We found this strange-looking bug in our garden in Southern Transilvania, Romania. It’s about 1 cm in length, with small hairs that grow out of bumps on its back. It’s got six legs, and it moves fairly fast.
I found out, thanks to beansmail, that it’s the larva of the asian ladybug, also known as Harmonia axyridis.
As I promised in my post about the birth of our six new kittens, here is a video that shows how close our two cats, Mitzi and Trixie, really are. They are sisters, from the same mother, and they’ve been together since birth, but even we were surprised by how caring Trixie could be toward Mitzi the night we recorded this video.
You see, both of them were near the end of their pregnancies, and Mitzi was feeling a little sick. She was scared, and came to us to be comforted. We began to pet her, and Trixie came as well, and began to comfort her in ways we didn’t even know cats were capable of. We just sat there, moved by the display of love between them. Honestly, sometimes I think cats are capable of more empathy than most people.
I remember one time our tomcat, Felix, was feeling a little under the weather. I was sitting at my desk and he asked to come into my office. I opened the door, and he plopped himself down on the floor, letting out the sort of meow that gave me to understand he was a bit ill. His demeanor also told me the same thing. Just for fun, I thought I’d imitate his meow. He immediately jumped to his feet and came bounding toward me, chirping, with a look of concern on his face. He began to rub his nose on my leg, looking toward my face and trying to cheer me up. My jaw dropped. I had faked it, but he honestly thought I was sick and needed to be comforted. Never mind he was ill, his first concern was for me.
Some people say cats are egotistical creatures… What fools!
If you haven’t yet seen the “State of the Word” keynote from WordCamp San Francisco, held on May 12, then it’s worth a watch. Matt Mullenweg, WP’s founder, talks about WP’s history, the challenges of a growing platform, and highlights the neat features of WordPress 3.0, which will soon be released.
I’ve been a big fan of WordPress, and have been using it since late 2005 (publicly since 2006). After more than three years of self-hosting a WP.org install, I moved to WP.com, so I could focus on writing and leave the hosting to the folks that made the platform.
Can’t wait to see (and use) the new features of WP 3.0!
I recorded a video last night, after my third workout on the RPM System. I’ve completed a week’s worth of workouts, and I can already feel the program’s effect on my body.
My core muscles have begun to tighten, and my muscle tone is improving. I like the slow burn I get in my muscles after the workouts — not enough to make things painful, but just enough to let me know I’ve done some nice work, and that my body’s getting better.
The interesting thing about the workouts is that they’re easy to under-appreciate, until you begin to do them. You start doing the exercises, and you think it’s a piece of cake, until you get to the second or third run-through (it’s circuit training, remember), and your muscles begin to give up, and you’re drenched in sweat and gasping for air.
I thought I’d post some “before” photos, so I can track my progress accurately. I’ll use these, along with my initial measurements, to see how my body improves as I advance through the workout regimen.
Mitzi and Trixie, our two sister kittens, are about a year old, as I mentioned last week. And they were also recently pregnant. I say “were”, because both of them gave birth to three beautiful kittens each, within the span of a few days, this past week. You can read the details below, or you can watch a video I’ve put together which includes footage of all six kittens, as well as Mitzi’s birth. If you’re not comfortable watching a live animal birth, then please don’t watch past the first segment of the video.
Given that cat pregnancies last about 65 days, I’m guessing they each met their prince charming sometime in early to mid-March. By looking at the kittens, we can tell Mitzi’s tomcat was striped, and Trixie’s tomcat was black. And we pretty much know who they are, since we saw two tomcats matching that description prowling around our garden these past few months.
Trixie’s tomcat resembled Felix, our own boy wonder. He was all black, except for white socks on his paws and a white-tipped tail. Mitzi’s tomcat was a fairly fierce striped tomcat, quite a large and strong fellow. I think Mitzi prefers striped cats, like her. She doesn’t like Felix very much, although he gets along great with Trixie.
Trixie gave birth first, last Sunday night, on May 16th — the night between Saturday and Sunday of last week. She hid in the cellar, where she found a nice, clean box and she managed quite nicely by herself. In the morning, she showed up for food, minus the big belly. We looked for the kittens but didn’t know where they were until she led me to them. What a relief when we found them! We took the box and Trixie and put them in a nice, quiet storage room next to our house, where she could nurse them in peace.
When we checked the kittens, we discovered she’d given birth to two tomcats who resembled their father, and a striped kitten whose color doesn’t match hers or Mitzi’s or her mother’s, so it’s possible that she may have mated with two tomcats — perhaps even Mitzi’s tomcat. Continue reading
Raoul Pop 