A neighbor sent a couple of letters to all the houses on our street, saying that his two cats (brothers) had gotten into some rat poison somewhere. One died but the other made it after a lot of care. He is afraid to let the kitty out. According to him, the surviving kitty keeps looking for his brother and keeps asking to go out. The neighbor asks us not use poison and to remove any poisoned rat, so he can let his kitty go out again.

No ice here, thankfully, but Saucy's area keeps coming up on the news as being "worst hit." 1 million people are without power in MA and NH and having been through those areas a lot, the prediction that power will be back on by mid-next week seems optimistic. Yesterday crews from the service side of my work were gathering donations to bring with them: those in-pocket handwarmers, warm socks, plastic bags to use as raingear, candles, hot cocoa and instant coffee mix, little gas grills, anything that might help them and and residents be a bit more comfortable. I'm sure Rich will be getting in touch with some organization to see if he can help in some way -- it's just too close to us to not do anything when we were untouched. Kyle has decided he wants "my people" for his graduation, so I'm digging out old phone numbers and making the pot luck dinner list. This should be quite fun, and today he, Rich and I will collectively decide if his paternal family will be here or if we will have them do their own thing. Two extraordinarily different approaches to celebration mean that "separate" is sometimes the more comfortable way to go. We'll see. Thank You Cindy (I think it was Cindy) who suggested fondue. You have just resolved my "what do I do for breakfast" question since it seems that that's the one Holiday mean for which I'll be responsible. Thinking of using thick French Toast and warm syrup, fruit with lightened chocolate and/or vanilla based dipping sauce...the possibilities are endless. One less thing to think about! LOL, Sue, about the old boyfriend. I'd be nosy too but also be careful, please!!!! It amazed and continues to amaze me how brazen men can be toward recently single women, like we couldn't possibly get along without a "dangler" by our side or at least on call. From experience, don't register on Classmates or any other from-the-past networking site, the loonies will be at your door in a heartbeat. Thanks for the cow tail link, Cynthia, and my god dogs thank you too :-) Did Hope arrive as trained as she is? Re the Topiarys: I still plan to post mine on Dec 20 in anticipation of the Solstice, and hope lots of others join in, semi-leafless or structured plants or not. Just sounds like fun. This weekend will be comprised of a "putz list" of cool stuff I've wanted to do (those Salvias really need to get out of the garage and downstairs) and just kicking back. Wind chills will be in the single digits but heck, why do I have a bathtub with warm water if not to indulge after freezing my keester off to save some random terra cotta?? LOL Waving to all, and really hope that friends to the immediate north are staying warm. Martie

Yes- this has been another irruption year for the most part. Not quite 2011's numbers but a good amount have come down this year, especially in the eastern states. Snowy Owl irruptions are cyclical: good food sources result in more offspring, more offspring result in food shortages. Snowies migrate this far south for food. They are very out of their element here and they do this out of desperation. Many of these Snowies never make it back to the Arctic. It's just something to keep in mind as we enjoy these rare viewing opportunities; the Snowy Owls we are viewing are most likely in a stressed state. Thanks for posting the beautiful photo. This post was edited by TMFF on Thu, Dec 26, 13 at 15:45

John_Blakeman: With all due respect to your "take" on the post I made, let me assure you that I observed a pair of Snowy Owls nesting. I have observed owls for many years, and I have not the least problem distinguishing a foot-tall Barn Owl from a two-foot-tall (plus) Snowy Owl, as far as size alone is concerned. The weight, from memory, is about a pound for the Barn Owl, compared to about 4 pounds, for the Snowy Owl. This, regarding size and weight, alone. The appearance is totally different, also--I could NEVER confuse the two, particularly when we observed these owls flying quite low (the water tower was 20'-25' high, as was the open door to the barn loft--and that's as high as the owls flew, from point A to point B). I spent most of my summer vacation from school watching the Snowy Owls, daily, as did my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Of course we had the intelligence to consult a bird book immediately, as none had ever seen such huge, white owls. The identification was simple--pictures of Snowy Owls were carbon copies of the owls flying from the water tower to the open barn loft. I have surmised in later years, that the owls wintered in the area, and found such an abundance of mice and rats in the barn, that a pair stayed over and nested--it's basically that simple, and it definitely occurred. My uncle used to go down to this barn at night, over the years, with a flashlight in one hand, and "Kitty" (a black-and-white farm cat, and a great rat and mouse killer) in the other--and me, when I was young, tagging along. He would shine his light in the rafters, and rats and mice--sometimes twenty to twenty five visible at a time--would take off running the rafters. He would throw Kitty up onto a rafter, and the cat would chase the rats and mice, killing them and dropping them below, as it chased others. It was unbelievable to me, as a child--first, the sheer NUMBERS of vermin present, and, second, the NUMBER the cat would kill before they could all get through the holes they had made in the barn siding. It was not unusual for her to kill 6 or 8 rats/mice, after being thrown into the rafters, and before they could escape. So much for the number of prey animals that the barn contained. To answer some of the other points you bring up in your post: You mention "woods" and "wooded area" at least 3 times Where did you get the idea that any "woods" were present? Please reread my post. The water tower couldn't have been in a more open area. To describe it further: Our farmhouse sat in a large open yard of about two acres; then, there was a fence to an open pasture. In this open pasture, no more than 100 yards from the house, was the water tower. It was 100 yards or less to the barn, where the Snowy Owls caught rats and mice--in the same open field as the water tower. There were no woods for half a mile in any direction, and the pasture was grazed by cattle year-round. This was really the only place a Snowy Owl COULD have nested, to keep from being trampled by cattle. Like a raised hump or mound in the tundra of the Arctic. You mention Snowy Owls prefer open skyview. They certainly had it here--the water tower was UNCOVERED--like a large, OPEN, barrel, used to catch rainwater (possibly over a hundred years old, as the house was built in 1852). You mention Snowy Owls can't provide enough food for 5 chicks. Are you aware that the average number of eggs laid by a Snowy Owl is 3 to 9--depending on the food supply? (Another source says 5 to 8. Do a search for Snowy Owl if you're in doubt). Are you aware, also, that Snowy Owls are diurnal, and that Barn Owls are the MOST nocturnal of the North American owls? Also, that Snowy Owl chicks are "downy white", just as I described them? That Snowy Owls have been observed nesting in abandoned Eagles' nests? That they have been observed in Georgia, the Gulf states, and as far south as the Carribean? My post stands totally correct, except for one conclusion that I should not have drawn. I mention that the handful of sticks I observed on the floor of the water tower was "placed there by the owls". Of course, I have no way of knowing whether they placed these sticks there, or whether they remained from some previous nesting. They were definitely no organized nest--but loose sticks spread about in the center of the tower floor. I was expecting to see a "nest" in the tower, and remember the site being conspicuous for its lack of one. RichardZone7Maryland: Prior to my observation of a pair of Snowy Owls in the woods in Virginia in 1991, I previously saw a lone Snowy Owl in the Winter of 1980, in a tree in the median of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, as I traveled northbound to BWI. There was some snow on the ground, and he sat motionless, looking down, for prey. Others: To reiterate, has anyone observed Snowy Owls nesting in states other than Alaska?