On 11/12/2016 2:38 PM, dgk wrote:
On Fri, 11 Nov 2016 10:59:55 -0500, jmcquown
wrote:

The hunting instinct is satisfied by play. I've got tons of toys and
Buffy loves batting golf balls around even when I'm in another room. No
cat of mine will ever be an outdoor cat. The birds are safe, she just
watches. It took a while before she even showed any interest. I was
just posting pics of the bluebirds. Didn't mean to start a debate about
indoor-out.

Jill

That's one advantage about living in Florida. I am (slowly) working on
getting a fence put in so I can let the cats out without them roaming
away, but almost all of the birds are the size of the cats so I'm not
thiinking that they're going to be killing any of them. The Ibisis
travel in large flocks, and the Egrets are just too big for anything
less than a really hungry cat to try attacking.

I see lots of "shore birds" but they aren't the ones I see in the back yard.

But I do worry a bit about the little lizards. Those are big enough
for the cats to show an interest, and small enough so they present no
danger. Well, most of them. There are a few real monster lizards
around the lake but they stay by the lake.

Alligators? I had one of those wander into my back yard once. No idea
why since there isn't a pond nearby. They do travel.

The anole lizards and blue tailed skinks are common here. A skink got
into my house once and buffy and I both tried to chase it down. Cute
little things but no, I don't want them inside.

And we do have poison frogs and snakes, and those do concen me. The
frogs mostly only come out at night and hang around the lake, but
snakes to travel around. Most are harmless but one isn't.

We have venomous snakes in the area but for the most part the ones I see
are harmless black snakes.

I'm thinking of maybe having a patio built. The house originally had a
patio but the original owners had it enclosed and now it's the Florida
room. All glass.

I call that an atrium. Sounds like a nice enough place in the house for
the cats to play. Weren't you asking about plants not long ago?

So maybe a new patio would be nice for the cats -
Marlo loves the one at Mom's house, but they're not really outside,
not really on the ground. Maybe I'll have a patio but leave some real
grass amd a few plants instead of having all of the floor tiled?

Sure, you could do that.

Jill