July 12, 2008

Joan of Arcadia is back on the air! The SciFi channel is airing first season episodes on Friday nights at 8 p.m. This is the show's old time slot. They aired the pilot last night. I have given up hope of the show ever being in production again. It only lasted two seasons before being canceled. Who knows? They may one day make a TV movie.

Oldest dear son and I saw two owls Thursday night. One was sitting on our fence and another was sitting on the neighbor's fence. They were calling to each other or to the mama owl. They were juveniles and very loud and noisy. They are barred owls or "hoot" owls. We have several hummingbirds now. Still, their numbers are down from last year. Many of the birds have found the "spa" and are using it to drink. I have yet to see one take a bath.




As you can see, Sweet Potato is alive and well. He hasn't changed a bit. I have tried in vain to fatten him up. Oldest dear son does not want to call him Sweet Potato. He thinks he needs a more masculine name. I told him he could call him "Brutus", but he would still be Sweet Potato. Sweet Potato had a digestive ailment that I won't discuss here to protect his privacy. I did some research on the internet and learned that Metamucil would sometimes help this problem, so I bought him a great big jar of Metamucil. I talk to the cat and naturally when I got home I went out and was telling him all about the Metamucil and how I hoped it would help him. Oldest dear son came out, heard me, and was mortified. Evidently, you are not supposed to say "Metamucil" out loud and in public. What if the neighbors heard!

April 27, 2008

Sweet Potato: Sweetest cat in the universe

April 22, 2008

Dear husband is a most patient and tolerant man when it comes to anything but his boat. This made what I had to tell him all the more difficult. I had been watching a Carolina wren out in the carport for two days. It was always in the same spot so I figured something was up. I walked out and looked around after church Sunday and found a nest under the boat cover on the front of the boat. Thankfully, the little fellow was just getting started and dear husband dismantled the few pieces of moss, bark, and twig. He then tightened the boat cover so little fellow wren would not try it again.

Male Carolina wrens will make several nests, but the female chooses the final nesting site. Evidently, she preferred the one he had started in the ball goal because now both of them are hard at work building a glorious nest there. Last summer, I hung some life jackets over the ball goal in the car port. I place the smallest on first and then fastened each one over the goal. I think there are three life jackets fastened over the goal. I was just trying to get them out of the way and that seemed like a secure place for them to spend the winter. The wrens have crawled inside the life jackets and built their nest in the net of the goal. Not only are they under the roof of the carport, they are surrounded my the life jackets which will serve as a wind break. Pretty clever, huh?

We also have chickadees nesting in the bluebird box I bought. Dear husband put it on one of the posts in the carport. We have another chickadee nest in the wall of the house. Our house has blown-in insulation and one of the little caps popped off the outside wall years ago, and the chickadees pounced on this as a nesting site. They will nest as early as December some years. You can sit in the living room and hear them pecking around in the nest.

We had our first hummingbird on Friday. I had the feeders cleaned and hung so he had a place to stop and refill. I am hoping we have plenty this year. I think we had less than 10 last year. I bought two more feeders that I need to clean and hang.

Oldest dear son and I saw a red-breasted nut hatch at the feeder. We also have a pair of house finches now along with all the many other birds that have been at the feeders all winter.

I guess I had better update about Sweet Potato, our stray cat that is still with us. He will get jealous reading about all these birds. He continues to stay on our back porch most of the time. He will disappear for days, and I will think that he isn't coming back and then one morning I will walk to the back door and there he will be waiting for me. This weekend I went out to feed him and found an injured wasp in his bed. This is the second time this has happened. I don't know if they are just wandering in or if he is playing with them. In any case, the next morning I went out to feed him and he was limping on both his front and back leg on the right side. He would just about lie down after taking a step. I think he may have been stung a couple of times. He was better the next morning. He is still the sweetest cat in the universe. I love him to pieces.

March 10, 2008

I was working on our bills this month and gave dear husband his "proof of insurance" card to put in the truck. He happened to be in the truck at the time. He always sticks the card up over the door in the truck. When he changes the oil in the truck, he also tears off the flap on the Fram oil filter box and writes the date/mileage on it and sticks it up over the door. He handed me all the old cards and flaps and I took them in the house and counted them. He had 10 insurance cards and 27 flaps. The flaps accounted for 81 thousand miles which is only one third of the actual miles on the truck. The truck will soon have 250,000 miles. It sure has been a good old truck.

Sweet Potato is doing well this winter. I still don't know if he is really our cat or not. He comes and goes, sometimes staying gone for two days. He always comes back. He is still as sweet as ever. The sweetest cat in the world. That's what I call him.

Bird Watching Update: During our next to the last snow storm, a flock of red-winged blackbirds were at the feeder. I took pix, but the film is still in the camera. Hopefully, I have a good pix or two to share. I know these birds are considered a nuisance, but we rarely see them and I think they are so beautiful. We have had a few goldfinches and house finches visiting and one day I saw a pair of purple finches. The mockers are still visiting and during the coldest days we have juncos and white-throated sparrows. Dear husband has been seeing huge flocks of robins on the way to work and I counted 12 or 13 in the driveway during a cold spell. Oldest dear son heard our first phoebe of the year, yesterday.

We start school back today. We were off all last week for spring break. I need to get busy, so I will close for now. Toodles! Hope your day is a good one. Thanks for stopping by.

Sweet Potato! Mighty King Of The .....Yard!

Mr. Personality! OR No Animals Were Harmed During The Writing Of This Blog Entry

This is our new cat, Sweet Potato. Sweet Potato was a stray that took up at our doorstep. He was in very bad shape the first time we saw him. He had been attacked by another cat or dog with a large gash on his back and front leg. I doctored him back to health and he has been here ever since.

Before Sweet Potato, we had a miniature schnauzer, named Ginger that we had raised since she was a puppy. She lived to be 15 years old and when she died I vowed I would NEVER have another pet. Never say never. When this poor cat took up at our house, I couldn't turn him away. He was in such bad shape. Every morning I thought I would wake up to find him dead and every morning he would be waiting for me at the back door.

All of his wounds are healed up now and he is starting to act like a real cat. He is learning to hunt and he loves to play with falling leaves. He is still so gentle. He never nips or scratches. He loves to be held and petted. He also loves to sneak in the house. Dear husband cannot make it in the back door without letting him in and it has turned into such a funny situation. When you scold the cat or try to make him go back out he will instantly flop over on his side like he has been shot. Especially when dear husband scolds him. I usually just pick him up and carry him back out, but dear husband tries to make him go back out and it is so funny. Everyone knows you can't make a cat do anything. So there is dear husband trying to make the cat mind and there is the cat sprawled out in the floor playing dead.

Here are some pix of the cat asleep in the yard. He loves to sleep on his back! I know these are not very good pix, but I wanted to share them anyway. They make me smile every time I look at them. He is not any easy animal to photograph. He is either asleep or crawling all over you, so I was happy to have taken these. I will keep at it, though. I would like to have at least one good pix of him.

Sweet Potato and Green Beans: The Purr-fect Combo

These were taken before the hot weather hit. I had walked up to the garden to pick beans and the cat followed me. Every time I would squat down to pick beans, he would jump up in my lap.