13 Comments

My cat Alice was a stray I took in when she was a kitten, or so I thought. She gave birth to 4 kittens a few months later and my oldest daughter gave all away but one, which I decided to keep since he was odd, autistic as cats go, and never left his mom's side. My youngest daughter named him Sawyer. Alice was a superb mouser and taught Sawyer most of her skills. They would leave their kills for me to see, and I would know whose kill it was because Alice always left them decapitated. I never could find the heads and assume she ate them. Years ago they chased a brave and agile mouse who climbed up my living room curtain and did a tightrope walk on the curtain rod. Alice and Sawyer watched while the mouse perched on the curtain rod with perfect balance. This lasted for hours until I went to bed. When I woke I found a decapitated mouse in the usual offering space on the floor beside a chair in my bedroom. I hoped it wasn't the brave and agile tightroping trapeze artist mouse I'd seen the night before. One of those things we can never know.

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Good kitties!

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I don't have a mouse story, but I have a squirrel story. My first love, Milly was on my bedroom windowsill talking up a storm. I looked out and saw a squirrel on the end of a branch about 20 feet away. I watched then jabbing back and forth for 10 minutes. I was literally mesmerized.

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I watch squirrels 🐿️ get leftover pizza out of the trash outside my window. It’s quite impressive.

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I watch squirrels too! There are 2 types in my neighborhood. Black and brown. The blacks are browns that have a small genetic difference that darkens the coat color. Supposedly this might make them more adapted to the 🥶 🧊 though that hasn't been proven. They are the same species, so they interbreed freely. I'll see different mixes of the two colors such as a black body with a brown tail with the tip being solid white.

I used to feed bread to the birds. Turns out that I was actually feeding opossums. I almost walked into a monster one on a dark morning.

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Do you live in Michigan? That's where I've seen black squirrels. We only see gray ones here.

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Born and raised Detroit, Flint and Southfield.

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Awww! I went to high school at Interlochen, as did some of your fellow subscribers!

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Wow! It's been decades since I last heard about Interlochen. There might be more connections. Back when I had spare money, I bought prints, ceramics, polymer clay, metal and whatnot. Easily, a dozen plus were from Michigan. You might know Rex Benson. I think he lived in Traverse City for a while.

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