.....and Welcome Visitors

Ever since "Incident Coyote" (see this post:  Daisy's Difficult Days), Daisy has been wary of being on the screen porch for very long.  That has been several years. 

And we haven't had stray cats hanging about since then either--honestly, I miss having an outside cat or two.  Most of those strays have been lovely creatures, and I have always taken good care of them as much as I could and as much as the animals themselves would allow.  Daisy enjoyed visiting with the stray kitties from the safety of her side of the screen.  Daisy can't be in close proximity with other cats.  She didn't have a cat-mama and was raised by a dog so her behavior tends to offend cats.  You know how dogs greet one another?  Well, that's what Daisy does, and it doesn't go over well.  Cats like to sniff noses, not the other end.

Lately, Daisy has not wanted to be in the house at all.  And I just haven't been able to understand that.  The porch is a mess (a really, really, really bad mess that I swore to clean up but haven't--see my shame:  Getting Clean.  I have no excuse, although I still hope to mend the very obvious error of my ways.)  But right now the porch is the ONLY place Daisy wants to be.  I almost have to force her to come into the house to eat and at bedtime at night.  (Of course, I wouldn't want her out at night in case of further coyotes.) 

This morning I saw the reason why:  a big fluffy orange tom kitty.  A stray.  I've noticed him around off and on for a month or two but I thought the neighbors were caring for him.  Yesterday when I went out to pick up sticks, he was sleeping on my driveway; he didn't seem scared of me but wasn't looking to make friends either.  But today I saw him much closer to the house--near the porch, in fact.  And Daisy was watching him intently.  No wonder she wants to be outside; she's trying to be buddies.

And I've got some new buddies, too:  hummingbirds.  Yesterday before the stormy weather got started, I changed the leaky feeder for a much smaller one.  Only a female bird came occasionally to that first feeder but now there are a pair coming to the new feeder, and the male bird really seems to like it.  He has visited repeatedly in the hours that I've been working at my desk thus far this morning.

(Oh, by the way, the chalk bead above the feeder did not dissolve in the rain, although it has shrunk a bit, and there hasn't been a single ant since I added the D-earth the other day.  Good success with the feeder, and hoping for more!)

Spring has sprung.  Daisy and I have new stuff to look forward to, and I'm planning to celebrate the beginning of April.  March has been a bear--an ugly, hulking, mean, warty, smelly, moth-eaten bear (can you tell I didn't like March?) that just wouldn't give me a break--so I am more than ready to see a new calendar page. 

It's time for change.
Life is good.