Unwelcome Visitor

The other night our sweet beagle Max had a very unsettled couple of hours. I kept turning on the light in the backyard and didn't see anything. I was worried a fox was trying to get close to the chickens so I was shining a flashlight around the hen house and trying to make a lot of noise. The next morning I went out back and found these bear tracks!

Pete set the trail cam out last night to try to catch a photo, but the bear didn't come back, thank goodness. The people down the road had a bear in their backyard a few years ago, so they aren't unknown in this area. It's just a little unsettling having them so close when they've probably just come out of hibernation and are hungry!

A little north of us they were having a problem with them in the fall and were warning people to take down their bird feeders as the bear were going after the seed. Poor things - we're building all over and pushing them out of their territory. 

Our sweet Max out by the pond in nicer weather!
He knew there was something in the yard that shouldn't be there!

For Cat Owners/Lovers

This post is only for cat owners!

We have 5 sweet (mostly) cats, and that means we have, excuse the language, 5 cats' poop and pee. I've had cats for many, many years and have used all kinds of litter and all kinds of litter containers. I've found the ultimate solution! This is just my opinion that I would like to share with other cat owners. The company is not paying me and will never know that I've written this!

I never smell cats when I come in our door, but I thought maybe I had become "nose blind" as the commercial says. But within the past month, I got the same compliment from 3 people on 3 separate occasions. Honest! Each said that they never would have known that we have cats because there is absolutely no smell in the house. Two of the people were Hospice nurses that were here to help my mother-in-law, and they both said they are in many homes with cats and they can usually tell as soon as they walk in the door. The other person was here to buy a piece of furniture we sold on Craigslist, and she said the exact same thing.

We use the Breeze system made by Tidy Cats. It's a little expensive to start, but there is a $7 coupon on their website: https://www.tidycats.com/breeze-systems
I also noticed when I googled it that chewy.com has it for 30% off at the moment.


We use the open design box - the covered box didn't exist when we started using them, but the uncovered one is so simple to clean. The pellets are ceramic-like. Poop sits on the top or gets buried in the pellets and you need to scoop it. The urine goes through the pellets to a pad below. It is kind of like a diaper in that it soaks it up and becomes gel-like. If you don't slide out the door to check it, you will never smell the urine! We have 5 cats and I use 4 boxes. That's adequate for us, although Tidy-Cat and veterinarians say a box for each cat plus 1 extra. I also go through and quickly check the boxes each morning. I scoop the poop and make sure the pad isn't full because it's not fun to change the pad if it overflows! Since you can't smell it, you need to figure out how long you can go normally without checking the pad. They say that if you have 1 cat it should last a week.

One wonderful feature is that the pellets don't get tracked around the house. Some of the pellets may end up on the floor due to over-zealous scratching, but they're easy to pick up and put back in the box.

There are other companies that make cheaper pads for the Breeze system. I've tried a few and they just weren't worth it. They were thinner and didn't last as long. But Amazon now makes their own brand which are cheaper and work great. They're called AmazonBasics Cat Litter Pads. That's all I buy now.

The web site gives instructions on how to introduce the system to your cats. I had no trouble at all with any of our cats - including our little feral cat who had never seen a litter box in her life.

One last thing to know. If you have a cat that "sits" on the edge of the box to pee - usually a male - occasionally you could get urine on the floor in front of the box. That can happen with traditional boxes too. I solve that by putting one of the pads on the floor just under the edge of the front of the box. If it gets urine on it, I just reuse it in the "drawer" of the system.

That's it! Just wanted to share something that has made our house a more enjoyable place to be!

Ruby's

Once a month, I spend the day working at Ruby's Marketplace. It's a little shop in a nearby town, Greenwich, NY. Half of the store, the Marketplace, is rented by crafters and craft retailers. The other half is operated as Ruby's Nimble Thimble by owner Terry. She does repairs and alterations, sells fabrics and notions, and gives sewing lessons in a big studio at the back of the shop.

Notice all the snow in front of the shop! I stood on the nice, cleared sidewalk to take the photo. Greenwich used to have a great little shopping area. My sisters and I and our kids often would take a drive over on the weekend and browse through all the sweet shops. Unfortunately, after a very popular restaurant, Wally's, closed some years ago, several shops closed and there aren't as many customers anymore. But someone has bought the restaurant and is slowly fixing it up, and several new shops are opening, so we're optimistic for the future.

The shop is really nice, and the first thing I do when I get there is take a stroll through to see what's new. More often than not, I find something to buy!

It's an old building with a lot of country character and squeaky old floors. That's my friend Maureen's and my space on the right. Maureen is a very accomplished knitter, and sells mostly children's items: hats, sweaters, mittens, etc. She also is a needle-felter, as am I, and we both sell our needle felting there. I have a few paintings for sale also, and a couple of crocheted blankets.

Here's a close-up of part of our little section. A sale is going on! Hope it entices some buyers! I look forward to working there once a month - it's a nice place to be, and I always meet some nice shoppers.

This last photo is of my Valentine when we were out for a Valentine's dinner.

I love the heart shaped sign over his shoulder. It says "Burnin' Love!"

Hobbies

First of all, thank you for all of the kind thoughts and comments following Pete's Mom, Anne's passing last week. The funeral was yesterday and we are trying to adjust to a new normal. The house is so quiet! Anne was very hard of hearing and loved game shows on TV. There were always a lot of bells, whistles, yelling and laughter coming from her room. She never missed The Price is Right in the morning, or The Wheel of Fortune at night. We had The Game Show channel on cable TV for her and she watched endless hours of Family Feud. She loved Steve Harvey. Pete misses her horribly, but we will get through this. 

I thought I'd show you some of Pete's hobbies tonight. He's a collector and a fixer upper. We both like things that remind us of our childhood in the late 50's and early 60's. 

Aren't these great? The pump has a reproduction globe on top, but the rest is original. The tractor in the second photo usually has a big pot of geraniums on the seat in the warmer weather. That's the chicken coop behind it.

These are some more of the Wheel Horse garden tractors he collects. He finds them in all conditions. Some are just used for parts, others are complete and he just needs to tinker with the motor, the carburetor, or the brake lines to get them working. There are some that stay inside the barn, too.

He has a few cars, but some are going to be sold this spring (I don't think he'll sell this one though!) Again, he likes the mechanical restoration - everything under the hood. When everything is running well, he often loses interest. Then it's time to sell and use the money for a new project.

Above are two photos of our basement pinball room. He has found these in all conditions, too, and has taught himself to fix them. They are quite sensitive and seem to need a lot of TLC to keep them running. I love this hobby! During summers when I was in high school and college I worked at a small local amusement park. It had a good sized arcade, and after hours the staff honed their pinball skills.

Jukeboxes are a natural extension of the pinball machines. Same thing here. Most of them don't work when he gets them and he works his miracles. I found a program on the internet that lets you type in the titles of the music and the artist and then you can print out the old-fashioned labels so everything looks legit. Some come with old 45's, some with cd's. We find songs we like on ebay, but also have a huge collection of 45's and of cd's that we bought very cheaply.

We used to go all over New York State and even to surrounding states to track down "projects" and parts. We would make a day of it - always searching out a fun local diner for lunch. We weren't able to travel any distance when Anne was with us, and that was fine. But now I'm hoping that we can start taking our little trips again.