One of our cats loves to walk the banister above our stairs. The banister is quite small, round and polished. It’s scary to watch. She’s a fearless little acrobat. But she is afraid of any object that is new in the house. Very cautious about approaching and checking it out.
Her sister, on the other hand, won’t walk the banister, but is fearless about new items in the house. We bring in some groceries and she’s all over them without a moment’s hesitation.
Sisters from the same litter of cats, yet very different personalities.
Excuse me, I must go out and feed the ants. They like leftover grains of cooked rice.
But what they really like is thin-sliced deli smoked turkey, preferably chopped up so that each ant can carry his bit down into the sweet cool tunnels below.
A truss design fabricated from carbon fiber composite tubes is what he needs to design, engineer (with the appropriate safety factors), and post to the intertubes. Or get a more risk tolerant cat, you can never have too many cats …..
I am reminded of Farley Mowatt’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.The book tells the story of Mutt, his remarkable dog who, in addition to being an excellent retriever on hunting expeditions, learned to climb ladders and trees. There is a hilarious story about Farley and his peers putting a ladder against the roof of the house of the neighborhood’s cat lady. When Mutt climbed up on the roof, chaos ensued, resulting in the cat lady’s house getting emptied of its dozens of cats. No, the cats didn’t come back. Mutt finished them off, one by one.
He should have built a solid catwalk that didn’t jiggle under the cat’s feet.
Huxley, that’s hilarious!
And nicely expressed. 8^)
…
“Them’s some lucky ants!”
I am reminded of Farley Mowatt’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.The book tells the story of Mutt, his remarkable dog who, in addition to being an excellent retriever on hunting expeditions, learned to climb ladders and trees. There is a hilarious story about Farley and his peers putting a ladder against the roof of the house of the neighborhood’s cat lady. When Mutt climbed up on the roof, chaos ensued, resulting in the cat lady’s house getting emptied of its dozens of cats. No, the cats didn’t come back. Mutt finished them off, one by one.
==
Mowatt and his dog deserved thus from the cat lady:
== https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjX1ITzuJ_k
== https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SeakKC63PwM
I have had Cats climb ladders. When we first moved in to our house 47 years ago, we would let our cats outside. The first night we were awakened by our Female Cat scratching on the screen by our bedroom. This on the second floor. She had climbed up a column to the balcony. She know where we were and how to get there. She was our first Cat. Very smart.
huxley:
Are you familiar with Robert Frost’s poem “Departmental”? If not, please take a look.
Neo, I read your linked Frost poem.
Nice!
Ants are definitely a unionized creature.
Marlene, neo:
I didn’t know the Frost poem on ants, nor was I familiar with his lighter, stranger touch. Nice.
I’m grateful to these brown ants on the side of my house. They drove off the smaller brown variety which always found their way inside my kitchen if I left out the barest crumbs or unwashed dishes.
I also enjoy observing their habits. The other day I came home and noticed the entrance to the ant hill was swarming and the tall grass to the side was weighed down with winged ants clinging to the stalks.
This is a major event in the ant lifecycle — the nuptial flight of winged males and virgin queens.
I didn’t stick around for the take-off, but the idea is that all the winged ants fly away, mate in flight, the males die and queens land somewhere seeking a new spot for a new nest.
@Barry Meislin: “Climate Doomer Celebs Flock In Private Jets To Jeff Bezos‘ Wedding In Venice
But did they mate in flight?
@huxley:I’m grateful to these brown ants on the side of my house. They drove off the smaller brown variety which always found their way inside my kitchen if I left out the barest crumbs or unwashed dishes.
One year I got too aggressive getting rid of yellow jackets around my property, and bald-faced hornets started moving in. (If you don’t know them, they are like really big yellow jackets but white and black instead of yellow and black, and they can spray venom as well as sting). I quickly reached an accommodation with the yellow jackets: they stay off the house and away from high traffic areas but I leave them alone otherwise. And the bald-faced hornets have not come back.
Likewise I seem to have lot of spiders in the crawl space: at least, anyone who goes down there comes up saying YOU GOT A LOT OF SPIDERS. They must be keeping down the numbers of SOMETHING.
Oh, they’ll mate anywhere…
(I think the real threat is that the weight of all those egos may further sink that jewel of a city quite hazardously. I hope Bezos consulted some of the local engineers before making his choice…)
File under: Jeff in Venice(?)
BTW, am enjoying your ant-whisperer chronicles.
(But don’t you realize that tempting ‘em with smoked turkey might well raise their cholesterol levels rather to rather alarming levels? I mean, I love smoked turkey as much as the next guy, but better make sure that PETA doesn’t find out…)
Mowatt and his dog deserved thus from the cat lady
Funny, how a number of phenomena in our environment are simply being ignored or are simply dismissed, out of hand.
One of these phenomena is crop circles; complex shapes somehow created over night in crops which involve bending, flattening, and sometimes interweaving–layers deep–the stalks of grain.
Decades ago, in England, in the 1976, a couple of boozy Englishmen, named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, got a lot of press when they claimed that, after an evening of drinking at the pub, they’d go out to some farmer’s field and, in the dark and, using a couple of planks and a few ropes, they’d create “flying saucer nests” i.e. crop circles, and that hoaxer idea is what has been relied on to characterize these crop circles ever since.
All well and good if your crop circle is a small, crude one, but many crop circles are extraordinarily complex, cover wide areas, and have been found to embody all sorts of sophisticated geometric and mathematical relationships.
Not the sort of product that two half drunk English good old boys, or some college pranksters could create, especially given a time limit of around 8 hours to create them in the dark.
So what are crop circles?
I don’t know.
(Take a look at the images of some of these extremely complex crop circles on the Internet.)
But I’m certain that they need to be the subject of real, thorough investigation by competent people, and not just dismissed out of hand.*
* See, for instance, this dismissive 2009 article from the Smithsonian, which dismisses those who believe that crop circles to be a real, genuine phenomenon as “croppies,” and which does not identify any of the hoaxers who are supposedly creating these crop circles but, instead, attributes crop circles to the work of “teams of anonymous circle makers” at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/
P.S. Funny, as well, that I’ve never seen a report that a crew of these anonymous circle makers has ever been caught in the act, creating a crop circle–in the dark–in some farmer’s field.
Kate,
Looks like Tillis has drawn the wrath of the Don…..we’ll deserved I think.
Yeah, physicsguy, but I hope Don will be more careful this time. He endorsed Mark Robinson for governor and that didn’t go well. I’d love to get rid of Tillis.
And courtesy of Alan Colbo on the Roundup thread, I learn that I won’t have Thom Tillis to kick around any more after next year. Wonderful!! He can cause a lot of trouble in the next year and a half, though, especially untethered from trying to be re-elected.
Lord love a duck! Crop circles?
Crop circles are due to Unicorns on a center tie down (or pranksters stomping about in farmer’s fields).
That is pleasant news indeed, Kate. Good riddance to him.
Open Thread Sunday: Iran, Israel, and the US
Iran & Israel: From Escalation to Ceasefire – Nuclear Unknowns, Lessons & Iran’s Strategic Handicap – Perun
Timestamps:
00:00 — Opening Words
01:41 — What Am I Talking About?
03:56 — Midnight Hammer
12:36 — the Qatar Attack
22:32 — the Ceasefire
26:50 — the Nuclear Dimension
37:36 — Towards Another Threshold War?
51:44 — the Russian Connection
56:57 — What Next
58:50 — Channel Update
Elderly Egyptian man arrested, deported for kicking bag-sniffing dog at Dulles
Hamed Marie, 70, arrived at the Virginia airport Tuesday on an Egypt Air flight. A CBP officer and a beagle, Freddy, were patrolling baggage claim at the airport when the dog alerted to Marie’s baggage, according to court documents.
CBP said in a release that while the officer questioned Marie, he kicked Freddy so hard that the dog left the ground. The dog was taken to a veterinary emergency room according to court documents; CBP said Freddy suffered contusions in the area around his right forward ribs.
Marie was handcuffed and taken into custody.
A search of Marie’s luggage uncovered 55 pounds of beef, 44 pounds of rice, 15 pounds of eggplant, cucumbers and bell peppers, 2 pounds of corn seeds and a pound of herbs, all of which were illegal to bring into the U.S., CBP said. The food was seized once found.
Marie pleaded guilty to harming an animal used in law enforcement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and was deported back to Egypt on Thursday, CBP said.
What an odd story. The man had over 100 pounds of luggage, and it was filled with food you can already get here? Even without the dog abuse, he sounds bonkers.
I apologize for the two duplicate comments; an error code came up with the first attempt, ……
Time to mow, not reap nor sow.
Are Snow Angels made by Unicorns?
neo: ah, but you see, it was Egyptian eggplant! Egyptian rice! (Why on earth did he pack no dates or falafel?! Those would probably be the first things on my list.)
Actually, with the eggplant, was he gathering ingredients for a killer babaghanoush recipe?
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Then there are the cats who will climb things you’d swear are completely impossible to climb. https://youtube.com/shorts/xM2wiV5MqEw?si=ooNilp69Wjh5dSQF
A guy being a guy.
One of our cats loves to walk the banister above our stairs. The banister is quite small, round and polished. It’s scary to watch. She’s a fearless little acrobat. But she is afraid of any object that is new in the house. Very cautious about approaching and checking it out.
Her sister, on the other hand, won’t walk the banister, but is fearless about new items in the house. We bring in some groceries and she’s all over them without a moment’s hesitation.
Sisters from the same litter of cats, yet very different personalities.
Excuse me, I must go out and feed the ants. They like leftover grains of cooked rice.
But what they really like is thin-sliced deli smoked turkey, preferably chopped up so that each ant can carry his bit down into the sweet cool tunnels below.
A truss design fabricated from carbon fiber composite tubes is what he needs to design, engineer (with the appropriate safety factors), and post to the intertubes. Or get a more risk tolerant cat, you can never have too many cats …..
I am reminded of Farley Mowatt’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.The book tells the story of Mutt, his remarkable dog who, in addition to being an excellent retriever on hunting expeditions, learned to climb ladders and trees. There is a hilarious story about Farley and his peers putting a ladder against the roof of the house of the neighborhood’s cat lady. When Mutt climbed up on the roof, chaos ensued, resulting in the cat lady’s house getting emptied of its dozens of cats. No, the cats didn’t come back. Mutt finished them off, one by one.
He should have built a solid catwalk that didn’t jiggle under the cat’s feet.
Huxley, that’s hilarious!
And nicely expressed. 8^)
…
“Them’s some lucky ants!”
I am reminded of Farley Mowatt’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.The book tells the story of Mutt, his remarkable dog who, in addition to being an excellent retriever on hunting expeditions, learned to climb ladders and trees. There is a hilarious story about Farley and his peers putting a ladder against the roof of the house of the neighborhood’s cat lady. When Mutt climbed up on the roof, chaos ensued, resulting in the cat lady’s house getting emptied of its dozens of cats. No, the cats didn’t come back. Mutt finished them off, one by one.
==
Mowatt and his dog deserved thus from the cat lady:
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjX1ITzuJ_k
==
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SeakKC63PwM
I have had Cats climb ladders. When we first moved in to our house 47 years ago, we would let our cats outside. The first night we were awakened by our Female Cat scratching on the screen by our bedroom. This on the second floor. She had climbed up a column to the balcony. She know where we were and how to get there. She was our first Cat. Very smart.
huxley:
Are you familiar with Robert Frost’s poem “Departmental”? If not, please take a look.
Neo, I read your linked Frost poem.
Nice!
Ants are definitely a unionized creature.
Marlene, neo:
I didn’t know the Frost poem on ants, nor was I familiar with his lighter, stranger touch. Nice.
I’m grateful to these brown ants on the side of my house. They drove off the smaller brown variety which always found their way inside my kitchen if I left out the barest crumbs or unwashed dishes.
I also enjoy observing their habits. The other day I came home and noticed the entrance to the ant hill was swarming and the tall grass to the side was weighed down with winged ants clinging to the stalks.
This is a major event in the ant lifecycle — the nuptial flight of winged males and virgin queens.
I didn’t stick around for the take-off, but the idea is that all the winged ants fly away, mate in flight, the males die and queens land somewhere seeking a new spot for a new nest.
The Circle of Life!
They sure enjoy humoring us….
“Climate Doomer Celebs Flock In Private Jets To Jeff Bezos‘ Wedding In Venice”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/06/28/climate-doomer-celebs-flock-in-private-jets-to-jeff-bezos-wedding-in-venice/
@Barry Meislin: “Climate Doomer Celebs Flock In Private Jets To Jeff Bezos‘ Wedding In Venice
But did they mate in flight?
@huxley:I’m grateful to these brown ants on the side of my house. They drove off the smaller brown variety which always found their way inside my kitchen if I left out the barest crumbs or unwashed dishes.
One year I got too aggressive getting rid of yellow jackets around my property, and bald-faced hornets started moving in. (If you don’t know them, they are like really big yellow jackets but white and black instead of yellow and black, and they can spray venom as well as sting). I quickly reached an accommodation with the yellow jackets: they stay off the house and away from high traffic areas but I leave them alone otherwise. And the bald-faced hornets have not come back.
Likewise I seem to have lot of spiders in the crawl space: at least, anyone who goes down there comes up saying YOU GOT A LOT OF SPIDERS. They must be keeping down the numbers of SOMETHING.
Oh, they’ll mate anywhere…
(I think the real threat is that the weight of all those egos may further sink that jewel of a city quite hazardously. I hope Bezos consulted some of the local engineers before making his choice…)
File under: Jeff in Venice(?)
BTW, am enjoying your ant-whisperer chronicles.
(But don’t you realize that tempting ‘em with smoked turkey might well raise their cholesterol levels rather to rather alarming levels? I mean, I love smoked turkey as much as the next guy, but better make sure that PETA doesn’t find out…)
Mowatt and his dog deserved thus from the cat lady
What about her four dozen cats? 🙂
Um, folks, do NOT try this
at homeon the street…https://instapundit.com/728952/
Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8 CSV
@ Barry > “Climate Doomer Celebs Flock In Private Jets To Jeff Bezos‘ Wedding In Venice”
Cue the Glenn Reynolds Maxim: “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when they start acting like a crisis”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/impasse-debate-about-climate-change/
Speaking of which, is it possible that the Brits have gone suddenly sensible?
(Realising that might be a non sequitur…but I blame DJT…alias OMB…gosh, wish he’d get his acronyms straight…)
“UK Pulls Plug On £24 Billion Desert Power Fantasy”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/uk-pulls-plug-ps24-billion-desert-power-fantasy
RE: Crop Circles and NHI?
Funny, how a number of phenomena in our environment are simply being ignored or are simply dismissed, out of hand.
One of these phenomena is crop circles; complex shapes somehow created over night in crops which involve bending, flattening, and sometimes interweaving–layers deep–the stalks of grain.
Decades ago, in England, in the 1976, a couple of boozy Englishmen, named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, got a lot of press when they claimed that, after an evening of drinking at the pub, they’d go out to some farmer’s field and, in the dark and, using a couple of planks and a few ropes, they’d create “flying saucer nests” i.e. crop circles, and that hoaxer idea is what has been relied on to characterize these crop circles ever since.
All well and good if your crop circle is a small, crude one, but many crop circles are extraordinarily complex, cover wide areas, and have been found to embody all sorts of sophisticated geometric and mathematical relationships.
Not the sort of product that two half drunk English good old boys, or some college pranksters could create, especially given a time limit of around 8 hours to create them in the dark.
So what are crop circles?
I don’t know.
(Take a look at the images of some of these extremely complex crop circles on the Internet.)
But I’m certain that they need to be the subject of real, thorough investigation by competent people, and not just dismissed out of hand.*
* See, for instance, this dismissive 2009 article from the Smithsonian, which dismisses those who believe that crop circles to be a real, genuine phenomenon as “croppies,” and which does not identify any of the hoaxers who are supposedly creating these crop circles but, instead, attributes crop circles to the work of “teams of anonymous circle makers” at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/
P.S. Funny, as well, that I’ve never seen a report that a crew of these anonymous circle makers has ever been caught in the act, creating a crop circle–in the dark–in some farmer’s field.
Kate,
Looks like Tillis has drawn the wrath of the Don…..we’ll deserved I think.
Yeah, physicsguy, but I hope Don will be more careful this time. He endorsed Mark Robinson for governor and that didn’t go well. I’d love to get rid of Tillis.
And courtesy of Alan Colbo on the Roundup thread, I learn that I won’t have Thom Tillis to kick around any more after next year. Wonderful!! He can cause a lot of trouble in the next year and a half, though, especially untethered from trying to be re-elected.
Lord love a duck! Crop circles?
Crop circles are due to Unicorns on a center tie down (or pranksters stomping about in farmer’s fields).
That is pleasant news indeed, Kate. Good riddance to him.
Open Thread Sunday: Iran, Israel, and the US
Iran & Israel: From Escalation to Ceasefire – Nuclear Unknowns, Lessons & Iran’s Strategic Handicap – Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxqipJgtTdk
Thrice not
https://x.com/AviMayer/status/1939363490365370458
Sigh
https://x.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1939369041694781493
Elderly Egyptian man arrested, deported for kicking bag-sniffing dog at Dulles
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jun/28/elderly-egyptian-man-arrested-deported-kicking-bag-sniffing-dog/
Snow on Pine – Snow circles are fun also:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198730/Simon-Beck-Artist-creates-giant-crop-circles-snow-painstakingly-walking-10-hours-time.html
Hep:
What an odd story. The man had over 100 pounds of luggage, and it was filled with food you can already get here? Even without the dog abuse, he sounds bonkers.
I apologize for the two duplicate comments; an error code came up with the first attempt, ……
Time to mow, not reap nor sow.
Are Snow Angels made by Unicorns?
neo: ah, but you see, it was Egyptian eggplant! Egyptian rice! (Why on earth did he pack no dates or falafel?! Those would probably be the first things on my list.)
Actually, with the eggplant, was he gathering ingredients for a killer babaghanoush recipe?