House Cats

 Novemeber 6th,
1:00 Pm
Name: Skeeter
Age 6 years.

Skeeter came into my life when he was just a kitten of 6 weeks old, a friend of mine, Adam, bought him from a local pet shop in Horseheads, New York.  He had boughten him for a roommate of mine and when she moved out, she didnt take him with her and left him with an ex and myself.  As a kitten he was very playful and would climb all over the furniture and our friends when they came to visit.  Now he sits on the futon or his perch on the chair and stares around.  He sometimes plays with my other cat, Willa but thats only when she bothers him and wants to play herself.  Skeeter has gotten out a few times, being an indoor cat, i was scared he would get hit by a car or someone would have picked him up and took him to the pound since he doesnt wear a collar.   He's not a big cat, maybe weighing 6 pounds.  He eats dry food, but loves tuna.  I give it to each of them when they are good.  He's moved 5 times over his 6 years of life and had to deal with a flood in our current apartment, thus us having to live in a hotel for a week. So i suppose hes moved 6 times.  He's all black with a growing patch of white on his chest.   He has small paws with long claws.  We recently just got him and Willa a scratcher that holds cat nip in it and it is said to keep their claws short, it seems to be working.  I sometimes like to sticking my fingers in between his toes to spread them out, hes kind of ticklish so i dont think he likes it that much.  He doesnt really like to meow and stays quiet unless he's hungry.  When he was a kitten and he wanted attention he would meow which sounded more like he was saying "Hello" than anyhting else.  He hisses only when him and Willa are fighting/playing.   I wish i had more pictures of him when he was a kitten but lost all my pictures from my ex reformating my computer without my knowledge or consent.

Name: Willa a.k.a Willy, Willa Barker

Age 4 years.

I decided to get Willa when Skeeter was four, I wanted him to have a play friend and Skeeter was fond of my ex and i wanted someone to be fond of me (sad i know.)  I got her from a friend at work, her neighbors had a litter of kittens, i cant recall to how many they had.  When i brought her home, Skeeter was not pleased but eventually got used to her and they started playing together. (The picture below is her as a kitten, the one above is her now.)  She weighs about 9 pounds, i weighed her recentely.  First i weighed myself, then i held her when i weighed myself for the second time.  She loves to eat.  If Skeeter doesnt force himself onto the bowl of food, she will end up eating the entire thing.  She meows, well barks, all the time.  she has a bunch of different ways of getting your attention with her voice. She, what i like to call, barks at you, if you dont pay attention to her.  She wines and then she will meow.  Her paws are funny, she has such long hair that hair sticks out from the pads of her feet. I think its longer then the hair on her body.  A few weeks after i named her i thought of a better name and wanted to call her "Tails" after the character from Sonic The Hedgehog.  She, of course, doesnt have two tails but her tail is so fluffy.  She's very loving, but doesnt like to be picked up a lot.

I found the picture of the house cat tracks from google.com.  I'm not a very good artist and if i tried to draw them it would have turned out like what the cats poop out.

White Tail Deer

October 25, 2011
3:30-4:00 pm

I'm not in good shape, and lord knows i was heaving and hoing up the giant hills of the Bristol "mountains" but I do love nature and every second of the hike was amazing.   This is the second time my boyfriend, Nick and I traveled up the snow-less mountain and I was on the look-out for wildlife in any form.  Walking along the muddy terrain, Nick yelled out to me "Watch out for the poop."  I rushed over to where he was standing and looked down.  "Scat." I corrected. "That's what poop is called.  I learned it in my Wildlife class."  I asked for his phone so I could take a picture, since mine is useless and doesnt take very good photos.     

We continued on out hike, stepping over the large piles of scat that was scattered all over the hill.   There was another pile that looked different from the one we saw higher on the hill.  They were rolled in balls, almost like cottontail's scat, but i knew it was the white-tail deer from my dad teaching me as a child.  I snapped a picture of that and kept walking.  The smell of winter was in the air, the leaves were turning bright reds and oranges, it was a beautiful day.  Soon, some rustling in the brush above us caught our attention.  I looked into the woods and saw a large white tail sticking in the air, jumping over fallen down branches, escaping from, what he thought, predators.  A large white-tail buck.  He didnt have a very big rack, maybe a 4 point but he was very big in size.   I didnt have Nicks phone on me and just as he was getting it out of his pocket and to the camera app, the deer was out of sight.  We decided to go in the direction he ran off to incase he stopped to take a break from running from us.  Unfortunatley he wasnt in sight, we spooked him.   The rest of the hike was trying to get down the mountain without falling into a pile of scat or mud.  We decided that we would make a weekly adventure out of the Bristol hike before the snow touches down.

                                                                                

November 2, 2011 (3:00pm) - Nick and I decided to go for another hike after he got out of work.  This would be our third time hiking Bristol mountain and i was hoping to see some wildlife on this adventure.  We climbed the right side of the mountain this time around.  It was a doosey getting to the top.  Once we did, I was upset we hadnt seen anything wild.  We heard some rustling in the brush but nothing showed itself.   On our way back down was the most thrilling.  We saw 6 white tail deer.  Unfortunalty they were farther then what Nicks camera could get.  I was excited and hoped that there would be some cool evidence that they were there.  Once we got down to the spot they were at we saw this bed that one of the doe had been laying on.   The tall grass was matted down (the picture shown above and at the bottom) and there were tracks in the fresh mud.  We tried to take a picture, but none of the ones we shot came out so well.  I was bummed but happy that i got to see more than one deer in their habitat. 

Yay, i finally got a good picture of a deer print while hiking the Keuka to Seneca Lake Trail in Dresden.  Of all the pictures I tried taking, this one came out the best.