Just so you know, I am currently recovering from surgery, so I wrote this entry ahead (wrote it on Tuesday) and scheduled it to post so you wouldn’t have to go without. I’m sure posting will go back to normal(ish) on Monday or thereabouts.
Robyn! I had no idea you were covering for your polygamist Rooster! How many of those kids are his?? Does he keep each family in separate houses ala Big Love??? Does he share himself equally or does he fancy one hen more than others???
Oh, there are NO separate houses for this big, happy family! They all share one big house and (horrors!) the same big room! There are plenty of roosts in there so they have plenty of room and aren’t all up in each others’ space. As far as I can tell, the rooster doesn’t have any favorite hens – whoever’s closest will do, it seems.
That’s SO cute about Alice’s song – do you sing it to a particular tune?
No, I sing it to different tunes – sometimes peppy like a sitcom theme, sometimes jazzy complete with jazz hands, sometimes slow and mournful. Depends on my mood!
Just saw this and fondly thought of you and the Fredster:
That cracks me UP!
Somehow I was relieved to hear about your pissy camera. I have had so many problems with my 2 cats, I’ve never been able to figure out how you can keep so many so successfully. Reading your blog not only gives me some hints, it makes me hopeful. Thank you.
Gallons and gallons of Nose Offense is how I manage! 🙂 The cats seem to go through stages where everything is peaceful and there’s hardly any fighting, and then for some unknown reason, they go through a stage where everyone fights with everyone else, or someone’s got an issue with SOMETHING I can’t figure out, and there’s spraying going on in the house. Earlier this year, when I was about to have surgery, I did some really stupid things. First, I completely changed the kind of litter I was using for the cats, and THEN I took the litter box out of the guest bedroom, and THEN I moved the couch from one side of the front room to the other so I could put a recliner in there, where I sat as I recovered from surgery.
This was the perfect storm that kicked off what I like to UNfondly refer to as “Sprayapalooza.” There I was, recovering from surgery, and every morning after Fred went off to work, I was wandering around the house with the light and the spray bottle of Nose Offense tracking down every puddle and every spray, spraying it, and then wiping it up. It very nearly drove me crazy, but eventually (once I switched the litter back to Fresh Step; I’ve since switched to a Precious Cat/ Cat Attract mixture – and I did it SLOWLY) the spraying stopped. Every now and then we’ll find a spray or two, and I go around the house regularly with the black light to make sure there’s not anything I’ve missed, but at the moment things are going well. THANK GOD.
I’m curious–there’s only one rooster, so all the babies are his. When the babies grow up, do you keep them? and if so, aren’t they all inbreeding after that?
Before this year, we’ve made sure to bring “fresh blood” into the flock so that there was not any inbreeding. I completely failed to realize that we didn’t do that this year until I saw this comment! I said something to Fred, and he said that he’s planning to add some fresh blood to the flock next Spring, hopefully. I’d like to have a few more Silkies – they’re not terribly prolific layers, but they’re wonderful mothers, and they’re also pretty entertaining. I’d also like to have several Americaunas; although they’re terrible layers (at least the ones we’ve had are), when they do lay, they lay blue eggs, and I like seeing a variety of eggs in the egg basket.
We do keep the hens who are born here, but when they’re big enough, the roosters go off to freezer camp.
Do you ever find feathers from The Rock Star laying around? I’d want to pluck her-she’s got gorgeous feathers! 🙂
I do find feathers from the Rock Star laying around. In fact, I have a small bag of her feathers around here somewhere that I was going to use for something, I don’t remember what – probably to attach to cat toys.
Does Fred have help with the umpteen kitties when you decamp?
Fred has zero help with the kitties when I’m not here. He does the scooping, he keeps the food bowls and water bowls filled, and just about everything else goes by the wayside. Our cats didn’t get their morning snack while I was gone, the big Peppers didn’t get a morning snack while I was gone, and Charlie and Patty only got their morning snack because I wanted to be sure they were getting their Forti-Flora every day (though to be honest, at this point I think they’d probably be okay without it, they’re doing really well). He does a good job with all of that, and so if the house is a bit of a mess when I get home, I figure it’s worth it, because I know that he took good care of the cats while I was gone!
I have composed several songs to my kittehs including the “Good Morning” song and “Coltrane, Coltrane, He’s a Helluva Cat”. Any major labels out there want to sign me up? Hee!
I have to admit that I might pay good money to hear “Coltrane, Coltrane, He’s a Helluva Cat”!
When you say the “Good Morning” song, do you mean this one? Because I sing “Cullen, Tom Cullen, weeee slept the whole night through, Tom Cullen, Tom Cullen, let’s eat!” sometimes (not always in the morning). That works with Miz Poo, too – “Pootie, Miz Pootie, weeeeeee slept the whole night through!”, etc.
Also, I use Alice’s song with Joe Bob, since it fits so well (“Jobey Joe, the tuxedo, sure does love his daddy!”)
Both Kara and Maxi get the same theme song, sung to a tune I made up. Maxi’s goes “Porkin’ along, singin’ her song, it’s Out! Side! Mama!” (because Maxi is an outdoor cat and also because she talks when she’s walking toward us. Also also, she’s kind of portly). We call her “Outside Mama” and Kara is “Upstairs Mama” because she used to spend a lot of time upstairs – these days, if she’s not outside, she prefers to hang out on the cat bed on the clothes dryer. Anyway, her version of it goes “Stompin’ along, singin’ her song, it’s Up! Stairs! Mama!” (She also likes to talk when she’s walking toward you.)
Clearly I can go on for DAYS when it comes to cat songs!
If I were Alice, I’d growl at you for taking such an unbecoming photo of her (#1). The way she has her body twisted makes her look a little heavy – definitely not her “good side”.
Much in the way it’s not these jeans that make my butt look fat, it’s not the picture that makes Alice look a little heavy, if you hear what I’m sayin’.
I hate to ask, but pigs wouldn’t actually try to eat a live animal (incl. human)…would they??
I don’t think they’d have much luck eating a healthy living human, but if you toss someone who’s kind of sickly and weak in there, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pigs chowed down, really.
I’ve not seen Deadwood (it’s on my to-watch list), but I understand there’s a pig (or pigs) who takes care of disposing of bodies. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was based on fact. Pigs are walking stomachs, and if they get hungry enough I believe they’d eat just about anything.
I need good thoughts from the interwebs, by the way – I am getting three foster kittens next week. Unfortunately these three, although seemingly perfectly healthy right now, tested positive for feline leukemia so my house is probably going to be hospice care for them. I am hoping they make it to adulthood but I know the odds are against it.
Teughcats, I hope it’s going well with your foster kittens! I guess that’s a definite positive, there’s no chance they could retest and come up negative? I have been lucky enough to never have any fosters test positive for leukemia, though of course the Bookworms (and the Wonkas before them) were initially FIV positive. Those kittens are lucky to have you to care for them.
What’s a sweet gum tree? is it anything like a eucalyptus gum tree?
I don’t think it’s like a eucalyptus gum tree, but maybe it’s in the same family and I don’t know! You can read about the Sweetgum tree here. They’re very pretty trees, and if it weren’t for the gumballs (large spiky balls) that they drop by the thousands, I’d love to have more Sweetgums on the property!
And when you put the big garden to bed, do you pull everything out, fertelize it cover it with mulch and just leave it till spring? Hey, I’m new to this gardening thing – might start up my own no dig garden bed this weekend and everthing! erm, how do I keep the cats off it?
We mostly pull everything up, then Fred tills the entire garden a couple of times over the course of the winter, and we call it good enough. I’m planning to toss a lot of leaves and grass clippings on the garden this winter to help amend the soil. We’ll see if I actually do it, though!
We don’t keep the cats out of the big garden – they mostly keep the squirrels, birds, and rabbits away and they don’t bother the plants for the most part. I keep the cats out of my little raised bed garden by putting a fence around it.
Those Peppers are adorable. are you going to re-intro version 2 with the original Peppers again any time soon?
At this point, both litters of Peppers are out in the house for the better part of the day. Fred mentioned, last night, the idea of putting the little ones in the room with the big ones overnight, but I’m a little concerned that Everett (who plays rough sometimes) might get too rough with them. We may eventually do that, depending on how long the big Peppers are with us (not many adoptions lately, so there hasn’t been room at Petsmart for them just yet.)
I have a one letter editing suggestion for Alice’s song:
Alice Mo
the calico
sure does love
her daddy-O!
I actually had forgotten this – we’ve been watching Breaking Bad, and once the season started, I added a “yo” (a la Jesse Pinkman) to the end of Alice’s theme song!
Regarding Charlie and Patty Peppers, and their “love bug” status….do you find that your little boy kitties are generally more that way than the girl kitties are? I keep hearing that female animals are generally more independent. You seem to be the best person to really know….given how many cats have been blessed to be with you.
You know, it’s possible that we’ve had more friendly males than females, but if it’s true that the males are friendlier, it’s pretty slight. I’m thinking of the Peppers Gang, where Molly and Lucy are great big lovebugs (we’ve been calling Molly “the hussy” because she climbs on you and demands that you give her love), Sally can take us or leave us, Harlan likes a snuggle if you grab him, but he doesn’t come looking for it, and Everett is a big snugglebug when he’s not off running around like his tail is on fire. So I guess my answer is… maybe the boys are friendlier, but not by a big margin.
Back to say that I love the word “snoopervise” you should submit that to Websters. 🙂
Isn’t it a great word? I didn’t come up with it, though – I first saw it on Huffle Mawson‘s page, and stole it (I know I’ve seen it other places as well, but that’s where I first spotted it).
So do the kittehs miss you when you’re gone and act all lovey-dovey, or are they all “what, you were gone?” and ignore you? I never know if I’m coming back to clingy kitties or aloof ones!
Miz Poo always greets me with “OH MY GOD HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME NEVER EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN!”, and the rest of the cats are all “We’re glad you’re back, is it snack time yet?”
To be fair, that’s Miz Poo’s reaction whether I leave for 10 minutes or 10 days.
Such stressed Peppers. Sad, no?
GOD, Everett! Sally! PLEASE try to calm down!
“What’s up there?”
“Hey, I like the way this thing smells.”
Lucy unsheathes The Claws.
Honestly, Everett. Am I going to have to put you on valium or something? BREATHE, for god’s sake!
“Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again:
“I did not have snuggual relations with that kitten, Mister Peppers. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.”
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Previously
2010: Laurie probably beats her kittens to make them behave.
2009: “I HAZ A COMPLAINT! I WAS TOLD THERE’D BE FOOD AT THIS PARTY!”
2008: These kittens = exactly what a cranky woman needs.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Cleanliness is next to Sugarbuttliness.
For the foster mom with the FeLV kittens.. you might want to look into the book “The Very Healthy Cat” book by Wendell Belfield http://www.amazon.com/Very-Healthy-Cat-Book-Vitamin/dp/007004354X I read it when Jack was diagnosed FeLV positive (He tested positive eight weeks later as well) I started supplementing him with Vitamin C and a year later he tested negative.
as to the pigs.. there was a CSI episode where the criminal used his pigs to dispose of the bodies..
aww, i had the BEST kitten when i was 15 who soon died of felv. back in those days, i guess it wasn’t something you tested for. she got sick over christmas break and died. i was heartbroken. she only lived probably 6 months or so, but she was still the most awesome little kitty who loved to watch storms out the window.
Thanks, everyone, for the good wishes on my feleuk babies. To give you a little background, I volunteer with a cat rescue group (www.crashslanding.org if you are curious) and we have a shelter just for feleuk and FIV kitties. Once mine make it to six months (I am refusing to contemplate any other possibility!), they will be old enough to go there and live happily ever after. (Their mama is a friendly stray who also has feleuk and she lives there now.) But right now they are too little so they have taken over my guest room. They seem to be doing well so far – at about ten weeks two weigh just under two pounds and the third is just about three pounds. They are the sweetest friendliest little things ever. Robyn, you and Laurie from IBKC and Sue from Pitter Pats are my inspiration and source of knowledge for kitten fostering!
Thanks for having posts ready even for post-op, it’s so nice not to miss a day, tho we’d understand if we HAD to! I especially like the days when you answer questions.
Take care, and hope we see you on Monday.
Is that Everett chilling with Spanky? He is such a cool kitty. He knows who to know.
Pigs: Yes. They will eat you. They are ruthless. Especially sows with piglets. Very very dangerous, those angry mommas! I know people who have lost fingers to angry pigs. And if you fell in to the wrong pen, you’d be trampled and eaten easily within minutes while the pigs sang “Freedom To The Oppressed Pigs!”. Other pens, the pigs would look at you and say “Dropping in for tea? My dear, I did not cook enough lemon curd this week, we’ll have to make do with orange marmalade. Crusts or no crusts?”. But oh, the bad pen ….. remember the start of Wizard of Oz, how scared they were of her falling into the pig pen? I remember reading a book when I was little (NOT a Little House book) about a boy who fell into a pig pen and how utterly scared-for-his-life everyone was, and after he was rescued, all the gruesome stories his relatives had about people who died in pig pens. and that was non-fiction! Shudder.
I always make up songs for my cats, the Norwegian forest cats often get “I once had a cat, or should I saw it once had me…” But it isn’t just the cats, our 120 pound giant malamute rescue (pure white) Princes gets:
“Oh she sheds here, and she shed’s there,
And she shed’s over the floorey Oh,
It is sometimes even said, that she even shed’s in BED!
With furry of the Waggle, Taggle Wolfie Oh..”
To the tune of the folk song “The Waggle Taggle Gypsie” (yes there are more verses but that’s my favorite one..
Melodi in Ireland aka Disastercat
You know if Gracie wins, you’ll have to compose a new song in her honor!
Gracie has slipped to second place! Everyone VOTE!!!
Oh, hey! Your Sweetgum trees are what we call Liquid-ambar! I have one in my front yard and boy, are those prickle balls annoying! But you’re right, they are prety trees.
You recall of Tubby’s ‘I’m gonna throw up!’ warning had me laughing aloud! ‘Maaa-maaa!’ indeed. would definitely creep me out. My Fox used to do the whole ‘no-no-no-no!’ while Niles and Zorro are just sitting there one minute and barfing the next. lovely…
Oh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy! How I love dem widdle black cross-eyed kitties!
*Get well soon, dearest momma of the thirteen. Or else, Miz Poo will be utterly devasteded by the delay, I suppose.