I’ve grown tomatoes for years and have never pruned them. Can you give me a quick rundown on the how and why? Do you get a higher yield?
I can tell you that although there’s a way you’re supposed to do it – see this page here for reference – I tend to start out doing it that way, but then I kind of start… hacking away at the plants with the idea that if there are fewer non-fruit-producing limbs in the way, then I’ll see the tomatoes that are ripening more easily. This is, I think, the third summer I’ve pruned tomato plants, and I have seen no real difference in the yield. Of course, we have yet to get one single decent tomato this year – they’re all cracked around the stem – but every year hope springs eternal. SIGH.
This is going to sound so stupid, but every time I see a picture of a chicken, my first thought is “My God! The poor thing has no arms!” And for some reason, “Macushla” is always “Mashugana” in my brain. I am feeling very feeble minded, suddenly.
Every time I read the first part of your comment, I cackle. I don’t know why, but that really hit my funny bone – maybe because it’s the sort of thing I would think myself!
I want a metal bucket like that one holding green beans. Do you remember where you got it, Robyn?
We have several of them, and they come in handy for all kinds of things. I got them from Jeffer’s, but you could probably find them at your local co-op.
I read you every day, but I saw Corbie’s pic on the perm residents. Can you post a link when that happened? Its hard to keep track of these things!
It was at the end of March, entry here. I convinced everyone that Corbie had gone to his forever home… and then announced that THIS is his forever home!
LOVE the pictures of Stinky! She’s is such a beautiful cat, but…is she getting a little on the tubby side? (For God’s sake, don’t tell her I asked – she might hunt me down and rip my throat out!)
Nah, she’s not getting tubby. It’s hard to tell from pictures, but she’s actually a pretty small cat. You’d think she’d be bigger, actually, given that she spends all her time on top of the cabinets watching the other cats or looking for her beloved Tommy.
Any advice to handle a kitten that is just downright mean? She is only 6 weeks old or so, but she bites and attacks out of anger. She has never been mistreated, but I would swear she had been. This kitten may be too much for me!
Do you have other cats? Generally kittens who aren’t around other cats or kittens will act that way toward humans (because they don’t have other cats around to put the smack down). If the kitten attacks and/or bites you, immediately (and consistently) blow in their face to make them stop that shit. Of course, the best solution would be to spray water or compressed air at them, but you can’t always have those on you, and time is of the essence (you want to do it immediately; otherwise they won’t have any idea why you’re spraying water at them). I’ve heard of people who respond to a mean, bitey kitten by biting them on the ear. I’ve never tried it myself, but it might be worth a try!
Anyone else out there with advice? Feel free to share!
Robyn, isn’t when Fred starts calling someone ‘beautiful’ the indicator they’ll become a permanent resident?
Can we cross our paws and hope?
Part of the reason I was SO beyond thrilled about the fact that Cillian was one of the first kittens adopted is because Fred developed a late-stage crush on him and I was worried he’d harass me into going to get the boy and bring him home. As it is, all I can do is shrug and smile. He’s already in his forever home, what’m I supposed to do?
(God help us if something doesn’t work out and he’s returned, though!)
Wait…what…Coltrane? I mustv’e missed a day…when was this?
June 19th is when I posted about it, entry here.
BTW, you do realize you are one of a very few people who can say “… we only had five cats…”? 
Ha – I know, right?? I cannot believe we have so damn many cats. When I moved to Alabama, two cats was an INSANE number of cats, in our opinion. Then we got Spanky, and we had three. Then Tubby. Then Fancypants. And now suddenly, we have what is TRULY an insane number of cats. But I cannot for the life of me imagine only having two cats again. Sometimes – especially last weekend, after we’d reduced the number of cats running around this house by six – I think “How do people with two cats even know they HAVE cats?!”
Paula said:
Robyn, yesterday I was behind a car that had those stick figure decals representing family members on their rear window. You know, like a kid with a soccer ball, a dad with a briefcase, etc. Well this one had no people, just two dogs and three cats. I think you said one time that you would love to get those decals, and when I thought of that and then this clown with a mere five, I thought, “AMATEUR!!”
And I was all “I know, right? I wish they had chickens and pigs in those stickers! But alas!”
Then Paula said:
Familystickers.com has pigs and chickens!!
Damn you, Paula. DAAAAAAAAAAMN you. (I’ll provide pictures when such a time comes that I actually get my ass in gear and order the proper number of stickers!)
Smug Miss Cori again looks like Smug Miss Alice.
Indeed she does! We’ve actually started calling Coriander “AJ” (for “Alice Junior”), so Fred will know who I’m talking about!
I know the odds are that Maggie will do just fine wherever she lands, but I’ve been harboring the hope that she would get adopeted with at least one of her babies… how great would that be?!
That would be SO awesome. Fingers crossed!
When the kitties are put up for adoption is there any background information on when/where they came from? I’m sure if potential adopters saw how they are raised with you, people would be doing cartwheels into Petsmart to adopt a Robyn/Fred kitty!
I actually got permission to include a note with the bag of toys directing adopters to Love & Hisses so they can see the whole story behind how their babies grew up.
On the ‘hidden’ calitabby – the fact that you can see both colors makes her a non hidden one. Basically on a girl cat, different regions of the body select at random to be orange or black. In theory, all the regions could choose the same color like flipping a bunch of coins and getting all heads or all tails. Such a case would be a hidden tortie or calitabby, since you could only tell if she had kittens and had both orange boys and black boys. (Male cats get their orange gene from the mom only, since the Y comes from dad).
and
As Oldcat says, Clove is no longer a “hidden” Cali-tabby but just a very “obscured” one, that’s not a cat breeding term, I just made it up. But before I wondered if she was hidden because I thought I saw orange reflections in her mostly brown fur, but obvious it was actual orange furs mixed in with the brown ones.
The older Clove gets, the more orangey her orange spots have become, by the way. But I find this whole thing very confusing and thank my lucky stars that y’all out there know more than I do and are willing to share. 
A lot of my friends get those plastic kiddie pools and fill them with water for their dogs to cool off in.
We actually tried that with George and Gracie, and they said “Meh. Not interested, I’ll be under the coop thx.” I wonder if part of the reason they’re not very interested in laying in a pool of water is because their fur is so thick and water repellent. I wouldn’t be surprised if being submerged in water would still not be enough to get them wet to the skin. After the deluge of water that came down on the day of the tornado, I went out to check on them, and the top of their fur was soaked, but as I petted them, I realized that at skin level, they were perfectly dry. I need a raincoat made of George and Gracie fur, obviously.
Any news about more adoptions?
Not yet, but adoption hours are tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have news for y’all on Monday!
Finally, that gawky rooster has feathers on his legs and feet?!?!?! I’ve never seen that before, although my experience with chickens is limited (and my experience with chicks is very limited to just the incubator stage). What’s the deal with that?
He’s at least part Light Brahma. We have several Light Brahma hens and our one rooster is a Light Brahma as well. Brahmas have feathered legs! The chicks who were hatched this Spring and Summer are at least half Brahma (since their daddy is a Brahma), and some of them – but not all – have feathered legs.
We like Brahmas because they’re relatively calm birds. They get pretty big, and they’re decent egg layers. I wouldn’t mind adding some different kinds of chickens to the flock just to keep things interesting (and hey, there are Buff Brahmas and Dark Brahmas too!), but we haven’t gotten around to getting that done, just yet.
This is what our Light Brahma rooster looks like, though you have to look closely to see his feathered legs:
Miz Poo in the box, Clove on top.
Clove, mildly annoyed (I love it when they put their ears back like that).
If only Ciara could make herself comfortable.
Ciara with sass.
“You haz a snuggle for me?”
Ciara, Cilantro, and Cori, hanging out.
Cilantro sure does love that toy mouse.
Green beans: best cat toys EVER.
Cilantro hangin’ with Cillian and Fergus Simon, last week.
Your weekly announcement: Corbie is beautiful. You know you forgot that!
Previously
2010: Vacation pics.
2009: Is it called “BeelzeBoogs”?? Oh, that sounds like a FUN book.
2008: “Huh. An armadillo. Weird. They don’t usually come this far north!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “Bessie,” he said. “That is CAT POOP, not kitty treats!”
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: Our kitties, spoiled? Nah.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Thanks for the link to Jeffers. I’d never heard of it but they’ve got some great stuff there. I really want to get that doggie shirt that reads “I do bad things!”, but my husband is VERY strongly opposed to dressing up dogs.
I love the annoyed ears on Clove and Corbie. If I was a cat, my ears would be like that most of the time because I’m old and chronically annoyed.
That is one beautiful rooster.
Last night I dreamed that I went to get new tires and sat in the waiting area holding a sleeping kitten. It was Clove! Now that is a brilliant idea! Include adorable kitties available for adoption for people in waiting rooms to snuggle. I wouldn’t even mind waiting an hour for a 5 minute oil change then.
I have lurked FOR YEARS but have never commented but I had to let you know that my three year old loves looking at photos of cats so she always looks at your site with me… Now she wants me to “go and get Clove!”. I was also wondering, with all the cats you have had is there ever one that just got on your nerves like no other? I am keeping my brothers cat while he moves and fixes up his house and I have to tell you that back when I had four cats all four of them together didn’t get on my nerves like this cat. I am an animal lover and I feel so guilty, but I can’t wait until he leaves!
Oh, without a doubt there have been cats who get all over my nerves like that (and I typically respond by giving them more love because I feel so guilty!) I don’t think every animal lover is going to wholeheartedly love every animal – just like you’re not going to like every person you meet, you’re not going to love every animal. Just be glad that your brother’s cat will be going back to your brother instead of staying with you!
Give your daughter a kiss from Clove!
“Any advice to handle a kitten that is just downright mean? She is only 6 weeks old or so, but she bites and attacks out of anger. She has never been mistreated, but I would swear she had been. This kitten may be too much for me!”
When we adopted our last cat (crazy tortie Moxie) our vet gave us the advice to let our hands go limp if she grabbed on and even make ‘that hurts’ noises. She said that kittens do this with each other and the ‘you’re hurting me’ reaction is a way they learn how much force is play and how much is aggression.
Moxie’s now 3+ years old and she does the ‘velvet paws’ with us, so maybe it worked. She’s mean to the other cats, but not to us!
I agree, when he plays too rough, meow like a sibling cat would – it seems to make them back off at least a little. Then blowing, or pinning him.
Basically you have to act more like a cat because zany tiny crazy kitten brain is even less likely to figure out English that an adult cat.
But even with help, some cats are just naturally too tightly wired up and sometimes will forget. So another approach is to just not get your hands close when he’s wired up and use a teaser or other ‘long distance’ toy to burn off that energy. My hunter cat is 8 or 9 and still can forget and put the hurt on from time to time. But when he remembers he’s as nice as can be, so you just have read his body language to see what mode he’s in.
Robyn, I was reading an interesting article in National Geographic about growing/raising heirloom foods/breeds/varieties. The article has pics of chickens that made me think of you, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/heirloom-chickens. I noticed the Orpingtons and the Gold Sebright reminds me of some of your chickens maybe? The Phoenix is gorgeous.
The article discusses seed exchanges and how to grow heirlooms, again, you came to mind. Check it out http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/growing-heirlooms.
I moved to Phx from the Midwest, where we would plunk a seed in the ground and watch it grow. Here, we have a whole different ball game that I’m not familiar playing. While it is quite agricultural here, we have very different issues. I’m excited about taking a class next month on organic gardening in the SW and going to see about trying some heirloom varieties.
Forget how beautiful Corbie is???? NEVER!!!! BTW, we have a new kitten and when he tries to bite me, I take the flat of my hand and gently (notice, I said GENTLY) hit him in the face. It’s worked with all of the cats we’ve had over the years. Hubby doesn’t do this and he gets bitten when he plays with them on a regular basis. One time he ended up with blood poisoning. Silly man!
http://invisiblecats.com/
Thought you might like it!
It’s so true what you said about people with only 2 cats.
I’ve got four and half the time you’d never know we had any!
I’m thinking of upping the number to 5, just to get some cat action around here!
Corbie IS beautiful!
Did you see this:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/07/14/dnt.cat.falls.20.story.building.WCBS?hpt=hp_t2
a cat fell 20 stories and lived!