Funny Place for a Bees Nest

When out geocaching yesterday afternoon we stopped to look at one of the many memorials in an old cemetery. My husband called me over to look at the statue on this large civil war memorial. He saw the bees nest but I saw a knapsack. I thought it was part of the statue. The color was almost the same. I wonder why they are leaving it in place and not knocking it down. Perhaps they are waiting for winter to remove it when the bees are frozen (do they hibernate?) This nest is over 2 ft from top to bottom.

My Chuckle for the Day

I had a good laugh at this article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546540,00.html
It reminded me of that movie, I think it was called "Sweet Alabama."

Pennsylvania Man Accidentally Fires Cannonball Into Neighbor's House

Friday, September 04, 2009

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UNIONTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home.

Fifty-four-year-old William Maser fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away.

The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities say nobody was hurt.

State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

No one answered the phone Friday at Maser's home. He tells WPXI-TV recreating 19th century cannons is a longtime hobby. He says he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Only in Pennsylvania and then there is the dumb girl in Titusville that took a lit cigarette to try and burn the security camera at Walmart. What was she thinking? They were filming it. Like she wouldn't get caught? People are getting much dumber in the past couple of years.

This and That

I made it to 50 geocaches found. My next goal will be 100. That's going to take awhile. When winter sets in you can kiss geocaching goodbye around here.



I took a couple of the travel bugs out of some local geocaches and will drop them off near Yosemite when we get to California. I'll photograph the geo-travel bugs at the different tourist attractions along the way. It's kind of like Flat Stanley. When they get dropped off in California, someone there will take them on to other countries or other states and will document the travels it makes when they have it. When you pick them up or drop them off you log the transactions online on geocaching.com so the owner of the travel bug can see where it is and where it has been. Someday it will be returned to the owner with many thousands of documented miles on it. It's just for fun. There is no money involved.

Catch-Up

My clown cat is totally well. The fever has not returned and he has been back to his old self for a few weeks now. We don't know why he got a kidney infection but it's gone now.

The oldest cat, bless his little old heart, hasn't gained any more weight but his intestinal tract is doing well on the Wellness Core food. It has no dairy, no grain and no soy. It has salmon, blueberries, yams and other stuff instead and he likes it so that's good. He has been constipated a few times but that is better than him having it the other way and not using the litter box. He has a second chance on life. How many more years he'll live, we dont' know and we don't know his exact age but he was middle aged when we got him 10 years ago.

The third cat has a charmed life with no health problems and so he doesn't get quite the attention the "sick" cats do.

The Clown Cat

Today was the last day giving our "formerly" sick cat his antibiotic. Every morning we trick him into coming and with our promise of extra caressing he comes and right in the middle of his twirling around for more he gets swooped up into my husband's arms. My fingers pry open his mouth and I drop in the formed piece containing the crushed antibiotic mixed in some soft cat food. Our hands immediately clamp down on his snout to keep him from using his tongue to spit out the terrible substance. A couple of throat movements later we let him go and he runs and hides under the chair. He fell for it every day. He's so trusting and it pains us to do it but like my mom used to say, "it's for your own good." But today, our last day, he ran out of the room when he saw the scenario unfolding. But we got it done and now he can relax. He will trust us again tomorrow and tomorrow we'll deserve his trust as there will be no more trickery.

He's back to being his old self, making us laugh, begging for food, starting fights with the other 2 cats. We saw a cat hat at the store the other day that I thought would really fit his personality but we wouldn't do that to him (unless we are taking photos of our little clown.)

Now it is a waiting game. If he has kidney stones, the infection will probably reappear. He gave us a real scare and I hope that is the end of it.

Follow-up on My Sick Cat

Yesterday afternoon my cat felt a little better but in the evening he started acting sick again. He just didn't want to move his little head. I stayed up with him until 3 AM and he seemed the same. This morning he was walking around a little but we took his temperature and it was 104. That's better than it was but still too high. I broke the antibiotic pill in half like the vet told me and crushed it. I then mixed it in this liver-flavored soft treat that the vet gave me. He wanted no part of it. I divided it into 2 parts and we forced it down his throat and held his mouth shut until he swallowed. He didn't like us very much after that but it was for his own good.

About 4 hours later he was purring and wanted to be petted. He begged for a treat. He came when I rattled a toy mouse but he didn't want to play. Still, it was a big improvement. I called the vet with the update and as long as he continues to improve, we don't need to bring him back in. I'm so relieved he's doing better and can't wait until he's back to 100 percent. But even then it may not be over. We have to watch him and if he gets sick again, it could be that kidney stones are causing infections and we'd have to have X-rays. I'm pretty hopeful it isn't as he doesn't walk funny and doesn't seem to be in any pain. I'll be able to sleep a lot better tonight.

Emergency Visit to Vet

We had a terrible day today. This morning our most beloved cat was very sick. He was breathing very shallow and fast. He didn't want to move. I watched him closely for a couple of hours and determined this was an emergency and took him in to the vet.


He had an extremely high fever. They did blood tests and the HIV test came up negative but his white blood count was extremely high. He had good red blood count, though. Some tests showed that the kidneys were some how involved. I was distraught and didn't catch all the vet said, I just wanted our baby to get well. She gave him an antibiotic shot and gave him fluids under the skin. He seemed to feel a little better after that. At least he'd raise his head up and when he got home he climbed up on his favorite chair.

He looked better for a while but tonight he doesn't feel good again. If his temp isn't down tomorrow I have to bring him back in for Xrays and fluids to see if he has kidney stones causing the problem. The vet said the infection was bacterial not viral.

This is heart wrenching because we went through a similar episode with our first cat. After a week of tests and IVs and him staying at the vet hospital for a week with that tiny chance of survival we had to put him down. The vet bill was through the roof. We said we'd never do that again. I was so devastated and I cried for weeks over that cat and I still get teary eyed when I remember him. Of the three we have now, this one is the clown, the entertainer, the one I'd miss the most. He just has to get better.

Yard Sale

I had a yard sale on Saturday. It was a lot of work for very little money. Not many showed up. I wrote about it on my GoErie This Old Erie House blog.

I just finished looking through my Twitter account. I don't go there much. I found some spam people following me so I blocked them. I'm not really into Twitter. But I did learn one thing today when I read a post by ErieAlerts put out by the police department. This is what one of their Tweets on July 16th said:
Self defense Tip: Keep a can of Wasp & Hornet Spray handy. Can shoot a stream more than 20 ft. into a attackers eyes. More on Eriealert.com

Maybe it would work long enough to be able to run away and get help. You better hope so or that attacker will be mad as a hornet.

Update on Cat

My cat seems much better today. He's back to eating and is walking around the house like normal. He has eaten less than normal today. He doesn't seem to like the food as much today as he did in the past couple of days. I gave him some hamburger with the dry food today and he ate that, too. I'm not sure Core grain-free, diary and soy-free makes a canned version of the same food. I'll have to check into that. I'm sure he'd eat more if it was canned food. He must have been raised on canned food because he goes crazy when he hears the can opener running.

Remember My Old Cat?

I wrote last year around November in my retired blog about my old cat that suddenly stopped using the the litter box. He used to throw up quite a bit, especially after eating or drinking. He had diarrhea but had no fever. For years he had a foul odor to his stools, even back when we got him from the humane society and even after being checked out and wormed. We figured every cat is different. His stools got looser over the years until he suddenly stopped using the litter box and went in dark corners, under things and even climbed up on things and went. Luckily, he did these things in the basement and not up in our living area (with only two exceptions.) Still, the cleanup was awful and I was at my wits end.

We bought him a playpen cage to keep him confined so he had to use the litter box and I'd let him out as long as I followed him around. When I couldn't watch him I put him in his playpen.


I thought maybe the cat food company had changed their recipe and something in the food bothered him. He's an indoor cat only and there was no plants he could have gotten into. We bought him different kinds of cat foods from Science Diet, Iams, Taste of the Wild and a bunch of organic brands. They were terribly expensive and still it didn't help. We decided to put him to sleep because he was obviously in discomfort with intestinal cramps all the time. But first I wanted to try just giving him meat and see how he did. I thought maybe there was something in the food he couldn't tolerate since he got old.

He wouldn't eat people food. The only thing I could get him to eat was raw ground turkey. He loved it. The problem was I couldn't leave it out. In a couple of days he got better. He started using the litter box again and his stools were no longer loose. He doesn't throw up anymore.

Our other 2 cats eat their dry cat food up on a high ledge they have to jump up to because we couldn't put the food down or my old cat would eat it. If we forgot to put the other food up on the ledge and if the old cat ate some of their food, he got sick again.

It is hard for us to leave to go anywhere because we can't leave his food out for more than just a few minutes because it is raw.

Here was a cat that had gotten so skinny and sickly when eating normal and organic cat foods but eating nothing but ground turkey and cat vitamins, he gained weight, got shiny, was active again and started cleaning himself again and used the litter box. But after several months of just meat he started to look kind of pot-bellied and I knew he needed more than just meat.

I wondered if cats could get celiac disease like people do. Or maybe just didn't have the enzymes anymore to digest something that is in cat food in his old age. I read up on it and it seems some cats and dogs do have problems digesting gluten as well as soy and dairy. I printed out a list of brands that made foods free of soy, dairy, and grains. These are the most likely ingredients that may cause his reaction.

I bought a food named Core (made by Wellness) at Petco. I bought the formula that didn't have grain, soy or dairy. It uses potatoes and other vegetables. I mixed it in a little at a time with his ground turkey meals. So far so good. It's been two days and he is still doing good. This evening he had nothing but Core. In another day if all goes well, I'll finish switching him over to all Core dry food and no more ground turkey. I'll post an update if he has a reaction to it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This particular formula does have salmon in it which is also on my suspect list but so far it seems not to be a problem.

If this works out, we'll switch to Core grain-free for the other cats, too, so we don't have to feed them separate. It's so good to see him happy, satisfied and napping in the sunshine coming through the window again. He also wants to go out and sit on the sun porch like he used to and he watches the birds through the screen. I've got my fingers crossed.
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update: This is the following night. My cat didn't want to leave his cage today. He hasn't eaten today no matter what I offer him. When he did leave his cage he appears to be constipated as he tried to go in his litter box but there was nothing. He doesn't look distressed and it's only been a day and a half since he went so I'm confident he's not terribly backed up. If he appears to be in distress tomorrow, we'll have to take him in to the vet. It could be he is crampy from the new food and just thinks he has to go. I should have introduced the new food more slowly.