The title is only slightly tongue-in-cheek. We love to go to Golden Gate Park very early, when there are no crowds and it’s quiet. Needless to say, we were waiting at the gate when the Arboretum opened. We had to dodge the sprinklers the whole time we were there. It was worth the effort, as always.
Strybing Arboretum
The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum is my favorite place in Golden Gate Park. Ok, it’s one of my favorite places. Its sprawling 55 acres is home to vast array of plants and trees from around the world. Follow along if you want to see more.
If you look at the sidebar, you’ll see that we have a link to Adventures of A Naked Cat. We have been following Nofuratu’s adventures for a while now. He is an activist and marches in the Pride Parade in his hometown in Canada. He refuses to bend to gender stereotypes and because of that, he looks just as wonderful in a tux as he does in a dress. One of the most fashionable kitties out there, Nofur is also a certified therapy pet who does charity work. In his blog, Nofur writes about the places he visits to and provides wonderful reviews.
Nofur is very sad today because his brother Vlad had to have half his tail amputated after a nasty incident with a door. It comes at a difficult time financially, so if any of you want to chip in a little bit, they have Paypal account: it’s sinful_scarlet@yahoo.com
You can follow the news about Vlad at the their Facebook page.
Vlad update: He’s on his way home from the hospital. Hooray!
This is Vlad in his Halloween spider costume.Nofuratu in his tuxedo. What a handsome kitty he is!Here's Nofur looking drop dead gorgeous in a dress. That was on his trip to New Orleans.
A note about the above photos. The copyright is held by Nofur and his family. His mom gave me permission to use them. His blog has a lot more pictures and commentary and we heartily suggest you go see them.
Here are some flowers for Vlad and his family. Get well soon!
California poppies growing on a hill in San Francisco
The other day, I made a post about musical blinds. Tito is strumming as I type. However, first thing in the morning, Tito and Jenny go into berserker mode and careen around the apartment at full speed. Of course, going at full speed means drifting around the corners and leaping over and on the furniture.
Don’t let that placid look fool you. Tito and Jenny are monsters in the morning.
Action as exciting as theirs deserves some good theme music and here it is. It’s called Devil’s Galop, by Charles Williams. Please forgive the typo on the YouTube video. It is named after the galop, a French dance.
And now onward to the cute stuff. We came across some geese and goslings when we went to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. It was the day we saw the nesting herons.
I was working on a computer project when I heard it. It was a steady thrumming of the mini blinds in the other room. It kept going on and on. I finally couldn’t stand it any longer and got up to see what it was. It was Tito and he was strumming the mini blinds like a guitar. His strumming was downright furious, let me tell you.
Why was he doing this?
Why?
Then I went and looked out the window. Next, I had a fit of the giggles so bad I had trouble holding the camera still enough to shoot the picture.
Tito was the victim of a cruel taunting by a rat with wings, er, I mean a pigeon.
The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is one of the most elegant and beautiful birds to grace our wetlands. The largest of the herons, they stand around 4 ft (122 cm). tall with a wing span of around 6ft (183 cm). They range from Mexico and the United States up through the West Coast of Canada into Alaska. These amazing birds have been living and nesting in San Francisco since 1993.
Heron hunting fish in Mallard Lake in Golden Gate Park
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is home to more than just bison, raccoons, and coyotes. It’s home to at least one nesting pair of Great Blue Herons. They live here year round have a nest high in the top of a Monterrey Cypress. They hunt fish in the ponds and lakes in the park. I once saw a heron next to an intersection with a large gopher in its mouth. I couldn’t get a photo, darn it.
The nest is the clump of sticks under the heron chicks in the centerCloseup of mom and dad
I looked them up on the intertubes and discovered that San Francisco Nature Education has a heron watch every year. The herons lay their eggs between January and March and the chicks hatch in April. Volunteers meet at Stow Lake with spotting scopes and spend time educating the public about these beautiful birds. This year, the last one is May 19th. I didn’t find out about it soon enough to go this year. Nest year I’ll try to go.
Please forgive the abominable purple fringe in the photos. I adore my San Francisco fog, but it does make some photos difficult with a point and shoot. I’ll have a good DSLR eventually.
Corny jokes are all that I’m left with, along with growing paranoia.
Just over a week ago, I was trawling (geddit?) through our Netflix queue looking for something to watch, promptly found “Trollhunter” sitting two thirds of the way down, and jumped over to Nekoneko to re-read her review.
By the way, if you’re interested in watching “Trollhunter” I recommend you read her write up. Because you see, I did not finish it. And I wanted to review it. By Grabthar’s hammer, this was not to be…
It’s another Caturday and time for the pointy eared people to have the spotlight. I also want to wish my mom and all the other moms a Happy Mother’s Day! In addition, we want to extend an extra happy Mother’s Day wish to our friend Flumptytail. She is the best cat mum ever. Last year, we wrote about her in Tito and Kitsune Reflect on Mother’s Day.
Here is a small excerpt in Flumpty’s words:
I keep a big cage in the dining room for when I have to keep a cat in it overnight if they’re getting neutered or spayed or their teeth cleaned, etc. in the morning. I leave the door open other times and the cats like to sleep in it. Here is a picture of a pile of kittehs.
Lots of kitties. Photo by flumptytail
I’m sorry we haven’t posted much lately. Lastech went through a schedule change. The schedule means I’ve wandered around for a week not knowing what day it was. I confuse easily, what can I say. At least I remembered that it was Caturday. Here are our pointy eared people.
Tito is yelling at me for interrupting his nomming sessionKitsy aka Maz Whang watching the neighborhood. He’s still too thin, but we’re working on that.Here is the lovely Miss Jenny perfecting her cute look. She has the other two wrapped around her little claw.
“The adventures of Tintin” (107 minutes, USA, 2011 – rated PG)
Perhaps the most difficult thing in adapting material like Hergé’s comic books has to do with tone and pitch. To say the themes and characters are dated or fixed in time might be unkind, but it’s safe to say Tintin is steeped in tradition. And in some instances, some would even say good riddance.
“The adventures of Tintin” movie poster – 2011
Tintin’s adventures spanned about 40 years from the 1930’s until the 1970’s, a period which started between world wars, through European decolonization, the nuclear age, race to space and the cold war, with a hero combining Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts’ ideals with the romantic depiction of thejournalist as defender of the Fourth Estate.
On ourCaturday postI provided information on the latest pet food recall. Today, that list has expanded. Wellness Pet Food has made an announcement:
Tewksbury, Mass. (May 4, 2012) – WellPet LLC announced a voluntary recall of one recipe of Wellness® dry dog food after being notified by Diamond Pet Foods regarding the presence of Salmonella in Diamond’s Gaston, South Carolina facility.
