Bird Watch 2015

Or maybe it's squirrels they're after.  Either way, they're after something.

From left, Edgar, Mittens, Vladimir, and Bianca.

Dead to the world

Pablo has no idea that two of his housemates are sleeping on top of him.

ZZZZzzzz...ZZZZzzzz...LOL.

Yours truly,
RagingMoon1987

A rare occurance

I consider myself lucky if I can get a decent picture of two of the cats together.  Tonight I happened to get four of them in one shot.

The solid white cat is Bianca, one of two cats who has come to the household since my last post.  Mittens is on the far left, with his nose buried in the blanket.  The black cat in the center is Vladimir, the other newbie.  Annabelle is on the far right. 

 

This picture was a tricky one to take, because Annabelle is skittish and Bianca is downright feral.  Bianca just happened to crawl up on the back of the chair as I was readying the shot.  I said "kitty, kitty," and got him to look at me that way.  He ran away after that.

 

Yeah, Bianca is a "he."  We thought he was a girl until we took him to get fixed.  Since Bianca hates people it was hard for us to get a peek under the hood.  The discovery ended up saving us forty bucks at the vet's office, so I'm not complaining.  He's a beautiful cat and while not tame, he is also not vicious.  I am hoping and praying that I can get him tame enough to be held, if just for a few minutes.

 

Vladimir is Bianca's polar opposite.  He is easy-going and affectionate, and he loves to be rubbed.  He has an extremely loud purr, but never meows (Bianca is a bigmouth).  Of the nine cats, Vladimir is the only one who still likes to sit on my lap.  Those days may be coming to an end, because he's putting on a growth spurt.

 

Like our other cats, Vladimir and Bianca are rescues.  Bianca came from one of my friends who can't take more pets on herself.  Vladimir's story is a little more interesting.  He came traipsing into our back yard last August.  I assume he thought that Chewbacca was his mother, because he was following her closely (Chewy didn't like that at all, LOL).  Vladimir was not tame at first; I ended up chasing him around the house.  After dark.  In my pajamas.  Yeah.  The things I'll do for an animal in need!  Anyway, he climbed up inside the car, and after a couple of attempts I managed to reach in and grab him.  He settled in right away, purring and falling asleep in my lap.

 

Bianca and Vladimir bring our clowder's population to nine.  Add five dogs and one gecko to the mix, and that leaves us with a grand total of fifteen animals.  Sheesh, we haven't had this many on the place since heck was a pup! 

So cute!

 

Love always,

RagingMoon1987



Battle of the 'Belle

Annabelle was supposed to have her yearly shots today.  Here's the results of my attempts to catch her:

Six bite wounds on my right hand, and two more on my left.  Annabelle is not on my nice list right now.

What I did last Saturday

For the past few days we'd had a scrawny yellow and white pussycat hanging around our house.  She is tame, but when we brought her in the house she wasn't too keen about staying.  So we'd let her out and not see her again for a couple of days, then feed her when she turned up again.  Since she was female and unaltered I assumed that she was already pregnant, and we began preparing a place for her.

Wrong answer.  Last Saturday the cat (whom we call "Buttercup") showed up again...and this time she had kittens.  We live on a busy street, so after some hemming and hawing we rounded Mama and babies up and put her in a cage.

As you can see, the family was not happy about this turn of events; note that they've spilled their water and scattered litter chunks everywhere.  They weren't happy about our dogs either; one of the kittens even bit me when I was putting her in the cage.  THAT was fun.

In all, there are four kittens.  There is this beautiful calico (which I desperately wanted to keep):

Her sister is another little calico.  Her colors are more dilute.  This one was the one that bit me.

The third is yet another little calico.  Notice her unusual markings.

The last one is yellow, and I assume that he's a he.  He is the tamest of the bunch and loves to be rubbed.  Mama Buttercup decided to photobomb her child in this case.

Our intention was to keep these kittens in a safe place so that they would not be run over, and then find a good place for them all to live.  However, it turns out that these strays aren't all the way stray; our next-door neighbor has been feeding and sheltering Buttercup and the babies, as well as handling the babies so they will be tame.  I ended up having to give the cats back to her, and the last time I saw them they were romping around in her yard.  But I have the cage cleaned out and ready, just in case they come back!

Pebbles's adoptaversary

Okay, so that's not a real word (LOL).  Two years ago today, my sister found Pebbles crawling around on the side of a local road.  He was sickly, flea-bitten, and had very sick eyes.

We took him in, cleaned him up, fed him, and got him properly vetted.  There were a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of vet visits that first year, but Pebbles pulled through.  He is blind because of the infection, but has no problems otherwise.  Here he is now.  Two years old and two years with us.

He wasn't terribly excited to have his picture taken, though.

"Yawn..."

It's been a great two years!

Hunting for flies and other shenanigans

Today has been your typical day in the house; me sitting on my rear and the animals doing their typical little animal things.  A rather large housefly got inside during one of my forays out with the dogs, so Pebbles and Annabelle took it upon themselves to try and catch it.

Pebbles almost had it at one point, which is saying a lot considering he can't see.  Eventually Annabelle got bored and began nagging me for some real food.

"Noms NOW, Mommy!!!"

Pebbles got momentarily distracted by the noise the camera made...

...but he resumed his vigil like nothing had happened.

"Come closer, tiny buzzing insect!"

Annabelle gave up on her quest for food and decided to aid Pablo with his grooming (Pablo is on the left, and Annabelle is on the right).

"Love bites!"

My cats never fail to amuse me, even when they're doing everyday things!