Cassie

On Wednesday, April 17th, 2013, my much loved and beloved Cassie left this Earth. I was not ready for this. I will never be ready. I love her and cherished her with all my heart and soul. She was my baby girl kitty.

Cassie was 14, as near as we can tell. I adopted her from our local SPCA in 2001, at that time, I was told she was a year and a half old. I saw her and I knew she was the one, my heart told me. I later found out, she had been there for SIX months, six months in that cage. The second I held this precious bundle of fur in my arms I knew I’d fallen in love

Cassie is famous, here on my website, she was the proud writer of The Catalog, when a cat has to blog. Cassie was a star!

As I write this my thoughts are scattered. I am in such deep mourning that at times I feel helpless. My heart is broken …

In the end, I know that every last thing that could be done to “save” Cassie was done. She had kidney failure, she was being treated at the wonderful vet hospital with such loving people. I got a call the first day from our main vet, he told me she had a Grand Mal seizure, he explained, I cried. She battled on and she tried, but the next day she had another seizure which ended her life here on Earth.

How many times can one’s heart break? How many times can we deal with this loss? It hurts so bad. I have not cried this much since my Dad passed away almost 10 years ago.

I believe that Cassie is waiting for me, “on the other side”. She’s probably watching and wishing her Mommy would stop crying.
I will get her ashes this week, I need that.

As we traveled though life, Cassie became a part of me and I of her. We had such a very strong bond and a stronger love. I love you Cassie, my darling girl, see you on the other side.

A footnote to this story

I am now the “mom” of a single cat, Shadow a black girl kitty who was my daughter’s but is now in my care. She is grieving, I see it and we go on together. Shadow was adopted the same day as I adopted Cassie. Shadow was born as the SPCA on September 1, 2001. I will go on and maybe Shadow will have something to blog about someday, for now we are healing.

Tortoise Helps Friend Who’s Flipped Over This little turtle could teach us all a little something about kindness and friendship. This video is just amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it! It sure did make me stop and think …

I’ve been watching this livestream for about 10 minutes, and I’ve already learned a ton of fascinating things about owl habits. Owls are a little weird. But hey, so are humans

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Video: Experts say only one in 10,000 horses deliver twins and fewer survive birth, making two newborn ponies in Georgia a rare delight. WALB’s Devin Knight reports.

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Twin Horses

A Tifton, Georgia, woman woke up to a big surprise Easter morning when her pregnant horse gave birth twice.

Lori Tucker’s horse delivered not one, but two fillies: An extremely rare occurrence for horses, and what’s even more astonishing is they’re both healthy.

Only about one in 10,000 horses have twins, and even fewer survive birth. But on Easter morning Lori Tucker was awoken by a phone call.

“My neighbor called and told me we had twins. I was actually asleep, and I was so shocked,” Tucker said.
Just a couple of days after the horses were born, Tucker said they already have different personalities.

“The older one, I could tell from birth when I came out was a little more curious than the other one. She was sniffing around, seeing who I was. The little miniature one, she was kind of shy. Standoff-ish,” she said.

Tucker says the twins were born only about 20-minutes apart. She hasn’t named the horses yet, but says she’s trying to come up with some good Easter names. In the meantime, the twins will have to get lots of rest as they continue to grow.

What an amazing thing this is very cute and also smart! I loved the video …

Ronan

Ronan, a 3-year-old sea lion, demonstrated her ability to bob to the beat in six experiments led by doctoral candidate Peter Cook at the Long Marine Lab at UCSC.
“Dancing is universal among humans, and until recently, it was thought to be unique to humans as well,” said Cook. “When some species of birds were found to have a similar capability for rhythmic movement, it was linked to their ability to mimic sound. Now we’re seeing that even mammals with limited vocal ability can move in time with a beat over a broad range of sounds and tempos.”
Ronan’s first musical “dance” lesson was to the tune of a simplified section of John Fogerty’s “Down on the Corner,” the study said. Once Ronan was trained to bob her head to music, the researchers tested her with two pop songs, “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys, and “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind and Fire. Without any prior exposure to the songs, Ronan was able to bob to the beat of both songs over the course of multiple trials, according to the study. She then showed that she could follow along to five different tempos of “Boogie Wonderland.”
Ronan’s bobbing skills markedly improved over the course of the trials and apparently endured, the study found. The researchers gave her a follow-up test a few weeks after the final session and she was successful in keeping the beat with each of the sounds previously used, maintaining a minimum of 60 consecutive bobs to each of the various beats.
At the beginning of the experiments, Ronan was first trained to move in time to a hand signal, which was replaced by a simple non-musical sound signal. When she successfully completed tests by bobbing her head to various rhythmic sounds, she was rewarded with a fish, the study said.
The researchers varied the types and speed of the sounds to verify that she was actually following the rhythm by bobbing her head. To rule out that she wasn’t simply bobbing her head in response to the previous beat, they tested her using two computer-generated, metronome-like ticks — one that did not miss a beat and the other that did. Ronan kept the beat going even when the metronome missed a beat, according to the study.

What a Star

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It seems humans aren’t the only ones to be plagued by a hectic commute every day.
A stunning new time-lapse video has shed some light on the dark seabed – showing a chaotic scene, reminiscent of our rush hour, as starfish bump into each other while they appear to dart across the seabed.
The starfish are known as one of the most common creatures found on the seabed but are hardly ever spotted moving.

The animals celebrate A very cute video!

Happy Easter to all …