Loadshedding

Special request to all the peoples that drives on road. Some peoples said free for all, but now they took the electricity. So for nows spietkops not have aircons. Robots does not have generators. Peoples working with their fones, we can not tells them, peoples that can not drive. Now we can not uses the road. Use donkeys or horse and karre. After election they will give free to all. You use car then. Please, you must feed donkey or horse, do not fill up with petrol. You use da dog so you do not speed, and the cat to control the airconYou just wait for election then everything will be OK.

Cat Myths

We all think we know our cats. They are often portrayed as wily, self-interested creatures that do precisely what they feel like doing. But cats are no more self-interested than any other animal – evolution quickly sidelines those who don’t look out for themselves. And in fact, recent discoveries by molecular geneticists, veterinary scientists and animal behaviourists have overturned much of what we thought we knew about this familiar animal. So, if you think your cat is a calculating mind-reader beyond your control, you’re in for a surprise…

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Myth #1: Milk makes an ideal food for cats

The traditional image of a contented cat lapping from a bowl of milk is a misleading one. Cats are very fond of cream, which they value for its high fat content, and so they are especially attracted to milk that has come straight from the cow, especially after the cream has been allowed to rise to the top. However, the milk we now buy in supermarkets contains little fat, and while some cats may like it for its taste, many do not find it easy to digest.

Cats would prefer it if you gave them a sardine rather than indigestible milk

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Myth #2: Cats can’t be trained

The surprising truth is that cats are just as good at learning as dogs are, so it should be possible to train them, although few people do. Partly this is because the cat’s traditional function, hunting and killing vermin, comes naturally to them, and they are actually more successful at this when left to their own devices. Untrained dogs, on the other hand, are more of a hindrance than a help.

However, the fundamental difference behind the two species is not in how good they are at learning, but in what motivates them to learn. Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are unique in that they find human attention rewarding in its own right. They focus almost obsessively on what their trainers are doing. It means their behaviour can be shaped by following a desired behaviour with a pat on the head, say, or ignoring them when they do something else instead. Dogs can, of course, also be trained using food as a reward, but for most cats (Felis catus), this is the only reward that will work consistently. Indeed, the easiest trick to train a cat to perform is to ‘beg’ for its food, as countless YouTube videos attest.

To train a cat requires a great deal more patience and perseverance than for a dog. This is because most cats only attend to people when they need something specific, while dogs do this all the time. They first have to be taught that there will be a payoff for paying attention, specifically a tasty prawn or morsel of chicken breast. Training sessions need to be kept short to begin with, since cats will walk away as soon as they get bored, and any attempt to drag the cat back to the training area will make it less likely to learn.

Training can be a valuable way of improving the cat’s wellbeing at the same time as making life easier for the owner. For instance, a trip to the vet can be something of a trial. But if the cat has been trained beforehand that going in and out of its carrier is fun, and that the carrier itself is a safe and comfortable place to be, the whole process can be completed with a great deal less stress.

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Myth #3: Curiosity killed the cat

This old saying implies that cats are so inquisitive that they regularly put themselves at risk, but in fact very few cats act like this. They do indeed vary in how inquisitive they are – a few are bold enough to approach novel situations, but most are generally much more circumspect, choosing instead to inspect anything unfamiliar from a safe distance. Biologists now consider that character traits like these are akin to human personalities and are common to many animals, not just cats.

It seems that when resources such as food are scarce, bold animals do better than timid ones because they get to eat first. However, being timid when approaching food also means that an animal is less likely to end up as a meal for a predator. This is how both personality types persist in a species.

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ats are no more curious than other animals – in fact the saying should be ‘stress killed the cat’

So if the saying isn’t true, how did it arise? It turns out that the original form of the saying, first recorded in the 16th Century, was ‘care killed the cat’ – care in the sense of worry or stress. Quite why this was then considered notable is unclear, but veterinary science is now rediscovering the truth behind it. Many of today’s pet cats suffer from stress-related illnesses such as cystitis and dermatitis, and recent research has shown that antagonistic relationships between cats are a major, perhaps the major, contribution to many episodes of these illnesses.

Stress can arise between cats in the same house, where the owner has unwittingly selected two that do not get along, or between cats in neighbouring houses fighting over a boundary between their respective territories. Cats lack the sophisticated analysis of body-language that enables dogs to resolve such differences and can live in a state of conflict for months, even years, on end. A typical example of this was shown on the BBC Horizon programme The Secret Life Of The Cat, where two of the cats, Kato and Phoebe, living in houses opposite to each other across the street, were still disputing ‘ownership’ of the gardens between.

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Myth #4: Cats are domesticated animals

Cats with pedigrees – Persians, Siamese, Russian Blues and Maine Coons, to name but a few – fit the biologist’s criteria for a fully domesticated animal. Their owners control their breeding, feeding and care, just as with pedigree dogs, or for that matter, pigs and cattle.

However, most cats in Britain are ‘moggies’, not pedigree animals. Their mothers were probably pets, but when the mating season came around (usually January or February), they would have disappeared out through their cat-flaps and actively sought the attentions of as many males – tomcats – as they could find. It’s possible that one or two of those toms might have been pets themselves, but nowadays most owners have their male cats neutered to prevent them from roaming. This means that many of them would have been ferals, un-owned cats that live on their wits, and are extremely wary of people.

Each female, or ‘queen’, then observes the selection of tomcats she has attracted over a period of several hours, even as long as a couple of days, before selecting one or two which she allows to mate – something that would not be allowed by the owner of a fully domesticated animal. This behaviour has changed little during the course of domestication, confirming that moggies, at least, are still not fully domesticated animals.

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t’s not hard to figure out what your cat is thinking: more cat food probably

It’s not clear whether or not cats reach even this level of sophistication: descended from a territorial species that had only limited opportunities for interaction with members of its own kind, it is unlikely that cats’ brains would have evolved such an ability. So when your cat is looking at you, it will certainly be paying attention to you, but it’s unlikely to be pondering whether you’re thinking back, never mind reading your thoughts.

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Myth #6: A dog’s sense of smell is more sensitive than a cat’s

Gun dogs can pick up odours at concentrations 10,000 to 100,000 times lower than our relatively insensitive noses can. Cats, with their smaller noses, can only beat us by a factor of between 1,000 and 10,000. So in one respect, dogs do have a better sense of smell than cats.

But unlike humans, cats and dogs possess another olfactory sense – a second ‘nose’ that lies between the roof of their mouths and their nostrils. And cats beat dogs paws down in the resolving power of this second chemical sense.

The second ‘nose’, known as the vomeronasal or Jacobson’s organ, consists of a pair of fluid-filled tubes, each with one opening in the nostrils and the other just behind the incisor teeth. About halfway down, each tube connects with a pouch that contains a sense organ. To reach this organ, odours have to first be dissolved in saliva and then pumped up into the pouch, producing sensations that must lie somewhere between smell and taste. The vomeronasal organ (VNO) even has its own area of the brain, the accessory olfactory bulb, where the information it produces can be processed separately from that generated by the nose proper.

Cats have a bigger range of receptors in their VNOs than dogs do (30 versus 9). Moreover, while dogs do not give any obvious indication that they are using their VNOs, cats do: they pull their top lip upwards, exposing their top teeth – and presumably also opening up the VNO ducts – in a grimace that looks rather fierce. This facial contortion, perhaps because we only discovered its significance quite recently, does not even have an English word to describe it. Biologists refer to it by its German name ‘Flehmen’.

Cats’ VNOs are probably more discriminating than dogs’ because they were originally solitary animals and so had to rely on scent marks to communicate with one another. When cats perform Flehmen, they have almost always just sniffed a scent-mark left by another cat, so they are presumably using their VNOs to get more detailed information about whoever left that mark. We caught many examples of this on the night-vision cameras deployed around Shamley Green, the Surrey village chosen for the BBC programme The Secret Life Of The Cat.

Research has yet to reveal the full extent of their vomeronasal organ’s abilities. But we do know that cats can identify other individuals from their scent marks if they’ve met them before and that even if they haven’t, they can tell the sex and reproductive state of the cat that left its mark.

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Myth #7: Domestic cats can be traced back to ancient Egypt, about 4,000 years ago

It’s still true that this is where and when the earliest pet cats are placed by the archaeological evidence, but recent research into our pet cats’ DNA has extended this story back another 5,000 years or so.

Dr Carlos Driscoll and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, examined the mitochondrial DNA of hundreds of pet and wild cats. He concluded that the domestic cat and its wild counterpart, the Arabian wildcat Felis silvestris lybica, diverged not 4,000 but 10,000 years ago. Subsequently, domestic cats spread from their point of origin throughout the Middle East and North Africa. They occasionally interbred with wildcats, all the while becoming progressively more distinct from them, especially in their ability to be tamed.

Precisely where that point of origin was is still uncertain: the DNA of today’s wildcats from that place should be very similar to that of pet cats worldwide, but given the current political turmoil in the region, it has not yet proved possible to collect enough samples to pinpoint the location with any degree of certainty.

So, rather than a single and rather abrupt domestication event in Egypt, it seems that the domestic cat gradually evolved from the wildcat, over a period of several thousand years. Over time it became progressively more pet-like, while retaining the hunting ability that made it invaluable in keeping foodstores free from rats and mice.

#catmyths #feitekatte #funfacts #katte

This extract came from BBC Focus magazine

Sjopnat

My jitte Kieter Katers,

Onse soorte hou mos nou nie van water nie. Ek en ander maakies en Mamma bly nou reets in die Kalahari sodat die reen nie baie vir ons kan pla nie. Ek en my maakies kry nie warem nie, ons slaap sommer by sukke ding wat saggies asemhaal en ons lekkerrrr koel blaas.

Maar die proebleem is dit reen nou hierso buite. As dit mos hierso reen dan spoel alles tot by 3 jaar terug weg. Die honne haeloop op en af in die huis en kef my kop somper seer. Dis net te erg vir 'n kiets se senuwese. Mamma moet gaan kyk of die visse in die dam nie verdrink het of in die pat afspoel nie.  Partykere swem hulle sommer in die akkerkie langs die dam. So verspot!  Dan moet Mamma hulle eers weer teruggooi.

Alles is nou nat nat nat. Dit het vreeslik geraas buite. Dit klink of iemant die wolke kwaat gemaak het. O jinne, hulle gooi somme sukke tantrums laat die bliksemstrale slaat.

Ek is regtig nou nie lus vir hierie storie nie. Ek gaan agter Mamma se kussings le en slaap, behalwe as die wolke nog so vir mekaar skree.

Ek hoop julle kietsies is darem droog

Toodles
Kiets

Die almanak kondig Maart herfs amptelik aan. Die temperatuur het egter nog nie die nota gekry nie. Die somerreënvalgebiede se reënwolkies is nog suinig om hul balies vol water te kom uitgooi. Iewers van daar tot hier, hoor ons hoe van die stouters se balies mors oppad hierheen. Steeds is die natuur so dankbaar vir elke druppel water.

Soos wat die seisoen stadig maar seker verander, en die winter ‘n deel van die land asvaal en ‘n ander spierwit los, breek hier ‘n tyd vol kleur van geel, oranje en rooi uit. Soos wat die bome hul blare afskud, die grassies hulle blare bêre, maak hulle hulself reg vir ‘n tyd van rus en hernuwing. Rose en wingerde word gesnoei, gras word gesny om al die ou los gras “op te tel”. Die wind kom blaas met bol wange die lente aan met sy verfrissende persoonlikheid. Sagte reën val, stjie stjie hoor jy die die die opgewonde spreiers vroeg oggend. Buite bars alles weer uit hul nate vol nuwe lewe. ‘n Seisoen waar bloeisels vrugte word, roosknoppies word bosse rose.

So baie kan ons uit die natuur leer. Ons moet ook ons self kans gee om die gisters daar te los, om jouself te vergewe, ander te vergewe, jouself kans te gee om seer in jou lewe gesond te maak. Vir vandag te lewe, die mooi in elke dag te sien. Die blomme te ruik, die voeltjies te hoor, jou koffie te proe, na ‘n kind te te luister, vir iemand te glimlag. As more vir jou gegun word, kan jy met nuwe krag en lewenslus die dag aanpak.

Mag elke seisoen in jou lewe geseend wees, al het jy 4 seisoene in elke dag. Rus veilig by Jesus voete elke nag en mag jy soggens saggies wakker word met die geritsel van engel vlerke wat oor jou gewaak het. Leef in die wete dat jy spesiaal gemaak is, dat jy uniek gemaak is. Dat jy JY is. Jy is niemand anders en niemand anders is jy nie.

Sussa goete se koeksoooda

Julle mense tannies!  Is ek nou somper moedeloos!

Sussa goete het mos nou besluit sy trou met boyfriend goete, maar storiekies moet ek so biekie biekie vertel, want dis vreeeeeslik baie.

Nou wil Mamma net hierie huis skoonmaak. Mure was, vensters was, ons beddens is sommer uitgeskud en gewas. Askies julle, kom ons maak gou bietjie skoon, kom le maar so biekie op Mamma se stoel. Alla mapstieks! 'n Kiets kan ook mos net soveel vat. Hele tyd op en af, heen en weer, Mamma dan Rose, Rose dan Mamma en Grace kom sommer ok.

O goeie aarde tannietjies, ek weet nie hoe my nerwe hierdie besigheid gaan hou nie. Dis te aller verskriklik.

Al wat Pappa heeltyd se - alles is net vol kathare - kathare is orals. Uhh? Maak hy dan nie ok vuil nie. Kom loop met sy vuil mynskoene op Mamma se skoon vloere. En daai badkamer!! Bloedrooi van die myn stof!!

Dis waar my storiekie van vanaand vandaan kom. Mamma het nou al so gekerm en gekla dat my ore nie meer kan hou, ek het al my pootjies bo oor my twee oorkies gesit, van al die gepraat oor daaai badkamer.

Toe kom Sussa hier aand, sy maak sukke goete aan, wat mens in sukke blou spuitbottel gooi, dan spuit jy nou daaai goete waar dit vuil is. Toe gaan Mamma en sy koop dit wraggies waar.

Toe Sussa en Boyfriend goete hier kom eet vanaand, sal Sussa nou nie so wraggies sommer daai goete aanmaak en aanspuit om vir Pappa te wys dit werk nie!! Ek loop op en af in die gang en ajiesh my asempies uit.

Ek le nou maar hier op my stoel met die kombers en kyk teevee. My senuwese kan ok nie soveel vat.

Ek sal maar more weer met julle tannies praat. Ek het nou eers 'n hoofpyntjie

Toodles

Kietsie

My nuwe bladsykie

Hallo tannietjies

Ekke het soo biekie lankerig terug my storie goete hierop gesit. Maar nou is dit weer tyd.

Ek het nou slim geleer van blog, en het nou my eie bladsytjie. Kom kuier vir my by https://kietsiestories.blogspot.com Dan sit jy jou pootjie op view my profile - dan maak al my storietjies oop

Julle moet nou julle pootjies vat en by google ingaan dan daai kietsie goete intik dan is daar sommer klaar 'n storie!! Kom kuier maar so bietjie saam toe?

Ekke gaan sommer sukke lawwe storiekies daarop sit

Toodles
Kietsie

11/03/2019
Haalloo Julle tannietjies Julle tannies moet nou mooi daai brille opsit en so julle koppe so bietjie agteroor sit om te lees, hoor? Da wa julle mos nou 'n klikkie maak op die blou goete hierbo, moet julle tannetpies view profile - dan is daar klaar storiekies op wat ek geskryf het. Daar is ene van gister wa sussa goeta allie goeta met sukke anne goete skoonmaak.

Toodles

#Lag #Snaaks #Grappies #Stories

Ai toggie, die prenkies breek

Hallo tampetjies en katterkies

Ek het mos nou laaste vir julle 'n storietjie vertel, maar toe gebeur daar ietsie daar by die ding waar die prenkies uitkom, en toe vat ek maar my 4 voekies en loop saggies weg en gaan slaap in die boom.

Nou, toe is daar moeilikgeite, daai prenkies het deurmekaar geraak en toe breek die venster ding. Mamma noem dit so googga ding. O jaaaa google Toe bel sy sukke oompie om die prenkies weer te kom plak, en dat ek weer met julle tanniekies kan praat.

Maar toe spring daar 'n anner moeilikgeit uit die kas uit. Die gompies het gewerk want die prentkies werk nou weer maar daar sukke swart simpel ding langs die rekenaarpie en toe die prenkies nie werk nie, toe skop ek hom net da af. Dan kan mamma dink dit was sy skuld.

Gatta patta tannies, mamma het geweet dit was hy, want hy het so weggekruip dat mamma hom nie gekry het nie.

Maar toe werk die prenkies en ek kan nie met my maaikies kyer op facebook nie. Toe skop ek daai simpel sommer net daar uit onder die kas.

Nou werkpies alles weer en ek kan darem nou weer hier tikker terwyl mamma werpk.

Ek sal rerig nou eers moet gaan, ek werk te hard en is so verskriklik honger en moeg - seker halfuur laas geeet en van slaap nie gepraat nie!! En dit net om te vertel van die prenkies

Toodles
Kietsie
#lag

Aggg Maandag

Hallo allie mense Tannies en Kietsies.

Ekka voel ok somme so, Rose maak vandag skoon, my armpe bed moet alwe skoongemaak word. Dink hulle ek kan so baie opstaan?

Kiets