That second picture of Macushla makes me think of dear sweet Mister Boogers!!!!
I can see that, actually. Macushla does have a bit of the Boogie ‘tude going on, doesn’t he?
Good ol’ Boogie. Can you believe it’s been almost two years? This picture still makes me cackle every time I see it, Mister Boogers doing his Donald Trump impression:
Robyn, is that your stomach growling at the beginning of the Dorothy and Jake video or do you have a demon infestation?
That is, indeed, the nasty nasty sound of my stomach making its presence known. I don’t know why, all of a sudden, my stomach insists on being in the sound to every single video but I would like it to STOP NOW, PLZ. (I’m sure I had recently eaten lunch, and my lunch was “settling.” Or attempting to summon the dark forces, one or the other.)
Well, add me to the list of Crooked Acres dreamers! Although, technically I didn’t dream about Crooked Acres, the PLACE, I dreamed about the inhabitants. Specifically Robyn (complete with adorable southern twang) and the cats. Don’t ask me why we were all in some upstairs penthouse type sprawling city apartment. I know I was particularly looking for and playing with the McMaos and I referred to them as such in the dream. My gawd, but there were cats everywhere!!
I guess it was a matter of time that this would happen given that I’ve been reading here for up to three? four? years and that I’ve had an Anderson kitty calendar for the last two.
I really feel like I need to cross-stitch a “My gawd, there are cats everywhere!” sampler. 🙂
A little off topic….but are you and Fred aware that if you build a Storm Shelter FEMA will reimburse you 75% of the cost? Only 3% of the population who should have storm shelters actually do. After all the tornados this Spring, I bet that figure jumps drastically.
We received some help from FEMA last year due to some massive flooding here in the Midwest. I can tell you the quick and helpful response was impressive. Just thought I would mention this.
Thanks for the tip, and I’m posting this here so others in this area will learn about it, too! We definitely want to get a storm shelter, and knowing that we’ll be reimbursed part of the cost will probably get us moving on it that much faster.
Do you do anything with the chicken feathers from your eatin’ chickens? And have you ever considered raising meat rabbits?
Fred feeds what’s left of the chickens (the feathers and, uh, you don’t need the specifics actually, do you?) to the pigs. When he processes chickens during a time when we don’t have pigs, he puts everything in a big bag and sticks it in the freezer for a time when we do have pigs. Didn’t know pigs would eat feathers, did you? Neither did I ’til I saw it for myself!
We haven’t considered raising meat rabbits because I am completely unadventurous when it comes to meat, and prefer to stick to pork, chicken, and beef (and, well, just about any kind of seafood that exists). I also don’t want to eat goat, no matter how much Fred mocks me for my refusal.
Also, bunnies are too damn cute, even when they’re grown.
I was curious, do you only eat sweets on the weekend? That seems like a great idea, and I vaguely remember something about you and Fred having a “free” night, or something like that?
Years ago, we were doing the Body for Life way of eating, which allows you a “free” day every week to eat whatever junk your heart desires. These days, we mostly eat healthily during the week, and then on Saturday we eat out for lunch and maybe have ice cream or whatever. That’s also the day I tend to bake if I’m going to. I’m more willing to eat the occasional junk food during the week than Fred is, but we do try to keep it limited to the weekend.
Unless I’m on vacation, of course, in which case it’s OPEN SEASON ON WHOOPIE PIES.
Every time you post pictures of Kara I always think she looks like a little wildcat. She looks like a mini-cougar in this entry’s picture.
and
I know I say this EVERY time you post a picture of Kara, but I’m doing it again anyway:
DIABEEEEETUS!
Just call her Kara Brimley.
How the heck do you catch them in action. Like in the air? Great job!!!!!
I wait ’til they’re playing (or I entice them into playing with the feather teaser or some other toy) and then I snap picture after picture. Then I go through about 100 pictures to end up with 10 decent ones!
Every time I see those mirrors on the wall in a picture, I think they are holes you cut in the walls so the cats can go to the next room. Then I say to myself, that’s right, they’re mirrors.
I would LOVE to have little windows cut in the door so that the cats in the foster room could look at the cats outside the room – and vice versa – wouldn’t that be cool? I’m afraid it’s beyond my skill set, though. And probably Fred would have a fit if I cut holes in the doors, because he is NO FUN.
It seems like a lot of your fosters have been brown tabbies, especially recently. Good thing they’re so pretty. 😀
I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for brown tabbies. They’re so beautiful, aren’t they?
I LOVE IT when kittens poof up like that!
So what is the total cat count in the house up to now? It must be approaching critical mass. 🙂
Twenty-five, is what the total cat count is. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Twenty-five cats in one house! When we had the Cookies and the Wonkas, we had 21, and I was like “This is WAY too many cats.” Now, with 25, I’m like “Huh. I bet we could fit a cat in the bathroom if we needed to.”
It’s an illness, really.
(But I should point out that since it’s now summer, Maxi, Newt, and Coltrane spend 99% of their time outside.)
Extreme cuteness warning:
SO SWEET.
I can’t imagine Fred smoking. Does he?
He used to smoke, actually. He wasn’t a super-heavy smoker, never smoked more than a pack a day. In January 2001 he decided he wasn’t a smoker, and he stopped smoking immediately because he is a huge pain in the ass and he wants everyone who can’t quit smoking to hate him. He’s smoked one cigarette since then, but it was so nasty that he wasn’t tempted to start smoking.
I love the hydrangea, is that a perennial for you? Ours never survives the winter, but I don’t mind buying one each year, they are so beautiful. Do you call those pansy that just start growing johnny jump ups? That is what my grandma used to call them, and I have some in my gravel driveway that show up each year. I just leave them they are so cute.
Yeah, the hydrangea is a perennial here – this year is the first year it’s really taken off like that, and I hope it just keeps getting bigger and prettier every year!
I had never heard them referred to as Johnny Jump Ups, but a look on Google tells me that if they’re not the same flower, they’re certainly kissing cousins. I’ve never been a fan of them in the past, but in the last few years I’ve started really liking them. They’re pretty, easy to care for flowers, and they pretty much grow year-round here.
Are kittens really made of marshmallow covered in fur?
This is a common misconception, and I’m here to set the record straight: kittens are actually made of silly putty covered in fur, and have heads filled with marshmallow fluff.
What do you mean by “volunteer tomatoes”? And besides tomaters, green beans, squash, and peppers, what else are you growing in your garden?
A volunteer is a plant that comes up on its own rather than being planted deliberately. The tomato plants that are growing on the compost heap and along the fence line weren’t planted, they just landed there somehow (I imagine that the tomato plants along the fence line came from seeds which first journeyed through chickens’ digestive systems) and began growing. I figure, what’s the harm in letting them grow? Worst case scenario, they don’t provide any tomatoes, and since I’m going to just ignore them and let them do their thing, it’s not any big deal if they just peter out.
I am mentally walking through the garden as I type this list, so if I forget anything, you can blame my faulty memory. We are growing: corn, green beans, peppers (cayennes, bell, jalapenos, tabasco and a couple of bhut jolokia), tomatoes, eggplant, okra, squash (zucchini, crookneck, straightneck, and pattypan), cantaloupe, watermelon, onions, and cucumbers. That’s in the big garden.
I also have a little raised-bed garden behind the back yard where I’m growing: brussels sprouts and cauliflower (I don’t honestly expect to get much from those plants, as it’s gotten so hot lately), radishes, carrots, purslane, and spinach (the spinach didn’t do anything this year, for some unknown reason). I’m experimenting with bale gardening this year, so I’ve got two tomato plants planted on a straw bale, and three watermelon plants on another. For herbs I have two pots of catnip (of course), lemon balm, lemon thyme, dill, cilantro, and some very unhappy garlic chives (stupid chives, I do NOT know what their problem is!). Also, there’s a little potted Meyer lemon tree that Fred bought at Lowe’s last weekend, and which we’ll move into the garage this winter, then back out when it warms up next spring.
Whew! I didn’t realize we were growing so much until I listed it out like that!
What, exactly, is that tomato plant volunteering for? To go in a sandwich? To serve on the PTA? To sing a church solo on Sun?
To GET IN MAH BELLEH, of course!
Do the piggies have names? Can I name one of them if I donate to Challenger’s House? Can I pick up Clove and stick my face in her belly fluff?
We don’t usually name the pigs, mostly because we tend toward calling them “Big Pig” and “Little Pig”, though that’s not going to work this time since we have three. At the moment, we’re calling them “Bold Pig”, “Hernia Girl”, and “The Other One. No, not the bold one. No, not Hernia Girl. The OTHER one.” If you would like to name one of them, Bean, you certainly may. 🙂
You know what Clove would do if you stuck your face in her belly fluff? She would stare up at you with love-filled eyes, and she would purr so loudly that The Other One would stop eating grass and lift her head to listen. Then Clove would bunny-kick you right in the eye and run off to jump on one of her sisters. But you wouldn’t mind being blinded by her sharp little claws, because she is the cutest thing on earth.
“Dat’s right. Come closer. Clove not hurt you. Clove LUFF YOU. Maybe hurt you little bit, okay? Okay.”
Which McMao is in the sunlight in the first McMao picture? Amazing stripes! Soooo pretty!!! Did the “not so bright” piggy ever get her cookie? It looked like another piggy got it!
That’s Finnegan. He has the most well-defined stripes of the McMaos. Gorgeous, isn’t he?
What usually happens is that the bold pig grabs the first cookie, then runs off to eat it, and about half of it drops onto the ground where the other pig gobbles it up. They usually all get some cookie, if not an entire one.
I love the solid blue cover for the Ham-mick…. where did you get it? I’ve looked at the site where they sell the Ham-micks, but all they ever have are busy print patterns that don’t blend well with my decor, but I’d reconsider for some solid color ones.
I made that my own self, actually, using the one that came with the Ham-mick as a pattern. If you look closely, you’ll see that I am no seamstress, but the cats don’t mind, and it works well enough.
I can’t speak for the lady who makes the Ham-micks, but I suspect that if you told her you were looking for something in a solid color, she might be willing to work with you.
Miss Dorothy has the most symmetrical coloring on her face I have ever seen. So pretty! I have recently acquired two kittens, a calico and a torby, from my grandma (my sister and I gave them to her for Mother’s Day, after her direct instructions to find her a calico kitten, then it became two kittens) but she is currently hospitalized and it is not yet know if she’ll be coming home :(. So the kittens are the sweetest pair I’ve ever met; I want to keep them, but I know I can’t: I already have three of my own, plus I feed the whole neighborhood of cats, which is about 7, one of which looks like she might be pregnant (yay, more mouths to feed). So, I guess I’m saying if anyone in the Western KY area is looking for a pair, I have em. I plan on keeping them long enough to fatten them up (they are tiny) and teach them some manners, I will indeed use the blowing in the face.
Western Kentuckyans, if you’re looking for kittens, let me know (or leave a comment) and I’ll pass you along to Becca!
Jake really is made of awesome. Did Alice like him this much too?
Alice really doesn’t have a lot to do with Jake, actually. I think that if she were in the mood to cuddle with another cat, she very well might give him a snuggle, but on a day to day basis she doesn’t hang out with the other cats all that often. She did like Rufus – they played together a lot – and she snuggled with Reacher from time to time. Which is to say, I’m thinking that perhaps Alice has a “type.” We’ll have to test that theory next time we have a gray tabby!
Could you possibly shoot Dorothy from above? — her markings look so beautiful in the vid.
It’s kind of hard to get a shot of Dorothy from above, because she mostly wants to look and see just what it is you’re doing. Here are the results of my attempt yesterday morning.
So there she is, kind of from all angles!
She’s off to her new home tomorrow (details on Monday!) and I couldn’t be more excited. I know she is going to be well loved and one happy little girl.
“I KEEL YOU!”
“Whazzat?”
“Dunno….”
“But it sure makes me wanna DANCE!”
“I am a sweet little baby monkey. Suckah. Um, I mean… Mrowr?”
So yesterday morning I walked into the guest bedroom to scoop the litter boxes, and was beset by an angry mob of hungry kittens, who told me ALL ABOUT the fact that someone took their food away the night before and they were STARVING and WHAT was I going to do about this tragedy?
I scooped and left the room, is what I did.
Then when I went in an hour later, there were McMaos flopped sleeping in the sun as far as the eye could see. In fact, two of them were sleeping IN the carrier, and it was ever so simple to scoop them up into carriers and close them in. Maggie stood and watched and made curious “What’s up with this?” sounds, but she didn’t freak out or anything, and the babies were mostly (sleepily) curious.
They didn’t cry very much on the trip to the clinic – this was their very first car trip, you know – but they were just a little freaked out as we weighed them and put collars on them so they’d be id chipped with the correct names. I had breakfast with friends, and then headed into Huntsville to run errands. I didn’t get home until after 1:00, and I worried that Maggie would have freaked out while I was gone, but when I walked into the room, she was sleeping on the bed. She supervised while I emptied, cleaned, and refilled a couple of the litter boxes and then vacuumed and wiped the dust off all the furniture. When I was done, that was one clean room and Maggie decided to take another nap.
When I picked the babies up last night, they were perfectly fine, if a little subdued. When I got them home and into the guest bedroom where Maggie was waiting, they swarmed out of the carriers, and she sniffed them and licked a couple of them. Ten minutes later, it was like they’d never been gone.
“What babies?”
Ciara (right) and Fergus Simon examine the bedside table.
I love the smile.
Finnegan and his whiskers.
Best! Water! Bowl! Ever! (They didn’t have a water fountain in the foster room due to limited outlets, so this was new to them.)
Ciara in the sun.
“HI MAMA!”
That’s a lonnnng way down for a little man.
(By the way, here’s a tip: looking for something to attach to your cat tree or scratching post for your cat or kittens to bat at? The drawstring from a sweatshirt is the best, most durable thing ever. Everything else I’ve used the staple gun to attach has been bitten off or shredded, but the drawstrings are standing (hanging!) strong after months and months.)
“I see what you’re doing, and you stop it right now. RIGHT. NOW.” Spanky is the disapproving curmudgeon of the Crooked Acres gang.
Previously
2010: I have none of the signs of leukemia and a history of low iron, so probably what it’ll end up being is lung cancer caused by litter dust inhalation.
2009: Sights from around Crooked Acres.
2008: I suggest that you expect entries to be incredibly light on content for the foreseeable future.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar.
2003: I’m about to enter the PMS Zone
2002: What I’ve done since Thursday
2001: No entry.
2000: God help me, I’m going to go upstairs and strangle Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling.