Just caught up. I'll post while it's slow.
Boy! Ya'll were busy till the wee hours! Too funny! RUN TWIST! EWWW Scorpions! Yes blacklight! Needed equipment when horse camping! (they also detect ringworm btw) blacklights, not scorpions. Great skunk poem Wishing, that's one BIG dog!
Hope granny's Tom Tom gets Tom to the Dr and home with goon news! Great story about neutering cats on the fly. Good information too!
I worked at a clinic that fixed tons of ferals for TNR (trap, neuter, release) I have the battle scars all over my forearms. They'd be stacked 5 high, hissing and spitting in traps by the time Doc got to work. We'd pin em with a thick towel, knock em out with a pole syringe, do the deed, notch the ear and back in the trap. Females got dissolving sutures.
Managed (fixed) feral cat populations are a good thing. I have about 5 fixed ferals here. Mice, gophers and ground squirrel control. I trap all newcomers. If they're healthy, I fix and release. If not, I snuff them. Like everybody said here, if they're not fixed, they become overpopulated and unhealthy. If I didn't have any, new sick nasty unfixed cats would take over.
2 Airedales to the groomer this am. My hands and shoulders just hurt too bad to clip them myself when I let them get narly. Conned DH into fetching them this pm!
Stray Husky went home first thing this am! She'd been missing almost 2 weeks! The poor gal had put up fliers and was checking the pound every couple days. She was so happy! Dog was 3 miles from home.
There's my story, hope I'm not dropping this in the middle of deep meaningful conversations!
They are similar to lady bugs - but they are larger, a different shade of orange, have more spots and are aggressive. From what I can find they bite rather than sting, which is almost better since at least it stops hurting as soon as you smack them off of you rather than a sting that keeps going. It's getting dark or I'd go get a picture of the barn, but this is a good representation of what it's like out there right now:
