Giant Critter Attacked Me!

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Strange Critter

The day after New Years, I took a ride on the greenway and encountered this strange "critter" in the creek.

According to the Raleigh police officer on the scene, someone stole it from an apartment complex on Noble Road and it ended up in the creek. Expert tracking noses were brought in to apprehend the "critter."

Kilroy was here

...or a demented cat.

This is a little more normal:

Frank is our oldest critter.  M adopted him on (you guessed it) Frank Sinatra's birthday, so he's named for the famous crooner, although he doesn't do much singing.

Frank is a gray and white tuxedo cat, very well-mannered and behaves well with others - except when he wants to beat the snot out of Ivan the Terrible.  He's 14 years old, but acts much younger.  He went through some trauma a few years ago when he developed pancreatitis and almost didn't make it.  After several weeks with a feeding tube, he finally recovered and is doing great.  He's a very sweet cat who will politely disappear when company comes and will alert you loudly when the food bowl is empty.

Sweet Francis.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

From all the critters, enjoy this beautiful Christmas carol.

Christmas Critter

Ivan "Fat Cat," aka "the Terrible," aka "the Pest," hides out beneath the Christmas tree.  He also investigates all the presents and chews on any appetizing ribbons...

Squirrel Critters

Like just about every neighborhood in Raleigh, we are inundated with squirrels.  They take over the bird feeders, knocking the seed out all over the ground and are generally destructive little creatures.  For a while we trapped them and then released them several miles away, hoping to somehow reduce our yard's population, but we didn't make a dent.

Annabelle's biggest treat is to race outside everyday in the hopes she will catch one - they scatter once they realize she's out, and she bounds all over the yard, looking up every tree.  One morning after she went out, I realized she was messing with something on the hill.  When I called her, she came trotting up to the door with a squirrel in her mouth and dropped him neatly on the back step.  He looked like one of those cartoon animals with the cross over the eyes.  He went into the trash, but Annabelle was very proud.

A few weeks ago at night, we noticed the bird feeder was swinging.  There was no wind, so something was out there.  I crept out quietly and took a few pictures in the dark, before "it" scrambled up the tree.

This is not a very good picture, but we think it was a flying squirrel.  Here's another:

On some later nights when it was fairly warm and we had the windows open in the back, we could hear lots of squeaking noises outside, so we think the squirrels were active then.  Not really crazy about flying squirrels, but as long as they stay in the trees (and not in our attic), we'll probably be okay.