Rescued

This is a pretty old photo of my daughter, taken by her friend with his cell phone.  They had gone out for a walk during one of the many rain storms we've had this year.  As they passed a bush along the sidewalk, they noticed movement.  Checking it out, they discovered a nearly downed mouse!  My daughter held it in her hands to warm it up.  For the longest time, it just lay there, panting.  Eventually, she felt some movement and took a look.  She found it struggling to get to its feet and looking around.  Then it started to lick her palm!  After a while, it started to move around in her hands, but made no attempt to escape.  When it looked well recovered, she kept her hands open a little more at a time so that it wouldn't be too shocked by the cold when it was released.  It was about 20 minutes or so before she let it go in a drier area.  They figure it's den was somewhere under the bush, and the rain and flooded it.

My daughter makes me proud!

Strays - still with us

Our co-op has been good enough to allow us to hang on to the stray and her kitten through Christmas.  The little one is now weaned and old enough to leave his mother, which should make it easier to find homes for them.

Here they are!



Mama looks less then pleased to have the flash in her face!  Freya is such a sweet cat and a good mother.

Finnegan is the name we've given to the kitten, and WOW is he growing fast!  He's all ganglely legs and spine right now.  He is so adorable, too!  When in an active mood, he thunders through the house like a storm, tackling his mother (who has the patience of a saint!), ankles, dust motes and things only he can see.  When in a calm mood, he is very affectionate and loves nothing more then a nice warm human for a bed.



He's also stack-able.

Neither of them are fixed, and we can't afford to do that for cats we can't keep, so we really need to find a home for at least one of them before Finn reaches maturity.  If anyone in Edmonton is interested in one or both of them, leave a note in the comments.

Getting along

Yes, we still have the stray and her kitten living with us.  We've gotten the okay to hang on to them a bit longer, rather then send them to the pound when we couldn't find anyone to take them.

This is my older daughter's cat with a kitten that's growing so fast right now, you can almost see it! 

Tiger is getting on in years for a tabby, and having two new and active cats in the house is a bit much for her.  My suck of a husband ;-) created a haven for her.  By opening a desk drawer and putting a couple of seat cushions on it (including the stadium seat cushion I made to experiment with a new yarn), he made a nice little bed for her to hang out that was above the fray.  She often curls up there to sleep while we're on the computer.

Finnegan, the kitten, took a long time to warm up to Tiger.  Tiger's other favourite place to nap is on the top level of the cat tower, so we just tossed him on there with her a few times.  Tiger, being the sort of cat she is, promptly held him down with one paw and started grooming him.  He didn't appreciate that at first and ran off.

Over time, however, things have changed.  Though Finn and his mother are still a lot more energetic than she has patience for, they both turn to her for cuddles. 

Finn is old enough to be weaned, but he does still nurse when his mother will let him.  A short while ago, he was such an adorable bundle of napping fluff, I picked him up to snuggle while sitting at the computer.  He noticed Tiger on the drawer beside me, however, promptly hopped over and started looking for boob.  Yes, he tries to nurse on her now, too.  When he found no sign of a working teat, he settled for cuddles and Tiger, as she is wont to do, started grooming him.

As I write this, they are looking even cuter, with Tiger curled up around Finnegan, her chin resting on him, their legs entangled.  I'd take another picture, but the camera disturbs them.

The cuteness is overwhelming.

The things you see...

My older daughter and I headed to the bookstore this evening to do a bit of shopping. We had split up to look at different things when she suddenly came up to me, grabbed my sleeve and dragged me across the store. There sat a wagon with a bin holding a tortoise, of all things.  She asked somebody about it later. It turns out that there is a regular customer who comes in every Sunday with his tortoise and does his shopping while leaving it in an aisle near the door.
To the guy who takes his tortoise out for walks, thanks for making my day!

Another follow up

Since I've already done one follow up post, I may as well do another.

I wrote some time ago about the stray cats visiting our balcony that we were trying to adopt out.  I did have someone interested in taking the pregnant mama.  Unfortunately, before that could be arranged, she had her kittens.  We had no idea where, so we delayed until we could find out and keep them together.  The papa, whom we call Horatio, was still visiting fairly regularly, but mama's visits were much more sporadic.  When I did see her, I checked and she did seem to be nursing.

With the temperatures dropping, we made a few changes on our balcony.  With a new dining table coming, we took the old table we'd been using and put it on the balcony.  It was a patio table, anyhow. We shoved it against one wall with the cat tower and pet carrier under it, along with plant pots, dirt, and so on, all put away for the winter.  We'd put an old blanket inside pet carrier to make a warmer shelter, but it hadn't been enough for Freya (which is what my younger daughter has named her).   The table has one of those vinyl table clothes on it, which is large enough to hang down and hide most of what is now under it.

I guess that made the difference.

Seeing Freya on the balcony one day, I headed outside to give her some attention.  The food and water was all topped up, so I sat down on the balcony swing to spend some time with her.  She's affectionate but nervous, and constantly dashing around, distracted by noises, in between cuddling.  Then she disappeared.

She hadn't left the balcony, as I was facing the doorway to the stairs and knew she wasn't there.  She wasn't at the food or water bowls.  She wasn't under the swing.  I finally got up to figure out where she'd disappeared to when she dashed out from under the table.

Could it be?

Looking under the table and into the carrier, way in the back, I saw movement.  A single kitten.  It's eyes were open, but from the looks of it, they hadn't been open for long.  I was totally thrilled.

After spending some time with the kitten and mama, who became incredibly calm when in the carrier with her baby, I happily sent off an email to the person who'd said she'd be able to take the mama and kittens and adopt them out through a vet's office.

I never heard back.

So now we're in a pickle.

We'd heard from someone else interested in taking the cats to their farm, but on discovering Horatio was male, they changed their mind.  Now we didn't even have someone taking Freya and her baby.

As long as the weather held, they would be fine.

The weather didn't hold.

Finally, it got to the point we just couldn't let them stay out there.  The kitten was too small to survive the dropping temperatures.  Things have warmed up since then, but I really doubt it would have survived if we hadn't taken steps.

We now have them inside.

We're not allowed to have more than 2 pets, but we've cat-sat before without issue, so for a temporary situation, we can do this, but we can NOT keep them.

Our cats aren't too happy with the situation, either.

The kitten, however, has become well socialized.



Just look at those eyes!

My daughter named her (him?) Finnegan.

That, by the way, is my nose.  I lay down on the couch for a nap and Finn joined me.  After thoroughly licking my forehead, s/he grabbed my nose with both paws and started licking it.  Then s/he fell over backwards, got jammed on her back between my hand and my face, and stayed there.

Finn napped with me like that for almost two hours.

The kitten has gone from barely able to crawl out of the cat cave alone, and needing help to get back in, to running around the house and tackling ankles.

Our cats are very unhappy with this situation.

Needless to say, we are still urgently looking for a home for these two.  Taking them to the local humane society is not an option.  For all that they're supposed to be a no-kill facility, they actually euthanize more animals than the pound.  My friend at the pound says we can take them there if we have to, but advices against it.  There are just too many cats at both locations.



Here is Freya and Finn.  A fantastic pair of cats.  Freya is still a bundle of nerves.  As affectionate as she is, she clearly had to fight off other cats to survive and is still a bundle of nerves.  Finn is a calming influence on her. 

Anyone up for taking in a lovely stray and her baby? 

(Since taking these two inside, we haven't been seeing Horatio on our balcony, so we don't know what's happened to him. )

Road trip 2011, part four

Well, I'm finally back and catching up on the road trip photos. This time, I've uploaded a few taken at my sister's farm.



My younger daughter and I got a chance to spend the night with my sister and her husband. Of course, what country visit would be it be if we didn't get a chance to check out the garden, barnyard and cows? *L* Their farm is alongside a creek, with some pretty gorgeous views. As we were walking along the shore, their heifers saw us and decided to check us out. The first time, the path took as through a small bunch of trees. Before long, we were completely surrounded by cows! They were curious and willing to come close, but not too close! After a while, we continued on our way and they stopped following us. On the way back, however, they all gathered around us again. The dog kept coming in between us and the cows, barking if he felt they were getting too close. In the above picture, it's the dog they're all staring at.

As you can see, they aren't particularly intimidated!

Road Trip 2011, part three

I've added a bunch of photos to my flickr set for this trip. While out, we stayed with my parents on the farm I grew up on. One of my brothers has his own place just up the road, a handy little walk away.

A lot of the farm shots have stories behind them, and will probably get posts of their own. Until then, here some others for you to enjoy.




This is one of several gardens my mother has. The vegetable garden has gotten smaller over the years, though it's still quite large. There are flower gardens, fruit trees and berry bushes as well. This little garden was mostly flowers when I was growing up on the farm. Now it's got more veggies in it - handy to have, closer to the house. With all the rain and cold in MB, the gardens when in a month late and the ground has often been too muddy to tend. It was just starting to dry up a bit during our visit.






There is a new addition near my parents' big garden - a couple of honey bee hives! My late uncle always kept bees, and he loved tending them. After my uncle died, one of his son in laws took over. Now my cousin in law runs Honeybee Meadows and he and his wife sell their honey as a nice little business. I made a point of picking up a big bucket of honey from them to bring home with me! :-) These are their hives, taking advantage of the many seasonal flowers my mother has, though from here, clover is all you can see. The row of trees behind the hives is mostly lilac, though there is a chokecherry tree in there as well (which my dad has used to make wine in the past). I'm sure there are others my mom has added over the years I don't know the names of! *L*






The ditch between my parents' place and my brother's was filled with flowers. Mostly Daisies and Wild Roses, but also Black Eyes Susans, creeping Buttercups, and many more I just don't know the names of.

During one of our walks back, however, we spotted this single Lady's Slipper that suddenly appeared. It wasn't blooming when we walked past the day before. It was hard to get a photo with the breeze, but I think this one worked out all right. We had found two more of a different type of Lady's Slipper in the spruce grove near my parents' house that I just wasn't able to get a good shot of.






It was a beautiful evening when we visited with my brother, so we sat outside to chat - thoroughly covered in bug spray, I might add. It was so nice to sit out there, surrounded by trees and flowers, several cats and the dog, enjoying each other's company. While there, we saw several deer passing through a clearing. They were a bit too fast for me, but I did manage to get a couple of shots.

Gotta love country living!





This is a neighbour's field we pass when driving from my parents' farm to town. When I was a kid, I loved bison, so I was pretty thrilled when people started to keep them. The babies you can just see over the tall grass are so adorable! They're such fascinating animals to look at.

Tasty, too.

Being all cute and stuff...

My younger daughter bought herself a book of crochet patterns recently.  This morning, she sat to work on a hat when her cat, Harley, decided to come over and cuddle.

She's a big bundle of squishy adorableness.

The Truth

If there is any doubt as to who the true masters of the household are...



They are also very warm and comfortable.

And adorable.

note: we finally got rid of the "attack site" warning, though it meant getting rid of our blog roll and removing the labels list.  They'll be rebuilt, when I have the chance.  Until then, we will hopefully be posting photos on a fairly regular basis again.

Cats are insane...

... and annoying.  Yet the manage to be adorable in the process.

My husband has his work laptop set up on a dock behind the desk.  Since our desktop computer is on the same desk, there's not a lot of space and a whole mass of wires.  Especially since there's also an ergonomic keyboard, a mouse, headphones and the USB charger for my phone attached.

My older daughter's cat has a thing for me being on the computer.  When I'm on the desktop computer, which has some space in front of the keyboard, she will jump up onto the chair, walk across in front of me, clamber over the speaker on one side of the monitor to get to the back of the desk, walk across the laptop keyboard (which is kept on top of the closed laptop due to lack of space), then either tries to squeeze between the monitor and the tower, which has the other speaker in the way, or around the other side of the tower, generally knocking over whatever happens to be there for good measure.  Then she'll clamber across in front of me again, block my view of the monitor for as along as she can get away with, then finally settle down in between me and the keyboard, with her front paws draped across my wrist.  My mouse wrist.  Limiting my ability to use the mouse and preventing me from using the keyboard with that hand entirely.  After tossing her off, she comes back and does the same thing all over again.

This morning, my daughter was using the desktop, so I popped onto my husband's work laptop to read my morning news.  As usual, the cat's all over me.  From perching on my shoulder to doing her circuit around the monitor (though I manage to keep her from walking across the laptop while I'm using it, and so on.

Then, she did this.




Yup.  She curled up on the mass of wires, leaned right against the vent on the laptop, and used my mouse hand as a pillow.  Not only was she on top of the mouse wire, rendering it immobile, but the weight of her head was enough to press both right and left mouse buttons at the same time.

And she looked so darn cute, too!



Even after I finally moved my hand, she kept using the mouse as a pillow.

Then I left.

So did she.

Apparently, it's only comfortable if it's inconveniencing a human! LOL

Bliss

One last photo to catch up...



Take one sun spot.  Add cat. Blend thoroughly. 

The Harley-bug is so cute, she makes my teeth ache. LOL

Watching...

We have a very large, wide desk.  Large enough that we can have the desktop computer in the usual place, and still be able to use the back of the other desk.  Philippe has his work laptop there, set up on a dock with a full size keyboard.

One of the cats has claimed it as her personal butt warmer.

So one day, Philippe is at the desktop playing World of Warcraft, when he suddenly sees a paw reaching up over the top of the monitor, batting at... something.

Then he sees this.







Then this.




After several attempts to get a photo without flash, he finally stood up and got this...




...just before she reached up and tried to attack the lens.


Because this is our muderous crack kitty who attacks ankles and hates to be petted, when she's not crawling under the covers to cuddle.


As I write this, her wide-eyed face has been popping up over the top of the monitor.  I think she's upset because the keyboard is on top of the laptop.  

Yes, she's sitting on the keyboard, anyway.

Gone Batty

Gone Batty
Originally uploaded by amkb
Anna: The Little Brown Bat is still hanging out above our door. It looks like it's chosen that spot to hibernate. I tried to get some different angles, but it's so close to the corner, I can't really get the camera in there.

It's so cute! While I was taking pictures, I could see it's furry little sides moving as it breathed. I just want to scoop it up!

I'm not sure this is a good location for it to hibernate, though. It's well sheltered from the weather, but not the temperature. I'm a little concerned it will freeze. Will have to look for some information about that, and see if there's something we can do to protect it.

Itty Bitty Batty

Itty Bitty Batty
Originally uploaded by amkb
Anna: As a friend of my daughter's was knocking on our door, he noticed this little smudge of fur above the doorway. As soon as he realized it was a bat, we immediately grabbed the camera! The gap it tucked itself into is about 3-4 inches wide. As I write this, it's still there. This tiny, adorable ball of fluff. It's all I can do not to try and pet it, or scoop it into my hands.

I love bats.

Cuteness. I haz it.

DSC_8185crop
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: Today my daughter and I got to play with puppies. They were so adoreable! It was fun to get my dog fix with them. :-D

Doesn't that face look kinda like an Ewok?

Caught

caught
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: My daughter forgot her empty milk glass by the couch. The cat discovered it. She'd dip her paw into the dregs of milk on the bottom, then start licking it off. She wasn't quite sure if me with the camera was a good thing or not. *L*

So tiny!

frog4740
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: The family and I took advantage of the time left on the day pass for Elk Island National Park we got yesterday. We took in the Bison Loop again, then headed for Astiton Lake, which had some of the shorter trails. It was hot and extremely muggy, so we didn't do an all out hike, but we did check out a few spots.

We had just parked the van and headed towards the open water we could see with a boat launch. As we got closer, the girls spotted tiny frogs hopping all over the gravel, heading for the water. They caught this one, then released it near the plants along the water, so it wouldn't get stepped on.

The water here was very muddy and murky. Not only did we see more tiny frog swimming in it, but it was seething and rippling with leeches! It was fascinating, if somewhat creepy, to watch.

Later on, we could see a beach with people playing in the water. I'm sure the water was deeper and clearer there, but after seeing what we did, I don't think I could ever set foot in that lake! *L*

Crossing

Anna: Why did the bison cross the road?



Who's going to stop him?

Being the new owners of a vehicle we aren't afraid will fall apart and die any moment, we went for a drive outside the city and ended up visiting Elk Island National Park. We didn't take very many photos, as we weren't prepared to be there for any length of time, but will definately be going back. Aside from bison, we saw some deer, oodles of prairie dogs, beaver dams and waterfowl. Next time, we need to come prepared for hiking!

314:365 At the zoo - Updated

Philippe - I've got a wack of shots from the zoo, but these are my two favourite shots.

This guy is just cool.

I like his eyes :)

Anna: Visit here for the photo set.



It was a lovely day today, and we took full advantage of the mild weather, visiting the Valley Zoo. I have such mixed feelings about this place. On the one hand, the facilities for many of the animals are woefully inadequate. The sea lion's pool was less than half the size of the pool in the apartment building we just moved out of - and in far worse condition. Many of the enclosures were quite small for the types of animals in them. It's really quite sad.

On the other hand, the staff there are clearly passionate about the animals they care for, and they gladly share their knowledge. Take this takin in the photo above. We happened to come up while they were being fed. The guy that was feeding them started telling us all sorts of fascinating things about them. These endangered animals are from the same region as the red panda, and have the same protected classification. Anyone caught poaching these animals will be executed by the Chinese government. There are very few of them in North America, and even fewer breeding pairs. This handsome fellow is part of the breeding program. Nearby were the mom with her 4 month old baby, and a yearling (visit the link at the top to see photos of them, too).

Along with these breeding programs, this zoo also rescues raptors. If possible, these are returned to the wild once healed. Those that can't survive in the wild anymore are cared for for the rest of their lives.

I think what this place needs is a significant cash infusion and a larger annual budget to meet it's potential.