Photo of the Year
“Photo of the year
It was considered the best photo of this century. A lioness and her cub were crossing the Savannah but the heat was excessive and the cub was in great difficulty walking.An elephant realized that the cub would die and carried him in his trunk to a pool of water walking beside his mother.
And we call them wild animals.It’s a great lesson for mankind who are fighting and dying for no reason.”
*This was sent to me by my good friend, Marsha Koenig, and I wanted to share it with you.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
My fish aren’t particularly patriotic, but I thought they would appreciate having a clean tank for the Independence Day celebrations today.
JD Houston via YouTube
We have had a quiet day, other than someone in the valley below us practicing with his gun this afternoon. I was settling down for a cat nap, but decided it wasn’t in the cards when the shooting started. I may get another chance before the evening begins.
The rain has stopped for now, and I’m hopeful we can have our cookout on the deck tonight and enjoy the neighbor’s fireworks.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Animal Fact Guide
“Well as giraffes say, you don’t get no leaves unless you stick your neck out.” – Sid Waddell
Animals | HowStuffWorks
“I’d hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat.” – Mitch Hedberg
CNN.com
“A giraffe has a black tongue 27 inches long and no vocal chords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.” – Robert Fulghum
“A bit of advice: never read a pop-up book about giraffes.” – Sean Lock
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes
Good Housekeeping
We have two cats who own us.
Yesterday Abby –
Abby
sat in the exact middle of our dog Amber’s –
Amber
bed. Not only would she NOT allow Amber to share the bed, she rubbed it in, stretching and flaunting her position while Amber looked unhappily on.
Another example of our cats owning us –
I sit at my computer answering email, researching things, writing blog posts, etc. Smoke –
Plops herself down in the middle of my area, keyboard, or work, the fact that she is interrupting meaning nothing to her.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
The Express
“A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?” ~ Unknown
Alan Walker – Getty Images – Discover Wildlife
Owl
Wiser than can be
Seeing great at night
Flying quieter over the sea
Making hope shine bright ~ Unknown
BrightSide
“He respects Owl, because you can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right.” A.A. Milne
Discovery Place Nature
“Alone and warming his five wits, the white owl in the belfry sits.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Eagle Mountain Utah News
“I rejoice that there are owls…. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have.” – Henry David Thoreau
Earth.com
“I think I’m a tiny bit like Harry ‘cos I’d like to have an owl. Yeah, that’s the tiny bit, actually.” ~ Daniel Radcliffe
The Spruce Pets
“The owl,” he was saying, “is one of the most curious creatures. A bird that stays awake when the rest of the world sleeps. They can see in the dark. I find that so interesting, to be mired in reality when the rest of the world is dreaming. What does he see and what does he know that the rest of the world is missing?” ~ M.J. Rose
Source Unknown
“Owls seem to have always been a bird that sparks the creative imagination. They have been seen as symbols of victory, wisdom, or solitude. In more recent decades, owls have also been associated with Halloween.” – Rebecca Ludens
Source Unknown
“Old being, old thing,
so stout and wise.
You look down from the tree,
Knowing that I am here.
You stare long
You stare hard
And never look away.
You remember don’t you.
Peer at something else and
This spirit you see standing,
May well disappear.”
________________________________________
Two feathery tufts rise off a building
Next to an open park.
Powerful large eyes sight-fully gliding
Over the grass and dark.
These striking yellows gaze,
This view they take.
Dusk has left its haze.
It is good to be awake.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Things
Molly
I have told you that the vet told us that our sweet Molly has cancer. He helped us clear up the immediate problem she was having with her jaw, got her through a bad period with pain and inflammation pills and antibiotics. This has given her some really happy dog days and we are treasuring each one. Right now she is sleeping, but many times during the day she is barking to go outside, prancing around the yard, barking to come in again, and demanding a treat for doing that. (She’s getting one, too. :0) )
We have always fed her twice a day. She is not hungry first thing in the morning now, ignoring her dish. She eventually eats what is in the dish, plus is hungry for dinner in the evenings.
We keep her in the office behind a gate to protect her from Amber, our 3-year-old, 95-pound yellow lab, who is jealous of her. We are very careful to make sure that we know where both dogs are before we let anyone outside, or let them in again. Molly’s food and water dishes are in the office, safe from others, until she wants them. At least, that is the PLAN.
Lately our animals are getting sneakier.
My husband got distracted yesterday morning and left the gate to the office open after letting Molly outside. By the time he came in with his cup of coffee, Amber
Amber
had come in and cleaned the dish. I insisted that my husband make her another bowl.
Another time I found one of our cats, Abby, polishing off the food in Molly’s bowl.
Abby
The only one who HASN’T tried to eat Molly’s food (at least that we have SEEN) is Smoke
Smoke
We are redoubling our efforts to protect Molly’s food so that when SHE is ready to eat, it’s there. Constant vigilance is required….
Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Family
Billie-Bored Panda
“This Is Billie. She Never Understood Why I Had A Set Of Keys To Bring In The Car And She Didn’t. I Got Her A Set Of Her Own And Now She Insists On Bringing Them Anytime We Go For A Drive!”
BoredPanda
“My Dog Is 16, So I Figured It’s Time For Some Driving Lessons”
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Pictures
Our forecast is ‘Downpours this morning and scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Chance of rain 100%”
Jimmy Nyakora via Scene and Heard – Match Box Quotes
Other than the downpours and thunderstorms, I’m hoping for a quiet rain. I have no big projects for the day. I wanted to finish weeding my veggie garden, but it looks like that won’t be in the cards today. My husband planned to mow the lawn, but that probably won’t be happening, either. All that will be waiting for us when Mother Nature decides to cooperate.
Our DirecTV system has a nice feature where you can pause a program and it will record it for you until you want to resume watching later. This causes a ‘buffer’ to form, where you can then fast-forward through commercials. We are totally addicted to this feature.
My husband and I have a running ‘discussion’ about why the feature doesn’t always work the way he thinks it should. It will hold about 40 minutes on pause, and then it starts playing. (Hopefully, we have it muted, or else it sounds like the TV is possessed, coming on by itself and talking erupting in the living room while we are in our home office.) Either way, the buffer is filled up and the TV plays. Sometimes the buffer is retained and sometimes not. We cannot see a pattern.
It REALLY irks my husband. He is careful to set it up at night so that we have a full buffer in the morning and he is able to zip through commercials to his heart’s content. When, for some unknown reason, gremlins have done their work and the buffer is ‘gone,’ he gets frustrated and angry. Our ‘discussions’ haven’t solved the problem. He refuses to call DirecTV to try to get an answer. And so, the ‘discussions’ continue…
We MAY have another raccoon. This would be #6 this season.
Getty Images
The sweet things won’t share, or we wouldn’t have a problem. They eat EVERY seed in EVERY feeder, and many time trash the feeder in their efforts to chow down. My husband will set our humane trap tonight and we’ll see if we capture another member of this year’s family to relocate with the others.
Foundation Pest Control
I mentioned that it MIGHT be the squirrel family we have this year. Yesterday I saw THREE squirrels at once being quite active and athletic on the feeders. That’s the first time I have seen three at one time. One was sitting in the shovel bird feeder, eating the seeds we leave there every day. A second was at the main bird feeder, hanging from his back legs as he avidly ate as much as possible using both hands to grab seeds. A third was in the gallon-sized clear bottle that sits on another feeder in our window. He was all the way inside the bottle, filling his cheeks.
Mourning Doves-Shutterstock.com
We usually have a pair of doves who sit on one of the electrical lines that cross the back of our yard. I haven’t seen them lately. I hope they are okay.
I hope that you are having a really nice day.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________
Cynthia E Varnado-The Honest Kitchen
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Favorite Quotes
Slaveika Aladjova
Slaveika Aladjova
Filed under Amazing Animals, animal paintings
Hazel – Sites at Dartmouth
Ethel – Sam Dolman
Bonding – Sam Dolman
Filed under Amazing Animals, animal paintings
icatcare.org
“As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.” ~ Ellen Perry Berkeley
Live Science
“I got rid of my husband. The cat was allergic.” ~ Anonymous
PetWebMD
“As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” ~ Cleveland Amory
PetWebMD
“You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense.” – Jane Pauley
Trupanion
“Love me, feed me, never leave me.”- Garfield, Garfield –The Movie (2004)
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Cane Cucciolo Wallpaper by Djlcio
“There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” ~ Ben Williams
Rover.com
“Properly trained, a Man can be Dog’s best friend.” ~ Corey Ford
The Happy Puppy Site
“You can say any fool thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, “My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!” Dave Barry
Wallpaper Access
“My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am.” ~ Unknown
Petfinder
“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” Samuel Butler
National Geographic
“One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you’re feeling blue is that he doesn’t try to find out why.” – unknown
Live Science
“The average dog is a nicer person that the average person.” Andy Rooney
Humane Society
“When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.” ~ Dog Wisdom
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Nick Sider via Emma Taggart – MyModernMet
Nick Sider via Emma Taggart – MyModernMet
Nick Sider via Emma Taggart – MyModernMet
Nick Sider via Emma Taggart – MyModernMet
Filed under Amazing Animals, animal paintings
Nick Sider – via Emma Taggart of MyModernMet
Nick Sider – via Emma Taggart of MyModernMet
Nick Sider – via Emma Taggart of MyModernMet
Filed under Amazing Animals, animal paintings
I just finished cleaning out the aquarium, scrubbing the fish, and putting it all back together again. (Okay – I don’t scrub the fish, but I THINK about it each time.)
You can see the large gold fish well, but you can’t see the WHITE gold fish. He IS in there, just crowded out of the picture.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Thom Jones – PlayBarkRun.com
We found and adopted Molly in 2005. She was 15 in February. She brought a light-hearted goofiness to our home, even making our pit bull, Bambi, smile.
Bambi is gone now. We have Amber, a 95-pound 3-year-old yellow lab now. Sadly, Amber is jealous of Molly – after initially getting along fine – and so we are very careful to keep them separated.
I told you recently that we discovered that Molly has cancer. The vet examined her, cleaned out a really ugly place that had sprung up on one side of her mouth, and sent her home with antibiotics and pain/inflammation medicine for 14 days. We had agreed that if she had some quality time left, we wanted her to have it.
You see her sleeping at my feet as I type. She now rests well. When she awakes, she is full of energy and barks sharply for us to let her out. Many times she barks again within a very short period of time, knowing that she gets a treat when she comes back inside. She is taking great joy now – gaming the system – going in and out countless times each day. Her bright black eyes sparkle and she grins each time she gets another treat.
She is prancing around the yard, hopping around, playful as she hasn’t been in years. I’m playing with her, then spending as much time as I can each day, giving her as much love as possible. She is getting a lot of happy dog days now, and we are treasuring each one.
One happy day at a time.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Changes, Family
Photo via J. Robert Bennett
Isn’t this a wonderful photograph? I don’t know who the photographer is, but Robert Bennett devotes a lot of his time to protecting wildlife and posts the wonderful photos he finds.
Depositphotos
We have had a busy morning. We caught Raccoon # 5 in our humane trap overnight, so we drove out to the spot where we relocate raccoons and he leaped into the small stream with great energy. (My husband put the trap in the middle of the deck floor, but this one apparently moved it so much trying to get out that he got close enough to our grill to trash the cover. We will just live with the trashed cover until next year, since the damage is at the bottom of it. ) We are HOPING that this is the last of the family and that we are now free of the sweet, but destructive critters now – at least until next year…
While we were out, we went to the clinic to get the lab work needed for our doctor appointment Monday. Of COURSE, they didn’t have authorization for MY lab work when we went in, even though they called to confirm the appointment for Monday. I have a GIFT for having my paperwork, authorizations, etc. lost, or the statistics that should apply to me, NOT…. I have hoped that I would finally get old enough to outgrow this ‘gift” …
We are finally out of the intense rain we have been having. The weather is gorgeous right now. Sunny, nice temperatures, and low humidity. We have our doors open and are really enjoy airing out the house and enjoying the breeze.
I plan to spray another container of weed killer today, plus do some weed whacking. All the rain followed by sunshine has caused a huge spurt of growth that we are trying to keep under at least reasonable control. My husband just finished mowing the yard a couple of days ago and it already needs to be mowed again.
First, lunch!
Have a wonderful day!!!!
ArcGIS Story Maps
Big Cat Rescue
“If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love.”
― Steve Irwin
photo via RJ Bennett
“Wild animals are less wild and more human than many humans of this world”
― Munia Khan
Minnesota Zoo
“When you look a wild animal in the eye, it’s like catching a glimpse into the soul of nature itself”
― Paul Oxton
Filed under Amazing Animals
picturequotes.com
Our Sweet dog Molly is better with the antibiotics and pain/inflammation medicine we got from our vet. She is sleeping now, but actually barks to be let outside and then barks again to come back in – playing the ‘system’ of getting a treat for doing that – over and over. I’m playing right along. The swelling on her mouth has gone down a lot and she actually smiles at me when I hug and pet her. Each day is a gift now.
Molly Resting
I worked out in the yard early this morning, since the heat index for the afternoon is forecast to be 105 degrees F. My husband had asked me to spray weed killer on the north side of our shop. I mixed up a 2-gallon container and hosed everything down there, plus around my garden and under my planter boxes. I have just put Benadryl Ointment on the tops of my feet and my ankles because they are acting like I must have walked through poison-something-or-other. :0(
I also used our heavy duty tomato cages to prop up our now really bushy tomato plants in both brick planters on the far side of the yard from the main garden. We now have little bitty green tomatoes! I hooked up the hose and gave both planters a good drink. We haven’t hooked up our irrigation system for the yard because we have been getting a good amount of rain until the past few days. We are due to get the remnants of Cristobal tomorrow evening, so all should get a good drink.
These are the yellow crookneck squash and zucchini plants I put in the garden recently. They are looking happy, but haven’t started sending out vines everywhere yet.
My husband had a second stroke recently. We went to our primary doctor, who wanted him to have tests, but he refused. He said to me, “Last time we did it YOUR way (meaning testsa and doctor appointments), so this time we will do it MINE.” Needless to say, I’m not happy about this, but he is adamant. (If you look up the word “stubborn” in the dictionary, you will find my husband’s picture.) So we will HOPE that he doesn’t have another stroke for a long time (the time between the first one and this one was almost one year.) I will continue to try to keep him as healthy and happy as possible.
Rick James-Quotefancy
I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday. Take care and stay safe.
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