Low Interest
Posted: Tue 28 April, 2009 Filed under: Animals, D4D™, Domestic, Writing Leave a comment »I know, a couple of quiet days here at D4D™ – for some reason my writing mojo has disappeared recently.
It’s annoying, because I’ve actually got a few things on my mind that could do with being splurged out onto paper (Hello, Google) or screen, just to get them out of my head. But the writing bug just isn’t there, so it’s all still just sat up there, taking up space and not doing much.
In other news, Hound was at the vets this morning – and most unimpressed about it – for some tests, including blood tests and shit tests. (Which has also meant Herself collecting bits of Hound shit in little plastic bottles over the weekend – we needed three days worth!) We’ll find out the results in about a week, but it’s another thing that’s been on the mind, for obvious reasons.
Ah well, I’m sure normal service will be resumed shortly.
Black and White
Posted: Thu 2 April, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Animals, Domestic 2 Comments »Last week I wrote about having new visitors to the house – including the two cats from up the road, who keep on coming in through the new cat flap. We’ve christened them both Bob (Ninja Bob and Scaredy Bob, to be exact – an explanation of these will follow at some point)
What we couldn’t work out at the time is how they get in to the house without Hound making a fuss. On a couple of occasions, we were sure they’d walked right past her. (and in one case, jumped over her, although that was on the way out of the house rather than coming in) She’s usually quite wary round Psycho Cat, but can be guaranteed to make a racket when new people come to the house – or when people slam car doors anywhere in the vicinity, including up to three doors down. So why wasn’t there any noise or fuss when the Bobs came in?
This morning, we found out why.
Hound just stands next to the Bobs, looks at them, and wags her tail. And I mean really wags, not just a little flicker- she’s happy to see them.
I’m sure it’s because they’re black and white, so the idiot twatting Hound just thinks they’re collies, like her – only smaller.
The Chicken Run
Posted: Wed 1 April, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, Thoughts 2 Comments »It’s coming up for a year now since we enlarged the chicken run (well, we did it at the end of July, so it’s about 8 or 9 months) and I’m debating what to do with the thing.
The problem is, of course, that the three chickens have pretty much pecked the place to death, so there’s not much except dirt and nettles in there at the moment. There’s a couple of bits in there for the amusement of the chickens (hay bales etc.) but I’m still thinking about what we should do with the ground in there.
I suppose there’s three options really…
- Leave it as it is
- Put new turf in the entire area of the run
- Cover the run in bark-chip or similar (wood mulch, whatever)
With the exception of “leave it like it is”, both the other options would also involve setting up a smaller temporary run (possibly on the veg patch, let ’em peck away at the weeds and mare’s tail) for a couple of weeks, while we got the work done.
I know that Blue Witch recently re-turfed her chicken run but I haven’t yet decided between turf and bark-chip/wood mulch. I suspect that over time, the wood mulch would give them something they could keep on pecking into etc., but it’d still have to be replaced/cleared up every so often, due to the quantity of crap that chickens produce.
It’s something that’ll be decided sometime in April, I’m sure.
New Visitors
Posted: Wed 25 March, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »This week, we appear to have some new regular visitors to the house/garden…
- A pair of mallard ducks, who seem to like the front garden. The drake appears to have one leg shorter than the other (he limps) so he’s already been christened “Stumpy“
- A pair of pheasants, who also seem to like the front garden
- The two black-and-white cats from down the road seem to be becoming more friendly with Psycho Cat, and they’ve been found inside the house a few times. (The ‘benefit’ of a cat-flap) These two have been named “Ninja Bob” and “Scaredy Bob”, for reasons I can’t be arsed to go into right now.
- A new black-and-white from somewhere else has also been seen today. He’s been christened “Not Bob” (or, in my techie notation “!Bob”)
I don’t know how these new visitors will all shape up. I suspect that Stumpy and his mate are looking for somewhere to nest, as are the pheasants. They’ve all certainly found the supply of bird food etc. on the front grass (Calling it a “lawn” would be too fancy) which is probably a factor. Of course, how that’ll factor in with the influx of moggies at the moment, gawd only knows…
Planned Attacks
Posted: Tue 10 March, 2009 Filed under: Animals, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m utterly unsurprised by the story today on the BBC about a chimp in a German zoo that has been found to plan it’s stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors.
One of my memories from [many moons ago] was visiting Twycross Zoo in Warwickshire with my parents when I was about ten (if that). I’ve always been a fan of apes in general, so we went to see the Gorilla House, and in there one of the silverback males took an instant dislike to me. I’ve no idea why – it might’ve been my glasses giving an extra reflection, it could have been anything – but that dislike was instant, and he charged across the enclosure straight at me, bouncing off the glass with a massive thump.
Needless to say, that charge scared me shitless – you don’t think about safety glass when it happens, believe me – so we left, but went back later in the day. And that same gorilla came straight for me again – as soon as he saw me, bang, charge.
Probably three or four years later, we went back there with my younger brother, and for the hell of it I went back to the Gorilla House. And even after that time, the self-same gorilla saw me, hated me, and charged at the glass.
Obviously that wasn’t a planned behaviour, or planned aggression and attacks in the same way as the chimp at Furuvik, but the sheer memory span, being able to pick out one face among the thousands that must’ve passed through in the meantime, that was always awesome to me.
Cat Shaving
Posted: Tue 3 March, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Today’s the day of the annual cat-shaving farce.
As per last year’s comedy, I suspect he’s going to come back looking like a poodle – and well-deserved it is too.
The entire thing is caused by his long hair. Once spring comes, the winter fur starts to come out to be replaced with the shorter summer fur – but it all gets badly tangled up into existing fur, and he ends up simply disgusting, with clumps and matted fur, almost like dreadlocks.
So off he goes to the vets for the day, to go under General Anaesthetic (the only way to safely do this job without getting bitten/scratched/assaulted) get shaved/trimmed, and then we’ll get back a significantly trimmed-down cat this evening. He’ll be in an utterly foul mood – more so than usual – and starving hungry due to not having had any food since midnight. He’s already been foul today – when he wants food and it’s not down, he just yells, and yells, and yells. That’s been from 5.30 this morning.
He knows something’s happening, but doesn’t quite know what. Well, he will now, as Herself will have delivered him to the vets for 9am.
Depending on the level of trim he receives, there will likely be photos tomorrow…
Cat Flap – Reactions
Posted: Tue 24 February, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Getting Organised, House Work Leave a comment »Reactions to the newly installed cat flap have been varied – and in some ways, quite funny.
Psycho Cat still has significant issues with it, for reasons known only to himself – he doesn’t like going out through it, but is fine with coming back in through it. Go figure.
Personally, I suspect that he just likes it now that he has people who’ll let the little git out, and he doesn’t want to let go of that.
At the same time, Hound thinks the cat flap is great. It’s magic (in her opinion) when the cat walks through the door – but because it’s also a transparent flap we’ve found that she will sit outside and look through it so she knows what’s going on inside at the same time.
Finally, the neighbourhood cats think it’s great – they’ve got a new place to visit, and they do so. Yesterday we had a visitation from one of them (who we call Bill – there’s two cats, Bob and Bill – no good reason, just seems to work) and he slept the entire day on our bed. Psycho Cat wasn’t amused by this, and Hound did absolutely sod all – she’s a shit guard dog.
With luck, Psycho Cat will soon decide to go out the bloody flap as well as come in through it – and then we’ll be happy.