Picture This!!
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Happy Anniversary Scottie! I hope it was a great one!
I just looked out my patio doors and saw one of my stray cats come for lunch.
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Barbie, I have been to Montreal once in my life. I guess I better check my geography. LOL
Lori, your stray cat looks strangely like a family of visitors that lived under my neighbors deck a few years ago! It looks so cute and innocent. LOL
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I'll give it the cuteness but not the innocence. Bob (the real stray cat) is sitting in front of his empty bowl looking at me...like he owns me! LOL
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Lori,
Regarding the raccoon, I was actually being sarcastic. I about had a knock down drag out fight with one. I had the hose trying to get it off the lattice work on this deck and it was arching it's back and hissing at me. It was several feet over my head. I ended up throwing down the hose and running into the house because I thought it was going to attack me! I have an indoor cat and she does own the place! LOL
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I agree bandwoman,running is the best thing to do when it comes to raccoons! They are vicious animals!
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This is the real Bob the Cat...0 -
Awe, I can see why he has you twisted around his little finger. LOL
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Bob has what I like to call a "pissed mist" look on his face. Your fault his bowl is empty AND smells of raccoon and of course, your fault it is raining!!
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I agree barbe and bandwoman! He looks at me as if he wants to come in out of the rain but goes under my rocking chair and purrs when I open the door. But he won't come in! LOL
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Purring is good! He might accept you as his servant! Remember, dogs have masters, cats have staff.
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I would love that! I think my DH even likes him and would let me keep him, if I got him to let me anywhere near him? I have my surgery on 6/15 so I'll have most of the summer to sit in my rocker and sweet talk him lol
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Lori, this is just a thought and something I tried on my cat but didn't work. I don't know if you get the tv show "My Cat from Hell" but I watch it from time to time. This couple brought a feral cat into their lives. The cat expert said to slowly blink so the cat can see you. If he starts blinking back it is a form of building trust. My cat of course is not feral and when I blinked at her she just looked at me as if I lost my mind!
Nancy
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Hi--- I just stumbled on this site....how great it is!!
I love the pictures...the wildflowers, the raccoon, Bob the Cat, the humongous frog in his camouflage!
This is my kitty Pantaloon (or Miss Panty) asking me to come play with her...
Bandwoman12-- I've heard that too--that the cat blink is a sign of trust and affection. One cat lover I read about said that when she greets or is about to leave her kitty, she gives two blinks, one for hello--or bye--and one for I love you...makes them very clear and distinct....
WenchLori--How great to find you here! I love your photos and comments...
trill
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Trill, Panty is adorable! I seem to find a new topic everyday. I also love to see all the beautiful pictures. It helps to forget for a moment what we are all going thru!
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WenchLori-- I so agree....love this place! t
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Trill, I posted last night and my post is completely gone. Poof. I said how beautiful your cat is and I posted a pic of my cat and it is gone. I will have to post later. Glad you found this thread. It is fun posting pics and just developing relationships with others going through this journey that we all wish we were not on.
Lori, I will be praying for your upcoming surgery.
Nancy
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Thank you Nancy, I need all the prayers I can get 🙏🙏
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Hi bandwoman12--- Your post is probably floating out there in the ozone along with the package sent to me last week that has yet to arrive....where DO they go?? Grrr.....
Yes, Miss Panty is a sweetie.... I'm attaching a shot of her sister, who was there when I went to get Miss Panty. I almost took her too! But there was no way I could afford two.... At one point when I was there she came up to me and gave me one of those silent meows....ooohhhhh....how I wanted to grab her up.....The reason I selected Miss P is that I rested my hand on a shelf as I was talking to the breeder and Panty took a nip of my finger with her little 4-month-old teeth....that did it....
Lori--- Wait. You say that's a cat on your porch--right? Or am I hallucinating things? No, as I read I realize you're kidding..
Aren't you?
Ladies, I have two little stories to pass on to you, brought on by the feral cat subject and the raccoon subject. (Lori, you can tell the boxes are sorta done for now, can't you? I have time to write!)
When I was living on Maryland's Eastern Shore I lived in a rickety but atmospheric old Victorian home converted into apartments--called Hatifeld Manor in its heyday ( and that the five of us living there used to chuckle about as we dealt with a lazy landlord and camel-backed brown crickets EVERYWHERE and rotting wood under the chipping paint on the windows and the heat rising to the high ceilings in the winter and never coming down...)
I was on the first floor and had a nice back porch, though, that I loved, right off the kitchen, with a rocking chair, plants hanging, etc. At a flea-market day in town I bought--for a whopping $2--a little "personal" grill that was just big enough to grill exactly one chicken breast. I grew to love chicken off the grill and all summer had fun with my little personal grill there on the back porch.
One day I went out back and lo and behold the grill rack was gone....hmmm... who would steal a used grill rack? I came up with something to use in its place and wondered if I'd ever see any of those little $2 personal grills again--probably not.
About a month later I was in the kitchen doing dishes when I heard a strange noise outside--sounded like someone had come up onto the porch. I'm not easily scared by things but this time I got chills.....the sound was so close!
I grabbed my broom--great weapon, eh?--and opened the door and stood at the screen door looking out. But it was pretty dim by then and I couldn't see anything....
But I was so curious.... I just HAD to turn on the porch light....
A raccoon was up on the porch, staring at me, sitting up on his haunches.
Two were running up and down and around, with much noise and little happy sounds, the pecan tree near my porch steps.
A third was frozen in place, coming up the steps themselves, one little human-like hand stretching up to the the next step.
I ducked back in the kitchen, kind of overwhelmed at the enchanting scene and what looked like a well-bonded and happy family--all out for a nice summer evening!
I waited awhile and then stepped outside to take another look.
They were gone.
But there, on the ground by the tree--the grill rack.
I looked up into the tree, now a dark cluster of leaves with white summer sky behind it, and called out to the raccoon family:
"I hope you guys enjoyed it!"
I must have let bits of cooked chicken on that grill...
The other little story is about a feral cat that used to hang around out house. This was one of those HUGE gray toms, big-boned with this big wide head that I knew was hard as a rock. Our dog used to chase after it. But it came around our cats, too, and was intimidating--lurking in the bushes, grooming leisurely, etc. He outweighed our slim Siamese kitties by about ten pounds. (He was incredibly healthy and beautiful....)
One day my father decided enough was enough. Somehow he lured the tom into a Have-a-Heart trap and took him up to the Naval Academy Dairy Farm (they need a whole farm and herd of cows for those mids!) and dropped him off by a barn. When he came home and told us about it, he said that since this was five miles away and on the other side of busy Rt 301 he was sure the tom was gone for good...
A few evenings later I was reading in bed in my upstairs room off the attic. I'd opened the two dormer windows right by the bed to get some cool night air....
Suddenly I sensed a presence--don't ask me what I sensed, maybe I heard a noise--and looked up.
Peering at me from the other side of the screen, looking very large and grey and smug, was Mr Tom himself.
I jumped out of bed and closed the window--this sent him scooting off the roof. I was so freaked out I jumped back in bed and pulled the covers up...
We never found out what happened to him but never saw him again. Maybe he found another house to haunt....
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SoCalLisa--What a glorious image! I can hear the falling water from here.....
(I'm so happy to have found this site!) Trill
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SoCalLisa--And the butterfly! How lovely...
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Lisa, love your waterfall and butterfly. I was looking at something on the internet the other day and realized that the Monarch butterfly is Illinois's state insect. I had no idea. Where is your waterfall from? Beautiful.
Trill, the sister is adorable as a little kitten. I loved your stories. You have a a talent for word painting the way you describe your story. I will try posting my cat again. I resized it smaller and maybe that will work better. My cat is a Ragdoll. i have had a Himilayan before Cameo aka Cammie. Is Miss Panty some type of Persian? I love cats and love hearing stories about them. Definitely love seeing pics of them too.
Lisa, I finally got out today with my new equipment and everything worked great. I will have to take some pics of the new setup as you had mentioned earlier.
Here is my baby. She was helping me to unbox some of my new camera equipment.
Nancy
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Here are some pics from today.
Nancy
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Nancy--
Your Cammie is a beauty! Look how contended and calm she is there! I've never seen a Ragdoll in person. She's so elegant.
And my eyes are squeaking at the beauty and rich color of your flowers. Wow! These are gorgeous! I live in a high-rise in the middle of Baltimore and miss being right down on the ground and seeing such things on a daily basis up close....thanks for sharing these--it's like they just wafted into my room...
(There's life--and then there's life worth living--and beauties like these are part of that order of things for certain...)
Miss Panty is a Himalayan. I think she's a seal point--is that right? The brown markings....
I'll affix a shot of her daddy, taken the day I went to just "check out" the kitties. He's so funny.
Plus one of Panty herself that first day....can't leave her out! How could I resist this spunky gal!Oh, Nancy,
r babies...Two days before I first met Pantaloon I'd called the vet to have my beloved Thibodeau--called Tibbie--who'd just turned 20--put to sleep. Lisa (Dr Tuzo) had knelt with me beside my little boy, who was struggling with breathing and was showing it was time to go. There was no way I could take him to a clinical setting to have this done so I'd located a vet who did house calls. She came the week before to assess him and said he was getting weaker. When she came the second and final time, she brought two shots but I think the sedative put him to sleep and I think he was gone then. But he was in his favorite sleeping spot and I had my arms folded around his little body, was talking to him the whole time....
I'd done the same with Doggie, my first kitty, a Maine Coon cat, a few days after he turned 22: called our neighbor, who was a vet. Identical scenario.
But in both cases I told myself that I'd done enough grieving as I'd watched my boys slow and age and was not going to pour precious strength and time into more grieving--I wanted to convert the intense emotion into action--into loving a new baby.
My mother called her friend who raised Himalayans and the next morning I was off to North Carolina and to Esther, who plunked into my arms the "runt" of her latest litter: Tibbie. He stayed in my arms as we drove straight home. He never left.
I was living with my mom at the time and there's something about living with someone and expressing intense emotion. I think--looking back--that I felt crying in front of mom would upset her. Dadda had been gone a few years but I think she hid her tears from us kids and vice versa.
But when Tibbie died and Dr Tuzo left, I broke down. Macabre as it sounds, but utterly necessary, Lisa had pulled Tibbie into a circle and prayed over him, then placed him in my freezer. I was going to be burying him at my friends' house in Virginia in a few days, so that had to be done. (At home our pets were buried at the base of an evergreen out in the field, where the sheep grazed around them and gave them some company...but no fields in Baltimore!)
I took Tibbie out and held him.
Suddenly it felt like the world of grief fell on my shoulders. I put him back and then grabbed a pillow and in my empty bedroom screamed into it:
"I want to be where he is!"
Over and over I screamed this.
Later I realized through adept therapy that I'd never vocally really grieved for Tibbie. I'd held it in. I didn't want mom--or myself-- to hear my crying...
Now it was coming out--and for both lost beloved babies.
The next day I began seeing a therapist, who on the phone and whom I barely heard through my sobs, said to me:
"A kitten can do a lot of things...."
Magic words...
I hadn't planned to get another cat. At almost seventy I thought--he or she will outlive me! Who will love them when I'm gone....?.
But I could look, couldn't I? Just look?
I got on a website and began scrolling through Himalayan breeders, I mean breeders who breed Himalayans, with the idea of only looking. When I contacted a breeder near my place and called her, I found out she only had females who were ready. She said she socializes, etc, all her kittens for four months before letting them go.
I was safe! I'd only had boy cats and wanted another.
But when I drove up to Carole's house, the first thing I saw when I pulled into her driveway was a basement room's large sliding door. And behind it swirled--literally swirled--all these gorgeous Himalayans. Of all sizes and ages. They came to the sliding door and looked out at me. Carole later said they were also checking out the many squirrels who jump all around her yard...
When I went inside, Carole told me that her retired moms live upstairs, the breeding females downstairs along with the kittens..
She consoled me as I told her the story of Tibbie's end. While I rocked in a rocking chair, around me these lovely creatures continued to inspect me...
Then at one point a little set of teeth found my idle finger and took a bite.
I was bitten. Totally.
The following week I went back and found Miss Pantaloon nervously waiting, never having been in a carrier before.
She mewed all the way home.
Nancy, thanks for opening the door and letting me revisit this whole experience. I still miss my little boy Tibbie... But Pantaloon butts her head against my leg and reminds me that she's Here and Now.
Here's a photo of her the day I got her in her Happy Dance pose--already a little showgirl...
Trill
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Trill, thank you. Cammie is a pistol. I joke and say what she lacks in good behavior she makes up for in good looks. She is 95% Ragdoll and 5% Stinker. LOL I am glad you enjoyed the flowers. I sure had a good time taking them. I hadn't been able to get out for quite a while due to the weather and commitments.
I certainly understand how difficult it is to lose a pet. They are our children and part of our family. I am glad that you got your cute little Miss Panty. My mom turned 90 in October and she has dementia. I travel back and forth about four months out of the year to stay with her and keep an eye on her and see how she is managing still living alone. We were a cat family for many years. All of a sudden my mom has been mentioning that she would love to have a little kitten to hold on her lap. Well, that is not going to happen but I wish she would have expressed this many years ago and we could have got one for her. She was not interested in having another kitten when she could have had one. She would not be able at this point and at her age the cat would most definitely outlive her in all probability. My one cat is my limit. My sister lost the last of seven cats this past year and she plans on no more. She is about your age. For her it was a situation of taking in a stray cat and it was pregnant and they didn't realize it, They already had two cats. It quickly went from two to seven.
My little Himilayan was scared of her own shadow. Not many people actually saw her because when the doorbell rang she would fly under my bed. I had to have her put down and it all happened so quickly. I had a major concert the next night as I am a retired band director and it was just an unreal few days. I do remember that. I tried to find another Himilayan and it just didn't work out so I ended up getting a Ragdoll with the very same marking of Blue Point. My Himi came from a line of show cats. Some of them were champion and grand champions. I had ideas of breeding her but she didn't have the typical pushed in nose like they really want in a show cat so I decided against it.
They bring us so much joy and I hope you can enjoy Miss Panty for many years to come.
Have a good night.
Nancy
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Hi there Nancy--
I hope YOU had a good night if this reaches you Friday....
Your Cammie is so sweet...she has those wonderful blue eyes that Panty has....
Last year I "splurged" and bought a ten dollar aquamarine ring on eBay. I sanded off the fake gold down to the authentic silver and wear it all the time because the clear blue is the same as Panty's eyes.....When I was off having my biopsy, doctor's appointments, pre-op testing, then the double mast surgery and the afterward--all during that challenging time every time I looked down at that ring I thought of my little girl, minding my apartment when I was literally away and mentally "away"--trying to get comfortable sleeping (impossible), taking those showers with the drains,stripping the drains till I could do that in my sleep. I know Miss Panty had no idea WHAT was going on....but she rolled with the punches and was a wonderful companion...I'm sure Cammie has been right there with you also!
Hope your day is nice--and more flowers blooming...Trill
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Good morning, I hadn't seen my stray cat One Ear in several weeks and I've been worried about him. Worried about a stray cat? Yeap, that's me! Sitting here watching the grackles eat the cat kibble along comes One Ear! He's such a pretty kitty, I have no idea what kind he is? Probably stray mix? :-) I was able to get a picture of him before he ran off. He's not at all like Bob, as soon as you move OneEar is gone. You see why I call him One Ear? He actually has his ear but it's been broken and is folded over. Poor baby :-(
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WenchLori-- I can relate to how you missed "your" One Ear...I'd have felt the same! i'm so glad he turned up...that must have been a nice moment....I recall having hermit crabs (NOT good pets to have in the northerly climates, that's for sure--yet they sell them by the bunch at Maryland's Ocean City.....I wonder how many survive?) and not knowing about the molting season and thinking that the pink, weird-looking little thing out of its shell in my terrarium was dead, went ahead and began to bury it. This was before the internet, where I could have looked it up and learned he was just molting and needed a bigger shell....thankfully I saw him moving and didn't go ahead. I put him back in the terrarium and got a book about hermit crabs--lived right behind the library--and then found a shell in a local pet shop, went home with it, put it down on the sand, and had the thrill of watching this odd, naked-looking creature crawl into it, turn around somehow, aright himself, and emerge! I was pretty delighted...what could have been a disaster but turned out great!
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Very cool Trill! Do they do that in nature? Just find a bigger shell? That's ringing a bell from knowledge I had years ago...I used to live in Vancouver while I was growing up and probably used to know more about crabs then.
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