Having cats sleep with you can be a good thing. A couple of winters ago, we had a bad winter storm and lose power for several days. I was warm and toasty in my bed from sharing the body heat of all my cats!

Not quite clear on the concept...



Note to self: Move Picture.

It is the latest rage - a combination cat and bird feeder.

We do the same thing...make one room the warm one and let the rest of the house cool out.

The real question is it you or your cat that's not clear on the concept? Remember that in the case of cat vs human, cute kitty wins every time.

If you are allergic to cats, there is an alternative to having the kittehs sleep on your bed to keep both of you warm: skunks. After chattering for a while, a skunk will curl up in your lap and go to sleep. I have not personally tried this. (And rabies is a real concern.)

Deborah Cipriani (Skunk Haven Inc) says

http://video.pbs.org/video/1168758029

I was reminded of this when I again met one of our local campus skunks on the sidewalk. This one lives underneath an old house that serves liberal arts students as an advising center. AFAIK (and a campus policeman confirms), none of the skunks has ever sprayed a student or faculty member. Administrators, yes.

Tolland, let's see, cat allergies on one hand and skunks on the other. I think I get myself some Zytec and sleep with the cats.

Last year I had a little skunk (he/she was as small as a 7 week old kitten and never grew the whole summer he/she visited my backdoor. The skunk was really cute -- but not cute enough to make me forget that skunks smell bad -- really, really bad. My cats would walk up to skunk to say "hi". I was terrified that one would be "too" friendly and get skunked. Luckily it never happened because that cat(s) would be spending a lot of time outside until the smell went away.

Well, it seems that my clever keep-cats-out-of-garden plan was not a complete success. I had instructed my gardener not to put additional dirt on top of the chicken wire, but apparently that message did not get to his crew, they put an inch or so of dirt evenly spread on top of the chicken wire. This morning I went to dump my scrap bucket into my compost bin, and noticed that one of the local kitties had left a "present" in the middle of the garden. He wasn't able to bury it though. I scooped it out and sprinkled the last of my Shake Away cat deterrent on the garden plot. Hopefully that will hold them off until next weekend when I'll be planting my tomato seedlings and putting down some plastic mulch.(If you're in SoCal and are into growing tomatoes you should check out Tomatomania, the most awesome seedling sale evah! www.tomatomania.com)

In one of the several infestations of skunks reported in the PBS video, it turned out that the town had a special attraction for skunks: it had a large population of feral cats. The cats and the skunks would hang out together, sometimes catching mice, but more importantly, they would eat together from the large bowls of cat food left on many porches by animal lovers. People had been putting out more and more food because it was all eaten by the morning. Then a man chose to follow the skunks on their nightly rounds and discovered this partnership of feral cats and skunks. The obvious solution was to stop feeding the feral cats and their partners. The video does not report the final results.

There is a skunk that lives at Heathrow; it is presumed that it hitched a ride at the Toronto airport. And Martha's Vineyard has a burgeoning population.

I can confirm from several personal encounters that skunks do not spray unless they "think" they have no other option. I've made sure that they have other options when they have appeared. One clue: do not walk too closely to the foundations of old buildings. The encounters of mountain lions and coyotes with skunks in the video show how reluctant the skunks were to spray.

It is much more pleasant to think of skunks than to think of Orly.

True for almost any value of "x = skunk".

Basenjis don't bark. But Annie is NOT silent. This is a normal sound for us, one that Simon really really doesn't like.



Because when he hears it, he knows he's going to lose the toy/bone/treat he's enjoying. She always wins.

LOL Judykins had a very "get out of the way" bark which she used whenever Cueball was either a) sat where she wanted to sit or b) laying on the floor where she wanted to walk. It was such a distinct bark that even if I was in the bedroom half asleep and I heard it I would say to the DH "Uh ho, Cueball is in Judy's way again". *Sigh* I miss her so.

We've managed to kick that up a notch. Combination bird, cat and Red Tailed Hawk feeder. We didn't actually have that in mind, of course, but watching RTH swoop down and scatter the goldfinches and then swoop back in for his supper is mighty cool to watch. Perhaps in another year the hawk could graduate to chickens.

Listeme! how can a dog sound like a penguin?!

She's so hilarious! When she gets mad, she sounds like a DEMONIC penguin. There's a lot of tongue curling or something.



There's a reason we call them bitches.

I hear you on the still missing. There's a silly little plaster cast of my beloved Curie's paw print on my bookshelf. I take it down and hold it every once in a while. There will never be another Curie. I don't think I'll ever not miss her.

If I heard that from a distance, I would think that I was having difficulty understanding some form of human speech. Listeme, do your dogs have a complex language? Is it written?

Simon's funny! He's like 'oh, just take it'.

Continuing with today's skunk obsession, here is Jasper of Laramie, WY and the Facebook page in which his human also appears. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=315007618563548&set=a.151425024921809.32723.151424141588564&type=3&theater. There are also videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0hu7k4zEy8.

No, I am not thinking of getting a skunk for a pet; it is illegal in Connecticut.

What I do like is the truth of The Peaceable Kingdom that is on display here. That was the text for the September 16, 2001, sermon at the Congregational Church (1722) on the Town Green. It is also the meaning of Genesis 2.

I claim innocence until my LFBC is shown to be from Kenya

http://youtu.be/SAbCyA2rbxM

You aren't going to see a cat welcome someone home like this!

Cuz cats know jumping out of a truck like that is dangerous.

So earlier today, around 10-10:30, I started hearing crows. Lots of crows. I mean, there's always a few crows around, but this was like...all of them. Then I heard Trouble teh tortoise-shell kitteh doing her "I see a bird!" chitter, but way louder. (she chitters to let us know when the ebil Mourning Doves are in the back yard eating the seeds that fall from the Finch feeders)

Anyway, I head out to the front of the house and Trouble is chittering from the living room. She's on the back of the couch looking out the window which looks down the driveway and across the street. This is also where the crow noise is the loudest. So I take a gander out the window and see



With the oak trees in our neighborhood getting old enough to produce acorns, squirrels have arrived to eat the acorns. With the steady increase in squirrels, it was inevitable that one would become road kill in front of our house. Given our 200 yard or so proximity to oak chaparral grasslands...you gotta figure we'd get our first Turkey Vulture to clean up the first roadkill. I guess the crows were just pissed off that the vulture claimed the prize. Took not quite 15 years since the house was built. Oddly enough, cars going either way slowed and steered around the vulture and his lunch and the vulture was pretty blasé about cars. Residential hood in the boonies, I guess.

Field note: Observation indicates that it takes +/- 48 hours on the pavement in partly cloudy, 65°to 70° temps to make the road kill tasty enough for crows and vultures. (Should I put this in the recipe thread?)

Woah, the line at the mall will be HUGE!

http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Home.htm

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That was adorable.
I already have 10 cats, but this looks like such a deal.
Do you think they come spayed/neutered?
I would think so, cause then you'd have to keep going back to print more kittehs...