Tabby Time!

Every year, we seem to have a predominance of one color or another of kittens. We aren't sure why, but it really does happen.

Some years it seems all we get are black or black and white kittens. Very few of other colors turn up, and it isn't easy to find homes for them all.

Occasionally we will have a calico year. No trouble at all.

This year seems to be the tabby year. Of the 12 kittens we have right now, 8 are tabbies.

It's not the best picture, but can you spot the 8 tabbies?

Don't ask what we went through to get them all on one blanket at the same time. They kept getting distracted and running off and it was funny mayhem for a few minutes.

Dinner time with a dozen of them is also mayhem.

Later i will try to have pictures of all of them gathered around my feet, begging, some climbing my clothes. Ah, the joys of being mommy.


Today is

Environmental Protection Day -- anniversary of the 1962 publication of Silent Spring

Fast and Prayer Day -- Liberia

Feast of Rotten Endings -- because some stories just don't end well

Festival of Libertas -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Jupiter Victor and Jupiter Libertas)

Good Friday/Holy Friday -- Orthodox Christians following the Julian Calendar

Holiday in Dixie -- Shreveport and Bossier City, Louisiana, US (ten days celebrating the Louisiana Purchase and what it meant to the US)

Huguenot Day -- Huguenot Society of the US

International Plant Appreciation Day

International Special Librarians' Day

Mennonite Relief Sale -- Hutchinson, Kansas, US (Mennonite, Bretheren in Christ, and Amish congregations from all across the area auction quilts, grandfather clocks, furniture, tools and crafts to raise money for hunger relief worldwide, through tomorrow)

National Peach Cobbler Day

Ozark UFO Conference -- Eureka Springs, Arkansas, US (experts -?- from around the world meet to exchange the latest info on UFOs; through Sunday)

Poshui Jie -- Jinghong, China (Water Splashing Festival; through the 15th)

Scrabble Day -- anniversary of the 1899 birth of its inventor, Alfred Mosher Butts

Songkran Festival / Chiang Mai Songkran / Tamil New Year -- Bangladesh; Cambodia; India; Laos; Myanmar; Nepal; Singapore; Sri Lanka; Thailand (new year festival, celebrated when the sun enters the zodiac sign of Aries)

Squashing of Moonhopper Day -- Fairy Calendar

St. Hermengild's Day (Patron of converts; against drought, flood, and thunderstorms)

Thomas Jefferson Day -- US

U.S. Elephant Day -- marking the arrival of the first elephant in the US in 1796

Vaisaki -- Sikh



Birthdays Today:

Jonathan Brandis, 1976
Rick Schroder, 1970
Garry Kasparov, 1963
Max Weinberg, 1951
Al Green, 1946
Tony Dow, 1945
Lowell George, 1945
Jack Casady, 1944
Lyle Waggoner, 1935
Don Adams, 1926
Howard Keel, 1919
Eudora Welty, 1909
Samuel Beckett, 1906
Butch Cassidy, 1866
F.W. Woolworth, 1852
Thomas Jefferson, 1743
Guy Fawkes, 1570


Today in History:

The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt with the capture of Louis IX of France, 1250
Henry IV of France signs the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of religion and political rights to Huguenots (French Protestants), 1598
John Dryden, age 36, becomes the first English Poet Laureate, 1668
George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world-premiere in Dublin, Ireland, 1742
The first elephant seen in the Western Hemisphere arrives from India, 1796
The British Parliament grants religious freedom to Roman Catholics, 1829
Hungary becomes a republic, 1849
The first US Pony Express run is completed, 1860
George Westinghouse patents a steam powered brake, 1869
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded, 1870
J.C. (James Cash) Penney opens his first store, 1902
British troops fire on unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, India, killing at least 379 and wounding over 1,200 more, 1919
Helen Hamilton becomes the first woman US Civil Service Commissioner, 1920
Lord Clydesdale makes the first flight over Mt. Everest, 1933
The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated on the 200th anniversary of his birth, in Washington, D.C., 1943
Van Cliburn becomes the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, 1958
Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American male to win the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field, 1963
An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon, 1970
The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan, 1972
Western Union (in cooperation with NASA and Hughes Aircraft) launches the United States' first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1, 1974
Portugal and the People's Republic of China sign an agreement in which Macau would be returned to China in 1999, 1987
Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament, 1997
Former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak and sons, Alaa and Gamal, are detained for 15 days of questioning regarding charges of corruption and abuse of power, 2011