Friends new and old

Cats really know how to get your day started.

Mopping up vomit and having a dead mouse cast at your feet first thing is such a joy.

Little Man was the mouser but not the vomiter. He has taken over the job of Chief Mouser which was previously one of Dee Dee’s titles. She seems happy to accept the minor role of Assistant Mouser in her middle age. After all, the boy should earn his keep.

Grant sorted out one of the spare rooms recently and unearthed a whole box of cat toys accumulated over many years. Sentimentally, I had saved them as reminders of friends gone to adoption or the great beyond and Grant decided it was time the toys were offered to current companions:

You’ll need to turn up the volume. It was early morning, so the light was a bit dim:

A little tidying up on my own part reactivated the Quick Time player.

Too much computer clutter, I suspect.

With persistence, I realised that the other problem I’ve been having lately on WP, has to do with photographs. Sometimes I change my mind about the one I’ve attached and previously, I could simply click “Replace”, delete the one I was dismissing and add the substitute, but if I do this now WP sends my whole post into the ether which can be vexing if I’ve done any amount of work on it.

Once, I rewrote most of the post only to see the previous one suddenly reappear. Which did I want? Hard to tell, when what you are offered is in computer script. At such times, Grant hears me saying rude things!

So now I don’t bother with Replace. I just cancel the block and the unwanted photo and start over. And I constantly click “Save draft”.

Now, since I’ve got Quick Time sorted, here’s another video.

See how quickly Tom turkey loses interest in the girls when he comes upon a pile of corn:

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Nature has provided some nice images these last few days…

Warming temperatures produced mist on Tuesday morning.

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Making it easy for a dove to blend in. They are the most common target for hawks.

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Birds are smart and very observant. They know that soon after dawn an old woman emerges from the house bearing seed and nut top-ups.

As soon as I go out, crows call to each other in a way that only happens at that time.

“Chow’s up! Come and get it!”

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Now that dawn comes early, I am back to doing my rounds before breakfast.

Otherwise the birds stare in at me accusingly!

“How can you eat and do puzzles while we starve?”

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Despite the overcast, there was shape to the clouds, as if some great force was pressing down on them from above.

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90 minutes later, we went to the village where trees are sprouting.

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It had turned into such a pretty morning, we went to check on the ospreys…

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…and found one perching by its nest.

We could just see the top of a head in the nest and when we checked on a couple of other nests nearby, they too were occupied. We seem to be seeing a lot of these birds this year, the way last year we saw many foxes.

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Beside the osprey nest, Dead Lake was looking very serene.

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In a tree beside the lake we saw what we thought was a wasp nest but on closer inspection it turned out to be a weaver’s nest. AI suggests it could be the work of an oriole, a bird we have seen here only once.

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Six years ago we were excited to see this lovely bird and rushed out to purchase oranges for it, however the pretty creature promptly departed and it was Mrs Plod the deaf/blind possum that benefited from those offerings.

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She was literally skin and bones when we first caught sight of her, but having come upon the oranges, she kept returning and we placed cat kibble where she could find it. She also liked the peanuts we put out for squirrels and soon she was much healthier.

We enjoyed Mrs Plod’s visits all through the Summer, then at the end of October she came no more. We had been very tempted to catch her and bring her indoors which would have kept her going longer, but would it have been fair?

The outdoors was all Mrs Plod knew. Inside, she would have been surrounded by strange smells and surfaces. Animals are very smart and perhaps she could have sensed we were not a threat, but back then we had 13 cats to add to the equation.

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It is really hard, but sometimes it is best to let Nature take it’s course.

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