Simon Teakettle Ink

10/10/2020

10/10/2020

We're often asked why the website is named SimonTeakettle.com. To understand you need to read about the first simonteakettle, a black cat Bobbi adopted from a "free to good home ad" in the Ottawa Citizen.
His story includes becoming a famous broadcaster and writer, who lived to 17 and was immortalized by Simon II in the calendar centrefold (below) which also became a pull-out poster in Mewsings/Musings, co-written by Simon I and II and Bobbi..
Simon III *aka Terzo" took over in 2006, started the Mewsical Society and the Fan Club, which now numbers 186 different species.

07/18/2020

Facebook needs to do more than just change how the site looks to improve their credibility. I want to repeat what I said last month: To our website, where I post weekly to my blog (you can click on it from the Home Page) and add regularly to the Fan page and all the Facts pages. I just added some Cat Facts to the blog this week.

Meanwhile, we're not using any social media much any more. Just look at how Twitter accounts of so many prominent people were hacked last week!

06/14/2020

We're not happy about how FaceBook handles our posts, inserting ads that have no relevance, etc.

But I do urge all of you to go our website, where I post weekly to my blog (you can click on it from the Home Page) and add regularly to the Fan page and all the Facts pages. I just added some Cat Facts to the blog this week.

05/09/2020

May is Be Kind to Animals Month, and May 15 is Hug Your Cat Day.

I actually don't like to be hugged, but prefer to cuddle on my own terms! I talk about my favorite toys, a tiny teddy bear and a hamster, which I DO like to hug!

03/29/2020

Our friends, Bob & Janet Barclay, have just arrived home from Australia, the last stop on a world tour. We've taken many of the great photos from their travel blog for the Fan page, allowing us to add several new species including a platypus, a Masked Lapwing, rainbow lorrikeets, and a kookaburra.

02/09/2020

Friends are traveling around the world, and just sent us photos from the Himalayan zoological park in India. These include a couple of new species for the Fan Club, including a Himalayan gora, blue sheep, and a barking deer. See them at: https://SimonTeakettle.com/fan.htm.

01/26/2020

Happy Chinese New Year! I'm a Wood Dog, whose qualities I've outlined in my blog this week. Go to: https://SimonTeakettle.com/blogsimont.htm to keep up with what's going on here. Next week we'll be celebrating my sixth birthday (and five years since my adoption).

01/12/2020

We always start the new year with a new blog, adding the last few posts from the end of December to the bottom. As we begin a new decade, it might be a good idea to mention how this blog began. It was Terzo's idea, and he began the blog in 2006, continuing until his untimely death.

I then took over, but accepted the responsibility to adhere to Simon Teakettle Ink standards. That means we promote responsible cat ownership, recommend Bobbi's article on training, and provide free information and links to anyone who cares for or about cats.

We maintain the Fan Club, which currently has photos of more than 180 species from 57 countries, all taken by real people that we know, not lifted from internet sites. This is our way to promote the preservation of endangered species as well as working animals and pets who offer love and comfort to the public.

Do check out the links, including the one to Cat Facts. We also maintain many other pages of fascinating facts about history, inventions, culture, and even food. Start at the main Facts page and click on links from there.

As I write this, it's snowing, and as soon as I turn this over to Bobbi to do whatever she does to put it on the web (I'm not tech-savvy!), I'll go back to my nap. After all, this blog is called "Between Naps."

12/10/2019

If you check our Facts pages frequently, you'll notice that the page we add to most often is Animal Facts. We keep discovering new things about how intelligent birds are, and how sensitive and compassionate elephants can be. Bobbi gathers info for these pages from a variety of sources, including the National Geographic newsletter, the CBS program Innovation Nation, and others. If you go to the main Facts page at https://SimonTeakettle.com/facts.htm, you'll be able to click on links to all the other pages.

11/23/2019

Mewsings/Musings is one of the books on the Ottawa Independent Writers' table at the Ottawa Book Fair this weekend. Meanwhile, we just sent copies to Sandy Lake for the Meekis family and the school library.

Here's the fabulous theatre billboard Bobbi created using PhotoFunia.com

11/16/2019

Did you know that the New York City Ballet has a shoe budget of $780,000? The dancers go through 500 to 800 pairs of pointe shoes performing The Nutcracker over 6 weeks, and use up even more pairs in 2 weeks performing Swan Lake. This is the kind of fact we collect for our various Facts pages. There are links to different categories of facts from the main page: https://SimonTeakettle.com/facts.htm

11/03/2019

David Lennick, who hosted various CBC radio programs for nine years, is also an actor and record producer. He was the first to feature Simon Teakettle on the CBC, paving the way for Simon to be "interviewed" or mentioned on a wide variety of programs, including Basic Black, Gabereau, Morningside, Disk Drive, Cross Words, The Radio Show, and R.S.V.P.
On Lennick's popular midnight program, Night Camp, it became a tradition to phone Simon on the Hallowe'en show. David sent us a copy of the script for the show broadcast on Oct. 31, 1986, which you can hear at:
https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZokK8kZBrbbtYgclwRbNODvyf80VzKLJqg7
The interview is about 40 minutes into the show, after the long rendition of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The interview runs about six minutes. It was completely unscripted and unrehearsed.

Store, share and listen to music with pCloud. Access on any device. Create a free account now!

10/22/2019

We've having a beautiful fall in this region, with the height of fall color over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Just posted two pics to the Fan Club at https://SimonTeakettle.com/fan.htm
Both from writer/photographer friend Steve Pitt. One is of a nuthatch taking peanuts from Steve's hand, the other of Canada geese flying over the lake in front of his home.
The Fan Club has more than 180 species from 57 countries.

09/22/2019

There are new statistics about habitatt loss and degradation being the major reasons behind an alarming decline in bird population. Grassland birds have suffered more than those in other habitats as wild prairie has been converted into agricultural land, invaded by non-native plants, and flooded with harmful pesticides, 700 million local birds have disappeared, and three-quarters of bird species are going downhill. There are other dangers, such as pesticide use, the disappearance of insect prey, or climate change.

But domestic cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds every year. Window collisions claim 600 million bird lives a year, vehicles take out 214 million, power lines are responsible for killing 32 million, and the lights of industrial towers fatally distract about 6 million.

Cats need to be kept indoors and walked only on leashes!

08/03/2019

August 8 is World Cat Day. If you're planning to see the new movie version of The Lion KIng, you might want to read why Craig Saffoe, curator of great cats at Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, says this depiction of a lion family is inaccurate. Read more about this on our Cat Facts page: https://SimonTeakettle.com/catfacts.htm

June is Adopt a Shelter Cat month; November is Adopt a Senior Pet month; September is Happy Cat Month;August 17 is Black Cat Appreciation Day; January 14 is Dress Up Your Pet Day;February 20 is National Cat Day; March 3 is If Cats Had Opposable Thumbs Day;  April 11 is Pet Day. 

07/06/2019

Here I am selecting a pen to use when I make notes for my blog. We added a 57th country (Portugal) this month, along with several new species, including an Indigo Bunting, a : Baltimore Oriole, Old World Sparrow, sei whale, and dolphin. We now have over 180 species, many exotic, all photographed by friends.

06/23/2019

Penny added several photos to her blog this month. Here are a few: A set of coasters a friend had made for us, which depict Simon I, Tiki, Terzo, and Penny, and Penny with Bobbi's collection of old pennies.