Toadfish Monastery

Goodbye, Sibling Chatty. Rest in peace.

Jeez, Pachy, sorry to hear you have the same client list as I do. Someone looking for a vernal pool survey in high summer? We have a subdivision (approved by a deskbound office-haunter in Augusta who never saw the site and never asked us to look at it) with lovely building envelopes, appropriately sized and respecting such things as stream setbacks and whatnot. There's this one lot (all are on steep terrain, poorly drained soils, lots of rainfall) with a "linear wetland" running down the slope, with lovely uphill-pointing V-shaped contour lines and flowing water in the bottom, but no streams. Good thing, because if there was a stream, they would have lost the lot. [Pause for screaming and pounding head against wall. ]

Today I drove 200 miles to my brother's house, and tore his front stairs off!

It happened to our Cody about 15 years ago. He has since passed on, but not from that - they had to surgically remove a piece of ribbon that had knotted his intestines somehow. He was a highly entertaining cat, always into something and very goofy. He was I think the thirteenth or fourteenth - - no, fifteenth - - member of the Greater Herd.

One other thing that could be contributing to Bruder's kitty's problem is some kind of mental stress. Is there anything different in the house/neighborhood/lifestyle at the Cuzzen place? Change in work schedule, new boyfriend, new refrigerator, new brand of litter? Painting the house? Anything like that?

Former tenants.

Duck and peas? [holds left eyebrow down with left forefinger while pushing right eyebrow up with right forefinger] That's a pretty fancy feast, there. (HA!) We'd probably try various types of food for a week or two each to see if anything had a positive effect. I would think that you'd need at least a week of diet change to see a response if there was going to be one. Has the vet considered the use of steroids?
The belly may seem warmer if the fur is gone. Fur acts like an insulator, keeping his heat inside. Without it you get more direct exposure to kittywarmth, and their normal operating temperature is higher than yours so it would naturally feel overly warm.

Look! Email notifications! Yay!

Sorry about the delay in replying. It seems that I'm not getting any email notifications of anything from anywhere except fecesbook.

Have you tried changing his diet? That did work for us once, back a while ago. Spike has the itchiness, but not the loss of hair or blotchiness. I'll try to remember to ask the wife for additional insights tomorrow, unfortunately she's already down for the count tonight.

BTW, they just had a recall of Nutro Max Cat dry cat food, so if you're feeding him on that you should return the bag and go to something else. We had to return $120 worth of it and switch over to Meow Mix. Made for some stinky poops, lemmetellya.

Small) If you're eating to treat yourself, or to celebrate, do you go out to a commercial place (fast-food, restaurant, etc) or do you purchase premium ingredients and prepare it yourself?
We definitely prepare our own goodies. Way better than you can get in the restaurants around here, and less expensive. We also accompany the meal with our own homemade wine (17%-21% aclcohol!), which is way yummy too, and avoid having to drive home drunk, or the crisis of not having enough wine with dinner (assuming we decide to drive home less than tipsy).

Medium) If you partake of animal proteins, which species is your favorite? If not, what's your favorite non-animal protein? 
We gravitate towards salmon, but that's mostly because my wife won't eat anything that had fur on it at any time during its existence. I have a disproportionate and somewhat overwhelming urge to consume all the pepperoni pizza (with mushrooms) on the planet.

Large)  If you're eating out, and you go ahead and order that over-the-top dessert, do you, as a sop to your conscience, order a Diet soda as well?
I haven't had a soda in years. I hate the stuff. If I'm having a fancy-schmancy dessert in a nice eatery, I'll have a delicious black coffee with it. The dessert will either be pecan pie, or it will have a nearly lethal amount of chocolate.

Family Size)  Bonus-- if you like to eat steak*, how best to cook it?  Raw?  Sorta raw?  Medium-rare?  Medium? Medium with burnt-bits?  Burnt?  Feel free to wax lyrical on your favorite method(s) of preparation.  (*or, feel free to subsitute your protein of choice, and how it is Best Prepared.  Yes-- with capitol letters. )
Broiled salmon fillets. Take a nice half-pound fillet, remove the skin, smother it with Lea & Perrins Chipotle Tabasco sauce, shake on a healthy amount of black pepper, refrigerate for a couple of hours. Prepare some stir-fried veggies - garlic, onion, mushroom, peapods, etc. - and some brown rice. Broil the salmon on high until its fragrance is strong enough to tell you it's done (this will vary by the individual, I use The Force). Serve the veggies on top of the rice, salmon to the side, and have a bowl of chilled pineaple chunks on the table. We have just about polished off the last of the Barolo (four cases - egad!), but it went particularly well with this dish. If you prefer white wine, a Vouvray or a Muscadet will also compliment it quite nicely.


What makes you pull over to the side of the road? (Something you see, not making a phone call or running out of gas)

What is your Most Fun Thing that you do?

Why have you chosen to live in the house/town/country where you live?

Hopefully I'll get around to doing some research on cold frames in the next month or so. From where I'm sitting, Williamsburg qualifies as the deep south - I don't think folks from around here would count their February as winter in comparison to what we usually experience. I'll try to do some snooping and come up with some links and maybe an anecdote or two.

Whoops, I guess I didn't list my goodies yet. I've got a row of beets, two rows of carrots, two rows of snap peas, two rows of beans (one each green and wax), eight giant squash mounds (four hubbard and four butternut) a row of qcumbers, a row of lettuce, four mounds of honeydew-type melons, a row for miscellaneous, and a row-equivalent of yellow onions. In pots we'll have eight or twelve tomato plants and a dozen or so hot pepper plants - looks like they will be cayenne since someone just gave me a bunch of seedlings. Also several pots of various herbs, and the wife has a big area dug up for sunflowers. We also have a few dozen raspberry bushes and blackberry bushes scattered around the periphery of the yard for yumsies, and the neighbors on either side have loads of surplus rhubarb. I have a few large sheets of glass from old slider panels - about 3 feet by 6 feet - that I'm thinking of using to make cold frames. I've heard they can be used to extend the growing season for several weeks in the fall, giving that many more fresh salads and herbs before winter really takes hold. Does anyone have any experience with cold frames?

<hangs head>

No, I'm a gummint employee. I enforce Maine Land Use laws. With limited effectiveness, I'm afraid.

I would love to take the local Master Gardener class, but I can't coordinate it with my work hours yet, though the advent of work-at-home days may change that next time around. Friends of our were over Sunday evening with their rototiller and dug up our 20 foot by 40 foot garden patch - I spent all Memorial day hoeing in the rowns and mounds and planting the first bunch of goodies. I need to borrow a havaheart trap to relocate the woodchuck that lives under the barn, but at least the skunk from last year isn't back. They are advertising a community garden this year for local residents who can't plant in their own yard for whatever reason. I think some of the volunteer work by the MG's is coaching and otherwise helping out there. I love this:

Quote from: Opsanus tau on September 06, 2007, 07:59:36 PM
One interesting thing he said was: "The best manure for a plant is the gardener's shadow". He said it doesn't matter how many books you read or how much stuff you put out there or how much money you spend trying to keep it up. The garden needs you to just stand there and appreciate it and observe what's going on. If you only go out there to weed, it just becomes a burden. If you are keeping it company, you will be able to see where work needs doing and see where you can just leave it alone. I liked that very much.

Now if I can just get the cats to shovel their own boxes, to free up a chunk of time...