New Year, New Cat

Update: In my last post, I mentioned that I didn't like seeing discarded Christmas trees in the lake. Well, I heard a story on NPR a couple weeks ago that said fishermen actually like having those trees in there because fish like to hang out and feed among the trees! Now we know!

To begin this New Year, New Cat post, I will apologize for not writing as often as I could. My goal has been to write once a month until the summer/gardening/composting/etc adventures begin. Life is a little slow out here in the country during the winter. But to make winter a little more exciting and to ring in the new year, my husband and I adopted another cat on New Year's Eve. Meet Hurley:

Herro! (When Hurley meows, it sounds like he's greeting you.)

"Herro?"  "Get off my tower."

Hurley is a lovable, overweight ball of love. His passions in life are eating, opening any and every door, getting in his little (by size and age because he's a little older) sister's way, and greeting everyone with a friendly, "Herro?"

Talking about Hurley is a nice intro for a post I've been wanting to do about pets in the country. It seems that adopting Hurley will bring up our country cred because most people that live around us have a good number of pets. There are some strict laws in the suburbs about keeping pets on a leash. (My dad got ticketed in the park for letting his shih tzu off the leash in a very large open field. I would have hated to be the park ranger who gave him the ticket after just hearing my dad angrily tell the story.) Yet, one of the things I noticed when we were even just looking for houses is that pets, especially dogs, get to roam around. After one house visit, we actually had to trail behind a pack of dogs as they took over the small road.

This roaming behavior has become even more apparent as we have lived in our house for almost a year. Here are some of the funniest tales:

DOGS
We have a lot of dog encounters on our walks and bike rides. A couple yorkies  live down the street. While they charge at us during the day, yipping and jumping for attention, they stealthily stalk us at night. I have come home at night and seen a creature darting up my driveway at full speed. There are no street lights on my street, so as you can imagine, I maced the thing. Just kidding! I just kicked it and ran in the house. Also not true.

A pair of smelly golden retrievers live on one of our favorite walking routes. Although we have now learned to walk single file sneakily on the opposite side of the road, in the past we have had to endure them charging at us. After a little bit of barking, they decide that they would actually love a walk and will follow wherever we go. We have had them follow us on a two mile walk. They walk in the middle of the street and go wallow in the golf course pond. They do this while staying pretty close to us, so I spend a good portion of the walk letting people know these are not our dogs. I'm sure they assume I'm a complete liar.

One of my least favorite dogs is on our bike route. He is usually passed out on his porch until he hears the gentle hum of bike tires on pavement. There is a sign in the yard that says BEWARE OF DOG, but what it should really say is THIS DOG WILL RUN AFTER YOUR BIKE, AND EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE A FENCE, HE KNOWS WHERE THE WEAK SPOT IS. The dog usually chases us a couple feet past his fence and then gives up. I thought about bringing mace on the ride, but my dad pointed up that, with the wind, I might just mace myself in the process. I now keep my water bottle ready in case the dog needs a shot in the face.

CATS
Very few of our neighbors have come to introduce themselves but have opted instead to send their cats. Our neighborhood is full of roaming cats, and they are extremely friendly. The only bad thing is that they don't understand privacy or creepiness......

'Sup?