How Do You Get Your News?

Mrrrrr Friends,

Me, I listen to my local public radio station - North Country Public Radio. I've talked here before about how much NCPR ties us all together here in the beautiful Adirondack Park. I've been listening for just a year, but enjoy hearing the voices of the folks I've come to think of as neighbors.

I like listening to the news and learning about gardening from Amy and about critters and cool natural phenomenon from Dr. Curt and Martha.  When a dog gets lost somewhere here in the North Country, the nice folks at NCPR will help the dog's person look for him by telling everyone who's listening where he got lost and what he looks like....the dog, not the person. Now I've only heard them do this for dogs...that's a bit suspicious. Do only dogs get lost? Cats never get lost, right? What about parakeets? Or hogs? There's been a lot of talk about hogs this morning on the 8 O'Clock Hour show.

They're having a pledge drive as I noted in my last blog. I nicked my person's credit card and made a donation. I didn't win the iPad drawing Monday ...though I think I get another chance later. But even without neat prizes, it's still worth it to support them so they come to my home every day and tell me what's going on.

In the name of professional journalism though, I wish they'd rethink overuse of the word "pet".

Human neighbor pals, if you're reading this blog, shoot a pledge over to NCPR on behalf of your furry friends.

I Pad?

Mrrrrr Friends.

By now you know how much I esteem the Aluminum Cat, the immortal portal. I do not begrudge the amount of time Oom spends stroking Mac, because she lets me use him too. And the new Aluminum Cat is very nice because the mouse and the letter-making thingy don't have tails. So I can use them from the floor to draft documents at night....though, as I have mentioned before, it is sometimes very hard not to play paw hockey with the mouse.

But let's face it, the big screen is HUGE. That's cool for Oom, but for my needs it could be smaller and lighter...about the size of the whole letter-making thingy. Running around between letter thingy, mouse and screen can be pretty tedious for a young author like myself.

I've been wishing for a simple all-in-one: no cumbersome lid to pry open without thumbs, an integrated touch screen made for the paw pad, seamless with the Aluminum Cat, easy to use on the floor, in a window sill, or curled up in bed, and powerful enough to hold and organize lots of photos and the musical caterwaulings of my cat pals - an ultimate feline immortal portal web tool.

So I'm thrilled to see that the nice Apple people have brought out a computer just for cats. The iPad they call it. Neat how they named it after the cat pad, don't you think? It's a brilliant strategy to bring out an immortal portal that appeals to a significant portion of the estimated 60 million cats living in the US.

I'm a bit stumped why they are marketing it to humans?

I notice my pals at North Country Public Radio were giving one away. My friend June says that if I renew my membership early, I'll have a chance at winning it. That would be cool. So I grabbed Oom's credit card (just another insult that cats can't open their own bank accounts) and signed back up. I love listening to NCPR in the morning, but the chance to win an iPad...sweet.

I'll update you if I win. I know my chances are slim, so I'll be working on other strategies to convince Oom to buy us one....like every morning when she wakes Mac up, right there on the screen will be an iPad.

Tell the folks at Apple that I'm available for endorsements.

Happy Spring: AMRO & Snow!

That's American Robins and snow! Adirondack spring.

We've had many days of 50 human degree temperatures and sunny weather. It's been fun watching the snow melt revealing my backyard springs and boulders, little vole holes, and even some fresh mole mounds!

But what's spring without a little snow!

Musing Spring

Mrrrrrr Friends,

What is it about the month or so leading up to spring? It's not even a set time or event. Instead, the creep toward the greening season starts gradually. It's kind of like trying to stay aware of how much you are growing when your a kitten...you kind of lose track. The anticipation is part of it - the desire to frolic in green grass and warmer temperatures. For me, too, there's the sadness that the snow is slipping away and mud season will soon be on us here in the Adirondack Park. I'm not a big fan of mud.

I feel I need to do some focussed sleeping. So I've been doing that because, I'm a cat and I can make bold decisions like this.

I'm seriously shedding now. With a decreased fur resistance load and the snow clearing around the tree bases, I'm doing some practice tree-scaling. It is definitely transition time. New birds are moving through...migrating southward. The Purple Finch and Goldfinch gangs frequently skirmish for control of the feeders. The moles are tunneling more visibly. We got a little coating of snow today, but the ground is softening. You humans did your spring forward thing today, so now we can all pretend it is lighter later. (Why haven't your eyes adapted yet? Humans sure do evolve slow.)

I've been thinking about a little travel. Boo went to see some of our old pals in Wisconsin a couple weeks ago and it made me nostalgic. This is an unusual emotion in a cat, we're pretty practical. But I've been checking in with old friends and thinking about what a road trip could look like.

Nothing definitive...there's that whole litter box in the car thing. Perhaps a series of nice hikes would do? I've wondered about perhaps becoming the first 46er cat, here in the 'Dacks.

Daffodil Cat

Appropriate daffodil behavior:

Inapproprate daffodil behavior:

Okay, in her defense, Alex just really likes the color yellow. And she keeps thinking if she licks something yellow...it might come off.

Critters

Mrrrrr Friends,

It has been a challenging week.

The great electrical juice maker has been inconsistent, and from time to time, Aluminum Cat and all the other blinking whirring things in the house don't work. This makes the folks pretty uptight...

Oom in particular tends to swear a lot when Aluminum Cat hibernates because the juice goes away. She's going to a bored meeting in Arizona this weekend, and she's putting all kinds of pictures in a big electric folder to show people. To be extra careful, she turns  Aluminum Cat off at night. Try as we might, Alex and me have not been able to push the tiny convex "on" button on its back.

So my blog time has been curtailed.

On the other paw, I've been having some nice outings in the mornings. No new snow in the past few days, with the weather warming and the sun out. We do now have a solid foot of packed snow, and this morning even Oom could float on itlike a snowcat. It was shiny and crystally in the sunlight, the air was crisp and my brook was loud and beautiful in the morning light.

We are all thinking spring at this point. The Goldfinches are getting their brighter yellow feathers.

We found these tracks just outside.

Mr. Raccoon I presume, from his fingers.

A little later the same morning, I found a vole working along the snow line.

I got so excited, I forgot to really do anything...not that I want to harass a little cold vole dude minding his own business outside.