Our cat, which we originally acquired to be a barn cat to keep down the mice, is a needy little SOB. Every time I go outside he comes running and mewls pitifully for attention. He doesn’t do it for my wife and daughter, just me. I’ve had spinal fusion surgery and can’t bend down to pet him and my knees are so bad I can barely squat and get back up. As a compromise, I stand next to a rabbit hutch on the porch where his food dish is and let him jump up there. That way I can pet him without too much physical inconvenience. I don’t know what we’ll do when he gets too old to jump that high. I wish there was a way to do something like blow a kiss to him, but it doesn’t work that way. I really had to revise that sentence to avoid the phrase ‘blow him’.
Our dog is getting old, but he must still be fairly spry because we found half a cottontail rabbit on the porch. He wants to take care of us despite our kids having outgrown him, my wife’s avoidance of him for fear of fleas, and me not being able to bend down far enough to pet him. The only time I can do anything for him is when I’m sitting in my camp chair on the porch. Then he comes by and lays down at my side and I can pet him. I know he has a few fleas, even though I treat him monthly. If he sees, hears or smells anything out of the ordinary he stands on the porch and barks a warning. Once he was raising hell about something and I went out to check. Oddly, he was facing the house and barking. When I looked, there was a rattlesnake coiled under the porch. He’s a good boy, my Sonny.
My chickens remind me of internet trolls and extreme biased media. I threw feed out to them this morning and most of it went to a big area where they eat, but a few grains scattered near where I was standing. Did they pounce on the bounty piled up in one place? No. They fought over the few nearest me. They are not nearly as entertaining as the guineas we used to have. Those things were pure bipedal hell on the grasshoppers. I loved to watch them chase bugs around the yard.
Roob with a View 