Case in point? It’s killed once. Chances are, according to some, it will attack again.

Surveillance cameras snapped this shot a few weeks back, so take a look and see what you think. Cat, lion, cougar? Housecat? Killer at large?

The first victim was an 85-pound collie – attacked not once, but twice. The dog died nine days after the second attack. Many community members fear the next victim will be a child. But, in a effort to keep the county calm, the search for what I now refer to as man-bear-pig has ended.

In fact, many believe this is nothing more than someone’s pet cat. But the collie’s owner would beg to differ.  And it might bear noting that the collie’s owner is, in fact, a preacher. And surely if anyone can be trusted, it’s him. Right?

Alas, it appears the world – much less the residents of Harrison County – may never know.

But if you hear a meow/roar and find banana peels in your yard, I’d refrain from calling, “Here, kittie, kittie.”

-Liz

parrots have great rhythm.  Two studies by Harvard University and the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego found that parrots, like humans, have the ability to move with the beat of music.  It was previously thought that only humans could dance in rhythm – but when parrots listened to music, they happily bobbed their heads according to the tempo.  When the rhythm was changed, the parrots didn’t miss a step – they switched up their dance moves to keep in sync. The Harvard scientists watched YouTube clips of dancing parrots to help with their research.

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“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a red squirrel around here before.”

I’m thinking, “Well, that’s nice. Shouldn’t you save your martinis until after lunch?”

Thank goodness he went on to explain.

For the first time in years, he’d actually witnessed a red squirrel in he and mom’s back yard while we were talking. He’d seen them before, just never in this neck of the woods.

News to me, because I’d never heard of a red squirrel.

I couldn’t wait to tell the kids. They’re both squirrel crazy as it is, and this would be one more little factoid they could store in their nutty little brains.

Although he never mentioned anything about them flying, I was wondering if they could. We all know how, uh, squirrel-y, squirrels can be.

Which is about the time I glanced out the kitchen window, and swore there was a baby bat hanging right there in broad daylight for all to see. In the course of one short conversation, I’d learned about the red squirrel and witnessed a baby bat hanging outside the kitchen window.

After beefing up my courage meter (you’d have been momentarily freaked out, too…) I decided to take a closer look at the little bat.

Turned out, it was a dried leaf, stuck in a cob web. Who could’ve seen that coming? Maybe I was the one in need of a late-morning mimosa…

(UPDATE: One day after above conversation, Dad and I were in the car together: “There’s another red squirrel,” he said. Ironically, no one else in the car had seen it…)

-Liz

I’m pretty sure the “real” cowboys can spot a cowboy wannabe from miles away. Perhaps it’s because my cowboy hat came from Pac Sun in the mall. You know the ones… made to look bent and worn and well used.  Perhaps it’s because my jeans aren’t quite tight enough and don’t say Wrangler on the butt (oh and my legs aren’t bowed.) Maybe it’s because I wear sandals instead of cowboy boots. Or just possibly it’s because I don’t quite have the famous Spanish Fork drawl down. But whatever the giveaway is, I don’t care, because for one night a year I get to pretend I am a cowboy.

You see, I was born in Utah but moved away to the “outside world” when I was a young child. Every other year my family would make the trip back to Utah for vacation. On those trips I found that I was entranced by the cowboy mystique…the clothes, the accent, the music, the rodeos.

I remember sitting in front of my grandma’s house dangling my legs in the irrigation ditch running full of icy cold mountain run-off, and listening to my cousins singing in a twang about “My d-i-v-o-r-c-e becomes final today”, and wondering if that could possibly be a real song.

Now here I am living right smack dab in the center of cowboy country…Spanish Fork, Utah. It’s a city so extreme in it’s cowboy accent that people from other cities in Utah  make jokes about it. In fact, just for your entertainment I’m going toss out some typical Spanish Fork pronunciations for you.
First of all I should tell you it’s not Spanish Fork…it’s Spahneesh Fark.

Okay here’s a sentence crammed  full of Spahneesh Fark talk…

Oh myee heck, we wuz at the star with Cheltsie the uther day hwhen we found a ril gud sel on these gargeus mou-un peechurs.

At this point any sane English speaking person would think I’m joking.  I assure you I am not.

Translation…

Oh my heck, we were at the store with Chelsie the other day when we found a real good  sale on these gorgeous mountain pictures.

Take a look at this totally hilarious clip of  comedian, Dave Nibley  making fun of Spanish Fork speak and attire…

Here’s the thing, I have plenty of “real cowboys” in my family: a bull riding uncle, a barrel-racing aunt and her rodeo clown husband, a team roping father-in-law, and even my own bare back bronc riding dad has a scar of a hoof print that some horse rudely left there years ago. And here I am, a once-a-year, rodeo-going wannabe who can’t even get most of her children to step foot inside the rodeo grounds.  One daughter’s response to the rodeo invite was, “I’d rather jump off a bridge and lick tar.”

Another said,  “Why would I go somewhere on purpose where that many men are wearing tight Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots?  I see enough of that at school.”

Another is morally opposed to the treatment of rodeo animals. And yet another, just rolled her eyes and laughed at me like I had lost my mind.

I guess it’s safe to say that they are not entranced with the cowboy mystique like I was when I was a kid.  It’s okay though, I don’t even care because for a day, even if it was only in my mind, I was a cowboy.

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Want to submit your own story to be considered for the Guest Headline post to run on Fridays? Just send your story to: lizandkate@live.com.

The female injects eggs into the male, who has a pouch where the eggs are fertilized and nurtured until they’re born.

A seahorse, depending on the species, can deliver between 15 and 1,000 babies at a time and can deliver in the morning and get pregnant again in the afternoon. Then again, the delivery only takes half an hour.

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Go ahead.  Make a guess. If you guessed zero, you are correct.! This juicy little tidbit comes courtesy of the Animal Planet show, Whale Wars.

Apparently, whales are never fully asleep at any given time.  Seems these amazing creatures shut down only one side of the brain at a time, never actually entering the unconscious state of sleep like we humans do.

According to Billy Kirk over at eHow…

To compensate for the necessity for conscious breathing while sleeping, whales keep half of their brains awake at all times, even while catching a nap. The other half of the brain is completely out of commission.  Whales tend to be in this mode several hours each day. The estimation is that the closest humans come to such a state is when they are semi-conscious and nearly asleep, but not yet unable to wake fully if prompted.

Why, you might ask?  Well, whales  are conscious breathers, meaning they have to make a conscious effort to take each breath.  This comes in handy for these mammals since they happen to live in the WATER and breath AIR.  Not a good combination.  If they breathed involuntarily  like we do, they would certainly drown.  The good news is whales can go up to 30 minutes without taking a breath.

By the way…you should check out Whale Wars at Animal Planet.  It’s surprisingly addicting.

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

A Crocodile’s tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth.

A group of larks is called an exaltation.

A kangaroo can’t jump unless its tail is touching the ground.

A group of owls is called a parliament.

A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

A rhinoceros’ horn is made of compacted hair.

A group of ravens is called a murder.

A shark can grow a new set of teeth in a week

A group of toads is called a knot.

A group of rhinos is called a crash.

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Okay, so maybe that is a slight exaggeration. They didn’t exactly eat the whole couch, but they might as well have. There is now a dinner plate-sized hole in the back cushion of my living room couch. When they decided to go on the prowl for a midnight snack  last night , they couldn’t have chosen to munch on my old,  black velvet couch in the basement…nope, they decided, instead, to snack on my nice, new tan leather couch which sits prominently in my living room. In fact, it’s the first thing you see when you come into my house. Geez.

Maybe now is a good time to give you some back story here. I have two big dogs. I never intended on having two big dogs. That sort of thing just sneaks up on you somehow.  When we had to put our little dog, Cinnamon, to sleep last year, I decided it was a good time to make our home a dog-free zone for a while. Then my daughter, Hannah, got a dog from the pound as a gift to give to her boyfriend. Turns out, the boyfriends parents were also attempting to make their house a dog free zone, and since I am easily the biggest push over around, well, his dog came to live with us. It was okay though, she was a well behaved, good dog.  Until she got pregnant and had 8 (yes – EIGHT! puppies) We decided to keep one of them because they were just so darn cute. When you already have dog, what’s one more, right?  (Wow! Maybe it’s that kind of thinking that caused me to end up with 7 kids.)  Here’s the thing, when you have 9 people in your family, the chances of coming to a unanimous decision on anything is nearly impossible.  We were torn between two of the puppies, and soon my family fell in love with both of them.  And this is  how I came to have two big dogs (and their mother) living in my dog-free zone.  Two dogs, mind you, that have eaten more than their fair share of flip flops and forgotten Happy Meal toys.

So…back to the story…I woke up this morning, just like every other morning, to make my husband a lunch to take to work.  I went into the kitchen and the dogs were cowering under the table – never a good sign. I went to investigate and when I got to the living room,  I saw a sight which struck terror into my heart.  The floor was covered in white fluff, so much white fluff that it looked like snow covering the floor, all  around the couch.  I knew this was going to be bad.  And there it was, a huge gaping hole in my leather couch.

Let me just tell you at this point in the story, my husband is not exactly a dog lover.  He is barely a dog-putter-upper-wither.  You should know this, as I will use this in my defense later in this story.

I knew that if I wanted the dogs to live through the day, I was going to have to take quick action.  I scooped up the fluff,  stuffed it back into the hole in the couch, grabbed a blanket and threw it over the back of the couch, hoping my husband wouldn’t notice as he passed by the living room on his way out the door to work.  I prefer not to think of this as lying, but as more of an act of mercy…an attempt to keep the dogs alive, if you will.

Well, I have now spent a good portion of the day trying to repair the couch, before you-know-who gets home from work.  I cut a piece of leather out of  the bottom of one of the seat cushions, and have sewn it into the hole.  It looks okay really, it you turn off the lights and close the curtains.  Perhaps tonight would be a good night to go out to dinner and a late movie, preferably one that gets out after dark.  Geez.

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Want to submit your own story to be considered for the Guest Headline post to run on Friday’s????  Just send your story to: lizandkate@live.com and check back on Friday to see if your story was selected.