The Life and Times of Captain D and his Pretty First Mate

  A fellow Tennessee neighbor posted on Facebook that she had lost one of her cats a few months ago.  Moyia and I see a variety of cats and critters wandering around the house via our Blink cameras, and Moyia mentioned to the neighbor that she may have seen her cat one night on the video capture.  The neighbor asked if she could place traps around our house to capture her cat and hilarity ensued over the next week as she caught everything but her own cat.  If the traps were a bit larger she would have caught a fox or two.   She did eventually trap her cat, not exactly inside the neighborhood, but just outside at another house.

 Ron, like our other cats, had a favorite tree in Tennessee to scratch his claws.  Here in Florida, he'd try the claw sharpening on the area rugs, with us chasing him off when he did.   He also tried the palms out by the pool (Phoenix Roebelenii), but they just weren't doing anything for him.  That and he was tearing off the outside layer and getting them into the pool. So Moyia got him a cat play tower with columns wrapped in sisal rope.  He was curious at first (of course) but finally started energetically clawing into the rope and dragging the entire thing a foot or so in the process. The maimed sisal rope.

  A Little Blue Heron works the far shore looking for pretty much anything smaller than he is, though in this case, it seems to be mostly minnows.  His best foraging is trailing a group of White Ibis along the shore, which stirs up the sand and mud, allowing him to pick off a variety of small fare. He's solo today and having to work a bit harder. We've seen plenty of Marsh Rabbits, aka "bunnies", around the house and in the community.  They come and go and are active in the late evenings and early mornings.  We found a fur-lined nest next to our home in a copse of small palms. This little guy was one of three, nestled with their mom when we walked out the front door one evening.  His mom and siblings have scattered, but he's using the "sit still and they can't see me" method. Last, and rare for this area, a large male orange tabby opens his eyes, trying to figure out what I'm doing while he is lounging poolside.  He's actually probably thinki...