It is not a good day here. Last night the storm came in and it was so bad that school was called off
here. The wind was so loud, I was afraid to open the door.

Although it is stil windy here, it has died down. We had something like 100 mile an hour winds.

I had a little iron patio set at one of end of the front porch, the table did not move an inch. The
chairs were turned over and one was stuck inside the other. I finally got those apart but it did leave
some scratches on one of the chairs.

One of the tall trees in my front yard went down so now I have a big mess in the yard.

An iron bench I have in a garden area in the back yard blew over and scratched it in several places.

There's some tree tops scattered about the places.

I looked out a back door onto the patio and Mr KiKi had a big squirrel. I went out with a broom and
he dropped the squirrel. The poor thing was blinking it's eyes, breathing hard but I couldn't see a bad
place on it. I got a dust pan and scooped it up, took it down by a tree, hoping it would go up the tree.
After more inspection, I saw it was injured beyond help. I had to kill it.

Some times I hate cats.

I need to get some new collars but so difficult to find the ones that are NOT breakaway collars. I put
big Christmas bells on the collars. IF I had them on the cats, that squirrel probably would have gotten
away.

To top all that off, I have been looking for Miss Cookie for a month or more now. I have a strong feeling
a Great Horned Owl got her. I even put out a $100 reward for her. No one has come forward. For some
days I was hearing that owl at night, even waking me up as it was mighty loud. I have not heard it since
she disappeared.

I am NOT happy today.

That storm be here in few hours.

No storms here sunny and dry.
Cats are hunters,that is why mine is a house cat. Too bad about the squirell.

I did a search for that owl...holy crap that is a big one.

jjohnson777 wrote: That storm be here in few hours.

The wind is bad!

Marcel-R6 wrote: No storms here sunny and dry.
Cats are hunters,that is why mine is a house cat. Too bad about the squirell.

I did a search for that owl...holy crap that is a big one.

Yes! The Great Horned Owl has an appropriate name.

About ten years ago I was sitting out back when I saw something standing in the flower garden up
on the hill. It looked like a log at first. I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was moving and
then it turned it's head as to look right at me. I saw what it was and shocked to see it standing on
the ground. I walked towards it and when I got a few yards from it, it flew in a tree. I then proceeded
to shoo it and it was flying from tree to tree. It finally flew out of sight.

It was extremely odd and I would say rather rare, to see one standing on the ground like that. They
normally stay at the edge limbs in trees. When they see food, they will swoop down and grab it and
take it back to their nest.

I know they got to eat like everything else but I don't like them on my property. They are known to
kill cats and even small dogs.

wo i didnt know owls were beastly cat nappers

the only ones i have seen in my life are little ones about 8/10 inches high and i think they just eat rats and berries,not cats,,by jove that must be one heck of an owl

May be all will be in order

Yes the Great Horned Owl is a rather terrifying creature.

Owls regurgitate their food. I did not look close to the trees for Miss Cookies for fear I would
see a fur bowl. What I hope is that she got tired of Mr KiKi and run off and found a home
else where.

It's really difficult to guess what happens to a cat when you live in a rural wooded area.

Ref fox's will kill a cat. Hawks will too.

A day or two ago, sitting at my desk, I saw at least 40 wild turkeys going across the yard.

Great Horned Owl info:
Great horned owl - Wikipedia

valerie wrote: Although it is stil windy here, it has died down. We had something like 100 mile an hour winds.

Sorry to hear about the storm damage - much of the east coast of Australia has just gone through some very wild weather too & the clean-up will take months.

valerie wrote: I need to get some new collars but so difficult to find the ones that are NOT breakaway collars. I put big Christmas bells on the collars. IF I had them on the cats, that squirrel probably would have gotten away.

I don't know if this would have helped the squirrel, but if you want your cats to stop hunting birds in your area, researchers recently discovered that brightly multi-colored collars (like rainbow scrunchies used to tie hair ponytails) were extremely effective (from memory, they cut the songbird death rate by about 90%).

Cats learn to stalk without making bell collars tinkle (easy to do since they naturally walk softly without straightening their legs), but because they cannot see colors well, they have no idea that the bright collar makes them stand out to other animals which can see color (at least, during the day). Apparently, squirrels can see in color, but are red-green color blind, so a rainbow collar might still be helpful.

I'm not sure whether this might make them more noticeable to owls though.

You can do a search for rainbow collar for cats on Google & get lots of results - some even come with a bell too.

Rainbow Collars Could Help Keep Cats From Wiping Out Birds | Smart News | Smithsonian

seaeagle wrote:

valerie wrote: Although it is stil windy here, it has died down. We had something like 100 mile an hour winds.

Sorry to hear about the storm damage - much of the east coast of Australia has just gone through some very wild weather too & the clean-up will take months.

valerie wrote: I need to get some new collars but so difficult to find the ones that are NOT breakaway collars. I put big Christmas bells on the collars. IF I had them on the cats, that squirrel probably would have gotten away.

I don't know if this would have helped the squirrel, but if you want your cats to stop hunting birds in your area, researchers recently discovered that brightly multi-colored collars (like rainbow scrunchies used to tie hair ponytails) were extremely effective (from memory, they cut the songbird death rate by about 90%).

Cats learn to stalk without making bell collars tinkle (easy to do since they naturally walk softly without straightening their legs), but because they cannot see colors well, they have no idea that the bright collar makes them stand out to other animals which can see color (at least, during the day). Apparently, squirrels can see in color, but are red-green color blind, so a rainbow collar might still be helpful.

I'm not sure whether this might make them more noticeable to owls though.

You can do a search for rainbow collar for cats on Google & get lots of results - some even come with a bell too.

Rainbow Collars Could Help Keep Cats From Wiping Out Birds | Smart News | Smithsonian

WOW! Thank you so much!

I never heard of that. I have gazillions of scrunchies and various hair ties. I wouldn't have thought
of that in a million years!

I'm going to try it.

I hope the bad days are behind you now and better times ahead.