Recently in Animals Category

One of my ducks is missing. We only have five ducks, and they are always together and always close to the house. John came home around 6 pm and told me that one of our Pekin ducks was missing.

I put my coat on and went out with the dogs - Buffy (the coyote slayer), Gunner and Kiki. We are indeed missing a duck. He must have been taken by surprise, as I could find no sign of struggle anywhere in the area the ducks are known to frequent.

Buffy and Gunner picked up a scent and ran down the field behind the house and into the woods on the other side of the creek. Kiki, being an elderly dog, trotted behind them and then sat down until she figured she had been gone long enough to impress me and then returned home.

In the meantime, Buffy and Gunner could be seen racing through the woods and then back across and to the field to the West of the house - where I have seen coyotes before. They were gone for at least 30 minutes before they returned.

This happened between 4 and 6 pm - prime coyote attack time, in our experience. I am going to have to start keeping watch with rifle in hand during those hours. Last autumn, John shot several coyotes during that same time period - as they started up the hill toward the fowl.

I really hate predators. I want my fowl to free range. They are healthier and their eggs are much better than penned hens and ducks. But it costs us every year - and it is always this time of year that is the most dangerous.

Glen Reynolds linked to an article on POPSCI.com about the Dangers of Rogue Household Robots.

I immediately followed his link, not because I have an overriding concern about Robots gone mad, but because I had hopes that someone had invented a useful household robot.

I want an army of teeny tiny household robots who will zip out from a secure hiding place in the wall to clean up anything that is not authorized to be on the floor or carpet as soon as the unauthorized object hits the floor.

We’ve tried the Roomba robots, and although they might be fine for a household without critters, the Roomba is no match for three hairy farm dogs who track in mud, dust, leaves, grass clippings and worst of all, burrs. I those robotic vacuums might do okay with pet hair, but burrs almost require something with fingers to pull it from the carpet.

Oh, and I have not yet mentioned our ten (10) cats. We don’t go searching for kitties, they find us, and with kitties comes kitty litter, which gets stuck on kitty toes and then dropped wherever.

Oh, and I forgot to mention fiber. Since I have started spinning and carding and dying the goats’ mohair and turning it into beautiful yarn, little bits of goat hair (and some purchased wool) are finding their way into all the nooks and crannies of the house.

So where are those household robots that could turn rogue? I want them. Now.

True Story.

There is a woman who has a lovely horse - 1/2 Thoroughbred, 1/2 Welsh Mountain Pony (making a nice little dressage horse). This mare was injured a year or so ago, destroying the woman’s hopes of having an eventing horse, as the mare can no longer jump without risk of injury.

So, the lady kept the horse out in the pasture for a year, and the mare is ridable on easy trails or for some dressage classes. But certainly does not have the high stakes future she once had. This horse is 8 years old.

The woman has decided that feeding this horse is just not worthwhile, because the mare’s quality of life is not what it was intended to be, so the woman is going to put the horse down in 4 weeks if no one steps up to take care of this horse.

Now, the woman thinks she is being really altruistic by “giving” the horse away to someone who will take care of her.

The lady will only give the horse to someone who promises to only ride the horse gently, even if the injury is someday ‘cured’. Because she wouldn’t want to put the horse through the stress of being competitive, don’t you know. The horse would be better off … dead.

Naturally, John and I believe that once you get an animal, unless it is meant for food, you take care of that animal for its natural life, so this lady loses all claims to goodness in our eyes. One of our horses, Petey, is blind in one eye and is really not ridable at all (he spooks and bucks if something shows up suddenly), but we would never dream of putting him down or of giving him to someone else to care for.

What does this have to do with health care?

If Obamacare goes through, some bureaucrat will decide the fate of those of us who might suffer an illness or an injury. No, they are not going to “put us down”, but they WILL decide whether the contributions we can make to society are worth enough to pay for treatment for us. So, many people will be neglected by the Government-run health care program, because we have already had enough life.

And what’s worse, is the government won’t even allow you or your family to find your own health care and pay for your own medicine, surgery, etc. It will not matter if you can manage to get your own - Big Brother will make the determination that you will or will not get health care, even if the Govt. does not have to pay for it,

In this case, the horse lady is being kinder than Obamacare will be, for she is at least giving the horse a chance at life if someone else will pay for it. The Federal Bureaucrats who will be running the show will not treat people as well, ask the Brits.

If you look at the statistics for 5-year survival rates for prostrate cancer victims in the USA vs the UK,you will be stunned to find that men in the USA have a nearly 100% survival rate, while in the UK, it is only about 75%.

This is because Bureaucrats decide when your cancer is bad enough for treatment and delay treatment, often for many months, or deny treatment altogether if you are considered too old. No, these are not death panels, in that you are not slipped a dose of Hemlock with your afternoon tea. But they ARE denying people the opportunity to live because of health care rationing, and the determination that only the youth deserve a healthy life, the rest of us can just suck it up and rely upon our happy memories of youth, as that is all we really deserve.

So I suppose, in reality, the poor little injured horse has a better chance at living a long life as someone can rescue her. Whilst we Americans will not even have a chance at being rescued if the Bureaucratic panels decide we are not worth the money for treatment.

Over the weekend, Sven, our cute little black and white tuxedo kitten with 7 toes on each front paw, started to feel his testosterone.

Poor John had to pull him off of Cleo, our senior, sickly cat, twice whilst the little bugger was attempting to screw her. We decided he needed to be neutered ASAP. Sven is only a little over 6 months old, but has a very dominant personality and has been throwing his alpha cat weight around like there is no tomorrow. He even slaps at the big dogs who get in his way.

I called Jeannie’s office (our vet who takes care of all creatures, great and small), and though she felt he was a little youngish to be castrated, agreed to do the job on Monday, as soon as she got back from an appointment.

So, after a night of no food, I packed up little Sven in the carrier and drove him down to the vet’s office. I held him as Jeannie injected an anesthetic and waited for him to go to sleep. Then, Vickie, Jeannie’s assistant, put a mask over his little head while Jeannie prepped him for surgery.

Ouch, or it looked like ouch to me! Rather than trying to shave the tiny little kitty scrotum, Jeannie plucks the fur off of them - apparently, there are fewer problems with razor burn that way. Yikes.

Then, very quickly, a quick incision was made, the testicles were snipped and removed from the scrotum and placed on the table next to him.

Cat balls are very tiny.

So, Sven is back home, and he knows something is different, but he’s not sure exactly what happened. He is losing his previous control over the other cats and the dogs of the household. He is becoming, a regular kitty, no longer forcing his inexperienced will on the household population.

So I think of our President Obama - he is Sven - needing to be neutered. He is trying to screw our old and sick, and he is trying to do it on his own, ignoring the protests of over half the populace.

President Obama needs to be politically neutered - and we can do that in the 2010 elections - we can take away at least one of his testosterone-laden balls - the Senate - by voting out every Democrat and every RINO we can possibly rid ourselves of. Hopefully, the House can also be taken away from him - and Nancy Pelosi will no longer be the Speaker of the House and 3rd in line to the Presdency!

Only then will the President learn that he needs to respect our views, but I suspect he will continue to act like an inexperienced kitten, not realizing his power belongs to us.