I found this Daddy Long Legs on my back patio

ps Before you say it John I know bats do not have legs, they have 'claws'...and no, I do not think even as a child I would have relished trying to get near to a bat...I just had this terrrible fear of them and spiders...:›(((
[ you know never did ask you how YOU knew frogs legs twitched when they were removed..you never did explain] poor frogs that makes me sad...waiting for another plausible explanation !!!!!!!!

The claws ARE the legs. Bats are, I suppose, "cute" until they expose their teeth. Being carriers of rabies they are better viewed from a distance.

I learned about frogs the hard way. As a youngster we often went gigging for bullfrogs. Frog legs are delicious sauted in butter. Fresh legs do twitch & jump in the frying pan. When field dressed the leg less frogs will even crawl away. I am sure it is just a reflex reaction. You had to ask!

Couldn't you make soup or something out of the rest of the frog John? Seems like a waste to let it crawl away ;) I went gigging for frogs once too. It was repulsive to me. Seemed so sneaky and unsportsmanlike.
Marion--We also have a small wood behind our property that is home to a rookery (I think that's what you say) of crows. And yes they are noisy suckers. They always remind me of a playground full of children, socializing and squabbling over the best part of the monkey bars. When I think about them that way, they are less annoying ;) But, it is a drag they way they scare away the songbirds. When they are active, it is very noticeable that we have less bird diversity around. Speaking of bird diversity, I heard a screech owl the other night and it was just the coolest thing. And hey--wait a minute, I adore bats! I am sorry you are repulsed by them. I love lying on my back in the evening and watching them swooping erraticly overhead. You are missing out! Bethany--aka--the worm ;)

I never hunt or fish for "sport."

Didn't mean to imply.......

I was only 10 and thought the frogs didn't have much of a chance, that's all ;)

They have a better chance now that I am older. :-)

John I thought I read you were 'giggling for frogs'' so figured how do you giggle for a frog ??? did you mean digging or are you just trying to mess me up considering I am a transplant and really do not know what you are talking about...that is right !! I had to ask !!!! [ still none the wiser tho'] have never had a fried frog in my life, would rather give up my life first [?] anyhooooo
now that we have that all explained away....
Earthwormlover....I do not mind watching bats from a distance or even on TV..something gross tho recently on [ from our Nat.Geog.channel] a man from Italy...one of those Iron Man crazy marathons...well he got lost in the Sahara desert...finally found this place out in the middle of no-where [like a kind of temple] full of very small bats, so he was catching them and eating them [ had had no food in days and water running out]...that was very very gross....

ps you know Earthwormlover..I do think John could have made some sandwiches out of them thar frogs instead of letting them crawl away like that ...what a waste of lunch !!!!!

I'll bet the bats thought so too ;) Frog gigging is the official term for stabbing a frog with a "gig" which is a long pole with a sharpie on the end. It's a long spear basically. Like primitive man.

pps knew something I forgot to add..as a small child was visiting a small village staying at a B/Breakfast guest house...saw a bat right in the middle of the afternoon swooping onto the window ledge in the B&B and crawling into the open [upper] bedroom window...I do not think I ever slept a wink after that...almost had nightmares in fact think I did have them...... :›((((((

yes, that is primitive man...as in VERY PRIMITIVE :›((((((

Describes me perfectly!

I have to say that I love bats and have several bat houses or rather bat nurseries. The blueprints were sent to me by another wildlife gardener and I would be more than happy to share them with anyone who wants them.

The crows I have are brutal to my owls and they chase them. But, today my red shouldered hawk grabbed a crow mid air. I love my crows but I love my raptors too.

Whoa there earthwormlover! I have close personal friends who feed feral cats which I do disagree with. They don't trap them and they do not have them spayed/neutered and vaccinated yet they feed them year in and year out. I have other friends who trap cats and have them ALL (feral and socialized former house pets) hauled off to be euthanized by animal control. I disagree with this too. Are they right and maybe I'm wrong or are am I right and maybe they are wrong? These are all passionate people who love animals yet we all have a different way of addressing the issues at our homes.

I know of people who are wildlife habitat restorationists who shoot cats. I suppose I can live with people who choose to shoot them as at least it is over with quick. Sadly, I know of birders and horse owners in my area who are so angry at the sheer numbers of feral and stray cats that they are openly boasting of setting out cat food laced with rat poison and setting jaw traps off of their properties (jaw traps are illegal and nobody wants to get caught with them on their property) to reduce the number of cats. These people are not friends of mine and I will speak up and ask them if their traps and their poison can tell the difference between a raccoon or a skunk or a fox or someone's dog on the loose and a cat. I then suggest that they invest in a HavAHart trap so at the very least, they can release anything that isn't a cat and have animal control pick it up so it doesn't writhe in pain dying a slow and painful death (and yes, I do use those words). That usually ends the conversation real quick as they know their jaw traps and poisons can't tell the difference. Well, these people don't care any longer they are so fed up with cats stalking their bird feeders and the destroyed animal feed from having been repeatedly sprayed. I can appreciate this however nondiscriminately using poisons and jaw traps is not the answer and quite frankly I believe it is barbaric. I don't even hate these people, I just feel sorry for them that they would take out their anger and frustration on a dumb animal regardless of whether it is native to NA or an introduced species.

Last year I spent over a thousand dollars trying to save 2 of my indoor only cats that contracted an airborn virus from one of numerous ferals/strays hanging around my home. My cats were all vaccinated. The virus was a mutated strain. My oldest cat couldn't fight the virus and died. The other one that contracted the airborn virus did live but neurologically he is a mess. Yes, I now trap cats. I used to leave them alone even though countless arguments were presented to me that indicated they needed to be managed and controlled. After dealing with that airborn mutated virus, I began trapping at my property. To the best of my knowledge I have now trapped at least 50. The vast majority of the cats I have trapped are 2nd, 3rd, and probably even 4th, and 5th generation feral cats but there are a few socialized dump offs and strays. The ferals I trap are picked up by animal control and I know they are humanely destroyed. The few that were/are former pets were/are taken to no kill shelters by me and I pay the fee out of my own pocket to get them in.

earthwormlover, I have no doubt your cats are spayed and neutered. I also have no doubt your cats are current on all of their vaccines and receive regular veterinary care. You monitor them when they are out and you bring them in at night when all the birds start roosting in shrubs and trees for the night and become most vulnerable to predation. Who am I to judge you for gardening with your cat. I most certainly do not hate you. Differences of opinion are the spice of life and I learned something invaluable from you already... I learned that I need to stop and check dead opossums on the road for babies in their pouch next spring. I will leave you with something that was said to me by a personal friend who feels that I should not be trapping cats or English House Sparrows who knows that I feel she should be spaying and neutering and vaccinating the feral and stray cats she feeds. Her comments were to make me feel better about trapping even though she disagrees with me. I will add that she is for brain stem cell research while I am opposed to brain stem cell research. What she said was, "Everyone is opposed to brain stem cell research until it happens to them". That "until it happens to them" hit home with me just as that mutated virus contracted by two of my cats did.

this really does have little of anything to do with the discussions about the cats...however,I did just want to mention this especially when you taked about your cats being so sick Lauren, but have you ever tried giving your animals Acidophilus..[pro-biotics]..since I started giving them to our little dogs [ we have a very small tea-cup chihuahua..and a larger one]...no more vet trips, when she is suffering from whatever she gets ? and they have had her on IV's..x-rays..blood work...and still cannot detect the problem..anyway a capsule
mixed with some food...empty out powder.... [ chicken will do it when she is not eating] and she is like a different dog the next day..it is truly amazing...AND that is the end of the episode..[ when they eat stuff outside too is when they usually get sick...they 'graze' and dear knows what they eat..]
ps I know the above remedy would not have helped your cats out...so sad about what happened..I am just mentioning this in general terms..instead of that vet trip....[ we spent $500 one evening on Sweetie, our tiny dog, and they still could not find out what was wrong]

Wow, you trapped 50 feral cats? I just can't envision where you live and how it could accumulate that many feral cats. I rarely if ever see a feral cat. And I think I'm looking. No wonder you feel the way you do. Of course my cats are all spayed. Wow...50.

Hi Marion, The cat is about 4 years old. He can't jump off of a bed any longer without bottoming out on the floor. He used to sit on the edge of the bathtube when I took a bath but he fell in too many times so I close the toilet lid and he hangs out there now. Sometimes he tries to clean himself and he misses. Seems as if he has lost a lot of coordination. He is still a very gentle sweet and loving cat but the difference is quite noticeable. He has fallen down the stairs a few times too. He knows so he goes slow. He's very healthy now, he just has residual neurological damage. What is Acidophilus and how could it help? My cats don't go outside at all and I don't even let them out on a leash or anything so there is no possiblility they could ingest something from outside. Our dogs do go out but only to pee and poop. We have one dog that occasionally takes a few swipes at grass to eat but we don't use any chemicals on our lawn so there is no risk of getting into anything. If she eats too much grass, she will barf but this happens very infrequently. All of our dogs are well over 100lbs but oddly she doesn't seem to need to eat a lot of grass to get tummy upset and we generally stop her from gorging quick and toss her happy rear back inside. I'd be interested in more information about the Acidophilus. Thanks for mentioning it.

I can definitely relate to Equilibrium's feral cat problem. Here in Israel, the British brought cats here to eliminate the rat and mouse problem in the early part of the 20th century. Now cats are rampant everywhere in the country. In Tel Aviv where I used to live, stray cats are a huge problem...and so many of them are very very ill either from disease or injuries from fights or whatever else befalls them. The city tries it's best to pick up as many cats as it can, but it's just an overwhelming problem. And then there are those people like Equilibrium describes who do not adopt a cat, but rather just put bowls and bowls of food out for them. So they aren't spayed or neutered and go on making more babies who will grow up wild feeding out of the trash cans and hissing at and scaring everyone who gets near them. I get so mad when I see people putting food out for them. Yes, when I see a little kitten I sure wish I could find a home for him, but just to put out food will only aggravate the problem of the enormous number of stray cats here.

Equilibrium, how do you trap them? I'd love to know more as I have sevearl cats hanging around my property and I don't want them to stay (both for the sake of my kids as well as the bird population).

-Julie

Googled "cat traps." This is one of many returns.

http://www.meowhoo.com/Rescue/Humane_Cat_Traps/

Hi Julie,

I use the HavAHart #1050. John provided you with a link to HavAHarts but if you check around, you might find a more affordable source. One thing is that you need to get your ducks in a row for the sake of the cats you will trap. Our animal control only picks up M-F from about 9am-3pm. Before or after those hours and you are out of luck. We only set our traps starting Sunday night and we leave them set until the following Friday morning. No sense letting an animal sit in a trap over the weekend that can't be picked up until Monday morning. I position our trap right under the birdfeeder. I place a small bowl of water and a small bowl of anything really smelly like canned fish. Canned cat food will sometimes work but the canned fish really works the best for me. If I notice there is a cat in the trap, I avoid eye contact with the animal and place a rug over the trap to reduce its stress. A woman who taught be how to tell a feral from a socialized cat told me to stick a pencil in through the cage. If the pencil is attacked, you most assuredly have a feral cat. If it is not attacked, you have either a very sick or injured feral cat or a socialized stray. From there you now need to decide what to do with it. I choose to call animal control on the ferals. Animal control comes and picks them up and leaves me with my trap and my city pays for them to be humanely destroyed as city ordinances now are in place encouraging residents to remove them as they have been identified as an exotic invasive species posing substantial risks to public health and to the environment. Animal control does hold any socialized strays they pick up for a while and if there is space available; they ship them to a shelter somewhere to be spayed/neutered, tested, dewormed, defleaed (sp?), vaccinated, and hopefully adopted in the future. I don't like to risk it so I choose to drive the socialized cats to a no kill shelter but this costs me and some people feel they have paid enough for the irresponsibility of others and won't pay the fee in favor of letting animal control sort them out. I am uncomfortable with this so I pay. Might as well pay the fee to get them in a shelter or else I would have been paying a higher fee to have them fixed and vaccinated plus long term costs of feeding them outside. Seriously Julie, that's about it but you better do some soul searching before you buy a trap as it is one of the most horrible things to have to make that call to animal control because I know the cat will be humanely destroyed. I sort of rationalize by telling myself that I can't afford to take them all in, I can't afford to fix and vet them all let alone commit to feeding them year after year, and I won't have feral cats around the kids, and I don't want my wildlife being obliterated any longer. This doesn't make it much easier but it is right for my particular situation. I feel for you Julie.

Sorry earthwormlover, I missed your last post. I was typing and then walked away to let dogs out and then posted.

The problem in our area is that we are visible from a major highway connecting Chicago to Milwaukee. You can drive by and see all the barns dotting the countryside. The very next city over has a sizeable affluent population. Many big houses with many busy people who purchase many pets. It takes a considerable amount of time and resources to maintain pets and people like you and I know that. That kitten in the pet shop window is real cute and desirable when it is little but it will need clean litter boxes or it is going to find other spots in which to urinate and defecate. The kitten in the window will also grow up to become a cat that won't be so adorable any longer and will require medical attention sooner or later. Children who vowed to take care of the pet soon break their promises and then the parents get saddled with the pet and resent this given hectic lifestyles we all seem to have these days. Additionally, all too many people seem to end up with house pizzers soiling their expensive Persian carpets and seem to feel that Farmers need mousers so they take Fluffy for a drive in the country as opposed to getting in the habit of cleaning litter boxes weekly or taking a cat to a vet to see if there is a biological basis for the behavior such as a urinary track infection which if caught early enough is easily treated. Sad reality but many take on pets but don't fully accept the responsibility that goes hand in hand with pet ownership. Sadly, pets are not toys to appease a whining child contrary to popular belief around here but long term commitments. So after the novelty wears off, the cat goes for a ride in the country where it is dumped. Many are young when they are dumped and most are not spayed or neutered as there is this mindset of why put money into anything unless one is sure it will "work out". A dumped cat will soon revert back to it's North African wild behavioral roots if left to its own devices for survival. The cat populations are out of control in my area. We were holding our own for a while until several people routinely began shooting and killing the coyotes. Another issue in our area which resulted in an instantaneous rabbit, squirrel, and cat boom. A few coyotes grabbed small dogs and there was much media attention so a wave of panic swept over the area and needless to say, some people took matters into their own hands. There are also people who do not like the sounds of coyote barking and howling at night. If you live in an area such as this I would have thought that those types of sounds would be music to one's ears but I guess not. Needless to say the only viable predator of the feral/stray cat, other than automobliles, has recently experienced a major population decrease.

We also have an eccentric person down the road who is feeding a good sized colony of ferals. These cats are not spayed and neutered as the person claims to not have the financial resources to spay and neuter so many cats and is struggling to feed them all. Some neighbors think they are feeding at least a hundred. It is illegal to feed deer in this state due to Chronic Wasting Disease but it is not as of yet illegal to feed feral/stray cats. Needless to say that colony is growing and offspring are spreading out. There are many people who are supporting colonies of unaltered cats. I was reminded this morning of a colony in Lincoln Park of hundreds and hundreds with a network of volunteers who sign contracts that they will provide food and water. This particular colony is spayed and neutered but I don't think they enjoy a high rate of recapture for annual vaccinations if they even bother and I don't think they do given their colony suffered tremendous casualties from Feline leukemia a few years ago which it most assuredly spread to people's personal pets before rebounding to the hundreds again. Even people who can afford to spay and neuter the ferals they feed have those they can not trap that slip through the cracks so to speak that will go on to breed. Tough call as to what to do other than to focus on spay/neuter if at all possible.

So, my immediate area was inundated but I am not alone. You also have to remember that I am partially to blame as I did nothing around here for years until two of my cats got sick as a direct result of the ferals and strays hanging around. The number of cats we trap has slowed down to a trickle. I am told by others that if we keep up with it we will sooner or later be down to only a handful a year. That would be nice. My husband and I are now donating money to low cost spay/neuter programs. We feel it is the right thing to do for us.

Time for me to go back outside and plant a little bit more.

Equilibrium, Thank you so much for all the information. I really do appreciate it. I know this might sound mean to some people, but I honestly have no problem with calling animal control to pick up a wild cat. Around here the wild cats are obvious andeasy to spot. Someone's house cat who is just wandering around has a completely different look. The feral cats are very skinny, have a decidedly wild look in their faces and even walk a different way (more on the defensive I suppose). There are just too many dead cats on the side of the road far too often for me to delude myself into thinking that the strays I might catch would survive and live a long and happy life if I just let them go somewhere far away. And I know far too well from experience that a cat can find it's way "home" even if you drop it many many miles away. When I was in junior high, we had a gorgeous cat which we'd adopted off of the street. He was so used to being outside that we never could bring ourselves to caging himin the house (and he was neutered). He never brought home kills for us either, so that was good. In any case, when we moved out into the country 20 miles away, he continually found his way back to our old neighborhood in the city. Luckily we had a great neighbor there who loved our cat as much as we and he agreed to take our cat in. I missed him terribly, but even at that young age, I knew it was better to leave him there than risk having him run over or attacked by a larger wilder animal on his journeys back to the city several times a week! A riend of mine took her cat with her to university to live with her in her small apartment. He found his way back to her old house 250 MILES AWAY and her mother called her two weeks later to let her know the cat was "home". My point is, that I've had cats as pets before and I dearly loved them, so I'm not a cat hater. But to fool myself into thinking that stray cats are no menace is just putting my kids in danger. I won't live in a situation where I'm afraid to let my kids go play in the garden for fear of a mean stray cat attacking them. And I think a quick injection is a far better way to go than getting hit by a car in the street and being left to die a slow and painful death. So if I can find a trap, I won't have any qualms using it.

-Julie

Reading the postings reminded me of one of our neighbors cats...she had Siamese and one in particular was not only neglected but abused by the young boys the other neighbors including myself looked after her and fed her..she would come to our front doors crying when whe needed food or just to come inside..Icould have wrung that neighbors neck as I had worked with her [real estate] and she was considered very 'competent' but none of us ever said anything to them...we should have... we were all upset about it....I view these people as being incredibly selfish, uncaring and without any feelings at at [ unless it comes to themselves]..they will not take responsibility for their actions and it becomes everyone else's problem....
I know that the coyotes keep the stray dogs and cat situations reduced...except I hate it when I hear that a coyote has killed another dog or cat, as those animals suffer terribly..[ I know from the howlings up on the hillsides around us..terrified dogs being chased by coyotes]...it still reverts back to peoples incredible irresponsibity....
Lauren...the Acidophilus [plus] is what I take..very very beneficial good bacteria which populates your stomach, intestines, and the rest of the body....It works on animals too and we all need them...
Along with the Acidophilus are other cultures [good bacteria] they all play their part in supporting the immune system etc.,.....
Lactobaccillus planarum, L.rhamnosus, L.casel,L.bulgaricus, Bifidobacterium,B.bifidum only to name a few..there are others...Also the soil bacteria is very beneficial..if you want to learn more let me know I can post on your email...[ soil bacteria for the intestines]
AND you can give it to animals, vets have known this for a long while, along with the
homeopathic meds [ actually horses especially get better care than what humans do..]

Hi Marion, Yes, I'll take more information. I have horses and I would be interested. I have one older new "acquisition" right now that I have moved over to Strategy to help gain and ultimately retain weight. Horses, like people, get old and need extra tlc! I'd also be interested in having information on what you have for human immune systems. Please, send me an e-mail. My girlfriend, who is an MD and volunteers for a cat rescue organization, said she did not feel the Acidophilus would help my cat with the neurological damage. Come to think of it, I have another MD friend who is an anesthesiologist and she is into dietary supplements. She doesn't know squat about animals but she might have information on supplements for humans with neurological issues. Do you have any information on anything specifically for my cat? Thanks for offering to send information!
Lauren

I guess I was naive about feral cat problems. I see one occasionally, and that's it. Sounds like a serious problem in your neck of the woods.

ewl, I still am naive when it comes to the harsh "solutions" some folks advocate. Some of my best friends are cats.

I hear you, but I also understand that if they were soooo bad in your neighborhood, its better to put them down humanely than to let them take over. It's no good for the cat either, to live on their own with no regular food source, no medical care or anyone to love them. I saw a feral cat by a dumpster the other day behind a strip mall and it was struggling to go the bathroom for 10 minutes. I wanted to just give it some fiber. It was pitiful.

Hi earthwormlover, There was a time when I was a proponent of what they call Spay and Release. That time ended this past year when two of my cats got sick. I had volunteered at shelters for years and S&R was what "shelter people" who truly loved cats did. They spayed and released. Release and Spay and Spay and Release. No information was ever provided to me regarding the flip side of the coin. I know you are right about humanely destroying all of them because there really aren't enough homes to go around and many cats will go unadopted and be warehoused but I still can not bring myself to let animal control pick up the former house cats that end up around here in hopes that some people will go to a shelter to pick their next pet as opposed to a breeder or a pet shop.

My husband is a long time proponent of humanely destroying ferals and strays of both dogs and cats. The cost to the tax payer is high and it is surfacing on a regular basis as of late. These issues appear to have surfaced into the public domain with Cornell's Pimental Report which appeared in 1999 but they have been around a lot longer than that. Link below-
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan99/AAAS.Pimentel.hrs.html

Here is a link to the full text of the report for anyone interested- It is a force with which to contend.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan99/species_costs.html

It is now the year 2004 and the current "clean up" costs have gone up by tens of billions of dollars.

Too many shelters sell there "prisoners" (dogs & cats) to corporate and university labs and I want no part of that. They will deny that but, they are liars!!!

John, I also have a big problem with sending strays to shelters for exactly that reason. If the dog or cat seems obviously lost or recently dumped, I try to find it a home...sometimes this takes several weeks, but so far I've found homes for all the ones I've taken in. But the mean cats who continually hiss at me and my kids in our own garden....well that's another story. I haven't caught any yet because I'd be too scared to get too close to these wild things. But if I can trap them and have them humanely put down rather than given to some lab to play with, that's much more preferable to me than leaving them to rule our garden. Until now I've just been doin gmy best to scare them off, but they aren't even afraid of our dog (Golden Retriever). Only a lot of yelling and whooping from me gets them to get up and leave the garden. Luckily we only have about 5 cats hanging around so far. But the more this city grows, the more like Tel Aviv it will become. A sad situation but not one to be ignored.

Having said that, in the States, I'd never have thought of calling a shelter or the city to get a stray dog or cat as it was such a rare thing I felt the strays should be left alone. But here....a whole other ball game!

-Julie

I understand, Julie. I may be a 'bleeding heart' but, I have also pulled the trigger. Its hard though. Don't like being judge, jury, and executioner. :-)

John this is your fault...are you listening I was half way thru posting, the 'thing' [ in my case webtv] stuck, and then I have just lost it...all of it [sigh] this does happen fairly often with this... DRAT !!!!!!![ I will forgive you...not your fault I know I am just frustrated again]
Anyhoooo to get back to the subject in hand..I just feel this important enough to post again..tho not popular.....
Couple of years ago when I was very sick, my doctor told me to ''get rid'' our our little dogs, because of all the problems with parasites and animals pass them on to humans especially cats and dogs....
My compromise was to have our dogs in our patio room, which is separate from the rest of the house..this is where they stay, and sleep and eat, and they are quite happy in there..however, they are not allowed into the rest of the house..and they know this ..in fact for one year I was never even near them..could only ''talk'' to them thru glass windows and doors [ even now when I take them out for a little stroll around our yard, I never pick them up or have them on my knee when Isit down]...they run up the nearest rock or boulder so I can give them a ''cuddle'' and spend some time with them..otherwise apart from the snacks I give them I have no other contact with them [ they also stick to me like glue when I am outside]
so it is an arrangement between us and it works, altho not the perfect situation I get to keep my dogs [ also have to be meticulous about hand washing]..
Parasites are known as"The silent Killers'..'The plague of our time' and they cause some real bad health problems...we are down the list with 3rd world countries [stated by World Health Organisation] the countries high on the list of preventatives are Sweden and Japan, because they treat this ''disease'' or epidemic with prevention..which the USA doesn't....
Many doctors have spoken out and written books [ will not bore you with an account]..
These parasites ofcourse are in our food, water supply and nothing is being done about that..but it is the real problem we have that is passed between us and our animls that we can take care of....Many preparations are on the market [ ie Old Armish remedies etc] one doctor who regularly comes on TV states that her whole family [ including the dogs, cats ] go thru a 'detox' or elimination at least once per year...I have to take a preparation regulary [daily] no big deal really, it is in a capsule...However, if you have or will read up on this, you will be shocked [ my doc gave me printed info which was sickening...]
I could give you more info if you want to..I did want to post here so you could read this..not agreeable to think about but it exists in abundance...anyhow..food for thought..and happy Sunday morning to you all..marion

And, good morning to you Marion! I go through an elimination every morning right after my first cup of coffee. As far as the animal parasites go I try to use common sense. Works for me.

ROTFLMAO....John, I nearly spit my coffee on my keyboard! You'd have been in big trouble if I had! LOL

-Julie

Hi John sorry about the little temper tantrum..we have a new lap top so hopefully I can learn how to use as this does drive me batty at times !!!!!!!!!
i will take your word for it that you are managing just fine......good !!!!!!! :›)))))

We are so happy for you in your state of perpetual regularity, regarding your morning constitution. Just wish that poor feral cat was so fortunate.

And, as for parasites, ick. Great. Thanks. As a science teacher, I am aware of all the little beings all around and inside. It has two opposite effects on me. It makes me an obsessive hand washer and a person who actually worries about it all surprisingly little, since I know microbes are impossible to escape. I welcome the little mites on my eyelashes, I am never truly alone.

I love to spend Sundays this way, serious stuff I know but funny postings, at least we keep it light hearted....
[Earthwormlover aren't you glad John shared that with us...I should have worried otherwise... and Salvia, glad you missed your keyboard this morning...John would have been in more BIG trouble]....LOL

ROTFLMAO---I proudly announced aloud that's the first time I ever used that one, so DH called me a liar because I am not actually rolling on the floor. But, I did laugh out loudly. However, LOL just doesn't pack the punch it used to ;)

Yes, many people here have made me laugh out loud too. My poor husband! Never fails that as soon as he sits down, I spot a great thread. I call out to him and laugh and point at the monitor at the same time and all he wants to do is sit back down. Somebody in one of these threads referred to people here as garden geeks. That one still has DH laughing. He is convinced it is true.

That was actually my 18 year old son, he calls this my gardening geek site. Never mind he is THE biggest geek ever with his lan parties and his 27 broken or used computers and their various guts and parts stacked in his room with his window and his curtain always closed to the outside air (until I go in and open them, as I always do). Talk about an apple that fell far from the tree. His nickname is cave cricket, he is so averse to fresh air. However, he is the one who dug my water garden just as a project he wanted to do. He can surprise one sometimes.

Soooo, it was your son who coined the term garden geeks! Sorry about that, I'd forgotten. I have to admit it is too funny particularly because I leave the computer on during the day and I go about my business and will take breaks here and there to see what's happening. Yesterday I planted northern gooseberries, button bushes, 2 persimmons, mulched a very long bed of iris, then came in and checked the computer. Stuck 50 iris rhizomes in the ground, then went and repotted all the aquatics that the raccoons got to and came in and checked the computer. Went out and transplanted seedlings I had germinated into larger pots and came in and check the computer. Back to weeding and getting all those last Queen Anne's Laces poking out as well as anything else looking as if it wants to go to seed that doesn't belong. Weekends are the only days I get to do anything where I can keep going but it is very physical work and I do need to stop every few hours and take a breather. This time of year is particularly busy as it is the end of season stuff that bogs you down yet seeds are coming in that need to be prepared and stored properly to winter sow. I swear all of my counters looks like little germination centers and my refrigerators are beginning to be filled to the brim with container after container of cold stratified tree seeds. I have to keep telling myself to keep going as soon the ground will be frozen and that means no more bulbs can go in! Yesterday, my husband actually told me to go inside and check to see what the garden geeks were doing. Too funny! Was able to get an incredible amount of work done outside though!