kitty kidney stones

Fred is an orange cat who began meowing loudly this morning.  His side buckled.  He would go into his litter box, but he couldn’t pee.  He seemed dizzy.  Then, he vomited twice.  He had kidney colic and was communicating his suffering.

By four in the afternoon, the vet said he had x-rayed Fred’s kidneys, and they had stones in them.  Fred must remain on a special diet for the remainder of his life.  He’s hooked up to an I-V.  I’m sure all he wants to do is climb a maple tree, but he has to pass a stone or two first.

Kidney colic in cats is a symptom of critical illness, because they can die within 24 hours if they cannot go pee.  If your cat has these types of symptoms, please make sure a veterinarian examines it.

Granola Basics

Preheat oven to 325F

Dry Ingredients:

• 3 cups  Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 cup    Unsalted nuts
• ¼ cup  Coconut chips or crumbled Graham crackers
• 1/3 cup  Dark brown sugar
• ½ Teaspoon of Cinnamon
• ½ Teaspoon of Salt
• 1  cup of dried fruit, such as raisins or cranberries
• ¼ cup Chocolate morsels

Wet ingredients:

• 1/3 cup of Extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup of honey
• ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix all the dry ingredients except for the dried fruit and chocolate, which you add after the granola cools.  Mix and stir the wet ingredients, making sure the vanilla extract bubbles are tiny and spread throughout the oil/honey blend.  While stirring, slowly pour the wet into the dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl. Once all the oats are covered with slick sweetness, gently pour onto parchment paper covering your baking sheet.  Spread out and pat down your granola toward all corners, so that the granola isn’t stacked in the center.  Bake for 17 minutes.  Allow the baked granola to cool for 10 minutes on the stove top. Once the pan is cool, add the dried fruit and chocolate nibs to the top of the granola.  Break up the clumps while filling a storage container with your granola.  Keep the storage container in the refrigerator, since you aren’t adding preservatives.

homemade granola from scratch

Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels

The most important skill in digital art is layering.  In GIMP, you layer by following these basic steps:

Close all windows except the GIMP tool box and active image window.

Open the Layers Dialog box from the active image window: Windows>>Dockable Dialogs>>Layers.

When you select a layer in the Layers Dialog box that layer comes to the top of the image window.

Clicking the Up Arrow in the Layers Dialog box changes the layer number of the selected layer.