daily dose of dogs (aka cats with your coffee)

Headed into the Holidays

Hello Friends of Winnie’s Wish (if there are any of you still out there).  I sure hope this reaches a few people who used to read here.  I blog SO very seldom now that I know folks have stopped checking.  But we’re still here!  Winnie’s Wish is just as active as ever.  The same 32 cats still call Winnie’s Wish home.

I know I mentioned that I have a new grandbaby (the first).  Life for me was already very busy.  My life was full with all of the rescued animals here.  Add to that a human baby and you end up with not a spare second anywhere.  I will absolutely not skimp on the time I give to the animals here.  I have been able to maintain the same routine with all of them.  But that means other things had to go, like LOTS of personal stuff and like blogging.  I feel great about the animals I care for and great about my little granddaughter.  But that means so many other things are simply not do-able now.  And that’s fine.  It’s the living creatures, both animal and human, that matter most of all.

With the holidays coming up, I felt the need to let you know (those few of you who might be reading this) that we are still here and we still have all the same needs.  I had one wonderful supporter contact me and say that she wanted to send something from the Wish List but didn’t know if I was still operating.  So YES!!  YES! YES! YES!  How wonderful that someone thought of us and asked how they could help.  My Wish List is still at Amazon and still in the sidebar here.  The costs have not changed and it’s all out of my pocket, so ALL help is DEEPLY appreciated.

I wish I’d had the time to get pictures of all 32 Wishers so I could share them with you today.  But that just didn’t happen.  I did get several pictures, though, and I will put them in this post.

Thursday is Thanksgiving.  Followed by Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday.  Then the December holidays.  I will definitely try to post again soon.  I wish everyone a WONDERFUL holiday season!

 

Pippin

 

 

Clover

 

Smokey

Winter

 

Kizzie

 

Snowflake

Slate

 

Binks

 

Prim

 

Peeta

 

Ancient Angel

 

Isis

 

Deaf Goldie

 

Still feral Fannie

 

Blue, Binks, and Kizzie

 

Tinkerbell

 

Theo the Christmas Cat

 

Happy Holidays Friends!!

In Memory of a Wisher (again)

In July, I wrote a post with the same title as this post – “In Memory of a Wisher.”    There is a wonderful person who adopted FOUR Winnie’s Wish cats many many years ago. These Wishers have been living The Good Life with Melissa for 9 years.  Circe passed away in July.  At the time Melissa wrote to me about Circe, she also told me that two of the remaining three Wishers had been diagnosed with GI lymphoma.  She explained that there is “not a lot known about this disease but that there are suspicions of possible hereditary factors." Shiloh was the first of the two to be diagnosed.  He lost 3 pounds in 6 months.  Then he lost another 2 pounds.  Autumn (related to Shiloh) is the other Wisher to be diagnosed.

Melissa lost Shiloh mid-September.  She wrote to me about this and sent a gift in his memory.  

 I feel really bad that I am just now writing about this over a month after the fact.  My life has changed dramatically since becoming a first-time grandparent.  There are still all of the animals here to care for along with a little granddaughter now.  There are just things that don’t get done.  Since my work involves living beings, there are no breaks there.  So blogging is one of the things that has had to take a way way way back seat.

When I rescued Shiloh, he had a broken leg.  You might remember his story.

 

He was adopted with his relatives, Truly and Autumn, and a non-related Wisher - Circe.  What a wonderful life these four cats received when they were chosen by Melissa.  I am forever grateful.

 

 

Melissa - THANK YOU.

 

 

In Memory of a Wisher

My life has changed quite a bit since the days of regularly rescuing cats (and dogs).  For years and years I actively pursued needy animals, sometimes taking them out of bad situations, sometimes trapping them (which often took days, weeks, or even months in some cases).  Those were the days when cats were continuously coming into my world.  I couldn’t keep taking in more without moving the adoptable ones to homes.  In my lifetime, I’ve placed over 80 cats into homes.  I do feel good about that.  Now, as you all know, I am providing a home for the remaining 32 cats here at Winnie’s Wish.  They will live out their lives here in comfort and safety.

I still think about all of those cats who came through my world and on to The Good Life in the homes of their adopters.  For sure, there were a few times when a Wisher ended up in a home that what not good.  In nearly every one of those cases, I ended up getting that cat back.  But the vast majority of the homes Wishers went to were just wonderful.  One of those homes belongs to Melissa.  She ended up adopting FOUR Winnie’s Wishers.  And those cats have had wonderful lives. 

Melissa emailed me to let me know that Circe had passed away.  She sent a gift in Circe’s memory.  Circe was nearly 7 years old when she went to Melissa’s home 9 years ago.  So Circe was one of the lucky ones.  She lived to a ripe old age, and she got to do that in a loving home.   There are still three Wishers in Melissa’s home and two are struggling with health issues.  They are being given great care.  I couldn’t be happier to know that these four sweethearts have spent their lives in such a home.

 

Circe

 

 

Melissa – THANK YOU.

 

Wildlife Wednesday – Bird Education (continued from yesterday)

If you didn’t read yesterday’s post you’ll want to go back and start there.  Otherwise, this won’t make much sense.  

This next chapter is when things got really weird.  That evening when we checked, the nest with the two big baby birds had only one big baby bird.  We looked everywhere trying to see if it had fallen out and needed help.  We never found it.  BUT . . . .  when we looked up to the nest it had been in, the other big baby bird was almost completely out of the nest, sort of perching half in and half out.   AND . . . .  as one of the “warbler” birds flew in, three tiny heads popped up beside big baby bird, mouths wide open for a meal.

Let me summarize at this point because this only gets weirder from here. We have a nest of king birds on a branch hanging over the pond.  Mom and dad king bird are feeding.  The nest looks a bit damaged but all seems well despite that.  We have a second nest up higher.  A black and maroon bird and a couple of “warbler” birds are feeding the babies in this nest.  (That should NOT be happening.)  In this nest were two large baby birds (one is now gone) and three tiny baby birds.

 

King bird nest

 

 

Nest #2

 

My daughters and I discussed the parasite bird syndrome.  There are birds who lay their eggs in another bird’s nest leaving the other bird to raise their own young AND the “parasite” babies.  We thought the bigger baby birds could be parasite babies but that wouldn’t explain why two different kinds of birds were feeding this nest of young.

The next day Younger Daughter and I were checking the nests.  And that second big baby was out of the nest.  It was sitting in a clump of pond grass so close to the water that it was bound to fall in at any moment.   Younger had to wade out into the pond but she was able to shoo it towards the bank.  I eventually was able to pick it up and set it on a brand in the tree.  We hoped that its parent would continue to feed it until it was ready to fly away.

 

Big baby bird

 

 

That evening we checked and the baby big bird was higher in the tree, perched on a branch.  Wonderful!  Also that evening we discovered that there was yet a third nest even higher in the tree.  We watched and it seemed maybe one of the yellow-ish warbler birds might be feeding at that nest.  Wow, were we ever confused!

 

Nest #3

 

Nearly every one of us had tried looking up what kind of bird was the black and maroon one.  No luck.  We knew it wasn’t a parasite parent because it had hung around to keep feeding the babies.  But it SEEMED like the black and maroon bird had laid its eggs in the warbler nest and now the black and maroon bird and the warbler birds were feeding their babies IN THE SAME NEST.  And that just doesn’t happen!

So that night in bed, I got on my phone and decided I would try again to identify the black and maroon bird.  Lo and behold I found it!  It was an Orchard Oriole.  The male matched perfectly and the female made my mouth drop open.  Guess what the female looks like.  A yellow-ish warbler.  So now it started making sense.  The male and female Orchard Oriole were feeding their babies in nest #2.  The other yellow-ish “warbler” was feeding at the very high nest #3 (along with her partner – more in a minute).  The two BIG baby birds in the Orchard Oriole nest actually WERE parasite birds.  A brown headed cowbird had laid her eggs in the Orchard Oriole nest.   As I read more about Orchard Orioles, my mouth stayed open.  Orchard Orioles only come to southern Illinois to breed.  So it was rare that we’d been lucky enough to witness this.  But get this!  They build their nests near king bird nests because king birds are more aggressive and they keep the cowbirds away!  So the Orchard Orioles had done everything right.  They made their way from Mexico or Central America to breed here in the Midwest.  They built their nest in the same tree with a pair of king birds who were supposed to keep the parasite cowbirds away.  It didn’t work out exactly as planned and a cowbird DID lay her eggs in the Orchard Oriole nest and those two poor parents managed to feed the cowbirds and their own three.  And we watched every bit of this play out right here at our pond.  WHAT a mystery turned education!

 

Oh, and I said we discovered that third nest way up in the tree.  When I kept seeing TWO yellow-ish birds flying in and out of the tree – well, one was the female orchard oriole; the other was a female Baltimore oriole.  We got to see the male show up on one of the last evenings at the pond.  A pair of king birds, a pair of Orchard Orioles, and a pair of Baltimore Orioles all in the same tree.  How lovely!

 

Wildlife Wednesday (on Tuesday) – Bird Education

A Wildlife Wednesday has always meant that I am writing about Older Daughter’s wildlife rehab.  But today I’m telling a story about some wildlife, specifically birds, living in the wild but with a little help from me and my family.  The story starts simply enough, but every single day we seemed to add a new chapter.  And what an education it was!

There are a couple of ponds on the property here.  One is right beside the road that both Older and Younger Daughters take to leave the property and get on the blacktop county road.  This pond is directly across from Younger Daughter’s house.   One morning as Older Daughter was driving by this pond, she noticed what she thought was a bird nest on a low branch hanging out over the water.  That evening we went to check it out.  Sure enough, a couple of king birds had built their nest in what looked like a treacherous location.  We watched for a while as the mother and father king birds came and went, feeding their babies.  Older mentioned that once those babies were ready to leave the nest, if they did much bouncing around at all they would end up in the pond.  But the real fear was high wind.  For sure that little nest, or at least the babies, were going to topple into the water under the right (wrong) conditions.  There wasn't even another branch below the nest for them to grab if they went sailing out of the nest. 

We debated what to do, discussed trying to build something that could float under that branch.  It was Husband who said we could get the old jon boat from the other pond, float it out to the right spot, and stabilize it under the branch.   Husband and Son-In-Law went for the boat.  Husband grabbed some metal posts.  We floated the boat out and under that branch.  The king bird parents actually didn’t seem to mind the disruption in their evening.  SIL waded out into the pond and pushed the metal posts on each side of the boat and Husband drove a post in on the bank.  Then he tied the boat to that post and ta-da we had a safe place for baby birds to land if they did topple out.  The only additional thing we did was to fill the boat with straw.   Falling into straw meant NOT falling onto the hot metal boat floor and it would be easy to grab onto the straw and even to hop around.

 

 

So that was that.   We decided that we would all check the nest and boat any time one of us went by.   Things seemed fine until we noticed another nest.  This one was higher up but luckily still almost directly over the boat.  Well that was handy.  Now this second nest of babies would also have a safe place to land if they were tossed out during any high winds.  

It became sort of a family affair to all meet up at the “bird tree” in the evenings.  Husband and I and sometimes Older and her husband, sometimes Younger and her husband, would stand a good distance away and watch the mom and dad king birds fly back and forth to feed their young.  We started noticing a bird flying in and out of the tree to the area where the second nest was located.  I commented that I hadn’t ever seen a bird like this one.  Years ago, when my girls were little, I took a real interest in learning birds.  It wasn’t long before I could identify any bird that came to my feeders or that I saw on walks through the fields and woods here.  But this was a bird I couldn’t identify.  It was black, but with a maroon/russet underside.  I googled it but Google kept trying to tell me it was a red-winged black bird no matter how I described it.

Then an evening or two later, I noticed a couple of dull yellow birds flying in and out of the tree.  It definitely looked like they were flying to the same nest as the black and maroon bird.  THAT didn’t make sense.  Two different kinds of birds would not be feeding at the same nest.  That night I started looking up yellow-ish Southern Illinois birds.  I found a picture that sort of looked like these birds.  Apparently they were a type of warbler.  But I still couldn’t figure out why it appeared that this warbler bird and the black/maroon bird were feeding the same babies. 

The following day, Older had me come down to her house to help her with something and I told her I’d check the boat as I drove by the pond to make sure there were no tossed-out babies.  We’d had a quite windy night.  I parked and walked over and Oh dear! the king bird nest didn’t look good.  The far side had quite a bit of material hanging down.  I scanned the best I could inside the boat to see if any baby birds had fallen out.  No babies in the boat.  And I couldn’t really see what kind of damage the nest had sustained because the hanging-down nesting materials were on the far side of the nest.  About that time, in flew one of the king bird parents and three little bird heads popped straight up with mouths wide open.  OK, all was well with that nest.   I looked up high to the other nest and saw something odd.  I could see two baby birds - not their heads sticking up, but the whole baby birds.  It was very strange.  It was like these two babies had suddenly gotten too big for their nest.  I got to Older Daughter’s house and told her what I’d seen.  She, too, thought it odd for the babies to seem too big for their nest. 

This is a long story.  And it only gets weirder.  I’ll finish up tomorrow.  See you then.

 

Wildlife Wednesday

Hi Friends.  I’ve explained here at daily dose why I haven’t been blogging this winter/spring.  There were lots of family health issues that just kept coming.  One of those issues was a long roller coaster ride with my older daughter.  She is the one who has Wild Angels Wildlife Rehab.  She is taking this spring off.  She is nearing the end of a high-risk pregnancy and simply could not do her wildlife work this year.  Things are looking up at this point so we are now hopeful that this pregnancy will result in a healthy baby and a healthy Older Daughter.

She has been quite disturbed having to turn people away who have called with wildlife issues.  She has a long list of rehabbers she is referring people to.  There have been two baby animals that she ended up taking anyway because they simply had nowhere else to go. 

She took in a baby squirrel who was dehydrated and starving.  That baby was successfully brought to health and has been released.

 

 

 

And currently she has a baby starling which was SO young she did not expect it to live.  But so far it seems to be gaining some strength (and some tiny feathers).  So fingers crossed for this little baby.

 

 

 

Hopefully Older Daughter can direct any future calls to other rehabbers. 

 

I will mention one precious thing.  I have written about Ms Wobbly Raccoon.  The story is here if you are unfamiliar.  This little gal comes back year after year to Older Daughter’s yard.  In years past, she’s brought her offspring with her.  She presented herself just the other day – no sign of a little family yet, but the babies might still be in the den.  It’s just so nice that she returns and Older Daughter gets to see that she is doing just fine.

 

 

I'm sure by next spring Older Daughter will be back to her wildlife (although I hope at a reduced scale).   :)

 

June

As I said in my last blog post, I’m not going to miss a chance to thank a Winnie’s Wish supporter even though I’m not blogging much right now.   The number one supporter of Winnie’s Wish is someone you all know and love – Andrea of Celestial Kitties.  Andrea knows that we’ve had a rough winter/spring here.  Andrea hasn’t had the best winter and spring either.   Still – I received a super duper gift for the Wishers from Andrea (and husband Greg).

 

Andrea – THANK YOU.

 

Note – I’m going to do a short Wildlife Wednesday tomorrow to let folks know what’s going on at Wild Angels – my daughter’s wildlife rehab.

 

The Month of May

I keep thinking things will slow down a bit around here and I’ll have time to write about some of the kitties here at Winnie’s Wish.  Surely that will eventually happen.  Until then, I certainly won’t miss a chance to give a big thank you to someone who supports Winnie’s Wish every May and has done so again this year.

I’ve written about this in the past.    Like me, Maria has a birthday in May.  AND May is the month of Mother’s Day.  For several years, Maria has unselfishly given up her Mother’s Day and birthday gifts to support Winnie’s Wish.  Each May, Maria asks her two adult children to send a paypal gift to Winnie’s Wish in lieu of receiving gifts for herself.  I appreciate Maria (and her children) so much!

Maria – THANK YOU. 

 

For my birthday this month, I’m hoping for good health for my family members.  And always for good health and happiness for the kitties of Winnie’s Wish.

 

Winnie's Wish - taken about six weeks ago, just as Spring was “springing”

 

See you soon.

 

We’re Still Here

Hi Friends!  Not sure how many of you will even see this.  I’m sure you’ve stopped checking the daily dose blog because I haven’t posted since the beginning of January.  There have been a series of family health issues that have come nearly back-to-back.  Blogging had to go by the wayside.  But things are looking up some now.  I’m not sure how much blogging I will do, but maybe at least an update occasionally.

WE’RE STILL HERE!

The 32 cats of Winnie’s Wish are still here.  They still have all the same needs.  And that’s why it was absolutely wonderful when mr and her husband sent a gift to Winnie’s Wish in honor of their two cats’ TENTH Gotcha Day!

Felicity and Hershey were Wishers once upon a time.  They were adopted by this wonderful couple and have been living The Good Life ever since.

 

 

Hershey

 

 

Felicity

 

 

 mr  and husband  - THANK YOU.

 

Hope all is well in your world.  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Wonderful Ending/Beginning

Hello Friends!  I hope you all had wonderful holidays.  And now here we are as another year begins. 

 

 

I’m going to announce the results of Andrea’s Auction in this post today.  But first I want to thank some other friends of Winnie’s Wish.  The year ended with Christmas gifts and the New Year began with hearing from Andrea about her auction results.  Does it get any better than this?!

 

Sue and Ernie (Island Cats) – THANK YOU.

 

 

This gift comes from the mom and dad of two kitties who used to be Wishers – Felicity (Frosting) and Hershey.

 

 

Hershey and Felicity

mr and husband and Felicity and Hershey – THANK YOU.

 

And June – THANK YOU.

 

And now here goes.   Andrea emailed me with the results of her Holiday Auction to benefit Winnie’s Wish.  Before I unveil the gift, let me take a moment to say, again, how much I appreciate what Andrea has done here.   Putting together this auction is extremely time-consuming.  And it’s not just the actual “doing” of the auction.  Andrea also makes SO many of the items in the auction.  Then, once the auction is over, she has to get all of these items mailed out to all of the bid winners.  It is a LABOR of love, and I do mean LABOR. 

Next, let me say THANK YOU to every single person who participated in the auction.  Obviously, all of Andrea’s hard work would be for naught if wonderful people didn’t bid on the items.  Andrea and I deeply appreciate each and every one of you.  There can be no auction without bidders. 

And now . . .      ARE YOU READY????

 . . .    drumroll   . . .

The gift that Winnie’s Wish received was –

$2500 !!!!

After postage and paypal fees, Andrea had an amount.  Then she did the crocheted cat blanket raffle which added to the total.  And then, (as they always do!), Andrea and husband Greg decided to “round up” and the final total was $2500!!!

To everyone who participated - THANK YOU.

To Andrea’s husband Greg – THANK YOU.

To my dear friend Andrea – THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.  YOU ARE THE BEST!!