Lucy the lettuce killer

So much for my hopes of  fresh  salad greens. 

Big Mike's in the tree tops

Mike in his preferred napping spot

Outside of 1950's sit-coms I've never seen a cat really stuck in a tree. Well Mike went up a fir tree, probably after a squirrel, and hasn't come down. It's been three days and it's raining. Somehow he's not that wet.  He's not happy, but he's moving around and really not that wet. I've spent the last two days on the phone to see if there's someone I can send up after him and under the tree trying to get him to come down.Smelly tuna didn't even work. I guess 50 feet is just too high to come down by yourself.  I think I'll try something like this.

this moment

inspired by SouleMama ---- {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

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a snapshot into my world

wordless wednesday

Christmas box

We had a lovely Christmas; even with lots of snow, too much fudge and had a power outage. The cats, like all small children, had an especially good time with the boxes. I had tried to keep all the paper shreds in this box while opening it, but Lucy had other ideas. She jumped on it twice and that was it. The top collapsed, and she was swimming in tissue and shreds. By the end of the day every animal in the house had played with some part of the box and its packaging. 4 days later I'm still finding shreds hiding in the corners.

Christmas just wouldn't be the same without packing material all over the floor. 

Crazy cat lady

So it's like this -  the neighbors had kittens, polydactyl kittens, one was a calico and anther had a crooked tail.. How could a person resist. I'm a step closer to crazy cat lady status, or maybe two.  This is Lucy and Mike. He's Little Mike right now but having seen his father he'll be Big Mike shortly. 

The cat that came with the barn is polydactyl so we already new a little about them. Unlike the rather useless dewclaw, the extra digit acts like a thumb.  Our barn cat, the imaginatively named Thumbs, using hers to help climb and hunt. It gives her extra gripping power;  no mouse ever slips away.. 

Wikipedia page for Polydactyl cats

Wordless Wednesday

The Cake Thief

 A batch of homemade yogurt went sideways on me so it was relegated to cooking uses. I settled on Ina Garten's Lemon Yogurt Cake, because really any excuse for cake works for me. Strange yogurt or not this is a really great cake. Super easy and incredibly good, I swapped the lemon for orange this time.  It  never comes out dry and gets better the longer it sits, although it never sits for long in my house. 

So the cake was resting after baking and soaking in the orange syrup. Even cakes like to have a good soak and relax after rising for the occasion. I ducked out to schlep the garbage out to the cans. I was gone less than 5 minutes and returned to find a corner missing!

Someones been eating my cake....

...... and he's still looking at it rather wistfully.

Cats with long tails

 Everyone has heard about the perils of long tailed cats and rocking chairs, well now you can add sleeping too soundly by the fire place. Clyde likes to stretch out next to the wood stove. (A marvelous way to spend a rainy day I think.)  I was in another room when there came a terrible smell through the house. I thought something plastic must have been stuck to the log I had added since there was nothing near the stove. (I may be forgetful but I do keep flammable  objects away from the wood stove.)

 Hours later I noticed Clyde had a dirty spot on his tail. Odd because he is usually very fastidious about his fur. On closer inspection I discovered the source of the horrible smell. Clyde had melted!  The normally snowy white tip of his tail was now lightly toasted.

I've had cats and wood stoves most of my life and this is a first.  

Happy Valentine's Day

 

 

I hope you can spend some time on the couch with your pal today, too.

The 80%

Here's Clyde, in his favorite chair playing with his foot, being disgustingly cute.  This is what Clyde does 80%  of the time.  He's charming and goofy. He begs for cheese and plays with his toys.  It's just that 20% that drives me round the bend. (Hence this weekends rant.) There's nothing like breaking up cat fights and staying up too late trying to doctor a cat butt to make one cranky.

With the craziness and irritation of last week I still nearly offered to take 2 abandoned kittens form the animal shelter. They're still being bottle fed every two hours. I bit my tongue before that offer made it out.

I must have some sort of cat induced neurosis.

No new cats. No new cats. No new cats.

At least not until Thumbs has fully recovered and Clyde has moved out to live in some male household where he'll be the only cat and spend his days eating cheese and being a goof ball.

Then maybe......

This week in review

 

made pig

yelled at Clyde

made a pig 

rescued Thumbs from Clyde, again

made half a pig

pulled Thumbs from underneath the bath tub

put Clyde out in the snow

tried to clean a bite on Thumbs' thigh

left a message with the cat coordinator for the county animal shelter, Clyde must go

put salve on Thumbs' wound

let Clyde back in

finished a pig

Threw a slipper at Clyde when he  went after Thumbs again.

set up quarters for Thumbs upstairs

did my best to shave fur around the wound, applied more salve

vet can't see her until next Tuesday

sent photos of Clyde off to cat coordinator

tried to convince Tabby cat not to be an annoying little brother and let Thumbs heal. 

failed to keep Tabby cat from hanging upside down over Thumbs

Clyde is listed on Craig's List

Why did I want three cats?

I need a nap

typical

Dinner guests are due any minute and I'm trying to set the table. Clyde of course thought all the fuss was all for him.  Typical cat logic.

Week 2 with Clyde

This past week Clyde has relaxed and has been exploring the house, getting to know the family. Here's how it went;

Monday; Clyde appropriated a gnome ornament. Ate the beard, pulled all the stuffing out.

Tuesday; Discovered that the stair well can be used as an echo chamber. Especially in the hours between 1am and 5am.

Wednesday; Clyde has a 2 stroke max. Anything more and he devolves into fisticuffs. Probably why his original people had him de-clawed.

Thursday; Almost played with Sherlock. Then broke into a bag of hamburger buns and ate the top of one. Played in the bath tub drip for several hours.

Friday: Tried to pet Clyde as I passed him in the hall, he retaliated by biting me. Research on the Internet has identified Clyde as a Red or Flame point Siamese.(Really should have looked into that before I brought him home)

Saturday; around 1 am - yodeling in the stairwell disturbed Sherlock, who boxed his ears and pushed him down the stairs.

Sunday; I woke in the wee hours with him next to my head staring at me.

Monday; Clyde rubbed on my leg while I wiped out the microwave after blowing up a cup of coffee. Then  he jumped on the counter and ate my flax oil vitamin.


I don't know if Clyde is proof of the idiom 'no good deed goes unpunished' or not. All I know is I haven't had a decent nights sleep since he got here.  I like my cats quirky but anti-social and loud may be pushing it.

I think I might not be Siamese cat person.

Or this week has been some kind of elaborate hazing ritual.

I need coffee.

Clyde has arrived

There really is no truth in advertising. Rather than being a feeble aged old man, Clyde is active and talkative. I was worried about Thumbs being too rough on him, but the opposite is proving to be true. She is perched on top of the refrigerator and refuses to come down. Bucky tried to inspect the new guy's ears and got thumped on the muzzle for it. And Sherlock is slinking around the house with a puffed up tail; when Clyde isn't trying to chase him up the stairs. There has been a multitude of odd yowling coming from above stairs. They're not playing but it hasn't turned into an all out war. The household has been on edge all day. The rest of the week should prove to be interesting.

Getting a new resident

 The brother of one my neighbors is moving south and not taking his cat with him. I was so shocked and offended that he'd leave his cat behind. Not only that but considered having him put down or abandoning the poor animal on to the streets of Spokane. What?! A perfectly healthy de-clawed cat destroyed?! Abandoned in the city? And with winter about to start?!
I have issues about the de-clawing too but that pales in comparison.
I personally have never given up a pet, even the obnoxious cat who repeatedly attacked my dog and peed on the radiator grates. But that's me, I believe if you get an animal, it's yours for life. No matter what happens after the cute stage wears off.
So being completely offended I told the irresponsible clod to give me the cat. Sunday I will meet Clyde for the first time when I bring him home. Hopefully he'll settle in without too much fuss, poor guy. I'm setting up the guest room for him.
Bucky should be fine, he'll be happy for a new set of ears to clean. Thumbs will be the real problem, as she only partly tolerates Sherlock (cat #2). Should be interesting.
This is probably the start of my descent into being a crazy cat lady.
People are really such jerks.

Mohair Shawl no. 2

 

 Thumbs and I have come to a detente over the mohair. She is keeping the remains of the first shawl and all future mohair endeavors are mine. I wasn't very happy with the stitch pattern for the first one anyway. For no.2, I changed needles and am using the dimensions from the Peachtree Street shawl pattern. I tried the crochet pattern but it's just too hard to work in the mohair. I'm hating mohair less. The more I work with it the less itchy it becomes, but it's still tricky and likes to knot.

Peachtree Street Shawl

Here's Shawl no.2. I cast on 110 stitches and then just went ahead with 'oblique openwork' (aka 'diagonal eyelets'). When it's blocked out it should give me a mesh sort of texture like in the Peachtree shawl.

The week; a list

1.  I fell down the stairs. My 100 year old stairs in my 100 year old farm house are narrow, steep, and painted. About once a year I forget these facts and test the limits of friction and gravity. Usually on the third step from the bottom. It's an evil step that's out to get to me. Or at least my big toe. I have a strange square shaped bruise where my toe attaches to my foot and a sore spot on my bum.

 **note to self - buy gripper strip for evil third step.

2.  I'm going to put a hex on my former chimney contractor.

 The five year saga of the wood cook stove has come to an unceremonious end. Bad chimney people, I shall call them Soon to be Hexed (StbH). Insisted we have a dedicated chimney installed for the cook stove. I paid StbH a lot of money to put in the new chimney so everything would be safe and to code.

The chimney leaked.
StbH came back.
The chimney leaked less.
StbH came back. 
The chimney still leaks.
StbH came back. Spent three hours doing something and then said it was my roof and not his chimney and for $$$$ he would re-roof half the house.
StbH was asked to leave and never return.
The chimney still leaks.
New chimney people come for annual cleaning/inspection and joy of all joys for an insurance certification.
Wood cook stove does not meet code requirements. Boo. Wood cook stove has been installed too close to combustible materials. Chimney pipes have water damage and are rusting.
"How long ago was this put in?" New Chimney people ask.
"5 years ago." I say showing him the work order documents.
"5 years, really? This doesn't look right." New guy scratches his head looking at the paper work. "You don't have these braces or this heat shielding. And these pipe pieces don't exist."
"What do you mean they don't exist?!"
"They are imaginary pipes. Sorry ma'am."

Wood cook stove is disconnected and still leaky chimney is capped. All work done by StbH will be removed from the house later this month.

I need a voo doo doll. 

3. The raspberries are producing 2 pints a day.  Yippee!

4.  The allergist has proof I'm allergic to shellfish, weeds, mug wort, a mystery preservative, and paint. The shellfish I knew about, and anyone not allergic to mug wort is surely an alien. The preservative is apparently what causes my head to swell and gain pool sized lips; weird. Good to know.
I should have been Amish or a least a hippie.

 5.  I found three balls of mohair yarn. I don't know why I have mohair. I hate working with mohair. It tangles, knots, pulls, and is itchy.  Maybe this was part of a mad chemo induced yarn binge that had gone undiscovered until now.

 

I started a shawl.

6.  Bill brought 6 new Nero Wolf books from Paperback Swap! 

What, you don't know your mail man by his first name? 

Bill brought Bucky a bone, too. 

Everyone likes Bill.

7.  I got 15 rows into the shawl pattern and remembered why I hate mohair.(see # 5) I put it aside to go shift the sprinkler before ripping out three rows. I came back to see the cat shredding it. She'd helpfully separated the work from the skein and was running thru the house with the tattered remains stuck to her back foot. 
It was very traumatic for all involved.
The cat hates mohair too.


8.  Adding wheat germ to waffle batter gives it a nice nutty undertone. Adding raspberries to the maple syrup is even better.