[
animals
my site
]
2002-08-31
The webcam is on for today: Just in case you wanted to
take a peek.
I'm hanging out doing my morning reading and transferring some powerpuff girls to tape for a friend of mine, but later I'm going to tidy up the living room and do some filming.
I figure at that point, I'll point the cam at Swiss, the big white dog, who sleeps under my table. Weeha!
Addendum an hour or so later: Just to show that whoever runs this universe has a wicked sense of humor, after I hooked up the webcam and tried to move it around for a better position, I had to unhook the USB cable to untangle it, which meant that it kept uploading copies of the last picture before the unhooking - a big ugly picture of my hairy armpit.
And what's more, the cam wouldn't function again right away after I hooked it up again - oh no! Windows 2k made me reboot my stinking machine! Gah! I thought we were past that kind of idiocy, but NooOOoOoOOooo...
So I rebooted, worried that hundreds if not thousands of people were staring at my ugly hairy armpit and thinking awful things about my character and basic worth as a person.
And after the reboot, Windows just had to do a consistency check on my hard drive, eating up further time until I could fix the darn cam and overwrite the offending pix.
But finally, at last, my mission has been accomplished. Aren't you pleased? :)
[
animals
random thoughts
]
2002-08-28
Update around the house: Junior (miscreant male black & white kitty) caught a birdie, a female cardinal (either that or a young male who hadn't got all his bright red plumage yet). David put her in an animal crate with food & water. When I got up, I went in the bathroom, and she went crazy trying to escape.
I figured she was agile enough to be let go, and was only hurting herself and wasting energy trying to escape, so I took her outside. Junior of course followed me, but I held him very firmly while I opened the cage. The bird flew out and into a tree (yea, birdie!). I wished her good luck and told her to steer clear of Junior in the future.
Then I took him back inside with me and fed the animals.
When I came upon Apache (momma kitty, recently spayed, has an old gunshot wound in her elbow), she was nursing what looked like all four kittens. These kittens were born on April 23rd, so they're pretty big by now. Rather odd to still be nursing this late, but I think it's pretty cool, personally.
When I fed the kitties, they all went at it avidly except Bobby, who continues to stand next to me, forlornly whining. So every day (and night), I pick him up and set him right in front of the food plate. Poor silly little thing.
The dogs are not hungry this morning. Dunno why.
When I went outside, I noticed it was "only" 95 degrees. Pretty sad when you get to the point where 95 feels "not that hot". I still have to go out today to do errands and have my appointment with my psych nurse, Camille. I'll be taking lots of water, and sweating like a... like a thing that sweats a lot (what's famous for sweating a lot? I dunno). Ah, I know: Albert Brooks in his stint as fill-in anchorman in Broadcast News. I'll be sweating like that.
Apache went out the doggie door as I was heading to the barn to get the dog food, and Precious went out right after her and for some reason starting barking and growling like crazy. So I pointed my finger at her and yelled at her that she was supposed to be NICE to the cats, dammit! She acted all fearful and took off with her tail between her legs. Silly dog.
Yesterday evening I worked on my plans for a combination bed loft / computer desk that I'm going to build in Elena's room. It's coming together nicely, and should give me much more space to work in.
And as a bonus, by moving my computer out of this room, David will also have much more space. Also, we'll both have more privacy for when we're in Deep Concentration Mode. David is working at home now on the weekends and sometimes in the evenings, too (he's a workaholic, what can I say).
David wants to build a big computer rack to hold all the computers in here and the other equipment (TiVo, cable box, cd player, stereo, numerous vcr's, etc), and which will be sealed and have a big fan pulling air through to keep everything efficiently cool. That's the plan, anyway.
So I need to finalize my plans for this weekend, when we'll go to Home Depot and get materials using the big flatbed trailer. Should be fun! I really look forward to a big project. This will be the biggest thing I've ever built, and I'm confident I'll be able to do it right, especially with David's help and know-how (and great tools of course).
The trick will be figuring out how to deal with the heat, and get lots of stuff done in the barn and outdoors when the weather is not so punishing. We'll figure it out somehow.
I gotta hurry up and get out of the house. I stayed in bed too late (yet again). Argh! Oh well.
Later, fans...
[
animals
]
2002-08-22
David is uploading barncam pix now: Automagically, that is.
Check this page for the latest (sort of). The webcam software (Conquercam) is a bit weird, so don't be surprised if things are a bit off.
That said, you should be able to see tons of cats here and there, and at night we have possums and raccoons visit (sometimes multiple species at once).
The other night, a kitten was batting at a possum's tail. The possum wasn't too thrilled about this.
Hmm, now that I think of it, I should go out and give them fresh water. If you hurry (and it's still working), you might get lucky and see my legs! :)
Oh yeah, there's also the extensive photo album, so if you are game, you can try to find out what a specific animal is named. Most if not all of our regular visitors have names.
[
animals
]
2002-08-05
Someone castrated a mayor in Texas: Well, the mayor in question
is a goat. A beer-drinking goat, at that, and the third that has been the mayor in Lajitas, Texas.
This is from the New York Times, and I'm not making it up.
Clay Henry III officially became mayor in 2000, winning an election against a field that included a wooden Indian and a dog named Clyde.
Er, yeah. Sounds like a town after my own heart.
Anyway, the goat's okay, which is good. I have a soft spot for goats. :)
[
animals
consume
design
mammalog
projects
]
2002-07-21
In other news... First item: Buster is doing better! Yea, Buster! He had been feeling under the weather and we were really worried about him, but he's back to his impish playful self again. We are much relieved.
Second item: Had a good visit with Elena, though she's getting really *really* good at fraying my nerves. She does the whole immediate-tantrum-if-she-doesn't-get-precisely-what-she-wants thing, and I do everything I can to demonstrate to her that I'm being reasonable. I try not to get all pissed off (I really hate being pissed off), but sometimes it happens anyway. Sometimes I let her stomp off into her room to pout. Sigh.
We're reading together more and more, and she's getting really amazingly good at remembering her Mother Goose rhymes word-for-word. Since she's already on her way to becoming a great actress (and a drama queen, at that), I figure this memorization skill will definitely be an asset to her.
We went to a nifty playground in Leander today that I've been meaning to take her to for awhile. I took some pictures that I will post at some point. While I pushed Elena on the swings, she managed to slip off (I think she may have let go, even) and went "thunk" onto the ground. Damn, I hate it when she hurts herself. I feel so terribly guilty. Anyway, she was okay after a couple minutes, but she did get a significant head bonk. It's a good thing that kids are pretty durable creaturess.
Third item: Junior (our black & white kitty) has been letting loose some horribly stinky farts with great regularity lately. I dunno what the deal is, but it's really really nasty. David is worried, because apparently this was a symptom of the intestinal disease that slowly but surely killed off several of his previous cats. Hmm, doesn't bode well.
Fourth item: We have opened the bedroom door most of the time, and the kittens are coming out to play in the living room more. It's very cute.
Fifth item: The cats keep bringing in crickets and grasshoppers and slowly killing them, occasionally eating them as well. Ew. I'm sick of stepping on the dead ones, and I try to take the live ones outside as often as I can, though usually they're missing a back leg. Cats are so damn cruel. I suppose it's better than lizards and frogs, which we had earlier in the season. Some of these were wise enough to play dead so that the kitties lost interest in them, and we sent them back out into the wild with our good wishes.
Sixth item: Strange forces are at work. At Hobby Lobby the other day, I saw so many beautiful little patches and things, especially with a five-petaled flower motif, that I'm wondering whether Fate and Destiny and Things That Are Just Meant To Be are having a little fun with me. :) That is, a five-petaled flower is exactly what's involved with the logo for my nascent company, Plumeria Media, which will be the media empire tine of my Fork O World Domination. Anyway, the patches were so irresistable that I had to buy them. I will scan them in later...
Seventh item: My jaw doesn't hurt anymore! Thank goodness. It was making me quite miserable, on top of all my other stresses. I guess now I'll have to be wary of the TMJ issues coming back again. I guess it's part of getting old - your list of recurrent medical issues just keeps getting longer and longer. Speaking of which, I'll be thirty in just under two weeks. Holy cow!
[
animals
sick and wrong
]
2002-07-10
Killer bees: A woman in Texas
died recently from the stings of Africanized honey bees. Yikes. They say she was stung more than 250 times.
One hive could not be measured because it extended well into the walls of the home, he said, but the other measured about 18 inches by 10 feet.
Holy cow.
[
animals
body
]
2002-07-10
Buster busted me up: Little Buster has been feeling under the weather lately. (He's a kitten, and lives in our bedroom with his sister Lucy and his brothers Bobby and McGee).
We're worried about him. In the past few days, he's been sleeping more and more, and seems rather listless and inactive. And a little extra warm.
We don't have the money to take him to the vet, so we've just been keeping an eye on him, wishing him well, and making sure he is getting to nurse from his mom, Apache. (Yes, all the kittens are still nursing a bit - they're 2.5 months old now, and in the process of being weaned slowly by their mom).
Today, David got out some liquid kitten vitamins, to see if that will help the little guy. I volunteered to hold him while David worked the syringe and pried open his unwilling mouth. This was my first mistake.
My second mistake was not using the scruff-of-the-neck approach when holding him. Big mistake.
I got slashed rather viciously by one of his claws, right on my right index finger. We're talking a wound about an inch long. He opened a wicked flap of skin which bled immediately.
That said, it's really not that bad. I washed it off and put a bandaid on, and it doesn't hurt. I'll survive. But I feel stupid. Argh.
[
animals
]
2002-07-08
Scorpiotiose: Recently, the property adjoining ours, or more precisely, the graveyard, has been dug up, thus disturbing our scorpionoid friends. They have sought out new territory, namely, our house.
This is, imho, not cool.
I found a scorpion on the futon in the living room the other day, and alerted David. Luckily, he swatted it and smooshed it and sent it to Scorpion Heaven or wherever they go.
Anyway, now he's out there spraying.
Heh, Texas.
Now me, I'm from Colorado...
[
animals
beauty
]
2002-06-23
If I were a gozillionaire: I would buy
this horse and learn to ride him, and treat him well all of his days.
Dang, I'd better hurry up and become a gozillionaire, so I can afford such things. Alas, someone else will probably buy him first. I hope they treat him well.
[
animals
family
]
2002-06-06
Very sad news: When I was in Colorado, something really unfortunate happened to one of my mother's horses. Well, that's putting it mildly.
Her 8-yr-old Arabian mare, Silhoette (yes, the 'u' is absent on purpose), who was in training down in Colorado Springs, had some kind of spontaneous internal brain injury, probably an aneurysm. She reacted strangely, breaking her halter and throwing herself to the ground. She walked as though she were punch-drunk, they said.
The vet came, they finally calmed her down, and then she seemed to be doing a bit better. Silhoette was put in a pasture with a gentle gelding to keep her company.
A little while after that, she collapsed and died.
:(
I'm so very sad about the whole situation - especially for my mother, who had lost another beloved horse to a totally unexpected accident some years ago. I tried to do what I could to comfort my mom, but I am not all that good at such things, I'm afraid.
I just did my best, reminding her of what a great mom she has always been to all of us, her children (both two-footed and four-footed). I told that I knew her sweet princess of a filly was very well-loved all her days, and that she had done the very best she could for her.
I know it will take a long time for the pain to lessen, for the happy memories to outweigh the pain of loss.
She was a very special horse, and we will miss her. She'll always be in our hearts.
[
animals
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2002-05-12
Kitties, kitties, kitties:
Junior at the bird feeder
Fresh kitty pix!
- One of the new kittens had its left eye stuck shut, so we named it Bobby and took it to the vet (at 17 days of age) to get it un-cyclopsed. Within a few minutes of diligent wiping with saline-wetted gauze and so forth, Bobby had both eyes open for the first time! We also learned that Bobby was male (I had guessed female. Doh!). Now, we have to put antibiotic ointment in his eye every morning & evening to make sure everything stays happy (and it sure is so far).
-
There's a hitch, though. Bobby has a twin, and since Bobby's eye looks so good now, it's hard to tell the difference between the little guys. We have to look for the slight residue from the ointment on Bobby's eye. So far I think we're ok, but we probably should put a string around his neck or something. David has suggested "McGee" for this one's name, and I like it. :)
-
There's another little boy in the litter - this one is what we call a "combo kitty" (part tabby, part white).
-
The one girl in the litter is a cute little calico. Since I hear that John Ashcroft thinks these types of cats are signs of Satan or something, hopefully this will keep him from showing up. Hah!
-
David snapped this portrait of Junior which I thought was quite nice.
[
animals
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2002-05-02
Silver has a serious boo-boo: Our cat Silver came in limping this morning, and when we looked at her left rear leg, we could see a cut. So we changed our plans and took her in to the vet.
They told us it was an abscess from a bite that had become infected, and the abscess had burst. Yikes! Anyhow, they needed to keep her for awhile so they could sedate her and explore the wound, cutting out the necrosed (dead) tissue and cleaning it out.
While David went to pick her up, I worked more on the yard. I picked up sticks (in the morning I had picked up rocks) to help make the yard more mowable.
She's back now, and seems kind of cranky. She won't purr, poor thing. We put her in Elena's room with her own litter box and food and water, and of course a big comfy blanky to curl up in. I hope she feels better soon.
Hopefully she'll be back to normal quickly.
[
animals
random thoughts
]
2002-04-30
Lots of outside work today: David and I did various things outside today. He wheedwacked the path from the deck to the spa, and I scooped another five gallons worth of doggie doo (I also did the same amount yesterday).
David looked for some motors in the barn, so that he can set up one of the remote cameras to pan left & right. He hasn't found the one he was looking for yet, though.
I scrubbed out some old bins and things, including a thing I call the shoe ladder, which is a wooden box with four shelves perfectly sized for our shoes.
Eventually, we want to organize all of our stuff into appropriate bins so that we won't lose track of anything, and we'll be able to find it when we need it. Part of this effort involves saving useful packaging, such as the square buckets that the kitty litter comes in.
I let Minnie into the greater house area today so she could do some exploring. It went quite well, actually. She seemed to enjoy herself quite a bit. I decided to set up another litter box so that the cats will have somewhere to go when we do this (since the cat flap to the outside will be closed (so Minnie doesn't get out and get pregnant)).
I procured a box, cut a small hole in it, and inserted a freshly-cleaned litter pan with new litter in it. We plopped Minnie in there so she'd know where it was and what it was. She wasn't too thrilled, but I hope the clue stuck.
I gave out some tuna to everyone today. They were quite pleased indeed. :)
I've also been doing a lot of laundry, tidying up, and making notes of future stuff to do. Oh yeah, and we ordered a new digital camera for me today. We decided that the mini pencam I got wasn't really worth it, so we'll take it back to Best Buy tomorrow.
That's about it. We're getting a lot accomplished, and it feels good. Lots and lots of projects on the horizon. I'm taking it a day at a time and enjoying the positive progress that I'm making.
[
animals
]
2002-04-29
Today, we instituted a new punishment: We now have what I call the Kitty Time-Out Box. Junior has been hassling Silver to no end, and we've decided to get more serious about trying to bang some manners into his little triangular head.
The other day, we were sitting watching Planet Of The Apes (new dvd we got) on the couch, and Silver was in my lap. Junior came up, and I thought he was going to sit calmly next to her in my lap. Stupid me - he instead came up, sniffed her, and then *bit* her on the neck. Right in my lap!!! So he was busted for sure.
Anyway, today, when Junior chased and haranged her, I put him in the Kitty Time-Out Box for five minutes. I hope the boredom of his imprisonment had some effect on him. I don't know.
Are any of you experts in successfully disciplining cats? I'd be happy for some pointers.
[
animals
design
my site
]
2002-04-24
New kittens! Yes, that's right, we've got four new freshly-minted
kittens!
One's calico, one's black (or tabbyish) and white, and two are white. No idea on the genders, we're trying to leave them and their mom alone.
Except for the infrared spy-cam we've got trained on her and her latest litter, that is.
Anyone want one?
[
animals
]
2002-03-28
Elbow problems for Apache: We took
Apache,
Smokey, and
Minnie to the vet today. They were not pleased, as you might imagine.
Apache's elbow, it turns out, is discombobulated or something, and the vet wasn't exactly sure how. This explains her limping on her right front paw (one of the reasons we decided to bring her in). It may have been dislocated, but we're not sure.
What we do know is that it's much bigger and lumpier than the elbow on the other side. She didn't show any sign of pain when the vet examined her, or when moving around the exam room though.
Apache's also pregnant, with a litter of at least three likely. She's probably going to give birth within the next few weeks. Anyone want a kitten? :)
Smokey was examined and found to be a healthy female! So now we have three girlie kitties in the master bedroom.
We also got some antibiotics for Minnie's persistent cold. I hope she gets better soon...
[
animals
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2002-03-12
$kitties++: We finally got
Smokey! He/she (we haven't done a gender check yet, as doing so would likely result in being clawed viciously) is the sibling of Mini-me. Speaking of which, Mini turned out to be female when we took her to the vet, so I'm thinking of calling her Minnie Mae from now on. What do you think?
Anyway, it took us many tries to get that darned Smokey. Probably upwards of ten tries, all told.
Finally we rigged up a big empty wire-mesh dog crate with a trap door, activated by a string attached via a slipknot. We strung the string all the way into the house, and hooked up another camera to watch the crate. The cat food was placed inside the cage, to draw kitties inside.
The first time I pulled the thing, I held onto the string too long and Smokey squeaked out. So we tried another way of tying the string so that particular issue would not apply.
On the next attempt, the gate came down on Smokey's head, and he/she got out yet again.
Days later (this has gone on for the better part of two weeks, the whole attempt at capture thing), we spied Tabitha and Smokey in the cage at the same time. I said "what the hell" and tried again, and we got 'em!
They freaked, but we managed to get Smokey into a small plastic animal crate, and left the door open for Tabitha to take off at her (?) leisure.
We let Smokey go in the bedroom, where Minnie has been staying for awhile. He/she immediately headed for the closet, and has stayed hidden whenever we're in there. Smokey's extremely skittish, and I doubt this will change. The key is to hang on to him/her until we can get shots and spaying/neutering done.
Later on, when we have more fundage, we'll work on getting the other kitties. We have several new ones, some of whom need names.
Here are some pix of various ones that we caught on the barn cam in the past couple of days:
Feel free to suggest names for the nameless ones in a comment (and let me know which one you're suggesting a name for!).
