Proud Parents

Pansy brings her mouse to us in the house.

I think John and I are too permissive, indulgent, complacent — whatever you want to call it —  about the cats. I find that not many other people understand stories like this.

Pansy caught her first mouse in New Hampshire two years ago and since then we have no documentation that she ever caught one again. But she got one on July 10. I was leaving the house out the back door, which is always open during daylight for the cats, with my camera, as Pansy was trying to come in with her kill. Pansy hates my guts, so she wouldn't enter while I was there. I took advantage of this to photograph her and then stepped aside to let her in.

Under the kitchen table.

Pansy ran to the kitchen and dropped her dead mouse under the table. She doesn't eat her mice. She just drops them and guards them. But Oscar was not going to let an old lady's spitting deter him. He began to bat the mouse about on the floor when Pansy hissed at him. Oscar challenged her authority and she relented and let him have it.

Spitting Pansy.

Now it was Oscar's turn to be ferocious. He growled and postured as he took possession of the mouse.

July 10 was a Sunday — pancake breakfast day — so I began cooking.as Oscar was tossing the mouse about the kitchen and dining room. A friend, R, dropped in then. Since we were going to have breakfast, I invited him to join us and he accepted. He sat down and began watching Oscar tossing his dead, mangled mouse about. John and I, realizing this may be an odd breakfast activity, explained to R that Oscar was learning to hunt, getting a good taste for mice, and we were very proud. An odd expression came over R’s face, but he ate plenty of pancakes, sausages and coffee.

Growling Oscar

After breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen while R and John talked at the table. It had been over an hour since Oscar took the mouse from Pansy but he was still tossing it high in the air and leaping about the kitchen. Soon Oscar became quiet, so I went to see what he was up to (quiet kittens, like quiet children, need to be checked on). Oscar was crouched in the dining room — eating the mouse. In fact, he had eaten the entire head and shoulders. How proud I was of him! I called out to the men at the table, and John, equally proud, interrupted his conversation to watch Oscar. Our boy was going to be a great hunter!

R had to leave then. Oscar ate the entire mouse except for the read end and tail. R has not returned for another breakfast.

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The Server Problem

White-tailed spike horn buck and a doe

You have to forgive me for blog posts that jump back and forth in time. We had a huge problem with my new four terabyte server when we moved it from the sun porch to the living room because of the kitchen renovations. John carefully took each component apart. My job was to move each component to the new location with all cables attached. Did I do that? Nope. I detached a couple of cables and the server never worked after that. I was e-mailing Arthur, who designed and built the server for us He couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He couldn’t come here from New Hampshire to fix it because of the weather. Arthur and John did a lot of trouble shooting on the phone. Arthur tried to recreate the problem at home and couldn’t. John tried to mount the drives directly onto my computer without the server and that didn’t work.

Finally about a month ago, we called PC+Med in Newport. A young technician came the next morning. The first question he asked me was if the AC adaptor on the external drive dock was the correct adaptor for the dock. Well, I had no idea! So we all dug through my boxes of cables and equipment and found the proper adaptor. I had attached the wrong AC adaptor! The dock wasn't getting enough power, so the drives couldn't load, and therefore nothing worked. I was very embarrassed and told John and the technician that we would none of us ever tell anybody what I had done. They agreed. But my guilt forced me to do the right thing. Arthur had spent a lot of time and thought trying to solve my server problem and he deserved to know that it was my fault that it wouldn’t work. So I confessed. I only asked Arthur not to laugh at me for what I had done. It really hurt my pride to confess to him. After all, Arthur and I have played with computers together for twenty years and he knows that I know what I’m doing!

Arthur said he couldn’t possibly laugh at me because he has done the same thing himself in the past! This is why I love him. He’s the best!

Anyhow, because the server was down, I couldn't access thousands of photos and had only the most recent photos available for blogging. But now I can go back in time and continue our adventures.

In September, John and I drove to Burlington because I needed new glasses. My glasses were so bad that the lenses kept falling out here and there and anywhere. It got so bad that I only had one eye that worked. So we went to the optometrist and I kicked and screamed the whole way. But nothing awful happened. We actually had a nice day in Burlington. We had lunch out, went window shopping and had a lot of time together.

I finally got bifocals. John talked me into it (and I'm glad he did!). Photography and grocery shopping are much easier now. I can focus the camera and read the labels in the store. I don't come home with the wrong groceries anymore!

As we drove home from Burlington, John spotted these two young deer on Lowell Mountain. We turned around and drove back to take the photos. They were far off at the tree line but my lens caught them. Not caught well, but caught.This was the first spike horn I have ever seen. I guess it is now legal to hunt spike horns and it has always been legal for youth weekend.

By the way, click here for the 2011 hunting calendar for Vermont. It’s a pdf file for printing. And click here for Vermont hunting regulations.

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Pansy's Big Weekend

I don't write too often about Pansy because she doesn't like me. But she is changing here in New Hampshire. Without dogs and with the ability to go outside, this disabled cat is learning trust and how to enjoy life. She is interacting with John and me more every day. She even talks to us now!

Last weekend was unseasonably warm and Pansy enjoyed sunning nearly the entire day on the deck. The next day, Monday, I was looking out of a window in the back of the house and I saw her hobbling back to the house . . . with a mouth full of mouse!

This was the best photograph that I got of her with her kill. When I got too close, Pansy abandoned the mouse and returned to the back field. But what a big day for her! Pansy is over 10 years old and this was her first kill! And she was bringing it home! John and I were both so proud of her. And so happy for her.

By the way, the mice in Vermont that the cats brought home were less than half this big. In Vermont, this would be the size of a rat. If Vermont had rats. Which it doesn't. This thing was huge! Warmer weather does create larger critters.

Pansy's Set

Pansy Caught a Mouse!

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One Single Impression: Conquer

Zorro
Mighty hunting cat
warm days stalking in the fields
conquered by north winds

Zorro is our mighty hunter.
Look here and here if you have the stomach . . .

To read more poetry, click the graphic or
One Single Impression
Thank you for visiting!

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How To Catch A Chipmunk

1. Find a chipmunk den and dig it bigger. Do this crazily and wildly.

2. Lie down and wait for the chipmunk to exit the hole and enter your mouth.
3. Napping during the day is allowed.

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2008 Vermont Hunting Seasons Calendar

XML version
iCal Version
HTML Version

Technorati Tags: 2008 Vermont hunting seasons
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Youth Hunting Update

I surveyed all the middle school classes because of some questions I got in e-mails today about the Youth Weekend post. By the way: all meat is used at the homes of the hunters. Families still rely on it.

Technorati tags: Vermont youth+weekend hunting

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Youth Weekend

This was Youth Weekend in Vermont: a weekend of youthful hunting in the woods.

I have twelve fifth and sixth graders in my homeroom. Here are the numbers:

• 92% have used a gun
  
• 67% hunt (deer, moose, bear, game birds, coyote, etc)
  
• 58% own their very own hunting rifle

One of my students got a 6-point, 200 lb buck. The 7th grade brother of another student got 3-point, 144 lb buck. A fifth grade girl in another class got a deer, as did another fifth grade boy. I failed to get the details of their hunts.

All of the students take Hunter Safety. They are not going out willy-nilly. And they all go out with a licensed adult.

Technorati tags: Vermont+Youth+Weekend hunting

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OutrageousChaos: Attack Deer HITS home!

OutrageousChaos: Attack Deer HITS home!

OutrageousChaos has written an hilarious and true account of a deer in North Hero, Vermont that attacks cats ("maybe the deer had had a 'bad experience' with a cat while a fawn."). You have to listen to the mp3 file of mom's phone call to her daughter. Use Firefox to view the blog; Safari does not do well there.

Which got me wondering: what does a deer bray sound like? I found out: go to Deer Grunting – The Bowsite. If you scroll down the page there are .wav files for all sorts of sounds that deer make and they are quite bizarre. I realize now that I have heard them but I thought they were birds or frogs. Ignore all the killing paraphernalia on the site and enjoy the sounds. I guess it takes big strong men with a lot of very expensive equipment to kill itty bitty deer.

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Cat Tuesdays: Buddy

Buddy: taken Sunday, January 14, 2007

Buddy is winter weight here!

Buddy is half-Siamese. He's very unusually colored: brown and black splotches on top of white and cream. He has blue eyes. In the summer he is a lean hunter. In the winter he is a big soft blob.

I saw Buddy at the Frontier Animal Shelter. He was friendly and outgoing. He greeted every visitor: he knew he wanted to be adopted and hot to behave! He was adopted by an elderly woman who wanted a Siamese and "settled" for Buddy. My daughter Amelia and I helped them settle in together.

Within a week, however, things had gone bad. Amelia got a phone call saying Buddy had attacked the woman and he had to go. Amy and I drove over that night after work. The bruises on the thin skin of the old woman were horrifying. She looked as if she had been beaten! We packed Buddy up and moved him into our house. I put Buddy in the back bathroom where he would be safe from all the other animals and where he would feel safe. I could not imagine what had come over Buddy for him to attack that woman so severely, so I carefully observed him.

Buddy quickly settled down and I allowed him to be with the other cats within a week. We still had no problems. He was very deferential to the others and did not challenge their hierarchy or authority. But every day outside of the bathroom he became more tense. Before the second week was over, Buddy attacked me. It was hardly as severe as when he attacked that woman. I have experience with scared and violent animals, so I was not scared. But I was very concerned: there had been absolutely no provocation for the attack!

In frustration, I picked Buddy up and tossed him outside so I could calm down and clean my bites and scratches. After an hour or so, Amy came home from work and Buddy danced in with her: he was a new cat! He jumped up for kisses and neck scratches and rewarded us with mews and happiness. After a snack, he curled up for a nap. Now I was more confused than ever! What had triggered this cat's wild mood swings?

Twenty-four hours later, Buddy attacked me again; I tossed him outside again; he returned happy again. During his third week living with us (with his former owner calling daily to make sure that I had killed this dangerous cat!), we found that if he was allowed freedom to come and go outside as he needed, he was the best companion one could ask for. Restricting Buddy to the house literally drove him mad. Buddy wouldn't only attack me: he would viciously attack other cats and even the dogs.

Buddy is my joy now. After two years of total freedom, he has calmed down. He will go days now without attacking anyone. And the only time an attack happens is if I am not paying attention to his signals. The cats and I now recognize behaviors in Buddy that warn us of his attacks. At that point, I can toss him into the garage for an hour until he calms down. These tense times only happen in the winter.

During the first two summers with me, Buddy would take off into the woods for one to three weeks. He doesn't do that any longer. He often would be sick from parasitic diseases or fights with other animals. Once he came home with three porcupine quills in his whiskers! He is older and slower now.

Buddy is a great bedtime cat. He will lie in your arms and stare at you adoringly while he purrs. His greatest joy is walking in the woods with you. He'll go anywhere, even to the point of exhaustion so that you have to carry him back. Hikes with Buddy are entertaining: he does not take the horizontal route. He runs up and down trees, crawls under logs, and leaps over blowdowns!

I am very fortunate to live where I live: it is very rural. Three of my cats go outside regularly now. They always go up back on Barton Mountain. They hunt mice, voles, and shrews (one day they sadly killed a beautiful star-nosed mole). Buddy is generous with his kills: he places them around my car in the garage. I make sure to never toss them out when he is around.

One November another daughter, Anna, came to visit me. A hundred or so years ago, Vermonters would bury trash in the woods. I had found such a spot on my property and I asked Anna help me excavate the antique bottles from it. While she worked Buddy ran up and down trees and helped her dig. But then Nathan drove up! Nathan was a local hunter who parks on my property and goes into my woods to hunt during deer season. Apparantly Buddy and Nathan had already met that season! Anna says that as soon as Buddy heard Nathan's truck, his head swung around and he raced off to meet his friend! As Anna watched, Buddy was walking by Nathan's side off into the woods! Later, Nathan confirmed that Buddy frequently hunts with him.

I often visualize Buddy and Nathan up in the deer tree waiting for a buck to walk by. What do they do? Play cards? Drink beer? Swap hunting tales?