New Kitten

Every now and then I may create a post about our cat Daisy. She has been with us since September of 2014, and this is the very first picture of her taken after she joined the family. In this picture she is in her room.

She was "discovered" walking down a sidewalk, and ended up temporarily at the local humane society.

We went looking for a full grown cat at the humane society, and preselected about a half a dozen ones from their websites that sounded nice. However, other folks had already adopted every one of the grown cats we wanted to see.

There were many other adult cats to pick from, however, we decided to wander through the kitten section just for fun. Our plans changed as we admired the kittens, and we selected three we wanted to visit with and perhaps adopt.

We would have to wait a while for our turn to visit the kittens we were interested in, and the worker told us to have a seat on one of the benches for our 15 minute or so wait.

As we sat and waited, we noticed a little white kitten sitting and staring at us intently. After a few minutes of being stared at, we decided to go have a closer look at her. She continued to stare at us as we admired her, and she seemed like such a serious little kitten, much different than the other kittens.

It didn't take us long to decide she was the kitten for us, and when the worker called our name we asked if we could visit with the little white one instead of the ones we had already selected. The worker was agreeable, and soon we were visiting with the little white one.

This kitten wasn't overly demonstrative, but didn't mind being held and seemed unusually well mannered for a kitten. The worker informed us that this kitten was up to date on all her shots, was healthy, and had been neutered. It was nice to have that information.

Soon we were on our way home with our new kitten in a cardboard box.We were all set up at home with a cat sized bed, litter box, and cat food. We were expecting her arrival at home to go smoothly.

However, this kitten had other plans after being confined to a small enclosure for several weeks. She had a lot of energy to burn off, and went more than a little bit berserk once she was home and allowed out of the box.

We began to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into as she tore through the house nonstop, leaping over furniture and refusing to come close to us.

After what seemed the longest time she finally slowed down, had her meal, and was ready for a nap.

She definitely wasn't the mellow little kitten we had expected!

However, as time passed she calmed down, adapted to the rules of the household, and has become mellow.

Walking Stick Harvest

Last Tuesday, April 16th, I was removing a few unwanted young trees along the property line, and noticed that many of them would make nice walking sticks. They were straight enough, and just the right diameter.

Now, I have more than enough walking sticks, one ordered off the internet, and most of the others purchased as walking stick blanks off E-bay, so I really don't need any more walking sticks.

Still, they were nice looking potential walking sticks, and it's been a couple years since I've made a walking stick. I decided on four that looked good to me, cut them about a foot or so longer than I wanted, trimmed off the side branches, and place them in a nice shady spot on the deck so that they could dry out.

How long to let them dry? I suppose it would be great if I had the patience to let them dry for a year, but I just am not patient enough for that. I'll try to wait till the final three feel light, then I'll take the bark off one of these three and begin working on it. If it does crack within a week or so after the bark is removed, I'll know I was in too big of a hurry. Only trying one at a time, just in case I was rushing it.

I did remove the bark from one of them almost right away, and the ends have begun to split. I coated the ends of that one (and the other three) with lemon oil, and hopefully that will limit any cracking or splitting. Supposedly melted wax on the ends of newly cut sticks will keep them from splitting as they dry, though I have never tried that.