Pets – Tiffany Shearn

Baxie’s Adventure

Here is a short adventure in honor of live creative day.

Homecoming

Baxie grew up sheltered in a quiet neighborhood. She was adopted at a young age by a nice couple during a time of widespread illness. It had been challenging to connect with potential adoptees because they did not come in often. Some of those with her were shy and didn’t interact much with the people who came. She was one of the lucky ones, to be adopted.

Her new parents introduced her to her favorite person in the whole world when they arrived home. His name was Peter, and they had adopted him so many years before he was practically a grumpy grown-up. Initial attempts to invite Peter to play with her were met with derision and more than a little sniping at her, but she could tell he was lonely and kept poking. Eventually, he pounced back and ran around with her. They would snuggle up together for naps after their races.

People visit the family. While Peter loved meeting and talking to the guests, Baxie remained scared of them. She preferred her quiet family to herself. Those strangers could stay in their own homes as far as she was concerned. However, as she stared out their back window into the vast woodland surrounding their home, she wondered if something in nature might offer her more.

The Wild OutBack

Her parents and Peter roamed around in the back woods. She watched them from the doorway, listening to the tweeting of birds and the chittering of squirrels. Oh! How she wanted to go out and romp with the forest animals. It seemed safe enough for the rest of her family, but every time she started to paw outside quietly, a louder sound reverberated through the trees.

Winter turned to another spring, and the days grew warmer with the sun peeking out between the clouds and the rain. It was her third year with her new family, and Baxie knew she wanted to take a risk. She wanted to – finally – bask in the sun and chase bugs or birds in the fresh air.

Baxie stepped forward onto the back stoop. Her nose twitched at the scents assaulting her senses, and her ears flicked fore and back on alert for the slightest sound of danger. The world was quiet. A gentle burbling of water and a breeze rustling the leaves. She kept moving, slipping between two trees flanking the perimeter of the open area where the family cooked.

The tree smelled good, so Baxie stopped to take a nibble. It tasted different than the food she normally ate, and the branch was still connected, so it whapped her in the nose when she let it go. The feeling of it against her whiskers made her huff a breath before continuing.

Freedom!

Exiting on the other side, she froze in place. Massive trees rose above her. Water rushed to the left, and a small hill trailed to the right. A rush of wings above claimed her attention, and she crouched low as her eyes narrowed on the object of her desires. Her heart rushed, and she felt her jaw move, making a quiet clicking. The bird sang, oblivious.

Baxie crouched. She wiggled her back legs, positioning them perfectly to pounce in an instant. The bird sang, then fluttered its wings before grooming them with its beak.

So close, she thought, I just need a step to get up there.

The thought was no sooner in her head when the bird took off from its perch and flew toward the water. Without hesitation, on instinct, she bolted after it. Their chase lasted mere seconds. It disappeared between the leaves of another tree, so she halted her fast pursuit and took up a stalking position. In the distance, someone called her name, but she ignored whoever it was, intent on her prey.

Step.

Another.

Soft paws. Quiet paws. Slowly.

The bird took off again for another tree, and she threw herself forward after it. Her name was called louder this time, but she again ignored them. Behind the waterfall and across the field, her claws dug into the soil and she bolted forward like a supreme hunter. Excitement flared in her chest as she pulled up beneath the next tree. She stalked at the base, assessing her best path to the top.

“Baxie, you crazy cat,” Mom said as she approached.

No! No! No! You’ll scare it away!

Her pleas fell on deaf ears as she was plucked off the ground and into welcoming arms.

“You can’t chase birds, silly. You’ll run out of the yard and get lost.”

Baxie had no idea what the words meant, but she stared back at the bird as she was carried back inside, her eyes narrowing on her prey. I’ll get you next time, she promised.

Operation: Save the Guppies

If you have been following my social media, you have already seen the tidbits making up the bulk of this effort.

Backstory

When we bought our house together, it came with a pond in the backyard. It is lovely to look at and sounds peaceful when the pump runs the water through the rocky falls. The previous owner did an outstanding job caring for and maintaining the pond, even if it was only at the end to get it ready to sell.

They did so well getting this ready for listing pictures!

We quickly discovered that the pond is a beast to maintain. It is too shallow for a permanent koi pond, so it was chlorinated and kept clean. While it seemed easy enough, the thing leads…from everywhere. The pond armor paint needs to be refaced every year, or it leaks more. Where the pond armor is not submerged, it dries and cracks. If it’s not deep enough, the skimmer doesn’t work, and the skimmer doesn’t get all the tree debris, so it needs to be vacuumed and scooped frequently.

With everything on our plates over the last couple of years, pond maintenance fell to the bottom of our lists. Last year, we drained and cleaned it in early spring before the critters got to it. Not so much this year.

Frogs!

Not getting to it early this year meant the frogs used it as a breeding ground. I love frogs in all their forms, so I couldn’t just drain and clean, scooping up all the frog eggs to whither upon the ground. We decided it might be easier to let them do their froggy thing, but past years had taught us that the mosquitos also loved the pond, and the dunks did not keep them away.

The tadpoles would eat some of the mosquito larvae, but we needed something more or more aggressive to make a dent in the millions of future mosquitos squirming around in the water. It’s a little creepy to stare at the water and see it practically writhing with the little wormies.

After some option searching, we landed on guppies as our best option. Mosquito fish are invasive and not sold here. Goldfish would also eat the tadpoles.

Guppies!

Our first group of guppies did not last long. It was either too cold for them at night, or they gorged themselves into their next fish life. I like to think it was more the latter, and they had good lives as far as feeder fish usually get. The squirmers in the water certainly reduced. Just visually, it looked like about a 75% reduction. I called it a success, and we waited until further into the warmer season to get more.

Many from the second group survived, the frogs and salamanders grew up, and the mosquitos were managed. I enjoyed going out to the pond to watch my little fish swimming around. Eventually, I walked up to the pond to see a mass of little fish swimming away. My guppies had some little guppy fry.

And thus began my operation to save the guppies, because they will not survive the winter temperatures outside.

Aquarium Time

The animal lover in me decided I wanted to try to save the guppies, but my resources were very low. I had to get creative. My goal was to keep the entire endeavor under $50.

I found a second-hand tank with a filter and bought the smaller plants to grow in the tank and propagate organically. The substrate put me over my initial budget. I considered grabbing dirt/gravel from the yard, but that seemed a little too risky. I did pull some of the rocks from the pond to use in the tank, though, to bring in some of the algae and give the fish a taste of home.

As of now, the plants are growing and I’ve brought thirty of the baby fish into the tank. Since they are going to get bigger, the tank is probably at capacity now. I won’t be able to save all the guppies, as there are probably still another hundred out in the pond. I’ve offered them up as easy-to-care-for pets to friends and family, so maybe we will save a few more. The rest will return to the circle of life, likely as bird snacks.

For my new indoor friends, what do you think we should call their new home?

Cat’s Eye

The last few weeks were filled with multiple vet appointments. Big Cat turned nineteen years old at the beginning of the month, and he has developed an eye ulcer. His right eye started to develop an odd spot on it. He wasn’t rubbing at it or squinting, but, as it got bigger, I sent in a picture to the vet.

She was worried it was hurting him, and we did some eye drops for a couple of weeks. The spots shrunk a bit, but the vet wanted me to take him to an ophthalmologist. We are now trying a couple of different eye drops, and I’ve been able to reduce his pain meds. The eye doctor doesn’t think it is hurting him. Unless he starts squinting, I’m lessening the pain meds to what I have found to be optimal for his arthritis.

Everyone who sees him still says he looks good for his age. Considering that a cat half his age would still be considered almost geriatric, that is not saying much. He promised me at least twenty years – we had a heartfelt cat-person conversation. I would be happy if he at least makes it through this next summer. Since he can’t run away as much now, I’ve been taking him outside in good weather, and he has loved lounging in the sun.

Big Cat has been my companion for nearly half my life. He moved out of my parents’ house with me. He cried and laughed with me through my relationships. He accepted my husband when we all moved in together, winning him over despite his reluctance to become a pet owner. I want to make sure he is as comfortable as possible for however long he has remaining.

Lots of cat love to all!

My Own Murder

Life has been overwhelming of late…still. I have been piling too much on my plate, and I realized after the fact that I even missed doing a blog post last weekend! This packed schedule will pass, but not for some time yet.

What am I doing?

I’m working on getting my new business off the ground. The process starts with bleeding money, never having enough time, and always being on the job. From there, it progresses to bleeding less, thinking you have some downtime (but not really), and telling yourself you need to be off the clock sometime. After that, it slowly works to some semblance of balance, or what you come to believe balance looks like.

As of today, I’m still in the second stage. Most of my time is spent on the phone (yuck!), managing people, or dealing with all the admin behind the scenes. I spend a lot of time in my cave of an office when I’m not out in the field helping with the work or driving between job sites.

The office is not really a cave, it has windows, but the ones where I work have the tint film on them, making even sunny days seem cloudy. To keep myself from becoming a zombie, I make it a point to go outside periodically to take in the weather and warm my bones in the sun if it is a nice enough day.

New Friend

There is a crow that hangs around outside. I think it is the same one, and I’m choosing to believe so, regardless of any evidence. Its name is Mark, and I have been trying to make friends with it. There is a slightly mangled slice of bread in the loaf at the office specifically set aside for this purpose.

Thus far, my offers of friendship remain open and unaccepted. My presence is greeted with trepidation, and Mark flies away before I can fully present my bread-ball gifts. I don’t know if Mark returns to partake of the snacks or if the little sparrows hanging around have been hoarding the bounty.

Either way, I will continue my efforts. Mark will appreciate my generosity and tell his crow friends. When you see the car driving around with a murder of crows following in its wake, you will know I have achieved my goal. Okay, maybe I don’t want them associating my car with me, but I will figure that out once I make friends with Mark.

One step at a time. Happy weekend all!

Brain Mush

My brain is a bit mushy today. I think it is from running in a hundred directions the last few weeks. Maybe it is getting to do more people stuff again. Either way, this post will ramble a bit so I can give you some updates across many of those hundred directions.

Cats!

The vet recommended I look into a shot to manage Big Cat’s arthritis. Based on how he acts, I am holding off for now and keeping that on the back burner for later pain management. However, the research I did made me think of getting him a bed for the winter months. With it getting colder, I wanted him to have something warm to sleep on at night. They warn against using heated blankets and such for people, so I went for a heated cat bed.

I got the large one in case Little Cat tried to join him so she would not push him out.

He loves it. Not more than my lap (thankfully), but he often ignores the metaphorical dinner bell now to stay curled up in it until he is hungry and gets up to pester me for food. He is super adorable in it, and I’m glad he took to it right away.

Health

A couple of weeks ago, I got my updated COVID booster, and yesterday I got my flu shot. I have mentioned before that I continue to work through a needle phobia. Both vaccinations went off without a fainting problem, so I count those as two wins. The one from yesterday might be contributing to my brain fog today, but the side effects are relatively mild this time (another win).

I’m doing what I can and crossing my fingers that I can avoid any additional illnesses as we head into the colder seasons.

Grandma

Something I have been spending more time on lately is helping my grandmother look for a new independent living facility. My mom’s side of the family used to split between us in the Auburn/Federal Way areas and the other half in the Puyallup area. Before my grandfather passed, they also lived in Puyallup, so it made sense that when she decided to go into independent living that they would look for something there as well.

Time moved on, and the Puyallup half has now moved to Florida, and she wants to be closer to those of us still living in Washington. I have been researching places closer to us, and we toured some a couple of weeks ago. We did some thinking and negotiation, and she signed onto a new place this week. We will be helping her move into it at the end of November, and everyone is excited that she will be closer to us for visits and events.

Miscellaneous

We started up our Halloween parties again. I called this one Zombie Halloween because we were essentially trying to resurrect the events of old. It turned out to be a great time. I brought back one of my old costumes. My sister and I made it together about twelve years ago, and it mostly still fits with some strategic cape placement. For the event, I also made some spooky deviled eggs. I am a Miracle Whip person, while my husband prefers mayo, so I did half of each kind. The MW ones looked like mummies, while the mayo looked like pumpkins.

This is the She-Ra (OG 80’s cartoon) costume my sister and I made. I bought the skirt, boots, and sword.

Another fun thing I tried out this week was making butter (main photo)! I first saw an old butter churn on TikTok, then I saw that you can do it with a mixer in about fifteen minutes. The latter seemed easier, so I went in that direction. It was cool seeing it firm up and the buttermilk getting washed out. This morning, I chopped some garlic and homegrown basil and mixed that in for some homemade garlic-basil butter. I’m freezing it for later use, and I might make some more butter and other varieties to give out for Christmas.

Thanks!

That is all of my brain mush for the moment except to say that two more ratings came in recently on Amazon, so that puts me at thirty-three total between the two books. Seven more, and I will add that deleted chapter to the website! Thanks for all of your support, and I hope you keep reading.