A friend recently warned me against using my electric blanket. While there are established risks (including burns and fires), she was talking about health conditions that could be caused by electromagnetic fields. Hypothesizing about health impacts from environmental exposures can walk a fine line between conscientious public health research and pseudoscience. The difference between the two lies in what we do with answers we get.
The hardest thing any pet parent will have to do is make the choice to end suffering. It’s not something we care to think about, but it is perhaps the most important way we can show up for the ones who love us the most. My vet supported me through the worst experience of my life, but I realized that these professionals need support too.
Tokyo is an absolute playground for novel activities, and one thing on our do-to list for this last trip was visiting a capybara cafe. This South American rodent has won the hearts of the Japanese with its easy going demeanor and cross-species friendships. Of course, any interactions with exotic animals beg questions of ethics: what are the benefits and the costs of these visits?
Tourism is difficult when you love to experience the world but also recognize how damaging travel can be. Maui represents a particularly stressed part of the world from a climate standpoint, and the deadly wildfires there in the summer of 2023 impacted local communities but also the island’s biggest revenue driver: tourism. We did our best to visit responsibly, whatever that means to Maui.
Pollinator gardens are beneficial for birds, bees, butterflies, and other animals too. However, increased residential development and the continual pressure to have a manicured, uniform lawn puts all of those creatures at risk. Some homes are pushing back against societal expectations around landscaping to create safe corridors for native species, but in more than one case, the resulting fight has gotten ugly.
They say that low expectations are the key to happiness – and there is some truth to that. While I didn’t have low expectations for Italy, I tried to keep them realistic. As is the case when traveling, we encountered inconveniences, setbacks, and even some scary moments during those two weeks, but keeping perspective and flexibility helped us laugh about them, if only in retrospect.
Although many families share videos of cats attacking Christmas trees, we have never seen any such behavior from our two. Most of the cat-on-tree action I’ve seen in my life has involved artificial trees, and there are multiple sources that point to why cats may prefer plastic to the real thing. In this Christmas Day post, expect some gratuitous cat photos along with researched content.
What I thought was a stress-induced grooming habit for my kitty Siegfried actually turned out to be the result of fleas (though we couldn’t find any on him). It turns out that indoor cats can, in fact, get fleas, despite a common belief that they can’t. Fortunately fleas are pretty straightforward to deal with, as long as you follow instructions to the letter.
A common struggle for any gardener or farmer is keeping groundhogs away. Many natural and/or humane methods of groundhog control are ineffective, but killing animals is not an option for me. Furthermore, dispatching the groundhogs deals with the symptom, not the problem, and leaves a move-in ready home for the next family. The best solution is making your yard undesirable in the first place.
A few months ago I wrote a post about the feral kitties in our neighborhood. We’ve been feeding them and providing shelters for them, but have been unsuccessful in trapping them – until now. All of the research for my last post did not prepare me for the actual experience of trapping a feral animal, and this process involved some learning on my feet.