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Post by plantsnobin on Mar 2, 2008 10:09:17 GMT -5
Started out yesterday at 6am, leaving for a rabbit show. Now, I don't show rabbits usually, husband does, but he had to work and it meant a lot to him, so I was going for him. Me and daughter Alison pull out of drive, see a dead cat 100 feet up the road, stop and decide that it is Boomer. Call Mike for him to bury cat. Bummed out like you wouldn't believe, sorry that I had got mad at Boomer day before for messing with me while I was trying to type. Went on toward show, Mike called to say that he wasn't so sure it was Boomer. Then a couple minutes later he called back again to say that he was in fact looking at Boomer on the porch right then. From sad to happy instantly. Then, one of the rabbits got 'Best of Variety'. Then came home and took neice and nephew out to eat and to Borders, on the way to Bloomington we saw 4 chicken hawks. Very cool. Now, today it is raining,just a short little downpour which is washing the porch of chicken poo, and it is supposed to be 67 degrees. Now tell me, how could life get better than this? Oh forgot to say that when we got home from show, daughter Kelsey had cleaned the house. Good day indeed.
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Post by Jim on Mar 2, 2008 10:33:32 GMT -5
sounds like a great day.....except for the dead cat.
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Post by hoosierheightsfarm on Mar 2, 2008 10:38:13 GMT -5
In my travels to bloomington I often see those hawks. There are at least 4 that sit around waiting for small animals to get hit, and to watch for others in the short grass that lines the highway. I'm not sure if they are Coopers hawks, or Red-tailed, but I think they are one of the two. I have a similar cat story. My wifes cat, she rescued it from a bush at her work in Oolitic. Anyway, a couple of years later, he wasn't around the house for a few days. I was a couple miles away and saw a similar looking cat. I stopped and stood and looked at it, tried to figure it out. I figured anyway, I could take it home a bury it. So I did, I was 90% sure that it was not "Toby". My wife gets home, I tell her the story, she makes me DIG THE CAT UP so she can "visually ID the corpse". So, being the good husband, I dug up the cat, she takes one look and says, "Oh no that isn't him, he has more brown fur [somewhere]..." So I re-buried the cat. We never did find Toby, he's assumed coyote scat by now.
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Post by plantsnobin on Mar 2, 2008 12:05:23 GMT -5
Yep, we were so happy that it wasn't Boomer, but felt bad for whatever cat it was. Had never seen it around here before, that is why I thought it was Boomer. Must have been his daddy, sure did look like him. Patrick, that was nice of you to dig up the cat so she could make sure! I love those hawks-it is always 4 that I see, in just about the same spots everytime. If your wife needs another Toby, there are a few cats around here I could send her home with...
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Post by hoosierheightsfarm on Mar 2, 2008 13:46:57 GMT -5
We've got 4 right now that need to go away. She's allergic to cats, so we can't keep them in the house. She wants me to build them a condo with heat and A/C. He was quite a cat though.
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Post by Alan on Mar 2, 2008 15:24:04 GMT -5
I always see a lot of red tailed hawks on 56 coming towards Paoli. Particularly in the flat areas before Livonia and Millersburg. They sit along the fences and catch field mice and other smaller birds. I have never made a trip to Paoli without seeing them around those areas.
We have a lot of them here. Our house sets on a hill along the valley that the railroad runs through. The valley is upwards of five or so miles long and gets pretty steep as you go. We see them upwards of every day. We also have a lot of Screetch Owls.
Glad it wasn't your cat.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Mar 2, 2008 15:48:46 GMT -5
Karen, Congrats on the Best of Variety!!! And yes, I know that sinking feeling when you see the little mound on the road...here, it's usually the orange tabbies that get hit? Don't ask me why...
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Post by canadamike on Mar 4, 2008 16:22:42 GMT -5
Blue:
Please, could you tell me what ''orange tabbies '' are please? I won't sleep if I don't know LOL
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Mar 4, 2008 16:33:56 GMT -5
Cats with orange tigerstripe markings. They are the first ones to get hit here. I actually had someone pull into my driveway once and kill a female who had two week old kittens. Must be the bright colour that makes them into such an easy target...
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Post by moonlilyhead on Mar 4, 2008 18:31:30 GMT -5
AAAAAAAHHHHH!!! They're going to hell for sure!
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Post by flowerpower on Mar 5, 2008 7:57:10 GMT -5
Hmm, the only animal I have hit (so far) was an orange tabby cat. On Christmas Day, no less. Is a chicken hawk what I would call a Turkey Vulture? I almost hit a red tailed hawk last summer. It was flying low across the road. Good thing no one was behind me. The red shouldered is very common here too.
Karen, what type of rabbits do you have?
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Post by plantsnobin on Mar 5, 2008 9:14:10 GMT -5
A chicken hawk is the same thing as the red tailed hawk. They are hated around here by most folks, but I like them. We have free range chickens, but haven't lost any to hawks so far. The rooster makes a distinct sound when a hawk is near, to warn the other chickens. We have mini lops, californians, and holland lops. Our kids were in 4H, now that our rabbit showing daughter is too old, my husband got into showing at open shows. I didn't even know adults did such things, but you wouldn't believe how many people do this. There were 800 entries in a show we went to about a month ago.
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Post by plantsnobin on Mar 6, 2008 13:27:27 GMT -5
I had to go to Bloomington again today, and on the way home I saw an Eagle. They had been reintroduced to our area several years ago, and we are between two good sized lakes, but this was the first time I had seen one. Pretty cool.
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