201

Today was Buddy photo shoot day. Guess how many pictures I took of him on my phone. If you guessed 201, you are correct. I just threw the kitty toy and left the picture button pressed down. Most of the pictures were blurry, so I only actually kept 22. I didn't get any good ones of him chasing the toy. But with 201 pictures, your gonna get some accidental ones that turn out to be funny. 

Buddy, using his magic powers to make the ball levitate.

This one is funny in a creepy way.

He looks like he's in the middle of talking.

Either looks like he's yawning or screaming at someone/thing.

This one isn't funny, just kind of cute.

Animal Update!

Here's yet another summer animal update (if you remember, I did a few of those last summer).

Starting with Buddy. He was sick last week, but now he's fine. It took me a long time to get this picture of him because he kept moving or blinking right before I took the photo. I think my camera was blocking his view of Coale, who was watching behind me. He kept moving his head so he could glare at Coale, but he eventually got annoyed with me for blocking his view, so he just gave grumpy looks to the camera. So yeah, Buddy's good.

The brothers. They look identical in this picture. Well, not quite. Coale got whatever kitty flu bug Buddy had last week on Thursday. Coale recovered in a day and Nono hasn't shown any signs of it himself, so hopefully we won't have any more sick kitties for a while.

The horses are all okay. Last Wednesday, there was a fire at the stables, but no one (horses

or people) were hurt. But 4 acres were burned. Kona was very upset during the fire because it was so close to her pasture. The picture above is pretty recent. It was taken on Monday, or yesterday.  We round pinned Sedona and Kona at the same time. The Sedona was trying to bite Kona for most of it though. Wings moved away in January, and I still need to arrange a day to go visit her.

I haven't seen Teddy for a while now. I know Teddy has a new home with a student from his class (he was a class pet).  It was nice to have been able to pet-sit a class pet who could (and was willing enough too) play with our cats. Hey mom, can we get a hamster?

An unlikely cat treat

Sorry this picture of the kitty boys is so blurry. It's of them begging for a treat. Coale (back left) is a proud carnivore. If you show him a vegetable or fruit to sniff, it will offend him. The only fruit he will eat is pumpkin.

 It turns out, a little canned pumpkin is fine for cats. Even a little good for them. Too much can cause diarrhea though.

Even though our cat's have been eating pumpkin for a long time now (Every time we make something with pumpkin in it, the kitties get a little bit of pumpkin), it still surprises me that our might hunter Coale likes a plant food.

Buddy Update

I mentioned in my last post that Buddy was sick. I think I mentioned that he wasn't eating as well. Anyway, the blood work results came back on Tuesday and Buddy does not have any problems/illnesses. I said the vet gave him an anti-nausea shot and now he is eating!

Yes, I took pictures of him eating because I was so thrilled that he wasn't sick anymore!

Here are some pictures from the vet's office.

Buddy, making himself at home at the vet.

After a bit, he got scared and hid. Can you spot the cat in this picture?

Buddy helped me write this blog post.

 

It's not a very good picture, but it was the best one I got with the computer camera.

Not so Red Velvet Cupcakes

This weekend, my sister's and I made Vegan red velvet cupcakes. Unfortunately, we were pretty much out of red food dye. We were only able to use about three drops before we ran out. So the cupcakes looked like a slightly pink/ish brown. But they still tasted good. The cupcakes were light and fluffy and the frosting was tasty.

Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

Wet:
1 cup of soy milk or other non dairy milk of choice
1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
1/3 of a cup of canola oil
2 tablespoons of red food dye (yeah, we definitely didn't do that)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/4 of a teaspoon of almond extract
1 teaspoon of chocolate extract  We left this out and our cupcakes were fine

Dry:
1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder 
1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda

Directions: 
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 
2. Whisk the milk and vinegar and let curdle
3. Put the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir
4. Add the rest of the wet ingredients + the curdled milk
5. Stir the wet and dry ingredients with, something you can stir with.
6. Don't over mix or the "the cupcakes will turn out gummy- small lumps are okay"
7. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 of the way, the cupcakes rise a lot. Supposably, this will make 12 cupcakes (it did for us) but you never can be sure
8. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the center is not gooey when a toothpick is inserted
9. The recipe says to do otherwise, but we just threw em in the fridge

Frosting:
About 3 1/2 ish cups of powdered sugar
Enough soy milk to make the frosting the right texture
A bit of lemon juice to add a cream cheesey flavor
You could add ground cashews to make it taste more like cream cheese, but we didn't. Soak them for a  while (the longer the better) and blend before adding to the frosting
(Sorry the instructions for the frosting are so vague, we changed it a lot and didn't keep track of how much stuff we added in.)

Directions:
10. Whisk the stuff together and and more stuff if it doesn't look right ;)
11. Frost your cupcakes. Eat like five of them right then. 

The original recipe is at: http://www.food.com/recipeprint.do?rid=412578


Unfortunately (on a completely different topic) Buddy got sick on Sunday afternoon. He seemed fine at first, but wouldn't eat. I sat with him for maybe an hour afterwards and he was pretty sick. He is now a lot better, but still wouldn't eat this morning. We took him to the vet and got some blood work done, so I am waiting for the results that will come tomorrow. The vet gave him an anti-nausea shot, and now he is eating again!

Buddy's Adventure outside

Yesterday, it was very hot outside. So my sister's and I decided to have a water war. My mom came outside to check on us, and as soon as she opened the door to come outside, my cat Buddy dashed out. We weren't very worried Buddy was going to run away, he always comes to us.  He seemed want to stay outside, so I got his harness and leash on (a long time ago I bought him a harness and leash and tried to leash train him) and took hi outside. He loved the sun and being outside, but hated the harness. 

Buddy, rolling over on the deck because he didn't really like the harness.

Buddy, enjoying watching the birds up close as I hold him.

Buddy, rolling on the deck because he didn't like the harness, again.

That's pretty much a summary of our trip outside. After maybe five minutes, he wanted to go inside. We took the other two kitties outside with different results. I'll let Kira and Tia blog about that to you if they want.

Photos By Kira

Buddy helps me make cookies

In the school year (right about after I stopped updating my blog), I was making apricot cookies. Buddy decided to help.

Buddy being helpful.

Buddy, giving the cookies a really creepy look.

 I don't have any pictures of it, but at one point, he was trying to pick up the wet cookie dough with his paws. 

Bad Black Cats

Yesterday, I was trying to do a Black Cat photo shoot. It failed. Miserably. I went into the bedroom (on Tuesday's, we have to shut the kitties in my parent's bedroom in the afternoon so they don't get out).

 

My picture of Nono and Buddy "snuggling".

I was trying to get a picture of Coale, but he was sitting on the litter box. Not using it. Just sitting on it. He gave it a sniff, and walked away, and began inspecting the floor. Coale is known to be very picky about how smelly his litter box is, and if it is too smelly, he will hold it for a long time. After a long time he will do his business on the floor. I scooped the litter box, and while I was busy doing that, Buddy walked into my parent's bathroom, and I heard him lapping something up. I assumed he was drinking out of the shower (which is ok), and showed Coale the clean(er) litter box. 

Fortunately, Coale did not use the floor. Unfortunately, Buddy was not drinking out of the shower. 

Ewwwww. Bad kitties.

Funny Photos

Over the course of about two years, I've taken a lot of pictures on my phone. And occasionally, the animal I am taking a picture of will do something hilarious. So here is my collection of funny photos.

Coale, looking at the jack-o-lantern a little suspiciously. I was trying to get a cute Halloween photo of each of them, but this was the best I got of Coale.

Sedona, right after we shaved her. I caught this picture on accident.

Buddy. He was hunting my mom's shoe in this picture. I don't know why. I took a whole bunch of pictures, and he made a funny face in this one.

Nono, licking his nose. I cheated on this one and took a screen shot of picture in a video I took of him.

This is Motormouth (I miss him), waiting for me on top of a port-a-potty. He scared people who were in the port-a-potty when he walked around the roof.

This is Roku, one of my family's friends fostered her. She looks a little disturbing in this picture.

This is Wally, the friend who fostered Roku's cat. 

Wally again.



Mittens, our neighbor's cat that we cat sit for occasionally.

Handsome Buddy

The collar I wanted to get for Buddy finally was available. I got him a different color than the one I posted earlier though.

He has actually been very tolerant about wearing it. He doesn't mind collars at all. But if you put a harness on him...

"Take this thing off of me this instant or you will suffer the consequences."

Note how he is laying down in this picture. Apparently, he can't walk with the harness on or he will collapse.

Every morning, he yowls at my parent's bedroom door at seven am until they get out of bed. We are trying a new method. We put the harness on him when he starts screaming every morning. If the harness really is his kryptonite, we will get some sleep. If not, we will have successfully trained him to wear a harness.

Buddy's new collar

I found a cat collar I might get for Buddy.

Unfortunately, it is sold out, so I'll have to wait a while to get it.

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween, I was a Greek warrior.

I took Halloween pictures of each of our kitties posing next to a Jack-o-lantern.

Buddy was the easiest to photograph. He was willing to sit next to the pumpkin decoration, and he was not scared of it. In this photo, he saw a spot on the wall and thought it was a spider. He wanted to catch the spider.

Nono was the next easiest. At first, he was scared of the decoration, but after a while, he became too curious and decided to check it out.

Coale was the hardest. He was convinced the pumpkin was terrifying, and refused to go near. We had to put treats on top of the pumpkin for him to look at it and stand close.

We carved pumpkins yesterday. As usual, I carved a cat.

Three

Lately I've been taking a lot of pictures of our kitties sitting together.

I was surprised to see them all sitting like this. Usually when they are in my parent's bedroom, Buddy is on the bedside table, trying to jump out if someone opens the door (he hates being in one room for a long time), Noel and Coale are usually sleeping together on the bed, or sitting on the floor. I've never seen all three of them in a row on the bed.

The next night(isn), there were three in a row in my bedroom.

And then I saw them in a row, again.

Last night, when I was making them wet food, I tried to take a group picture of them. 

After about ten minutes of group picture kitty shots, I got two okay pictures. Buddy kept moving, NoNo kept getting scared and walking away, and Coale kept giving me this annoyed, unamused look, or he looked the other way.

This picture is a good example of what a lot of pictures.