Messages from Nature

A group of bluejays has been trying to tell me something this week. I think it's something along the lines of "HEY, WHERE'S THE BIRDSEED?!?" Nature is so subtle.

The squirrels are showing up in the yard more frequntly and in greater numbers, the bluejays are hanging out in the empty tray feeder, and I hear a chorus of chickadees and nuthatches. The autmnul equinox is tomorrow, but fall has already arrived here. So, in a bit, I'll be going out to give my birdfeeders a good cleaning, and maybe tonight before heading home from work at the hotline, I'll pick up a big sack of black oil sunflower seed. I might also get some flowers -- there's pansies out now and mums, of course. The mums up front are fine, but the ones I planted on the hill last year have almost been decimated by the grasshoppers. The aster is amazing, though -- I noticed last night it seems to have exploded in blooms this week!

Otherwise today, I'm catching up on some cleaning around the house. I'll go in to work from 5 to 10, and then I'm off tomorrow. That will probably be yardwork day, especially if I get the flowers. But I need to do some weeding, too.

I'm thinking more about another pet. Yesterday, during my lunch break, I went out to my vet's office. She also runs a non-profit animal refuge. They specialize in wildlife rehabilitation, but also have dogs and cats for adoption. There were a bunch of cute kittens, most of whom were going to be picked up later in the day for transport to shelters in the Denver area, where they're more likely to be adopted. There was one, though, who was real sweet. Poor thing had been hit by a car and has lost the use of its left front paw, which will soon be amputated, I was told. He kept coming up to the kennel bars, though, sticking his good paw out to catch my fingers, and he liked having his ears scratched. There were also a couple of adult cats they showed me. They're brother and sister, but, oops, also mother and father to a kitten. Their previous owner had been told they were both female. The one kitten they had was adopted several weeks ago, but is not yet old enough to leave its mother. They're part Siamese and both really beautiful cats, but also long-hair. Mom says she doesn't do so well with long-hair cats with her allergies, but they did say at the vets' it's not the length of the hair, but how clean the cats are. The vet's head nurse told me she has cat allergies and has had no problem around them.

So that's something to think about. I'd still prefer a dog, but with both of us out of the house more often than when Nipper was here, I'm not sure that'd be fair. Some people can get a dog, put it in a kennel out in the backyard and other than giving it the basics are fine with that. Not me. If you don't get a pet as a companion, what's the point in having one?