Animals In Our Lives

[CellarDweller]

aw...very cool del!

[Kelda]

pictures please Dev!

[Front-Ranger]

Great stories, dell and Chrissi. I love your new cat, even though he is devious! He looks just like my little Diva! I love tabby cats...they're the best!

[delalluvia]

I stood there watching those birds, wishing I had a camera.   But I don't. 

[Fran]

Now that I live in a house, I keep the bird baths full, so as to keep our local birds from dying of thirst during the long hot summers.

Thanks for looking out for the birds, del. 

[Front-Ranger]

Thanks for looking out for the birds, del. 

I second that!

[delalluvia]

I filled up the birdbath to overflowing the night before and the next morning most of the water was gone and I was like - WTF?  It's not THAT hot.

Last night I happened to look out my back window and found one of the stray cats had leaped onto it and was drinking out of the birdbath as well.  He probably knocks the water out some when he jumps on and off it - it's not real stable.

Being a steward of the animals who share the outdoors with you is rewarding, but worrisome.  When I lived in my apartment, during the winters, to keep my cats from being bored, I used to throw birdseed thickly onto the floor of my balcony.  The birds and squirrels would show up and feast having to suck up the courage to visit knowing my cats would lunge at them from behind the glass doors.  The birds and squirrels got fat off my feedings one winter and when the food ran low and I needed to fill it, one morning I came out and found in the branches of a tree near my balcony a whole little flock of birds waiting.  They were waiting for me to load up the food again.  

So you feel bad if you don't live up to their expectations.

I'll probably put up a birdfeeder this winter.  Yeah, I'm a sucker.  

[Jeff Wrangler]

Now that I live in a house, I keep the bird baths full, so as to keep our local birds from dying of thirst during the long hot summers.

All summer long, or at least when I visited, my dad's backyard was full of birds. Robins built a nest and raised some babies in one of the dogwoods, wrens raised a couple of broods in the birdhouse, and the feeder and the bird bath constantly attracted cardinals, goldfinches, house finches, chickadees, and, of course, the ubiquitous sparrows.

When I viisted over Labor Day Weekend, it was as if they all had vanished. Not just from my dad's backyard, but from his entire neighborhood! Not a bird to be seen! Not even a starling!    WTF? 

Perhaps they had all gone to the country. The local newspaper that weekend had a big story about the harvest coing in a couple of weeks early because of the dry weather, so maybe the pickin's had become better out in the county instead of in my dad's backyard. Who knows? Last week Dad told me the cardinals have returned. 

[Fran]

Please keep my Ember in your thoughts tomorrow.  She's going to the animal hospital to be spayed and have her deformed dew claw removed.  (It was removed when she was a couple of days old but it grew back.)  And since she won't feel it, she's also going to be microchipped.

[delalluvia]

Please keep my Ember in your thoughts tomorrow.  She's going to the animal hospital to be spayed and have her deformed dew claw removed.  (It was removed when she was a couple of days old but it grew back.)  And since she won't feel it, she's also going to be microchipped.

How is she?