A Good Substitute

About a month ago, an ermine moved in under the house. We'd seen him (or her) before, but then I think, when he discovered the abundant hunting ground under the house, he hung around. When we saw all the tracks, we started leaving a few crumbs of leftovers out by the steps where the plastic that skirts the house during the winter is open.

Yep, he scarfed them up, so we left more. Soon we had a bowl out there, not to fill, but to keep the scraps out of the snow. Soon, we discovered that he doesn't really like dry ramen noodles, but he'll make short work of bits of fish sticks, hot dogs, and bacon. The latest offering, a half biscuit with butter and a little tuna mixed with mayonnaise disappeared quickly.

He seems to go on short hunting trips, but of late he has always returned. I guess he's unwilling to pass up a free meal.

He's a cute little sucker. We've tentatively named him Trouble, but today I couldn't help but call him Sweety. You see, today was the first time he showed himself to me, and for about five minutes, we played peekaboo. He popped up a couple times to peek at me through the steps, and then half a dozen or more times from the gap near the bowl. Every time I moved, he darted back out of sight, but then popped back out to peek at me again.

We were on our way to get firewood, and I couldn't play any longer. I put a piece of meatloaf in his bowl and we took off. When we got back, the meatloaf was gone. I do hope to see him again soon. I think, if he's still hanging around this summer, I'll order some ferret food. Not to have that as a stable, but to give him a slightly better diet than people food, which, I'm sure he'll get plenty of as long as he's around.

I do hope he stays. If he does, the mouse population will take a header. Who knows, maybe he'll actually become friendly, or at least friendly enough to take food from my hand. And if I'm really lucky, we'll get a second generation here. I'm not sure if he's old enough, and I haven't more than the one, but it would be hard to tell with all the tracks he's left around.

But, I can't have a cat or a dog. Where my son lives now, they don't allow pets, and the day will come soon when I can't live out here anymore. There's really no point in trying to get one now. Someday, when I've relocated to wherever (Eagle River, AK, or more likely Kingman, AZ), I'll get a cat then. Who knows - Only the future will tell.

I Need a Cat or Two

My first experiment with a picture. Let me know how it works out for you. Yes, this is what the snow has left for us on the sunny side of my house. You can see in the upper right hand corner the ladder, right above that is my satellite dish.

These are mouse tunnels all carefully insulated from the snow by the grass they packed against the top of their tunnels. There are a few places where the tunnel goes down into the ground. I never see these little buggers, but there must be quite a few of them. What do you think? Do I need a cat or two?

I haven't had cats here for four years now, and though our dog catches a mouse or a shrew now and then, she obviously isn't keeping up with the population explosion. I love cats, but over the years I have increasingly grown more and more allergic to them. However, I have been thinking. There are other things I had been growing increasingly allergic to, apples being one of them, but since I started to lose weight last summer, eating apples was one of the pleasures I was able to re-indulge in. I know one allergy is not connected to another, but dare I hope?

Every day on Facebook I see the most adorable pictures of kittens and cats all doing what kittens and cats do. It makes me miss them all the more. I think, therefore, I am in the market for giving it a try. Allergy or not, I want another kitten around here. This place is just too quiet.

My only concern is, old dogs scarcely tolerated my other cats. They were mine, therefore they weren't to be chased, but that didn't mean she didn't REALLY want to. Same with the chickens I had back then.  Since I have decided I won't be spending great chunks of time away from here in the winter, having assorted animals around has been something I have been longing for. Maybe not so many as before, and maybe not chickens. I'll have to think about that one. It got to the point where an egg averaged about $2 when cost of feed was figured in to how many eggs I ended up with. Then there's the damage they were always doing to the yard.

I can do a cat or two. Maybe if my kids will read this, they will bring me one or two this summer. Do my kids read this? If I get a kitten this summer, the answer will be yes. haha We'll see.

The Frightening Evolution of Birds

As a cat sees it.

A girlfriend gave me a kitten some years ago when we lived in a little 10' by 12' cabin. It had two windows and a door, a tiny shelf for a kitchen and some shelves. The rest of the space, what we didn't need for turning around in, was filled with the wood stove. During the course of the winter, little tweety birds fluttered around outside our front window. It was cold, so I took to sprinkling a bit of corn flower on the outside windowsill. It served to bring the tiny birds a lot closer, and our kitten would sit on the table, which was under that window, and avidly watch those little birds, chattering away with excitement.

As spring wore on, the birds got a little bigger, and as it got warmer, the kitten, named Ishtar, got to play outside a little. She discovered camp-robbers, little gray birds maybe two or three times the size of the little tweety birds, which had moved on.

Some time later, we were visited by a flock of magpies, in fact, one of them drew little Ishtar way up into a tree, but she made it down.

In the continued evolution of things that go fluttering in Ishtar's world, a raven stopped by for a visit. Since he was still around a second day, I tied a chicken neck to a tree branch so it hung about two feet from the ground. Too far up for the bird to reach while standing. He was really rather funny to watch as he tried to get it. Ishtar wasn't brave enough to go after this one so she stayed on the table and chattered at it through the window.

A few days later, the god who makes all things grow bigger simply got way out of hand. Ishtar was sitting at the window, anxiously awaiting any fluttering creature the great outside had to offer, when suddenly an otter (bush plane) flew low over the house in preparation for landing somewhere behind us. That was just too much. I swear you never saw a cat move faster. She was off the table and across the floor, under the kitchen shelf as far behind whatever was there as she could get.

With a little encouragement, she came out of there, but things that go flutter outside the window weren't so interesting anymore.