Cats @ soapcentral.com

OK, I'm confused...weren't we just celebrating Christmas yesterday???  Oh that's right, it's been a whole year

So here are a couple pictures.  First one is of our beautiful tree in the living room and the second one is our adorable cat Cocoa lying under the tree.  I was just telling Daffodil that my cats love to hang out under the tree for hours every day.  They are so cute!

Hope everyone's having a good holiday season.  Has anyone seen any snow yet?  I have seen a lot so far.  Today we got a crapload of snow and it is VERY deep.  Several after-school activities were cancelled and there were rumors going around that we would have an early dismissal, but no such luck.  The thing about this school district is they never have late starts, early dismissals, or snow days.  I remember when I was in 7th grade my morning bus was running REALLY late because it was snowing like mad and the roads were terrible.  We got to school REALLY late and I wonder if they learned their lesson by that.  However, that was 2 years ago and we still haven't had a late start.  We did get an early dismissal last year though and the next day was a snow day......BUT......I wasn't gonna be there anyway 'cause we were on vacation.  Today the roads were bad and my afternoon bus was running late because of this.  But when you live in Minnesota, it's all part of the package

Hey everyone! 

Is everyone busily preparing for Christmas?  I think I am done with all my decorating.  I think I have a fairly decent handle on my shopping, next is cards and wrapping.  There isn't anything under the Christmas tree except two cats!  Since they are inside cats, maybe they think they are in the forest, even though the tree is artificial--they're cats, they don't seem to notice!  We do occasionally have to retrieve an ornament that "someone" removed from the lower regions of the tree and batted around the hallway.  They obviously don't realize that the newly decorated thing in the living room isn't there solely for their benefit.  Look a giant, shiny, cat-toy holder!  Then there's the issue of the tree skirt.  It's quite "furred-up".  I'm pretty sure that I didn't buy a fuzzy tree skirt, but that's what I've got now.  Well, I guess it's good that we are here for the amusement of our felines!

Now that it's spring, the birds have come back!  Birds we get around here are red-wing blackbirds, blue jays, orioles, cardinals, and crows.  We have a birdfeeder which is popular with a lot of 'em.  Also, we have a birdhouse, but no one has moved in there yet.

Other little animals we get around here are squirrels and chipmunks.  They love birdseeds too.  They come up onto our back deck and store some birdseed in their mouths and run down the stairs of the deck with puffed out cheeks.  It is so funny!  My cats love to stare at the birds and chipmunks and squirrels, especially my black one, Cocoa.  You should see how wide their eyes are when they're concentrating on staring at the little animals.  They're so cute!  Cocoa is obsessed with meat, so I can tell she wants to get out there and kill!

There's also a small pond in my backyard.  The pond has ducks and geese.  The kind of ducks we have are mallards, and every couple years we buy baby mallards from a bird store down in Minneapolis, where we also get cracked corn which is what we feed the ducks.  The babies get their own baby duck food, because the cracked corn is a little too big for them to swallow.  We usually get them in April then let them go in July, and usually they hang around our pond.  We ordered some last year, but they never came, so we ordered some this year and hopefully they'll be here in a couple weeks!  We love ducks, but we hate geese.  Mainly because they crap all over our lawn.  It's disgusting!  We have two geese in our pond right now, but only one comes out now, so we're guessing that the other one is nesting.  Baby geese are very cute, but unfortunately they just grow up to become their parents.  Also, geese are mean to our ducks.  Whenever the ducks are eating the corn that we set out for them, the geese come and hiss them away, and the ducks just run away   Also, we have 4 ducks; 2 males and 2 females.  Only 1 female is out, so I'm guessing the other female is nesting.  It's always a nice surprise to look outside and see baby ducks swimming around!

Hello! Happy Sunday!

Oh man, I'm seeing that I could actually live in front of my computer now.  Even worse than before all this blogging business!  Not good!

I am going to talk about all of our animals now.  If you hate animals--hit the road!  Just kidding!   The cat in my picture and on my avatar (Is it an avatar here?  Don't know the answer to that one!) is Daffodil.  Obviously she is a calico.  We have her and her brother "Z", he is white and the brownish suede color on Daffodil.  They were born in a dog house on my parent's patio almost two years ago.  My parents kept their mom kitty (also a calico) and one of their brothers.  We gave the other three kittens to a local pet store and they sold them.  We sometimes wonder what happened to them.  "Z" got his name because his tail is z shaped, both he and his mother have little crooked tails.  The vet said there is manx in them.  Daffodil's tail is huge and bushy, like a feather duster.  Their brother that my parents kept has blue eyes and has siamese markings, the vet said there is also siamese in them too.

In addition to our two cats, that are strictly indoor, we have three dogs.  We have a twelve year old miniature poodle and two big dogs that may or may not both be german shepherd mix.  My husband got one of the big dogs at a yardsale.  Seroiusly.  He knew the people and they already had four huge dogs and couldn't keep him, so we took him.  He was abused and someone either dumped him on them or he ran away.  We've had him for five years.  He's a really good dog.  Our other big dog is sweet but nuts.  He hates loud noises so anytime something freaks him out he vigorously jumps on the screen doors and ruins them and my husband has to re-string them about four times a year.  We've had him for three years.  Last May we found out that our poodle is diabetic.  We decided to treat him (instead of the alternative) , I love that dog more than most people  that I know.  Sad, but true.  So I have to give him two insulin shots a day, once every twele hours, and I watch him very closely because if his blood sugar goes too low it is really dangerous, so basically, most of the time I'm half nuts worrying about my dog!  He's doing really good though.  (Knock-on-wood!)

We live failry rurally, about twenty miles from the nearest biggish town, and people dump their animals out here quite a bit.  That is something that is completely irresponsible and unacceptable!  I wish people would not do that, it is mean to the animals and not fair to those of us who end up keeping them.  That is how we ended up with the cats, their mom was a stray/dumped? and one of our big dogs.  We didn't have the heart to take them to the local Humane Shelter and couldn't find another home (in the case of our dog). 

Anyway, those are my animal stories for right now.  Bye!

I'm convinced that pit bulls are the best dogs there are.  They are so loving and anxious to please.  I can't even imagine what it would take to train them to be mean, but it must involve not giving them the attention and love they crave.  My girl likes for me to hug her, and she doesn't mind at all when I put a sweater on her.  She loves her treats and her food!  I think she would eat non-stop if she had a chance. 

Anyone got advice on pit bulls?  I'm new to them, having been a cat person for years.  (By the way, even though they don't like each other much, my dog wouldn't hurt my cats. She runs from them, actually-not to get scratched.)