YouTube for cats

 We were checking out April the Giraffe on YouTube and that got us interested in other live cams.  These live cams are a little addictive and more entertaining than some t.v. shows.  We were watching a bird nest and the bird sounds brought Fluffles out from where ever he spends his days to see what was going on.

He got down way low like an outside cat would do when stalking a real bird and slowly crept up to the t.v.

He was so sneaky that he got this close and they still didn't see or hear him. A mighty hunter he is!  He finally gave up, I don't know if he figured out they weren't real or if they were like a chicken on the deck safe behind a pane of glass.  Probably the later.

Dutch Oven Pizza

Step 1: Before starting the fire to make the coals to go around the Dutch Oven, remove your cat from the top of your fire pit.

Step 2: After starting the fire, bring your dog out to enjoy the evening with you. Don't forget a pillow for her to lay on because the chair is cold.

Step 3: Spray the inside of the oven with cooking spray or rub with butter.  Spread out the pizza dough and smear with pizza sauce.

Step 4: Layer on the toppings.

Step 5: Bake.  Have plenty of coals or this takes a long time to get done. 

We were baking rolls in our other oven and could have used way more coals.  It took a good 50 minutes for this to get done and it was torture waiting that long.

Step 6: Slice and enjoy!

Complete Randomness

Nikki incognito

Dad making crochet humor.  I thought my little elephant needed a mom so I am in the process making her one.

Frog in glass by Spark

Mac and cheese doesn't have food coloring anymore!!!  It is has been about 10 years since has been welcome in our house, but it's in now! Seems like a novelty to us.

When Fluffles isn't sleeping he's trying to figure out how to get some Temptations cat treats.

Out to lunch

Dancer, the queen of selfies.

Yeah, that's a goat/llama water bucket.  They think the buckets are either a bathroom or a footbath.

The thank you gift we made for Spark's speech co-op leaders.

Double decker sleeping spot.

Car washing.

The want ads at the feed mill.

Bert after a bath.

There is a mouse in the house

We came home the other night, opened the front door only to be greeted by a headless mouse deposited on the carpeting.  Actually, what I first thought was that one of the cats had thrown up, gross, but upon further inspection saw it was a mouse, ewww. 

 I think we have our fine feline Fluffles to thank for the extermination.   

After all, he did gift us with this dried up frog he found in the basement this winter.  

Not sure how all these critters are sneaking in the house.  The frog probably just jumped in, we do find them once in a while because our yard seems to be a frog magnet. On summer nights our house is covered in tree frogs.  Lots of frogs means not many bugs so we are thankful to have to so many. If it gets to plague levels we will have to reevaluate.  The mouse, since I seen no evidence of mouse activity, must have come in with a box we brought in from the garage the day before. Bad move Mr. Mouse, Fluffles is on the job!

What a Day!

 

Helmets Required took to the banks of the Mississippi for some fishing and lunch.  Lots of people hang out down there and have fires so we just go down, find a fire pit and start up our own.  This day we made hot dogs.  There is something about cooking food over a river fire that makes it so much more tasty.

Dancer caught a couple red horses.  It is thrilling to pull these big fish in.  

The boys climbed up and down the banks and over the rocks they don't usually fish.  The river is still quite high making the banks much narrower than usual.

Dancer and I went for a walk when we got home from fishing.  We were just about back home when we heard a cat meowing.  It sounded like a big cat that might be in trouble so Dancer started to call to it, after all it is odd for a cat to meow and meow and meow from the woods.  She kept calling and it didn't sound like the cat was getting any closer and we really started to wonder if it was caught in a trap or something.  She called a few more times and this little tiny cat, I would be surprised it it was even a pound and a half, came racing up the ditch towards us.  It must have been lost in there and it took a while to find its way to Dancer's voice.  It was more than happy to have Dancer scoop it up and carry it home.  When we got it home it made itself right at home, so it was obviously domesticated.  We called our one neighbor that sort of lived by where we picked it up but it wasn't theirs.  A couple days later we saw a little one just like it that had been hit on the road so there there most have been a litter that was dropped off.  The cat acted right away like this living arrangement is going to work for it long term so now we have Chicklet.

With all the excitement of a new kitten we found that it had gotten dark out but the chores hadn't been done yet.  Spark ran out to do chores so he could get back in quickly and some how fell down hurting his leg.  This sent us to the ER to have it check out.  

He came home with this and crutches with the instructions to follow up on Monday.  There was no evidence of a break but when dealing with growth plates they said it can take a while for these things to show up on X-rays.  He spent a few days on the crutch and it kept feeling a little better every day so we skipped the follow up.  A couple weeks later and he was as good as new.

It was a long day that ended in the wee hours of the morning after sitting in ER.  I was happy to fall into bed, there had been enough excitement for one day.

RIP Vidalia

Dad and I were going for a walk this morning and there was a black thing on the road down by the field access.  I saw the stray black cat down there yesterday and thought, "Oh no, he must have gotten hit on the road."  When we got closer though we saw that it was our dear Vidalia.  Not sure what happened as she is scared of cars.  We figure her to be about 13 so perhaps she gotten confused and panicked when a car came and ran in the wrong direction or maybe she didn't hear it.  I was surprised as well that she even crossed the road because it seemed that she was always either at the deck door or the front door every time I would look or go out.

Vidalia came with our house.  She belonged to the daughter of the people who owned the house before us.  She got the cat when she lived here and when she moved to her own house took her with her.  Vidalia didn't care for the move so back she came to her original house.  When the owner decided to sell they asked if we would mind if they left her because of her moving history.  We even put her on the purchase agreement as a joke.  When the bank came out to do their inspection they came back with, "Everything looks fine except we could find what this Vidalia was."  We laughed at told them it was a cat.  Yes, we had a fun realtor.

She has always been an outside cat, only coming in when it was really, really cold outside.  Over her career as an outside cat she has caught hundreds if not thousands of mice, voles, chipmunks, rats, rabbits and other pesky critters in our yard.  In the last few years she has had trouble hunting and Kacheekers, our other outdoor cat and the only other cat she ever liked, would catch something, kill it half way and put it out for her to hunt and eat.  Although lately she had been having trouble chewing her catches.  He also spent hours grooming her and sleeping by her.  He is quite lost this evening.

We buried her down at the end of the corral by the swamp.  Good by Vidalia, you were a good hunter and we will miss you.

Goldfish?

 

Hey, it was empty when I got here.  I don't think you could prove anything, and even if you could, I left no evidence.

This Chair is Saved

In The Jungle???

The fierce black panther lies in wait in the mangrove swamp.  It might even be the animal that uncle Si so often sees around the river.  Here he lies, silently waiting for his prey (fellow house pets or human feet.  He waits and waits, then LUNGES!!!

 

 When we set up the Christmas tree Skips waits patiently for the work to be done, and finally for the authentic wild swamp like tree skirt to be laid down.  This will be Skip's primary hangout throughout the Christmas season.  The diorama also includes a thunderstorm  (water spray bottle) to discourage poor tree etiquette such as ornament eating and tree climbing.

Merry Christmas Skips. 

Kitty Soccer

 

Spark had some balloons out and Fluffles found them fascinating.

 

He has been running around the house with them playing kitty soccer.

 

He is so fast that I couldn't even catch him with the sport setting on the camera.

 

 

Why The Cats Can't Be Left Unattended

 

Do you get it?  Do you get it now?

How To Clip A Crazy Cat's Nails

 

First you have to catch him, because some how he some 6th sense that tells him you want to trim his razor-sharp, surgical scalpels. Then you wrap him firmly in a blanket so he can't bite you or get in one last swipe with his untrimmed paw.  Reach in the blanket and pull out a leg, any leg, front or back, the point is to get a nail descalpelized.

 

 

Then quick grab his paw and clip.  If you are lucky you might get a whole paw done or just one nail before he sucks it back in.  We find that about four attempts is all we get before he turns into a Tasmanian Devil and you have to put him down.  Wait a couple weeks, this cat has a long memory, until his guard is down a little bit and try for the rest of them.

Cat Cave

 

While men have their man caves, Skips has his cat cave.  Spark made it for him out of a stacking bin and some receiving blankets. 

 

 

He also loves those reusable shopping bags. 

 

Dancer took these pictures, he is quite photogenic.

The cat is only half out of the bag.

Cat Yoga