In The City

The weather decided to be kind to us these past 3 days to make up for all the crap of the past 2 weeks, I guess.  So, I decided that a day out on the town was in order and there were a number of errands I needed to run that could only be done in the "big city".
I started my journey by stopping off at my favorite sushi place to get fueled up for the day.  This is a seafood roll and very, very yummy.  I made a couple other stops in the general area and then headed to downtown Birmingham.

Birmingham is actually a very nice little town.  Lots and lots of great restaurants, a new baseball stadium, parks and other attractions.  My stop here was the downtown recycling center to drop off some old computer parts, batteries, plastic and shoes.  They recycle practically anything there and are very nice and helpful.  The center is also right off the interstate and in between two of the places I sell my pottery so it's pretty convenient for me when I come into town.
I stopped off next at a really cool coffee house that sells my mugs and was pleased to see they owed me a check!

From there I went to the larger store (pictures above) that sells the majority of my pottery and dropped off a few new pieces.  This store is actually in a suburb of Birmingham and it's a very nice, kinda upscale area.  My pottery is on some shelves underneath the "Alabama Made Pottery" sign but you can't see it very well in this shot.  If I can build my inventory up quite a bit the owner wants to put me back out on one of the center table displays.
I did a little window shopping in the area at some other stores and just generally enjoyed being outside.  Then I headed over to the real pricey side of town to pick up a few things at Whole Foods.  (I only buy anything if it is on sale!) Coming out of there I realized I locked my keys in my truck!  Dang it!  Luckily, I learned years ago to keep a magnetic key holder with an extra stuck to the underside of the chassis, so I was back in my truck in a couple of minutes.
Things went better after that and I went on back in the direction of home but stopped at several places on the way.  I got a new tank top and socks for the gym and perused the big book store for quite a while.
So, overall it was a real nice day.  I probably should have been working in the garden but I needed a day out something fierce.  I'll explain more about that in a later post.

One other thing I wanted to post was a question that a longtime reader had and hoped that another one of you might have an idea of how to solve his dilemma.  Here is the comment he left for me:

I am hoping to tap into your knowledge (or the brains of all the people reading your blog), to see if I can find a humane cat deterrent for our yard. 
This winter in Toronto has been very harsh, and we have had many feral (and local outdoor cats) getting into our very well fenced yard. We have lost chickens and seen many several wild birds that visit our feeders fall prey to cats.
Yesterday our beautiful mixed lab rescue dog Midnight, killed a local cat in our yard.
I had the unfortunate task of calling up the person (many blocks away I might add) that their cat, wearing a nameplate "Zach de Cat" with phone number (no bell on his neck) was gone. As we have had many coyotes in the area this frigid winter, I admit I did not reveal that I was pretty sure I well knew who was responsible for "de Cat"s demise. I wish no bad things on any animals, but cannot understand why people let their house cats roam freely. Sorry for the long comment, but I want to do what's best, and don't care to make Midnight's 2nd life one of a full time enforcer.

Now, I gave the suggestion of the Haveahart trap and garden hose technique that Florida Cracker uses but couldn't really come up with any other ideas at the time.  Anybody else have any ideas??  We also keep a lower pressure BB rifle and pistol handy for strays of all kinds.  A pop or two on dat ass will usually discourage any dog or cat from coming back.  Of course, you have to be present and actually see the varmit for this to work.  They do make very high pressure BB guns such as the .22 types but we avoid using that on anything but the most aggressive and large dogs, as you can actually kill a small animal with one.
So, anybody else have anything??