ManCat Monday

A man has to work so hard so that something of his personality stays alive. A tomcat has it so easy, he has only to spray and his presence is there for years on rainy days. - Albert Einsten

MOL, not all of us spray you know, but we stay alive in our human's memory. Mum often thinks of so many cats at The Bridge, their humans too.

Mum survived her cold morning  helping at the run. She was gone from the house about 2 hours. Showed up in time to get set up, then to wait until the runners actually passed their water station, then looped back around and come by again.  Mum filled cups with water from the big blue jugs, others handed them out. They didn't hand much out since it wasn't a warm day.

 The rest of the crew and the leader, a guy on a bicycle showing the route, the first runner, not far behind.

The first runner and then runners going back to the start/finish line. 

 Moovies!

Sportz Report

The Pack doesn't play until tonight against those lion guys.

Bucky Badger - unbeaten and pitched another shut out beating Michigan State. So far Bucky has play 3 teams from the mitten state and beaten them all. Matter of fact two of those teams didn't even scored a point. So Wisconsin 134 - Mitten State 14

Basey Ball - in the playoffs and mum is at the Ho-Hum stage. She doesn't really care who wins, but she does watch at least some of the games.

So everyone have a good week and Go Pack Go tonight.

Caturday

HiYa Ducky here. The day is getting off to a frosty start and mum is going to have to go out early today.

It got cold yesterday and just before bed mum took a pic of the temperature thing. We haven't been this cold in ages!

 Mum brought out her crow-shay, done working on hats and now back to finish a blankie she started last winter. Now cold enuf that it feels good to have me and the blankie in her lap. Helps keep her warm.

Mum has to get going, she is helping at a run, 5K and 10K, they will donate green papers to the food pantry. Mum will try to get some pics and we will share on Monday.

Have a good weekend everyone

Garden Thursday

Hello and Welcome to The Garden this week. We have been having a few nice days. Sunny and warmer than normal. However that is going to change this weekend. It will be furry cold and windy. None of that white stuff out there, at least not yet. Mum was being silly while she sat outside and took a picture of the shadow of of her feets. 

The community garden is pretty much done for the year. They harvested the last of the stuff, carrots, eggyplant, peppers, kale, swiss chard and a few onions. All the plants are pulled out too.

 The raised beds all cleared, the poultry netting taking down. They dug around a few of the metal raised beds, they need to be treated so they don't rust some more.

 The pile of what is left of the plants, they get composted. They may have a work day or two for working on the metal and clearing out the flowers.

Plus at the end of the season the dahlia finally decided to bloom. Sure, just in time for frost to set in.

 Mum snuck one carrot out to bring home for lunch. She loves the smell and taste of really fresh carrots. Yes, you see Ducky's lunch too!

So mum will now have to think and do about working in her own yard! Time for cleanup at home too.

That is it for this week. Love Virginger,, Glimmer, Trooper and Fleur.

ManCat Monday

Does ownership of the family cat, and all its by-products, immediately transfer to the female head of the household whenever the word 'hairball' is uttered? - Barbara L. Diamond

MOL, well around here mum has to do everything. So she is the head of the house period. So she has to make sure all things are taken care of. Last week she had the heaty monster checked out and because it was running I headed for my fav winter spot, the hammick. I loves it when the warm air flows under me and I can put my paws out to get them warm. 

 Nice napping here.

Sportz Report

The Pack - they beat the CowGirls in Big D! They looked pretty good, the D caught some of their passes. ARodg looked pretty good too. Although mum was thinking the guys and one gal in the black and white stripes were trying to take our game away.

Bucky Badger - won again and is unbeaten. WooHoo, go Bucky!

BaseyBall - mum is watching but doesn't really have a fav team now that our team is out. She watches and works on her crow-shay. She has lots of hats done and will turn them over for give away in a few weeks. 

We also had a nice sunny Sunday. Mum filled up the feeders for the fevvers yesterday and took the last hummer feeder down. We are supposed to have a pretty nice week with sunny days and sort of warms.

Everyone have a good week.

Caturday

HiYa Ducky here. Happy Caturday. I am hitting another milestone today. 3521 days. What does that signify? I have now lived here with mum as long as Derby did. Thankfully I am planning to hang around for a while. 


 Mum has finally decided to get out of  bed, she slept in for a bit. Said she needed the healing power of sleep.

Mum is a bit achy from falling and going boom. All the joints work, she can walk but her elbow is tender and sore, she has a funky bruise on her had from where she was carrying her phone, and yep, the backside is sore yet too. Mum is just taking gentle walks and keeping moving.

Part of keeping moving means making foods for her. She did a big batch of onions and made soup. The fancy soup that you make french by adding cheese! The house smelled of onjuns and garlic, but it was a good smell. Mum said it was very tasty.

 Carmelizing the onjuns first, then into the crockpot for hours to get all mellow and tasty.

Then add bread, some cheese, put it in the hot as hell box, then pull out and enjoy. Mum said it was yum.

 

So what do I do while she is all bizzy in the kitch-hen. I was hanging out on my tower, waiting for her do be done so I could sit on her lap. She finished, got her book and we spent the afternoon just hanging out together. 

It is a cloudy day and they weather guessers say we will get rain later. Guess I will find mum and her lap for another day of snuggles.

Happy weekend.

Garden Thursday

Hello and Welcome to Garden Thursday. Our heads are above water as we have had lots of rain lately. So things are green and still growing! With the rain we went from warms to cool and cloudy.

Mum hasn't seen the spider in her door in the last week, so has taken off for somewhere else, or at least not where we can she her. But we can see her handiwork!

 

 

Mum went over to work on the community garden yesterday but no one else showed up. Not much to do so she took some video of the garden and the stream.

 

 

She didn't realize it and the bridge was super slippery and yep, she slipped. Landed on her well padded backside. Did hit her elbow too so that is sore, but it works just fine. Hey, don't be mad at us for talking about her backside that way, she talks about it that way.

Yes, we will be heading into hibernation but probably not until next month. The weather is still OK for us for now outside. All the fall cleanup still has to happen.

So thanks for visiting and see you next week. Love Virginger, Glimmer, Trooper and Fleur.

ManCat Monday

Apparently, through scientific research, it has been determined that a cat's affection gland is stimulated by snoring, thus explaining my cat's uncontrollable urge to rub against my face at 2:00AM. - Terril Hanley

Well we made it the end of the month of September. You know what that means, tomorrow starts Tock-Tober! So you know it is that time of year to show us your backside! Gotta blame this one on Derby, he loved to show his tocks.

So to cellybrate his purrthday which is October 20, if you could show us your tocks!  If that day doesn't work, then pick a day and show them off. Just leave a comment on my blog, the most recent post is fine, then we can some to visit your blog.

I will get things started early, here are my tocks!

Sportz Report

The Pack  -  they played last Thursday and losted the game in the last minute or so. They had a chance to win, but ARodg threw the ball so hard it bounced off the guy and the other team caught it. Oh well, mum figures that they may not be as good as they could be. They still don't seem to be able to tackle on defense.

Brew Crew - they are on to the post season as one of the wild card teams. They play the Nats on Tuesday. Mum watched the last game of the regular season instead of a feetsball game. They didn't want it to end, the game went into extra innings but they didn't win. End of the regular season with 89 wins in a 162 game season. We will see how well they do in the post season.

Buck Badger  - they won on Caturday afternoon, unbeaten.

Have a good week everyone!

Caturday

HiYa, Ducky here. Happy Caturday. Things are getting off to a good, but slow start here. Mum has been catching up with the newsy paper and I am napping.

However, we have been seeing lots of peoples on the trail wearing the same shirt. Mum says there was a charity run / walk today. Started a bit farther down the trail, then looped through some streets and then back to the trail. She saw the signs on the streets asking peoples not to park for today.

Plus mum helped with the library book sale the past two afternoons. Thursday was bizzy, Friday not so much.

 Above is Thursday. Lots of peoples, the man in the chair had a box on his lap, the wife was filling up the box. Below is Friday, just a few people at a time in to shop. Mum managed to get the rest of the boxes from the far left side all emptied and on the table. Easier for people to find things then.

 Mum knows they brought in $996 green papers on Thursday, not nearly so much on Friday. Today is the bag sale. You get a paper shopping bag for $5 and all the books you can fit in it are your!

 Me playing peek-a-boo with mum the other night. I loves my mum.

So everyone have a wonderful weekend.

Garden Thursday

Hello and welcome to Garden Thursday. Quiet time in the garden, mum mainly has to keep the grass down to a reasonable level.

Mum was out and about the other day and when she came home the naybors had finally trimmed off the back shrubs. They are their plants, so mum tries not to mess with them unless they cause her problems. So we can easily see the trail and the back naybors yard too.

Mum thinks she wants to cut a bit more back on our side, but will try to do it when they aren't around.

Yes, fall is here and the leaves are falling. These are coming off of our maple and they aren't really turning colors first. More like they got all dried up and just fell off the tree. Some trees near us are turning colors.

 The eggy-plants are still growing and mum didn't think she get anymore to eat, but she did find one small one growing! Give it another week and she may have to eat it.

Mum took the week off from the community garden, so no report from there. She will be back there next week.

That is all from the garden. Love Virginger, Glimmer, Trooper and Fleur.

ManCat Monday

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime. - Mark Twain

Crime? I don't do no crime or at least I don't get caught at it! Mum surprized me, she did a library run on Caturday, came home and got out the grass eater and did the job. It was a bit warm, but a good breeze so mum didn't over heat. Not much sun either. So she won't have to do this today. But she has a list of peoples she needs to call about stuff. 

Sportz Report

So much going on I can't just report on feetsball.  So I am changing to a sportz report.

The Pack in feetsball beat the Bronco boys from Denver. Heck that team is 0 for Wisconsin, they have never won in our state. Lambeau field is the only place they have never won in and we aim to keep it that way. The Pack is still unbeaten and they play again already on Thursday night.

The True Blu Brew Crew - our basey ball team is doing well in September. Right now they are tied with the Nats for the Wild Card spots. Plus the wild card game would be held in our stadium. At least if things remain the same.

Mum was bouncing between feetsball, basey ball for our team, plus checking up on the basey ball game with St Lu and them Cubbies. Lots of important sports.

Plus Bucky Badger won on Caturday. Bizzy, bizzy, bizzy!

Have a good week everyone.

Caturday

HiYa Ducky here. Happy Caturday. Back to our regularly scheduled schedule. Mum is done reliving her trip from last years. Hope you liked the look back.

Gonna be a warm and muggy day today. We can feel the stickiness coming in the window, so mum will be closing the window soon. Also means she will be lazy and not try to mow the lawn today.

We have a really cool spider living in our big windows that go to the floor. This is an orb weaver spider and it is a good spider. It eats other bugs. Mum saw it the other day and got a pic. We have seen it since then too, so it didn't run away on us.

Me and mum watched the last episode of Serengeti the other day. Really cool pics of the big cats and others that live in the area. Can you find me in the first pic?

Otherwise things are calm and good around here. So good I can just take a nice nap or three.

 Happy weekend everyone!

Entertainment and Food

Entertainment

We didn't lack for entertainment, some professional and other that the crew or program directors put on. All of this was optional, you could go back to your cabin, but why not join in and have a few laughs or maybe learn something.

Every evening we got a little folder outlining what was up for the next day. Times of tours, talks, sailing etc. Plus if you were on board, they would announce something was happening. You could learn to tie knots or do fancy napkin folding if you wanted. Just chill out too.

 

 You could be busy or lazy, your choice depending on how you felt that day. Most evenings there was either entertainment that was brought on board, a singer one night, a guitar trio another. Then there was the crew entertainment as well. The motto was "What happens in the lounge, stays in the lounge".  So we got some good laughs at the expense of the program directors and crew.

 The first item, a message from the captain down through the ranks. Original message, there will be a solar eclipse at 9 AM, make preparations for everyone to view. The final message, the captain is disappearing at 9 AM.

 

 The guys had robes on that covered skillets that when they opened their robes and flexed their knees a ladle would come up and bang on the skillet.

 The Captain and Brano, doing their piano bit. They "stripped" from the waist down and played with their penis. Supposedly. They did offer lessons playing to only the men on the next day. I don't think they had any takers.

 My favorite of the wait staff, Clarrisse. A wonderful girl from Portugal who speaks 5 languages! Always a bright and smiling face.

Everyone of the staff and crew had such wonderful attitudes and helpful and willing to pitch in and make things happen and that made the trip enjoyable.

Food

We were well fed on the cruise. Three meals a day and you had to learn to pace yourself. I was happy to get home and find I hadn't gained any weight. I resisted the temptation to take pictures of the food, it is one of the more annoying habits the people seem to have. At least in my opinion.

Breakfast consisted of a buffet of fruit, pastries, hot foods like potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon. Plus you could get an omelette or fried eggs. Plus they usually had specials each morning like sausage rolls, pancakes and French toast. Although the French toast was sprinkled with lots of sugar which is not how I make it. With an active day I wanted a good breakfast, so it was scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit and then a pain au chocolate.

Lunch. This meal was far too easy to over do it. I got in the habit of doing the salad buffet and the dessert. I would skip the special sandwich, pasta or whatever else they were having. I had more than enough to eat and they had pickled beets on the buffet and I loved eating them. You don't find them much on salad buffets in the US.

Dinner - you saved your calories for this meal. It was a full multi-course dinner. Appetizer, soup, often a salad, Main course was always a choice of meat, fish or vegetarian. Dessert was usually something fancy, often with chocolate. Or if you wanted to be mundane, you could have ice cream, but it was still served in a nice parfait glass with a wafer cookie and decoration.

Here are a few of the menus from a couple of the days. They included items that would be local specialties, information on the cheeses if you wanted the cheese course and the wines. I loved the wines, even the Chardonnay as it wasn't heavily oaked like some of the US wines are.

 

 

 

I did take a few pictures of dessert. The top one was at lunch, the other at dinner. Also baked alaska the final night.

Everything was yummy.