Dot`sThoughts

Here it is another new year. Wonder what to expect, good times, bad times, good weather, bad weather, making new friends, losing some wonderful friends, new babies and wedding mates in the family, losing loved ones and possible some members mates, one never knows??

Yesterday they delivered the oxygen , plus extra travel tanks to my oldest daughters home. I have known she had sleep apnea and spent most of the last year trying to convince her to get checked for it. Well, she finally did and first they checked her for the amount of oxygen she was receiving-- only 76%, so they signed her up for the oxygen to be used at night while sleeping. Soon she will go back again to be tested with the sleep apnea machine, which the oxygen will be connected to. I knew she had sleep apnea because I could see her having the same symptons I was having with sleep apnea. The thought of using oxygen sure is scarring her. I think a lot is due to watching her Dad during his last few years when he was using oxygen around the clock. I have watched her working so very hard at the exercise places trying to loose weight. I know how hard she works because I was there working with her . I once read that the loss of sleep with sleep apnea can cause weight gain. Sounds like one viscous cycle, working hard to lose weight, little sleep, gaining weight, then working hard some more. Seems like an endless cycle. Sometimes I ask myself if all this work is worth it, then my next thought is God gave us life but what we do with it is up to us and I`m just too stubborn to give up without a big fight. Since I don`t like to drive in bad storms unless it is very important, I won`t be hitting the Hosp Wellness Clinic Monday or Tuesday if we get the bad snow storms they are saying to expect. The daughter and son-in law who do most of my shoveling and snow blowing have left for a few days fun skiing. My little snow blower won`t work in deep snow and I don`t do a lot of shoveling if I don`t have to. But when Wednesday rolls around, Hopefully I will be back using the exercise equipment and praying to lose some weight.

I did more searching and listening in my cellar this morning to be sure no new kittens were left there. I keep looking because I still can`t understand why the mother cat didn`t rush off to her babies the moment she was outside the window. I can`t understand why she just sat there looking thru the window at me.
Hard part is there is only a crawl space under the two kitchen additions. One I can see well using the flashlight, but the other half is off the side where I can`t see into it. If anyone heard me while I was in the cellar they might have thought I had lost my mind. I know newborn kittens make little noise until they get large enough to be moving about. So, I figured they should be hungry and they might react to a sucking type sound. So, I walked around the cellar making such noises with my mouth, hoping if they were down there they might start moving around searching for their mommy. I haven`t seen that mother cat since that day. So, I`ll just hope her and her babies are all doing ok. We really don`t need more wild cats running around. But I can`t stop hoping they are ok. In the past I used to feed them, first on my back porch and later I got braver and would leave the back door open and set food in front of my washer and all but one came in to eat.Only the new babies came in while the mother would sit on the porch watching them. Makes me think that mother must have been one I had fed in the past. There was a couple baby kittens that I actually picked up and petted and the mother on the porch just watched me.
Later on I started leaving the side door open and sat the food in front of the frig across the room from the door. It got so I could sit still at the table and they would walk right by me to eat. But one day my husband reached across and pushed the door shut while the last kitten was eating. Wild!!! That kitten took off so fast into my dining room, jumped over a lot of things and landed on that small casing of my pitcher window. Hardest part was trying to get it back outside. I opened all three doors- front , side and back doors. After what seemed like ages ( probably only 10 - 15 minutes) the kitten finally noticed the front door and sped like on a race track right out that door and out of our yard. Even wild baby kittens can be dangerous. it had such a mean face as it hissed at us whenever we entered the dining room. It was bent like it was ready to spring if we got too close. You can bet my Husband never shut the door on them after that.
I tried to get some cages from the humane society, but they just kept saying they were all out and would call me as soon as any cages were returned, which never happened.
Last summer when we re-did the whole side of my shop, I finally closed up all around the bottom of my shop and garage building so no more animals could get underneath them.
Earlier this past summer I would see them heading behind the neighbors garage across the street from me. So, guess they are still finding hiding places, but I haven`t seen any new babies this past year, just a couple of wild expectant mothers crossing thru my yard. I still toss out some food for them so they won`t go after the birds at my feeders on the back porch.

There was a time a long time back when my youngest daughter was small and the dog we had then hated cats. A cat had scratched her face when she was a puppy. This one day I heard my daughter screaming " Mommy"!! I ran ouside to see what was wrong and found our dog Prince holding a tiny kitten in her mouth. Prince was part Police dog and part Collie. I removed the kitten from her mouth, brought it inside and placed a clothes basket over it to keep it confined. I told my daughter not to remove the kitten from under the basket. She went back outside to play. Then I again heard her yelling to me. When I got outside there was Prince with a little kitten in her mouth again. I thought it was the same little kitten. So, I told my daughter that she shouldn`t have taken the kitten back outdoors. Of course she said she didn`t, but there was noone else home with us at the time. When I brought in the kitten to again place it under the basket, there was the first kitten still there. So, I had two identical kittens and had to go apologize to my daughter for thinking she had removed that first kitten.

Then there was the time when the neighbor who used to live behind me on the next road. Her cat had kittens in another neighbors yard. That lady was dangerous. This one day she came out to the fence where my neighbor and I were standing talking. She said " Send your cat over to feed it`s baby. She had returned all the litter except for this one which she decided to keep. When my neighbor Mary tried to ignore her she again told her to tell her cat to get over and feed her kitten. So, inorder to shut her up, Mary called her cat, who of course came thinking it was going to be fed. I had to turn my back to the crazy neighbor so she would see me laughing. Mary told her cat Gee to go over and feed the kitten. When gee just looked at Mary, saw no food, she just walked off. The neighbor told Mary "Your cat doesn`t mind any better than your kids do". Would have gotten worse if she had known why I had my back turned. Mary just told her that if she sent the kitten back home then her cat would feed it. The neighbors reply was that she could have kept all the kittens if she had wanted to since they were born on her property. Mary told her she could have them all back if she wanted them, but that lady only wanted the one. Mary`s kids were all nice kids and we missed them all when she re-married years later and moved away.