D-Day. Normandy, What Have We Learned? Dogs Dining! Amino Acids. Kitten #2. Cargo Trailer.

"A great invasion force stood off the Normandy coast of France as dawn broke on 6 June 1944: 9 battleships, 23 cruisers, 104 destroyers, and 71 large landing craft of various descriptions as well as troop transports, mine sweepers, and merchantmen in all, nearly 5,000 ships of every type, the largest armada ever assembled."

More at: http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/normandy/nor-pam.htm

"The story of how almost 900 warships; from the U.S, British, Canadian, Free French, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Greek navies; and almost 4,100 other craft ranging in size from ocean liners to fishing boats; came to be in the Channel supporting the final push into Hitler’s Fortress Europe, is in fact illustrative of how the Allies won the war.

"One German officer purportedly said, in disbelief, "It's impossible ... there can't be that many ships in the world."

 

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The Normandy Invasion:   http://worldwar2database.com/html/normandy.htm

Also called D-Day:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

(We went to school in London, and I remember that day.   It was the only day my friend and I played hooky. The skies were full of planes going south, but we had no idea what was going on.)

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What Have We Learned?   A commentary by Darris McNeely

This week marks the 67th anniversary of the Normandy landings by Allied troops.

"I have a ritual every year on Memorial Day. I pop into my VCR an animated Peanuts special entitled, "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown"? It's a program that takes the beloved Peanuts characters through a tour of famous European battlegrounds. Their tour includes a visit to Flanders Field from World War I where, according to the poem, "the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row."
The words of this haunting poem continue, "We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields."

"Sadly, mankind did not learn the lesson from this "War to End All Wars." Only 21 years later, the world plunged into another global war. The Peanuts characters move on to the scene of another great battle of that conflict—Normandy, where allied troops stormed the French beaches to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi control.

"As the camera looks over the calm white beaches and rocky cliffs, scenes from the invasion are superimposed. The characters visit the American cemetery where thousands of young soldiers are buried. This plot of land was permanently deeded to America by the French government. As the characters walk among the graves, the words of Dwight Eisenhower, who commanded the allied forces that June morning, serve as a fitting testimony to the action.

"Eisenhower had returned to Normandy 20 years after the invasion and recorded a documentary for American television.

He said: "Many thousands of men came here to storm these beaches for one purpose only. Not to gain anything. Not to fulfill any ambitions that America had for conquest. But just to preserve freedom, systems of self-government. Many thousands of men have died for ideals such as these. In the 20th century, for the second time, America, along with the rest of the free world, had to come across the ocean to defend those same values.
"But these young boys . . . over whose graves we have been treading . . . contemplating their sacrifices . . . They never knew the great experiences of going through life. I devoutly hope that we never again have to see scenes as these. I pray, think, hope that humanity will have learned more than we learned up to that time. We must find some way to work for peace and . . . gain an eternal peace."

"My father landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach as a combat engineer. He survived while many of his buddies died on the beach. One of his friends, from his hometown, was shot in the legs and carried onto the beach by my father. Years later I would hear him say that he did not wish to see any young man have to go through the experience of war as he did. For this veteran, war was a life-altering experience. It was one he would have rather not gone through.

"What have we learned? Not enough to bring peace among nations. Wars and conflicts continue to create new graves with the same echoes of unrealized hope.

 
We continue to look and wait with hope for the time when Jesus Christ will restore a government of peace upon the earth as described by the prophet Isaiah. It is his thoughts found in Isaiah:2:4(And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more). 

That offers us a different future. Those words state, ". . . Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.""

From http://el-paso.ucg.org/  or call 1-888-886-8632.

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Now On To Mammal Monday:

 

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Dogs and cats need 22 amino acids to be healthy.

"Dogs can synthesize (make) 12 of those 22; cats can synthesize 11 of them. The remaining amino acids must come from the food they eat, which is why they’re called ‘essential’ amino acids.

Pets get amino acids from the protein they eat. And the quality and quantity of protein is extremely important for carnivores – it’s the very foundation of their health.

Not All Protein is Created Equal

"Protein quality is extremely variable. There are highly assimilable and digestible proteins (proteins your pet’s body can easily absorb and make use of), and there are proteins that are wholly indigestible.

For example beaks, feet, hides, tails and snouts are 100 percent protein, but all 100 percent is indigestible.

All protein has a biologic value, which is its usable amino acid content. Eggs have the highest biologic value at 100 percent. Fish is a close second at 92 percent. Feathers, as you might guess, have zero biologic value. They are all protein, but they are neither digestible nor assimilable.

Now there are some foods high in protein that are not species-appropriate for dogs and cats. Soy is a good example, with a biologic value of 67 percent. Many popular pet foods contain soy as a protein source, as well as corn. This is an inexpensive way for pet food manufacturers to increase protein content on the guaranteed analysis printed on the label.

But because soy and corn are not species-appropriate, I don’t recommend you feed pet foods that contain it.

Unfortunately, digestion and assimilation are not measured for dog and cat foods, so manufacturers can include other types of protein that have no biologic value for the species of animal eating it (this is also why melamine was added to pet foods that killed thousands of animals). You can be fooled into thinking you’re feeding a higher-protein food, when the reality is the protein isn’t biologically appropriate for your pet.

Rendered Pet Food – The Worst of the Worst

"Asking a dog’s or cat’s liver and kidneys to process low-quality, indigestible protein over a long period of time is exactly how protein in pet food got a bad rap.

In the 1940s and 1950s, there were really no high quality commercial pet foods on the market. Formulas at that time contained 100 percent run-off or rendered byproducts from the human food industry.

Pet food companies took all the pieces and parts left over at slaughterhouses, mixed them with discarded vegetables and grains not fit for human consumption, added a synthetic vitamin-mineral supplement, and called it pet food.

While there was a fair amount of protein in pet food back then, the quality was just terrible. Because the protein was so difficult for dogs and cats to digest, kidney and liver function suffered.

That’s why veterinarians around the mid-century mark started recommending lower protein senior pet foods. Senior formulas came into being because of the terrible quality of dog and cat foods on the market.

That’s why I strongly recommend if you’re feeding a rendered pet food formula – food that contains protein that is not digestible or assimilable – that you reduce the amount of protein you’re feeding.

Your pet’s organs can’t process a steady diet of terrible quality protein.

 

Cashing in on Worried Pet Owners

"Because pet food companies realize dog and cat parents are growing more concerned about the quality of food they feed their pets, they are trying to cash in by fiddling with ingredients just enough to introduce ‘new’ formulas that they claim are somehow more ‘natural’ than other formulas.

Producers of processed food for both humans and pets have been cashing in on trends like this for decades.

You want your beloved pet to eat a diet closer to what nature intended? They’re happy to oblige. They’ll switch one preservative with an unpronounceable name for another, slap on a redesigned label featuring the words ‘natural’ and ‘healthy,’ and off to market they go.

It’s bunk. Please don’t be fooled.

 

Your pet instinctively craves their ancestral diet
for vibrant health and well-being.

Sadly for your pets, the pet food industry is rapidly becoming Big Business.

Big Business to the tune of $15 billion worldwide.

Behind closed doors, strategic acquisitions of smaller companies are quietly taking place – clearly to capitalize on the tremendous profits the pet food industry offers.

What most pet owners don't realize is that the pet food industry is actually an extension of the food and agricultural industries.

Pet food provides these giant multinational corporations a very convenient and very profitable "built-in" market for wastes left over from their human food production.

But here's the problem… Your beloved pet was never designed to eat 'wastes'.

Today's commercial pet food is a far cry from your dog's or cat's ancestral diet – the diet their species has thrived upon for thousands of years."

More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/04/26/make-this-mistake-with-your-pets-food-and-you-could-destroy-their-kidney-and-liver.aspx

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Yesterday:

 

Jay had caught another kitten in the trap, obviously a sibling to the one he caught Friday.   Jay said the mom cat had been sitting pitifully by the trap wondering how to get her baby out.  But it has to be done, they are living under an empty house with no Pet Parents to vaccinate or spay/neuter them.

Kitten # 1 wasn't scared of the hand that fed it, so it let me remove the water, food bowls, and litter box.  I held the carrier up at a tilt with the door open, and Jay held the trap partway into the carrier, opened the trap, and in plopped Kitten # 2.  Quickly, I replaced everything.  # 1 was happy to see # 2, and they snuggled for a while.  Now Jay still needs to catch # 3 and mom cat.  I am very careful not to touch anything of theirs barehanded, and wash their dishes in the workshop sink, away from where I tend to my animal's dishes.

 

We finished the top and sides of the left hand side of the bed in the back of the cargo trailer.  It took a bit longer when I decided that as there was one mis-cut cabinet door left over that it should be used up on the side of that bed base, as well as having the top entry.   We also cut the runners that the dinette table rests on.   Now Ray can paint all that, and then I will take pictures.

 

It is basically like the rear part of the Casita Liberty's floor plan. 

One big rear dinette can stay made up as a bed, and there is another dinette forward of it. Except the cargo trailer has a 4' wide door at the back.

 

Hopefully, it won't be such a hot day when I have to buy more cabinet hinges on shopping day.