Posts Tagged ‘cats’
Didn’t Know
We didn’t know that we had a potential added resource right in our house for controlling the local fox or foxes that roam our territory. It appears that all we need to do is turn Pequenita into an outdoor cat.
I only remember two times that ‘Nita took interest in activity on my computer screen. Otherwise, she behaves with total disdain toward computer and television screens. That is, until last night.
We had an episode of a PBS nature program about foxes running on our bedroom television last night. Suddenly, uncharacteristically, Pequenita jumped up on the dresser in front of the screen. As the sounds and images of foxes, and an eagle played out, our cat reached up and touched the screen in attempt to catch the fox.
She’s a natural!
I’m thinking, we should probably see how she behaves to a video of our chickens wandering about before we do anything drastic like turn her loose in the great outdoors.
Something tells me she wouldn’t likely have the discretion necessary to determine the difference between friend and foe around our property.
She’s a little too much like Delilah in that regard. If it moves, it is fair game.
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Revisiting Notes
All sorts of gems are hidden in the archives of Relative Something posts, and last night I uncovered a jewel to repost today. As exciting as my day yesterday was, what with my landing an appointment with a Craigslist buyer to stop by and make another decluttering purchase, and our new favorite tractor tire repairman showing up to finish the other tire (Yay!), none of it blossomed into a bigger story for me.
The single sentence above easily wrapped up the significant events of the day.
Well, I found a “Words on Images” creation from early 2014 that should fill in nicely, aligning with the oncoming bout of cold and sunny winter-like weather on tap for the next few days here.
In honor of the cat mention included in my poem below, I’m throwing in this bonus picture that Cyndie recently took of Pequenita behaving like royalty on Cyndie’s pillow.
Enjoy!
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Notes
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Words on Images
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Getting Along
It has become a daily occurrence to randomly hear a startling eruption of Delilah suddenly darting after Pequenita and chasing her down the hall in a race to our bedroom. Our first inclination is to holler at Delilah about the altercations, but there has been plenty of evidence implicating ‘Nita as the occasional instigator.
We try to pass it off as sibling rivalry, but I suspect the infamous history of perceived animosity between their species is the real culprit. Delilah wants to play like a dog and Pequenita seems to think that is a ridiculously un-feline way to behave.
There is no doubt that Delilah flaunts her size advantage. On more than one occasion, I have seen Delilah simply walk over and stand above Pequenita. Sometimes she will try to augment that with a single paw draped over ‘Nita’s back.
Pequenita’s response depends on her mood. She always seems wary of the possibility things could escalate to a hazardous level, but primarily chooses to be patient and wait out the disturbance in her finest queen-of-the-world repose.
When the canine gets distracted for a second –a guaranteed occurrence, every time– the feline will make her escape. That is the moment the unexpected race to the bedroom suddenly shatters the serenity we might otherwise be enjoying.
Sometimes, when I reach down to pet Pequenita, her back feels wet. I always hope it was just a gentle grooming she received from Delilah’s tongue, and not an attempted “tasting.” We have seen Delilah hold her mouth open, combing Pequenita’s back and tail with her teeth as the cat walks away.
Then we get that look from the dog.
“What? I was just standing here, breathing when she walked by!”
Our house pets are doing nothing to refute the perception that dogs and cats can share living quarters, but it’s mostly a function of barely tolerating each other in the face of a constant preference to rather be with their own kind.
Sounds like a couple of political parties I’ve read about.
Hmm. One method of helping dogs and cats get along well with each other is to socialize them when they are little puppies and kitties.
I wonder if we can devise a way to eventually improve government function by intentionally striving to get play dates between children whose parents hold opposing political views.
I’m not confident the planet will remain habitable long enough to see if that could work.
Living in a house with a couple of pets who are constantly practicing the art of tolerating each other has me frequently thinking about how nice it is when we all just get along.
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Not Silent
When Delilah suddenly barked at the door to the deck, Cyndie asked me if I had heard what set her off. I missed it completely. She said it was howling of some dogs or coyotes.
Nope. Didn’t hear that.
It’s not rare for Delilah to jump up and bark at some distant sound. Honestly, more often than not, I don’t hear what initially sets her off. When thunderstorms are on their way toward us, Delilah provides an alert well before I perceive the first rumbles. When it’s not thunder, it’s usually gun shots or barking dogs.
She is always quick to add her statement to the chorus. It is a general robust report of a bark, or sometimes several. When we don’t react to her concern, she often loses interest in short order.
Later, Delilah suddenly erupted with a distinctly different explosion of barking. It was pretty obvious that this time she had actually seen something that was setting her off. Cyndie went to the door to have a look for herself and Delilah almost pushed her over in frenzy of reaction over whatever was out there.
The last time I saw something similar from her, I discovered several deer standing right outside the front windows, almost as if they were teasing her by not panicking over her outburst.
Whatever she saw last night must have vanished immediately. Cyndie couldn’t get Delilah to settle down, so she walked her out of the bedroom. I decided to step out onto the deck. With no critters in sight, I wanted to listen for something that might explain the doggie dramatics.
I spoke loudly to be heard through the closed-door, telling Cyndie I’d seen nothing and it was silent out.
Except it wasn’t.
As I paused with hope of detecting some sign of an animal invader, it struck me how not silent it actually was.
Off by the barn, or maybe around toward the front yard, there was some repeating shrill chirp or tweet at a steady rate loudly making itself known. The silence I was interpreting was with regard to barking, howling, rifle reports, or grumbling thunder. There was none of that.
However, once I recalibrated my listening threshold, I became aware of a multitude of additional sounds. By this time, I was well past finding anything to explain Delilah’s flip-out, but I was wonderfully entertained by the growing number of sounds I was beginning to notice.
There was an obvious large truck taking up more bandwidth than was pleasant. Several other small bird calls were suddenly adding warbles to the audio track. Somewhere in the vicinity of where I was standing, a small critter sounded to be picking at some tree bark, but my eyes failed to locate it.
I suddenly stomped on the deck, hoping to startle a potential stowaway. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning there was a raccoon on the deck that had Pequenita smashing into the glass door somewhere around oh-dark-thirty. Our kitty was showing some territorial concern, but the ‘coon almost looked as if it had amorous intentions.
Nothing reacted to my stomp.
The night went back to being silent, except for all the ways that it was not.
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Power Napping
Over the weekend, we had plenty of opportunity to lay low. I started Saturday on the recliner, where Pequenita joined me to share the plush lap blanket.
Then, she never left.
Eventually, Delilah showed up to get in the act.
Seriously, she napped in that chair the whole day. It was an impressive display of feline expertise.
I can’t hold a candle to her prowess.
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Other News
While Delilah and the horses have been getting a lot of attention lately, the chickens and Pequenita haven’t been entirely neglected.
When it gets extremely cold, the chickens tend to stay put all day in their coop, but some days they surprise us and venture out anyway. This week, Cyndie reported, one day it was the Buff Orpington making the trek to the barn overhang, and the next, it was the two Barred Plymouth Rock hens.
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They have us wondering if there might be some issue between the two breeds, that they are doing less commingling lately.
Last night, Pequenita was ferocious about getting some attention from me, so I decided to put a video designed for cats on my laptop screen. She went nuts for it.
A little mouse keeps darting across the screen. She quickly moved her search to the back and sides of the computer to see where the critter was going when it disappeared from view. We were both highly entertained.
It was a nice distraction from some of the dreary news of the day. Have I mentioned how sad I am over the deplorable political situation in this country? And now the thawing permafrost is going to release noxious Mercury gas into the atmosphere.
Although, on the subject of news, one item was out of this world fantastic. If you haven’t seen video of the Falcon Heavy Test yet, I hope you will make time to absorb the ramifications of this spectacular feat while witnessing the amazing footage of a new milestone in space exploration.
That Tesla Roadster with a space-suited mannequin in it flying through space is one spunky escapade. I love it!
“To infinity, and beyond!”
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Mostly Healthy
Other than choosing to regurgitate the entire undigested contents of her stomach on our bed the other day, Pequenita is leading our animals in staying healthy.
The good news about the others is that all are showing promising signs of improvement.
Delilah had a quick relapse to yelping in pain after her promising signs of normalcy a week or two ago. Happily, that regression was short-lived and she has re-emerged with more of her old vim and vigor once again. We remain cautious about encouraging too much rambunctiousness, lest she experience another similar setback.
She has a second visit to the doggie chiropractor scheduled for next week. We are trying to constrain her activity a reasonable amount until then.
Cayenne’s swollen eye has settled down nicely, but shows signs of still being irritated. Cyndie washed it out again yesterday. Since all the horses were due for a fall visit from the veterinarian, we will have a chance for her eye to be seen this morning when the Doc comes to give all of them some attention.
I’m doing my best to keep up with everybody else’s progress and enjoying increased mobility and reduced pain with every passing day. ‘Nita does her best to keep my legs stretched out and warm for me. I think my tight hamstrings do me no favors at avoiding problems with my lumbar discs.
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I have been grossly negligent about stretching and exercising for best back health, but as soon as the trouble showed up last week, I became a planking maniac again. The problem with that was that the muscles of my torso became incredibly stiff and didn’t want to take on the load my ailing back wished they would.
Stretching like a yoga master became the third option.
Noticing Moments
Illness has slowly been making its way through some of the staff at work, and I’ve heard tell of it visiting some of my family. Somewhere between the two, after the weekend of visitors, I brushed too close to a source. My body responded with all the classic symptoms.
It’s an almost indistinguishable cross between a cold and allergies. After an impressive run of relatively good health, experiencing an affliction such as this helps me to realize how many things there are about living every day that I take for granted.
Certainly, I now have a new level of respect for how pleasant it is to have a clear and healthy sinus cavity on a daily basis.
As I stepped toward our spiral staircase from up in the loft, I noticed how impressive it is to be able to stride unhesitatingly over the edge of the floor and float down the massive pine steps. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal usually, but yesterday I found myself hyper-aware of what a marvel it is to have that ability.
With tired, stinging eyes, my drive home from work yesterday was an extra challenge of not driving distracted. Well, not only distracted, but actually asleep. When I arrived safely home, my mind was drawn to one specific goal. I wanted to lay down on our bed, pull the cover over my body, and close my eyes for a nap.
My nose has suffered a days’ worth of abuse from tissues wiping the constant flow and my eyes stung. I didn’t want to be touched. I just wanted to completely give in to the urge to sleep. Pequenita couldn’t resist. I think she spends her whole day dreaming of the moment when I will come home and lie down on that bed with her.
She purred and kneaded her way up my body, arriving at my head. My arms were snuggled deep below the covers and my irritated eyes were frozen shut in resistance to the sting. So she head butted me right in the nose. It was the absolute worst intrusion to the comfort I was so desperately seeking.
I didn’t react. I just wanted to forget the insult and enter dreamland. So she did it again, harder.
I noticed how cute it can seem sometimes when she does that head-butting action. How dear it is that she seeks my attention with such fervor. And I noticed how different it comes across when I feel miserable and my nose is particularly sensitive.
Why is it that this kind of illness triggers an obscure mental focus? I noticed my slippers of many years. I don’t know why I find it so hard to part with my house slippers. Even though these long ago developed a crack in the sole that lets wetness in –noticeable when making brief excursions through puddles in the garage or on the deck or driveway (obviously, venturing out of the house)– they still function perfectly well in every other regard.
I haven’t given a thought to replacing them. How could I? These are the ones. There are no others to be had.
Until I finally do. Then the new pair become “the ones,” for the next decade and a half.
Just some things I noticed.
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Trying Not
I’m trying not to succumb to the outrage. Outrage may well be deserved, but it doesn’t serve me well. I have to choose a different path. I strive to avoid getting my feathers stuck in the tar of controversial opposing opinions, but maybe venting about some of the insanity will bring about an inspiration to counter the inherent despair.
Does any of this make sense?
How did Wells Fargo bank get away with years of creating bogus accounts without customers’ consent?
How did the Sugar Association get away with paying off Harvard scientists?
How do political campaigns succeed by only focusing on the perceived bad things about other candidates without providing any substance of their own in ads?
How did we get to a point where there are only two unpopular primary candidates for President of the United States?
How do people feel comfortable publicly supporting a candidate who demonstrates such contemptible characteristics?
Why do people allow religious ideology to lead them down a path of choosing to injure and kill others?
What if creative people like Lennon & McCartney were able to write songs about peace and love for all of the world to hear?
What if that made all the difference?
All you need is love.
Love is all you need.
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Pequenita consoling me while I distract myself with word games… That’s love.
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Relative Something 