Cats

I could be a cat. I love seafood and I love naps.

Here are my role-models!

Orangie Boy.
















Tashi
(AKA Pish Posh, Tashball, Tashmonster)













Tama
(AKA Tamtam)

Lake flies!

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all moms, but most especially, mine!

While the weather here is nice, no mom would want a nice cook-out by the Lake Winnebago on Mother's Day. Here is the reason: Lake flies. They hatch like clockwork around Mother's Day. They swarm and get all over everything for about a week, then they are gone.

They don't bite, sting, spread disease or eat crops. They just land on everything, stink and stain when squished and make make a buzzing noise. They come out of the lake, mate and die. A good storm will get rid of them. And the cats like them, so none stay around in the house for long!

The fish love the larvae, and for a while we thought the zebra mussels might have done the lake flies in. Zebra mussels are an invasive species here. But after two or three years of no lake flies, it was back to normal.


Here is a story about who lake flies came to Lake Winnebago. Apparently, lake flies thrived in a lake or two in Africa. Some professor at a university in Chicago thought, "I wonder if they would also thrive in Lake Winnebago." He brought them here and they did, indeed, thrive. If it's true, it's just another reason for the rivalry between Wisconsinites and folks from Illinois , especially those from Chicago.

So, instead of gardening, I can only plan what I'll plant when these nasty bugs are gone. Luckily for me, I mowed the lawn the day before the hatch!

Flying

I like flying. Not commercial flights -- although I don't mind them as much as most people. I like flying in small planes. Luckily for me, I have a good friend who owns a 2 seater plane. Last Sunday was nice, so we went flying.

Here is the inside of the plane.








We flew over southern Wisconsin, by the Dells, Lake Delavan and Devil's Lake.

The cool thing about this plane, is that if you see something that looks interesting, you just fly over there and get a closer look.

Here is a dam. In the middle, you can see the lock.














I think this area is very beautiful.

We also played with some thermals. These are columns of warm air. Since heat rises, so does warm air. So if you find one, you can just fly in tight circles around the thermal and gain altitude for free -- no need to adjust the throttle. You can see birds do this as well.

I have more pics -- go here to see them.

New kitty!

Hey, everyone, meet Tama!

As you know my baby, Moogie, passed away last year. She was 19. She was my first kitty. At the time, we got her, we had TD and Clark. We'd gotten Clark just a few days before Moogie, so they were buddies. TD thought she was a human, Clark acted like a dog. But Moogie knew it was best to be a cat.

I knew I'd have to get another kitty when I got back. I started looking at the Neenah Animal Shelter website. On the website, you can see the cats and dogs available for adoption. I was looking for a kitten.

In the petfood section at Wallyworld, there are pictures of kitties and goggies at the shelter wanting new homes. Rob saw a cute kitty named Greta . Long story short: Tama is Greta's new name. She was brought in to the shelter after being found outside. Since Greta isn't her real name, I decided to change it to Tama. Tama is a very popular name for female cats in Japan, and my friend in Australia has a kitty named Tama as well. She is about two years old, and had just had a litter of kittens before being brought to the shelter.

Her coloring is called "dilute tortie". She looks like a black and orange tortoiseshell that had been left in the sun to fade. And she has cowlick on her chin that looks like a goatee.

At first there was a lot of yowling and hissing when all the cats were allowed to meet in person. Now they can all be in the same room with only the occasional growl, hiss or yowl.

Tama is the smallest of our three kitties, but don't worry about her! I've seen her tackle Orangie, who weighs almost twice as much as she does, and chase him down the hall!