Merry Xmas

Not exactly filled with the Christmas spirit, Spike shows his displeasure with being woken up to sport a seasonally appropriate ornament. Angel's wearing of the green (and red) was equally short lived...his ornament had long pieces of chiffon ribbon that looked too temptingly like a favorite toy.

After a 5:00 AM Christmas dinner for all pets and a quick walk for the woofies, all are now settled down for a nice long nap, leaving just the two humans in the house awake to wish all readers a Merry Xmas!

Start posting my photos!

The look of a cat who is exasperated with the person who is not posting his photos or writing about him! Also this is the very same look at about 5 AM in the morning when he comes over to my face and stares at me, willing me to crawl out of a nice warm bed and come downstairs to feed him.  This previously was hubby's job, who rises even earlier than this.  He feeds the four woofers first and then the four cats not long after 5 AM hits.  I, on the other hand, would push Angel away from my face, and pull the covers over me so he couldn't start licking my nose as his second step in the "wake up" process.  However, in the past four months, I have been getting up around this time so that I can walk the pup.  Although he goes out at the same time as the other woofers, the two old girls don't appreciate the young feisty boy in their life and are likley to try and take a bite out of him. And since I am now up at this time I usually have the task of feeding the cats while hubby takes care of the ravenous dogs. I am definitely not a morning person but Angel doesn't worry about that..he is smart enough to understand the implications of the change in routine so he is now much more persistent in the AM if I am not getting up when he thinks I should!

2 weeks and NO CATS!

I have just come back from Calgary...with no cats to cuddle for two weeks! The first item on my "to do" list when I returned was to grab my Angel and hold him close.  Usually he patiently puts up with me hauling him around and even follows me when I forget to pat him. As you can see by the photo below he doesn't look too impressed so I guess this is going to take a little time to get back in his good books.  At least he had plenty of room at the end of the bed while I was gone!

A Window for Sharing

Two different days..but the same two cats who love the smell of fresh air and the eye candy of various squirrels who dare run through our yard. Normally Sebastian displaces Angel at the window but in the first shot Angel stands his ground and keeps his paws clearly planted on the window sill.  In the second shot you can see Sebastian has found something of interest and shortly after, will jump right onto the sill behind Angel and start invading his purr-sonal space!

In case anyone is wondering why the outside of the window is violet..well, it isn't intended to be part of the standard colours of our house.  Several years ago a friend gave us some shocking purple paint, almost an ultraviolet, and definitely not in keeping with the colours you would see on the rest of the houses on our street. So we painted our back windows on the main floor to see how the color looked, and being on a roll, we popped around to the front of the house and painted the front door!  It did stay purple for a couple of years and then we switched to a more conservative (?) maple red color.

A lazy weekend

After seeing Trish's photo this week of a favorite cat napping spot  http://katniplounge.blogspot.ca/2012/08/uncomfortably-numb I remembered hubby had taken a photo the other day when I had a chance to curl up on the couch with two nice warm cushions. The only problems are sharp back claws being pushed into tender skin when Angel is getting settled and a cold wet nose when Seumas goes to put his head on my leg. Other than that.. it was good to be able to snooze on the couch for almost an hour!

Fur-riends on another blog

Two of Cat's handsome boys are not feeling well ... and I do hope they get better soon.  It can be a helpless feeling, not knowing exactly what is wrong and not being able to understand what is wrong with your pet.  This morning, we had a whiny pup out on the 5 AM walk (nothing wrong with him) and we were discussing how frustrating it can be trying to figure out whether the whine means hunger, thirst, pain or simply just a desire to play with someone. He had a round of needles yesterday so it could be residual discomfort..but I wish he could talk just a little to let me know what is wrong.

Still Life

The continual hot weather here means that the soil is drying out and the gardener doesn't want to go out in the heat to weed the garden. So "planting" metal ornaments sounded quite appealing!  Although these photos aren't very clear (I took them rather than the resident photographer who does a much better job of it) they show the latest additions to the garden.  The local dollar store had some cute painted metal cats (blue, orange and white) and I couldn't resist. I know they will probably be rusting within a year or two but hopefully that will still look suitably charming in the back yard….which sports a couple of flamingos which did cost considerably more….and are already rusting.

The blue cat sits in front of a flowering almond bush which has pretty pink flowers in spring.  There are purple heucheras behind the cat but they are not very visible in the shot. The orange cat has a Golden dwarf Japanese barberry bush behind it (stays small and compact, with bright lemony yellow leaves all summer), with the yellow flowered lysimachia and a vine which started as a piece cut off the vine which grows up the side of house.  The white cat really stands out in the early evening and is actually surrounded by purple flowers (magenta purple salvia to left, soft blue lilac coloured salvia behind and the remnants of some deep purple bachelor buttons to the right.)

I missed a great opportunity to capture a true cat "still life" earlier in the week...Spike was curled up in the chair by the front window fast asleep.  A dog was walking by outside and within 30 seconds all 3 dogs were gathered around the chair, woofing loudly. Even the pup added in a few yips for good measure. Through all this cacophony of noise, Spike stayed soundly sleeping. Sure enough, by the time I tracked down the camera, the dog outside had disappeared and woofers inside had headed back to their respective napping spots.  Even though Spike was still fast asleep, the irony of the "still life" photo op was gone!