Percy's Home

He only lost the tip of his tail, but his tail hurts him, and the indignity of a cat in an E collar is indescribable.

Poor Percy

You know it's been a bad day when you sit down to eat supper while Jay Leno is doing his monologue. Definitely been that kind of day here.



My dear Percy is in trouble. Tomorrow he will have at least a part of his tail amputated. It all started so innocently. As you may know, Percy is an indoor/outdoor cat most of the year. He is a fantastic mouser and rabbit-ter. He is also a birder beyond compare and thus spends a few months each spring and early summer confined to the house so the birds have at least a chance to nest and fledge. Percy gets frustrated being in the house all the time and has invented a fun game of hopping from chair to chair under the dining table all the while teasing and taunting the dogs. Percy loves the game, the dogs love the game, it all seemed like so much fun to me.

This morning one of the dogs, and I have no idea who, managed to nip Percy's tail while playing the musical chairs game. I dropped Percy off at the vet where they sedated him and stitched up his tail. When I picked him up later this afternoon they warned me he might lose his tail. I thought that was too silly. He's the healthiest cat I know. It was just a little nip. However, after being home a few hours, Percy was in serious pain. He would circle and bite and rip at his tail. He ripped the stitches out. I had to take him into the vet on this evening and spent an hour or so there. We were able to give him pain meds and a bit of sedation. I have meds to give him again at 3:30 a.m. (hey, who needs sleep). Tomorrow I will bring him back to the vet and most likely he will have at least the tip of his tail amputated. Hopefully not more but the vet thinks probably more. We had a chance of saving his tail before he ripped it apart.

Birds



Before Percy's accident I thought I would start my blog off with this picture. Isn't she fantastic? I caught the turkey feeding in my front yard this morning. I was almost ready to get a picture of her stretching her neck and eating right out of bird feeder when the dogs also spotted her and starting barking up a storm. Naturally, the turkey left when the barking started, but she wasn't in any big hurry to leave so hopefully she'll be back. My sister in KY just laughed when I sent her this picture. She said the wild turkeys in KY are much fatter than this skinny hen. My sister said you can actually eat the wild turkeys in KY. Ha-rumph! The MN winters must be tougher on our turkeys.

In other bird news, I have a pair of blue birds nesting with 5 white eggs. The Bluebird Mad tells me white eggs are somewhat rare but not unheard of and it is not an indication anything will be wrong with the baby birds.

The Indigo Buntings are still here. I thought they had left but I see them at my feeders almost every day. A few days ago I had 3 pair of Red Breasted Grosbeaks at the feeder all at the same time. They are such beautiful birds. The Orioles are back too, along with the Eastern Phoebes, Chipping Sparrows and Wrens.

Oh, I forgot to mention about a week ago I saw my first American Redstart. He was flitting around my crab apple tree. What a pretty little bird!




Now my crab apple tree looks like this. Very pretty, but also very good camouflage for birds. I predict I'll be seeing fewer and fewer new birds now that the leaves are out.

Dogs



A few days ago the puppies came in looking like this. This is Fancy. Tinkerbelle and Rumor looked much worse but I was only able to catch a picture of Fancy. Believe it or not, they smelled even worse than they looked. I don't know what they found to roll in but ... yuk!

I spent my Memorial Day weekend at 3 days of agility trials. We had a blast. Dusty managed to pick up his OA (Open standard) title and 2 legs toward his OAJ (Open Jumpers) title. Dusty is so good, he even makes me look good!

The agility trails were blessed with good weather and we managed to escape the tornadoes. My manager, who lives in Western WI, was not so fortunate. They lost their barn and roof of their house. Luckily, they are all fine as are their horses and cattle.

Knitting

I do still knit, just no recent pictures to show. I'm working still on my lacy scarf and my Mr. Greejeans II.



Send good thoughts to Percy tomorrow. I could not care less what length or look of tail he ends up with, but I definitely want the "pain free" part of all of this. I think it's going to be a long night here.

Is it spring yet?

Gosh, seems like we Minnesotans have waited a long time for spring, and we're still waiting. I hope it comes soon. Actually, I'd be quite happy to skip spring at this point and go right to summer.

Birds

I haven't been posting much about my birds this spring. I think it's been so cold and gray most of the time I just can't get excited about it. But I am excited about this - Indigo Buntings!



Can you spot the Bunting on the thistle feeder here? I noticed a small, gray bird sitting in my large feeder a few weeks ago and thought to myself, that's a female Indigo Bunting. But I figured I must be wrong. I haven't seen Indigo Buntings here for about 10 years. Then, last week I spotted two males sitting in my large feeder helping themselves to the food. Two at once! I tried to get a picture but they flew off as soon as I moved towards the window. I did manage to capture a few, blurry, though the window pictures of one at my thistle feeder. The buntings were around for about 4 days, now they seem to have moved on. I wish they would spend the summer but at least I saw them while they were here.

I have bluebirds again but they haven't started nesting. According to the Bluebird Man, it's just too cool yet. I've heard some bluebirds further north are starving to death this year due to the cool weather and lack of food. Mine seem to be doing great in the food category. All this wet weather makes for plenty of worms for the bluebirds. Still, they have started building a nest on the few warm days but abandon efforts as soon as it turns cold and rainy again. This isn't a very good picture but it is proof of my bluebirds.



I spotted my first bluebird this year on April 14th. That's about 3 weeks later than normal. The first Orioles appeared on Monday, May 12th, about a week to 10 days later than expected.

Knitting



I don't think I have published a picture of my Mr. Greenjeans completed with a button and all. My sister Rita wore it to my nephew's college graduation and my mom tells me Rita was the best dressed of the group. I know moms tend to say these things but I must say, it does fit my sister very well and the color is perfect for her.



So, I decided to start my own, my second, Mr. Greenjeans. I turned a few skeins into center pull balls tonight. The way this spring has been going, if I hurry I might still get to wear my own Mr. Greenjeans before summer comes.

Meanwhile, I'm knitting on my lacy scarf. Here it is as a blob of lace.



And here it is stretched out a bit so you can see the pattern.



I think it will be quite nice once I block it out, but it's so boring. I usually manage one pattern repeat before I'm too bored to continue. I definitely need another project in addition to this scarf. I've used up one skein of the Karabella Terrain. I have three. I will definitely use a second skein to complete the scarf. I don't think I can manage knitting up three skeins. Maybe, but it seems too boring at this point. I think the scarf will be plenty long enough using two skeins.



This weekend I knitted several swatches for a project I bought back in . . . 2002? 2001? I can't remember as this project has been marinating on my back shelf for a long time. It's a stranded knitting project, not only stranded but done in cotton (eek, all my errors will show as cotton isn't as forgiving as wool) and it's not done in the round so I will be stranding on the backside (purl stitch). I can't imagine what I was thinking when I bought this. Yikes! Yet I'm sick and tired of looking at this project and am determined to get it started this summer.

I've made several swatches, more than shown here. I've swatched with different needle sizes, different stranding techniques, you name it, I think I've tried it. I want this project to turn out as nice a possible so I'm taking my time at the beginning. My biggest fear is that I don't have enough yarn for the body of the sweater. Now that will be a big bummer! I don't think I have much hope of finding the same yarn in the same dye lot should I run out. One of the perils of retiring a project for so many years!

I'm usually much more monogamous with my knitting projects but looks like I'll have three going at once for a while here.

Dogs

No new puppy pictures. JJ and Bunny go to NADAC trials this weekend so perhaps something new to show next week.