Wildlife

I posted some pictures of a flock of turkeys that crossed our yard a while ago. Another flock made our lot part of its regular route recently. There were at least three adult females and probably close to 20 young turkeys. No toms as far as I could tell. I took this shot last week.

This is down towards the front of our yard, an area that we are currently allowing to grow wild.

I haven’t seen the turkeys in the last few days. I suspect that the young turkeys have left the flock to go off on their own.

We get to see a good variety of wildlife here. We’ve seen just about every large mammal that lives in this area at one time or another. That’s just one of the things I like about living here.

More Dusty

Dusty continues to strike cute and photogenic poses. Here he is on the front porch, scrunched up against the front of the house.

And here he is in his “Whoa mama! I fell to my death off the porch!” pose.

The cats will do almost anything to find a slightly cooler place to lie down these days.

Old Zeke

On Wednesday the dogs and I took our first walk after I decided Zeke didn’t need to walk two miles in the Georgia July heat. We turned around at the halfway point. The dogs would have happily gone further, but they don’t ask questions, so they were happy enough to turn around.

Zeke had been walking pretty slowly on the way back up the mountain for some time. I noticed, but didn’t necessarily attribute it to old age. We have had Zeke for 11 years, and he was fully grown when we got him. He’s at least 12, maybe older, and that’s getting pretty old for a big dog like Zeke.

I think I see graying in his face, but it’s hard to tell. Here he is in December 2008.

And here he is on Wednesday.

I tried to get him to stand up so I could get a frontal shot of his face, but he was lying the floor, cooling off after our walk, and he didn’t want to get up.

I showed Leah these two shots without telling her which was which, and asked her which one she thought showed Zeke as older. She picked the one from 2008. I really can’t see much difference in the pictures, but when I look at him it seems like I should be able to.

He has always been an active dog, or at least as active as we can let him be. He still plays with Sam like a puppy, although he seems to prefer wrestling while lying on the street. The signs of aging are subtle so far, but I think I see them. Even so, once the damned heat retreats, I think we’ll be seeing what’s going on a little further down the road.

Oops

When we picked our new cat Mollie up from the vet’s on Tuesday afternoon, we found out that she had already been spayed. The vet looked for a scar when we first took her in, but didn’t see one. When she did the surgery, she thought the scar from the original surgery was too jagged to be a result of surgery. So she went ahead and opened her up.

She wasn’t able to eat much that evening, but her appetite has returned. This is her walking away from her bowl after eating some cat food Friday night.

The shaved area on her abdomen is barely visible in front of her right rear leg.

We have been letting her out occasionally but Leah is not comfortable leaving her outside without monitoring her. She doesn’t do much but walk around curiously for a while and then lie down under the truck with Smokey. It’s been in the 90’s and very humid here, so neither Leah nor I are keen on standing around chaperoning her for very long.

Two cats

We like to catch Dusty in odd poses. Here he’s doing the classic “raise your back leg if you want to ask a question”:

Here he is again doing the magician’s “cut the cat in two” trick:

But enough about Dusty. What about the new cat? Well, the new cat is named Mollie, at least for now, and only to the two humans in the house.

Mollie seems to be completely oblivious to her name, as well as apparently to any attempt to get her attention. It’s odd. She likes to be petted, and she isn’t afraid of people approaching her (or of vacuum cleaners, or dogs). But she won’t come when called, and most of the time she doesn’t even glance in our direction if we call her, or make some other cat attracting noise. She keeps to herself most of the time, except when she wants to be fed. She is obviously a house cat because she can’t seem to figure out that she can relieve herself outside.

She has an unusual call. It sounds kind of like “mirp”. She also makes other strange noises. Here she is watching hummingbirds on the feeder hanging from the porch, which we can see out the front window. I hope everyone can view it and hear the noise.

Yes, that odd sound was actually her.

On Tuesday she goes to the vet to get fixed. Fortunately, we won’t have any trouble getting her into her carrier. She walks right in.

Like all cats, she likes to climb up onto things, including dog food containers.

She has found a way to get behind the bathroom vanity drawers. She wants to follow us into the bathroom, probably because we have hands and can open the drawers more easily. She also loves getting between the two shower curtains while Leah is taking a shower.

Maybe she’ll warm to us, if she can ever forgive us for the upcoming surgery. Leah says she acts like she’s eating for more than just herself, but we hope there are no baby kitties inside there.