An acidic and hostile place: since 1999
Maggie went into labor around 8 am and birthed her first one at 8:42! So far there are 4. See pics and stuff at the L&H Facebook page.
Maggie went into labor around 8 am and birthed her first one at 8:42! So far there are 4.
See pics and stuff at the L&H Facebook page.
New month, new banner! Thank you once again to the wonderful Christine, who’s created so many of my banners recently. As you know, Christine, you rock! Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I was watching TV … Continue reading “4/1/11 – Friday”
New month, new banner!
Thank you once again to the wonderful Christine, who’s created so many of my banners recently.
As you know, Christine, you rock! Thank you!
I was watching TV the other day – one of the hoarding shows I love so much – and had to pause, rewind, and listen again. Then I got out the camera and taped the segment to share with y’all.
Breath cancer, you say? I wonder what the treatment is for that.
You do know that someone already did the box test. Maru who is a japanese cheezburger sensation. (Maru survived the earthquake)
Actually, I must have missed that one. Maru always gets there first. Damn you, Maru! DAAAAMN YOUUUUU!
Oh, and you are awesome for promising NOT to give in to April Fool’s ridiculousness. I hate that “holiday” because it glorifies practical jokes, which aren’t funny. The only people who find practical jokes funny are those with no real sense of humor to begin with. And, have you noticed that the people who find practical jokes the most funny are people who absolutely cannot stand to have a joke played on them? Talk about being able to dish it out and NOT being able to take it at all. /rant off
Six years ago, I wrote an April Fool’s Day entry that I was pregnant WITH TWINS, and though the majority of readers were all “Ha ha, very funny”, enough people believed it and were a TAD irate, that I swore I’d never pull another April Fool’s Day prank again. I don’t like it when people are mad at me! (But I am still a tiny bit gleeful that I was able to get anyone at all with that.)
I was awake last night trying to think of an emoticon that I could do of maggie and her giant belleh!
here’s what I’m coming up with:
M
o
O=
s
the belly’s not nearly as huge as I would like for it to be, and you have to look at this like she’s lying on her left side, head up. But the fact that it spells MOOS is pretty damn hilarious.
Too cute!
It’s about two weeks from being able to feel the babies move and them being birthed. Soooooo…. how long have you had her? How long have you been able to feel the babies move? At least a week, right? She MUST be nearly there, now in that case.
We’ve had her for three weeks as of today. And I’m sure it’s been at least a week since I first felt the babies move. More like a week and a half, I think. I would really really like it if dear sweet wonderful Maggie would BIRTH THOSE BABIES.
But no pressure, Maggie. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll just sit here and shut up, you TAKE YOUR TIME.
I think you’re out of control. Leave some cats for the rest of us will ya?
That sounds like someone volunteering to take a couple of the more annoying ones off my hands. Shall I package up Elwood for you? 🙂
I have a question that I have never thought before. What do they do with cats who just don’t deliver? Do they induce? Do you think Maggie has had kittens before?
That’s a good question – I don’t have a clue what they do with cats who just never go into labor. They must do something, mustn’t they?
I don’t know if Maggie’s had babies before, but as she’s guesstimated to be about a year old, it’s possible she’s had a litter, though maybe not likely.
Awww, so glad to know Corbie has a forever home! Well, he always has, really, but now it’s official! I think you need to reclassify your place as a “cat ranch” or something. Maybe get one of those ranch signs that says “Anderson Cat Ranch” and have some claw marks or a picture of a litterbox on it 😉 And there’s no judging here on the number of permanent residents you have…says the woman who has 11 of her own…hee.
Oh sure, “Crooked Acres Cat Ranch”, with the sign that might as well read “Please dump your unwanted cats here!” (Wait. Maybe there’s already a sign like that out there I don’t know about – that would certainly explain this last year’s worth of dumpees!)
I was driving behind a car with those stick figure family decals on the rear window and thought how tickled I’d be to see your “family” in decals — you, Fred, the dogs, and row(s) of kitties.
Every time I see those decals, I think about buying a bunch of them for my car. I haven’t yet, but I suspect I will sooner or later!
Random question: when you take the stray cats you find to be tested, neutered, chips, shots etc., who covers the costs? Is it you and Fred, Challenger’s House – does the clinic donate services? Whoever is covering it is very generous.
If they’re becoming Challenger’s House cats like Newman did, the shelter covers the costs.
My cat Enrique (mean old man) had to go on a diet a few years ago. I had to get a scale for him, and found the prices on most baby or pet scales were unreasonable for me. Robyn, your Jeffers scale isn’t too bad at $65, BUT what we ended up doing was getting a postal scale. We got an Ultraship 55lb postal scale (currently about $20-25 on Amazon) which was more than enough weight capacity for Enrique and still sensed small weights in ounces. The surface alone is not big enough for a cat, so we’d wait until he was sleeping in his favorite box, then scoop it up and weigh him in the box (deducting the box weight later). And now the scale is in the kitchen and we use it often for cooking and all kinds of random stuff we want to weigh.
This is an excellent idea – and someone else suggested the same idea, later in the week. Great minds think alike. 🙂
BTW, every time I see this in The Stitchery catalog, I think of you.
I made this one for a friend a number of years ago; it was quick, easy and came out beautifully. I think it would make a nice addition to the kitchen!
That’s one of the patterns I always think of buying when I’m looking at their catalog! I just recently got back to cross-stitching after about a year and a half of not doing it at all, and I have a million and three kits I have yet to attempt. Maybe when I’ve made a dent in those, I’ll get the rooster as a gift for myself. The colors would certainly go well in my kitchen, wouldn’t they?
I need that compost container! Did you buy it or add holes to a plain container?
It’s just a storage container I bought and drilled holes in (the lid and the bottom). You’re supposed to turn the compost every week or so and I, uh, kinda didn’t. So who knows what the hell I’m going to end up with? The cats certainly like sitting on it, especially Corbie and Elwood.
She is almost certainly pregnant (the few conditions that would look like this, that come on this quickly would probably cause her pain and you would know something is wrong. Most kitties get enormous before giving birth and as I said a day or so ago Maggie is just now starting to look “ready,” which can still mean as much as a week before full term. The good news is she isn’t wanting to be touched much (probably tender) which is a GOOD sign when it comes to a birthing Momma.
I hate to tell you this but cats can look “ready” up to three weeks before they really are, but in Maggie’s case I don’t think you have to wait that long lol.
Hopefully April 1st, surprise babies, that would be fun..
You know, if this cat goes another three weeks I’m probably going to go nuts with the waiting. IS ALL I’M SAYING, MAGGIE.
As for Corbie, he’s clearly King of the Compost! Any word on how his equally regal brothers are doing? And what do you do with those dozens of eggs?
I haven’t heard anything about Buster or Rhyme (though I am certain that they are just fine in their new homes), but I know that after 7 weeks, Reacher has FINALLY acclimated to his new home (and his new brother), which you can read about over at Kathy’s site. I have to be honest, I really thought at times that Reacher was going to end up having to come back here to live, because it didn’t seem that he was ever going to get over being a scaredy cat. He’s VERY lucky that Kathy was willing to be patient and work with him, and THANK GOD he finally came around!
As far as the eggs, when Fred brings them in, I go through and separate out the smaller eggs. The bigger ones go into egg cartons, and we sell them for $2 a dozen (we have a “fresh eggs $2/ dozen” sign that Fred puts up at the end of the driveway in the evenings and on weekends). The smaller ones go into the refrigerator, and we eat them. If we run out of the larger eggs, we’ll (when I say “we”, you should know that it’s Fred who handles most of the egg-selling) offer the smaller eggs at $2 for 1 & 1/2 dozen. Sometimes we’ll build up a supply of 10 or 12 dozen and think we’re never going to sell another egg, and then someone stops by and buys every egg we have on hand. People love the farm fresh eggs, and I think they like knowing that they can actually look at the chickens running around the back forty and know that they aren’t caged hens.
Egg sales help pay for chicken feed.
Maggie’s babies are sure to be the most photographed kittens ever!! Is the camera getting re-charged every day?
Both the big camera and the little one AND the Flip Video AND my cell phone are constantly charging. I don’t want to miss out on snapping a million pictures of the little darlings WHENEVER MAGGIE HANDS THEM OVER THAT IS, DO YOU HEAR ME MAGGIE?!
Maggie’s got the girth, and she’s looking a touch crabby. But still a fine looker! How long is a kitten’s gestation period?
61 – 69 days, according to their breed, is what I’ve read. And she’s been with us for 21 days. ANY DAY NOW, MAGGIE.
Robyn, do any of your fosters have blogs their folks set up when they took them home? Just wonderin’.
As far as I know, no. Unfortunately. Because I think a blog written by Buster would be AWESOME.
Hey Robyn, are any of the kitties in need of additional spoiling? 😀 Saw this article and immediately thought of you.
I’ll take one of each, please! 😀
I have to laugh at that photo of you holding up Maggie so you can see her belly. When I saw Maggie, she reminded me so much of the foster mom I had that took 30 days to give birth at my house, that I knew it was going to be a while. Because here is my shot of her.
And I thought you might like this one too.
If I have to wait 30 days for Maggie to give birth, my head will pop off. I LOVE those pictures! 🙂
You can always cut the permanent resident total by two by having you and Fred live in a tent in the back yard.
Why live in a tent when we could live in the chicken coop with the chickens? There’s plenty of room in there!
And yay for Corbie staying! Such a pretty kitty. How’s the skinny back legs issue going, the supplements helping any?
It’s kind of hard to tell – I’ve thought once or twice that his back half was getting bigger, but then I looked at him from another angle and thought he looked smaller. It’s been a month – actually more like five weeks, I think – since we started giving him his supplements. I need to get him back to the vet and have her look him over so we can determine how he’s doing.
So is there a limit imposed by your town ordinances or by the shelter?
There are no limits on animals imposed by town ordinances, because we live in the country and no one cares what we’re doing out here. 🙂 As far as the shelter, I’m sure Susan would put her foot down if we got to the point where we were overwhelmed or just had more cats than we could comfortably take care of. I would like to say here that 14 is our limit, permanent-residents-wise, but of course if I were foolish enough to declare that, we’d immediately have to add 3 more cats to the house.
Like I reminded Fred yesterday, at one point last Fall I honestly thought we were going to end up keeping all four Bookworms because they’d had no luck at Petsmart. But by keeping just the one Bookworm, we’re really DOWN in numbers from where I thought we’d be!
(Fred calls that “Robyn math”)
People are fickle sometimes. I found a dog on the side of the road. She was 1 or 2 yrs old. Abused. Chow or chow-mix. Sweeeetest thing ever! She had heartworms and tick paralysis when I found her and she was super skinny. Who ever owned her had cut her hair really really short with sissors. Her fur was sunburned and in poor condition. We took her to the vet and had her treated for her ailments. I posted and asked around if anyone wanted to adopt her and stated that you need to have vision and see in your mind’s eye what she will become. NO responses. My sister-in-law, at the the time, was keeping her at her house. Her fur grew out quickly and she put on weight. She was a completely gorgeous dog! I sent around an email titles “If you were curious….” and showed her before pics and after pics. I wanted to educate people and a bit of it was a “fungule to you”…I admit! 🙂 Soooo many people wanted to take her home then. I told them “Nope!”…as my sister-in-law fell so in love with her that she was keeping her. She ended up being their very best dog…and much much sweeter than any of her golden retrievers.
I wish for everyone out there….”vision”.
By the way…chatty and social cats are the best companions. You won’t ever be lonely…and they are great company!
Two thumbs up; may more people develop the vision to see what a cat or dog can turn into, given time and love.
Hmm… maybe you should have done a “how round can Maggie possibly get” pool! Have you ever thought to measure her belleh and see how much she is growing day to day?
I wish I’d measured her midsection when we brought her home, but I didn’t even think of it.
I can tell you, though, that she was 9.9 pounds when I got her from the vet, and yesterday she weighed in at 12 pounds 10 ounces!
So, is Newman staying with you now? The other cats are gonna be all “Newman!” everytime they find him in one of their napping spots or eating out of the bowl when they’re looking for a snack, hee hee.
No, Newman went to the shelter Tuesday, where he’s being treated for all the parasites he has, poor boy.
The Kitten Crew has a live cam of a mother with 5 kittens. I’ve been using it to treat Impatience-with-Maggie Syndrome. Plus, the little cow kitty has a panda face! And one of the white-with-tabbies opened his/her eyes this morning! Squeeeeeeeeeeee!
I’ve been watching that live kitten cam for the past few days, and it’s just making me more and more impatient for Maggie to get the show on the road! LOVE wee baby kittens and their squirming around. Squeeeeeee is right!
I LOVE that last shot of Maggie (“A shot from above so you can see the spread”); it reminds me of a LOLcat that had me laughing all day.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
Love it!
Is it trouble with anal glands that causes cats to scoot? Only one of ours does it, just curious.
I think scooting can be caused by anal gland issues, yes. Cats with worms often scoot, too, and I can tell you from personal experience that cats who are too large to reach their own behinds will often scoot, thus using your carpet as toilet paper, which is THE NASTIEST THING EVER and should be a hanging offense.
Ohmygod, SO RUDE, taking pictures of the pregnant lady from behind.
And from the side. (That’s the new scratcher I bought specifically for Her Majesty, because the one that was in there was too light and would flip up whenever she put her weight on it. And girlfriend LOVES her some claw-sharpening.)
Pregnant cat is pregnant. (And grumpy.)
She’s got that pregnant glow, no?
As a reminder, check in on the spreadsheet and/ or the Love & Hisses Facebook page. If she goes into labor, that’s where I’ll be posting it first, though of course I don’t think it’ll take me long to post it here, either. That’s what netbooks are for!
Rufus, asleep atop the cat tree in the front room, covering his eyes from the flash.
He is SUCH a sweet boy. He loves to follow Alice around and watch her do naughty things like nose around in the sink to see if there are any scraps of food, or hover under my feet in case I’m struck with the urge to hand out treats. Wherever Alice is, Rufus is sure to follow. He’s also been spotted picking play-fights with Corbie and Jake. I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – he’s certainly come a long way!
Spanky: Pretty on Pink.
Previously
2010: Random dogs and other stuff.
2009: Fred giggled helplessly. Which somehow did not help.
2008: However, I don’t subscribe to the “only pick it up if it’s heads up!” theory of thought.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: There’s a saying that men make plans and god laughs.
2004: No entry.
2003: Won’t be happening in my lifetime, thanks.
2002: No entry.
2001: I get the weirdest freakin’ referrals to my site.
2000: No entry.
