The sad and the happy.
The sad: We lost a cat. Dusty, aka FatAss, aka Godzilla got outside about a week and a half ago. We’re not sure how or when, the last I remember seeing him was Friday night in the kitchen, feeding him some treats, but Saturday morning he didn’t show up for breakfast. Best we can figure, he must have snuck out when one of us took the dog out before bed that night.
He’s been outside before, but not in this semi-wilderness. I might mention that bear hunting season started recently. Oh you read that right; I said bear. As in wild BEARS.
As an aside; I grew up in the country but the biggest pest problems we had to worry about were the raccoons in the garbage and the skunks in the chicken house. We didn’t have bears. I’ve never seen a bear. I’ve never wanted to live in a place where bear hunting was a season.
(As another aside, outdoor bondage was kinda sorta scary-fun before, but now what with BEARS, it’s taken on a whole new meaning of scary and not-so-much of the fun.)
Anyway. Dusty hasn’t been seen. I think the worst part of losing a pet is not knowing what happened. Is he stuck somewhere, cold and hungry and suffering? Is he just lost? Dead? Eaten? I can’t think about it too much or I’ll cry.
We’ve done the standard lost pet routine, but I think it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll turn up now. :-(
But now for the happy. Master let me go to the humane society. They were having a “2 fur 1″ special on cats and kittens. I got to adopt two kittens, about 4 months old, brothers, and just as sweet and lovable as all get out.
One is a ginger, like Master (tee hee) and darn near as demanding, too. When he wants to be petted, which is often, he doesn’t so much ask for it as he climbs up your body, drapes himself around your neck and bites your ears until he’s had enough. If you try to put him down, he twists around and hangs on with all claws until you submit. He’s quite the dom in orange fur.
Jes named him Tipsey, probably because he’s the clutsiest, most uncoordinated kitten I’ve ever seen. And he purrs so loud you can hear him in the next room. I am so in love with him.
The other one, Am named Sweeney Todd (because she’s all obsessed with Johnny Depp), but it fits him because he’s pure black (basement cat! ahh!) and rather aloof and dark. He can be just as affectionate as his ginger brother, but only if he wants to.
Annie, the stray we took in last year, is not so full of the happy at this invasion into “her” home. She’s not made friends with them yet. See?
Click for more pictures of cuteness!
Guarding the gate to Hell? ;-)
I’ll try to get a better picture of him sometime, his face is very lion-shaped but it doesn’t show well in this pic.
He got pretty close before I got the lid shut!
The fish tank has provided them with hours of glass-scratching enternainment. For me, too!
I put some bird feeders up along the deck. There are SO many birds out here. So far I only recognize the blue jays and the hummingbirds. I think the others are finches and wrens, chickadees maybe. I need a bird watching book!
This morning I caught this little cutie raiding the bird feeder. You should have seen the cats camped out in front of the sliding glass doors watching him make his way across the deck. They were practically drooling.
And in even more happy-exciting news, you know that post I made about the child support? I did send a milder version of it to the Gov’na’s place and guess who called me this morning?? By golly, they don’t seem to like the idea of bad press. They’re going to get on my case immediately! It’s hard to hope though, truly, but it was nice to know someone actually read it anyway. :-)
~cunt
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Uncategorized | kaya | 
Wednesday September 17th, 2008 11:25am
Terrible to hear about your lovely lost kitty. I won’t say anything except I hope he’s not suffering.
The new kitties are adorable. I’m living vicariously through you again. First Hermit Crabs. Now Cats. Can’t have cats because the dogs would make them crazy.
I love how your new home is shaping up and is suiting you so well, even without the cunt cupboard.
Are you going to be able to have your gardens there? If so, let me know if you want some truly fantastic heirloom tomato seeds. I grow about 14 varieties. All colors.. white, pink, yellow, red, green, purple, and black.
Kitten
I certainly hope to be gardening next summer, but the soil here is so very different than what I’m used to that I need to do some research over the winter. We basically seem to just have sand. There isn’t even really any grass growing so much as there are shrubs and ferns and sprouts of weedy-looking stuff.
But yes, goodness yes, I’d never turn down seeds of any sort! Thank you! *muah*
Let me tell you. Our soil is CRAP here. It’s just red mud. It’s packy and just useless. You can till it and aerate it and mix it with compost until your head falls off and it’s still the crappiest soil I’ve ever seen. To tell you how bad it is. GRASS will not grow in our yard. We have moss instead of grass on most of our lawn.
So we had to do square foot gardening with the boxes and mix our own soil and stuff and that worked like a dream!
http://timssquarefootgarden.com/
We used vermiculite and worm castings from the worm bins for soil added to a high grade potting soil and it worked out really well for us. We used 2 by 6 and 2 by 8 boards to build the frames and used pond lining plastic on the bottoms.
In this area your best bet is to either a)do a raised garden such as the square foot gardening they mentioned above, or b) pick a spot and order a truck load of topsoil – then add garden dirt and lots of fertilizer (read maneure). Good Luck, and don’t forget the deer fencing!
As for a bird book I recommend a rural library card obtained through the local (high school i think) library. They are sure to have a LARGE stock of ‘wilderness’ books.
(hehe, she calls it wilderness and it hasn’t even started snowing yet!)
Sorry, I couldn’t resist :)
We live in the desert and are doing square foot gardening. we have a 8 foot by 3 foot wood box with homemade soil and 3 boxes that are 1 foot wide by 5 foot long.
more work hauling soil and mixing – we planted our seeds about a week ago and are eagerly awaiting to see if it takes.
it might still be too hot – if so, we’ll replant in a week or two when the temps drop more.
Sep to May is our growing season -
Aww. Aww. AWW!
I *want* kittehs. I badly, badly, want kittehs. All I get is lolcats though. *pout*
I’m glad to hear the govenor’s office called. Really hoping you’ll get things moving!
I’m also very happy that you’re happy. Read the last post too, and you make perfect sense. In fact, I tried to read back a few years to some of your old posts…. and frankly, I prefer the “new kaya” to before. You’re happier, more stable and make more sense.
At least in writing. ;)
The kittens are just ADORABLE! And I’m sorry about your cat, I know how it feels to lose a pet, with death and just running away too. Good luck with acclimating your older cat to these new kittens. We “adopted” a stray male kitten (not more than a month old) in June, and it took our 8 year old female a month or two to adjust, but things are mostly fine now.
There are bears too here ya know?
Sorry about Dusty, S was telling me about that…sadness.
The chipmunk pic is ADORABLE! And you need to LOL the others!
congrats on getting the ball rolling with the Govt folk :) keep us posted on how that proceeds, please.
your kitties are soooooooooo cute, i love that *fishing* shot! :D
nice to hear you are settling in so well!
I’m sad along with you about Dusty…I know you said you did the lost kitty routine, but don’t forget to check inside the house. It seems extremely unlikely, as he would have made a vocal fuss, but couldn’t hurt to check inside just in case he found a way into a niche he couldn’t get out of. I’m sorry…I know things are hard enough already, and I know you’ve done all this already. Just wish there was something I could do to help, so I make stupid suggestions.
Since you are in bear country, is there any danger in putting seed out? Not trying to spoil the fun—I don’t know bupkus as to what they will truly eat, but listened to enough attacked campers stories to know they are attracted by food left out. Anyone have a bear instruction manual?
Suze,
I know that all bears (excpet polar) are omnivores and will eat pretty much anything. I don’t believe, howecver, that they will go for many things brown in a garden unless they’re berry like (don’t know if that would include tomatos). Campers are raided so much because we humans are constantly making our food so easy to eat and aromatic.
Dave
Kaya,
My condolences on your kitty. Losing a pet is always hard. The new kittens are adorable, though! I saw the pic of them looking at the fishtank and remembered that soemone put a video catnip VHS out once that was scenes of birds, fish and mice that played on the Tv for your cat to watch and bat at. My own cat will sometimes bat at the monsters on my Wizardry 8 game, especially the giant wasps.
A word of warning about feeding the birds. Soon, they will see you as their sole source of food and will make nusiances of themselves when the feeders are empty (espesially in the winter). Of course, if you like feeding the birds and watching them, that’s not a problem. Did you ever hear Dennis Leery talking about building bird feeders? He realized he didn’t like birds, and he liked his cat. So he built them two feet tall. :)
Congrats on the child support thing. Sounds like another case of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s too bad they’ll look at only your one case instead of fixing the entire system (not that solving yours is bad, just not enough).
Dave
That is terrible to hear about your lost kitty. I’m still crossing my fingers that he shows up.
The new set is adorable though :)
I have a *very* helpful comment about outdoor bondage in bear country. Just hold off until the winter months when the bears are are snug asleep in their dens. Then you can be tied up outside until (something) freezes over, no worries about bears at all.
With even a smidge of luck, the outdoor hose will be frozen too.
You? Tha shiverin will keeps ya warm…
Do you like to make snow angels?
You’re gonna have FUN this winter!
add cougars and timberwolves to the surroundings too, they don’t hybernate! ;) exciting isn’t it? :D actually in all seriousness i think with the bondage outside in the winter time, the thing you’d have to worry about the most would be frost bite.
i hope you enjoy the country up here, we do. :)
i’m so sorry about your lost kitty!! i’m such a kitty-person. it breaks my heart to hear of one escaped or lost. it sure would be great if he came home.
congrats on your two new additions! that’s very happy :)
sorry to hear you lost Dusty :( How old is he? I know there’s an issue with older pets if you move to a new place that they tend to go back to the old.
And the new cats are absolutely cute :)