This is just a warning for everyone who puts out bird feeders during the spring, summer and fall: don’t kill the birds. By not cleaning out the feeders once a month, you could allow salmonella to breed in the seed and poison all of the birds (especially Nyjer seeds, which have a high oil content). If that doesn’t phase you, then if your dog or cat gnaws at the diseased bird… they could get it too. And in turn, they could give it to you. So if you see a dead bird in your yard; get off yo...

My husband never had dogs as pets when he was younger.  I always had dogs.  We now have 4 dogs.  Three are older mini-Dachshunds, and the other is a young Welsh Corgi.  For this story, we will be focusing on Holly, who is the young (about 1 1/2 years old) Welsh Corgi, Duke a 10 year old Dachshund, and Roscoe a 9 year old Dachshund.  Quincey is the other one, but he really just cares about his food bowl and the couch, so he's not in this story. So, there have been thes...

Usually when you get a pet or have a pet they last longer than about 6 months, but when you raise animals to sell they go away quicker than you expect. I knew it was coming, their days were getting near, when it would be the time to sell them. Most people tell you not to grow close to them but it is kind of hard when it is a routine thing to do everyday. Get off the bus, walk up to the barn, they see you, they come running, you feed them, talk to them for awhile, and then you leave. But th...

The Killer Cat still lingers...   The cat attacking a soldier who is apparently also afflicted with a bizarre identity obscuring fungal growth...

We live about 50ft away from a small creek at the end of our backyard.  It's provided us with a variety of wildlife, from herons to squirrels to snakes.... ....but this evening D came running in from his evening smoke telling me to look outside and get his Maglite. This is what I saw when I looked out of the backdoor: A red fox! (obviously it wasn't that exact fox, but one a lot like it.) I haven't seen one of those in years, and I do mean years....not since we left Englan...

I once heard that the average fish has a memory only about 5-7 seconds long. This means that, every 5-7 seconds, the fish forgets the old stuff and develops a new set of memories. I have to wonder about this, because we have a Betta which we keep in the kitchen, Herman. Now, I try to feed Herman at the same time every day; when I come over to his bowl, he sees me coming and swims to the surface to eat, as if he knows it's lunchtime. Often, if I was busy or gone and missed a day, I'll wait...

West Hollywood has done it again. One of the first communities in the US to designate people as "pet guardians" rather than "pet owners", they are now proposing outlawing of such things as tail bobbing, ear cropping, or other surgeries done for "noncurative" reasons. They alreayd have outlawed the declawing of cats, and continue on this ridiculous trend. What is most ironic, is that these folks are at the head of the "spay and neuter" crowd. So lemme get this straight: whacking off a dog's...

Mieux encore que les cigognes, les chiens. Ils le font un peu à notre manière, nous les humains, avec toutes les variantes désirées. Les préliminaires dont nous a parlées l’autre jour, sur Al Jazeera, le grand , l’inénarrable Al Quardawi : de la hallalité du cunnilingus, de la fellation et de toutes les autres méthodes génito-buccales que les deux heures de la mission ne purent contenir, au grand damne des inconditionnels du grand cheikh … Depuis mon comptoir donc, le spectacle de l’amour...

Un coq et un bouc. Le premier se prend pour le muezzin de la basse-cour, le deuxième pour le barbu de la bergerie … les deux camps se livrent une querelle de chapelles. Chacun des deux clans veut prouver à l’autre qu’en matière de dogmatisme on est mieux indiqué. Alors on dépêche sur l’agora ces deux-là pour un tête-à-tête hautement discursif et c’est à l’auditoire de juger qui est plus puritain que l’autre. Le bouc au coq : de ma vie de wahhabite, je n’ai vu un muezzin appeler à la pri...

Like many little girls, I loved horses. I read horse books, watched horse movies and dreamed wild horse dreams. My favorites were the Black Stallion and Black Beauty, tales of kindness and courage, of heartbreak, defeat and triumph. I’ll never forget when my neighbor, Renee Croog, got big Red. Red was a big gentle quarter horse gelding that turned the head of every girl in the neighborhood. I begged my mom to let me take riding lessons from Renee. My mom, being of a different innate fab...

As you all can see I am interested in making the world a better place to Live

Away Message: Shoveling Snow        She's out shoveling snow, and I want to help her, but I can't, and I know I can't, but I want to all the same. I want to get in the car (which I don't own) and drive (which I can't legally do) up to her place and shovel with her. I shoveled/snowblowed our driveway and I didn't want to do that at all, was all grumbly while doing it. But I want to shovel for her. *sigh*        ...

I finally found something my dachshund won't eat! Salt and vinegar flavor Pringles!  He pestered me for some earlier (and by that I mean he sat up and begged until i gave in ), so I gave him a couple.   He took them in his little mouth and trotted off to the corner where his food bowl is (he prefers to take all his treats over there for some reason).  He dropped them, sniffed them, sneezed 4 times in a row.....took a quick lick and then walked away.  I'm sitting here ...

       So I'm sitting at my computers minding my own business, reading joeuser while playing starwars galaxies. Nothing all that different there, right? So I just happen to look down and there is a spider crawling across my desk right in front of the keyboard. Blunt object is grabbed, spider is squashed, end of problem. But it was a rather freaky experience all the same. hehe, and now I keep feeling phantom spiders crawling on me, silly nerves.

Well, my poor husband, was forced by circumstances beyond his control to brave the local shops this morning. Not the ones in our quiet little village, there he would just have had to wait in line a bit and endure about a dozen folks making cheerful conversation. No, he needed to go to the bank, and that meant a trip into a nearby town. Which I gather was a complete zoo, with everyone trying to get all their shopping down before about 3 in the afternoon. Somehow, he managed to get all his ...