I had to have my 15 year old cat Baby put down this morning.

This is her after eating her last meal.

About a week ago she got real scarce for 3 days. Normally she was an indoor/outdoor cat but would be inside and come sleep with me at night. At least for a bit, then she would bail out and crash on the floor.

I didn’t see her for 3 days but the wife said she would come in, eat a few Kibbles and then take off again.

When she did finally come back her back legs didn’t seem to be working right.

She holed up in the kids closet and wouldn’t come out.

I finally found her and drug her up to the Pet E.R., I couldn’t get an appointment at her vet for two weeks.

$525 and several hours later, her blood and urine tests came back nominal. The Doc said it looked like test results from a two year old cat.

He couldn’t explain what was wrong. I kept suspecting Kidney Failure, which is pretty common in older cats but he seemed to suggest that here urine test ruled that out.

Could be Cancer or any other dozen things that go wrong with cats on a regular basis.

She laid around for a couple more days after that. She would eat wet cat food a little but no water intake and no signs of bowel movements.

When I went to pick her up this morning her bladder was so full she leaked all the way to the litter box.

I held her up in it but she wouldn’t go. So I let her drip until no more came out and then made her comfortable on the futon, fed her some and then loaded her up.

By some miracle the same vet that couldn’t see her before suddenly had an opening after I told them she had already been seen by the emergency room.

Uh Huh.

I hauled her up there and the only thing that vet wanted to do was to take an X Ray to see if her spinal cord had been severed as if she had been hit by a car.

I pointed out that there were no outward signs of any injuries and she didn’t seem to be in a great deal of pain.

After an examination and a very brief discussion it was decided that there was no hope of any kind of treatment, no hope for any kind of quality of life and that it was obvious since her last visit that she has been deteriorating for some time now.

Six pounds lighter than her last visit,

So I told them to do the dirty deed and be done with it.

Just the two visits cost me a Grand, I’m not spending thousands of dollars on a dying cat thank you very much. Seen that happen a couple of times.

She is gone now, I am having her cremated and will put her ashes up on the mantle next to the other two we have lost in the last couple of years.

Needless to say I have had a pretty shitty morning.

It’s all part of life, it’s not the first, second, third or even fourth time I have had to do this.

Doesn’t make it any easier though.

RIP Cat, you can shit in my sandals again when we meet on the other side here shortly.

I was surprised to learn that you can actually freeze most cooking oils the other day so I was wondering what the hell else there was that you can freeze that I hadn’t heard of.

Not too hard on the eyes either for once.

How about you guys., you freeze anything kind of weird?

Any thoughts on food preservation ?

It’s an open thread, what else is on your mind?

As usual I have a bunch of shit going on.

I won’t bore you with it, just know that I have been busy as hell.

CederQ has been busy all day also with his own stuff.

Since The Wifely Unit won’t be home until tomorrow, I have been batching it all week.

I had fast food last night out of necessity, part of the shit I’m not going to bore you with but tonight I had time to run up to the store and fetch some basics to make a quick dinner.

A couple Taters, some onion, garlic, olive oil and some Andouille Sausage fried up in a pan.

Doesn’t take long, is filling and very tasty.

What’s left there in the pan is going with me for lunch tomorrow.

2Fer.

It works for me.

Never stop.

This guy and the people pulling his strings want you and your kind dead.

Never, ever forget that.

Sent in by The Tactical Hermit.

If you have ever played the game of Chess, you know what it means when your opposing player calls CHECK.

It means your King is in a position to be taken and you either have to put something in front of it to block the threat, move the King or suffer Checkmate, the end of the game.

Right after Putin put the leaders of Britain and Europe in Check, he slapped their faces, making sure pResident PedoHitler got a good taste of it too.

Huge global storm is starting, Moscow warns

“Absurd” decisions by the US and the EU are to blame, the Kremlin press secretary says

The world is about to experience major turbulence as a result of illogical moves by Western nations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. 

“Most likely, a huge global storm is starting,” Peskov warned in an interview with Tass on Monday.  

“In many ways, there are objective reasons for that, but there are also subjective reasons for this beginning storm, which are linked to absolutely illogical and often absurd decisions and actions of the authorities in the US, Europe, the EU and individual European countries,” he said.

The sanctions imposed by the US, the EU and some other nations on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine have backfired causing a spike in energy prices and record inflation across the West.

In this situation, Russia “still manages to maintain macroeconomic stability. Very intense, thoughtful and consistent work is being carried out in order to achieve that,” Peskov noted.

“As restrictions are being artificially introduced in the West, [Russia’s] trade and economic relations are understandably starting to focus more on the East,” he added.

These statements coming right after Vlad shut the gas valve off completely.

This is where Putin announces “Check”

Russia Cuts Off Gas to Europe Until Sanctions Lifted

By Newsmax Wires    |   Monday, 05 September 2022 10:49 AM EDT

Russia will keep gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline shut down completely until the west lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin says.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday laid blame for the shutdown squarely on sanctions introduced against our country by western countries including Germany and the UK for Russia’s gas shutdown.

“Other reasons that would cause problems with the pumping don’t exist,” Peskov was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Peskov said full resumption of gas supplies via Nord Stream 1 was dependent on whether the west would lift its sanctions on Moscow. 

“We see incessant attempts to shift responsibility and blame onto us. We categorically reject this and insist that the collective West – in this case, the EU, Canada, the UK – is to blame for the fact that the situation has reached the point where it is now.”

When asked if Nord Stream would resume pumping if sanctions were eased, Peskov said: “Definitely.”

Since he ordered the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin says the United States and its allies have embarked on economic war on Russia with the most severe sanctions in modern history, warning that they will face a energy crisis as a result.

Since the war began, European Union customers have pledged to reduce their reliance on Russian energy while Russia has cut or shut down supplies on three of its biggest westward gas pipelines while oil supplies have been redirected eastwards.

Russian gas giant Gazprom on Friday said the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Europe’s major supply route, was shut because a turbine at a compressor station had an engine oil leak, sending wholesale gas prices soaring.

The Kremlin says sanctions are disrupting the ability of Siemens Energy, which supplies and services equipment for the pipeline, to help repair the engine oil leak.

EU countries have repeatedly rejected Moscow’s line, accusing it of weaponizing energy supplies, and on Monday German government spokesperson said the latest gas price surge was part of Putin’s strategy.

Gee, ya think?

Maybe, just maybe, after all of these jackass western leaders pull their britches back up from around their ankles, they will stop their self destructive foot stomping long enough to see that Putin was the one who just yanked said britches down in the first place.

If they keep fucking around like they have been, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own citizens will be dangling over their heads while the ones still alive are actively hunting for them to slit their fucking throats.

I would rhetorically ask just how stupid can these people be but they have blown through the floor of my wildest guesses and are stomping on the accelerator on the way down.

Apparently, yes, they are that fucking stupid.

Right now, Putin has them all by the short and curlies but they seriously don’t seem to realize it nor the acute seriousness of the impending disaster rolling down the hill and gaining speed either.

I’ll tell you one thing for certain, there is going to be a whole lot of this going on at my place for the next several months as this plays out.

How Wire Rope is made.

You can get Wire Rope made with a Right Hand Lay or a Left Hand Lay also.

It just spins the other way when they are making it.

Long time regular readers will remember that the guy who wrote the Food Grower series of articles sent me a box of seeds that he had collected and organized from his own garden.

I got a very late start with my garden, at least a month late but I would like to show you what I have going and to show you a drastic difference between the results of the neglected natural soil here and the dirt in my raised bed garden.

I have used zero fertilizer or any pesticides of any kind.

I have also watered them deeply and equally at the same times.

All of these tomato plants were started and transplanted at the exact same time. I pulled a yard debris can up so you can get a sense of scale.

This is the dirt and the resulting tomato plant where I had an extra and stuck it in an old flower bed close to the raised bed garden.

Notice the stem isn’t very big, the entire plant is stunted and the plant looks wilted because the soil doesn’t retain any moisture.

It has only a few pea sized fruit on it.

Rotating to the South and literally five feet away, this is the difference.

It’s difficult to judge the scale but I am almost six feet tall and those tomato plants are at least six inches over the top of my head.

Even though I watered them all at the same time, the soil here is still moist.

And although still not quite ripe yet because I planted them late, there are scads of Cherry type tomatoes, scads of flowers and several of the Heirloom Beef Steak type tomatoes ripening.

Literally the only difference between the two examples being the soil and a five foot set off.

I have some onions on the other side of these tomatoes and as soon as we get a killing frost that finishes the tomatoes I am going to pull everything out for the Winter.

It would be nice if that held off until late October so I can bring any that aren’t quite ripe yet inside to finish off.

I am also going to be dumping my grass clippings and small yard debris in that flower bed and letting it compost until next Spring at least. Then I am going to start more of these Tomatoes a couple months earlier inside and transplant them to where the onions are now.

They can obviously do phenomenal with the right conditions.

They will actually get more Sun if there is any also.

Crazy freaking weather the way it has been lately, it’s hard to say.

Either way, after seeing what a difference soil condition makes, I am going to be building a monster compost pile right next to the garden and just let it go to town.

The flower beds obviously need some serious help and I will be yanking flower bulbs out and getting the dirt built up for next year.

I’d like to thank Food Grower for helping me out with this, it wouldn’t have happened without him.

Dude, you rock!