Noisy Coyotes, hungry opossums

My dogs insist on barking at the coyotes, which makes sense as the coyotes insist on wandering across the lawn in the middle of the night. It makes for a difficult conundrum, though, in which I get to lie in bed wondering at which point I should go outside to make sure everything is okay and it's just a vocal debate between two cousins of the canine world. Fortunately there has been no yelping, which would imply escalation and the possible involvement of teeth.

The cats deal very differently with their interloper, who is a fat opossum that has discovered the open buffet that is the cat food dishes. The cats sit in their warm little beds on the countertop--this is out in a shed with a spare room we call the pussycat lounge--and glare at the opossum. As far as I can tell no actual agitation occurs. The cats would be glaring at each other if there wasn't an opossum, so the total effect seems to be nil. The only problem is that unlike the cats, the opossum is not litter trained, so on the whole we prefer he doesn't visit and close the door most of the time.

Open buffet cat food dishes deserve a little explanation. House cats generally overeat when they have 24/7 access to food, if only because they are bored. But it's the same as having, say, an open box of honey nut cheerios open on the counter in the kitchen. You might not be bored, exactly, but your stomach forgets that you ate a cup of cheerios only an hour before, and they are so tasty that it's hard not to gravitate toward them. And they crunch!

Overeating cats leads to fat cats, of course, and fat cats are prone to diabetes and kidney failure. All cats are prone to kidney failure as they get older, but extra fat doesn't help.

But my cats have 24/7 access to food. What gives? This could be bad, for goodness sakes. However, these are outdoor cats. They like the taste of freshly killed mice--and cardinals--and dry food is something you eat every couple of days when you have temporarily exhausted the supply of mice that run into your paws (we have somewhat lazy cats. In their defense, we also have a ton of mice with mediocre survival instincts).  They also are outside in the cold all the time, except for when they finagle a seat in the kitchen, which is every day when it's cold out.

Also, in an effort to get them into shape for winter, they get a can of cat food to share every day. They like this even better than cardinals, and so they hardly eat any of their dry food at all. The opossum is quite happy, though I'm sure he wishes he was in on the canned food too.

Winterim + Minor Pursuits

My productivity appears to go through the floor when I do not have classes or other time-absorbing events scheduled for the day. Depending on how we define productivity, of course. Today I got all the pants that needed to be shorter hemmed up, learned to stitch a hand-rolled handkerchief, and now may be going to go get a needed haircut and if I am really on top of things, will go for a walk. I am simply drowning in excitement.

On the other hand, yesterday I was struck with a relapse of whatever nasty cold has been making the rounds. I thought I had outmaneuvered it last night by going to bed last night at eight, after a thoroughly nutritious dinner (there were vegetables! And seafood!), but then I woke up at midnight. Therein followed four hours of more or less abject misery, until my deranged sleep schedule felt satisfied with the havoc it had wreaked on my plans for the next morning. I did get my ranking for the match finalized. Unfortunately, that just meant I spent the remaining 3 hours in insomniac brooding. And congestion.

During the sewing today, I listened to "The Checklist Manifesto", Atul Gawande's book on how to manage complicated (i.e. made up of many simple tasks) processes in fields as divergent as construction, high-end restaurants, and, of course, surgery. It is excellent, as Gawande generally is, although for me it builds up contradictory inspiration to work in public health or to work hard in medicine...

I begin to think there's not a good way to work in public health until you have managed to excel in something else.

Taking a year from veterinary medicine to "do public health" sounds great, but in reality I am mostly sitting in classes and finding out about whole new fields I can simply not learn enough about in a year to be useful to myself or others (biostats...). On the other hand, I have spent a lot of time among people who, morose or excited, are still in school, which does color one's perception of life in such a way as to feel time is running out to become anything other than a perpetual student. But that sounds too much like insomniac brooding. Time for a walk!

Le Birdies at Le Feeder

The birds are enjoying their feeder this morning. The snow has a scattering of seed (the birds are messy eaters and toss away the scraps) that gets more condensed every day. It's a grey day out, with the woods off in the distance a misty shading of blue but everything else is black or grey or white.

So far I have seen a cardinal, a tufted titmouse, lots of sparrows, lots of juncos, and at least one woodpecker. I think I may have seen a second one that was not nearly as showy, but I got distracted by the titmouse before I identified it. There's also a little sparrow looking bird--merp, it just flew off--that I think must be something else, because it has a tawny gold hue and only a couple of bars on the wings.

And now they are all gone. The chickadees start returning first, and...hah! I knew there was another woodpecker. This one is grey with a red cap, the other was a flashy black and white*.

I've heard a rumor that we are palpating cows later today, which is as far from watching birds as you can get, but for now it is nice to sit with tea and look out the window.

*Methinks I need a bird book.