Life On The Central Coast

This is little Wilhelm, my grand-dog. He's pretty funny. Last night he heard cats in the hallway and went in search of them. He hunted high.....he hunted low, but those pussycats just couldn't be found. Where on earth is that pesky cat??

Vampires, Blood Suckers, Creepy Crawlies, Parasites..... No, these aren't your family or friends but they may be unwelcome visitors to your home. What you see next MAY leave you feeling like things are crawling on you. AAAaaarrrrgggh! There you have it.... the dirty rotten, stinkin', FLEA!! And it's making our lives MISERABLE right now. It all began a few weeks back when we noticed our upstairs cat acting strangely. He meowed and raced through our bedroom from carpeted areas to linoleum floors. He sat up high on furniture. It only took us a couple of days to realize it was a flea problem and treat him with Frontline. Ah, problem solved you say? I wish! Our dogs are on a Frontline program but Randal the cat wasn't, so we thought the Frontline would be a quick fix. Not so. That day we began the regimen of vacuuming every night and morning and spraying with a well known brand of flea spray. And the cat now has a flea collar on top of the Frontline. We've been doing t...

They started arriving today! First one. Then two.... Before you knew it....there were 3! Then many, MANY more! They seem to really like it "Hey Brother, come on over here.... FREE FOOD!" Thanks for advertising little bird! "Uh Oh, think she's spotted me! Hey thanks for all the food and the water!" Sure thing little bird, sure thing. "Hey guys, spread the word...the food here is GREAT!" "Oh no, what is that I spy.... a CAT!!??" "No please don't go, don't be alarmed, you can't be afraid of THAT cat. She's old, is declawed (not by me, no hate mail please) and LOVES little fat birdies like you! I PROMISE! And they all lived, "HAPPILY EVER AFTER." THE END

This weekend we started feeding the local hummingbirds again. We see them earlier, but I think there must be more in bloom for them to eat. I noticed them sitting in the tree and singing last week and thought it would be a good idea to clean and fill the little bottles we have for them. Then I noticed the other birds around. Even though we are in a neighborhood, we have quite a few different kinds of birds in our area; Crows, Scrub Jays, Mockingbirds, Swallows in the spring, sparrows, finches, etc. So we decided to make a trip to our local Wild Birds Unlimited store for some advice and a feeder. We ended up getting a medium size feeder, some seed and a birdbath that all fit on a 4 x 4 beam. Our feeder looks like this.... Then we bought the Deluxe seed mix which consists mostly of millet and sunflower seeds. Here's our little hanging birdbath with fresh clean water going in. I'm lucky to have a "handy" man to help me put things up. He got out the tools. Yes that IS a k...

Pretty picture, huh? It's my front yard lavender bush on a sunny day inviting the bees in for a relaxing drink. Lavender has a wonderful relaxing smell, and drinking lavender tea can also relax you. I wonder if the bees experience "bliss" when they drink from my bush. Heck, if I was a bee, I may not go anywhere else if that was the case. Thought I would post the picture today to remind myself to slow down, relax and take time to breathe. Life has been on overload for a few weeks now. Actually it's been on overload for a few MONTHS but we won't delve that far back right now. So far this month we've celebrated 2 Birthdays with one still to go, an Anniversary, Easter and a Baby Shower. Every weekend seems to have plans of some kind and there hasn't been time to just "BE" in a while. This upcoming weekend may have a few hours of unplanned time...hey, I said MAY! Our cat, Randal, has to have his teeth cleaned on Saturday. He's actually been exper...

Question of the Day? "What do you do with a cat that scratches where it's not supposed to?  Have it declawed? Make it an outside only cat?" First and foremost, please don't have it declawed. This is extremely painful to a cat. Imagine what it would feel like to have all your fingernails removed.  My daughter Melody told me that people would bring their cats into her vets office to be declawed and not even want to pay for pain medication for them. That seems pretty cruel. There are plenty of scratching posts for sale and you can even make one yourself and it's a much better alternative to declawing. Here is the technique we use. First, provide one or more scratching posts for them to use. Place them at or near the area they are already using to scratch. Take a small amount of catnip and sprinkle all over the post. Bring your cat over to the post and, holding its paws, make the scratching motion on the scratching posts while telling the cat how good he is. Every tim...