Stitches? I don't need no stinkin stitches!

Nutmeg was spayed last Thursday. By Saturday she had chewed through her stitches and pulled them out. So, now she has to wear vet wrap for a week. I'm not sure she finds this option any better.

Meggie got a new toy today. It has feathers and cheaps like a bird when the toy is jolted or moves. It cheaped all the way home in the car!

Nutmeg is a close kitty. She loves to sleep along your shoulder or sit on your chest with her head under your chin. Hopefully, she will be a small cat because that could get annoying if she grows to be as big as Dobbie or Spenser.
Uncle Onslow is a year into being diagnosed with stomach cancer. We made this summer as fun as possible for him. He was allowed out of the cattery most days, where he chose to nest in the garden sleeping in the sun. He has several lumps on his stomach that you can feel now and he doesn't like to be carried anymore. True to his name, he has played with the kitten, Nutmeg.
Padme is still winning cuteness awards. She is quite a poser. She has resigned herself to the kitten outside in the cattery, but won't tolerate Nutmeg in the house. She was the last cat to come around and play with Meggie.
Nutmeg was returned to us within 48 hours. The home she went to had a one year old cat that tried to do her in. When she came back home, Nutmeg had already lost weight and was obviously stressed. It must have been bad, because at our house she ran our cats ragged. We were surprised that there was a cat who could intimidate her. Not too long after she came home the male cats started playing with her instead of hissing at her. It took another two weeks to cave and start playing. I don't think Meggie will be a large cat, nor will she be the brightest bulb in the box. But she is cute and lots of fun.
Sneaky Pete is enjoying a few hours in the house alone with no kitten. Oddly, Pete has been the nicest to the kitten of all our cats. Odd to us, since he hates all other cats. This weekend, Pete feels like the fourth day of a three day pass. He had dental surgery a couple of days ago and is sleeping off the sedation.

Help removing wall paper

This was no help at all.
It was a great day, cool and sunny. It will be raining by the end of the day. The cats took advantage of the nice day.



Pete and Padme said they would help me un-wallpaper the bedroom.

Actually, they are no help at all.

Nutmegs last day with us

Nutmeg went to her new home Friday night. We knew we needed to let her go, but it was very hard to do that. She went from a nearly dead ugly kitten to a stunning silver fox with stunning eyes and an awesome personality. We hope she is happy at her new place.

Jarhead Kitty

This little feral female tried to get a drink of rain water from a quart glass canning jar and got her head stuck. After we got that problem solved I gave her a bath and flea dipped her. Turns out she is very pretty when not covered in rain water and mud. A local business man took her home and she is settling in well.

Cute Girl

Padme learned to do this trick when you tell her she is cute.

Nutmeg is still testing Sneaky Pete. She makes herself as big as she can and runs sideways at him with her ears flat back.
Petey usually ignores her. He sits with his back to the kitten as though he could care less. He will wait until the kitten touches him before growling at her.
When Nutmeg gets tired she sits against your neck and tries to sleep.

If you don't take the hint and put her up in her room, she moves onto your chest.

Nutmeg is getting brave.

Nutmeg is growing quickly. This week she started carrying toys in her mouth while running from room to room. She is trying to get brave enough to touch Sneaky Pete.

Scooter

Scooter lives next door but spends most of his day in our yard. Most of the time, we don't remember what the names of the cats are next door. So, they end up with two names. Our Uncle Onslow is PJ when he is east of the shrub row. At Gayle's, the orange tabby with a stripe on his nose is Alex. In our yard his name is Slash. For ten years we called Scooter 'The Tenant.' Our dog, Annie, had a dog run with an insulated dog house. Annie spent nights in the house with us. Scooter would squeeze through the fencing into the kennel and sleep in the dogs house. In the morning before we left for work we would put Annie in the kennel run. As she trotted into the kennel, Scooter would leave her dog house and go back to her yard. Annie would go into her dog house and curl up on the warm bed the cat just left. So we called Scooter the Tenant and said that the dog hired him to keep her bed warm. Scooter gave us a scare last week by going missing for several days. He is not a wanderer. He is either at my house or his home next door. We think he was scared by some dogs that ran through the neighborhood last week and got locked in a garage while people were on vacation. He is back now and sleeping in my garden.

Water Fountain

The cats have their own water feature. The water is circulated through a filter and tank in the ground so it is always fresh and cool. The other cats drink from the bowl the water falls into. But Padme like to drink from the stream of water. She looks so intense with her eyes squinted and her ears laid back! We put smaller water plants in the bowl so the water does not splash into the bowl They won't drink out of the bowl if their faces get splashed.

Nutmeg

Nutmeg loves to see Uncle Onslow. She is still sick, her nose is stuffed up. We can get her to eat canned food if Uncle Onslow helps. Poor kid has earmites bad enough to block one ear and set off a yeast infection in the other ear.











Her eyes have finally fully opened up and are free of infection. She still has the human equivelant of a sinus infection. She is still fighting a viral infection of which I hope we are willing the battle on. Nutmeg still has wild ups and downs. When she is up, she races around the house and is into everything. When she crashes we are sure she won't come out of it. So far this free kitty has cost over $300 in veterinary visits.



















She figured out that the computer exhuast fan is on the back and lays in the heat.














The whole week has been cool and low in humidity. Perfect kitty days in the cattery. Emmette is snoozing near the catnip.
















Uncle Onslow only looks like he is doing morning yoga. He must think his toes need a good cleaning.




















Sneaky Pete is spending more time in the cattery to get away from the kitten.

Guest Kitties

This kitty showed up and stayed about three weeks. We named him Domino because of his spots. He was a sweet boy and we tried to find him a home. Of course, the day before I got a call where someone would have taken him hom he disappeared.
White Kitty is a tom cat that hangs around the yard. He showed up a couple of years ago. He likes sleeping in our garden and eating next door at Gayles. For most of the past year, he would go away during the day and only show up next door to eat twice a day. This year I think he is a little older and not so willing to wander. You can touch him carefully if you are feeding him, but he reists attempts at capture. Like most feral cats, he has earmites and fleas. And like all feral male cats he always has cuts and scrapes from fights. It usually doesn't take either Gayle or I this much time to capture a feral cat so it can be spayed or neutered and have some basic care completed. I think we are getting close this year. When I find him in the yard he is very relaxed, often laying upside down or sleeping very hard.

We had another visitor several years ago at Christmas. At the time, we had a lean-to garage where we kept the car and junk. It was a cold Christmas morning. Tom and I loaded up the dog to go for a walk in the woods. The dog didn't go in the car, she went to a chair in the garage. When we walked over to the chair we found what we thought was a dead cat. It was cold and didn't move. We were discussing what to do with it and where it came from when the cat lifted its head up. We brought it in the house and set it up in a bed with a heater. The cat was a red tabby with long hair. It was an adult fixed male that was bone thin.

After a week of hand feeding him he was getting around well enough to flea bathe and brush. Underneath all the dirt was a beautiful cat. We kept him around a second week to be sure he would pull through, then listed him in the paper as a free found. The sweetest woman came by with her husband, an older couple with no kids. She scooped the cat up in her arms and the cat purred and rubbed her chin. We contacted them a week later and they were happy with the cat. Once we knew they were going to keep the cat, we threw out their phone number.

The only other call we had about the cat was after we had adopted it out. The woman said her daughter lived around the corner from us. She was in the middle of a divorce and had a cat that matched that description. The cat had never been outside and was seven years old. She told us that the husband went to the house and took the cat. When he got out to the highway three blocks away, he threw it out the window while traveling 65m.p.h. Somehow the cat made it back to its's home, only now no one lived there. The man had moved to Topeka, the woman to Iowa. We think the cat stayed at the abandoned house outside in the cold. As an indoor cat, it didn't know how to hunt for food. For whatever reason, it found our lean-to as shelter from the cold. We told the woman that by description, we were sure it was the same cat and that it was fine and adopted into a great home. Hopefully, this gave both her and her daughter some peace of mind.

Spenser, Machine Gun Kitty

Spenser was adopted from a veterinarian in Hutchinson, Kansas. Someone found him in the parking lot of the library during an ice storm. They took him to their veterinarian instead of the humane shelter. I called my veterinarian to let them know that I was looking for a kitten for my older cat. Spenser was just coming out of surgery. He was about six months old. I brought him home the next day. For a year he was half wild and ate everything in site. When he realized he had a full time home, he finally relaxed. I think he relaxed a little too much. You could do anything to him and he would just purr louder. He and Tom had a thing where Tom would hold his front right and hind right leg in one hand; the cats' left front and rear paws in the other hand. Then he would turn the cat from left to right making machine gun noises. I would try, but as a girl I am just not genetically able to make the gun noises. Spenser was long and tubular shaped all his life. He loved to nap with the humans and would stretch out along your hip from your armpit to your ankles. Before we had the cattery, our kids used to wander the 'hood'. One day, Spenser came limping back to the house with a broken foot. We never knew where or how. He did OK with a cast on, but he always had a bit of a wocky-puck to that foot after the cast came off. One summer I stayed at a house in Mt. Hope for four months to take care of some friends' dogs while they went to Alaska. I had a chance to go to Arkansas for a week later in the summer. I boarded one cat and left Spenser at the house in Mt. Hope. He was just coming out of his frantic, anxious stage and not always trustworthy yet. When I drove up to the borrowed home after vacation, I saw the owners five year old granddaughter carrying Spenser around. She had one arm just under both his front shoulders, the rest of the cat was dangling and hanging down. His feet were about an inch shy of touching the ground. I watched this kid walk, jump, run, skip, play and fall with the cat bouncing around in her arm. I walked over to her mom and said I was not sure the cat was tame enough and he might scratch her. She laughed and told me that her daughter had been carrying the cat around like that all week. She said if her daughter put the cat down he would follow her all over the property and that they had napped together in the house. I really think that kid was what turned him around. After a week with a five year old, nothing seemed to bother him.

Signature Move

Cats each seem to have something they do that makes them unique. We call that move their Signature Move. Sneaky Pete has his green minibinky that he carries around. He likes to butt heads like a Siberian Linx cat. At night he likes to sleep in what we call The Pete Trough. Hubby wads a blanket along his left side so there is a trough next to him. The cat sleep in the trough. Dobbie always has legs hanging off whatever he is resting on. He was around before the cattery when we used to keep the cats out at night. When we would call them in the morning Dobbie was always first in at a dead run. He ran all the way through the house, leaped on the bed where he would talk and chortle as if telling you everything he did all night long. When Padme drinks water she puts her shoulder on the deck and sticks her arm straight out and waves her arm back and forth as if she is pushing water toward her. We started telling her she was cute when she did that. Now if you say 'Cute Girl' to her she will get in the position. Bear used to give Bear Hugs. He would lay on top of you and wrap his front legs around your chest, then place his chin flat and stare at you. Newts' signature move was not human directed. She loved being a mom. Her favorite thing was to put a paw over a kittens shoulder to hold it down and give its' face the rougest grooming. Elvis slept in what we called The Prayer Position. She would lay with chin curled under so the top of her head was on the pillow.

Aires Above the Ground

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All our cats love to play. Uncle Onslow loves to chase string. For a fat boy, he is quite graceful and very playful. Toula will chase a red dot anywhere. Dobbie was given a cloth mouse with a leather tail when he was two months old that he picks up in his mouth and carries around. Padme and Sneaky Pete are jumpers. They love to leap up as high as they can to grab any toy. The difference is that Padme will jump up after items she deposited in the air. She won't jump up for things we throw in the air. She will chase anything we throw and fetch it back to us. Pete would rather humans launch his toys in the air. I guess if you wear a tuxedo for life you require staff.

Fireworks

The cats are on lockdown because of all the noise from fireworks. Onslow thinks he needs to go outside but if it gets noisy he will run and hide. We had to rebuild their water feature this year. Tom made a spout out of bamboo and rope. We realized they were not drinking and discovered that the new spout splashed too much. We added some water plants to solve the problem.The catnip, catmint, lilys and pennyroyal are all in bloom so the cattery is a mix of orange, white and purple flowers. I love the cat mint because it blooms all summer. The pennyroyal keeps away insects. You cannot put oil of pennyroyal on cats, it is too strong. But they can be around the plants. Another option is to use oregano.Vinca vine also does well in the cattery. We have a few shrubs too. Peonies are great. They provide a cover for the cats to hide in but the plant does not get too tall. Sneaky Pete saw a fledgling bird land on the ground near the garden. He went over and sniffed it, but know what else to do with it, so he just followed it around and watched it. Emmette started chewing on his paws again when the heat got so bad last week. So that means it is time to take him in to the veterinarian for a steroid shot.There is a feral all white long haired tom cat that passes through the yard on the way to neighbor Gayles. Her house is kitty soup kitchen for the neighborhood so cats show up for breakfast and supper. This big guy likes our cats. After supper he comes over and walks the fence line, talking. When he gets to the north side where the shade is, he will lay down against the fence and look in at our cats. Padme usually walks over and will reach a paw through the fence and touch him.

Kitty HMO

Six months ago Uncle Onslow was diagnosed in the early stages of stomach cancer. He was not showing signs of it yet, the cancer was diagnosed through blood work. We decided to make this year his best yet. His favorite activity is gardening. We let him out of the cattery so he can work with us while we are in the garden. Of course, his idea of working doesn't include weeding. Or watering. Or planting. Or harvesting. Actually, he doesn't do any work at all. He just lays in the shade and supervises us.

Onslow is the patriac of our herd of cats. Two days ago he had his first bad day from the cancer. He didn't come in to eat. I found him laying on the straw next to the cat mint. He didn't wake up right away and he was cold to the touch. Eventually, he did raise his head. When I stood him up he would just lay back down. I was certain he would not make it through the day. But by evening he perked back up again. He seems OK now but it was a long day waiting to see whether he would pull out of it. The cats have been together for years. It was interesting to watch the other cats. Throughout the day each of the cats went over to Onslow and groomed his face. For the past two days Padme has slept next to Onslow, wherever he is resting. It was touching to see how each of the cats took time to take care of him.

My neighbor and I take care of a lot of cats. I always joke that the cats stand on the side of the highway with a sign that says 'kitty HMO and kitty soup kitchen this way,' with an arrow pointing to our houses. Somehow they know that if they end up on either doorstep they will be taken care of. So we will keep watching Onslow. When he can't handle being outside anymore, we will have the indoor HMO ready for him in our spare bedroom.

Newt

Newt was a feral calico female cat born in 1998. She lived in a stone two story abandoned building behind my house. We named her Newt after the little girl in Aliens. This cat was tough, clever and sharp. She lived six years, which is double the life span for a feral cat. She figured out that the higher up off the ground she stayed, the safer she was. To get to her safe place, she would jump onto a dumpster, then up on a first story roof, up once again to the second story roof line. From there she would walk about fifty feet, then turn and walk straight down a ledge that was as wide as a stone on its' side. After about six feet, she would cross to the next roof line and walk into a rotted hole just under the eave of the top of the building.

It was a great spot for her. No other cats seemed to know about it and dogs couldn't get to her. Newt would come to the house twice a day to eat, but we never really knew where she spent the rest of the day. Sometimes, in the winter nights, she would stay in the first cattery we built because it was warm.One spring we knew she was pregnant and we were pretty sure she had the babies in the abandoned building. I had to limit my search since the building was not safe to be in. It was officially condemed in 1966 after a tornado, but 40 years later had never been repaired. One evening after work we came home to find the building had collapsedWe didn't see Newt for almost three weeks. We were sure that she and the babies died. Then one Sunday afternoon, she came down the driveway from the alley. She was weaving and stumbling. Though we will never know the real story, we surmised that the babies were still alive and that she refused to leave them. It was obvious that she hadn't eaten or had much to drink in the time she was gone. Two weeks later she brought two kittens to the house. They were very cute!We brought them in the house to socialize and litter box train them. We were able to find a good home for them. It took the rest of the summer to tame Newt enough to let us hold her. As soon as we could catch her, we had her spayed. For the next five years, within minutes of working outside in the yard, Newt would show up.

She would stay with us as long as we were outside.She loved getting attention, then she would tuck in some place where she could see us, but where we could not touch her. In the fall I started putting her food just inside the back door so she would get used to coming in the house. She would come in to eat and visit, then want back out. Her second winter she soon realized that sitting by the fireplace in a cuddler was much better than being outside. But at nightfall she wanted back out. We never could get her to stay inside with us at night. Then one summer evening in 2005 she didn't come home. She was the first animal that I lost to anything other than old age.