A rainbow, to mark July's end

The palest of rainbows arced over our road tonight, during a delicate drizzle. Lovely.

Milk treat, and the Gulf Between, Part II

Peepers is WILD for milk - Baby Boy enjoys a little in the evening, but Peepers wants it whenever Dave has some - lunch time, snack time, whenever! He runs around, curling around our legs and meowing until he gets some!

Look at the size of that tongue!!

Here's the second in the series, the Gulf Between. Watch out Peepers, Baby is on a diet, and HE IS ANGRY!

Poor Peepers, he's trying very hard to fit in, but both Molly and Baby Boy hiss at him whenever he gets close, no matter how "supplicant-ly" he approaches. Hopefully they'll relax soon, and get things sorted out between each other. :) Hopefully. Because I'm REALLY sick of having a secondary litter box in our bedroom. I'd REALLY like him to get used to using the main kitty box in the basement. :)

Rest Stop

A baby blue jay took a little rest on our back deck rail this evening. Sure, he looks like an adult, but you can see his face still has a lot of grey baby feathers in it (and check out the fluff on his body in the last shot - very babyish still). Of course, his begging for food and flapping his wings at his mother when she eats at the feeder kinda gives him away, too. :)

Newborn spiders

Caught a pic of these newborn spiders last night - you can see them surrounding the pod they hatched from. I'm used to seeing them when they're older, about 1 mm big, but these are even smaller than that, have no markings, and have their legs all tucked in. The spider in the foreground is only as big as a pinky nail (and that includes its legs).

Teeny babies!

Early Morning Bunny!

I was up very early this morning (about 4:30 am), and after realizing how stuffy the house was, spent several hours trying to cool the house off (opening all the windows, getting the fans going) before the sun rose. It read 30 deg. C on our back deck by 9 am, so I'm glad I did!. After a very long summer of cool temperatures and cloud, this sudden change in the weather is very strange! As uncomfortable as it is, better relish it while it's here, I guess! At least it's more summery weather than we've been having, so I can't complain. :)

As a result of being up so early, I was able to see the coming of the dawn, the waking of the little songbirds twittering in the trees -- it was really beautiful seeing the world come alive like that.

And taking advantage of the cool before the heat, one of our little local jackrabbits was out and about, snacking on our lawn's various weeds and grasses. He's SO cute, with those tall pink ears, always twitching around, listening for potential dangers.

* * * *

And just so you get a complete picture, this is what it looked like outside:



And this was the view inside:

Flicker!

We had a new bird today, a male Northern Flicker! Apparently, they eat ants - God knows there's enough of them out in our lawn to feed a small army of flickers!
Hard to see his little face!

Oh, there it is! :) Cute! Eat all the ants you can!

Surprise! Roses!

In the winter, Casey and I like to walk around the large field behind our house, bordering on a deep forest. At that time, we have to be careful because of all the sharp thorn bushes that are growing sporadically throughout the field. By the time it gets to be mid-summer, we never get out that way because there's so many spiders and such, it's not really fun to go walking there. But it was SO hot today (over 30 deg. C) I thought it might be better to go for a shady walk in the woods.

And what a pleasant surprise when we went there! 75% of those thorn bushes turned out to be rose bushes! The rest were raspberry bushes. As I mentioned earlier, we have a type of rose that grows wild all over the province of Nova Scotia.

How gorgeous! They were all over the place, but especially clustered around the very old (probably over 100 years old) apple tree, which is likely left over from when settlers attempted to farm in the area.

See all the pink dots in the lower half of the pic? All roses!

Beautiful! And the perfume is heavenly!

Limited Time Offer! Buy 3 Get 1 Free!

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All done! Peepers is fixed

The surgery went well, no problems to report, and now Peepers is back home, safe and sound, if a little lighter. :) Having him neutered at this stage will head off any potential future issues with developing spraying (marking his territory - our house - with urine) and also possibly impregnating other cats, creating more unwanted kitties. It's an important thing to do - we think of it as a social duty, a duty to society and animal welfare in general, not just for us).

Now, he can rest up in our bedroom for a couple of days, then he will be given full reign of the house for the first time, and can have some fun exploring. :)

Adding StumbleUpon, DiggIt! and Del.icio.us links to your blog posts

I wanted to add a bunch of the popular bookmarking sites to my blog posts. When I went to look for info, I found a little bit of info all over the place. :)

Check out TechWrap and the Dummies Guide to Google Blogger Beta, where I got the basis of the information that I built upon below.

The instructions below work with the new blogger beta, using the new layouts feature, not templates (even though it may still be called "template" in the menu). Go to Template/Edit HTML, and be sure you have the "Expand Widget Templates" box checked.

Find this line in the HTML:
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/>

Alternately, it may appear as
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>

Underneath it, add the following lines of code:
<a expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url="+ data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'>StumbleUpon</a> |
<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=3&amp;url="+ data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'>DiggIt!</a> |
<a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url="+ data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' Title='Del.icio.us' target='_blank'>del.icio.us</a>

That will add three of the most popular bookmarking sites to the bottom of your Blogger posts! Enjoy!

I've tested it, and it looks to work properly - if you notice it doesn't though, let me know!

The Gulf Between

Oh well, at least Molly doesn't growl and hiss at him as much. An uneasy truce is better than nothing! Hopefully, things will continue to improve. Peepers goes in for his neutering tomorrow morning (I'm glad he doesn't know what's coming!), and then we can let him explore the house more freely. He's getting more daring though, he went all the way down to the basement this morning. Very cautiously, though!

Baby Boy won't go near him, he still acts like he's scared of this kitten that's half his size. Good grief. Between that, and Baby's refusing to make eye contact with me anymore, because he's too busy pouting, it's been a tough week. Well, that, and Peepers has had to sleep in our room, and is keeping Dave up all night by sleeping on various parts of his head and neck, and meowing. It'd be really funny if we weren't so tired! :)

"Treachery!" Peepers says - Peepers and the Vet

Monday was time for Peeper's big visit to the vet. We had a plan, and the first part went pretty well. Dave goes outside as usual to pet Peepers, I wait inside by the door. Dave grabs Peepers, I open the door, he rushes inside, I slam the door behind him. He tosses Peepers in the carrier, I slam the carrier door shut behind him. Perfect!

But then, Peepers had a Level 1 FreakOut. He smashed his face and paws repeatedly into the side of the carrier to the point that he cut his nose and started bleeding. I ran off to call the vet and see if they could take him early - they could, so we were off quick as a wink. He was meowing plaintively, and trying to tear apart the carrier. Once we got to the vet's, they took him to the back room to do his blood test. And then we heard the noise. Things crashing and banging, and people yelling. We said, "Oh crap, that's Peepers". After about 10 minutes, during which we heard things being yelled from the back room like "Can you come in here!" (to yet another veterinary assistant - at least 3 people were needed!), we were called in to the exam room, where we found the vet holding a towel-wrapped Peepers. She said she had to sedate him, and was still waiting for it to take affect. Apparently, he had gotten free in the back area, and had tore all around the room, eventually getting to the ceiling, running around the highest shelves, stocked with food and equipment, that he knocked down. *sigh* Eventually, the sedation took affect, blood was taken, vaccinations given, and he was let go. Poor little guy, he was still so very scared and trying to run, but couldn't take a step without falling over on his side. We tucked him away in his carrier, and waited for a while in the office. Because he was so over excited, they needed to keep an eye on him, in case he had a bad reaction with his heart to the sedation.

But, on the plus side, his tests came back negative, so he can come and live with us and the other cats! Hurray! We're so blessed!

But it has been exhausting, though. He spent the whole first night under the bed, and wouldn't come out for love or money (or food or water for that matter). The next morning, he came out for short visits, and finally on Tuesday night, went to the kitty litter box (we were prepared for him to not go for a while because of our previous experience with totally freaked out/feral cats - they don't eat or drink or go to the bathroom for a long time, sometimes for days - I've actually heard that a terrified cat could actually stay in one place long enough to starve to death).

His first meetings with Baby and Molly haven't gone very well - he wanted to be friendly with molly, but she growled and hissed at him - Baby kept his distance, hissed, then pouted the rest of the day like "But I'M THE BABY!! NOT THIS OTHER GUY!"

But Casey...well, Casey is Casey. She was grooming him right away, and he loved it. Adorable.



*sigh*. Looking forward to getting Peepers neutered next week, and finishing the deworming, so he can have the run of the house, and they can work things out amongst themselves.

I think he's a lot younger than we thought at first. Outdoors, he was very affectionate, but seemed very sure of himself, and larger. Now that he's inside, he's reverted to total kitten behaviour, and even acted to Molly like she was a mommy cat (too bad, she grew up with ferrets and dogs, not other cats, so she's scared of cats! We have a house full of dysfunctional cats). :) Now that we've had a better look at his fur, you can see that he has two types of fur on his back, a soft downy part and a more adult, sleek type fur. The vet couldn't tell us how young he was without looking at his teeth (and that wasn't going to happen!!), so she'll check him when he's unconscious for his neutering surgery.

I'll keep everyone posted on his progress. :)

BeanDreams: When the heck did THIS happen???!!

Last I saw, I had a lot of flowers on my sugar peas, but all of a sudden, BOOM! It's covered in peas! I've been totally absorbed the last week dealing with Peepers (more to come on that) and in researching my genealogy that I haven't gotten out to the garden. Apparently it was a good week for it!

More to come...

[EDIT, July 18th - added my update to BeanDreams, with new pics!]

Bleargh, update

Called the vet hospital a little while ago, looks like we'll have to wait until next week to catch Peepers & bring him in anyway, as they are booked solid with surgeries and appointments. So we'll just have to double our vigilance and hope that nothing else gets hurt on our watch (what he does at night in the swamp, we have no control over).

Poor little squirrel, we'll be burying him tomorrow.

*sigh*

Bleargh

We try to discourage the squirrel and such from coming to the feeder and the deck when Peepers is around (we've put the food high up)...but today, we weren't quite fast enough, and Peepers got hold of a young squirrel. Before we could save him, he was mortally wounded. I wasn't home at the time, but Dave put the little squirrel in an old bird feeder lined with soft grass, hung it in a tree in the woods, and hoped he would get better - he was still breathing at that time. But when I got home, Dave told me about it, and when I went out to check on the squirrel, I saw that he had passed away.

*sigh* We feel so bad for the little squirrel, we'll probably hasten our getting Peepers indoors now (likely tomorrow). We were hoping to get another week of gaining his trust, but now, it seems more important to get him indoors. He had never shown any interest in the birds for the longest time, it's just been the last few days that he's looked at them more closely.

Not that we're not terribly impressed with with Peepers right now, but we are reminding ourselves that he is a cat, it's not his fault. It's what people kept cats around for, for millennia. We can't expect him to just "turn it off" whenever he wants.

Bleargh.

BeanDreams - comin' along!

The garden's been doing really well so far--most of the plants I'm growing are really thriving with the cooler temps we've been experiencing this summer so far. The bok choy has been growing so wonderfully, we've had it for supper several times already this summer. Crispy, lightly spicy flavoring, really excellent!

Read the full report on my BeanDreams 2007 page.

Love ME, TOO!!!!

Dave, getting some double-barreled furrying action here. Peepers needs regular petting (if he hears us in the kitchen, he gets up and comes to the door, meowing - then he gets a pettums and some food). But Casey was really curious about the little guy, and cried and cried on the other side of the door. She got Dave's other hand. :D

Dave has to be careful, as we haven't had Peepers in for his appointment yet, so we don't know if he has FIV or any other transmissible disease, so he washes up thoroughly after each visit. But Peepers has finally gotten his flea/worm control medicine, so we're one step closer to capturing him, and getting him checked out at a vet!

Rainbow!

A pretty little rainbow to brighten up the skies this evening...we're due for a week of rain, so the sunlight streaming through the clouds now might be the last we'll see for a while...what a way to go! :)



EDIT UPDATE: A few minutes later, I went back outside, and got another one! :)

Happy Canada Day!

Hope everyone's having a great Canada Day! Today's the day we Canadians celebrate all things Canadian. We do this by having fun! Relaxing, having barbeques, drinking strong Canadian beer, fireworks, and taking fun online quizzes to see "how much you really know about Canada". :) There's a huge party and music/entertainment concert in Ottawa, our nation's Capital (televised nationwide), and lots of similar (but smaller) celebrations around the country. It's really one big party!

We gained our independence from Britain peacefully, so we don't have the military/war focus that can sometimes dominate the American celebrations on the fourth of July (except in Newfoundland, where on this day they commemorate heavy losses during the Battle of the Somme). We don't focus so much on gaining our independence, we pretty much just enjoy ourselves and celebrate all the things that Canada has contributed to the world (like good beer, poutine, ketchup chips, and insulin). :)

See Wikipedia's listing on Canada Day for interesting info on our holiday.