Lingering cold & cough

We've been staying at home taking it easy.  We're just about fully recovered from our cough and colds, but still have a slight voice thing still hanging on.  Went over to Harold & Callie's and I hope that the cold that Harold has didn't come from us.  He said he caught it while in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee but he might just be saying that to be nice.

All has been well here at home.  My kitty cats are happy being outside and free to roam,  and they are doing very well except for one little siamese kitten who was attacked by a tomcat.  Her neck is healing well and she is full of energy.  I've seen her playing and chasing around the yard with her black litter mate.  Jybow and Squeak are both doing fine.  Lacey has moved on to make her home elsewhere and I haven't seen her in several months now.  Squeak who never liked the out of doors, is loving the back yard and seldom is seen on the front porch or out of the yard.  Little Harley, a siamese cat,  stays at Leo & Cassandra's house most of the time with their dog Blackie.  Most of the tomcats have moved on to find new territories of their own except for two of them, the black one and the gray fluffy one.  They still remain here and haven't moved on with the rest of their litter mates.  That litter was all male except for one non breeding female who has also moved on after 2 years with no kittens.  The only tame breeding female is Little Harley, which I said had been staying at Leo's most of the time.  

We have had lots of rain and more rain is expected, so once the sun comes out the grass will shoot up and it will mark the start of mowing season.  Since someone special trimmed all of my trees so that they don't hit me in the head, mowing is much more enjoyable and easier, and it doesn't take nearly as long to mow without all those obstacles in the way.  

I'm finally settling down and I'm more at peace with my life as it is now.  I don't run the roads anymore and I'm much happier.  The loss of Jimmy was a great loss, but life goes on and after two and a half years I am finally dealing with the loss much better than I had been.  I'm no longer angry with what life dealt me.  I have one person to thank for helping me cope and for keeping my home afloat.  One person who cared enough to stay during the hard times and who didn't abandon me when I was at my worst.  I thank God everyday for bringing this person into my life.  He's a very good friend and everyone should be blessed with someone as caring and as helpful as Rick.  #feelingloved

  

My cats

My cats, Jybow, Squeaker, Lacey, and Little Harley have been out of the house since June, not coming in at all.  The last two nights were in the 20's (F degrees) and all the cats did fine.  Of course, they have been begging to be let inside, but now that they have gotten used to being outside, that's where they will have to remain.  I've fixed them some warm beds to sleep in, but I don't know if they are using them.  What I do know tho is that two cats are sleeping with each other, which is strange for two enemies, but when it is cold, the word enemies does not exist in their vocabularies.

Cats, that's the answer to all of my problems.....

I'm back.  I'm still broken but I think I have come up with a solution to all of my problems.  I think I'll keep the cats.  I was thinking of getting rid of them, but that's no guarantee that anyone would actually stay, but I know the cats will. They won't ever leave me or go away.  I have prayed for someone to take these cats off my hands, but nobody wants adult cats.  The cats won't leave either.  They love it here.  Plenty of good food, fresh water and a good soft body to sleep on....mine.  Why not keep something that really wants to be here, and who I don't have to force or bribe to stay.   The cats are the answer to all of my prayers.  Thank you God for blessing me with these fine, faithful, loving cats which you created just to keep old ladies like me happy.  

Oh Christmas Tree, Poor Christmas Tree

I was watching a Christmas movie and dozing off and on when suddenly I heard that so familiar sound of the Christmas tree,  crashing to the floor.  Thank goodness,  that was the last ornament left on the tree.  There are no more, but the angel on top, and hopefully the cats won't go after that would they????  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

The tree has been sitting in that very spot for two years, yes two whole years, not bothered by anything except dust bunnies.  Then I put a dozen tiny little colorful ornaments on it, and the fun began.  

Some of the cats are skillful enough to remove just the ornaments, but one or two are not!  I've picked up that tree off the floor a dozen times, re-hung the ornaments until I got smart and started leaving them off. 

It's a funny thing tho.  If the tree is lit up with its blinking red, blue, green & purple lights,  the cats won't bother it.  Go figure huh?

Well, it's time to listen to an assortment of my favorite Christmas songs and watch my TV's screen saver,  which is a slideshow of Jimmy.  Love falling asleep to his handsome face.  I still can't believe that he's gone...... 

Resting up for Spring :)

It snowed all day today with little or no accumulation.  We woke up with a dusting of snow on the ground and we are going to bed with less, despite it snowing all day long.  It was pretty though and even Jimmy enjoyed watching it snow today, which is unusual for him.  He doesn't normally like snow or the colder months of the year.

We have a warm fire going and the cats didn't even want to venture outside very much.  We did have four cats who went out twice, but they sure didn't stay out for very long.  I don't blame them, I didn't stay out for very long either.  Just long enough to see what one of the cats was looking at, that caused her to come back inside so quickly.  It was just a feral cat stopping by to eat up the chicken noodle soup that Jimmy didn't finish eating.

We didn't do much today but watch the cats play and watched some TV.  Jimmy went out three times to break the ice out of the cats water bowl and to give them fresh water.  Just like people feed the birds in the winter, we make sure that the feral cats outside have fresh water and food to eat.  We used to feed the birds until one flew into our brand new window and cracked it.  We didn't find a dead bird beneath the window, so it must have just got knocked senseless, and then flew away.  Poor bird :(

So there you have it!  Our day in a nutshell. 

RELAXING......

This has been such a relaxing day.  Jimmy has been outside for the last two days doing the normal things that he always did before.  It's nice seeing him taking interest in all the activities that he used to love doing.  There is still one thing that he isn't allowed to do yet, and that is to ride his motorcycle and he has almost stopped asking me why he can't take it out for a spin.

Of course you know that I am here at the moment writing to you, and doing one of the things I like to do while I write and that is listen to music.  My grandson Zac says that I have lots of music, but he'd be really amazed at how much music my brother Dennis has.

It got cold last night, so today I put 6 new warm fluffy cat beds out in the cat building for the cats and I put pillows and blankets in two dog houses that are raised and on a platform in another part of the yard....cats like to sleep in high places.  In the cat building the cats have shelves at different heights and they like that.  The front porch has a covered dog carrier that one, and sometimes two of the neighbors cats sleep in, so I need to wash those cat blankets too.  The cats keep us busy.   We have one strictly inside cat which is Squeak, and four cats that go in and out all day long.   We have 5 cats, but claim 6.
BUT.....we take care of many cats who are forever coming and going which to our best estimate there are 18 who have become permanent residents of our yard, plus the roaming tomcats who wander in from time to time which I am not counting.  I think we feed and care for enough cats that we should be considered a "cat shelter."

I didn't mean to sit down here and write about cats, but I did, and now that you're thoroughly bored I'll say,
Goodbye.

I don't know where the new kittens are :(

Our neighbor moved his blue truck so now we don't know where the new kittens are hidden.  The gray mama cat always headed for the blue truck, went to the far side of the truck and disappeared.  We made the assumption that the kittens were on the blue truck, maybe on a small ledge or little cubby hole, but now we just don't know.  The next time the gray cat comes to eat we will have to take the time to watch her every move and see where she goes.  She's very cautious to make sure that she is not being watched, so we watch from inside the house as much as possible, moving from window to window.  She wanted to come inside the house the day before she had her kittens, but Jimmy put his foot down to letting a feral cat in the house.  Can you imagine what that would have been like?  Maybe that's just what was needed to tame her, but we'll never know now......

Sunday Surgery for Harley

Harley is now our $1223.00 cat as of this morning.  The poor little thing had two broken legs, one (right front), and the other was his left back leg.  Both had to be put together with rods, screws and wires.  He might have to have one or two more surgeries depending on the rod that sticks up through his back, and also on his tail, which may have to be cut off....or as the vet said, bobbed. I think that his tail will eventually be fine and it is just traumatized right now and will regain its function.  Harley can't stand up yet, so requires our help during those bathroom times, but other than that he spends most of his time sleeping and grooming.

Harley is one of the sweetest cats ever and didn't even offer to bite or scratch anyone during his stay at the animal hospital.  He was there from Saturday morning until this morning when we picked him up.  We are so happy to have Harley back home with us.

Cats watching birds

I created a monster when I first started letting my cats watch YouTube videos of films made just to entertain cats. Now whenever my laptop or iPad is in sight the cats surround me wanting to see the bird videos named, Birds for Cats. Thank goodness the cats are all napping right now.

Princess

Princess is feeling so much better and so am I about her.  She wants to stay outside most of the time and only come in to sleep.  I'm glad that she's feeling better, but today Jimmy had to stop her from going next door to visit Sarge.  Sarge is a nice big pit bull but I don't want to take any chances with my Princess.  Her appointments at the vet's office have now been cut back from everyday to Mon, Wed and Fridays until she's well enough to have an exploratory surgery.  The vet is not sure if the growth near her kidney can be removed so until then her prognosis is guarded.

The Sun

The sun finally poked it's head out from between the clouds today and dried up the grass enough to mow it.  It's been over a week since Matt and his dad were nice enough to mow the lawn for us, and it was really getting to look like a hay field around here.

Ray mowed the hardest part, the steep bank in front of the house.  That can only be mowed with a push mower or a self propelled mower if you're lucky enough to have one.  Sometimes Jimmy uses the weed-eater on it.  It just all depends on how he feels, but today Ray mowed it for us.

Jimmy mowed the back yard with the riding mower, and then when Ray finished mowing the whole front yard he came to the backyard and mowed what the riding mower couldn't get close enough to

Ray & Jimmy

Princess tried to help too but she couldn't reach the gas pedal, while this old stray black and white tomcat watched.

This old tomcat has a hurt front leg and has been hobbling around the yard on three legs for the last couple of days.  The whole neighborhood thought he was dead because we all saw a black and white smudged spot on the road, but apparently it wasn't him...the old fella is still around.  I was able to get close enough to take this picture because he can't see or hear very well anymore.  We let him hang around here because he's so old and deserves a little respect.

Early this morning Suzanne stopped by with a hanging basket of cherry tomatoes for us.  As you can see, it's loaded and it looks the same from any angle you look at it.  It's also full of blossoms and some tiny baby tomatoes just barely forming.  Now to just find that perfect spot to hang it from, where it'll get plenty of sunshine.  I have to laugh when I think of finding just the right spot for it because sunshine is something we haven't seen too much of this month.  Tomorrow it'll be 81 degrees and the only day in a while that will be rain-free.  I sure hope the weatherman is right cause it'll be nice to feel the warmth of the sun again.
 

Beautiful Things

I went out into the yard between rain showers because I spotted my Climatis in bloom.  The rain had pretty much beat the new blossoms up, but I wanted to get a picture before the hard rain beat the petals completely off. Yesterday it only had about 2 blooms on it.

This is my dog PJ's grave.  Every year I buy butterflies to put on it as a remembrance of how much she loved chasing butterflies.  One time while I was sitting down and PJ was standing on the ground with her two front paws stretched up to my knees, a big Monarch butterfly landed on her nose and stayed there for a couple of seconds.  PJ didn't move and I didn't move.  We just watched in amazement until the butterfly flew away.  Of course this was definitely a Kodac moment, and I didn't have it on me. 

I borrowed this picture from HERE.  It's my granddaughter Megan 22 weeks into her pregnancy, and the bigger she gets, the prettier she looks.  My great-grandson, Myles Parker Malear, isn't due to make his appearance into this world until sometime in August, and we're all waiting with great anticipation.

For all that know about my injured cat Warty, he's doing much better.  He's on his feet again, walking with a slight limp, but still takes a lot of breaks to lay down and rest.  We still don't know how he was injured, but we're very happy that he is on his way to a complete recovery.

Boooo Hoooo

Princess and Squeaker got spayed today and there will be no more kittens at our house.  It's kind of sad, but it had to be done.  We have far too many cats who live in our yard and in our house, and boy can cats multiply.  My babies are napping right now, but Squeak has been pretty active since we brought her home.  Princess on the other hand is an older cat and seems to be taking her surgery with a little more difficulty.

Sandie stopped by to visit today while I was doing our income taxes.  I wasn't going to file and just let our poor depleted government keep our tax refund, but then I thought that it might backfire on me and I would get into trouble for not filing a tax return.  I sure don't want to get into any trouble with the I.R.S. just because I was merely trying to give them a gift and I'm almost sure that they would have punished me with a penalty or something.  Maybe I'll have more guts next year.

So how was your day?  It got really warm here this afternoon so Jimmy took his bike out for a ride.  It's finally getting to be riding weather, but we have one more big job to do....replace the hot water heater and the floor beneath it, before the end of the month.  Maybe it's a good thing I kept the tax refund after all.....

  

It's My Turn

Jybow & CryBag

Jybow has always had an interest to see what I'm doing and occasionally she will even take her paw and rub it over the mouse pad on my laptop.  She sees that I rub it and the cursor moves around on the screen, so she tries it, but lately I have to fight two cats to get near my laptop and especially if I'm trying to play a game of solitaire.

Child's Play

The trash man is not going to love us this week

Jybow and Petey at the window

Princess Pinky

Petey

Petey

The flowers along the fence row are beginning to bloom

Our sweet PJ's grave site

The little frog by the watergarden

The froggie

I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas / Bing Crosby

Last night I stood out on my back steps and watched the snow as it was coming down. The snowflakes were HUGE, some of the BIGGEST I've seen in a while...it was beautiful.

By this morning we had about 3 inches of snow that is quickly melting with our warm temps of 47 degrees. It's nothing but slush out there right now. The snow fell straight down, there wasn't any wind to cause any snowdrifts...I think snowdrifts give snow character. I love blowing snow, but I'm thankful that it didn't blow this time because of the light shades that we lined our front porch with to keep the snow off of the cats warm spot. The bamboo shades are no match for blowing wind and we haven't quite figured out what to do to keep the shades from blowing around other than taking them down when it's windy. We really don't want to build a frame because if we do that we might as well enclose the porch and sometimes I think that might not be such a bad idea. Then the cats would have a nice cozy place to get out of the rain & snow.

This is the first year that the cats have remained on the front porch when the weather is cold. They usually find warm places out of the weather under our buildings even though I always lined a chair & the porch swing with pillows covered by warm afghans. They would lay there in the daytime, but when the cold bitter nighttime air came they'd disappear off to their warm spots wherever that might be. They would leave because the blowing snow would blow in on top of them.

This year I tried something different. Under the afghans I put an electric warming throw and they now remain there all night long. Their spots are toasty warm and the outdoor cats all pile up on top of each other now fighting for a spot on the warm blanket. I was never able to get these cats to lay together for warmth, and now I can't get them apart.

Today is a good day to make Christmas cookies, bake banana nut bread and perhaps even make the chocolate and peanut-butter fudge for Christmas. I already baked some of Reva's favorite cookies last night and I'll be baking more because Jimmy got into them...bad boy, but he loves them too and that's why it's so much fun baking them. Petey , our kitten, even managed to steal one of the cookies off of Jimmy's plate, and he's a bad boy too.

Speaking of bad boys...

Petey is getting into EVERYTHING. He's found the refrigerator magnets and no matter how high you put them, he works until he gets them down. He's the jumping-est cat we've ever had and he loves to steal your socks during the night. Gotta go....I hear the magnets hitting the floor and if I don't get there quick he takes them and hides them never to be seen again.

Just ordinary everyday stuff

Today was spent doing yard work. We mowed the grass, pulled some weeds and Jimmy trimmed some lower branches from the Sycamore Tree and he also weed-eated the whole yard. I did a little house cleaning as well and that's unusual for me on such a beautiful sunny day. We usually save those house cleaning chores, like vacuuming or mopping the floors, for the rainy days when we have to be inside anyway.

My cat Princess Pinky moved her kittens again yesterday, this time to the living room so we could all enjoy them. They'll be 4 weeks old in a few days and will soon begin to start eating some dry kitten food. They're just beginning to play and can barely keep their balance and are still very wobbly on their feet. We've never had 5 (very cute & cuddly) baby kittens in the house before. We once let one mean mother cat keep two kittens in here and it was a disaster. She beat up Jybow & Princess P every time they looked at her or her kittens or she caught them asleep, so we vowed never to do that again...but here we are with five kittens. The difference here is that Princess Pinky is being very nice to Jybow and Jybow is allowed to look at her babies anytime she wants. The problem is that Jybow was trained so well to stay away from kittens that she won't go near them and only sneaks peeks at them from a distance....a very far distance.

Hopalong aka Catzilla needs a dental appointment with the vet. Today as I was sitting with her at the picnic table I noticed that her bottom right tooth was sticking straight out of her mouth. Jimmy tried to wiggle it, but the cat quickly pulled away so the tooth is still attached. I'm hoping that she'll just finish the job herself and lose it during the night. I'm going to give it a couple of days before I make an appointment with the vet. No sense paying a big vet bill when the tooth might just fall out on its own.

So how was your day? Anything unusual or exciting happen? I know it has to be more exciting than my day. The only exciting thing that happened to me today was that my cell phone rang while I was near the riding mower and when I moved away to answer it, I stepped in a big gooey glop of mud and missed the call. It was funny and gave me something to laugh at, but not nearly as much as the phone call did.

Organic Gardening...does this count?

The cats seemed to know that the first thing you do is to spread fertilizer around the garden, and they thought that Jimmy had dug out all those little trenches all in neat rows just for them. Jimmy wasn't at all happy about this, but I laughed and took the camera out of my pocket.

Jimmy had lots of unwanted help yesterday while trying to put out a few tomato, banana & bell pepper plants. It was funny watching him trying to plant his garden with so many cats winding around his feet & ankles and taking dust baths all around his newly planted vegetables.

Dennis & Kerri ...you both have lots of cats...do you ever have this problem?

Jimmy was very upset about this and he wasn't too happy that I was out there taking pictures instead of helping him chase the cats away :(


Hop-along...the cat taking the dust bath, even went as far as darting around and lunging at one of the pepper plants and knocking it sideways as she tried to dig it up. I didn't get a picture of that because Jimmy was yelling at me to get the cat away from that plants and to put down the camera. Jimmy was busy planting the tomato plants at the other end of the garden and it was up to me to watch the cats...that was my job, haha.
When I say, "yelling" I don't mean mad yelling, like yelling. Jimmy's yelling is more like, "Honey, would you please keep that cat away from the plants?" but he said it really fast, and that's his yelling and he didn't say it in a mean way.

Guess what Jimmy's doing?

He's replanting what the cats dug up...and in a few days he'll be replanting what the birds & bugs destroy. Then sometime in early May we'll have one of those killing frosts and have to replant everything all over again. Sometimes it takes three plantings before the garden is finally done.

The garden isn't complete anyway, because we couldn't find everything that we wanted to put out and that may have been a good thing, because if we wait we'll only have to plant it once : )

Right after we finished working in the garden it started raining, and Jimmy was happy about that because the cats hate getting mud on their little paws.

Such inquisitive creatures

Why are cats so inquisitive, constantly searching for something, anything to get into?
She stalks the window shades, looking on each slat for movement, a dust bunny perhaps, anything. I turn and breathe out and cause movement of the lace curtains and that‘s all the movement that is needed. I hear a crash as the cat tries to climb the delicate loops of the lace threads and they give way.
The cat tumbles down and goes on to something else…another window. Here she swats at the plastic rod that opens & closes the blinds. It swings away and into the sheer curtains again making the curtains the center of her attention for a moment. Losing interest she moves on.
Back & forth she walks, like a lioness stalking & searching for it’s next prey. She hears a quiet snort, stops and listens. She sees movement and she pounces. Jimmy wakes with a fright and the kitty quickly jumps off his face and runs off to look for something else to pounce on.

Enjoying this nice weather

The cherry trees are loaded this year,
YEAH!!!

Look at all those cherries.

HopAlong is waiting for the cherry trees
daily visitor...
the little squirrel.

As HopAlong & Daisy wait under this tree
the squirrel is enjoying cherries in the other tree.

These are Bing Cherries, and this is the first year
that this tree has had any fruit to speak of.
We watched the squirrels climbing this tree daily
and didn't pay much attention because as I said before,
this tree had never had any cherries on it.
What a surprise to find it loaded with ripe cherries!

I just had a thought....
Maybe its had cherries all along and that darned little
squirrel has been eating them
.....hummm.

Daisy patiently waiting for that little frog to pop out of the water.

I finally broke down and bought that little bendable tripod.
It bends any way you want to bend it.
I bend it around tree branches, set the timer on the camera
and run to get in position. One of these days I'll have enough
nerve to mount it on my handle bars, but as of yet,
I'm not ready to lose my camera in the road. hehehe

Aunt Sharon with Brandon.

We took a day and went shopping with Brandon.
He had managed to save up a whole lot of money
for a guitar with video game and we took him to the BIG CITY
to buy it. We had lots of fun together.

Megan & Zac

This was taken by Megs iPhone while waiting for
our food to arrive. We were all out riding our motorcycles
together on a beautiful day celebrating Sharon's birthday,
although it really wasn't Sharon's birthday.
(She's been celebrating all month)

These next two pictures are Jimmy & I
on two different days. We've been doing some riding,
but not as much as I would like to do with the rising
gas prices and also the extremely hot weather.

Here's the menu.
I had the Road Kill
( I really had a salad & a baked sweet potato)

Here we are stopping at the court house to see if Megan can get her
motorcycle license yet. She has to wait one more week and then her
six months permit time will be up....
so no license today. It's just a formality because she's already passed
her written & driving test.

Meg, Sharon & I
still celebrating Sharon's birthday.
When will it ever end? I guess on July 1st but then
it will be time to start celebrating
the Fourth of July.