Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!!!

Says the girl with the kitty ears.


Also, if you're a Buffy fan, there's a new Fan community in town. Please check out the grand opening of The Circle of the Black Thorn!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Free gift with purchase!




Charmin and LuceyLot commandeered a shopping bag of fabric last night for their napping spot. I couldn't resist.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

I have a dream

No, it's not to have my children's names in Lights with nothing to hit but the heights, hehe.

I have a dream of a nice little house with a large backyard where I can grown enough vegetables for myself and also to make a small dime off of. I have a dream of working from home in a career where I can manage my time however I choose so that I can cultivate those crops and write to my heart's content as well as have the ability to still nurse a few wayward animals to health and proper homes.

Yes, this dream will likely require a Large lottery winning to attain, but it doesn't stop me from dreaming it.

In fact, I've already begun to put part of my dream to use. I am nursing a few wayward animals to health and proper homes and I am also beginning to be a gardener. I may be an apartment dweller at the moment, but I have guerilla'd a spot in my building's front lawn for a bit of a container herb garden. I figure I'll start there and see how things go over the winter.

Spring and Summer were pretty good to me. My basil flourished. Although I let it go to seed. Next time I'll remember to harvest those leaves a lot earlier, man when one branch went to seed it seemed like the whole thing burst into flowers! Although I will say that the honey bees sure liked those flowers! And honestly, even though they say that the flowers will stop the plant from producing more leaves, I think that's only true for each branch that has flowers. Because my plant has continued to sprout new branches even after the mass flowering. So letting the plant flower wasn't All bad. In fact, it was rather enjoyable to see the flowers there and the bees going to town on them.

Next Spring I plan on attempting a technique called Square Foot Gardening. With my small little area I have quadranted off, I think I can get away with building an Attractive (meaning I'll have to pretty it up) little raised garden box. My hope is to plant some of the things that I buy the most at the grocery store, like green beans, peas, and lima beans, more herbs, and maybe some garlic and onion and carrots. Mmmm!

And also I found out that there are some fruit trees that come in Dwarf varieties. I actually Found a Dwarf Pomegranate! And if I can find a dwarf Fig tree to keep potted, then I will be in HOG HEAVEN! All I would need else-wise for fruit would be grapes, and blackberries. Both would be awesome on a trellis!

I'm getting excited already just thinking about it!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

LuceyLot and Maizy Loo

My dog, Maizy is a very forgiving dog. She's never been a fan of other dogs, but when it comes to cats she's been pretty bombproof. Below is a series of photographs starring Miss LuceyLot and Maizy illustrating just how awesome she is with the kittens:














Hehe, these are my favorites





I'z Going to Eat U for Dinnerz!!!!

Lucey is really beginning to come into her own in regards to playtime and silliness. Charmin's still quite a bit ahead of her in the silliness dept, but Lucey is nearly as fast tearing across the apt as Charmin is and she scraps just as dirty when they wrestle. And as you can see, she's a bit of a biter when it comes to vanquishing a foe. She gets that from her mother.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

International Day of the Nacho???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachos

Damn. If I had known, I'd have celebrated. I Lurves me some Nachos!!!!! Mmmmm!

Cleaning up old places

It Grew!!!

Don't be alarmed. I've just imported some old blogs from another location where they didn't belong anymore. I'm cleaning some things up and you may soon see a different layout or new gadgets or something.

Upgrades feel lovely.

Pictures out the Wazoo

As you all know I am Way behind on my picture posting for these darling kittens. They're growing like weeds and thus I have many pictures to share.

LuceyLot!


Charmin!


Playtime!




Those photos were the first I took when I got home from a weekend away. I was just Shocked at how much they had grown in three days!

My bells seem to be a favorite toy.

Last night Charmin discovered - The Couch! She was launching herself at it and velcroing those little claws on the side, so I brought her up to sit with me. Then she decided she wanted to play on the top. I have NO idea why it was so much fun to Spazz out on the top of the couch and disappear behind it and then come back up, but she went so crazy with it that Taquita even joined in a couple of times until she remembered she's not supposed to claw my couch. I really need to get Charmin used to Not doing it either as it's a bad habit. It was just so cute last night, I couldn't help it.








And now I give you *gasp* THE FINGER which must be vanquished!!!






Sunday, October 19, 2008

Milestone!!!

I just caught Miss LuceyLot TEETEEING in the Litterbox!!!!!!!!

Yaaaaay!

I had figured she was doing it as there weren't anymore puddles on the floor, but since I knew that Nimue was disposing of the poo once we were over the evil diarrheas, I just couldn't be sure.

But I was in their area and Charmin took a potty break and then shortly thereafter Lucey joined her. I was so excited I did the "teetee in the potty" song and dance. Yes, there is one! Any of you moms to Human children know you have one too.

And just to up the cute ante, after Lucey teeteed, she made a Huge show of covering it up. It was some sort of digging game in which she dug and covered and rolled over and dug while on her side and then leapt up. Silly girl. I wonder if this came from her mother's propensity to fling litter far and wide when she's in there.

In other funny litter news, Charmin will use the little box in their area, but much like her mother, she prefers to go use the Big Kitty Boxes in the regular cat closet as soon as I come home and let them out of jail/the bathroom. Those girls sure are silly.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Huge Kitten update!

So much has happened in the last two weeks its rather hard to find a place to start. I guess firstly we'll start with the bad news.

Where once there were four kittens now there are two. Little Miss Matchstick passed away on the 1st of October. I woke up and she was normal, but by the end of my getting ready for work she was fast sliding down into a Very worrisome state. I've taken care of many kitties through this shelter and only once before have I had cause to classify a cat as "lethargic and on death's door." Matchstick was the 2nd cat ever I was that worried about and it happened so quickly. I dropped her off to the shelter director on my way to work knowing it would take a miracle. And by around 1 pm I got the call that she didn't make it. We don't know the cause of her death, but we think she just was unhealthy to begin with and wasn't able to absorb any nutrients. She never had any signs of the reason we lost the 2nd kitten.

Which brings me to the 2nd kitten. On Sept 26th, the evening after my last post, Charmin started having some motorskills problems which progressed to very little movement. Our Shelter Director came by to check it out and we decided Charmin needed to spend some time with her to get put on antibiotics and have some extra fluids. Then around 24 hours later both Sir Lancelot and Guenivere started having diarrhea. I picked up some Albon for their issue and crossed my fingers that I was simply dealing with the one symptom and not more of what Charmin was going through. Sunday it was still just the one symptom so I had hope. Then Monday morning Guenivere was lethargic and very hot to the touch. I made arrangements for our Shelter Director to get her from me at my work. Over the next several days there were ups and downs with both Charmin and Guenivere and just to be safe I put both Matchstick and Sir Lancelot on antibiotics.

By Sept 29th, Charmin was improving quite a lot and Guenivere was making very Small strides, but we were hopeful. That night Charmin actually came home to stay. She was mobile and simply needed her antibiotics which I was already giving to the other kittens, so we hoped she'd begin nursing again and continue thriving. We got our wish. Guenivere, however, stayed with our Shelter Director so she could receive the care and bottle feeding she required. On the day we lost Matchstick so unexpectedly, I actually received good news of Guenivere improving to a point where she was walking and her bowel movements were even attempting to improve.

By Oct 3rd, Little Guen had improved enough that we were going to try a weekend at home with Mama Nimue. Her mobility was improving so much and she actually attached herself to Maizy, so hope was still looking better and better. Unfortunately that was short lived. By Sunday morning, Oct 5th, Guenivere was back to being lethargic. I tried to bottle feed her multiple times, but I wasn't having any luck and I could tell she was uncomfortable again the way she was acting. Since I was in the middle of filming work at my home, I couldn't rush her over to the Shelter or to a vet. The Shelter made arrangements for someone to come pick her up. Guenivere stayed with our Shelter Director and was up and down with improvements for the whole next week. But by the 8th, things were looking dire. I stopped by the Shelter to speak with our Director that evening and to drop off my extra key for a fellow foster who was going to tend my herd while I was out of town for the weekend and she just looked terrible. She was still getting fluids and antibiotics and Albon and everything else we could do for her, but she was not improving. Then the next day I saw her again before I packed up for my trip and she had literally just passed away before I arrived.

So we're down to one original kitten from the litter and one orphan. I guess two kittens was going to be the number no matter what. We sure miss those sweet babies anyways.

But there's Good news!

Sir Lancelot and Charmin are eating whole food! They both get KMR and Wet food twice a day and they're eating like crazy. They're still nursing of course, but they're getting lots of food in their tummies! Charmin even tries to eat the dry food in her momma's bowl from time to time. I wet down some of that for her and Lancelot in thier own separate dish from the wet food and they do eat some of that at times as well.

Anyways, as a result, they're growing and playing and beginning to roughhouse. Charmin's favorite game is "vanquish the human's leg." And Lancelot tries to hold her own wrestling with Charmin. Oh, and Lancelot is Most Assuredly a Girl! So henceforth I will probably be referring to her as Lucielot (Loo-cee-lot), or Lucey. I was supposed to change her name to Morgana if she was a girl, but I just can't do that now that I'm so attached to her as a Lancelot. Lucielot is a good compromise and I'm pretty positive that it's odd enough to be Original for the shelter, which is hard to come by these days!

Nimue is doing well. She's getting more and more comfortable in the apt with the other cats every day. Maizy is still the devil and gets slapped from time to time, but I can't really help that. Nimue met a little girl the other day and bonded with her, which was a SHOCKER! She used to live with a tiny child who supposedly terrorized her, so I was watching really closely and listening in case I needed to deflect a slap in the face. But she really wanted to smell the little girl's face so she just jumped right in her lap and leaned in. It was funny, we were conducting an adoption there for a fellow foster and the whole apt gasped when it happened.

I think that's about it for a full update. I DO have pictures! I just need to get it together to upload them and post.