kittens, week 2/3

 
\]\\\] Barney added her comment, walking on the keyboard. I have the laptop set up at the kitchen table, listening to Jango, a station I called Elton John, but on which I've put artists ranging from Carly Simon to Nirvana, R.E.M. and Blondie, Jim Croce, Neil Young, The Guess Who... I deleted Glen Campbell & Boy George though, after I'd started out with them on it.

Kittens, anyway.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\874333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333337

That was Snuffy walking on the keyboard. Now he's chewing on my book.
On the speaker wire.

sd099was999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999l;; says Snuffy.

Kittens! They are as much fun as we both remember. Into everything. Sleep all day and play with the noisiest thing they can find, all night long. Or they play together, beating each other up while yowling like it's real serious!

Barney is a little lady, except when Snuffy gets her wound up. The drrrrrrrr placed her age at between six months and a year, but we prefer to think it's six months. She's so tiny! Later this month she'll be spayed. When I head to bed at night, usually to sit up and read or knit a while, she jumps onto the foot of the bed and comes running up to head-butt me. This is the routine. She also likes to lay on my shoulder, barely balanced.

Snuffy is no longer afraid of any big cat (or dog) and I haven't heard him growl or hiss in days, except when he and Barney are wrestling. Got some pictures of him playing in the cardboard kitty disposable habitrail (LOL) and will post them and others when I get off my lazy ass and do it.

Barney is, of course, in and out the window at her leisure, but Snuffy just found it within the last couple days and is delighted to duck in and out while we're watching. We've been careful not to let either of them out the front door yet. Keep them oriented toward the backyard, garage, barn, and woods to the south, and away from the road (though dead-end and low-traffic), the caged dogs across the road, and highway 60 beyond -- all to the north, out the front door.

They both seem to recognize their names as words they've heard before, but haven't figured out these words mean themselves! They react more to tone of voice, and I think "c'mere" is the actual WORD they'll learn first.

Barney is teething. I gave him my Gumby to give my hand some relief. He's started playing nicer, not always with claws extended.

LOL it's 10:15PM. They have now begun their "day" of romping.

kittens

 
Barney arrived home Friday evening.

Day one (Sat): hisses at all big cats, eats everything in sight, thinks the bathtub is a litterbox. Snuggles with us and purrs.

Day two (Sun): hisses at all big cats but crowds in with them when food is involved, eats everything in sight, learned what kitty litter is. Weighs 4.8 pounds.

Day three (Mon): hisses when big cats startle her, ignores them otherwise. Knows food comes from the kitchen. May have reacted to her name. Went to the vet, got treated for fever & ear infection. Vet speculates she is about 6 months old but malnourished.

Snuffy arrived home Monday evening.

Day four (Tue): Barney eats often, explores house, looks out windows. Knows the back door leads outside.
Day one (Tue): Snuffy hisses, growls, runs, hides. Purrs, snuggles & plays when no other cats are in sight. Eats when I take him to food. Already litter trained. Knows food will be available every day. Startles at loud noises coming from TV movie. Slept around my head.

Day five (Wed): Barney plays in boxes, looks out windows, follows both of us around, snuck out the door once and hesitated at the edge of the back porch. I scooped her up and took her back inside, telling her "not yet."
Day two (Wed): Snuffy hisses & growls at big cats. Hangs out mostly in stoveroom, on a pillow under desk. Plays with Barney. Knows where the food is and goes to it, careful not to run into big cats. Plays in boxes with Barney. Plays on bed. Seems to recognize his name. Carefully comes to the kitchen when he hears me clattering around in there.

Day six (Thu): Barney went outside with us, couldn't get enough of exploring but came running when I called, "what are you doing?"
Day three (Thu): Snuffy plays with Barney in boxes, in kitchen, in stoveroom, on the bed. Played with Nameless' tail. Nameless, showing remarkable restraint, glared at Snuffy and tucked her tail in. Tail came back out, Snuffy played with it again, Nameless hissed once and Snuffy held his ground but growled for five minutes (while Nameless went back to sleep)

Thursday evening I clipped front claws on both. Barney was easier.

Day seven (Fri): Barney found The Window (always open) and thinks she's in kitty heaven, running in and out and around the yard and back in and out.
Day four (Fri): Snuffy follows me around, plays with the broom while I sweep, plays in boxes, plays with toys, plays plays plays, hisses and growls at big cats when they startle him.

Hecticity (hec - tis - it - ee)

 
Thanksgiving week.

We've been to Lexington twice in two days. To the additional pain doctor (I haven't figured out her name yet, give me time) both times. Monday should have been a "treatment," but since the first one, a couple weeks ago, didn't do th'Mr any good she suggested a different treatment (same thing, actually, but x-ray guided) which we could either stick around for ("I'm way behind today, so it might be a while") or come back Tuesday (today). We did the latter, and now we're home again. He says he can't tell much difference, but it may take a day or two to tell.

We're having dinner at th'aunt&uncle's later this week, and th'Aunt phoned to ask if I'd bring some of my "not fried" fried-looking pies. I'd already planned to make a cake and a pumpkin pie, so right now th'Mr is at the grocery store getting a few last minute ingredients so I can spend tomorrow uninterrupted, in the kitchen. Heaven! LOL! Well, I'd rather be digging in the dirt, but we're about six months out of whack for that, so kitchen suits me fine.

When did I turn into the Crazy Cat Lady? I know I've always had that potential, but it's really manifested itself now... Friday night we celebrated Katrina's Master's Degree (did I get that 2nd apostrophe in the right place?) at the former Jenny's Music Barn in Farmers (a town west of us). Jenny's is now the Music Hall, not the Barn, but Halley/Holly sounds too much like Raleigh, so her name is Barney. Whose name? Why, the kitten that ran up the back of my skirt and perched on my shoulder like that's where she belonged. A long-legged, long-tailed black kitten that at first (when we thought she was male) looked a lot like Winston but now seems the spitting image of Nameless. And I do mean spitting. She's pretty feisty. So yesterday, Monday, after our trip to the city, I took her to the drrrr and while the girls giggled about how all our kitties seem to be black I happened to mention that th'Mr really wants a tabby...

Which is how Snuffy came to live with us yesterday. He's a beautiful little tabby with lynxy tufts on his cheeks, who's been living in a kennel at the drrrrrrrr's for about a month, and now lives with us. Understandable that he was quite freaked out last night, with not only so many kitties checking him out but so much s p a c e ...

I hear them playing in the kitchen now. They both understood right away what toy mice were, but I think the ball in the plastic frame is the new favorite.

In knitting news, I've finally started my Cascade220 pullover. It's a raglan, following Barbara Walker's basic top-down instructions. This morning I had to frog two inches because I'd been increasing every round instead of every 2nd round... had been wondering why it was getting so ruffly! I hope to have it done by the middle of next month. Which won't happen if I can't tear myself away from Facebook and Mafia Wars more often.

We had a week of cold-enough-to-build-a-fire nights, but since mid-week the lows have been back up into the forties, so the new kittens haven't experienced the full effect of the stoveroom yet. For three months of every year that becomes the hangout for all cats & dogs.

What else... turkeys are back, but I think I mentioned that in an earlier blog post. Okay, that's all for now.

One more thing! Head over to http://jsloan-isbn.blogspot.com/ to see my efforts at copy-editing. I have four books sitting at my side, waiting for my notations to be transfered to the new blog. (so, don't head there yet. Wait a few days for me to get my shit together and actually put something on the blog.) Maybe someone will "discover" me and pay me to work from home, doing what I do anyway - reading books and griping about mistakes!

heavy frost

 
It's C O L D! We've had a fire going for a couple days now. This morning... 7-ish, it was 34 degree F on the front porch! I put a big fan in the stoveroom, on low, trying to blow the heat into the rest of the house. Turned the living room baseboard heat back on. Brrrr!

I need to make more suet. The last batch was a bit thick, though the birds don't seem to mind. I'm down to one cake in the freezer. Speaking of birds, the turkeys are back, in force. They've gone through a bag of cracked corn already.

Speaking of cakes, I've made another batch of pumpkin sheet cake and two more pies, and there's about 20 cups of pumpkin in the freezer. I made whipped cream this time and gave the remaining CoolWhip to the neighbor, along with one of the pies. What a difference real cream makes. Amazing that that sort of thing is allowed with the Adkins diet??

Wednesday th'Mr went to a "Pain Clinic" in Lexington to see about the chest pain. Dr. Halpin, the CT surgeon, referred us there. We were afraid they were going to be just pill pushers, but no, they do the intramuscular steroid shots (like Dr. Troutt does) to get rid of the pain, and did just that on Wednesday. Took both of us by surprise that they didn't want him to come in a 2nd time for the shot but were willing --no, eager-- to do it right then. Too bad it didn't take more than a little bit of the pain away. Next week he sees Dr. Troutt again, for the rhyzotomy (sp?) (shots to kill the nerves causing pain in the back)

I got up early today to take Boog back to the vet, to have his urine checked, but I didn't get up early enough --he's already been to the litterbox. Guess we'll shoot for Monday morning.

I finished the fair isle hat! I washed it in the sink with a dab of Woolite and blocked it over a gallon milk jug; dried it near the woodstove. I still have earflaps to do (not to mention the mittens) but I told Larissa I'd knit the pattern "with" her, so I'm going to wait till she starts the colorwork before I procede. In the meanwhile I've started another hat, in the same pattern, but using only two colors - a solid brown and a variegated red/beige/brown that will make the pattern much more subtle. Maybe a bit too subtle! We'll see.

No pictures till my computer returns from the computer doctor. The 2nd hard drive that's been giving me problems has finally gasped its last. Not a problem, except the bootloader is on that drive! I'm hoping our local computer guy can surgically insert a bootloader instead of me having to use a floppy to boot from now on. The box is 6 years old. I really am due a new one. :(

fire in the stove

 
Sunday morning Larissa came over and we worked on our Fair Isle Hats. Later th'Mr & I went to her house to pick up the log splitter we'd lent them. It was a nice day.

The fair isle is giving me much less trouble than I anticipated, and it's really hard to put down! I'm knitting it holding a yarn in each hand; the method I've always wanted to learn. Having Larissa, a "thrower," to watch, helped a LOT in learning how to hold the yarn in my right hand. I think I was able to help her a little bit too.

Can't believe - according to the sidebar, where I keep track of these things - I didn't knit for 7 months this year! Now that I've picked it back up I seem to be a better knitter. Must have needed the break.

Yesterday I cut up and ran through the food processor a 20-lb pumpkin we bought last week. It yielded 34 cups of pumpkin meat (one deep-dish pie takes 2 cups) ...that ought to get us through the winter! Last night I made two more pies and another sheet cake. Took one of the pies next door to Mike & Sherry.

Mike came over & helped pull the woodstove out so we could put a damper in the flue. Now our first fire of the year is burning (and I'm able to shut off the electric heat). Yesterday we also shoved the water hose down the bathroom vent pipe to clear it. When the toilet starts running slow (and when you flush you hear gurgling coming from the tub! Oooh, scary...) then what you can do to clear the problem is run water through the vent for a couple hours. This fixes the problem, though I don't know how.

Late last week I cleared the "lower" garden of corn stalks and ran the tiller across it. We still have a row of onions there. The "upper" garden still has onions and cabbage - though there are no cabbage heads, there are leaves that are nice to "graze" on. I collected a couple gallons of flower seeds and am ready to cut down what's left and till it too.

I'm seriously thinking about putting up a pvc-and-visquine greenhouse this winter and starting seedlings to sell in the spring (and to share with friends & family). The first answer (as a small child) I had to the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "farmer." As I got a little older and economics figured in to the question the answer changed to "veterinarian," but I've never lost that longing to make a living from the land. Never ever did I want to be an electrician - LOL!

 
Frost this morning. Time to take in the hummingbird feeders - I hope the last of the stragglers have made it to the Gulf! I need to bring some plants indoors for the winter too.

Turkeys are back, and we've bought a bag of cracked corn and begun scattering it in the backyard. They look fat and sleek this year.

Boog's been back to the drrr, though his incontinence is fixed, he's still only peeing small amounts and therefore probably still has a urinary tract infection of some sort. He's back on the antibiotics for another ten days. The cat needs to lose weight! I've started putting out smaller amounts of dry cat food during the day, in small dishes here and there, instead of leaving one huge dish filled all the time. Once I tried "weight control" cat food, but all the skinny cats got thinner and Boog didn't lose any weight at all.

Seven seems like much less than eight cats. When there are five in one room and two in another, that's all! I really feel the difference.

Grrrl was bitten on her nose this week. She and the neighbor dogs run up and down the east fence barking and snarling at each other, and apparently one of them got hold of her. She has several scratches on her face and nose, one fairly deep. She licks it constantly, and has licked a lot of the black off her nose! I didn't know that would happen. It's very strange looking, this black nose with pink patches. Nothing I can do to keep her off it, short of tying her tongue down.

November resolution:

 
To blog more consistently - at least one all-encompassing post per week.

Beginning tomorrow.

bird-seed suet cakes II

 
What I did today (besides hem a pair of overalls, bake a pumpkin sheet cake and a pumpkin pie and two loaves of banana nut bread):

3 cups leftover grease (mostly chicken grease)
3 cups peanut butter
6 cups wheat flour
bird seed (1 empty crisco can full)

melt grease & peanut butter together
stir in flour
stir in seed
pack into molds
freeze

yield: 10 cakes

 
RIP Winston sweetie. You were much loved.



June 21 2001 - October 27, 2009

fading

 
Winston spent another night at the drrr, to get his feeding tube adjusted. He's had it 17 days now. He's home and doesn't seem to feel as well as he did when we took him in yesterday. Maybe it's just an anesthesia hangover.

Booger is halfway through his two weeks' worth of pills (twice a day), and is doing better than he was.