January 2009 - Posts

• I Can't Believe It Happened Again

  I spent an hour looking through my home in cabinets, closets, dressers, everywhere for an item. I could have sworn that I had it, but I just couldn't find it. I wound up going to the store and buying another one. When I got home I decided to put it some place where I would be sure to find it the next time I needed it. I thought of just the right place, but what did I find in this place? The original item! Arr-r-gh.   Posted Jan 27 2009, 05:28 PM by Blogette with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Everyday Life

• A Week of Heaven

  Tastee Wheat, our cat, has a new litter of nine kittens. Yesterday they became four weeks old (click here for photos). About a week ago, Tastee Wheat started acting funny; she stayed under the boat and wouldn't come out. We took her to the Vet and discovered that she had developed an infection in one of her teats, as well as running a fever. The Vet gave her a shot of antibiotic and gave us another antibiotic to give her twice a day. She also told us that we should wean the kittens and keep them separate from their mother so that the cat could get a rest and the drugs could do their job. Of course, with nine hungry kittens running around, that meant that someone was going to have to take over the task. My husband has much more experience than I do with animals so he took over feeding them and I took care of the ancillary chores as he syringe-fed the little babies. We've been feeding the little ones for a week now and I have to say that it feels like a full time job - with no sleep. At the same time it is most rewarding when you look into the little faces as they meet your eyes with theirs and you know that they are looking at you with love and appreciation. They purr often and they are perfectly cooperative with everything that we ask them to do. My husband feeds them, washes and stimulates them, and then they go in for their nap. I get to cuddle them and talk to them and they are always climbing on me to snuggle.   Posted Jan 27 2009, 08:55 AM by Blogette with no comments

• Whooping Cranes come to St. Marks

  I have been following the work of Operation Migration with interest. They have been working on the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001. The whooping cranes are bred in capitivity and then Operation Migration leads a group of young birds to a designated winter home. This year a group of 7 cranes were going to be led from their summer home in Wisconsin to a new winter home in the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge located in Florida. The whooping cranes are led by ultralight gliders with many stops along the way. They left Wisconsin in October and were due to arrive in St. Marks on Thursday, January 15. This arrival was delayed for two days as the weather was not cooperating. It was too windy -- for the gliders, that is, the cranes would have had no problem. However, their winter home was set up in a place that they had never been, so the cranes would have to be led there the first time. Next year they will have no problems returning on their own. Saturday, January 17, was the next possible arrival date. The whooping cranes were scheduled to arrive between 7:30 AM and 8:00 AM. It was very cold, down in the 20s. That is VERY cold for Florida. My husband and I got up on our boat that sits in our driveway to await the fly-over as we anxiously scanned the sky for any sign of the birds. By 8:10 AM there was still no sign of them. I couldn't find any updates on the website to even know if they had left this morning. I tried doing my crane dance (shown on the left) in hopes that it would inspire the cranes, but still no luck. We decided to walk down to the field that was the designated fly-over spot in hopes that there might be someone official there that would know whether or not the cranes were on their way. As we approached the field, we could see many people standing around waiting. This seemed promising. If the flight had been cancelled, the people would be leaving as had happened the previous two days. We didn't have very long to wait. Shortly one of the gliders appeared over the field. I guess this one was a scout glider, making sure of the path. The next glider that appeared had seven whooping cranes following along behind it in a line. It was an amazing site. I don't know how they train the birds to follow the glider. The gliders and the birds flew right over the field. The crowd was ooh-ing and ah-ing. Then the gliders led the cranes to their new winter home in the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge. As they flew away, the crowd burst into applause. I know a lot of people drove quite a distance to watch something that was over in about 20 seconds. It was very heart-warming to see so many people gathered to watch a simple event like humans aiding the birds in getting to a new, safe home. My pictures of the event can be viewed in my whooping crane photo gallery. I recommend viewing the pictures in their original size (like this one) as the small photos don't do it justice. The flight was not an easy one. You can read the full story on the Operation Migration site by clicking here. Posted Jan 18 2009, 09:21 AM by Blogette with 1 comment(s)

• Kittens at 2 Weeks

  I've added the latest photos of our 2-week-old kittens in my gallery (click here to view). I was a little concerned when our cat gave birth to nine kittens. That seemed like an awfully large number of kittens to take care of and feed. I went out and bought some kitten milk replacement and some bottles to feed the kittens with should our cat need some help. So far the mom cat has been doing wonderfully. All of the kittens are growing well and they all look clean and content. We try not to bother the mom and kittens very much in the first couple of weeks, but at 2 weeks of age we wanted to get pictures of them all. We laid out all of the kittens on a rug. Then I picked them up one by one and my husband took a snap shot. After getting a picture of a kitten, I would place it on a different rug so we would be sure to get a photo of each. Of course the kittens were not at all happy about being handled and they started making noises. The mom cat walked up to the rug with kittens that had already had their picture taken and started dragging them off. She took them under the boat trailer and started licking them and nursing them to calm them down. Once we were done with taking photos, we put all of the kittens back in the cat carrier in which the mom had given birth and was raising them, including the ones she had taken away before. If the mom cat feels the kittens are not safe, she will move them. We were afraid she would move them to a place in the garage that was not accessible to us. So far, though, she has kept the kittens in the carrier where we can look at them any time we want. Posted Jan 12 2009, 12:22 PM by Blogette with 1 comment(s)

• My Best Friend

  Yesterday I got an email from a girl whom I have known since kindergarten. Emily and I grew up together and when each of us moved to different areas of the country we kept in touch. I was so happy to hear from her because we usually write to each other on the holidays and I hadn't received anything from her until yesterday. She had great news about herself and I am very happy for her. She told me that she had gotten married and had a great job and that her husband was adventurous. She always wanted to see the world and now it looks like she may actually be able to do it. Her email was so different from the one she sent me last year. It seems that in 2008 she grew into a more mature person than the one I knew in 2007. One area that she spoke about was her relationship with her family. Emily used to get so uptight whenever she had to go to her family's get-togethers. Her personality would change completely and she wasn't so nice to anyone. Of course she put a smile on her face to hide her frustrations, but she confided to me that it was no picnic when she had to make believe that everything was okay. When she would get too hungry she also had a personality shift. I knew all about this because I saw her "flip out" many times at school when we were young. Getting along with other people was frustrating too. I used to think she was shy but I don't see that in her now. I don't really know what happened with her over the past year, but she seems so much better in all these areas of her life. She looks happier (we send pictures with our emails) and sounds calmer than she did in 2007. What a difference a year can make!   Posted Jan 08 2009, 10:40 AM by Blogette with no comments

• Feed the Birds

  My husband and I have been getting to know a guy named Jerry who lives on a boat at a nearby marina. This past weekend he offered to give us a tour of his boat. We were very interested because we hope to live on a boat at some point in the future. The tour ended on the deck at the back of the boat. As my husband and I looked across the river at the wildlife refuge, Jerry disappeared down below for a minute and then came back carrying a bag full of cinnamon raisin bread. My husband and I exchanged puzzled glances -- was Jerry hungry or was he planning on offering us some? Cinnamon raisin bread, by itself, seemed an odd snack. We got even more confused when he took out a slice of bread and held it up in the air. We saw him looking at a lone bird on top of a building that was close by. As soon as the bird saw the bread in the air, it immediately took off. But it didn't fly towards us, it flew away. Jerry took that opportunity to hand both of us multiple slices of bread. About 15 seconds after the bird disappeared, a huge swarm of birds returned and headed straight for us. We happily started breaking up the bread into smaller pieces and throwing them into the air. Most of the time a bird would catch the piece while it was in the air. Those pieces that fell into the river had several birds diving for them at a time. Jerry took another whole slice of bread and held it up in the air. This time a bird came swooping down from behind us and snatched the bread out of his hand as it passed. A slice of bread is too big for one bird to eat, so several birds descended on this one to try and get a piece of it. It was a delightful end to the tour.   Posted Jan 07 2009, 09:11 AM by Blogette with 2 comment(s)

• Signs of Success

  I was cleaning out my desk and I came across a really old piece of paper containing a list I had made back in 1993 when I first started working for a living. It was titled "Things I'll Have When I Know I've Succeeded". This list is as follows (with short explanations): Pretty Checks (I didn't like the standard checks you get from the bank. I wanted ones with rainbows or kittens or butterflies on them.) Daily Disposable Contacts (I had the kind you wore for a year that required soaking in enzyme solution for 4 hours each month plus rubbing them everyday in solution to get protein deposits off of them.) 5 CD disc player (This was a big item back then.) Pool Table (No explanation needed.) Car (I drove my mom's car all through college and beyond.) I found it very funny to read about the things that were important to me back then. I am pleased to report that now I always have "pretty" checks. Not only do I enjoy picking a different pattern each time, but the checks you order yourself are much cheaper than what the bank charges you. I have disposable contacts; however, I went with monthly disposables instead of daily. I guess I'm too cheap to go with dailies. It seems like such a waste. I did get the 5 CD disc player. In the past few years, though, I have converted all of my CDs to mp3 format, and I never buy CDs anymore. So much has changed in the past 15 years. Eventually I did buy my own car and returned my mother's car to her, but I bought my first house before buying my own car (again this was more sensible). Sadly, I never did get the pool table. If I were to make a list today, it would be shorter. Good Health No Debt Saving for the future Posted Jan 05 2009, 12:38 PM by Blogette with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Work, Everyday Life

• Nine is Fine

  Our cat finally gave birth. She looked about ready to burst for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, we didn't know when she got pregnant (and she wasn't talking), so we had no idea when the due date was. Every morning I had been waking up thinking, "Maybe there will be kittens here today." It was an excruciatingly long wait. Finally on December 29, the kittens were born. I checked on the cat early that morning and after a few minutes of petting she walked away from me and went under the boat that is in our garage where she stays. That was very unusual behavior for her; she had never walked away from being petted before. I figured she was starting labor and wanted privacy. I came back a few hours later and she was cleaning up four kittens. However, she still looked very fat. Maybe there were more to come. I left her alone for another several hours and when I came back the second time, there were a total of NINE kittens. The average size litter is three to five kittens. Our cat had already had two litters this year. Each time having seven kittens, which is well above the average. But nine kittens! She really kicked it into high gear this time. I was also impressed that she managed to have this third litter in the same year as her other two litters. She loves having babies. One of the kittens has tan patches, but there are four kittens that are stripey gray, and the last four kittens are a solid gray with white feet. I don't know how we are going to tell them apart. Posted Jan 02 2009, 03:41 PM by Blogette with 2 comment(s)