Category Archives: Kittens

Automatic Feeding

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Before we left for vacation, we bought a gravity-fed feeder and water bowl for the cats. I’d intended to only use it while we were on vacation and go back to the usual feeding pattern as soon as we returned, mostly out of fear the cats (who do love to eat) would just keep gaining weight. Since it still had food in it when we got home, I left it up just to see how the cats use it.

Interestingly, no one seems to be over-eating. In fact, none of the beasts has gained any weight. They each take a nibble when they want and then wander off to do whatever it is they are in the mood to do. I’d begun to suspect all three of them had food insecurity issues (i.e. always afraid the food they are getting is the last ever), which is insane, seeing as the only one who may have experienced any actual hunger in their lives is Tora (the street kitten). The other two have never known a day of hunger in their entire lives, as evidenced by them being pudgy kittens and now pudgy cats. But it always felt like the insane mouth-stuffing that would happen when I put down the bowls of food was motivated more by being afraid there wouldn’t be food later and less by actual hunger. They are all very relaxed about food now, and it appears none of them has been over-eating. Not even Ronin.

I was also concerned that without the motivation to remind me to feed them the cats would collectively ignore the humans entirely. There used to often be days when the only time I’d see a cat was when it was getting near time for a meal, and then, of course, they were all up in my face letting me know in no uncertain terms they wanted food NOW. Well, they seem to be paying more attention to the humans than ever. They still come around for attention at the usual morning, noon, and night feeding times of yore, but they also seem to be spending more time in general in the vicinity of their human servants. I hadn’t expected that, but I like it.

The cats really seem to like the feeder. They seem like much more relaxed cats than usual. Therefore, the feeder (and water dispenser) will be staying right where it is. Added bonus? I no longer have to remember to feed the cats or worry about being home at their usual feeding times. It’s kind of nice … like the kids have grown up to be teens and can now take care of themselves. One less thing I have to think about each day!

Extra added bonus? Tora can’t spill the water anymore, and she’s stopped playing with the water altogether. Yes, no toys in the water bowl and no puddles of water on the kitchen floor with a silly cat rolling around in them. Pure joy! LOL!

NOTE: Because someone will ask, the brand we bought is Le Bistro. We bought them at PetsMart, but I know I have seen them at Walmart as well. Probably pretty easy to find, and according to the girl at the cash register at PetsMart, they are their top-selling brand and they don’t get complaints about them like some of the others. I’ve had no complaint about them so far, and considering they weren’t the expensive ones, I’m sort of surprised. I’d recommend them for sure if you need something like that for a vacation, because I would have been happy had they only lasted that long. Far cheaper and less hassle than boarding the cats somewhere. But they are pretty ruggedly built, and I suspect they are going to last long enough for me to call them a huge bargain. Oh, and we bought the dark blue ones for dogs (the small dog version). The cat ones didn’t look as well made, but they are probably just as good.

The cashier did say that one guy complained about them. He’d used them outside by the side of his house and they disfigured and started leaking. Well, yeah. Probably so. Ever notice what happens to plastic things left outside during the summer in Texas? Can’t say I am surprised. All I can say is seems to me this guy has dogs outside who have nowhere to get out of the sun if they are forced to eat and drink out in it, which makes me wonder about the guy’s suitability as a pet parent.

Home Alone Cats

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As any pet owners out there can likely attest, leaving one’s pets home alone while on vacation is always a somewhat stressful event for everyone. This is especially true if it’s the first time said pets have been left home alone for longer than an afternoon. How will they react? Will they cause excessive mayhem? Will there be injury, death, or destruction of the home? How will they get along without their human servants?!

I mitigated my fears somewhat by having a friend check on them a couple of times while we were gone on vacation, but I assure you, I had some fears about our three oddly mental cats being home alone for days on end. They are such handfuls when there are humans around, I worried about what sort of trouble they might get into if they figured out no one at all was keeping tabs on them. I was also a bit concerned about how long the food and water in their new dispensers would last them, because I hadn’t had a chance to test them out, and heaven help us all if these particular cats feel a hunger pain or don’t have fresh water. They get very nasty to each other. Nasty, fighty, and destructive … and that’s with me sitting right here about to feed them or give them fresh water.

Our cats were total angels while we were gone. No kitty mayhem, death or injuries, overeating or spilling of water dispensers. They didn’t even break into the bedroom closet or climb my knitting shelves in the living room. In fact, I could find no evidence at all they had done much more than sleep on the bed for the entire time we were gone! The only unauthorized cat activity I could find evidence of was an onion Tora had gotten out of the onion storage area and pulled into her favorite sunny spot under the kitchen chairs, where it had sprouted and begun to rot.† I was shocked, stunned, and amazed! I was also quite pleased, because now I feel confident they can be left entirely alone for at least four days without any human input at all, and the only cat-sitting they require beyond that is someone to refill their dispensers once a week. Yeah!

The cats’ first “home alone event” has also proven without little doubt our cats only get into things and cause trouble when their human servants are in the immediate vicinity, as a means of getting the attention they know they so richly deserve. I am on to them!

When we arrived home, there was the usual few moments of cat grumpiness, and then there were demands for head scratches and belly rubs. Lots of mewling and whining. This was followed by a little excited running around the house. All perfectly acceptable cat behavior. Then … we went to bed. Lin fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, as one would expect after a mad dash of a 16+ hour drive across the country. Even when I am utterly fatigued, it takes me a little longer than that to fall asleep tightly enough to not hear a pin drop two rooms over, so I got to enjoy admonishing the beasts as they set about getting into everything they possibly could.

First Tora became grumpy because my head was located on my pillow my the window she likes to sleep in at night, and she had trouble getting into her usual spot. Naturally, this lead to squeaking, mewling, stomping on my head repeatedly, and an attempt to shred the mini-blind. I pushed her away a few times, but she was relentless. I finally ended up grabbing her and putting her in the window, just to get her to shut up.

Next, Myu began breaking into the bedroom closet. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Then I heard the door starting to slide open. Gone for nine whole days, and she hadn’t even bothered with the closet. The first night we’re home, and she just has to open it! I threw a few small pillows at her, and she finally relented with the infernal claws-on-mirrored-door noise and came to bed.

And Ronin? He tried to kill me not once, but twice. How? By fussing around with the gigantic and heavy antique mirror propped on my dresser, which –when fussed with enough– will fall forward and land on the edge of the bed entirely too near my head and arm. I heard him on the dresser the first time, and I ignored it … until I heard and felt the WHOMP of the mirror frame hitting the edge of the bed a mere inch or so from my face. I got up and replaced the mirror and put the heavy rocks back in front of it. He’d torn out of the room after it fell, so I figured he wouldn’t bother with it again that night. Ha! He was right back at it mere moments after I fell asleep again. WHOMP! That time, I set it on the floor, because the mirror (which has yet to actually break – things really were made better back in the olden days it seems) had dislodged from the frame. I was certainly in no mood to fix that in the middle of the night after a long and painful road trip. Thwarted in his plan to kill me with a dresser mirror, Ronin then crawled into bed with us and slept.

While they were absolute dolls all day Sunday, bright and early Monday morning, at the moment my alarm started going off, they became their usual monster-like selves tearing around the house and full speed knocking things off shelves, stealing things off my art work table, climbing shelves, breaking into closets, clawing my desk chair, and generally being a pain in my butt. It can’t be that they are bored, because one would thing they would have been far more bored with no humans at all in the house, and yet they did nothing at all while home alone. No, it wasn’t until there were humans in the house showering them with attention and affection that they decided to partake of unauthorized cat activities, and I assure you, they are not wanting for any attention. These cats are spoiled with the amount of human attention they get on a daily basis, even when they are being good (in fact, more so when they are being good).

So it would seem our cats are much nicer little critters when we are not around and only become holy terrors when we are here to be pestered and annoyed. They don’t do any of the things they do maliciously. Anyone who has had a cat will know the difference between a malicious act and one done by a happy, excited, and curious fun-loving cat. These cats happily tear around the house being little monsters, but I had to admit, it now does seem like a method to get yet more human attention. There really isn’t any way I can possibly give them more attention than I already do without giving up doing housework, making art, eating means, and generally having a regular human life. No doubt this is due to some lack of correct cat-parenting ability on our part,†† but the good news is … the cats can be left home alone all by themselves for days on end without drama. In fact, they were so good, maybe we need to leave them home alone more often!

But even though they’ve been annoying little beasts since we got home from vacation, I am ever so glad to be back home with my monsters. My life isn’t complete without the sounds of something falling off a shelf or a closet door being clawed open … and they are so adorable while getting into trouble. Seriously, these cats have mastered the art of being cute. In fact, one is lying by my feet right now chewing on the box of art supplies behind my chair and begging for attention. I suppose I better go make my second cup of coffee so I can sit still for a while after doling out some belly rubs, because I know what comes next: Myu will insist upon having a wee nap on my lap while I read the morning news. Not only are my monsters beyond adorable, they are also utterly predictable. A few minutes from now, shortly after Myu settles into my lap, Tora will begin chewing on the loose ends of Lin’s guitar strings, and Ronin will bring one of his toys in for a game of fetch. I guarantee it. LOL!

Oh look. There’s Tora headed to the workbench to get at the guitar strings. Told you so!

Footnotes
  1. † Well, and Myu peed in the shower the entire time we were gone, which wasn’t at all a surprise. If she isn’t the first cat to use a totally clean box, she will pee in the shower. She won’t even pee in the box if she’s the only cat that has previously peed in the box. I have better thing to do with my hours than scoop a litter box after each and every cat usage, so her desire to use the shower as a toilet is something we’ve decided to live with. After all, she could have selected a more bothersome location than the shower. [↩]
  2. †† I don’t beat or chastise my pets into obedience, so long as whatever they are doing isn’t completely beyond the pale. I like my animal friends to be the animals they are meant to be, which in the case of cats means exploring and climbing and getting into things. For right or wrong, good or bad, I prefer my pets to be themselves, just like I prefer my human companions. I ocassionally think I should have been harsher in thier early training, but it’s a little late now. I’ve raised a batch of spoiled brats. [↩]

What’s Goin’ On

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Let’s see if I can find something to talk about. Considering I haven’t been paying attention to the world at large and haven’t been doing much of anything but existing in the kitchen with my art supplies, there’s really not too much to talk about.

Well, there is Saturday’s flash mob event! I’m so glad I did that. It was a blast! I rarely do silly things in public, or rather, when I do silly things in public, it’s just me being a weirdo goofball and I’m doing them all on my own (and almost nobody notices). This time I got to be a weirdo goofball doing something silly in public with a whole bunch of other people. It was nice to have fun with complete strangers for a couple of minutes and not be doing something silly all by myself. This one will be followed by others, as the ultimate goal of all this is to have a world record breaking event with some thousands of people doing it at the same time to draw attention to the issue of worldwide malnutrition. I’m going to stay involved and go to as many as possible, because everyone needs some public silliness in their life, especially when it’s for a good cause.

After the event, we went to eat at the Flying Saucer, which is at The Triangle, an urban development I was somewhat opposed to having been built. Oh yes, it’s nice, and there are nice shops and restaurants there, and it’s very pretty, but I still miss the big open green field with trees that used to be there. I’ll be putting my grumpiness about the loss of green-space into reserve though, because I really like the Flying Saucer. If you like beer, they have beer. I mean the beer list is HUGE. Pages long. Now I’m not terribly crazy about beer, though I like a good one every once in a while, so this is the kind of place I like. I can try something different every time I go … for the rest of my life. Who knows, maybe I will find a beer I really, really like! Next time, I plan to splurge on a $10 pint of beer made by Trappist monks. A bit pricey, but come on … beer made by Trappist monks. I have to try it. Oh, and they also have the best hot German potato salad I have had since my grandmother died. I could taste the apple and cinnamon! So very good. As was the bratwurst and the beer and cheese soup!

Sunday Lin cut back the overgrowth in the yard, so our property looks a little more civilized. It hadn’t been completely awful until we had that week recently when it rained every day, and then the prairie grasses grew exponentially. Some of them were at least waist high! I still need to get out there and chopped down the bits that invaded the garden area, but it’s over 100ยบ outside these days, and I just can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe one of these mornings I’ll just force myself to go do it, but I’ve not been terribly inspired to pay too much attention to my garden.

Which brings me to the topic of my garden. Last year things went poorly because of the drought and heat. This year the weather has been nicely moist and until recently not too blazingly hot, which means things like bugs and fungus have been a pain in the butt (and weeds, OMG, the weeds). We got a good number of tomatoes before it got too hot for them to set fruit, and there’s still occasionally one or two every so often. Not as many as I’d like, but there never is. I never went without basil or cucumbers or carrots, so those were all big wins. The onions, garlic, and herbs all either died or were destroyed by bugs and large-footed neighbor dogs. And though the beans grew healthy and bloomed like crazy, we did not get bean one. Not a single bean. I’m not even going to bother mentioning any of the other failures, of which there were a few.

So this year’s spring/summer garden can be summed up as … somewhat unsatisfactory, just like every garden before it. Will this stop me from gardening? Of course not, because the NEXT garden is going to rock! Such is the way of gardeners. In fact, since it’s now August, I really need to get out there and clear out all the seedy basil, pull up the last of the carrots, and start clearing things for fall planting. I have no idea what I’ll be planting. With the art project taking up so much of my time and energy, I haven’t put much thought into it. I imagine I’ll just plant whatever seeds I already have from last year and see how they do this year. I expect the end result will be somewhat unsatisfactory, but that’s gardening for you.

Speaking of the art project, I am in the middle of drafting the pattern for Figure Two, and it’s going as well as the pattern drafting for Figure One went. In other words, not well at all. But I worked out the problems with the first one in a week or so, and I’m sure I’ll work out the problems with this one too. I’m grumpy about it all, but I am feeling surprisingly stress-free. The new deadline is in a couple of weeks, but having Figure One done was the initial goal, and I can finish it up in an afternoon. If I manage to get Figure Two done or the combined Figure One and Two piece done, well that’ll just be icing on the cake. I’m going to shoot for the final combined figure, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ll just finish it after the deadline, because it’s going to be an awesome work of art whenever it gets finished. So all I can say about the art project is that I am still huffing away on it.

Yesterday was the cats’ birthday! I totally forgot until I opened my calendar for another reason and noticed it was already August 1. I usually make a big deal out of their birthday, even though I know they don’t especially know why they are getting new toys and treats. Though I do have to say that they were all being terribly sweet and affectionate yesterday, so maybe they DO know when their birthday is. LOL! Anyway, Ronin and Myu turned four, and Tora is now two. My kittens are all grown up, not that they act like anything other than bratty babies though. I need to sit down and make a post about the cats soon, because there’s been some upset in the hierarchy among the cats, and it’s been pretty funny. I need to go clear the kitchen floor and tables of artsy stuff now though, and if I start babbling about the cats, I’ll be here for an hour.

I guess that about sums up things around here. Like I said, I haven’t been paying much attention to anything outside my own little world. Just been working on my artwork, doting on my cats, trying to keep the house maintained, and sleeping and eating and watching a bit of TV. In the grand scheme of things, from my point of view, life is good. This likely means the world has gone to hell while I have been ignoring it, so perhaps I’ll read some news with my morning coffee tomorrow. I’m sure no good will come of it, but I don’t like being completely in the dark about current events (even though I’ve discovered that ignorance really can lead to bliss).