Haven’t read the whole post yet ’cause I can’t get past the HALF HOUR DRIVE??!!?? I’ve never had a cat who would shut the f— up for one second when in the car. I probably would have killed a cat if I had to drive with them for 30 minutes.
I will admit that my preferred vet lives half an hour from here, but unless it’s one of the cats who has a real ISSUE (hello, Miz Poo, I’m looking at you!), or we need to get a cat in pretty quickly for testing and neutering (Rupert), we generally take the cats to a vet who lives five minutes up the road. When I have to take a foster or fosters to the vet that Challenger’s House uses (the aforementioned vet who’s half an hour away), I usually put them in the back of the car and cover their carrier with a towel. That doesn’t keep them completely quiet – there are still complaints – but it seems to keep them a bit calmer.
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I love the Tater names (and the Taters too)! And I’ve learned that there are other potatoes besides white, red and russet! You would think, as much as I watch food and cooking channels, that this would not be new to me… 🙂
So let me go ahead and suggest “The ‘Maters” for the next litter. With the number of heirloom tomatoes out there, you could name a litter of 6 or 8 easily!
and
Some of these are rather hilarious. I am picturing a kitten named Banana Legs or Dingwall Scotty.
I love this idea so very, very much. I think this whole Summer there’s going to have to be a garden theme for the fosters who come through!
Also:
The name “Dingwall Scotty” makes me want to have another KID, forget about kittens…
And off topic mostly, but the other day my son said something and I corrected his pronunciation. He said, “Whatever. You say ‘tomato,’ I say ‘potato.'” He had no idea why I was laughing so hard.
This made me guffaw! Kids. Gotta love ’em. 🙂
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LOVE that pink kitten feeder…what a great idea. 🙂
I also have a blue one, and a red one, too! Cyndi (and Mo, Tus, and Wally) sent the pink and blue ones a few months ago. Before that, I’d been using muffin top pans to feed the fosters at snack time, but I was having an issue with the pans getting rusty around the edges due to being washed so often. These chip and dip containers are not only cute and give each kitten their own little segment, but hold up well and don’t mind being washed every day.
The red one is a bigger one someone sent me last Winter, and if I ever reinstate snack time for the permanent residents, I’m going to use that. It’ll give the big cats even more space, and there won’t (theoretically) be hissing and smacking at snack time!
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Question for you guys with lots of kitten knowledge: When do you worry about the wrestling kittens do? We have one kitten from one litter, and two new kittens we’re fostering this week, and they’ve started playing with each other (after 3 days) but my 9 year old son is very concerned they’re hurting each other. (They’re not – it’s that playful “pounce, roll, flip, release, chase and your turn to pounce now” thing) but I was trying to explain when he should try and separate them (they stay in his room at night cause the permanents aren’t thrilled yet) and it’s really hard to explain when the flat ears no holds barred play looks so real! I’m assuming that they’ll actually try and get away when it’s real and/or cry, but I don’t really know when to intervene myself! The two new babies, are a couple of weeks older but seem bigger than the one singleton, part of that cause they’ve got Maine Coon in them and they’re MUCH floofier! But they’re not mean and I honestly don’t think any of them want to hurt each other.
I – and a few other people – answered this in the comments, but I really like McFinn’s suggestion on how to help reassure your son regarding the play-fighting:
Maybe you could find a bunch of clips of kittens play fighting on Youtube and show him that it’s normal behavior. It used to make me nervous too since the cats I grew up pretty much ignored each other.
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How on earth do you find the strength to take those babies to Petsmart? I adore the Noms and I’ll miss them terribly! On that note, that’s why I don’t foster, I’d never get rid of any! (says the lady with 14 cats……)
Like Connie said, if you don’t take back the old ones, they don’t give you new ones!
But seriously, it’s never fun to take them to Petsmart, and the more frightened they are, the harder it is. But I know that it’s for the best – they all deserve to be in homes where there’s not a possibility they’ll be overlooked in the crowd, like they could be here – and sooner or later all my fosters have been adopted. It hurts and I seriously miss them a lot for a few days, but the pain fades.
The pain of having to take them to Petsmart is the price we have to pay for all the good parts!
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Is Rupert gonna be a permanent resident?
He seems pretty determined to stick around, so I guess I’ll have to say the answer is yes. He’s gone from a frightened scaredy cat to a self-proclaimed Crooked Acres ambassador. If someone stops by, he moseys over to check them out. I looked out the other day, and he was rolling around under one of the fruit trees, being petted by our next door neighbor. Fred is certainly smitten with him! He’s quite the character.
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And on Penny-watch… How in the heck do you know if a cat is pregnant or simply faking it? She has a rounded belly bulge (and not a bit of fat on her anywhere else). She walks a little low to the ground and appears to sway a bit while doing it. I *think* I might have felt a kitten bulge last night, but I’m so inexperienced it might just be her gall bladder or something (if cats even have gall bladders). If she’s game-playing, she’s a master. It got her out of the shelter and will get some lucky family a fabulous cat. My son has already asked to keep her.
This is from Kelly, and as I told Kelly I’m not the one to ask about this – I’m sure we all remember Maura, who was never actually pregnant despite the fact that Fred swore he was counting kitten heads in her belly the day before we found out she was a big faker! But if anyone has words of advice on the topic, feel free to speak up!
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I’m still absolutely enchanted by Russett. Why, he looks like Gates McFadden in Star Trek: the Next Generation. As a kitten.
I can kind of see the resemblance!
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Do you think Russet will keep those BEAUTIFUL blue eyes?
It’s hard to know! He’s at least 9 weeks old now, and I’m pretty sure that their eyes have usually changed by that point, so I’m thinking he’s going to keep them. The little Taters are 2 – 3 weeks younger than he is, and the girls’ eyes have completely changed already.
I hope that all the blue-eyed orange boys keep their blue eyes! It’s a really striking look, isn’t it?
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Robyn, I’m sure you’ve seen this (or that one of your commenters has already mentioned it to you), but I think they had you in mind when this t-shirt was made.
Too perfect!
I actually hadn’t seen that! And it’s very “me,” for sure! If only it came in a color other than Navy, I’d probably have already ordered one. 🙂
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Russet just kills me dead. SO! CUTE! AND! FLUFFY!!!! BTW, if you put boots, a hat and a sword on Agata, Dreamworks will sue you for copyright infringement. 😉
That is SO true. Agata and Fianna and their huge eyes just kill me dead!
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Hi Robyn… I introduced your blog to my sister Fri night during a marathon “like only sisters can do” telephone call and I spent quite some time giving her the tour… When we got to your naming the litter routine, she suggested Constellations in the sky! Maybe it’s already been done, but was worth a shout out ~ not to mention I needed just ONE MORE LOOK (only one!!!) at Russet!
I love that idea, but I am pretty sure – actually, almost positive – that another Challenger’s House foster mom has used constellations before. However, there must be names that she didn’t use, so I’m going to add this to my list of naming ideas!
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So Robyn, are the Noms kept separate from these new babes or do you have one big nursery going and they all play together?
The Noms have the run of the house 24/7 now, and will until they go off to Petsmart. The Taters are locked in the foster room upstairs, and will be for at least another week (though Russet and Norland have both slipped out of the foster room without my realizing it!)
Cicero is in a cage in the guest bedroom and will stay there until he can be Combo tested in a couple of weeks.
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Speaking of cats’ eyes, are Rupert’s eyes the same color? In some pictures they look the same, but in other pictures one looks more blue-ish than the other. Probably just shadows and all, but still wondering.
As far as I can tell, Rupert’s eyes are the same color. He is shifty eyed and not prone to allow much direct eye contact, though. 🙂
To piggyback onto the question about keeping cats away from wool rugs, if anyone has any suggestions for trimming down the little tufts they’ve pulled up, I’m all ears. Fabric shavers (like this one ) don’t work because they’re designed to separate little pills of floof, and this is something where I need to actually trim the bits of carpet the cats have clawed out. I also tried an electric shaver (like for legs) and a set of dog-grooming clippers with no luck. I know I need to just give up on the rug as a lost cause – they’ll lie right next to the scratching posts and pads that I set out, and scratch the carpet instead – but I really like it and am not ready to let go of it just yet…
Would a pair of nail scissors work, or are the tufts too big for that? Readers, suggestions??
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Kennebec looks like he is talking on the phone in that picture with the cat toy, “Hello?! Customer service? I haz a COMPLAINT.”
“HALLO, YES, SECURITY? Please escort this kitten out. I bit her on the butt and now she’s following me around trying to do the same to me and I WILL NOT HAVE IT!”
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A little Maine lore for the Taters — Norlands is the name of an estate owned by the Washburn family in Maine, who included several Congressmen and governors and the guy who invented the typewriter and sold the patent to Mr. Remington for $500. You can see it at www.norlands.org and last time I was there I met a barn cat who was, yes, orange. Kennebec is a river and a county where the state capital (Augusta) is located, and every spring there are betting pools on what day will be “ice-out” on the river. Agata is probably related to the northern Maine town of St. Agatha (since it’s so close to Canada they pronounce it the French way, “seine t’aGAHT”). The original St. Agatha is known as “Santo Gato” (Saint Cat) in the Pyrenees, and is said to appear in the form of a cat on her feast day, Feb. 5.
So not only are they Taters, they’re NORTHERN Taters!
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And DANG, what happened in your garden during May?
Sunshine and heat. Imagine how it would have looked if we’d had a decent amount of rain!
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Robyn, you HAVE to tell us more about Cicero. The girl rescued him as in a doggie had him in his mouth like a plaything? As in life or death? Where’s his poor mama? 🙁 I know you will take good care of him. Thank goodness for your neighbor (and for YOU!)
I don’t think they know where his mama is – though they’re going to keep an eye out for her and for siblings to Cicero. I’m not sure whether the dog actually had Cicero in his mouth or not, but I can tell you that he isn’t injured at all, thankfully!
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Connie-If you want to direct me to a link I will check it out. I don’t do Facebook though.
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The Noms sure do love that Jakie.
Last night I was walking out of the bathroom, and Jake went running by with Logie hot on his heels. A moment later, they went racing by with Logie in the lead.
Logie fits nicely in the hammock on the cat tree in the front room.
Darwin, disapproving.
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Norland is an expert escape artist. I found him rolling around in the big fireplace in the dining room. Which we haven’t used in a couple of years, mind you, but it’s not exactly super clean, as you can see by his nose.
Another shot of his pretty blue eyes. You can see by his paws that he was in the process of kneading. I wasn’t even touching him, he was just laying up against me, purring up a storm.
Kennebec in the wall basket with his sisters.
Fianna takes a look to see what’s what.
Then rests her paw on Agata’s head while she takes a bath.
Agata was all “Stoooop, I’m trying to sleeeeep.”
Pretty girl.
Also a pretty girl.
They fit nicely in that basket.
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Yesterday, I moved Cicero from his carrier to a cage in the guest bedroom. That orange stuffed cat behind him is a Snuggle Kittie. There’s a battery-run “heart” that you can turn on and tuck into a pocket in the underside of the cat that simulates a mama kitty’s heartbeat. Soon after I moved him into the cage, I peeked in, and he was sitting on top of the Snuggle Kittie kneading and purring. Kill me dead, why don’tcha?
“You must be here to give me food!”
Yesterday morning I mixed some canned kitten food with formula and put it on a plate for him. He wasn’t interested until I put some of it in his mouth, and then he was VERY excited. He ate more than I expected, and mid-afternoon when I went in to feed him, he saw me put the plate down, stomped out of his cage as soon as I opened the door, and ate almost every bit of the food on the plate.
Then he explored the room for a while before I cleaned him up and put him back in his cage.
His eyes look like that because I’d just put Terramycin in his eyes. He’s kind of a sweet little mess, that one, but he looks a trillion times better than he did when we got him.
When they handed him over Tuesday evening, he was cool to the touch even though he was wrapped in a blanket. Even after we got him warmed up, he wasn’t interested in eating. After he’d been sleeping for a few hours, I reached in to take him out and offer him some more formula, and I could see that he was breathing, but couldn’t wake him up. I was so sure that he was not going to last much longer, but he did eventually wake up. I got formula into him, and when I got up at 1 in the morning to check on him and give him more formula, he was so bright-eyed and happy that he was like another kitten entirely.
He’s such a sweet boy that I think I’ve kissed him about 3,000 times since Tuesday. Lucky for me, he likes kisses!
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I keep forgetting – have I ever mentioned that Corbie is the MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY EVER? Probably not, huh?
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Previously
2011: Seven random facts about me.
2010: No entry.
2009: Brudderly love.
2008: No entry.
2007: The kittens continue with their skittishness but last night I got Tina Louise to come over and sniff my hand.
2006: No entry.
2005: And then I see Flossie’s worried little face, and I think “She is just unbearably cute. SHE’s my favorite.”