Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

  Princess is my sister-in-law's cat.  She is about 4 years old.    The past few years here locally, and in fact all over the Southeast and Midwest, bobcat fever has been on the rise.  It is officially known as  "Cytauxzoonosis." Here is the blurb that popped up when I entered "bobcat fever" into the search bar: "Cytauxzoonosis The first signs are lethargy, depression, not wanting to eat and a high fever , hence the term Bobcat Fever. It can cause anemia, jaundice, difficulty breathing and enlarged lymph nodes. Unfortunately, most cats will die within a few days to a week after signs start." The statistics are grim.  There is a 1% survival rate without treatment; death comes in just 2-3 days.  With aggressive treatment there's like a 60% survival rate, maybe.  There is no vaccine. And from all that I have researched and from what the vet told Gail, there probably won't be one any time soon; even though this horror started in Florida, or i...

 Last night as I was lying there half asleep I thought of something profound to write in here.  But, as per usual, now that I am sitting here I have not one profound thought in my brain.  In case you hadn't noticed, I have been trying to keep this blog more active but I have trouble coming up with things to blog about.  I think my trying to be profound makes for a boring blog anyway.  But my sense of humor has been at a low ebb lately.  I don't know why.   One funny thing recently has been watching my sister-in-law's cat play in the evenings.  She is a hoot. This is Princess. Well, it is Ellen holding Princess. Princess is teeny tiny as compared to Smudge.   But Princess has an addiction problem.  She LOVES catnip.  Gail says they have never had a cat who is as crazy about catnip as Princess is.   Gail has a patch of catnip.  I know nothing about growing it, but it seems to come back every year.  Maybe ...

Never, never, but NEVER let a friendly stray cat steal your heart. Especially a tom. Remember Boo? I think I blogged about him before, but I am not sure. Anyway. He showed up here on the dairy sometime in September; a stray, just a thin black streak in the weeds. He'd visit my garbage/scrap pile. It did not take long for him to realize that if he buttered us up he could get more and better food. He mews like a kitten and is quite calm and friendly. I did NOT want this cat. I wanted hubby to take him somewhere else. But Ellen fell in love with him: "He's my favorite color." (Go figure on that one.) However, he has weasled his way into my heart too, the little black wretch. He keeps me company when I do chores in the mornings; follows me around, scrambles into the feed buckets and eats the calf feed (see number 2 below.). He will even ride on the four-wheeler with me. He has two faults. Well, three. 1) He is the kind of cat that loves to wal...

This is from a forward that has gone around this fall, complete with a warning to be careful when raking fall leaves. Kind of creepy. There is a copperhead snake in the picture below. Look very, very carefully; remember that they are poisonous. As a parody of the copperhead pic, I took the following of Matilda. Can you spot the puddy? Ha! She likes to come with me on my walks sometimes, and she loves to play in the leaves. Ah ha! Below is the copperhead. Would you have been bitten? I would have; but then again, I didn't have the patience to stop and really scan the picture for it. Hubby says usually they are coiled up, not stretched out. If they are moving I believe they are easier to spot. But I don't know. In the 4 years I have been in Missouri I haven't seen a live copperhead; no, I take that back. The only live copperhead I have seen in MO was a rather pitiful looking one at the zoo. Then hubby showed me a dead one. They get run over in the road quite frequently in s...

I was looking through my photos I have taken since I came to the dairy and found this one above. This is a female cardinal that took a header into our picture window. She was on the ground and I picked her up and put her on the deck for a photo shoot. Isn't she pretty? She recovered quickly and flew off. Usually in the winter I put up a bird feeder out in the front of the house. I found it fun the first 2 years because I was able to see any number of different birds that I'd never seen on the West coast; especially the cardinals. This year I didn't put up the bird feeder because I learned that it makes a great smorgasborg for Matilda the cat...witness this picture: For one thing the feeder is on a really short pole, but it doesn't matter because many of the birds, like the snow birds (junkoes), feed on the ground and Matilda sneaks up on them somehow. It is annoying to see puffs of feathers around and know that I am providing the cat with an easy meal. GRRRRRR.....