8-29-14

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I was looking back at your house(s) pictures and realized every time Miz Poo was in the picture, you referenced her as “the kitten”. That made me smile. Now she is the matriarch!

I still think of her as “the kitten!”

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I believe the flower you are calling a hibiscus might actually be a rose of sharon. We have both in our yard and they are beautiful! We also have a double petal rose of sharon, which is beautiful. The hibiscus flowers are typically huge and at least 6 inches across. I have heard that hibiscus tea will lower your blood pressure but I am chicken to try to make my own. I just wanted to chime in because I wouldn’t want you to get sick.

Actually, Rose of Sharon is the common name for Hibiscus syriacus, and it’s edible.

But in any case, I’m not sure who I was trying to kid when I said I might try making Hibiscus tea from the flowers, because I’ve never been a tea drinker. I like to think that if I’d grown up drinking tea (like Fred did), I’d be a fan. But no matter what kind of tea I try, it’s just not my thing (although… now that I think about it, I did try a Passion Tea lemonade drink at Starbucks last year, and it was pretty good. Maybe I just need to try the Tazo Passion Tea again!)

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you mentioned about Khaleesi being returned for biting?

reminds me I saw on facebook a link posted by Oskar (the blind kitty) about this lady who adopted a stray and she posted a video about how the kitty has has its shots etc, and she’ll send it to whoever that will like to adopt it because she travels a lot.

And in that video,she had to SMACK kitty so many times because the kitty would jump and bite her real hard.. it was sad to watch.. people were commenting how kitties do that to play, is that true?

Kittens will often bite to be playful (and get you to play with them), but it’s a behavior that they will grow out of, with the help of training – I always stop playtime cold and walk away if they get bitey or kicky. Training that does NOT include hitting the cat, so I think you can imagine how disapproving I am of this video I haven’t seen!

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Speaking of Licki Tricki, I have a cat who licks ALL THE TIME, too. She was born to a feral mother but rescued in time to be mostly okay with people. (Okay, she likes me. And will tolerate members of my immediate family when they visit. She hides from everyone else.) But given half a chance, she will lick me and occasionally nibble. I don’t mind a little of it but is there any way to get her to stop without making her more skittish? Or should I just be thankful she has decided I’m worthy?

I’ve never successfully found a way to stop a super-licky cat from licking. If it starts to hurt I’ll usually hide my hands under the blanket, and Tricki gives up the licking and flops down for a nap. Maybe distracting your licky girl would work? Next time she starts, pull out a toy she likes and see if that works to distract her.

Anyone else have lick-stopping advice? It’s very sweet for the first several minutes, but those tongues are ROUGH and it starts to hurt after a while!

By the way, I’ve started singing “Licky, licky, licky/ here comes Tricki/ Trick lick patrol!” (to the tune of the Cook’s Pest Control* jingle)

*Which is based off of this song right here.

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Do you ever notice that the black kitties get more dandruff than the others? Or is it just my boy… He’s grain-free (grains made him wheeze, and drop napalm bombs in the litter box, both problems have since cleared), and gets a supplement in his wet food.

I haven’t noticed it, actually – though I do notice that they seem to pick up more dust than the other cats do (although I guess they don’t really – it just shows up better against their dark fur.)

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But tell me why all the hate for ducks? I always kinda liked them myself. Do they have an evil side I’ve never seen?!

From Sourpuss: I used to LOVE ducks, and while I still sort of LIKE them (they ARE cute after all), I have to say I can’t blame Robyn. The males are jerks. Without getting into too many gory details (you can look it up on the web and there are even videos of it), they are extremely aggressive towards females in their mating habits, to the point where they could be called rapists/murderers. You know it’s bad when the female duck anatomy has had to evolve to try to foil attempts at unwanted copulation!

I said: Yes, this. The females are okay, but I loathe the males. They spend a lot of time chasing around our female chickens, trying to mate with them. And the roosters are just USELESS, and stand there and watch.

Kar asked: Ok so why do you have ducks? You don’t seem fond of the females and their choices in nest either. You don’t seem interested in their eggs or ducklings too.
Are these Fred’s ducks?

I said: Oh, they are 100% Fred’s ducks. The entire reason he wanted them was because he likes the way they walk around and quack under their breath. I never thought we needed them (they were awfully cute when they were little, though.) Had I known what jerks the males are, I would have resisted quite a bit more at the idea of having ducks, honestly.

I should add, also, that most of the time in recent months, the girl ducks are laying their eggs in the duck house, which is what I’d prefer. Fred did find a clutch of eggs in the weeds near the pond the other night, but when we looked the next evening, they were gone (I don’t know if the dogs got them, a snake happened along and got them, or the turtle came out of the pond to get them.) My main issue with where they lay their eggs is that I’m worried I’ll look out one day and see a female duck followed by a large number of ducklings.

You know, if the girl ducks would always lay their eggs in the duck house and the boy ducks would stop trying to mate with the hens, I wouldn’t dislike them so much!

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Do you do anything special with all the gum balls, or do you just sweep them up and chuck them? Not chuck them *at* anything/body, mind, although I imagine you could do that if you wanted!

I actually bring a few inside the house, because the cats like to play with them and bat them around. The rest just get swept off the driveway, and eventually picked up with the sweeper (or raked up) and tossed in a random out-of-the-way location.

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I was wondering how the water in the pig yard wallow/pond keeps from getting mucky and full of mosquito larvae. Are there fish in there? Please educate me as I am very curious!!!

Good question! It actually is kind of mucky (if I ever fell into that wallow, I would immediately perish from the horror of it, I’m sure), but the ducks like to get in there and paddle around, and I know there’s at least one turtle who lives in there. I don’t know if Rouen ducks eat mosquito larvae (I know Muscovy ducks do), but I think they might.

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Will Dolores die, now that she laid her egg sac? Oh, I cried and cried and cried when Charlotte died after she laid hers. Not Dolores, too!! As far as Mr. Dolores goes, he prolly deserved it. Like he left the cap off the fly-flavored toothpaste for the 50th time or left the toilet seat up or something.

I’m SURE Mister Dolores deserved whatever he got!

Dolores will likely die sometime between now and after the first frost. To me, she looks like she’s slowing down and looking old, but I don’t know WHY I think that – she’s just sitting in her web like she always has.

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I went combing through the old blog posts and can’t seem to come up with an answer, so here goes: Do you have a recommended cat tower for a super long kitty? My boy has been called a puma by every vet that has seen him and he’s 15# of muscle and hangs off either end of all his shelves and towers. Any suggestions???

I’m hoping that other people will chime in here and give suggestions, because I know that my recommendation is an expensive one. Last Christmas, after having the cat tree in my room start to get rickety (and tightening up the supports didn’t help at all), as a Christmas gift to ourselves and the cats, we ordered a cat tree from Playtime Workshop. They aren’t cheap (we have the Big Foot tree in my room) and it took about a month to get the tree because they make it to order, but that thing is super solid and holds up really well under the weight of Tommy and Sugarbutt with no problem at all. I like their work so much that I’m hoping to replace the cat tree in the front room this Christmas with another Playtime Workshop tree.

But like I said, they’re expensive and might not be what you’re looking for – so everyone out there, chime in, please!

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On the cats and bathroom thing..

YouTube link.

Oh good lord, how CUTE is that!

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Guess who’s headed back to Petsmart this morning?

“Well, I don’t like the sound of THAT.”

“But I thought it was nap time!”

Sweet girl.

At my request, Susan edited Tricki’s description to point out that she’s an adult, and only about 5 1/2 pounds, and we don’t expect her to get any bigger. I’m hoping that that will catch someone’s attention and interest, and that it’ll garner her some second looks. Fingers crossed!

The upstairs will be empty of fosters this weekend, which will give me a few days to really scrub down the foster room. Then on Tuesday, we’ll get Polo. Polo’s a diabetic kitty who lives with another Challenger’s House foster family. They’re going on vacation, so we’re cat sitting for a couple of weeks.

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Stinkerbelle, keeping an eye on her Tommy.

“What you doin’, weird lady?”

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Previously
2013: It’s the one where they go on vacation to Hawaii and Arya ends up hanging off a cliff and a stranger saves her by grabbing her hair and pulling her back up the cliff! This one always gives me goosebumps.
2012: Thistle having a little alone time in HER box.
2011: And Gracie was all “Yeah, whatebs.”
2010: No entry.
2009: “Thank you, internets, for my new eyelids!”
2008: Sometimes she growls at him.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: So Rambo had his belly shaved, too, and he and Jodie are awfully funny looking, laying around with their little shaved bellies.

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