Bogieblog

Nap Disturber

Disturbed the kitties taking a nap on the bed when I put the laundry basket up there. Their look is of the "How dare you interupt?" variety

 

Cats Hate Boxes :)

Well, we all know about cats and boxes. I hardly got turned around from breaking down some boxes Friday night before Spot proved she could still get into one of them - thus the meme expression "if it fits, I sits"

Then this morning, I broke down an even smaller box and Spot was once again in that one. This time Rainey seems to be jealous.

Survived Snowmaggedon

Forecast was for up to 2', got about 10". Just got in from snow blowing. However, it has started dropping sleet. Hopefully the 1/2" of snow left from the "shoes" on the snowblower (for blowing on dirt) will soak it up. If not, I got 3 buckets of sand from the dump yesterday. Those, along with the bucket I already have should take care of slick areas.

On another note, one of the kittens managed to do irreparable damage first thing this morning (I don't know which one since all I saw was a flash of gray streaking by the office door right after the crash) . She knocked one of the door/mirrors off the repurposed medicine cabinet I have been using for essential oils. That cabinet is sitting on a counter in the craft room but that particular door lost its hinges so was just leaned up against it. Guess it doesn't matter that I couldn't find replacement hinges anymore.

So, at 6 am I was picking up pieces of broken mirror, then vacuuming the daylights out of that rug. I also taped up the rest of the glass so it wouldn't drop any more shards between now and when I can take it to the dump next weekend.

Hopefully I got all the glass since I am always barefoot in the house, and I would really prefer that a cat paw not get "bitten".

First Pictures of Kittens 2019

On the first day of the new year I was on my desktop computer, sitting Indian style on my chair, when Spot came up an laid right behind my butt. As my legs started going to sleep, I unfolded them and scooted up a bit on the chair. Which Spot took full advantage of. I leaned forward to get something at the front of the desk and actually slid off the chair. When I tried to scoot back up there, there was a cat in my way. As I turned around to pick up Spot and put her in my lap, I understood why the chair had seemed so crowded.

Yeah, Spot was still curled up next to where I had been sitting, but Rainey had slid in behind :).

It Was Only a Matter of Time

The gig is up - the basement is no longer off limits to the kittens. Oh, not by choice, well not by MY choice anyway. I blame do myself though.

See, yesterday I was talking to Cop Car on the phone and was sitting at the top of the stairs (best reception area for long distance calls). To sit there I had the partially gate open, but I thought I had it blocked with my body. The last thing my mother got for conversation was this, "Spot, what the hell are you doing down there?" and the explanation of why it was a surprise. I'm assuming Spot went behind my back as I was leaning against the door frame.

I retrieved Spot and closed the gate and all was well. Until a while ago. I went downstairs to start a load of laundry. Shortly after coming back upstairs I saw Spot looking thru the gate on the wrong side. I assumed she had slipped by me as I was taking the laundry down the stairs. BUT, then when I went to change the wash to the dryer, I made extra effort to make sure no cats got thru the gate and the gate was closed. Coming back up the stairs, there was Spot. She turned back up the stairs and climbed the gate - argh!

The reason I blame myself is that she probably would not have climbed the gate if she hadn't gotten by me yesterday and got the lay of the land of what was on the other side. Rainey has not figured out the climbing part, but was trying to open the gate by sticking her paw thru and pushing/pulling while Spot was on the other side. Decided to just open the gate to keep it from being damaged.

Not happy as they are still small enough, and naïve enough to get into lots of trouble down there. But, don't want to put the door in place as it is a major PITA for the workings of the house. The bright side is that I should be able to transition them to using the litter boxes downstairs which does 2 things;

• Keeps the smell down there when they do their business
• I don't have to clean both morning and night (only one litter box upstairs for all 3 cats but there are two for downstairs),

Anyway, here is the culprit taunting Rainey as Rainey is reaching her paw thru

Rainey trying to figure it out - Spot is on the second stair down on the very left - she is descending so unless you know what you are looking for, you can't tell. Rainey always figures it out once Spot has shown the way (yes, Spot is usually the trouble starter), so now I have an open border house :).

Cleanliness Is . . .

Sunday I decided it was finally time to clean the desk, which according to some of the paperwork I found, hand't been done for QUITE some time :O

Before picture was taken 11/11/18 so it doesn't include the regular monthly accumulation plus any of the stuff from the two weeks of green belt training I went thru.

This morning the cats were taking full advantage of the added room

The shoe box is holding holiday/BD/greeting cards that were stacked in the cubby on the right. I decided it would be good to have there for cleaning up the Christmas cards next week.

And just because I can, here is a picture of Spot and Rainey making sure the dishwasher doesn't try to wander off before finishing its job :). Naturally, when I saw them both were sitting very still. Bring up the camera, and Spot just has to move.

Thanksgiving Cactus

My Thanksgiving cactus bloomer right on time (who knew that there are Christmas, easter and Thanksgiving cactus?)

I don't do anything special with this plant and it bloomed 3-4 times this year. It is in the living room bay window and I water it about every two weeks. Looking online, you are supposed to keep them moist - ha, this one should ever be so lucky. Actually, if I keep it moist it starts looking a bit shabby, so I let it dry out on a regular basis. It also gets full sun - although with our rainy and snowy fall, there has been little sun, so it has experienced a lot of unintentional darkness. And, the bay window is cool during the winter since I keep the drapes closed to conserve heat - but none of that explains it blooming at other times of the year. Oh well, I enjoy the blooms and that is all that counts.

I had to take a lot of pictures before I could get the ones posted above. Some of the other pictures:

The Beginning of the Kittens

It dawns on me that I have "known" my kittens since they were very young. No, I didn't touch them, nor did I know which would pick me or how many I would end up with. But the persons from whom I got them regularly shared pictures and adventures from the time before they took them from the feral mother. I stole these pictures from a thread he started on a forum I frequent - and the rest is history. Enjoy the cuteness overload!

Kittens as they were found in a garage 2 days after their birth. The saw the mama cat frequently, so knew when they had last seen her pregnant. Pic taken on 5-15-18.

This is mama cat taken 5/22/18

At 2 weeks they began bringing them in the house for an hour or so for socializing before returning them to mama. Spot is the wanderer, Rainey (AKA runt) is the one being smooshed. Glasses (who later became Gizmo) is top left and Slash (for the slash on her nose) is on the right. The people who took the kittens in kept Glasses/Gizmo and Slash. Pictures taken 5/26/18

At 4 weeks old (6/9/18), mama had already moved them twice and was in the process of moving them again when the humans finally decided that they needed to grab the kittens for good before mama took them somewhere they couldn't be found - and ended up feral themselves (or lunch). They only managed to grab two of the kittens the first night - Slash and Spot.

 The next day, 6/10/18, they managed to find a third kitten - Rainey/Runt.

And that night, the fourth kitten was found and brought in

 

7/5/18 - Three kittens and Pheobe (the humans' other cat) chasing an electric mouse

7/6/18 Runt/Rainey

7/12/18 - Spot, Slash and Runt/Rainey

 Two days after that group picture I made the trip down to RI, and that was the beginning of the Destructo Duo's impact on this household.

Equal Time for Spot's Playtime

I have determined that Spot purposefully takes items to the bathtub to play with them. When she is done playing, she is thoughtful enough to bring them back out and put them in an out of the way place. Gives her a place in which they can't get away to unreachable places such as under closet doors or under low-bottomed furniture. Last night, I caught her in the bathtub with a ball. All pictures shown in order taken.

When I quit taking pictures (didn't think about a video), I went into the office and heard the ball careen out of the bathtub onto the bathroom floor. I got up to watch as Spot deliberately picked up the ball and took it back into the tub for some more play time. I checked later, and she had taken her toy out so I didn't have to worry about it during this morning's shower.

Rainey Playing with Action Toy

Rainey has figured out how to pull the string she just needs to master getting it into position so that it scurries along the floor. Spot is fascinated.