This morning I went outside to get the newspaper from the newspaper box at the end of the driveway. I was surprised to find a very large cardboard box outside of my front door. Inside the cardboard box was a cat with a litter of four newborn kittens inside! Boy was I surprised! And upset! It was below freezing out and some jerk abandons a mother cat with newborn kittens outside my door! Not that I’m upset to have a cat with kittens here unexpectedly, but I am very upset that someone would just abandon them in this cold weather! That’s just plain and simple mean!
So I brought them all inside the house and put the box near the wood stove to help them keep warm. I fed the mother cat and gave her some fresh water to drink and pulled out my old litter box and set it up near the box for the mother cat to use.
I’ve called the animal shelter to know what happened, in the off chance that someone has a change of heart and decides that they want them back. Chances of that happening are slim to none, but I thought it was the right thing to do. They offered to come get them, but I told them that I’d keep them here for now. As long as the mother cat doesn’t get mean, or decide to use the other parts of the house instead of a litter box, I’m okay with them staying here.
Well, today was a total wash-out. It rained all day long, and the dog I’m pet-sitting didn’t seem to want to go outside at all, even to do his “duty.” I had to drag him outside using the leash and walk around with him until he did his thing. This is unusual; in good weather all I normally have to do is open the door to the fenced in yard and out he goes! He usually likes being outside quite a bit, running around the yard barking at the evil squirrels and the occasional deer that wanders by.
When it rains here, the mosquitoes are extra nasty. You would think that the rain would get them to settle down and hide under the leaves of the plants to stay dry, but no, the rain makes them even more aggressive and bloodthirsty! So I wasn’t too pleased about braving the mosquitoes while making the dog be outside! I hope tomorrow’s weather is nicer!
I had gotten out of bed early this morning to have a nice long walk with the dog that I’m pet-sitting, and then went for a short canoe ride. I even took the dog on the canoe ride with me, and I have to say that the dog did very well; sat very quietly in the canoe and seemed to be simply enjoying the quiet of the morning.
I managed to do both of those things before breakfast. It wasn’t long after breakfast, however, that the phones started ringing and it was back to business!
One of my newer clients told me that he had found a website, www.ebizwebpages.com that provides web design software to help consumers do their own Small Business Web Design. He was asking me what I knew about their service.
So I went to the website of the Ebizwebpages Company to check them out. They seem like nice enough folks to me. They claim that they use their own product to design their own websites, to demonstrate how nice and easy the software is. They say that the software is geared towards the beginner, that the consumer can build their own website in as little as fifteen minutes!
Their software allows the customer to completely customize their webpages with text and uploading photos and manipulating them around the pages anywhere that they want them to be. It sounds like a nice, easy, customizable program. They offer a free trial download, and a good customer support service.
They also have a software program that is a webstore builder, that helps the customer actually sell products over the internet; complete with shopping cart, advanced stats, product database, secure checkout, PayPal Integration, order management, shipping calculator and order export. Again, they offer a free trial download and a good customer support service.
They do NOT provide the domain name, or the web hosting service, the customer has to come up with that on their own. And, they charge a monthly fee for their software. The customer does not have to sign any long term contract with them, so the customer can cancel if and when they want to cancel the service.
I have a girlfriend, Jennie, who is spending the summer in England. She is a professor at Colby College, and when school let out last May she packed up her family and flew to England. They are renting a house in Manchester, and have rented a car for the summer. They are having a great time sightseeing and socializing with their neighbors. She has asked me to help her out while they are gone by watering their houseplants, tending their gardens and pet sitting. In order to do the pets itting, I decided to bring the pets to our place; I don’t want to be running over to her house four times a day to walk the dog, and I don’t want the pets to get lonely; that’s a long time to be alone in a house!
I was reading an email that she sent me this morning. She was asking me about her pets (they’re fine.) Her email was telling me how excited she is to have found a radio station called Xfm that does podcasts. Xfm is a station that broadcasts alternative rock/indie in the United Kingdom. They recently expanded their business onto the Internet and their website features a link to where the consumer can buy gig tickets, hear podcasts, read music news, and listen to the online radio broadcast.
The local celebrity pig that slipped off of its leash last month at Colby College is still loose and wandering around town. The pig has left campus, however, and has been spotted several miles away. This morning there is a news story about the pig in the local paper and how he has shown up in a residential area, and about the efforts of the residents to capture it. They have been feeding it dog and cat food, and the pig will come up close to them but won’t let them touch him.
I do hope that before winter comes the pig will allow someone to give it shelter, I don’t think it can survive the winter without a warm dry place to live!