useful: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/26469-perfect-spheres-blueprints-inside/ Maybe I'll make one soon.