Ease Cabin Fever with Indoor Enrichment for Your Pets

Animals need ways to stay active – physically and mentally – all year long. With the weather turning from cold to colder, here are some indoor tips that will help to ease cabin fever and give you and your pets endless entertainment on those cold winter days!

Build a Cat Activity Center

Things that would typically be thrown away can easily be made into an entertaining play station for your cat! Everyday items such as toilet paper tubes, pipe cleaners, clean medicine cups, ribbon spools or egg cartons can provide hours of brain-stimulating fun! Use a shallow cardboard box as the base and securely glue your items in place.

Once your activity center has taken shape, add a few pinches of catnip, jingle bells, toys or treats. Your cat will enjoy exploring the textures, smells and sounds and her brain will be put to work! Once she has lost interest, refill the goodies and move it to a new location. Your cat will think she has made a brand new discovery and you’ll be able to reuse your activity center time and time again!

Put Your Dog’s Sniffer to the Test

Dogs are great at detecting smells and their superior sniffers are a great way to help them have some fun when it’s too cold outside for their typical activities.

Bottles in a Box
A large box filled with empty water bottles can really put your pup’s brain to work. Drop in a few treats and let your dog sniff, search and dig for them. Since the bottles make lots of noise, try crumbled newspaper for fearful dogs to help them build confidence.

Scent Trail
Take a page out of Hansel and Gretel’s book and lay out a trail of tiny treats. This game can be played inside in any amount of space – use your imagination! After leading your pooch through the kitchen, around the couch and up the stairs, leave a jackpot (a small pile of treats) at the end of the trail as a reward for your little explorer!

Create a Foraging Game for Your Rabbit

A rabbit in the wild must search for his food. By creating a foraging game you can easily encourage your indoor rabbit to get some exercise while searching, sniffing and thinking to find a treat.

Show your rabbit a treat and then hide it in your hand, under your leg or behind a toy. Let him sniff out the treat. Next, make a trail of fresh greens across the room, hiding some of the pieces. If your bunny makes quick work of the trail, you can take it to the next level by slowly dragging one leaf across the floor and hiding it at the end. Your rabbit’s mind will be working to follow his nose all the way to the treat. The better you hide the prize, the harder he’ll have to work to find it!

 

These are just a few of the countless enrichment activities you can use to keep your four-legged family members active all winter long. You can have fun thinking up other games to exercise your pet’s body and mind – the only limit is your imagination! For inspiration and more great ideas, go to ThinkingOutsideTheCage.org/Enrichment.

Amaryllis

Full of promise

Such elegant lines

Ethereal

Daintiness against the light

Pure petal poetry

Beauty in every detail

and from all angles.

Amaryllis

in Greek 'amarysso'

means sparkling.

A flower name poetically used to mean

'a simple shepherdess or country girl'

A name often given to country girls in classic literary works

of Virgil and Ovid.

Every year before Christmas,

I choose one, sometimes two, beautiful Amaryllis bulbs

to flower in my home.

So far, this particular colouring, which flowered

for over a month on two stems, is my favourite.

Silver Maple

Giant Silver Maple Graces Landscape

Silver Maple

Off Route 105 in the Sheffield area there is a tree I admire.  As we drive by it doesn't at first stand out among the hundreds of maples, elms and ashes growing along the St. John River.  It blends in well.  But when we take notice, wow, this is a BIG tree.

The Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) usually grows on rich bottomlands along the edges of streams, rivers, swamps, and lake.  It is fast growing reaching maturity in 125 years.  It reaches 60 to 80 ft high (20-25m) and 2 to 3 ft (up to 1 m) dbh (diameter at breast height).  It usually has a short bole which divides into several upright branches.  It recovers well from periods of inundation making it an excellent floodplain species.  Notice in the photo above the huge bole and the separation into many branches above.  This tree is growing in a floodplain.

Silver Maple

The photo above shows the giant size of this tree.  It is indeed much larger than the 3 ft dbh.  It is much larger than my full length arm span.  Notice the shaggy bark.  It is a gray colour and has loose vertical bands.  The bark is made up of loose scaly plates that are fastened in the middle and loose on the ends, hence the shagginess.

The Silver Maple leaves are 10 to 15 cm (4"-6") in diameter, deeply palmated (shaped like a hand),  5-lobed usually, pale green above and silvery below.  In the fall they turn yellow.  The Silver Maple is the first to flower, usually in late winter or early spring, before any leaves appears.  The flowers are yellowish and appear before the red maple flowers.

Silver Maple Leaf [Trees in Canada, Farrar]

Shown above is the typical Silver Maple leaf.  The notches between the lobes are deep.  The lobes are serrated.  The leaf is widest at the base.

The Silver Maple is sometimes used as an ornamental tree.  It is not well suited for this purpose, however, because it is brittle and breaks easily in the wind and it sheds its seeds making it messy in your yard.  It also supports a heavy root system which sometimes clogs drain and sewer pipes.

The species has historical significance in our area.  It has made firewood for our inhabitants for 400 years.  I suspect it is the reason Sugar Island got its name (my opinion).  Sugar Island gets flooded every year and I doubt if Sugar Maple ever grew well there.  It is likely that the early inhabitants living on Sugar and Shore Islands made maple sugar from the Silver Maple.

The trunks of Silver Maples often become hollow.  These cavities provide nesting and den sites for mammals and birds.  We often see evidence of their use by squirrels, raccoons, wood ducks, and great horned owls.  They are an integral part of the environment.

I noticed something special about the tree photographed above.  It is a 'corner tree'.  There was a property stake beside it, making it a venerable old marker of a property line.  May you long live, Mr. Silver Maple!

A Life Well Remembered: A Story

When I was twelve and my brother six, my mother left to make a new life for herself,

without us.

My father became a single parent.

Every day of my adult life, I am thankful that my brother and I were brought up by my dad.

It wasn't always easy, especially during our teen years,

but dad did his best to be the best dad he could be.

I consider myself lucky as I have inherited my dad's positive and upbeat attitude,

his love and enthusiasm for life and his caring nature.

Dad was full of fun and was always there for me when I needed him.

When I became a mother to three lovely children, 

I realized the true value of my dad's upbringing.

There isn't a day goes by when I don't think of the father I was given,

how lucky I was and how I shall always be truly thankful.

I'll never forget all he did for me 

and I'll never forget that smile of his

and his wonderful twinkling blue eyes.

Photo:

Two photos of Dad, a book of poems he gave to me,

his Parker fountain pen, which I still use,

and a handkerchief with his initial, J for John, which he once left when he came to stay

and which I laundered and kept in memory of him.

His writing in a birthday card he sent to me.

***

Joining Sarah at Paisley Rain Boots and Lee at Sea Blue Lens

for Scene & Story

Home to Home Adoption Program: Baby Girl

Meet Baby Girl, a 3-year-old tabby cat that has become an unofficial member of her family. A couple of years ago she showed up at their home and has since taken up residence in the neighborhood, calling the garage home at night. They have grown very fond of her over the years and she has truly become a member of the family.

 

Her temporary family will be moving away from their home and are unable to take Baby Girl with them. Since they've gotten to know her so well over time, they want to do anything they can to help her find a loving home that can provide her with the love and attention she needs. Baby Girl is a phenomenal cat who is spayed, up-to-date on her vaccinations and is litter trained. She's friendly with other cats, dogs and people – all she needs now is a home of her own!

 

If you would like to give Baby Girl a loving home, contact her foster mom today!

Debra Marcocci
724.591.2293 | dmarcocci@hotmail.com

Northern Cardinal

Brilliant Colour in the Winter Landscape

Northern Cardinal

 A welcome sight in our bleak winter landscape is the brilliant male Northern Cardinal.  The scarlet colour set off by the black mask and bib delights the receptors in our retinas.  Metaphorically it offers hope for spring and better things to come.

The cardinal is unmistakable with its brilliant red body and crest.  It has a longish tail and an orange red bill.  The female is more subdued with yellows and oranges.  The male cardinal sings beautifully usually from an exposed perch.  The song is a liquid musical sound, denoted sometimes by 'cue, cue, cue, cheer, cheer, cheer or purty, purty, purty' (National Geographic Complete Book of Birds).

Northern Cardinal

While doing a Christmas bird count recently we were twitching a clump of trees at the roadside in the Mactaquac area and out popped a male cardinal!  He stayed long enough to give us ample time to enjoy his beauty and to get the above photos.  That was the third cardinal we found on that count.

The cardinal prefers field, woodland, and stream edges, swamps and urban gardens.  It readily comes to feeders preferring black oil sunflower seeds.  They are such a delight to see, it is well worth trying to entice them to your yard.

Northern Cardinal

Home to Home Adoption Program: Toby

Toby is a 2-year-old boy who was found by his current family as a stray. This handsome boy has long black, brown and white fur. Toby likes to play quietly with his toys and loves to use his scratching post! He also enjoys passing the time giving himself a nice grooming!

He hasn't had an opportunity to interact with cats, but gets along very well with the Rottweiler that currently shares his home. Although he is a little skittish, Toby is slowly but surely learning to be more confident. This docile kitty doesn't mind being handled and is a great sport about ear cleaning, medication and nail trimming. Toby is also a true gentleman about using his litterbox!

Though he's not quite a lap cat, he is very affectionate on his own terms and follows his foster family around like a shadow! If you're looking to give a fun cat with just the right amount of energy a home, contact Toby's foster to meet him today.

Contact:
Brigitte Biklodeau
Rock61@comcast.net
724.746.8965