The barn boys

My, oh my.... well, now that I've totally ostracized all of my Republican readers.... (Last post was dedicated to Kevin and Marvin. Yeah, I have to claim you too.) :)

hold... Eagle in tree outside. Where's camera?....

Wow. That was great. Two fully mature Bald Eagles sitting in tree on opposite bank for the last 10 minutes or so.... I hope I got a picture of them that I can use. While I was trying to get the right setting on the camera, I realized they had scared up one of the really large hawks out of another tree right next to them ~ it took off flying above the water downstream. All I could do was watch it fly off and observe the white undercarriage again and try to determine if it was another eagle or not ~ it was that large! ...but, not with that undercarriage... so...???? No pic's of it. Too busy looking. I'm also going to experiment and try to embed an image in the blog and see if it works. Here goes! Can you spot both the eagles in this photo?


Well, that wasn't really supposed to be the topic of this evenings post, but it flows the way a nature hike would. My posts tend to stumble along whatever shows up in my train of thoughts just as we would whatever happened across the trail the night before. Just watch where you step.

It's turned cold again. Supposed to be below zero again tonight. The barn boys are enjoying an overnighter in the luxurious spare bathroom. They are sooooo happy! We will be too as long as they don't spray while they are inside. They've always aspired to be inside cats. If you don't like cats, here's a picture of our barn boys, miserable while belly deep in the snow begging to come inside. They get all pitiful with snow packed between their toes and stuck on their belly and neck. Now don't get us wrong, they actually have it pretty good outside in the 'barn'.... see below: As you can see, they have their own skylights, each has their own heatlamp, a heated water dish, and food bowl.... These aren't the deprived feral cats they used to be. Since we seem to be such a magnet for drop-off's....(We found the more comfortable we make them, the fewer wildlife/bird mortalities we would find around the house.) So far, we've only found one Downy eaten by Sammy - the tiger stripe - since we've moved in. He's the most feral cat we have ~ it took about 5 months of feeding him for him to let me touch him when we started seeing him come around a couple years ago..... But, he was killing everything in sight while we were living on the Refuge! We thought he was a neighbors... or a drop-off; then he just never went home - wherever 'home' was.... If he was a neighbors' feral barn cat, they'd probably notice if C. dispatched him or carted him off to the SPCA....Gosh knows, we couldn't upset the neighbors there. So, we got him tamed enough to throw in the carrier and taken for shots and neutering. (As all the others -at our expense.) I thought Doc Vollmar was going to tell me to find another vet..... evidently, Sammy aka 'Heat Lamp' aka 'Mr. Pisspot' came out of anesthia too soon for Vollmar to get him back in the carrier to get him home. It took him about 30 minutes and a good pair of welding gloves (and a very disheveled assistant) to get him back in the carrier. Vollmar came back in, looking a bit worse for wear and stated that our cat had learned how to fly...that's why it'd taken him so long.

I just don't understand how people can abandon animals or mistreat them. At least take them up to the SPCA or a place where they can be adopted out. I don't know exactly how many, but I remember having at least five different feral cats come up at various times sporadically while we were at the Refuge house. Sammy, Bear and Wanaghi are the only barn cats civilized enough to miss us if we left them behind....so, we could only dream of it.... one day, far in the future. No, I guess I'd miss them, probably. Yes, I would. I'd hate to think of a coyote getting one of them, but I'd love to picture them spoiled rotten on some Granma's couch, eating out of tin cat food can's every day... Any takers?

So, those are my barn boys. I really didn't mean to make a post about my cats ~ ick! I think I'll cut it off here, and start a new post with what I wanted to write about tonight.... the River. That way, if you don't like cats, you'll never have to read this one again! (Now, everyone repeat after me..... "She's not a crazy cat lady..... She's not a crazy cat lady.....")