YET ANOTHER FERAL UPDATE - THE COLONY IS GROWING...

I thought the whole point to this trap/spay/neuter thingy was to keep the feral colony from growing, but it looks like we have two new interlopers on our porch now! One of them, Ricky, is the maybe-sister of Littleboy from across the road. She got spayed, along with some others, when the pawrents got the neighbors involved in the spaying project. That’s fine, but now she’s decided THIS is her home – hey! Stay on your own side of the road! (sigh)

And then, this other cat who the Mama thinks must live further up the road has been sneaking over to eat our feral’s food, picking fights and being a pain. The Mama chased him away (it is definitely a male) a number of times, thinking he was someone’s cat because he looked well fed and groomed, but a few days ago, she looked out the window and saw him sitting on the straw bales, and he had a bad wound to his eye. He no longer looked quite so handsome and the injury had sapped his strength. When she went out to check on him, though, he took off. This morning he was there again, but since possums had been on the porch making a mess of the “breakfast dishes” (the ferals had already eaten, but there was still dry food left), the Mama had picked up all the bowls. Marble (that’s what the Mama is calling him since he’s something in between a tabby and a tortie – very beautiful markings) was trying to find some scrap to eat, but ran away when she opened the door carrying some food out. He didn’t go very far, though, and came back to eat when she walked back in the house. Since she had some amoxicillin she got from the spay project people, she mixed up a second soupy bowl of food and amoxi and this time, Marble allowed her to sit there with him. She got a closer look at the eye; it looks like it’s the inner eyelid that’s gotten torn, probably by someone’s claw. The eyeball is OK, she thinks, but probably the other will fall off as it’s almost torn loose. He ate all the medicine-laced food, and she’ll try to get him further doses if he continues to come around. The fact that he’s here when he is injured and weak, makes her think he doesn’t have a family after all. (sigh) Well, if he sticks around, he’s definitely joining the “seedless grape society” – and no more fighting!!!

JUST A QUICK NOTE

The Mama informs us that there are a ton of chores starting NOW, and we will be disappearing for a while. We'll check our p-mails from time to time in case someone really needs to get hold of us. Not sure when we'll be back at this point. Hope they don't decide to make Fearless Cat of the Day or something while we're gone - she'd be so disappointed - MOL!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: BIRTHDAY BELLY STROLL!!!

OK, Catsters – there’s a really important event coming up on April 16th - Jezebel is turning 19! WOOHOO!!!! Which, in people years is, like, 92, and in cat years, it’s – well, like 19 – MOL! And she’s just as beautiful as ever, let me add VERY quickly before I get smackey-pawed!

We were talking to Simone, the Queen of Bellies, about it recently, and thought: Idea !
Why not have a birthday stroll like Zack and Zoey set up for Pharaoh Purrince Tao, except this would be a BELLY STROLL. The belly idea was sort of a natural progression from admiring Simone’s latest truly sensational belly shots - to reading Jezzie’s comment that she likes showing off her belly, too – to thinking why not honor Jez with a birthday stroll of some of her friend’s best belly shots?

We’re still working out how to make this stroll work, (yikes!) but in the meantime, if you’d like to honor Jezebel with a belly shot of your own, just tag your pic with “Jezbellies”. At the moment, it doesn’t appear to work when we search it, but that could be Catster fleas…:( , so we’ll check it later. Happy Birthday, Jezebel!

WALKS AND CATNIP FISHIES

Not much to report these days. The neighbors trapped two more cats that the Papa took to the mobile spay clinic for them - that puts the count up to 17, most of which have been female. So far, the pawrents have not heard any new kitten mews anywhere around the property, though we know of at least one other unspayed female and at least 3 more males. Two of those we presume are toms since they are the ones who hang around us girls when we’re out in the cattery. You should have heard the Sleeper night before last giving them heck through the fence! She sounded as fierce as, well, ME – MOL!!! Anyway, the colony won’t be growing too much bigger for a while, thank catness, due to the spay and neuter program.

Meanwhile, the Big Sleep and I constantly pester the folks to take us walking. We were trying to describe to Zach and Zoe about the world under the Autumn Olives, and the Mama took a picture, but it still doesn’t show how cool it is:
The world under the Autumn Olives
When you’re under there, there’s a canopy of branches arching over your head, and all around the bushes form walls of brush, but with openings like doors that you can pass through. It’s harder for the Papa to get through since he’s bigger, but the Mama can even stand up in places – not that I’m gonna let her stand STILL for long – MOL!

One other thing – the Mama was playing around and made us a catnip fishie! We weren’t overly enthusiastic, unfortunately, probably because the catnip was old stuff that they got at the store over a year ago now. She may try making another when the fresh stuff she just picked gets dry enough. Here’s the fishie:
Catnip fishie

A KITTENS-R-US TAG GAME!!!

OK, I didn't get tagged, but I'm pretending Zoe tagged me! And if anyone else out there had some fond memories they wanted to share, then I just tagged YOU!

1. The first part of the memory is scary; I wrote about it in my first diary, I think. I was only about 5 weeks old when the Mama found me at the corner of the house and realized I was the other kitten that Mama Cat had taken away when she left Sleeper. The fond part of the memory comes after the scary chase scene by the Mama: I'm by myself in the spare room, sleeping in a box that's turned on it's side like a little cave, and I have a soft blankie and hot water bottle. The pawrents bring me wonderful food (with KMR mixed in) and medicine for my ulcerated eye and my respiratory infection. But here's the good part - they play with me! And I LOVE it!!! When they leave, I don't cry - I eat some more and go to sleep.
2. The second memory is a continuation of the first, really. While I'm in the spare room I realize there is another kitten on the other side of the door, and I want so much to play with her! Finally after almost a week I get to come out and do just that, but she's afraid of me at first. After a week, she figured it out that I was a friend! From then on we played, ate and slept together - it was heaven.
3. I think it was Zack who reminded me of a 3rd favorite memory: the building of the cattery. Sleeper and I were both intensely interested in the whole process. There's even a picture from the window with a view of the cattery in process. The silhouette of the back of my head is right there watching! MOL! When they opened the cat door so we could go in, that was great!!! We hadn't been outside for months at that point (well, it had been winter for most of those months after all.)

OK, I'm not tagging anyone - it's kind of late in the game. But I repeat, consider yourself tagged if you want a chance to tell your tale!

UPDATES ON THE FERALS AND THE TRUTH ABOUT BOB

This morning the temps were much warmer – it’s up to 50 degrees!!! The Mama heaved a huge sigh of relief, because this is one of the scheduled mobile clinic spay days, and the plan was to take Little Socks in NOW, before he becomes sexually active. We don’t know how many of the colony are females who haven’t been spayed, but there are surely some. At the same time, our neighbor who we’ve mentioned before, will send his own indoor/outdoor kitty (male), plus one other of the ferals who hang out at his place – a female. Anyway, with the weather warmer, it will be better for the convalescents when they return. Hopefully Little Socks will not be too traumatized and will just set in to making up for the meal he’s missed this morning. The Mama hates this part, and wishes she could spare them the fear and pain.

Now… we promised Bobette we’d explain the whole situation about her and Bob, Zach ’s pet cricket. We’d only known Bob since this past summer when Zach found out he was missing and thought we’d eaten him! Well, we’d done no such thing! And just about that time a cricket calling itself Bob showed up – who were we to question the truth of this? He said he’d just come for a visit to see the Great Lakes, having heard so much about them; and, to be honest, he was a lot of fun: good conversationalist, quirky sense of humor, preferred the same flavor of pop tarts as we did – what’s not to like? Little did we know Bob was harboring a huge secret…

You see, it’s like this: crickets have a rather short life span – generally only 3 months or so. By cricket standards, the original Bob had already lived a long and happy life by the time he came to see us. We think he just wanted to spare Zach the pain of saying goodbye, but then once he got here, he met Bobette, and, well…it was love at first sight!

We don’t know all the particulars, but we DO know that when it was time for “Bob” to go back home, it was actually “Bobette” who made the trip. This much we’ve seen in the photos, and she’s confirmed it.

But hold on to your leprechaun hats, folks – there’s more. Like about 200 more! Crickets, that is, ‘cause that’s how many baby crickets you get out of one cricket nursery!!! That cricket in the cricket cage at Tao ’s party wasn’t even the first Bobette – it was one of her daughters; and it was one of her son’s providing the background music that everyone so enjoyed!!! Believe me, we were as surprised as anyfur, and we’d still be none the wiser if Sleeper wasn’t such a Wikipedia nut! MOL!!!

So there you have it. The Bobs and Bobettes say they’ve enjoyed the adventure, and will take turns in the future visiting from time to time. The new Bob (BTW, they say they would all prefer to be known as Bob) would like to go back to his ancestor’s home, if that’s OK with Zach. What do you say, Zach – can Bob come home now? He’s already packed his suitcase…
Bob saying goodbye to Bobette

MARDI GRAS !!!

So - the story goes something like this: Zach got me into the whole Mardi Gras spirit, so we made masks for the three of us – me, the Sleep and Fearless - then, because we had valentines, we made masks for them, plus for Tink and Ingen, too. Then we got inspired and took pics of the 5 of us at the Bourbon Street bar: Fearless and Snow, and Sleeper, Novi and Samhain. But we thought, "What the hey - we'll ask Ingen and Tink if they would like to go with us and, of course, bring their valentines Orange Ruffy Dreamboat #59 and Kringle. But we weren’t sure if that might be a problem with the two guys as we don’t know them as well. So we asked ‘em.

Wanna know what they said? Kringle said, “OK, but why don’t you ask River and Gypsy along?” Orange Ruffy said, “That would be great! Why not ask Gump and Bella while you’re at it?” Holy Cats!!! That’s 4 more of you! Our little party kinda grew…:)

Meanwhile, what has happened to Zach, you ask? According to Zoe, they’ve been experiencing technical difficulties all weekend. Yeah, sure! They were probably both just enjoying having their respective valentines alone for a few days, away from the hustle-bustle of Catster! Well, Diamond Daisy at least has got HER mask on and is ready to party! Anyone else want to join us?
Here we all are:

Sleeper, Novi and Samhain on Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras

Fearless and Snow drinking Shirley Temples on Bourbon Street

Kringle and Tink on Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras

Ingen and Orange Ruffy on Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras

Gump and Bella on Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras

River and Gypsy on Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras

HAPPY DAY TO OUR VALENTINE!!!

We are, like, totally out of zealies - Fearless used the last of them for Snow! We wanted to do something to celebrate our Valentine's Day with our Novi, so we made this:

Happy Valentine's Day!

NOVI IS MY VALENTINE!

Well, who would-a thunk it? Novi, that darling little tuxie with an attitude, has asked me to be his valentine! How could I refuse such a gallant request? Now let's not hear any jokes about robbing the cradle or anything like that - 7 months is old enough to know his own mind, I'd say. Isn't he the sweetest ever?!

OUR DAY AT THE VETS

So – the Sleep’s received an anonymous valentine, and the little fearsome Fearless is besotted with her valentine Snow. I guess that leaves it to me to be the sardonic and solitary, but stalwart family chronicler. C'est la vie.

Anyway, we all went to the vet today – not a pleasant experience, but things went well. The Big Sleep and I had our Rabies-FELV/FVRCP boosters – don’t have to go back for those for another 3 years – yay! The Fearless Wonder had her 1 yr Rabies booster, and - as the Mama suspected – earmites in her right ear. The vet cleaned the ear (ouch!) and put some meds in it, plus prescribed Revolution to prevent their coming back. Which, BTW, we all get during the summer months anyway, because it takes care of other things like fleas and some worms and such. The pawrents were going to bring in a stool specimen for Fearless, but decided it was needless: because of our being out in the dirt-floored cattery, plus walking around the property which has ferals running around everywhere, they have already decided to put us on a yearly or bi-yearly worming plan, or more often if it seems necessary. The Mama is not against checking our poops herself with a magnifying glass now and again, if she has to. No one wants a belly full of worms.

Oh, and we all cried on the drive over, though only a little on the return (I think we realized we were headed home.) Sleep is a little heavy – well, heck – you don’t have to be a rocket scientist (or a vet) to tell me that! The Mama says she’s gonna cut back on her kibble (snicker, SNORK! – yeah, right!)

I was a little hissy on my return, and Fearless was kinda like kissing the floor she was so happy that we came back. (When we were at the vets, she got to go first, and after that she did NOT want to come back out of that carrier to get her ears cleaned. She kept repeating over and over again, “Please don’t leave me here; please don’t leave me here!”) Sleeper, true to her nature, inspected the house briefly, then ate some kibble and went to sleep! MOL