FEEDING TIME

2 CHICKS

A PILE OF POSSUMS

A PILE OF POSSUMS and other surprises Life throws at ya… That sums up the past 2 weeks.

I know, I have been out of touch for many of you. If I owe you an email, I am sorry, but life has gotten rather chaotic. I seem to be running a kitty hospice here with the oldest cat, Punkin, in renal failure, and the youngest, Rascal (alias the Rat) suffering from a build-up of fluid in his chest cavity… pathology reports were inconclusive, so, the best we can do is take him once a week to get it drained off, rehydrate him, and keep him happy. All this is going on, shuttling cats back and forth to the vet, researching kitty problems, buying and preparing special foods… and trying not to neglect my other geriatric cat, Hadji, who is diabetic – but has been off insulin for over 2 years thru very careful feeding – and lots of spoiling.

So in the midst of all this kitty care, preparing for our Train Station’s Plant Sale next week-end, and preparing my own garden (peas are up, onions are up, and potatoes are in their potato bags), cutting grass, pulling weeds, mulching, and trying to keep a handle on the house work (OYE!) I get a phone call from fellow blogger, Grenville, http://thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/, down the street, “Help! I’ve got a possum emergency!” And, indeed he did. So, I dropped everything, I mean, who needs clean laundry anyway, right? Clean floors? HA! and jumped back in the van and headed down to his house where he handed me a little box of the cutest baby possums… My guess is they are about 2 months old (2nd birth) and I could see they were a bit hungry. I did not restock any possum formula after the last baby, so I had to get them to another rehabber pretty fast. I transferred them to a deeper box, one they could not climb out of, made a phone call, and headed south for another possum transfer. Isn’t life fascinating? Good thing I am usually a pretty flexible person.

  

Anyway, for those of you who have not heard from me, I have been (and am) very busy, mostly baby-sitting my own sick babies – do you know how hard it is to type with a kitty on your lap? Or I might be transporting possums down the road to someone who is probably as rushed as I am. Fortunately, the folks at her day job don’t seem to mind her having a couple cages of baby animals on a table near her while she is at work. Could you do that? So go visit the Frog and PenguInn and see what he has to say. And may you have a restful calm day!

GROUNDHOG’S DAY 2011 and 2 VISITORS

THIS IS THE DAY when so many of you got so much snow and ice… my Cousin Sandy measured 51 inches of snow and ice on the ground in her back yard. Friends wrote to me of taking an axe out to chop thru the ice on top of the snow to get to something they could shovel. Their stories were amazing as were the temperatures… one cousin had –8 degrees F, while another was at 34 degrees above  in Alaska where it should have been below zero.

Here, on the Eastern Shore, we had been warned of “significant rainfall,” and got about half an inch. But most wonderful of all, the temps soared to 67 degrees. 67 DEGREES!!!!! OMG! After a hectic morning of DR visits and errands,  I headed out to the yard to quickly plant the 2 flats of pansies I got at Bobbie’s on Sunday – a Better Late Than Never Christmas Gift!   I worked as fast as I could getting the pansies in around the birdbath close to where the bright red coleus and strobilanthes were last summer, and in the Circle, around the little critters’ graves. The ground was soft and wet, still lots of leaves on the ground and the kind of debris one has after a rough winter.

I love pansies, and part of the fun of living on the Eastern Shore is having pansies all winter and into the spring. These pansies had been sitting at Bobbie’s for a while waiting for all of us to find a time when we could get together. Each time we planned lunch, it snowed. The first time I told Bobbie I couldn’t come up because it was going to snow, she laughed at me thinking I was making a joke. I wasn’t. That was the beginning of our bitter cold, snowy winter. So, the pansies sat and waited.

Our morning started with a visit with the Onley Possum Weather prognosticator… Opie Possum (or O P –Onley Possum, Only Possum! Official Predictor of GOOD weather)… We do not have Groundhogs here on the shore. They would drown if they tried to burrow in our soil, too close to sea level. We also do not have chipmunks or porcupines or bears. We also don’t have rocks or stones, in spite of the pictures of them in my garden, unless they are brought in from other places. Most of my stones are from PA, a few from Maine… I digress, again. Anyway, Opie showed up for a bedtime snack to see if there was anything left from breakfast, since possum time is the reverse of people time. As I saw him saunter across the yard toward the cat food left-overs, I made note of there being NO SHADOW! Spring is right around the corner! YEA! Of course, that corner just might be 6 weeks away, who knows. But Opie was getting a snack as I hurried for my camera. So you will just have to trust me on the NO shadow part. 

Anyway, Possum in bed, Pansies in the ground, I hurried inside to get cleaned up for yet another Dr’s appointment when I heard a flurry of activity out the front window. My new resident hawk was back looking for HIS snack, but so far, for all the times I have seen him out here, I have yet to find any feathers around. I have never seen him make off with any little critters. Now, he might have caught some of the mice that have built their little tunnels in the ground under the feeders… I don’t know.

Handsome fellow, isn’t he? Just posing for his mug shot. Um, turn the other way, please.

Thank you.

I told him to head on down to Rat Trap Creek where there are a couple of muskrats, so I hear, that pretend to be weather prognosticators, but, frankly, I think they are phonies, just like the Pungoteague Possum they talk about on the radio. WE all know that was roadkill JD found and pretended was a live possum whispering in his ear that Spring was on its way. What’s with these people? The official weather Possums have always lived right here and we always give them a special treat on Possum Day. But we also protect them from the press and being taken advantage of by reporters like Puxatawney Phil. That is animal abuse! Poor thing.

From time to time, friends bring me their baby possums to be groomed as weather prognosticators.

Some work out, others, well, others just won’t have anything to do with it.

And that’s the end of this tail. 

THE BABY FACTORY

LUCY AND LUCKY have been at it again. (Let's hear a big cheer!) Remember Lucy? The poor little goose that was kept trapped in a crate until she was basically so deformed that she will never fly? The poor little goose that got goosenapped over a year ago and walked over a month thru God knows what kind of conditions to get "home" to the unmentioned place where the game warden took her for sanctuary after the crated beginning of her life? If you remember those stories, you might remember that Lucy met Lucky last year and they took up a courtship. They had a nest and eggs, but, sadly, things did not work out too well. This year, they nested again, papa fiercely defended the nest,

and 2 little fuzz balls hatched out of the 3 eggs. In her excitement, Lucy herded them down to the pond, oblivious to the 3rd little egg just barely cracking open. By the time #3 got out of the egg and scrambled (OK, bad choice of words) to the top of the nest, Lucy and Lucky were coaxing #s 1 and 2 into the water for their first swim. Little 3, fortunately, was spotted wandering around the nest that was no longer being guarded by Lucky, so a kind pair of hands scooped him up and headed down to the pond. By this time Lucy was out away from the shore, but another mama and daddy were coaxing their newly hatched 3 some into the water. The kind featherless biped put #3 on the edge of the pond. The new papa of the 3 babies just getting into the water, apparently either flunked math class or he was just a kind hearted old goose (I prefer the latter idea) and he immediately started coaching #3 with words of encouragement and finally got him in the water, too, urging him to go out and join his wife and 3 goslings. Thus, Number 3 became Number 4, and was welcomed into the bigger family. Last count, the baby population was up to 17 youngsters waddling and paddling around and learning how to beg treats from the BIG featherless ones.

GINger and Fred

It's Baby Season!

Nope, not Lucy's... These 2 were hatched down by the cotton GIN - hence their names - GINger and Fred, of course... Actually, I have no way of knowing which is male or female - but, what the heck. I doubt they will get teased about their names as they get older, right? And this is their mom, GINny. She brought them down to the office to show them off. Well, maybe she heard the rumor that someone was serving corn to hungry mothers, but I wouldn't know about that. Just a silly rumor. You know how rumors start. Might be she was after bugs. Nice juicy spring bugs.We are waiting to see what comes out of Lucy's nest. The boss man went by to take a peek - not a good idea. Lucky came storming after him and Lucy "bit" his shoe. Don't wanna go out there in sandals now, do we?