LIFE IN ASHEVILLE, NC IN MARCH

Well, we arrived in Asheville today, safe and sound. Although the very turbulent ride from Detroit to Asheville allowed Maddie the misfortune of relocating every thing she ate today into a barf bag.  Poor girl always had a weak stomach.
Its been, i think about 8 years or so since we've been here and i missed it!

We also found that at the Detroit airport - there is a place where you walk through that has lighted glass that completely matched her hair color: a yellow, blue, turquoise mix.

Wish my camera wasn't buried in the carry on bag,
cell phone's just didn't do it justice. Perhaps on the return!

I also found green things in the yard!  Pictures tomorrow!

Tomorrow we explore downtown and eat at a local restaurant that of course only serves food from local farmers.

I'm telling ya - i might not ever leave!



I also have some posts from earlier this week i have to fill in here. So busy. But that's just me!

RANDOM BLACK AND WHITE

ok, its not really B/W

CATS, KATTENS AND KITTENS

Oh boy!  Been thinking about this one for awhile!  We've been here 7 1/2 years now and have had many cats come and go.  ALOT!  But let's start at the beginning:

When we moved here from Woodstock, IL we had Emmy (Bob's cat), Winky (my cat) and Fuzzy (Sam's cat)  who she had since she was 2.  Tally: 3 cats


Winky!



Fuzzy

We have no pictures of Emmy that i could find.  She lived in the basement, was traumatised as a young kitten and would not be seen above ground.

Next came a cat we called Leo, short for Leonardo DaVinci.  We got him from a farm and i picked him cuz he was real handsome.  Problem was, he really wasn't liking it around here. Scared. Ran off before we could fix him.
Tally: 4 then back to 3

Next Came Special Kitty; Special K for short or just K.  We found her at the shelter when i called to find out if they had found Leo.  I guess is didn't describe Leo correctly because K didn't look anything like Leo.  Leo was more like a seal point.  K is a pale calico.

Special Kitty aka K

Next came the big gray stray Maddie called Neptune.  He showed up quicker then we could get K to the vet. Him and K hit it off just right.


Neptune



Tally: 5




So that love connection created a whole pile of kittens:



K's babies: Tony, Goober, Indigo, King Henry III,
and the pale calico kitten Delta





Tally: 10








We sold all but Indigo and Tony, they were the best of friends like all bro/sis cats are!

Indigo & Tony sunbathing on the log pile

Tony smiles constantly! and likes stopping people from doing their work

Tally: 7

He also is amazing at yoga moves!

Indigo!  Gosh she was beautiful!

Indigo left one night and never did return.  Hopefully she found a home or some children to love her up.  We will never know.

Then Fuzzy got really sick, and we had to have him put down.  Emmy got old and decrypted and we had to put her down too.
Tally: 4

So we then got Fuzzy II and Noon from Conway Arabians were Sam was working at the time.

Fuzzy II and Noon - again buddies from birth

Noon turned out to be a little Loony!

Tally: 6

Fuzzy II - so beautiful!

Next came Pipsqueak!  The Calico i always dreamed of!  She was awesome too!

Pipsqueak aka Pippers

Tally: 7











But evil people think its ok to drive 80 miles an hour down our gravel road and she got hit by a car.  We also found out when in search for her that Neptune had been hit by a car as well.
Tally: 5


So i looked in the paper for another Calico and the lady promised me she had some.  Well when i went over to her house all she had was a bunch of orange tabbies!  Great!  More dumb, orange tabbies.  But we ended up taken 2: Cheeto and his sister Angel.

Angel and Cheeto (look how handsome he is!)

Tally: 7

Unbeknownst to us, our neighbors were plotting to give us a kitten because they felt bad about Pipsqueak being hit, and they brought over Tequila aka Tiki a few days later.

Tequila aka Tiki

Angel, Tiki and Cheeto

Tally: 8



Luckily they all got along like brothers and sisters.

Angel watching her flock

God, he's so handsome and he knows it!

Now when we were at a horse show someone had brought kittens there, and i made the mistake of looking at them and then i saw him!  The most beautiful white cat, seal points and the deepest, richest, ice blue/purple eyes have ever seen!  Well, i am a sucker for blue eyes, so i brought him home. We named him Ice.

Tally: 9

oh he was good lookin'!

Ice

But Angel was killed in a tragic accident when one of our friends dog attacked her.

Also, Fuzzy II went missing - there are dark forces in the woods!

Tally: 7
Then someone thought it was a good idea to bring home a kitten from a friends house.  It was not me!  It was Bob and Maddie!  Great! Blah! How many is that now?

Tally: 8

At first we named her Martini cuz she was so small, she fit into a martini glass.

Martini

but after further investigation, and observation, her name was changed to Zoom because this kitten only knew two speeds: stop or zoom!  She would zoom from room to room and jump off the furniture from a height of 5 feet, land on the floor on her stomach, bounce up and make it into the other room in 4 seconds flat!



Zoom as a kitten



Zoom today (she still cocks her head sideways to look at you -
product of in-breeding)

Sam then wanted her own cat again and went to the shelter and got Charlie.  Charlie is a male grey tabby. Another grey tabby.  He is lovable though.

Charlie

Tally: 9

We also took in a stray someone in our 4H club had found because we have good hearts, and the dad wouldn't let them have more another one because that would make three cats in their house. Bob commented, "Really? someone keeps track of how many cats they have?"
We named her Gibson.
she was a beautiful tortoise shell!

Tally: 10








About this time, Ice left one evening, never to return. : (

Tally: 9


Then this stray kitty showed up in the middle of the winter on our front woodpile.  Someone thought it was a good idea to feed it. and then provide it with shelter. and then give it a blanket.  then name it. Woody, the woodpile cat.  Darn you Bob!

Woody - lives in the barn and thinks she
can steal my milk when I'm not looking!

Tally: 10
Then Woody met some nice looking young man in the woods and the love produced a pregnant belly.
  The problem with that was we knew she was pregnant, could see the expanding belly, but she was feral and couldn't be caught.  Once her tummy returned to normal shape, we knew there were kittens somewhere on the property, but where?  We couldn't find them, even after several searches. We searched high and low and up in the attic of my office: nothing.  So we thought she had delivered them in the woods.  Until....



Woody's babies



One day i heard some scuffling above me head.  As i walked up the stairs in my office top the attic area, i saw one!  They were not too happy to see me because I got Maddie and we gathered up all we could find.  All six of them!

Tally: 16

We were fortunate enough to find homes for 3 of them.  One more went to Sam and her new boyfriend at their apartment and we ended up keeping two: Oaky Dokey(get it OAK cuz her mom is Woody) and Theodore Thing.

Oaky Dokey

Theodore Thing

Then poor Gibson left one night, never to return. : (
Tally: 11 - no - it should be 10.

Who is left? Winky, Tony, Cheeto, Woody, Oaky-Dokey, Theodore, Noon, Zoom, Charlie, Tiki...... that's it, 10.  Then where did i loose count?

Winky - still here

Fuzzy - gone

Emmy - gone

Leo - gone before he was here

Special K - gone

Neptune - gone

Tony - still here

Indigo - gone

Noon - here

Fuzzy II - gone

Pippy - gone

Tiki - here

Cheeto - here

Angel - gone

Gibson - gone

Woody - here

Charlie - here

Zoom - here

Oaky - here

Theodore - here

So that's ten, gosh, i guess my tallies were off! Sorry!

So we are holding steady here at 10.  Double digits. No more. For now anyway. : )

OPOSSUM, OPOSSUM, OOOOOOO(SHIT)POSSUM!

Yes, we had a friendly visit from our neighborhood possum yesterday. When i went out to do chores i found him gladly crunching on the cats food in the goat barn.  "Well, you can't stay here," i explained to him but all he did was grin at me.  "I mean really, guy, if you poop you can cause great damage to my ponies and we can't have that!  Now go!"

Opossum poop can cause Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis (EPM)which is a neurological disorder caused by a parasite. The opossum and a parasite called Sarcocystis neurona have been implicated although current research suggests other hosts and other parasites may be involved in disease transmission. The infective form of the parasite is passed in the poop. If a horse eats contaminated poop then it could develop neurological signs. 

But he just stood there giving me that menacing smile.

He didn't even try to play dead, and the ones we've had the pleasure of meeting before didn't either.  Maybe that's an old wives tale.  But Mr Opossum was having none of that, he was hungry and the cat food looked real good.

So i got a broom and sweeped his little rump down off the cage where the cat food rests and he didn't run out - but ran into the storage closet.   So i locked him in there and went and got the live trap.

It took him about two days before he decided to check out the live trap and the can of cat food i put in there, which doesn't surprise me because the few opossums i have met before really seem quite stupid.   Like the one that got his head caught into the rope that was on the adjustable height ladder: it has a loop at the end and he got his head into the loop and in trying to free himself, just ended up choking himself to death.  Now cats, when presented with something around their head, will naturally back up out of it, these guys i guess think that moving forward will eventually set them free, not realizing that the fact that they can't breath might be a sign that it's not working.

So this morning i found him in the cage, and he was a little perturbed.

I like how they just open their mouths at you, like THAT'S gonna scare me!  His ugliness is more frightening then his  big teeth or lack there of.

He had of course rammed himself against the cage so many times he got himself a bloody nose.

I put the live trap in my car and took off  down the road to set him free.  I stopped a few miles away and lifted him and the cage outta the car.  I opened the cage very carefully, although no opossum I've ever seen would come at you, but caution was a good idea here as with any pissed off animal. He seemed apprehensive at first and wouldn't come out of the cage so i tipped it over and dumped him out.

Then he rode off into the sunset.

Good bye Mr. Opossum!

Hopefully he won't end up at our friend's house; Squash Blossom Farm. Sorry Susan, but i did kinda set him free close to your place. : )

ITS NATIONAL PIG DAY - AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT MY PIG TOLD ME

Who creates these 'days' and why?  is it just a scam to get you to buy something?  or is it truly a positive thing and getting you to notice something that may not be normally noticed?  Or perhaps its just a way for someone in the corporate world to retain a job by creating 'days' for people to observe.

After a simple google search and the ever so reliable Wikipedia, i found my answer:

National Pig Day is an event held annually on March 1 in the United States to celebrate the pig. The holiday celebration was started in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley, a teacher in Lubbock, Texas, and Mary Lynne Rave of Beaufort, North Carolina. According to Rave the purpose of National Pig Day is "to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man's most intellectual and domesticated animals."

Anyway - i have now been informed by my pig that my job today is to adore her [as best i can - she's a pig after all, and loving on a pig is like hugging a boulder with toothbrush bristles].  So i found the best picture i have of her, to show just how special she is to me, all cute and lovable in her own unique way, and will share it with you:

oh no, not that one!   tee hee!  this one:

Oh so silly me!  I really meant this one:

You know i love you Harley! really i do.