Running with the Cows and stuff

a neighborhood cow, pre-teen model

Every morning I take a two-mile walk along a country road near my house. Because it's for exercise, I don't take my camera or my binoculars. I do a mile in about 20 minutes, which I'm hoping to whittle down to 15 minutes within a couple of months. (I have short legs, so I'm moving as fast as I can right now!)

I pass a cow pasture on Kline Road, and if I'm lucky, I get to see the cows in the pasture run toward their barn. I don't get it every morning, because sometimes I'm too late or too early. When I do see it, I've noticed that first one cow begins to run, then another, and then they all get the hint and start tearing toward the barn for their breakfast.

On the mornings when I'm there to see them run, I run with them. They stare at me, but I think they're getting used to me. It's only about fifty yards, but they work those big bodies of theirs as fast as they can. There's always one pokey one, a brown cow with a very light brown face (as opposed to a white face) whom I call Chloe. Chloe is always last to the barn.

I wish I had pictures of this spectacle for you, but as I said--I don't take the camera. Otherwise, I'd be doodling around out there for hours, stopping and snapping and looking through the binocs and stuff. This is one of the cows Gretchen and I photographed a few weeks ago.

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I don't have a new pic of the phone for this section, so I'll pander and put Niblet here!

I'VE FINISHED THE FAKE BIRDJAM! I was a little stymied by the whole mp3 / AAC file thing, but Jay remembered that you can change the options in iTunes to make it convert files to mp3s! So this morning I tried it, and it worked! I now have the edited files on my phone, complete with a transcription of the bird sound (tzip-tzip-zee), and the Latin names for the birds! I didn't load the photos of the birds onto the phone because I don't think my phone displays the art for the tracks. Still--no more Lang Elliot saying "Savannah Sparrow" and no more double tracks! Best of all, thanks to Jay's generosity, it was FREE.

In return for the Birdjam Maker software, I have to write detailed instructions for Jay on how I made my fake Birdjam. I've been keeping notes, so that won't be hard.

I'm just glad this project worked out successfully. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that my little do-it-yourself projects don't always work out well; in fact, sometimes they result in disaster. (I won't bother to think back, as I can simply remind you of the homemade scope and the broken Nikon camera... sigh.) (Actually, the homemade scope works okay, but it's certainly not high enough quality to use for photography or anything. I have used it to look at the stars and the moon, though.)

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Clawsie, sleeping on the bed--as usual

My final little tidbit is to tell you that Clawsie's been a little under the weather. She got some sort of infection at the base of her tail -- she might have gotten a mosquito bite or something, and she kept messing with it, and then it got infected because her immune system is not as strong as a normal kitty's (remember that all my kitties are FIV+). We had to take her to the vet, which was the usual traumatic experience (she pukes, she drools, she has explosive diarrhea--it's a real circus act). But she's on antibiotics now, and she's doing much better. She was sleeping all the time before, and she kinda smelled. Now she's able to clean herself and she's running around with the other kitties like usual.

The pilling isn't a picnic, as she got wise to the Pill Pockets after only two times. Now we use one of those plastic syringe-like tubes to blast the pills down her throat. She hates it!

So she's doing a bit better now, but the sore on her tail is healing slowly. Send some good wishes her way; I'm sure she'll hiss at you for your trouble.