National Squirrel Appreciation Day - Jan. 21

They get into our bird feeders and spill all the seeds.   They dig through our seasonal yard  displays and rearrange everything looking for food.  Squirrels can indeed be pest and many people do not like them but...they provide us with lots of amusement since we are indoor cats.  Especially during this dull time in January when nothing much is going on indoors or out, squirrel TV keeps us entertained. 

Squirrel Appreciation Day began in 2001 with a Christy Hargrove, a wildlife rehabber and affiliate of the WNC Nature Center right here  in Asheville, NC.  Today is a day when we should try to be kind to squirrels - leave out food for them, wish them well and be thankful for their amusing antics during the long cold winters.

Some squirrel trivia -

Gray squirrels come in many colors.  Shades of gray are the most common followed by shades of brown. There are also pure white and pure black squirrels, but both are variations of the gray squirrel.The common Red squirrel can have an all black coat.  While the Kaibab squirrel has a black body with a white tail. Both are found in coniferous forests.

During winter storms, or severe cold, the squirrel may not leave the nest for days. But,the tree squirrel does not hibernate!

Yum..I want to catch that squirrel!

An adult squirrel normally lives alone. But will, in severe cold, share its nest with other squirrels to conserve body heat. Once the temperature rises, the guests will be on their way.

Squirrels chew on tree branches to sharpen and clean their teeth. That's why you may see many small branches on the ground around large trees. They will also chew on power lines for the same reason, this has caused many major power outages throughout the country.

The squirrel's erratic path while crossing a street is an attempt to confuse the oncoming vehicle... thereby causing it to change direction. This is obliviously the squirrels biggest, and often last mistake

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day!  Do you have a squirrel story you would like to share?

Camera Critters

Unsolved Chicken Mystery....

 

Smidge on chicken alert

Smidge here. For some January fun, Ann and the Girls of  Zoolatry came up with an idea - to reveal an unsolved mystery from your home.  Ours involves a chicken.  A few weeks back, Mom posted about a white chicken that showed up in our yard one day but we couldn't figure out where he came from. (To read more on that post click here.)

We live in a very wooded area with about 10 - 15 acres behind us and a pasture across from us.  Where could a chicken have come from?  Mom emailed the local paper about a found chicken and to her surprise they posted on the front page!  Two people emailed her - one wanted the chicken if no one claimed him (wonder if they wanted to eat it?)  and the other lost her chickens when some critter got into her chicken coop but after talking to her Mom found out that she lived 6 miles from us down the road.  A long way for a chicken to walk!

Front page news!

Our neighbors to the west of us, behind our cat house, have a cat named Jack who comes down to visit us on occasion so they certainly would not have chickens.

Cat house with neighbors to the left.

The neighbors across the street do have a small chicken coop but to get to them you have to go down our driveway, across the road, across the pasture and up the mountain to the coop.

The first building across the road on the left is the chicken coop.

The chicken is in our yard in early morning and late afternoon - just about when mom puts food out for the wild birds.  Sometimes he stays for a while during the day but most days he is not around at all.  Mom looks for him everywhere but he is not to be found. Where do you think this chicken comes from?  Is he the escapee from down the road, a fugitive in hiding in our woods or just a wandering fellow from across the way?  Why is he here and where does he go during the day?  Help Mom solve this mystery before she goes nuts!  Any ideas?

There is a bill in Congress that will affect your rights on the web and will censor all web sites, blogs, etc.  In a nutshell :

SOPA explicitly states that companies will be liable for everything their users post. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Wikipedia, or any sites that allow user generated content CANNOT exist under these laws. Immediately after this bill is passed, you will see the media mafia (MPIAA, RIAA, etc) replacing websites like Wikipedia with commercialized encyclopedia software. Mainstream media outlets will not cover this bill because they are the ones lobbying for it.

If you want to know more - Google created a doc to read and inform - SOPA for Dummies.

WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND STOP THIS BILL FROM PASSING! 

To help you do this stop by Fight the Wall  or American Censorship and find out how to connect with your Representative!

Movie Monday

Thank you all for the kind comments about Mom's first video adventure.  She will try to take more of them, hopefully featuring one a week.

This is a fun one about the whitesters.  The white cats are all related except for Al.  Lily is the mother of all. She is the kitty in the far left.  Only and Smidge are the other two and are from the same litter.  They are a loving bunch and seem to get along well with each other - which is good considering they are siblings from three litters.  Before meals, they line up like this and  head butt each other. 

If you can't see this video here, then go to YouTube here.

While we have your attention today, we would like to thank Chloe and Cecil  for awarding us the Liebster Award.  Liebster means favorite or beloved in German and we are very grateful and happy to get this and also to pass this on to others.

The rules are simple - link back to the blog who awarded it to us, put the award on your blog, choose 5 other blogs to pass the award on to and to let them know.  Lots of you got this award but we think we found 5 blogs that have not gotten this.  Please do visit them - they are fun blogs about kitties and more....

Cat Tales

Boo-Bahs Little Sunshines

Fraidy Cats

We Love Luna

Lilacs and Cats



Let's do some major head butting today!!!