Life is also unfair for cats

"What?"

"Go away, I'm busy."

Velcro wasn't always a chub. Her first 7 years she was fluffy, but fit. Nowdays she has trouble getting around. The problem is not that she eats a lot, though. This is the scene at dinner time.

Gollie eats while Velcro watches.

Velcro weighs 13 pounds. Gollie weighs 5 pounds. Gollie eats 85% of the food. Velcro does lay around a lot, but so does Gollie.

I don't think the problem is the type of food. The dry food I buy is very expensive, with no grains added. The canned food is the same. A small bowl of dry food, less than a cup, lasts at least a week. Velcro doesn't eat much of it because her teeth are rickety.

In this house the fat cat stays that way eating scarcely any food. The scrawny cat eats 4 times as much and never gains an ounce.

Many of us can sympathize.

Peageon

Fancy-tailed pigeon

Learning to Fly

I have been putting the baby pigeon outside in an old parrot cage for a while every day so it can watch the other pigeons and maybe figure out how to be one. This morning I let it out inside the house for a while to stretch its wings. All it wants to do is sit on my shoulder. Once in a while it gives me little kisses, or nibbles on my ear. Pigeons are very affectionate birds. That's not anthropomorphism, if you watch them in the wild you will see pairs of pigeons grooming each other, feeding each other, and nuzzling a lot.

My chickens don't do that. If the hens are nuzzling around on a rooster's neck it's because they're pecking his feathers out and eating them. They do that when they need more protein, a handful of cat food every day for a while will stop them.

Pigeons are very easy to have in the house. They are precision flyers. When they're babies they will flap their wings and just go up and down a few feet. They don't just take off and crash land in the bushes like fledgling songbirds. A baby pigeon will not actually fly horizontally until it's quite sure it can get back to its nest. This is undoubtedly a good thing, considering pigeons are cliff-nesters.

A cat vet in Sacramento used to keep a pigeon in his office. It would fly around from perch to perch and entertain the cats who were penned as boarders or patients.

This one won't be going out in the big pigeon pen until it's better at flying. For one thing, the other pigeons will hassle it for a while. Each pigeon has a preferred roosting spot in the pen and each will defend it. If I put in a new roost and stick the baby on it, they'll leave it alone. But the baby needs to fly well enough to get down to the food and water and then back up to its roost.

I'm also concerned about the hawks. We seem to have more of them all the time. Yesterday there was a very small, dark hawk that had a bird on the ground right outside the kitchen window. I thought it was a pigeon and stumbled for the door. The prey was screeching and fighting back. John was outside and got to the birds before I did. He booted the hawk with his toe and it tried to fly off with its prey, but dropped it. It was a scrub jay and it managed to fly away.

I think it's interesting that the jay was fighting back. Pigeons don't do that. They just give up. They'll take advantage of an opportunity to escape if the hawk isn't diligent, but otherwise they just seem to be resigned to their fate. They do the same when I catch them and always seem relieved when they don't get eaten.

My flock is getting smarter about hawks. They listen to the chickens. They always have a sentinel posted on the highest pole. I just wish the danged hawks would stay out in the fields, where there is an abundance of mice, voles, and jackrabbits. I used to keep a bird feeder in the yard and enjoyed watching the wild birds that gathered there. The Cooper's hawk used it as a fast food restaurant.

Giving Thanks for the Babies

I drove a couple of hundred miles for Thanksgiving so I could see the babies in the family.

On my dad's side of the family there have never been a lot of children. The original family that came here from Massachusetts in the 1860s had several of them, but only two ever married. My grandmother and her brother were the only Sloughhouse descendants. My grandmother married and had 3 boys, her brother did not marry.

My father and his two brothers each had two children, a girl and a boy. That's my generation. The six of us had three girls and one boy (Bob). From Bob's generation there are only two children at this point. We all adore them.

This is Tessa. She's three years old now.

Tessa and her dad, Cort

This is the newest addition, Charlie.

Charlie meets Sarah

Tessa is a careful observer. She's not convinced that anyone outside of mom, dad, and grandparents are actually safe to visit. Okay, so some of us ARE wacky.

"These people are weird, mom, what are we doing here?"

Charlie is very sociable, though. And he does silly kid tricks to amuse the adults.

"You can all applaud now."

Why is cousin Nancy smiling all the time these days?

Smiling Nancy

Because she's Charlie's grandma!

The cousins are all dog lovers. These are two of the family's new dog members.

Em and Rick

Emily rescued Rick when his family moved out of their house and abandoned him. If you were a pup, you'd want to be rescued by Em, she has a heart of gold.

Sarah and June

Sarah, Cort and Tessa adopted lab mix Juno and discovered the day before Thanksgiving that she had problems with both front legs, so she's wearing casts. It didn't slow her down.

I left the Chico Thanksgiving early to drive 2 hours back home, where Bob had been cooking all day. My timing was perfect, everyone was just about to sit and eat. There were two more babies at home.

Cousin Joe's wife Anne and baby Kina, Bob's girlfriend Anna

Kina is two. Everyone is her new best friend, and she's very good at convincing anyone to see her point of view. She does this using positive methods..."Hi, I'm Kina and you like me because I laugh at your jokes. Could you PLEASE reach over there and hand me some of those purple pretzels? What? My mom says no? I think if you reconsider that you'll find I'm the one who's right, and I'll give you another big smile for your effort."

The other baby is not an official cousin, he belongs to a good neighborhood friend, Nick.

Nick, Aiden and Oma

It was well worth all the driving to get to spend some time with all the grandbabies.

This is my favorite picture, though. It appears Auntie Mo is performing a proctological procedure on a bear that sings "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Changing batteries. Really.

The Farmer Cooks

Rick Grimshaw, one of the owners of Davis Ranch (the corn stand in my back yard), guest stars on a cooking program. It's about 5 minutes long. See it here.

Fall Beauty

The dogwood tree is busy decorating itself for fall. It brings so much beauty to the yard.





The Rest of the Story.....

And the yard needs it. This is the junk pile waiting to be picked up and hauled away.

Almost Grown

Baby is almost grown. He/she [?] could go out in the pigeon pen any day, but the redtail hawk has been hanging around. I'll probably put the baby in a bigger cage for a while and let it fly around the house for practice.

For Kenny D

It was cold enough in Sloughhouse this morning that the hoses were frozen. But that didn't stop the Tough N' Dirty Mud Run. The first batch of runners started at 9 or 10 a.m. I didn't go out to take these photos for Kenny until noon. The run organizer said they have a lot more runners this time than for the first run. It seems a lot messier to me, more mud this time. They even used part of the corn maze.

It's a lovely, though chilly, afternoon as these 3 runners trudge between obstacles. That hill behind them is Sacramento County's dump.

A new way to do the corn maze.

People of all ages were competing.

A dry segment through the Christmas trees. Anyone need a Christmas cone?

Just before the finish line, runners had to crawl through a pipe, then get down on their stomachs to go under the wires.

Does this look like fun to you?

Doing the breast stroke.

Two girls cheering for mommy.

Wiped out.

A group of friends who run together.

The next run is in May of next year. If you start wallowing now, you could be in shape by then.

Winding Down or Winding Up?

When I worked, I was not a part of the farm cycle.

In a traditional farming community, this is the time of year when the crops have all been harvested, and the ground has been plowed and worked to gather moisture from winter rains. The wood is stacked carefully in the woodshed, irrigation pipes are put away, pumps are covered, and tractors are parked on high ground.

That doesn't happen here anymore.

At the Corn Stand, there are still a few pumpkins available for Thanksgiving pies and fall decoration. I've gleaned some that were discarded, to feed my chickens. There hasn't been a freeze yet, so there are still bell peppers, beets, and a couple of other local crops for sale. This is really the best time of year for bell peppers, they're crisp and meaty. The new crop of English walnuts has been picked and bagged and is available. (Major yum factor.) As of yesterday there was still some sweet corn for sale. They used sell the last of it in October. By November first, everything was put away and tied down, and the farmers were off taking their vacations.

But this morning there is a band playing music out behind the Corn Stand. There is another Mud Run scheduled for today. City people will be out there in skimpy summer clothes, slogging through man-made puddles and pretending either that they're super athletes or little kids having fun.

Soon the Corn Stand will start selling Christmas trees. The early buyers are mostly shop owners looking for greenery. Some are families that actually put their Christmas trees up right after Thanksgiving dinner. On weekends there will be hundreds of people walking through the fields, shopping for their perfect tree. They all show up at the same time, right before or after football games on TV.

Most of the part time farm help has already gone home to Mexico. They won't be back until after Easter next year. While they're basking in the warmer climate and spending time with families they only see in the off season, their full time relatives are still here. They will be putting on heavy jackets and warm gloves and caps. They work during Christmas tree season helping people cut and haul their trees out of the field, running the machine that puts a net around a tree so it can be transported on top of a fancy car, and keeping things picked up and tidy. It's amazing how many Coke cans city people leave in the fields. Do they think they're biodegradable?

Everyone gets a couple of weeks off after Christmas. Unless there's a flood and sandbags have to be filled. In the middle of January they'll be back in the Christmas tree fields. They cut old tree trunks flush with the ground, remove any trees that have problems, and plant new ones. One of the farmers will be out there every morning and evening with his gun. When the horses see him drive by, they run to the far end of the pasture. Jackrabbits chew on the new little trees. The dead jackrabbits are winter food for resident coyotes and vultures.

It's not a traditional farm cycle, but it's what works for now for Sloughhouse.

Not in a Party Mood

My son Bob, who is my housemate, is a party kind of guy. He loves to be a host, to have people over and to entertain them. Sometimes he has a LAN party. His buddies bring their computers and they all hang out in the game room for 2 or 3 days at a time, hunting down and blowing each other up in cyberspace. Sometimes Bob's local friends gather to play board games for an evening. When a friend comes from out of town, or there's a birthday, it's a good excuse for an impromptu get-together.

I enjoy all this. I've known all the "kids" since they were in school or 4-H together. I know their parents. I like them all. It's fun to wander out to the game room, say "hi" to them and hear what they're doing, then come back to the house and let them party on. Music and party noise doesn't bother me, I can sleep through anything. Well, almost anything.

Once in a while there is a really big party with people I don't know. They are all good people, but there is one subgroup that totally annoys me: The Squeaky Girls. They spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. That would be the ONE bathroom in this house. You get to it by walking down the hall past my bedroom door.

The Squeaky Girls tippy-tap down the hall in their high heeled shoes. They travel in pairs and trios and while one is actually in the bathroom, the others stand in the hall right outside my door and giggle and talk in their ridiculously cute little voices about the stupidest stuff. They do this at least twice an hour. By 2 a.m. I've had my limit.

So when Bob warned me that he was having a Halloween party this past weekend and would be inviting people outside his usual group, I considered my alternatives. Bob volunteered to lock the house doors at 10 p.m. and suggest they use the porta-potties at the corn stand. That might have worked for the guys, but the girls and their shoes wouldn't have made it off the sidewalks.

Then I discovered that the Hampton Inn in Rancho Cordova, only 10 miles away, had a $68 special. (These are not my photos, they're from the Hampton's web site.)

When I travel, Hampton Inn is my first choice. The prices are reasonable, the beds are comfy, there is always decent, free internet, and a buffet breakfast with real food.

So I threw a few things in a bag, along with my laptop computer, and just before the party started I left.

I had dinner at a nice restaurant, then checked into the hotel.

First I turned on the TV. I haven't had one at home for 15 years, so it can be interesting and informative to surf through the channels and get an idea what the 99% of other people in the U.S. are doing with their time. It was a bad TV night. After the 9th political advertisement I turned off the TV in disgust. That's when I heard little feet running up and down the hallway outside my door, and squeaky little voices.

It turns out there was a baseball tournament of some kind in town and many teams had also taken advantage of the $68 special.

I really didn't mind. Some of my fondest memories are of traveling with bunches of kids to chicken shows and 4-H events. This was similar, the kids were running around having a great time with their friends. By 9 p.m. the adults rounded them up and put them in their rooms and all was quiet.

Sunday morning I was up early. I had the indoor pool all to myself for over an hour.

Then I got to have breakfast with two dozen little kids. I loved it.

When I got home at noon there were just a few party stragglers left. (Anyone who needs to is required to stay overnight.) They said they'd gone to bed fairly early because they just can't party like they used to. Some of them are almost 30, you know. Bob had scrambled a couple dozen eggs, cooked sausage, and served breakfast to those who could handle it. Most of the house had already been tidied. There were no Squeaky Girls left.

Overall, it was a good party, even for someone who wasn't in the mood for it.

3 Kitties

One of the overwhelming jobs on my "to do" list is capture the feral cats and have them neutered. This is my problem: I have to call and make an appointment. I have to deliver the cats at 7:15 a.m. and pick them up at 4:00 in the afternoon. First, I have no idea how many I'll be able to catch, or when I'll actually be able to catch them, so I don't know when to call for an appointment. Second, if I CAN catch some, it will be about 11 a.m., when I feed them. They would have to be in the cage almost 24 hours. These are not mellow cats.

In the meantime, here are pictures of the 3 tamest ones.

One of these little buggers figured out how to sneak into the pigeon pen at night through the tiny door that's 5 feet off the ground. It killed a bird, but couldn't manage to get it back out through the door. So now I'm locking the pigeons up at night. It's always something.

I did almost get a seemingly insurmountable job done today. I would like to show some Dominique Bantams at a show in Shawnee, Oklahoma in December. I found out that they require veterinary papers that are easy to get in some states, but require a lot of work and expense in California. I spent 2 hours calling around today to see if there is a way around that. No solution yet, but I think I'm on the right track to just take in the birds I want to show and have them tested. So maybe #42 will get to go to Oklahoma.

One of my many things to do: wash all the waterers and put them away.

Leaving them out in the rain isn't getting the job done.

3 Frogs for Linda