May 15, 2008
Interesting news item coming out of Houston, Texas about a type of ant that exterminators cannot get rid of. The full story is here. They are called the crazy raspberry ant because they are red and fuzzy. They eat fire ants but will attack plants and small beneficial insects.
All known types of ant poisons are having no effect on this type of ant. Biologists are worried about the eco system in that area since the ants were introduced into the area about 6 years ago.
May 14, 2008
The US Department of the interior has now officially listed the Polar Bear as a “threatened” species. There are an estimated 25,000 left of them in the world and biologists expect at least 1/3 of them to disappear in the next 50 or less years due to the shrinking ice shelf.
May 10, 2008
It is that time of the year when I spend most of my free hours outside. I have got to get my vegetable garden up and growing. I have 2 horses to train as well as get my daughter interested in riding again after being dumped twice last summer. My time will not be spent in front of the TV or sitting much at the computer other than paying the bills and the occasional blog post. The websites will be on the back burner and my life will consist of varying degrees of sun exposure (got to remember to wear a hat and sunscreen). The sun has been setting at 8pm and will be setting near 10pm on the longest day of the year in my part of the world. I have also noticed a marked drop off of visitors to this blog as well as the websites. This is normal for this time of year as most of my readers are also spending more time away from the internet. I have heard some updates on several of the animal news stories that have appeared on this blog in the last few months so I might (if I have the time) post the news about them. Right now I have more pressing matters - to enjoy my own animals and quit writing about everyone else’s for awhile.
The cart for my miniature horse arrived a few days ago so I will be putting him in harness for more ground work and probably hitching him up before the week is done. Right now I am off to buy a load of hay.
May 1, 2008
You remember Nubs, the dog that a US solider in Iraq adopted. Nubs was brought to the USA with the help of donations and appeared on many talk shows such as Ellen and the Tonight Show. It comes at no surprise that Nubs now has his own website named Brian and Nubs.
April 21, 2008
If you have been watching the news lately, then you are aware of the rapidly rising food prices. Some people are blaming the cost of crude oil others are showing evidence that organized crime is behind it all. Whatever the cause is we end up paying the higher price. Dry dog and cat food prices are starting to rise at a daily rate. I buy lamb and rice formula for my dogs and because of the rising price of rice, that dog food has gone up too. Dry cat foods have wheat in them so expect a rise in those prices very soon if you haven’t encountered them already.
The effect of the economy has struck the the local llama and alpaca breeders too. Once promoted as a great way to earn a living, alpaca breeders are giving alpacas away. Only last year I saw a male alpaca advertised as a “fiber” producer and great pet to good home only for $3000. That was considered a low price for an alpaca. A few weeks ago our local craigslist had 2 of them (both males) free to good home. I have also seen the same for llamas, both male and female “free to good home”. The economy is starting to hit pet and livestock owners hard.
April 21, 2008
Well at least well read. I occasionally check out the links that are coming into this blog and most of the time they are ping-backs. Rarely a really good post on another blog with a link to one of my posts comes to the fore front. Here is what I have found this week:
- blog posts making fun of my spelling
- 2 complementary blog posts praising my stand on phony animal rescues
- 1 blog post calling me nuts because I am not a vegan
As many of my readers know by now I am not the best when it comes to proof reading my own work and many typos are still in my old posts (and a few of the newer ones too). The last one about calling me nuts - to each his or her own. I wonder why that blogger did not bother to post a comment on my blog post disagreeing with me? As my readers know I do publish the negative comments as well as the good ones as long as they are not advertising or full of crude remarks. I have found that many people read blogs for their comments as well as the main blog post and that is why I publish (or try to) most of the comments left for the blog posts.
April 20, 2008
Yesterday I went to buy hay and saw a sight that reminded me why I don’t raise our own meat. My hay supplier is also a rancher that raises Angus beef cattle. Occasionally I happen to be buying hay at his warehouse when I see off in the distance the processing truck that comes around to butcher and cut up his beef cattle. I usually see the cow long after the process has been done and see only the hanging beef side, the kind you see in the butcher’s freezer. Yesterday the weather was nasty and I guess the truck had trouble getting to the cattle barn. The butcher’s truck was next to the driveway where I had to go to get the hay. I had to drive slow and saw a gruesome sight. Two cows had already had been killed and skinned but had not been cut up yet. The hoofs and head of one of them where laying right next to where I had to drive and I still remember the face of the cows dismembered head. Both bodies where still steaming. I thankfully had not arrived sooner than I did. I know I sould be more emotionally stronger but I teared up over the matter.
Because of that incident it remeindes me why I cannot raise and kill my own food animals. I have no problem eating meat, it is just that I had better not know them before they died so I could eat. My husband at one time wanted to raise a pig for us to kill and eat. I told him that I had no problem with it as long as I did not see the animal nor feed it. I know that my husband is slightly lazy when it comes to animal chores and he fully expected me to feed the pig - he dropped the matter.
I don’t mind raising chickens for their eggs and have done so in the past. I also would not mind having fibre animals strictly raised for their hair such as sheep or llamas just keep me away from raising and becoming attached to my dinner.
