Smitten with Kittens

The foster kittens are growing fast.  These photos were taken last Thursday and I can see a huge difference between the way the kittens look then, and they way they look now, just over a week later.
One of the most noticeable things is their ears.  When they are born, kittens’ ears are folded forward, and flat against their heads.  The ears gradually stand up more and more.  In these pictures the ears are about halfway up.  This morning I noticed the ears are all now straight up!  (I’ll post more recent photos very soon so you can see the difference!)
They are also walking around a lot more, and a lot less shakily.  Sometimes I see two or three in a very unsteady wrestling match.  It’s pretty funny.  They haven’t started chasing things, like a ball or piece of string, but I expect it won’t be long.
Yesterday Mike and I moved them into a large mesh-style cage loaned to me by a friend.  They have a lot more room in there and, when they aren’t napping, will be able to watch what’s going on around them.
They absolutely charm everyone who sees them.  My friend, Susan, brought her daughter, Jenny, and granddaughter, Maggie, to see the kittens.  Maggie was especially enchanted!

She was very gentle when we let her touch the kitties, almost like she was in total awe of them.

Kitty, kitty!

They are nursing very well now, even the brown-striped kitten (center of photo, above), who was the slowest to catch on.  Kinda strange since she’s always been the biggest of the bunch and the very smallest kitten, the little calico, was the first to catch on to the bottle.

Ozzie

Isabel

Mindy

Of course, they are still spending most of their time SLEEPING!
Awwwww!
{Thanks to Susan & Jenny for these great photos!}

If At First You Don't Succeed

 {Zzzzzzzzzz}

Sorry if you're looking for the  "Memories of Me" Monday posting....today was crazy-busy, and then we had a disappointing trip to the Bloodmobile this evening. I need to do what Jack and Scout are doing.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Every Life Should Have Nine Cats

1971 - Patches the Cat gives birth in my bedroom; me, Lisa, Denise, and Steve

TODAY'S MEMORY JOGGER: "What is your favorite animal, and why?"

If you know me at all, you already know my answer to this question:

TIGERS!!

Yep.  Really.  They are my favorite animal because they are SO cool, so regal and gorgeous, and they are the only Big Cats that actually LIKE water (there are white tigers at Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA., that dive underwater!) but, since I can't have a tiger as a pet I, have settled for my second favorite - CATS!  Orange-striped cats, to be exact - just like tigers!  And the pair of orange-striped cats that currently live with me also like water.

{I do have to mention that my fondness for orange-striped cats also came about because of a very special cat that was part of our family from about 1992 to 2000.  OJ.  However, because I'm spending this first year of Memories of Me posts concentrating on my childhood years (up to age 18), I'll defer writing about OJ, or Jack and Scout, until I'm ready to write about my adult years.}

I haven't always had orange cats.  Growing up in the 70's I had a grey-and-white cat named Sam.  Sam was a tomcat back when it was OK to be a tomcat.  Sam roamed the neighborhood every night, got in fights, and came home bloody and with torn ears.  Sam stole pork chops right off the family dining table.  Sam fathered numerous litters of kittens among our neighborhood's female cats.  Sam only liked me.  My mom didn't like Sam, she was scared of him, and rightfully so since he'd growl at her if she came into my room and tried to move him from my bed.   I loved that crazy cat.

One evening Sam went out for the night, as usual, but when morning came around he hadn't come home.  I never saw him again.  I didn't put up "Lost Cat" posters around the neighborhood, or spend a lot of time looking for him.  I think I just knew he'd probably fought his last fight, or didn't quite make it across the street ahead of a car.  I understood that cats, especially male cats, lived violent lives.  I had always secretly admired his bravery, independence, and adventurous spirit, even while I worried about his safety.

Another cat that we had was Patches.  She was a small female tortoise-shell cat and, as I've already mentioned, there wasn't much spaying or neutering going on back then so, naturally, Patches got pregnant.  She had her kittens on my bedroom floor.  We kids all gathered around to watch.  Being city kids this was our first experience at seeing animals give birth, and it was fascinating.  Patches had five kittens.  Four were tabbies or solid color but one, a female, was a pretty little calico - her coat had a snow-white background with patches of orange, black, and brown.  She was a real beauty.  The kittens eventually went to the local animal shelter, to be adopted out, but my mom has always expressed regret that she didn't keep that little calico, she was that pretty.

It's interesting to think about how far we've come, as a society, in the treatment of animals, just in my own lifetime.  When I was a kid it was not considered irresponsible to let your cats - and dogs, in many cases - to roam the neighborhood.  Nor was spaying and neutering an integral part of animal guardianship.  I don't know whether there were relatively fewer homeless animals then or not, or whether animal shelters are as overcrowded as they are now.  It was also an accepted part of life that animals often died from being struck by automobiles, poisonings, or fights. 

I'm very glad things have changed so much, and most people now consider themselves "guardians" of their animals, instead of "owners."

Are you wondering whether my life has had nine cats?

Let's see:

1. Sam
2. Patches
3. Callie
4. Bo
5. OJ
6. Leah
7. Tony
8. Jack
9. Scout

YEP!  And the plan is to have {at least} nine more.

FOR NEXT WEEK:  "What did you want to be when you grew up?  Why?"

Scout's Mouse Came in the House

 A few weeks ago Scout met up with this cute little mouse out in the garden.  At first the mouse didn't seem to think she was much of a threat.  They had a bit of a stare-off.

 

 Mouse decides maybe he'll just mosey along now . . .

 

Oh, no, you don't!

Not many critters get away from Scout.  She's quite the hunter.  I often think of keeping a Kill Sheet for her to track the birds, rodents, lizards, giant moths, and even praying mantises that she catches throughout the year.  One day a couple summers ago she caught & killed two hummingbirds.  Yes, hummingbirds!  TWO!  Honestly, I didn't know that was even possible but apparently it is!

So anyway, Scout caught this mouse and brought it into the house {of course} and {of course} it got away from her at one point and disappeared behind the tall {& very heavy} bookshelves in the living room.  It spent the night behind the bookcase and Scout spent the night crouched under the t.v. watching the crack where the mouse disappeared.  In the morning she was still there.  I finally had to take all the books off the shelves and then move the shelf enough for her to slip back there.  She chased the mouse out, caught it, and then I chased her, with the mouse in her mouth, out the pet door and into the garden where she and Jack harassed that poor mouse for at least an hour.

I decided he'd surely had enough and went out there and chased him out of the garden, under the cat fencing {much to Jack and Scout's disgust and annoyance}.  The little guy's fur was sticking up every which way but he looked basically unharmed.  He scurried off across the patio to parts unknown, and those rotten cats haven't forgiven me YET!

. . . but that was MY mouse . . . .!!!!

The Cat Loves Yogurt

If Scout had opposable thumbs we'd really be in trouble at our house. She does help herself to whatever she wants!

It's National Sewing Month!

This apron was one of the last projects I worked on before I put my sewing machine away for the summer. My sewing room doubles as our guest room, and that guest room has been very busy with both Rodrigo and Michael coming and going all summer. But now Michael has gone back to China, and Rodrigo's days of school in Sacramento have lessened; he's only here 8 to 10 days a month now. Could it be time to take back the sewing room???

The pattern for the apron is from The Apron Book, by EllynAnne Geisel and is called the Basic Waist Apron. I dipped into my stash of cat fabrics and cut and stitched this up in an afternoon.

Detail of the ruffled pocket and hem:

It was a really fun project. I had hinted at this project in this blog awhile back, but couldn't say what it was, or post photos, because it was to be a gift, and my recipient hadn't received it yet.

Recently my son sent me this photo of his bride, Dianna, wearing her birthday gift:

How cute does that look!!?? I was happy she liked it and is putting it to good use (in the very limited spare time that she manages to carve out of her nursing school schedule). She's making chocolate chip cookies (my fave!) and, whoohoooo! She sent some with Rodrigo the next time he came up. I hid them in the freezer and took them out one or two at a time to eat secretly. I didn't want to share, ha ha ha ha!

Here's my current sewing project - a California King-size quilt. The top is all sewn together now, but I still need to add the borders:

At the moment it's all packed away, but it just may be time to get that baby OUT!

Yeah, I know, there's ALWAYS a cat sitting on my in-progress quilts!

I'm happy about that.

Are you sewing this month? What are you making???

Do My Cats Have Nicknames for Me?

Strangely, that was my first thought this morning when I woke up. What DO my cats call me? Do they think of me by name? Or does a mental picture of me appear in their little walnut-sized brains? Do they have nicknames for me, like I do for them? I kinda hate to think what they might call me in revenge for all the silly, and sometimes decidedly unflattering, names Mike and I have given them!

Even though Jack and Scout are now five years old I've only just barely stopped calling them The Kittens. Recently it's morphed into The "Smittens" and, individually, "Smack," and "Smout."

Smack

Smout

I've even made up little rhymes for them: "Jack, Jack, poop and stack," and "Scout, Scout, sulk and pout." Not exactly flattering! I wonder if they've got one for me?? Scary thought!

I've always thought that babies must "think" in pictures, not words, at least until they learn language. Are animals the same? It's pretty obvious animals know at least some words. "Walk" and "treat" are usually a dog's favorite words, and cats, mine anyway, definitely know the words that represent their names -- they will come when called. Scout also knows "kiss" and "High Five." Jack is partial to "outside." They will both "sit," especially if they know that a meal will follow the plunking of their butts onto the kitchen floor.

Maybe, in their minds, Jack and Scout think of Mike and I as "Mike" and "Deb" since that is what we call each other. But I doubt it. I'm not sure they would know we were referring to each other, but who knows. Cats are usually smarter than we give them credit for, that I do know. After all, look at how they manipulate us!

All Scout has to do is sit next to her food bowl and give me that "pleeeeeze" look she's so good at and I usually cave in and give her a little treat. Or Jack, when he jumps up on the cabinet just inside our front door and noses the basket where we keep his collar and leash. It's nearly impossible to ignore the unspoken demand to take him for a leisurely circuit of the backyard.

Still, I doubt that cats {or dogs, or any of the animals we keep as pets} make up words or rhymes like humans do; animals just don't use language in the same way. So do they instead use nickpictures? Maybe instead of a goofy name like "Scoutie-patoutie-patootie-pie" or "Jackely-Jackster-boy-o" when they're feeling affectionate, they imagine me as a lovely patch of sunshine, or Mike as their favorite furry toy. Is that how they are "seeing" us when they squeeze their eyes at us?

I'd really like to know the answer to this question -- so I can make sure their nicknames, or nickpictures, are at least complimentary.

But then I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as the tone is nice.

A Cat, Bees, and a Cemetery

Wow, way too long since I've posted here. I've been posting at the Webajeb blog, though. This past week I've been very focused on making Webajeb website changes, getting my online store functioning (and I did all by myself!), and now am busily uploading my digital products AND creating new ones. I'm having such a good time now that all that boring and tedious techie stuff is pretty much done! And I must say, I've learned a LOT. But the designing & creating is what I truly love. There's inspiration all around me. Inspiration came in the mailbox this past week in the form of junk mail! I made two new digital scrapbook page layouts based on that piece of advertising. You can see them here.

So...what have I been doing on a more personal level...hm! Must confess, not a lot. I've been spending most of my time in front of the computer in my little dark hole of an office. It's a good thing my friend, Betsie, asked me to visit her cat, Fitz, while she is away traveling, or I mightn't have gotten out of the house at all! Here's the handsome guy:
Earlier this week we did take a drive out to Bloomfield, in Sonoma County. Way back, I bought the BEST honey at Bloomfield Bees & Bouquets and I'm almost out so I wanted to get some more. We found the farm stand just fine using the address I got from the internet, only to find that the beekeepers have moved. There was no new address posted, but am sure I will be able to find it on the internet (I know they have a website). Anyway, here is a photo of their oh-so-cute little farmstand:
It's on the honor system; you can see a box attached to the door on the left. It's got a slot in the top where you drop in your money for whichever item you buy. Gotta love that! Unfortunately, they were totally out of the large jars of honey I was after! I ended up buying some creamed honey out of the little white refrigerator, and Mike got a small container of honey with the comb still in it. I guess we are going to have to find their new place if I want my big jar of honey.

The address of the farm stand showed the city as Sebastopol. But very nearby was a teensy town named Bloomfield so I guess that's where Bloomfield Bees got its name. We decided to explore this little town of Bloomfield and found it to be very small. The entire downtown area seems to consist of a restaurant (Stormy's), a masonic lodge, and the town hall. A block away is a single building that is the Bloomfield School. A few streets of houses are nearby and, at the very top of a hill, the Bloomfield Cemetery. Since we love old cemeteries we had to get out and have a look. Here are some photos:
Some very old headstones, dating back to the mid-1800's.

I tried to look up Bloomfield on the internet, curious about how many people live there, but couldn't find a number for how many people live there. The town came into being in 1856 and at one point in the late 1850s, it was the second largest town in Sonoma County. In 1877 it had four hotels and a population of 250. Then the railroad passed it by and it stopped growing. So I'm guessing the population is probably about the same. From what we saw, that seems about right.

The other reason I'd wanted to go to Bloomfield Bees was to possibly talk to the beekeepers about starting up a beehive in the backyard. I don't know where it has come from, but lately I've had this obsession with beehives. Wha'? I just want one in my backyard so that I can harvest my own honey. Is that crazy? I've been tempted, while driving I-5 to snag one of the hundreds that are visible in the fruit orchards, and take it home. I could do it in the winter while it's cold and the bees are hibernating. When they woke up in the spring they would be in my back yard! I did a little research and have found that a start-up hive with a queen and some drones and all the equipment needed to maintain it would be around $650.00. Yikes!

Maybe I'll just go buy a jar of honey instead.

Jack Kitten - the Summer of '05

Ya gotta say it - "Awwwwwww!"

I've been scanning printed photos (or their negatives, if I still have them) from 2005. It's a tedious job but like most tasks, when I look hard enough I can usually find something that makes the work well worthwhile. In this case, I didn't even have to look very hard.

My BFF, Judy, is making me something - I'm guessing a book of some sort - using my and her emails back and forth to each other, and photos, from 2005. She has asked me for a long list of photos from that year, to go along with the stuff I wrote about in my emails. When I went looking for photos that she could use I realized that in 2005 I was still using (mainly) my Canon print camera, and was only just learning to use a small digital camera I'd gotten for the previous Christmas. (It's sad to see the very poor quality of my digital photos from that year, but at least I can see that I have since improved a thousand-fold!)

So, the days of scanning are going to be well worth it just for that, but there are other benefits, too. Since I'm a digital scrapbooker it's awesome to now have those photos in digital format and available for digital layouts. I can use them on my website, my blogs, email them to people, or share them at sites such as Photobucket or Flickr. Plus, they are now backed up on my external backup drive. If the prints or negatives get wet, or my laptop has a melt-down, no problem; I have backup copies!

In fact, I'm thinking I won't even keep the prints or the negatives. I think the negatives can be thrown away and the prints given away to whoever might want them. And....if no one wants them, I'm pretty sure I'm going to (gasp!) throw them out, too!

Yeah, a little scary, but I can't hold on to everything; my house is just too small. As long as I have digital versions I can always print out a copy if I ever want to. As I'm scanning the photos I have been tagging them with people's names, events, etc., so they're super-easy to find later. In fact, if I want to do a special layout for a specific person (or pet!) I can quickly retrieve all photos tagged with that person's name. Much easier than shuffling through piles of printed photos no matter how organized they are.

Oh, and one last bennie? Finding photos like the one at the top of this post! My guy-cat, Jack, when he was just a few months old and during one of his earliest explorations of the outdoors. Wow. Was he ever CUTE!

And since the photo is now digital I was able to bump up the color, sharpen it a bit, and then try out some creative cropping.

Bringing the focus forward to Jack:

Putting a slight leftward tilt on the photo:

And my fave, a very definite rightward tilt for a really fun look:

Jack-Jack the Jungle Cat

Can't wait to do some more scanning tomorrow!

The Cat and the Kill

Scout hunts pretty much every night. She always brings back her kill, and is very proud of her accomplishment.

I bet leaves that size really put up a fight!

Why I Can't Update my Blog

Miss Thing has me pinned. What cheek!

Head 'Em Up, Move 'Em Out

It's me, ha ha , taking a photo of a cow. Yeah, I'm enough of a city girl to think bovines are pretty cool when you can get this close to them. We were on a bike ride in the Wildcat Canyon Regional Park (northern Cali) when we ran across these lovelies.

We've been riding our bikes quite a bit lately, and I'm getting a little bit more in shape. The long winter took its toll on my fitness level. I have more photos to post but no time today, so I will try to do that after the 21st, when my schedule eases up just a bit.

Tomorrow Mike and I leave for Florida to visit his dad and step-mom. We'll be back on Friday. My cousin, Laurel, will look in on the cats while we are gone. I hope they don't have too many parties and wreck the house. (The cats, I mean, not Laurel, LOL!)

My Precious (my laptop) is not going with us and there's no internet at Art & Betty's house so I'll be totally off-line until late Friday. If you need me, call my cell phone!

Back soon!!!

Lotsa Finished Projects!

I've had a very productive few days! I put a self-imposed limit on my internet time and made great progress on my list of UFO's (UnFinished Objects). Here are the things I've completed:

A small cross-stitch piece of a hummingbird and flowers. I put it in its frame for this photo, but it's not "properly" framed quite yet. I need to stretch it on the backing so that the faint crease down the middle is gone. Still, it's SO close to being finished that I'm counting it!

This is a coffee cup cozy, for use with those cardboard cups you get from Starbuck's and other coffee houses. This was only an hour-long project, including cutting out the fabric and hand-sewing the button on. I followed Erin's tutorial as posted on her blog, House on Hill Road, and which you can find here. I made this as a gift for my friend, Chris, in Napa.

(By the way, I photographed my coffee cup cozy in the macro photo studio that Mike and I built using a 12x12x12 cardboard box, some tissue paper, and a sheet of posterboard. Want to make one of your own? Check out this tutorial at Strobist!)

Next, I finally finished my Bargello quilt!!! This pattern is from the book, "No-Sweat Flannel Quilts," by Beth Garretson and is called "A Bit of Bargello."

I am especially happy about getting this done because I actually put together the quilt top 2 or maybe even 3 years ago, got it machine-quilted by Paula Gallagher of Quilt-in-Time in Benicia (as far as I know she doesn't have a website or I would list it), and then, for various reasons the quilt got put away and just remained stored in a closet, nearly forgotten.

When I took it out recently to finish it, I had to search all over for the fabric strips I was sure I had cut to make the binding. Two days later I finally found the strips at the bottom of a container of scraps. I stitched them together, then onto the quilt, and then did the hand-stitching while watching a movie. DONE!

By the way, for the BEST instructions EVER on how to bind a quilt, check out this tutorial at the Gratz Industries blog. Easy to follow, gorgeous results!

My bargello quilt is lap size and now I really regret not making it at least a twin-size. Bargello strip piecing goes really fast and looks great. Plus I just LOVE the colors. And look how cute it is on my white iron daybed!

Not to mention how pretty it looks next to the eyelet bedskirt on that same bed. ARGH, should have made it twin-size, and should have made two of them! I'll know better next time.

I spent much of today in the sewing room again, with Scout as company, as usual. She loves the sewing maching, she loves fabric, and she loves the warm ironing board. Now if I could just teach her to thread a needle!

My project today was this purse, the pattern is called "La Borsetta" by Meredith Burns. I bought the pattern and fabric at the Patchwork Cat quilt shop in Benicia. Sadly, the Cat is no more, as it's owner, Bonnie, closed it a couple of months ago. I still miss it! She had The Best fabric, and a lot that were cat-related, of course.

So the first photo shows the purse when it is laying down flat. This photo shows how it expands and can sit up by itself. It turned out really cute, I think. There are pockets on both the front and back, a ribbon and button closure, and two shoulder straps. Don't you love the cats 'n coffee themed fabric?

It's fully lined inside with another, coordinating fabric, and is a perfect size for an on-the-go knitting project, or just as a fun weekend bag. I do believe I'll be using it when I go off to Pacific Grove for a scrapbookers getaway this weekend, dahhh-ling!

Benicia Arsenal Post Cemetery 1849

Sunday afternoon we took a drive....

...and tucked away at end of Hospital Road in a southeast corner of Benicia is a small, and very old, military cemetery. As the name of the road implies, there used to be a hospital at this location as well, an army hospital, which was used between 1849 and 1854, and was the only army hospital on the West Coast. The hospital is long gone, but the cemetery remains.

The cemetery is known by a number of names, among them the Benicia Military Cemetery, the Benicia Army Cemetery, and the Benicia Post Cemetery. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Benicia Arsenal-Benicia Barracks Historic District. It is the oldest U.S. military post cemetery in the Pacific States.

This cemetery is the final resting place for 211 people; soldiers, civilians (including some women and children), and prisoners-of-war (Italian and German), as well as three dogs. Originally the graves were marked with wooden plaques but over the years became weather-worn to the point that the names could no longer be read.

When renovations were done and marble headstones erected in place of the wooden ones, many then had to be marked as Unknown.

Seven headstones mark the graves of German prisoners-of-war. These graves are in a far corner, away from the rest.

We found the lone Italian prisoner-of-war buried among the U.S. soldiers and speculated that by the time he died, 1944, Italy had become an ally of the U.S., thus explaining his priviledged resting place.

The cemetery burials date from 1849 through 1958.

The graves of the three dogs, complete with little American flags. These graves are in an area of their own, way off to one side. I wish they had dates on them!

A little later we drove by this building, recognizable by most Benicians; the Clock Tower. We paused to read the plaque out front which stated it was built in 1859 and originally had two towers. An explosion destroyed it in 1912 and when it was rebuilt it had only one tower, this time with a clock installed. We noticed that the clock does NOT keep the correct time!

We met this kitty by the art studios near the Port of Benicia. She was very friendly and let us pet her. Mike even gave her a little beef jerky. Her collar tag told us her name: Sunflower.

Oh, we did see another animal on our little outing, in the cemetery porta-potty:

A raccoon!!