Ground and Pound!

Yet another denizen of Wheatley made an appearance at the house, sharing cat food on the back porch. He also likes to sit in the tree near the car. As mentioned in an earlier post, apparently he and the cats have "an understanding".

Two weekends back, Daisy Juke with Her Nose So Bright led us through a soupy night to foggy London-town. An all hands on deck effort towards some basement renovations at John and Julie's culminated in enjoying the UFC 154 pay-per-view on their new 103" projector screen basement home theatre.

As you can see, things deteriorated rapidly from there.....

Playing (O)possum

You know Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Nissan....

Juke joining in the Reindeer Games

Vicious Ground and Pound Attack!

Vengeance - sleep with one eye open!

Travel Travails

Found some cool (and free!) sites that allow us to track our travels, albeit with random and meaningless colours. White, or the absence of colour, means we haven't been there. It's fairly vague, i.e. you've been to a state or province or you haven't, regardless of whether you explored it in depth or merely cut across a corner. Labrador also shows up as visited, though we have not, because we've been to Newfoundland and it's all one province.

These two maps represent road trips:

Then I found this application, which includes those road trips plus trips involving flights and cruises:

Create your own travel map - TravBuddy

Looks like we're only sitting at 6%, better get our butts in gear!

November Brain

Here we are in November....a.k.a. Round 4 of dandelions. I suspect frost is not far off though, and we officially turned the furnace on today for the first time, to take the chill off. It wasn't my choice. We'll just leave it at that.

Otherwise a nice sunny autumn weekend for yardwork, including cleaning up the downed willow branches from Hurricane Sandy, and later a bonfire under starry skies on the marge of a depleted cornfield. And one inquisitive cardinal who was less than impressed that I picked his football team to lose. Call it an omen, but they lost anyway....in spite of the implied avian stink-eye.

Cat Week on Ellen

Apparently it's "Cat Week" on Ellen, so I figured what the heck. In the absence of anything relevant to post besides the gradual winterizing of the property, cat pics seem apropos. At least they're current pics.

Haven't turned the heat on yet, though the mornings are getting a tad chilly. Methinks a large weekend bonfire might take the edge off, and keep Jack Frost at bay for a few more glorious weeks....

Have had a few Close Encounters of the Opossum Kind on the back porch recently. In spite of our initial concerns re: cats interacting with a creature that is 40% teeth....apparently the two species have an "understanding". They don't even seem concerned about one another, and readily share space and food.

I can't help but think there is a lesson here for us and the Aliens.

As for the last three pics....I ventured out to the garage and noticed Gronk (aka Big Nug, also doing business as Perca) showing a particular interest in the clothesline. Upon closer examination, he had managed to drive a mouse out onto the line. This is somewhere between "cat on a hot tin roof" and "bird on a wire" in my estimation, "rodent on a clothesline". Fear not, I saved him (after the obligatory photo shoot).....at least for today.

The Infamous sibling "Nug Pile"

Feline Fur-niture

Cardinals are especially interesting....

Look again, there's a mouse on the line!

See, I'm not making this up

No, I did NOT Photoshop this l'il guy in there

The Bruce Beckons!

In search of a relatively short and relatively cheap mini-vacay, we opted for a run up the Bruce Peninsula for some camping, hiking, and a long-overdue return to Jane's old stomping grounds. Even pulled off lunch with some old friends in Wiarton.

Spent a night camping at Point Farms Provincial Park, on the sandy shores of Lake Huron just north of Goderich. Two more nights of outdoorsy goodness followed at the Cyprus Lake campground inside Bruce Peninsula National Park, just south of Tobermory. And thank you, fellow federal public servant at Parks Canada, for reminding Jane about the existence of bears.

The weather dampened things a bit, but not our spirits. We still hiked out to The Grotto and enjoyed the rugged Georgian Bay shoreline. Spent a drizzly morning having a warm breakfast in Tobermory. Appreciated the autumn colour change in a way not possible way down here on the prairies.

The circuitous trip home took us past several nostalgic stops in Owen Sound, including Jane's childhood home - still looks the same!

Kitties, the Babysitter's here!

Mattress just waiting for the hot air....

No, not some exotic tropical island....it's Lake Huron! 

Lake Huron sand dunes

A windswept Dog Beach at Point Farms

Goderich Harbour

Highly recommended if you're in the Goderich area

Cyprus Lake campsite

Pressed into coffee duty

A picture within a picture!

The harbour at Tobermory

Georgian Bay from Tobermory docks

A beauty of a Park

Rugged Georgian Bay shoreline

The Grotto

The Grotto, Part II

More scenery from the hike

Cyprus Lake at dusk

Farewell to Mister Bickers

Today we bid a very fond farewell to Bickey, after ten quality years together. He never fully recovered from the liver issues two summers ago, but was living well up until late last week. He went downhill quickly over the weekend, in the late stages of kidney failure. We no longer felt that he was enjoying life, and was clearly in pain. Tough decision, but the right one for our long-time feline friend.

We spent over an hour outside with him today before the appointed hour arrived, letting him wander the green grass and enjoy the fresh breeze through his fur. Though the hard part was waiting for a scheduled time to arrive to take him in to the clinic, his assisted passing was ultimately painless and stress-free, and ours were the last faces he saw and hands he felt.

As his last official act, he bought a round of canned tuna for all his furry friends to remember The Sherriff, as he came known to be among all cats in the house, serving as resident bouncer and laying down the Law of the Paw in times of need. It may sound morbid, but we had a bit of a viewing for the other cats to see him off, before laying him to rest on our property beneath a young tree.

Rest in peace, Bickers. You are already missed.