Homage to Buddy-A Great Cat's Walk Through His Heaven

 Our Buddy and His Friends!

Buddy has taken his last long walk.  On August 16, 2020, he made a peaceful transition to Cat Heaven.

He was so proud of his homemade bed!

                Just rearranged the stuff and plopped right down on it!

8/16/2020  Buddy has moved on to a higher plane to be with all our other adopted strays.  He quietly passed today.  It’s bittersweet, he had lost so much weight, but was eating, drinking and liking the master bathroom as his rental home.  He was such a gentle giant with all the others and there were a lot over the years.  We’re gathering the photos and will have to scan some in, as we don’t seem to have digital photos of 1 of the cats that he will be reunited with. We just can't find Mittens' photos.

It’s been difficult to not see him, he was such a presence for so long.  The gentle giant of the household.  He was the calm one, the tolerant one, the one who caused no problems, the one who loved all people as well as cats.

He loved presents and boxes

Buddy and Lily

Buddy and Baby

Buddy and Rusty

Buddy and Grayce

    Buddy and Biggles

Roll Call

It fit in our hand, found on a dark Halloween night. A pure black cat on a black night on a blacktop road in the rain.  Our downstairs neighbor kept asking – how is it? And we’d say it’s fine.  By the time he was big enough for us to know what he was, he’d concluded IT was his name. He was part Siamese. The vocal part, 10/31/1992 – 4/4/2014

Corkette (Corky) found us when we moved in, she had cuts and gashes was around 7 months old. A long legged, thin long cat and long tailed--Abyssinian  1/1996 -12/23/2010

Tom T. Hall came with the house as we discovered.  Had no home, showed up 3 times a day for meals, loved walking on a harness around the neighborhood. Had no voice, but could purr.  A large gray and white tux. 1989-90-5/31/2011

Casper pure white used to hiss and we could only pet him when he was eating.  He became a lap cat.  He was our Angel Fund Cat with cancer of the eye.  1998-3/8/2008

Mittens showed up on a cold Thanksgiving, thought she was a kitten, she was small, but turned out to be 2-3 years old.  For 7 years the rest of the cats didn’t know that the sliding screen door could be opened.  Mittens showed them how to get out.  Including Casper, who was blind from cancer by then. She was a black and white. 2001 – 5/14/2011 We know we have photos of her, just not where they are.

Lily Marlaine was about a year or less when she started coming to eat. Someone broke her back and we saw her dragging herself up our driveway to come eat as we got home from work.  Another immediate trip to the vet. The back left her with a limp and difficulty walking and jumping.  Lily then developed a thyroid condition as she got older, you couldn’t pill her.  Compounded medicine rubbed in her ears twice a day was the routine and that was not to her liking.  She was a pretty black and white tux.  7/1/2005-1/2/2016.

That leaves Squeekie as our oldest rescue at 10 and the kittens at 7 now, already!  Biggles/Big G came in Hurricane Hermine, he's grown up here.  He's filled out and since we're rid of fleas now for 2 years, he looks great.

That's our little family over the years. They've been missed each was unique.

Father's Day Free Journal Gift

The following samples take you to the dropbox for you to download the one you want.

Sample large print

Sample booklet 

Stress Busters: MENTAL HEALTH DURING THIS CRISES FREE IDEAS !

JOIN OUR PUSH FOR BETTER MENTAL HEALTH  DURING THIS CRISES! Mom's Day Gifts! Front Liners!

Updates:

The Sample Products Book is here!(All but 2 free)

Buddy is still with us, on new meds, still splatting, smaller and less often, gaining some weight. Hurrah!  Antibiotics and steroids, round whatever at this point. 

However, our human dad in the midst of all this is in a home, rehabbing a muscle spasm that left him unable to walk, Alzheimer's set-back may keep him there, being unaware of the crises in the world complicates the progress. Social distancing not in the vocabulary.

Gifts for you:

Mother's Day for all kids---Free coloring bookmarks with Mother's day messages.

go here!


These are purposely black and white to enable you to print at a lower cost.

Our Other Items: all of the--
 Sports for all word searches, scrambles, Early Japanese Art for coloring or just framing, mazes, Sudoku Hard and Easy, Robots (to help a friend) will be in black and white for this reason. 

We almost have the sample book pages ready, for each of these.  We have included 2-3 samples of each.  

UPDATE 5/7   GOOD NEWS SAMPLE BOOK FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  

here  is the Sample Book!!  
Note the SAMPLE book is huge, 42 pages.

NOTE NOTE: 

 If you are a front liner, contact us (graycelynnlilyauthor@gmail.com) or via the comments section and we can get you the individual  PDF you want. It is our gift to you. Each book title is about 25-30 pages and they are gender-free and meant to help take stress off your life. Share with co-workers.

A couple of the items have a nominal charge - For Home schoolers/teachers one: the science lesson plans  

two:  (BMOG) ROBOTS to help an unemployed friend from before the pandemic.

The individual books are finished, BUT not uploaded: Contact us for now and we will get them out to you via email as PDFs.  It's a work in progress and we don't have a store. These are an offshoot from our usual Amazon books and we're working on it....
UPDATE:  5/9/20  Forgot to mention some of these books are set for A4, as well as US 8.5 x 11, so they are individualized in some ways for the International Sector, we'll be happy to supply the one you need.

We appreciate your understanding.  Happy Sampling!

  
Stay safe.

Grayce Lynn

Buddy Finds a Home

Buddy's Story   

What are we looking at?

 Buddy first came to our attention when he began showing up in our driveway. We fed strays outside, who it seems ended up inside eventually.

We thought he had a home and didn't pay much attention he would eat whatever the others didn't. He has always been a pushover at the food bowl. A real gentleman.

He was friendly, we did notice he didn't have any front claws, which we thought was a.) cruel, b.) not ideal for a cat to be outside.

He adopted the name "Buddy". We'd say, Hi, how're doing buddy when he would show up. And he decided it was his name.

Working his way into the house

We came home from work one night and found he had a deep hole like gash and fur missing on his neck, from someone/something. Without any front claws he had no way to defend himself. Rushed him to the Vet for cleaning and repair.

He became a house cat. 2008

With Baby Grayce 2014 

He’s our Greeter:  Rusty is our watchcat- if he sees anyone coming up the walk, he growls and runs to the other side of the house to hide.  Buddy is right there, saying Hi, come on in.  I like people.  

With Baby Rusty 2014

It's my bed, I made it..  2014 

You know what else I like.  

Christmas, so much fun.  

Xmas 2015  

Love the boxes, the stuff, not so much.  2016

                     

Cautious Update

After a week and a half of the new diet experiment, he’s been having fewer splats, more contained and some normal.  He did throw up for the first time in 2½ months, but that was because he got into some mashed potatoes and they didn’t agree with him.  Nix that forever.  Those who have the mashed potatoes work for their ill cats, I applaud you.  We tried and it’s been a failure. There are only so many options and we are keeping our fingers crossed as we continue this regime.

The photos are from a homage we are trying to put together on Buddy.  We are finding that we have a lot of photos missing from 2008 to 2013.  We have some printed copies, but not scanned and even those are sparse. 

TIP:  If you have family that you take for granted, remember they aren't forever.  Make sure you have photos and other reminders for your memory box and label them.  You won't remember when you need to down the road.  

Buddy's Life-Getting Old is....

Buddy Sickness

If you are familiar with our blog you know that we have an older and ill cat.

We have been quiet on this end as we are dealing with Buddy's illness. 

He was better for a while, even gained some weight.

He was playing and even running around.

But things have gone downhill in a hand-basket rather quickly.  We aren't able to contain the diarrhea, got the vomiting under control and gone, BUT. 

He's continued to drink and stay hydrated, giving him homemade pedialite, chicken soup, water and water.   He's continued to lose weight and pumpkin and other remedies are not doing it. He's 15 and it appears it's his time soon. 

Buddy with Baby in 2014 she was 6 months old.

You can get a sense of how big he was in the photo.  That’s him with Baby when she was six months old in 2014.  At most she's 7 pounds.  He’s never really been a lap cat, but boy can he purr… sitting next to you.

He's always been a huge cat, has pretty blue eyes, even though they are crossed, he's been agile over the years. Not so now that he's dwindled away. 

He’s hanging on, and the constant diarrhea is slowly turning into smaller, less runny splats. BUT still splatty.

Changing the diet to deal with this

Thank goodness the vomiting stopped. His appetite is good and we’ve beefed it up with food that has grains in it mixing the wet and dry foods into a mush for him.  We leave dry food, but he ignores it until we wet it. Hence the mix of wet and dry mush. We tried the chicken with rice, the chicken with mashed potatoes, no go on either. Tried just plain canned chicken, cooked pieces of chicken breast.  Nada!

The vexing part of this is that it alternates from a good to splatty all in one day.  We can’t get a handle on what is working.

We’re seeing some improvement in the splats with the grain food and canned food.  We’re trying not to get too optimistic and too hopeful.  Because we’ve been down this road before with him.  So roller coastery –probably not a word-but it describes the emotional toll of the ordeal.

No more grain-free for him, the others have problems with the dyes, so they are still on grain-free and are okay.  I, Grayce and Rusty used to throw up the food with red dyes all the time. 

The pumpkin worked for a while, the antibiotic, unfortunately killed all the good flora and can’t be used much and it didn’t do anything anyway.  He won’t take yogurt or yogurt drinks to counteract the antibiotic damage. Tommy who had chronic impacted bowels was easy.  Tommy loved the yogurt and it was great for him.  Biggles loves yogurt, he’s not sick. Isn’t it always the way?

Squeekie will miss him very much, she's not a people cat, but a Buddy cat, she's 10.

Squeekie 

Baby will miss him too, that's her pal, her favorite target to headlock.  The tiny 7 pounder taking a flying wrestling leap at the 25 pounder was always fun to watch.  She has taken to just tiny head-butts and a soft head rub without knocking him down.  As a kitten she took care of It, until he passed.  Now 7 years later, her Buddy is going. 

FAQ The Squirrels Part 5 of 5 Final Teaching Aids

Celebrate Today - Squirrel Appreciation Day January 21

Parents and Teachers I hope you have been using these posts to inform your children of the importance of preserving (A) the Eurasian Red Squirrel, (B) helping squirrels in the cold weather and all year around (C) Instilling respect for these little gems of the ecosystem.

Kids!  By now you should have an appreciation for these historic squirrels and have discovered how they live and help our world ecology.

Have you done something nice for them today?

 If you are in an area of the world that has very cold weather it would be nice of you and your friends or family to try to help preserve these squirrels. 

It will make you feel better about helping the world that will be yours when you grow-up. We’ve highlighted the programs in the UK as they are the most organized and longest running in preserving the Eurasian Red Squirrel.

Need more ideas for teaching, the Marcijona books

• Colors,
• History,
• Basic etiquette phrases in a new language for fun,
• Easy science nature, flora and fauna,
• The seasons.
• Creative writing skills can be enhanced in the older grades
• With research projects about the squirrels and ecology.  (There are Journals in three languages, English, French and Spanish to encourage this.) 

Some Topics to consider

1. The science of climate and changes affecting the world. 
2. History of the UK, Europe and Eastern Europe, architectural styles,
3. What is a UNESCO Heritage Site,
4. What and why is volunteering important to communities everywhere.
5. Why kindness to animals of every type is of importance.

Enjoy.

FAQ The Squirrels Part 4 of 5 Teaching Aids

Newest Research shows an area of grave concern for the red squirrels health.

Startling findings about the virus that has been decimating this squirrel in the UK.

“Sciurus vulgaris Incorrect supplementary feeding of red squirrels can promote the local outbreaks of squirrel poxvirus (SQPV)

Feeding:  the areas where European red squirrels live in the UK should change the “Shared Feeders System” (One feeder for a bunch of squirrels to eat from.) To "scatter feeding" Throw it out there, kind of like feeding the chickens. Take a handful and toss near where they can eat what is there or take it to bury. Rationing of sorts.

To significantly reduce the possibility of passing SQPV to other Red Squirrels within the neighborhood and insects in a small area by the many red squirrels visiting and eating within one day.  The feeders put up by volunteers should not be used for the Eurasian red squirrels. Sharing is not good for their health, although it is easier on volunteers. It will entail rethinking the feeding program and volunteers necessary to keep it going in the cold weather.

 (In short, it's about placing several nuts near trees – as many as the squirrel has a chance to quickly eat and/or bury to protect the Red Squirrel from the disease.) The virus can be spread via droplet transmission (saliva) by European red squirrels* and for them "scatter feeding" should be applied – with no shared feeders.” *(Warnock et al. 2012, Collins et al. 2014, ICSRS 2015) Abstract: https://i-csrs.com/new-threats-red-squirrels