Friday night, I got the most excellent news: Elle and Skittles were finally adopted!
Saturday morning I left the house around 11, and got to the store right after the woman who’d adopted Elle and Skittles left. I chatted with the adoption counselor for a few minutes while she cleaned the cage they’d been in, and then it was time for Punki and Felicia to go into the cage.
“Look,” I whispered into Punki’s ear. She flicked her ear and meowed her husky little meow. “You know I want to keep you, but I don’t want no 10 cats in the house. Try your very best to get adopted today so I won’t have my heart broken tomorrow morning, would you?” She meowed again. I kissed her on top of her head and handed her off to the adoption counselor. I petted Felicia, talked to the adoption counselor a few more minutes, and then left.
Two hours later, the shelter manager told me via email that Punki had been adopted.
That’s three of the four, adopted in a 24-hour time period! I couldn’t be happier, but I’ve gotta say, I really am missing Punki a whole lot. She’s such a sweet thing, and before I went to the pet store to take the two cats Saturday morning, Fred and I decided that if she hadn’t been adopted within two weeks, we’d talk seriously about keeping her.
I hope she’s happy in her new home!
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I was going outside to do something yesterday (I don’t remember what), and as I looked out the side door, I saw a grackle land on the feeder nearest the door, and then he pecked several times at a goldfinch sitting there.
“Hey!” I said, opening the door. “Cut that out!” The grackle flew off, but the goldfinch stayed where he was, flapping his wings. I knew immediately that he’d gotten stuck in the feeder. It had been a while since I’d cleaned out the feeder, and after a few months the food builds up in the feeders, especially when it’s been rainy, and the finch had stuck his head through one of the holes on the feeder, and gotten his little head stuck against a pile of bird food.
I’m explaining the whole thing poorly, but all you need to understand is that his little head was stuck and he couldn’t pull it out of the feeder.
Fred was in the garden shed, so I carried the whole feeder over there to ask what we should do. I thought if I had a screwdriver, I could kind of scrape the food away from his head and he could free himself. Fred wanted to try taking the feeder apart first, though, so we walked over to his workshed.
(On a side note, there are entirely too many sheds on our property now. The garden shed, the wood shed, the workshop (shed), the pig shed. And I suspect we are not done with the shedding of the property.)
He came out with some tool and tried taking the bottom off, but was unsuccessful because the feeder was, I was informed, “Some piece of crap from China.”
Every now and then the finch would flap his wings and squawk indignantly.
“Just go get me something to scrape the food away,” I finally said. He came out with something that looked like the tool the dental hygienist delights in torturing me with, you know the pointy thing that they scrape the gunk off your teeth around the gumlines with?
Gently, carefully, I started digging the food away from the finch, and he squawked in fear and flapped his wings and tried his best to pull his head out. Finally, I scraped under his head, and he was able to pop his head out and he flew away, squawking angrily in our direction.
That’s gratitude for you.
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I looked out the window this morning to find McLovin in a place I hadn’t seen him before.
(Look on the roof over the truck)
He stayed out there for about 10 minutes. He’d crow, then I’d hear the rooster down the road crow, then McLovin would crow again. I think the gist of the conversation was the McLovin is THE MAN, because he flew down from the rooftop and proceeded to mate with every hen he could get his greasy little talons on.
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Joe Bob is an outdoorsy kind of cat. He loves to sit outside all day long and watch the birds…
even when it’s not particularly comfortable.
All afternoon long. He’s a bird-watching fool.
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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.