Its covered in cling film

You just had to know I would not be able to leave them alone.

All straight now, no chance of a leak.

I hope Arrona doesn't mind.

no not at all! I am not what you would call david bailey, took it while driving past in a hurry.
going to scotland tomorrow and wanted to take some pictures with me

these are from the Cranberry Festival in Bala, Muskoka Lakes, yesterday. Bala is apparently the cranberry capital of Ontario.

Noticed in your photos you have a cat. Interested to know if you keep it indoors or are they ok to let out. As there is a lot of wild life which may take a fancy to it. Like to know as we have a cat and the children are keen for us to take it, but i am a bit unsure as it may wonder out to explore and not be seen again. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks jim

We have four cats. We don't explicitly keep them in. One rarely ventures out, two go out for most of the day and usually return at night, one disappears to the barn for days on end and then returns. One, the barn dweller, came with us from the city in February 2007, one joined us maybe a year ago, two (pictured) were born in our house maybe eleven months ago. We haven't lost a cat yet but we very often hear coyotes yipping, they're eating something.

My feeling is that, where we are, there's a small risk of losing a cat to predators but being locked in isn't much of a life for a cat so we let them out. It's probably the same degree of risk as letting a cat out in the city though the risk itself, predator vs. car, is different.

We have 2 cats. One is an English cat who is used to going outside and gets miserable if she is kept indoors. We think the choice is between the cat having a short happy life if eaten by predators and a long miserable life cooped up indoors. She goes out during the day and recently went camping for 50 hours all by herself. The other cat is Canadian, a brother of the 2 in the picture. He is basically a happy cat who I think would be OK indoors all the time as long as he has company, but because the other one goes out so does he.

We are moving to the edge of a village soon so they will be even more outdoorsy, but kept in from before dusk. We will be able to have a cat flap there so they can get back into the house.

Friends who live in the countryside have lost a few cats to coyotes, but they still let their other cats out. On balance it's nature isnt it. Sad but true.

Here's an old one of mine from 2003.

It's currently on the CBC Calgary website.

Ahhh, now I get the Hangman references....

No relation...honest.

I see it's now changed to picture number three.

Aren't you concerned about the flap letting other animals in and perhaps being a source of draughts?

No, the reason we can have one is that we will have a sunroom that isnt part of the main house. So they can get into there, but not get out again. Also looking into the catflaps with chips that only allow your cat in, they tend not to work if the cat has a chipmunk/mouse/snake hanging from its gob.

There will be odd creatures that will get into that room, but him indoors can deal with them. When boss cat went missing last week we wondered if she might have been back sooner if she could have got in, ie every time she came home there was no one in to let her in.

Thats our plan, which wont happen till the spring now anyway.

Ideal. One day we'll have such a thing.

Coyotes, how big are they? Do they attack or are they considered harmless, we have 2 young girls, would like to now if there are any potential dangers towards them if they are playing in the woods or going for a walk, infact even to ourselves?