Posts Tagged ‘cat’
Guilty Pleasures
A portrait of my perfectly unsophisticated after-work lethargy that a more sane person might not choose to feature for all the world to view:
Pizza dinner in bed with Pequenita while I enjoy our favorite guilty pleasure rerun television series, “The Closer” with Kyra Sedgwick as Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson of the Priority Homicide Division, LAPD.
Even though we have probably already seen all of the 109 episodes of the 7 seasons that first aired between 2005 and 2012, we usually can’t remember what’s going to happen when seeing them again on one of the local broadcast sub-channels our antenna picks up.
It’s probably not all that different from the many times I watched reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” after school as a kid. There was never going to be anything new to gain out of the shows, but that never seemed to matter. I think it has something to do with the ensemble of characters the actors portray. They become as familiar as friends, and it is comforting to hang out with them.
Add in our favorite thick crust Gina Maria’s pizza that Cyndie surprised me with for dinner and I was in couch-potato –well, more accurately: “bed-potato”– heaven. An exercise in low-cost, lowbrow entertainment.
I even used the side of my fork to cut embarrassingly large bites of the pizza, instead of my knife. Oh, the horror.
What can I say? It was Halloween. I was being spooky.
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Say Hi
Good morning. Say hello to our chickens and Pequenita.
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One of the Golden Laced Wyandottes appears to be molting. Poor thing looks a mess.
Pequenita was doing her best queen bee daytime recline on Cyndie’s pillows. Of course, Cyndie is the one who is more allergic to cats between the two of us. Figures.
Delilah hasn’t been feeling her best and missed out on the photo sessions. She seems to be suffering a skin disturbance that has left her belly raw. The vet reports a large number of dogs have been experiencing similar afflictions. We are hoping the hard freeze will eliminate some possible allergens that could be causing the trouble.
This week, Cyndie paid a visit to a horse rescue place near Hastings to donate some left-over tack and supplies that didn’t sell in her boutique last spring. We are investigating the possibility of making our pastures available to them for summer grazing.
Could be a way for us to have horses around again, but without much of the expense.
It would be nice to be able to say “Hi” to horses again. Would only be a summertime visit, so we won’t know until next year if the possibility will work out or not.
I don’t mind waiting. Winter horse care can be stressful.
I would like to say “Hi” to days with reduced stress. Maybe I’ll be able to do that from our deck soon. Today we are going to take a crack at replacing the steps and railing tops.
I’m looking forward to saying “Goodbye” to the power tools Mike loaned us. That will be the exclamation mark on our completion of the DIY project. Then I will say “Hello” to all the money we saved.
Say goodbye, John.
Goodbye.
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Caged Kitty
It was in the darkness of the wee morning hours Wednesday that I walked past the bedroom window on a trip to the bathroom and spotted a change in the position of the door on our live trap. After days of zero activity, we finally caught something, but it wasn’t the woodchuck.
It was too dark for me to discern what was in the cage, but I could see a small dark spot stuck inside. After my drive to work, I texted Cyndie to have her check the trap, but unbeknownst to me, my message didn’t make it through and I was left wondering for hours.
It didn’t matter. She heard it when taking Delilah for her morning walk. We caught a little kitty.
It was calling out in cute little “mews.”
After Cyndie figured out how to open the door of the trap, the ferocious beast disappeared in a blink. I expect the tight confines weren’t a desirable alternative to the usual wide-open expanse available to a free-roaming cat.
This not-surprising capture is the very reason we chose not to allow the pest control agent to set one of his kill traps outside the window well. We’ve sent him on his way and resorted to trying to trap the woodchuck ourselves. Based on the lack of a capture during the time we’ve had traps set for the pest, I’m letting the live-trap serve as a deterrent to keep the burrowing beast from digging around the outside of the window well.
After two separate incidents of attempted burrowing since we dug out the window well, we placed the trap and haven’t noticed any evidence of woodchuck activity since.
It would be ideal if it actually worked as a deterrent because we have yet to figure out how we will dispose of the critter if it eventually does climb in to take the bait.
We would most likely visit one of our neighbors to see if anyone would like to solve the problem for us.
I am so glad we caught a kitty and not a wandering skunk.
If I were placing bets, I’d put my money on us most likely snagging a raccoon next.
I don’t actually care, as long as it keeps the woodchuck from digging around the house.
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Two Pets
Recent images of our dog, Delilah and our cat, Pequenita…
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They don’t often pose so well for portraits, so we are enjoying these two captures.
Both seemed very happy to have us home again last night. Pequenita appeared to be showing an interest in traveling before we even left for the weekend on Friday.
Anna stayed with them while we were away and also tended to our chickens. It is such a treat to have all our creatures well cared for when we are away. It is a great blessing for which we are supremely grateful.
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Unglamorous Reality
I think it’s only natural that our minds tend toward the fantastical when attempting to interpret an unexpected scene in our otherwise staid environment. Why would the first impression be the simplest option, when a more unlikely one is possible?
When I got home from work yesterday, I discovered a mysterious disruption around the front of my closet. There had obviously been some sort of disturbance. Several odd shoes had been pulled out, shoes I haven’t worn for some time.
I suspected someone had been looking through my shoes, but it was possible my footwear had been incidentally dislodged by a person looking for something else. What could someone have been after?
Well, I can narrow it down a little bit. The only “someone” around here all day would have been Cyndie. The most likely scenario would be that she was pulling out items to be laundered.
Not all that exciting, after all.
The truth was even less glamorous than that.
When Cyndie came in from trimming fence lines, she offered up a set of facts I had failed to consider. Pequenita had barfed in the vicinity and Delilah stormed in to take care of cleaning it up before Cyndie could react.
Lovely. Sometimes things aren’t quite what they initially seem.
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Lake Life
We enlisted the help of recently discovered neighborhood friends to watch over our chickens for the weekend so we could come up to the lake with Cyndie’s parents.
The chickens would be a bit much to haul with us for the trip. The hens and our cat, Pequenita, have been left behind, but Delilah came up with us.
She has only come up here a handful of times, but she seems to have adapted to the unusual surroundings without any anxiety. The first time here, the lake scared her. Now she walks in without hesitation.
Our first patrol around the property revealed eagles in their nest in the tree over the tennis court and a recently hatched turtle by the lagoon.
Cyndie should have put something in this picture to provide some size reference. Like, a thimble. Or a dime. It was a tiny turtle.
I built a fire for cooking a flank steak dinner and snuck in another hour of pedaling my bike before dinner. It was mostly sunny, with brief periods of sprinkling rain. I came upon some pavement that was freshly soaked, so there must have been a small downpour, too.
I can say that I rode in the rain, but didn’t get very wet.
After only a half day up here yesterday, I can say we’ve already settled into life at the lake. Here’s to getting sand in your shoes…
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Bird Bath
So much for letting nature take its course. Cyndie decided to try a little intervention on our ailing Wyandotte. Looking up the hen’s symptoms online pointed to the possibility of her being egg bound. That meant a trip to purchase some supplies and then redecorating the downstairs bathroom into a triage and recovery center.
A twenty-minute soak in epsom salts treats a myriad of afflictions. Even if it doesn’t help, there’s not too much threat of causing harm.
Well, Cyndie’s efforts didn’t produce definitive results, so we are pretty much back to letting time be the arbiter for an outcome.
It’s tough, because you want to help. We don’t want the poor hen to suffer, but we are both disinclined to take this to a level of seeking professional examination and treatment. Our chickens could be considered a hobby at this point, and as such, they end up receiving hobby-level vet care.
We are not real doctors.
Meanwhile, our cat, Pequenita, is vying for attention by throwing up three times this morning. My hobby-vet analysis points to the fact that I caught her violating house rules overnight, on the island countertop, chomping on Cyndie’s flower display.
I think we should give her a bath in epsom salts.
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Snow Wrecker
The worst thing to happen during snow season is a rainstorm. Dry snow is so much better than wet snow. Wet snow becomes slush after a time, and after the day-long rainfall we experienced yesterday, we ended up with nothing but a soupy slush.
The ground is frozen enough below the snow that water won’t soak in. Instead, it pools until the water reaches an outlet to the next lowest spot.
The drainage from the paddocks that flows across the back pasture was running like a river when Delilah and I braved the rain for her mid-day walk.
She made it across without much effort, but my big feet were going to make a definite splash. I stopped to gather my courage and plan my maneuver. Delilah busied herself with a face wash while waiting for me to take some pictures.
Everything I tried to do was made significantly more complicated by the umbrella I was fumbling to keep over my head.
As we neared the road on this typical trek around the property, I spotted the stump where our mailbox is usually mounted. That meant a snowplow must have roared past and tossed up a blade-full of the slush; a mass that packs more punch than my plastic mailbox can survive.
We found the box portion unceremoniously discarded upside down in the ditch, soaking up rain. Luckily, the plow had blown by before the mail delivery arrived, so there were no drenched bills inside.
Delilah growled at the odd scene as we approached.
I guess I kind of growled, too. Expletives.
The paddocks are a disaster of packed down slush, transformed into a dangerously hard and slippery wet surface against which the horses struggle to maneuver their hefty weight. We didn’t bring them inside overnight Wednesday, despite it ending up being the smarter thing to have done.
I brought them inside last night, with hope they might appreciate it even more, after their previous misery.
Even Pequenita was able to express her opinion about the nasty conditions outside yesterday, even though she is supposed to be an exclusively indoor cat.
Before the rain had totally destroyed the several inches of new snow that had fallen on the deck at the beginning of this weather event, I was preparing to light a fire in the fireplace. I opened the door to grab some kindling from the box out there, without noticing the cat had positioned herself right in front of me.
‘Nita walked outside before I had a chance to corral her.
Two steps into the sloppy snow, she just stopped. It was not a good day for an escape.
Maybe not good for her. Escape is pretty much all I want to do from this weather fiasco.
Rain has no place in our northern snow belt during winter. Bah, humbug!
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Well, Hello
Here’s the thing, I was home alone last night, tending to chores while Cyndie was out. I had finished feeding and cleaning up after the horses, and walked Delilah, but the chickens weren’t quite ready to turn in for the night. It was another beautiful evening, so I suppose they were taking full advantage of it.
After killing a few minutes back in the house with dog and cat, I noticed it was probably dark enough to go close the chicken door. It is such a brief trip, I chose to leave Delilah inside, but did tuck my headlamp in a pocket, just in case it was too dark inside the coop to easily do a head count.
It wasn’t too dark, and I could see that the one Wyandotte that chose to perch against the wall above the window (well above all the others on the roost) just so happened to be the hen missing head feathers. A possible clue that something is setting her apart from the others. Whether it’s her choice or theirs, we don’t yet know.
Anyway, this is beside the point. I didn’t need the headlamp. Well, not until later. After dinner, I wanted to work on one of my creative projects, and noticed my headlamp wasn’t in the drawer where I keep it.
Who took my headlamp?
Oh, yeah, that was me. I had put it in my pocket when I went out to close the coop. But then, why wasn’t it still in my pocket?
This time, I decided to let Delilah come with me. I was guessing the lamp had fallen out of my pocket on the run down to the coop. With a different flashlight in hand, we set out to backtrack my route.
While Delilah mostly obscured my view of the trail, I staggered to keep up with her while scanning the path as best I could. As we got close to the coop, it became obvious that Delilah wasn’t just in her normal rush, she was frantically straining against the leash to get at something.
When I looked up to see what she was after, two little red dots were reflecting the beam of my flashlight right back at me.
Delilah was right in front of it at this point, and I suddenly had to juggle the dang flashlight and her leash to reel her back toward me. The critter just sat, staring. It looked to be about cat-sized, but it seemed odd to me that it hadn’t executed a mad dash in the face of Delilah’s rather threatening level of interest.
Despite our canine’s freaky level of urgency to be granted access, I successfully clipped the locked leash to a tree so that I could make a solo approach for identification.
Well, hello possum.
It stared intensely at Delilah, not up toward me as I stood right in front of it, beside the front door of the chicken coop.
It likely showed up to scrounge the bounty of chicken food off the ground that the hens kick out of the pan we set out during the day.
I got all growly and menacing and the pest finally turned and skittered into the underbrush.
Shortly afterward, I located my headlamp in the snow and everyone lived happily throughout the rest of the night.
No pics of the adventures in the darkness, but this is the lovely face of our wee one who joined me when I crawled into bed at my bewitching hour:
Well, hello there Pequenita!
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Well, This
So, I mentioned in Sunday’s post that it’s been many years since we had a real Christmas tree in the house. I guess we forgot to appropriately prepare for the interest our dog and cat might have in this incredibly natural smelling specimen suddenly appearing in their living space.
Cyndie was away for a few hours yesterday morning, and this is the scene to which she arrived upon her return home:
Oops.
Live tree went topsy-turvy.
I might need to rig some wiring to hold the trunk in a vertical orientation, regardless the added few pounds of feline that might be exploring the branches. Or the canine who would obviously be interested in shepherding the cat back down out of said tree by means that would likely exceed the simple norm of just barking incessantly.
Maybe, if wires are going to be required at all, I should just hoist it up in the air and let it hang from the rafters.
It is so strange to hear myself say this, but… I think I already miss the artificial tree.
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Relative Something 