Raise a paw if you love going to the doctor. Or a hand, if you're human.

Mine are firmly on the ground.

However, my teeth are falling out. I'm only 11. This is not exactly normal. 

I liked our vet in Colorado (if vets can be liked. He was pretty nice, but no fish snacks.). He was friendly, talkative, and always answered all of mommee's questions. He also believed in a minimalist approach to health care, so he wasn't going to force me to have shots I didn't need, or stuff like that. Good thing, I don't care much for needles.

Trying to find a vet that's compatible with our personalities and lifestyle in a brand new location is always a crap shoot.

Well, we came up 7's. (That's good, right?)

Once I was stuffed into the cat carrier and complained for a few minutes ("did you really have to push on my head like that???"), I was okay. The trip to the vet wasn't nearly as long as getting to our new house, and it was cool in the car. And I got to be on the front seat.

There was a wait at...

Mommee, Daddee and the dogs went for a hike. It was a slow hike, because there are some elders in that bunch (actually, the youngest are Amy and Bernadette, and they're 9 in dog years, which is mid-50's in people years. Nobody is what I'd call straight out of the egg.)

Anyhoo, they went to the ocean again. What is this thing about water? But this time, they hiked along a trail that was on the side opposite the road that goes along the ocean. No dogs allowed on the beach, ha ha ha!

They had to look out for rattlesnakes (!!). We had them in Colorado, too, but I never saw one. (They didn't see any on the hike, either.)

What they did see, though, were bike tracks and people on bicycles. This trail was hard enough to walk up. People on bikes? They were young, though. The people, not the bikes. Probably 20's in people years.

Annnnd, they saw tracks! Not everyone who was on that trail was human or canine. The wild ones are clever - why make a new trail when there's one handy? Can you see ...

Mommee and Daddee worked hard and got our catio installed.

Lookee here:

Daddeee

I'm not a very brave cat, but my brother Jackson and sister Ellie are. They're what I would call 
street cats. They would probably say they're more experienced than me in the big bad world, because they both came from places where they were semi-feral, and there were lots of cats. Jackson definitely came from a hoarding situation, and as such doesn't have great bathroom skills. But I digress, and that's for another blog.

Mommee kind of forced me through the cat door to the catio. I immediately turned around and cried to be let in. There's a window right next to the door, and I couldn't tell where the door was. It was also a long jump up from the landing pad in the catio, and that didn't work well. 

You could say I was an excellent cat to try out the configuration and see if it worked well. (Hint: It didn't.)

So some things got changed. A box is now on part of the landing pad so it's easy to go out an...

We got votes!

Cute Ree won out over Pixar Ree hands down. Not that Pixar Ree isn't cute, but he looks more cartoonish - and will be featured in other things.

But for the picture that accompanies the Blog, it's Ree the Cute. It's him, to a T. 

I'm not a big proponent of AI, being a Luddite and all (happy to tell you any time about how I went kicking and screaming into the world of Windows - and I was in PC tech support, so you can imagine how that went over). And if you're not sure what a Luddite is, look it up. Or use this handy link: WHAT IS A LUDDITE?

Now, some Luddite's shun all technology. I'm one of those people who are resistant to change. My best friend is what's called an early adopter. Not me, man. I want to make sure I still have two arms and two legs (as opposed to fifteen of each) before I'll upgrade my technology. So I have a smart phone, and I have pretty much Apple everything, after spending years supporting all the other technologies out there. I don't want to think...

A friend of mine has been playing around with AI and making avatars, and she made one for Ree (who used to be Ry, but people kept calling him a bread. Since we'll continue to spell his name correctly around home and at the vet, in public print his name shall be spelled REE.).

So I want to use one of these avatars as the new face of this blog. I need your help. Which one of these two pictures do you like better?

PICTURE A - IGNORE the background and look at the cat only.

PICTURE B - IGNORE the background, and look at the cat only.

Which on pulls at your heartstrings more? Which one would you like to see on the Blog email?

I have to admit, AI and I are not friends, but when it comes to this sort of thing, well, Ree has come to life in a way I never imagined.

So what do you think?

Picture A? Picture B?

We're not talking about silence (as in "I asked her a question and got...crickets.").

We're talking about actual crickets.

Did you know some crickets change their "crick" based on the temperature? Neither did I. A physicist called Amos E Dolbear did some research on his neighborhood crickets, and noticed that when the temperature went up, so did their chirps.

Sans down jacket. Photo by Skyler Ewing via Pexels

I wonder if the crickets were lamenting "it's hot, it's hot, it'shot, it'shot, itshotitshotitshotitshot." And when the temperature goes down, before they don their down jackets, they're saying "brrr, brrrr, brrrrr, brrrrrrr, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

Actually crickets are cold-blooded, so it's harder for them to move around when the weather is cooler, despite the down jackets.

Here's a cool article about crickets and their sounds: 

Cricket Story (thanks to Interestingfacts.com)

 Do you have crickets in your neighborhood? Give them a listen. Are they going fast or slow? How does...

Here are some traits of a resourceful squirrel:

• Agility: Our quick movements and knack for navigating tricky places remind us to stay agile and ready to react.

• Adaptable: We do well in different settings, showing how important it is to adjust to new situations.

• Resilience: We keep going strong even when faced with predators and tough weather, highlighting our ability to bounce back from challenges.

 

This shows how we’re clever and can change when needed, making the most of what we have. As opportunistic foragers, we grab whatever food we can find. Being adaptable is super important for managing resources because it lets us do well in different places. For instance, squirrels in the city have learned to use things like bird feeders and garbage bins for food. Ever see one of us munching on lettuce from a trash bin?

This shows how important it is to be flexible and creative when we’re looking for food. In our lives, be...

That's Furs as in animal friends, not coats or shawls. 

Glenn and I are traveling. The horses are covered always, since we have a barn manager and haven't actually had to go out ourselves and slog feed or manure for some months. But the dogs! The cats!

A good friend is coming to stay with them. She's an animal lover par excellence. 

The cats will be very unhappy, because when we're gone they're not allowed out the front door. Doesn't mean they won't try, though, and we'll have to make sure we emphasize how slippery and speedy Jackson can be. He's got that beaming-himself-out-the-door routine down. They can still go out onto the back deck - but it's not the same. No trees. No bushes to hide under. No mom or dad hovering near the door trying to coax them back in.

Jackson the potted cat.

The dogs probably won't be thrilled, either. Since Glenn has retired, the dogs have gotten used to daily trips in the truck. Doesn't matter where it goes, so long as it goes. They usually get to go...

It takes birds more than a day to migrate from one place to another. Besides having a great sense of direction, they need to rest. Some birds land. We’ve all had encounters with flocks of geese, honk honk honk, looking for a good place to spend the night (often some farmer’s recently seeded field). But there are birds who go non-stop - And you thought New York to Sydney was a long flight.

Several species have been identified as sleep-flyers; Frigatebirds, Albatrosses (get your neck out of the way!), the common Swift - which doesn’t seem so common if they can fly while asleep.

An Albatross. Photo by Pixabay

They have a clever brain that uses something called Unihemispheric sleep. One side of their brain sleeps while the other side controls flight and navigation. I can barely find my way to the grocery store sometimes using both sides of my brain, so I’m impressed.

When both sides of their brain DO fall asleep at the same time, it’s generally just a few seconds. Good thing, or ther...

Ghosts. Spirits. Who is going "I don't believe in those" or "LaLaLaLaLaLa, scares me, don't want to know!"

The spirits around us generally leave us be. They have better things to do than rattle chains, tip over chairs, and make spooky noises that have the hair on the back of our necks standing up straight.

However....sometimes they have been part of a family for a long time, and want to let their loved ones know they're okay.

A friend of mine, Leslie, and her husband lost one of their dogs not too long ago. Zena had been with them for years. She was Scott's dog, mostly.

She got sick, very sick. Their other dog, Maisie, considerably younger, took to creeping around the house. She didn't want to disturb her ill and aged sister too much.

Maisie (grey) taking care of sister Zena

As Zena's time to pass came closer, the family drew in. They loved Zena, told her what a good dog she was, how important she was to the family. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before, but it was especia...