Some Thoughts About Cats...!

There have been many, many quotes about cats!

I thought I'd put a few of the best ones I've found out there for you to think about! After all, you really would be surprised at how many other folks have the same thoughts about cats as you!

A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.
Mason Cooley

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there.
Agnes Repplier

A kitten is in the animal world what a rosebud is in the garden.
Robert Southey

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot

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

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.
Oliver Herford

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
James Herriot

Cats are inquisitive, but hate to admit it.
Mason Cooley

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.
Garrison Keillor

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
Joseph Wood Krutch

Cats don't like change without their consent.
Roger Caras

Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.
Rod McKuen

Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.
W. L. George

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
Joseph Wood Krutch

Even cats grow lonely and anxious.
Mason Cooley

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
Jules Verne

I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days.
Bill Dana

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.
James Herriot

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
Hippolyte Taine

I kind of imagine myself at eighty, a cat lady.
Juliette Lewis

I live alone, with cats, books, pictures, fresh vegetables to cook, the garden, the hens to feed.
Jeanette Winterson

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau

I love cats.
Dick Van Patten

I used to love dogs until I discovered cats.
Nafisa Joseph

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
Edgar Allan Poe

Now, before all you dog lovers give me a bad time...I'll do a separate post all about dogs. OK? After all, dogs do deserve equal time, don't you think?

No matter whether it's a dog, a cat, or a goldfish...pets have a way about them that can bring a little sunshine into our most dreary day! At least that's the way I feel about it!

Coffee on the patio this morning. Gonna be hot later, so let's enjoy the morning, OK?

Need A Butterfly Magnet...?

I had an old farmer tell me one time that having a lot of butterflies around your yard or garden meant that it was healthy!

In keeping with that thought, I found a list over at the Farmer's Almanac that supposedly contains a number of plants that attract butterflies. If you have some of these plants, you should be in good shape. If you don't...but want to attract some, then maybe this list could help!

It's obvious: Butterflies and flowers were made for each other. As the poet pointed out, butterflies are flying flowers, and flowers are tethered butterflies.

In attracting butterflies to your garden, it's important to understand what they want most out of life: nectar. The ancients, who believed that nectar fell directly from heaven, named it after the wines of the gods. A butterfly's wish list also includes sunny open spaces, shelter from the wind, and fresh water.

For a nectar-rich flower border designed to satisfy these requirements, consider the plants listed below. Then invite a few butterflies over for a drink.

Beard tongue
(Penstemon)

Bee balm
(Monarda)

Butterfly bush
(Buddleia)

Catmint
(Nepeta)

Clove pink
(Dianthus)

Columbine
(Aquilegia)

Coral bells
(Heuchera)

Daylily
(Hemerocallis)

Larkspur
(Delphinium)

Desert candle
(Yucca)

Flag
(Iris)

Flowering tobacco
(Nicotiana alata)

Foxglove
(Digitalis)

Lily
(Lilium)

Lupine
(Lupinus)

Petunia
(Petunia)

Pincushion flower
(Scabiosa)

Red-hot poker
(Kniphofia)

Scarlet sage
(Salvia splendens)

Scarlet trumpet honeysuckle
(Lonicera sempervirens)

Soapwort
(Saponaria)

Summer phlox
(Phlox paniculata)

Verbena
(Verbena)

Weigela
(Weigela)

Here around my own garden, I've only seen a couple of butterflies...but I have to admit that I don't have any of these plants on the list! Guess I need to get some, huh?

What say we get some fresh coffee and sit outside before it gets too hot? The weather guy says the cooler weather is gone and HOT is on the way!

Covering All The Bases...!

I have to admit that I was a little surprised that this was put together at the Air Force Academy!

I mean, I'm all for freedom of religion...but I can't help but wonder if the AFA is the right place for this. In fact, I wonder if any place associated with the military is proper! But I guess that in today's climate, nearly anything can be expected!

AFA dedicates outdoor chapel for Wiccans, Druids and other earth-centered groups

By Tom Roeder
The Gazette
Posted: 05/04/2011 12:50:44 PM MDT

Add Wiccans and Druids to the list of faiths that have their own chapel at the Air Force Academy.

A circle of stones around an altar was dedicated on a hilltop above the campus Tuesday with earth-centered prayer and speeches about religious liberty at the academy, a school that has long faced criticism as a bastion for evangelical Christianity.

"This outdoor worship space is something we have created to help people of all religions," Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, the academy's superintendent, said before a ribbon cutting on the site.

Read the rest of this report at Gazette.com.

I think with this addition, just about all the bases are covered! Smarter folks than me are going to have to figure out if this the right thing to do. Right or not...it's a done deal!

How about some fresh coffee on the patio? You can try out the new porch swing Baby Sis and I gave Mom!

Reaching Way, Way back...!

Most of you youngsters won't remember this song, but way back in my wild and wooly childhood it was heard just about everywhere!

Even if you don't remember it, you might ask your parents if they do. You might just be surprised! It was one of those songs that didn't get to the number 1 spot, but could be heard everywhere all the same! Very popular song, back in the old days!

May 4, 1956:
Gene Vincent records "Be-Bop-A-Lula"

When a music critic wants to indicate that a song lacks lyrical sophistication, he or she will often refer to its lyrics as being of the "moon in June" sort. It's a label left over from the Tin Pan Alley era, when even great composers like Irving Berlin churned out a hundred uninspired Moon/June tunes for every highly original classic like "Blues Skies" or "Puttin' On The Ritz." If rock and roll has an equivalent in the area of clichéd lyrics, it is probably "Baby" and "Maybe"—a rhyming pair made most famous in the smoldering early-rock classic "Be-Bop-A-Lula," which was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, by the rockabilly legend Gene Vincent on this day in 1956.

The story of how the decidedly un-complex lyrics of "Be-Bop-A-Lula" got written is shrouded in a certain amount of controversy. Officially, Gene Vincent's business manager, Bill "Sheriff Tex" Davis, is credited as the co-writer, but Sheriff Tex, a savvy 40-year-old from Connecticut, seems an unlikely source of such naïve gem. The story that has the greater ring of truth credits a young man named Donald Graves—a buddy Gene Vincent made in a Portsmouth, Virginia, Veteran's Hospital. Vincent—born Vincent Eugene Craddock in 1935—had just reenlisted in the U.S. Navy in the spring of 1955 when he suffered a devastating leg injury in a motorcycle accident. That injury would land him in hospital for more than a year, where a fellow patient remembers Vincent and Graves tooling around the facility working out the song that would eventually become a classic. By the time Gene Vincent's demo tape reached Capitol Records the following spring, however, Graves had been bought out of his share in "Be-Bop-A-Lula" by Sheriff Tex, reportedly for just $25.

It wasn't the obvious brilliance of "Be-Bop-A-Lula," but rather the uncanny resemblance between Gene Vincent's voice and Elvis Presley's that explains the speed with which Capitol snapped Vincent up and got him into the studio. In fact, when Vincent and his Blue Caps recorded "Be-Bop-A-Lula" on May 4, 1956, it was as a "B" side to a now largely forgotten tune called "Woman Love." As soon as disk jockeys began "flipping" Vincent's debut single, however, "Be-Bop-A-Lula" became a smash, rising to #7 on the pop charts and selling more than 2 million copies in its first year of release.

Man, I should have never started on this way back thing! Now I feel older than ever! Guess I should stop taking trips down memory lane! Either that, or make the trips shorter!

Let's get some fresh coffee and sit outside for a bit. I'll crank up the stereo another notch!

Happy Birthday, Andy Adams...!

I don't know if you have ever heard of this guy, or read his work, but he is pretty cool!

One of the most interesting things is that much of his work is used as a historical reference! How cool is that?

May 3, 1859:
Cowboy author Andy Adams is born

Andy Adams, one of the most accurate chroniclers of the authentic "Old West," is born in Columbia City, Indiana.

While still in his teens, Adams ran away from home. He eventually made his way to Texas, where he found work as a cowboy. From 1882 to 1893, Adams witnessed firsthand the golden era of the Texas cattle industry, a time when the cowboys ran cattle on vast open ranges still relatively unrestricted by barbed wire fences. In 1883, he made the first of many cattle drives along the famous cattle trails running north from Texas to the cow towns of Kansas. As farmers began to challenge the ranchers for control of the land, Adams witnessed the gradual fencing-in of the cattle country that would eventually end the short age of the open range. He made his last cattle drive in 1889.

In 1893, Adams left Texas for Colorado, attracted by rumors of gold at Cripple Creek. Like most would-be miners, he failed to make a fortune in the business. He eventually settled in Colorado Springs, where he remained for most of his life. While doing on a variety of jobs, Adams began to write stories based on his experiences as a Texas cowboy. In 1903, he found a publisher for his novel The Log of a Cowboy, a thinly disguised autobiography of his life on the plains. A fascinated public welcomed tales from the former cowboy, and Adams wrote and published four similar volumes in less than four years.

Adams distinguished himself from the majority of other western authors of the day with his meticulous accuracy and fidelity to the truth. As its name implied, The Log of a Cowboy was a day-by-day account of a cattle drive Adams had made from Texas to Montana. The book had little plot beyond the progress of the cattle herd toward Montana, and had none of the romantic excitement offered by less literal chroniclers of the West. Adams' self-avowed goal was to make his fiction indistinguishable from fact, and as one commentator has noted, "in this he succeeds only too well."

While a reader searching for a good story might find Adams' books somewhat dull today, historians and writers looking for an accurate depiction of the cowboy life have found them invaluable. Beyond his five best-known books, Adams also wrote two popular novels for juveniles later in his career. When he died in Colorado Springs in 1935, he left a number of unpublished manuscripts of novels, stories, and plays that historians of the Old West have also found useful.

Isn't it nice to find out about guys like this? Shows that there are a lot of interesting folks in our past that we might find interesting. Not only that, we might even learn something...if we take the time to really pay attention, ya know?

Coffee on the patio this morning! Never did rain yesterday, but what did we expect, ya know?

Remember The Deer Guarding The Goose...?

Not long ago I did a story about this male deer guarding a nesting goose!

Today I am happy to furnish this happy ending to the story! In this day and time, we don't see too many happy endings. Certainly not many reported in the media! Maybe that's why we cling to happy endings so much when we find them.

A goose tends to its goslings in a cemetery in Buffalo, N.Y. The nesting goose attracted much attention after a deer inside the cemetery seemed to take on the role of the nest's protector after the male goose disappeared.
By Neale Gulley

Deer who stood guard over nest admires chicks with mother goose

BUFFALO — A deer that stood guard over the eggs of an expectant goose for weeks at a Buffalo cemetery is now admiring the hatched goslings.

One of the most dramatic moments in this animal kingdom saga came the day before the eggs hatched on Wednesday, when the storied stag chased off crows threatening the goose nesting on a large urn at Forest Lawn cemetery.

"The deer was acting pretty much like the gander," said Erie County SPCA Wildlife Administrator Joel Thomas.

"Crows are big predators of baby birds. (The babies) are pretty defenseless and the deer was obviously chasing the crows away."

For three weeks, a Webcam has broadcast images of the buck watching over the soon-to-be mother goose that lost her gander. For weeks, the male white-tailed deer had consistently worked to discourage any visitors or passing vehicles from coming near the nesting Canada goose, positioning his body broadside and staring until the threat passed.

'Special socialization'
While experts have called the buck's behavior highly unusual, examples of similar co-existence in nature do sometimes crop up, Thomas said.

"This is really kind of a special socialization between these two animals and we're all still sort of scratching our heads," he said.

Just hours after the first little beak cracked through its eggshell, the mother goose hustled her babies out of the urn on their first walk around the grounds on Wednesday afternoon. As the family paraded by, the deer watched from a nearby hillside, apparently recognizing the fruits of his labor.

With the goslings comes a change in the adult animals' relationship, Thomas said.

"The last time I saw him he was pretty much beginning to wander more," Thomas said. "I see this bond diminishing now that the chicks are with Mom."

A cemetery spokesmen said the deer has lived for several years at the 269-acre cemetery, which was founded in 1849 and is home to some 160,000 plots, including those of captains of industry and President Millard Filmore.

I just love it when I find a follow-up to a warm and fuzzy story! It's a shame there isn't more of this kind of story in the daily news!

How about some fresh coffee on the patio? Supposed to rain, but I'll believe it when I get wet!

This Just Has To Hurt The Pocketbook...!

Being a smoker, this story sort of caught my attention!

A pack of smokes here in Texas is costly enough, but the poor folks in Russia are going to be breaking into the piggy banks for sure when this goes into effect!

Makes me want to reach for a smoke just reading this story from the Houston Chronicle.

Russia official calls for 700 percent hike in cigarette tax

Bloomberg News
April 28, 2011, 8:48AM


Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova called on the government to approve a sevenfold increase in tobacco excise taxes to cut the number of smokers by 20 percent.

Taxes will be raised over a “long term” to help reach an “optimal level” of 55 rubles per cigarette pack, Golikova said in an interview in Moscow today.

Looks like one more reason to be thankful that we live in the good ol' U.S.A., don't ya think?

Coffee on the patio this morning! I'm doing like the governor said and praying for rain!