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.

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.

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.

Sick

From Thursday to Sunday, I was sick (which is my excuse for not blogging over the weekend). But thanks to they help of three kitties (and oregano oil) I'm better now! Buddy slept with me on the couch for most of the time.

The kitty crew

Some things that have been happening latey

• My trumpet got a bath
• Nono is talking right now and it's really loud and annoying. Coale is concerned about his brother.

• Our Uncle came to visit on Thursday and is leaving tomorrow 
• Nono just stopped meowing
• We took our first math test on Friday

Busted!

The Crows

I got Wing's grain and soaked it in a bucket for her when I got to the stables. I left it on the table to soak for a while before she ate it (we do this because Wings is 20 and her teeth aren't as strong as a younger horse's). While I finished up the other chores, the crows found Wings' food. They were all perched around her bucket, eating it. At one point, one was even sitting in it. I shooed them off (not before getting a few pictures!), but they kept coming back. Finally, I put the bucket in the tack room.

Wings

When I went to the mare pasture to feed Kona and get Wings, Wings saw me and headed towards me immediately. Kona followed a bit behind. I took Kona out first to give her food. Wings was not happy that I took Kona out first.

Here's Wings waiting impatiently by the gate for me.

Here's Wings kicking the gate. They're not supposed to do that because it could damage the gate.

Teddy's Great Escape

When I got home, I finally remembered to clean Teddy's cage. I brought one of my sisters in the room with me so she could watch him while I cleaned. When we checked in his cage, Teddy was gone. We checked the whole playroom even though I had a pretty good idea of where he was. Hamsters like to find little dark concealed corners or holes, it makes them feel safe. Whenever I played with Teddy, he often dashed over towards our closet, so I thought if he got out, that would be the first place he would go. 

I was right. We dug through our old halloween costumes and dress up clothes and found him in the back corner of the closet. He chad been smart about his escape. He found an open bag of his food and dragged a bunch into his hidden corner. He must have been working most of the night to escape, burrow through all those clothes multiple times, and start stashing food.

This is how far he had gotten overnight. Smart hamster. His plan was pretty well thought through, he had a safe corner (It was more concealed by clothes so it was dark and smaller), the clothes served as a protection against cats (Fortunately, he was in a room we don't let the kitties in), us, and the air conditioner, and he had plenty of food stashed for when he needed it. He even made his corner pretty close to the open food bag. He only left out one small detail in his plan. He didn't have any water. When we put him in his cage, he went straight to his water and took a long drink. Hopefully he won't do it again.

After his long night adventure, Teddy was tired. When we put him in his clean cage, he snuggled up in the soft bedding and started to fall asleep. You can see how tired he is in this picture.


There were a lot of animals that got busted for doing bad things today. Maybe it's National Cause Trouble Day. If it is, do not tell the kitties. They could top all of the other trouble makers to day. Especially one kitty, Coale. Coale has eaten many lost hair rubber bands, even thread. He also ate part of our Christmas tree and has snuck into our attic. Buddy has walked outside (He's not allowed too), and often goes onto the kitchen counter which he is not allowed to do because of breakable stuff (clumsy kitty and vases don't mix) and puts snot on the windows. NoNo (AKA Noel), has eaten ribbon, thrown it up, and destroyed his kitty bed (by kneading it really hard).

Animal Update

Here's an update on how all the animals around here are doing.

Kitties

Here are the three kitties. Buddy's in the front, Noel's in the middle and Coale is in the back. Buddy turned eight in May and he is still crazy and playful. Noel and Coale turned six in April. Noel is a pretty kitty and Coale is as troublesome as ever

Buddy is my cat. He's the best kitty ever! He's posing in this picture.

Here's Motormouth, one of the stable's mousers. He's a friendly cat, but he's a little weird sometimes. For instance, he buries his entire food bowl if he didn't finish his food so the other cat doesn't find it. He now likes sleeping on the roof of Sedona's stall. He sits on top of the port-a-potty roof so he can see if anyone who feeds him is entering the stables.

Teddy

Teddy is as playful as last summer. I think he's one and a few months old or somewhere around there. This is on of the structures he plays on.  It's made of plastic so when he has an… accident, we can just wash it off.

This is the whole structure. He has a little hidey hole below the yellow castle as you can see him peeking out of in the first picture.

Horses

Sedona is doing great. Her shoulder is better and I ride her regularly for lessons. Her saddle is fixed so now she will canter correctly. Sadly, Masai died last summer in a accident in pasture where he broke his leg.

Kona is doing good as well. Last summer, she had a back problem that confused her and caused her to spook and run non-stop. She had a sore back a few months ago again, but now she's all better. The bay horse behind Kona may be Kira, Wing's daughter.

Here's Wings. She hasn't been sick or hurt since we got her. Her health has gotten a lot better since she came here. It turns out that Sedona and Wings used to be friends and they were Wing's old stables together for a while. When we introduced them, they were already friends.

Are They Really Supposed to be Doing That?

Our kitties are always causing trouble and when we aren't looking at them, they're usually doing something bad. Here are some of the things they have done caught on camera.

Coale is on the top and Noel is on the bottom.

I wonder what would happen if…

Let's catch the hamster!

Okay Buddy.

No, I'm positive I'm allowed to be up here.

(Even though Motormouth isn't ours)

No, I'm sure the horsey won't mind that I'm in his breakfast.

Let's eat him!

Not surprisingly, Buddy would not leave the counter that he's not supposed to be on while I wrote this.