Author: Robyn

This is Tippy. Tippy has eyelid entropion and needs surgery. (You can read the details and a better explanation at his Chip-In page.)

Please remember that every dollar counts, and help if you can!

Also, Madison residents, keep an eye out for Tukey. His family misses him a great deal!

Yesterday was my goofing-off, social day. I left the house around 8:30 and drove to Madison to visit with Katherine. Y’all know Katherine, she adopted two of Kara’s babies and now they are just spoiled rotten. Their names were Inara (now Dora) and River (now Nate), and they looked something like this, three years ago:

(That’s Nate)

(That’s Dora)

And also like this:

(Nate)

(Dora)

And then like this:

(Dora)

(Nate)

So then they went off to Madison to be loved and spoiled rotten, and I’ve seen them from time to time over the past three years. I haven’t always had my camera with me, but yesterday it just so happened that I did.

Both cats are beautiful, of course, but Nate is just strikingly gorgeous. Pictures absolutely do not do him justice.

(Yeah, yeah. They’re all basically the same picture. I couldn’t help it. I HAD TO SHARE THEM ALL.)

I had a hard time getting a good picture of Dora because she was untrusting of my intentions, but you can see what a pretty girl she is, too. (Kara made some awfully pretty babies!)

Nate actually did come over and sniff my hand, but then he was so startled by his own bravado that he ran off and hid.

I visited with Katherine for about an hour, then I had to skedaddle because I had a 10:15 eye appointment in Huntsville. I don’t remember how long it’s been since I last had my eyes checked, but I’m sure it’s been well over a year. Possibly two years, even. The only reason I made an appointment for a checkup at this point is because I’m down to two pairs of contacts, and that makes me nervous. Also, the inexpensive glasses I bought online at… wherever the hell I bought them. Zenni Optical, I think? Anyway, the frame snapped underneath both lenses, so I figured it was time to get new glasses, too.

The appointment went just fine, and I ordered some extra contacts, and then picked out a couple of pairs of glasses, and headed to Suzanne’s house. Suzanne has always come out here in the past to visit and snuggle baby kittens and get eggs – I think I even dragged her out to meet George and Gracie and the pigs at one point. I haven’t been to her house because most of the time when I’m in her vicinity, it’s just to run a few errands at the crack of dawn and then get home to make sure the house hasn’t blown away or spontaneously combusted or something equally horrifying.

I got to meet her cats, after hearing so much about them, and oh my. She has not been kidding all this time about what gorgeous cats she has – Theo looks like Sugarbutt, only (I’m sorry, Sugarbutt. You know I love you.) prettier. Okay, and bigger. He’s a big hunk of a cat, that Theo. I got to meet the beautiful Gracie (I am telling you, so very very gorgeous), and got to pet her and Theo both. I got to see Moxie, mostly from a distance, and the kittens, Regan and Riley, also from a distance.

After some pettin’ and talking about the cats, we headed out to have lunch. We decided to have lunch at PF Chang’s, which I’d never been to, and it was really good. The only problem was that I was planning to bring the rest of my lunch home with me, but I was so into talking to Suzanne that the waitress came along and asked if we were done, and I wasn’t really paying attention and told her I was. So she took it off, and about five minutes later I realized that I hadn’t actually, y’know, ASKED for a box for my food, I think I thought she was taking it off to box it up, but not so much. Too bad, ’cause it was good!

(It was honey-something shrimp. Crispy honey shrimp? Oh, and we had lettuce wraps, too, and they were soooo good. Thanks again, Suzanne!!!)

Then we walked around and looked in a few shops. Suzanne learned my embarrassing secret, which is that I use Victoria’s Secret So Sexy shampoo on my hair.

(I imagine some guy with one of those cheesy 70s mustaches crooning “My ladyyyyy is soooooo sexyyyyyy” whenever I have to think of the horrible name of that shampoo. But I love the smell of it beyond all reason and have it for years now. I’m sure I walk around smelling like a sweet combination of Sooooo Sexyyyyy shampoo and (clean) litter dust.)

We went back to Suzanne’s for a little while, then I left and headed to pick up my glasses (remember back in The Day when your glasses would be ready in an hour? Mine weren’t quite ready yet when I got there, and it was like three hours later!), had to wait a few minutes there, then got my glasses, picked up some cat food (not at the glasses store, across the street at Petsmart, but it certainly would have been convenient to be able to get my glasses and cat food at the same establishment, no?), then headed home. I made a quick stop at Publix to pick up a few things, then got home.

Fred had forgotten that I was going to be out for the day, and he almost never comes home to find me NOT there, so I got a call from him while I was in Publix.

“Are you dead in a ditch?” he asked.

So, that was pretty much my day. It was really nice to have a day out where I got to talk to, you know, people who talk back (not that the cats don’t talk back, but sometimes I need to hear the voices of humans!) The house was still standing, thankfully (not that I was really worried, but you never know, do you? I totally need to set up a webcam for while I’m gone, so that I can check and make sure the house is still standing!), and I spent the evening catching up on email and snuggling with the babies.

Today, I garden. Also, clean the house! Yay?

Harlan gets his butt kicked while the Kong bird looks on, unconcerned.

::thlurrrp::

Harlan contemplates his next move.

Harlan and Everett tussle, while Sally looks away.

I sense that Everett’s going to win this one.

“You say it began itching and then your eyes suddenly crossed and you can’t uncross them? How bizarre.” Dr. Harlan Peppers is on the case. (I’m sorry, this picture just makes me absolutely guffaw. I think it’s the look of concentration on his face, combined with the look of long-suffering patience on hers.)

Everett goes for a climb.

The kittens sure do love that scratching post. That’s Lucy up top, Sally hanging off toward the bottom, and Molly and Everett on the floor.

Lucy Peppers, if you aren’t adopted in ten seconds flat, I’ll eat my hat.

When I see her little face, I have to kiss her one million times. She’s not terribly crazy about that, but she puts up with me.

Why so stressed, Clove?

Take a shot of catnip, Clove. Jeez. All your stress is stressing ME out.

Ciara’s all “Her stress is stressing ME out, too. Let’s sneak some catnip into her food.”
Coriander: “Your idea has merit.”

“Sign me up for a snort of the ‘nip.”

“Y’all are hilarious. Now shaddup and let me sleep.”

“Did someone say “catnip”?” (Spanky is a catnip fiend.)

Previously
2010: when you’ve got this goddamn many cats running around, requiring a spotless house is a first-class seat on the train to Crazytown
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: And just like Alice, I get MY beefsteak wholesale, too.
2006: Questions answered.
2005: No entry.
2004: Oh, by the way? When you tell someone “Don’t worry, I won’t be back to read your journal”? Please. EVERYONE knows that means “I’m going to come back every six seconds to see the reactions to my asshole comment”.
2003: No entry.
2002: CHECK THOSE FEEDBACKS, people!
2001: 16 miles. Yeah, baby!
2000: I swear to god, that cat is half monkey.

In case you missed it, I posted an entry late yesterday with an update from Jennifer, who adopted Starsky and Hutch last Fall!

Saturday marked fifteen years that I’ve lived in Alabama. I can’t believe I’ve lived here that long – it certainly doesn’t feel like it!

I celebrated by working in the garden for a couple of hours first thing in the morning, going to the flea market for a little while in late morning, and then Saturday afternoon I roasted a bunch of cherry tomatoes, then put them in freezer bags and saved them to use at a later date. Saturday evening, we watched several episodes of Entourage, and that was about it for the day.

I know how to celebrate in style, no?

Now I’m off in a little while to run errands and see friends, so I’m going to post a bunch of pictures and call it an entry!

The many faces of Sally Peppers.

That’s Sally on the right in the purple collar, Lucy in the left in the pink, and Everett on the floor keeping a safe distance.

Little nuts.

Just in case you were under the impression that they all just lay around and look cute all the time.

::glare::

That Kong bird is about her favorite toy.

Big enough that she can really get into kicking its butt.

Not so big that it can effectively fight back.

Crazy face.

Light enough that she can drag it all over the room.

“YOU GO AWAY THIS ARE MY KILL.”

Sally is the scarediest of the Peppers Gang (well, maybe tied with Harlan). She’s the hardest to get hold of when you need to squirt medicine in her mouth, and the best hider. More than once, I’ve thought “Did she get OUT of the room? She must have squeezed past when I opened the door and I just didn’t realize it!”, only to eventually find her hiding in a spot I didn’t expect. She just isn’t sure that she trusts us, and when we reach for her, if she can’t turn and run away, she cringes away from us.

On the other hand, when I lay down on the bed and let the kittens come to me, Sally’s one of the first (if not THE first) to come over and stand in front of me and meow sadly until I pet her. Then she purrs and purrs. I know it’ll take time before she stops the cringing (and she’s a million times improved over how she was when they first got here two weeks ago), but I sure do hate seeing her scared.

Did I mention that Cilantro cannot hold her licker?

“What happen’?”

As long as you’re comfy, Clove. It’s not like I was using that keyboard or anything.

“Moooom! Clove melted out of the cat bed again!”

Ciara realizes that this means she gets the bed to herself.

Such a couple of brats.

Jake (left) and Elwood, watching birds.

2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: This is how I feel right now.
2007: “Mister Seller tells me y’all are good Christian people,” she said.
2006: It’s been a year since we found Crooked Acres. Hard to believe.
2005: They are NAS-TAY, and trust me when I say that you’d be better off never bothering to try the nasty things.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: Looking at this hormone-laden piece of meat makes me… well, it makes me kinda drool, actually.
2001: I just smiled and nodded and kept walkin’.
2000: Mustard algae. Why must he doubt me?

This would ordinarily be Crooked Acres Thursday, with pics of various and sundry sights from around Crooked Acres, but I didn’t get a single dog or garden or chicken picture this week (I just haven’t been motivated to do a single thing outside this week because of the heat and also the lack of sun for the better part of the week, because pictures taken outside when it’s overcast just don’t come out all that wonderfully), so instead I’m going to do a list of stuff I like and think y’all might like too!

FYI, none of this stuff was given to me, everything in this list was bought and paid for.

Stuff I Like (and you might like too!)

1. Carbonite. My friend Katherine suggested Carbonite to me, oh, sometime last year, I think? I made a mental note, and then I did nothing, because that’s just the way I am. And then I don’t remember exactly what spurred me to get my butt in gear – probably I was having issues with my hard drive – and I started thinking about the incredible number of pictures I have on my computer, and how sad I would be if I lost them all (or any of them!), and I finally signed up with Carbonite and installed the software. It took forever for the backup to happen, which wasn’t Carbonite’s fault because the way my failing hard drive was set up, I basically had two hard drives with everything copied over from one to the other, so there was a huge amount of information there. I think it took three weeks or so to get everything backed up, but once it was backed up, I set it so that Carbonite would update the backup starting at 10:00 every night, and I honestly never even notice that it’s there. Knowing that all those pictures and documents are backed up and safe makes me sleep a little better.

2. Neutrogena Body Oil. On Facebook, Catie mentioned that she’d used Neutrogena Body Oil instead of shaving cream or gel when she shaved her legs, and she got the best, closest, smoothest shave ever. I made a mental note and then promptly forgot about it until a few days (or weeks) later when Cait posted that she’d tried it as well, and she too got the best, closest, smoothest shave ever. This time, instead of making a mental note, I made a real ink-and-paper note in the form of adding Neutrogena Body Oil to the grocery list. Then I bought a bottle, and then I used it instead of shaving gel and OH MY. Catie and Cait were NOT kidding in the slightest – that is one excellent, awesome shave and I highly recommend it. Now, Neutrogena Body Oil is not the cheapest stuff on earth, but I can tell you the the one bottle I bought is hanging in there months later and I expect it’ll last another month or so. It’s definitely worth it!

(The rest of this list is cat-related. This should not surprise you.)

3. Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat, and Cat Attract litters. Let me tell you a story. Back in February, I did something very stupid. Actually, I did a bunch of very stupid things: I was about to have surgery, so in the course of less than a week, I (1) found a new home for Reacher (who is doing very well these days, by the way) and he left our house, (2) I moved the couch to another part of the front room, (3) I removed the litter box from the guest bedroom, since there were no fosters staying in there, and (4) I completely changed the kind of litter I was using from Fresh Step (which we’ve used for years) to a different kind of litter that I cannot remember the name of at the moment. What happened next was a furious flood of cat urine from one end of the house to the other. Cats in this house were SERIOUSLY peeved and they were intent on letting me know it.

It wasn’t until mid-April or so that we finally determined who the peeing-outside-the-box culprits were, and it shocked me to find out that Tommy, our wonderful, awesome, super-sweet boy, was the one doing most of the peeing, accompanied by his evil accomplice Elwood. Also, there was some occasional spraying by Spanky and Joe Bob.

The first thing I did was switch the litter back to Fresh Step. The second thing I did was to add the litter box back to the guest bedroom. The third thing I did was to (finally) move the couch back to where it belonged. That stemmed the flow of cat urine (and is there anything that smells worse than cat urine? I think not.), but I was still having to get up every morning and walk throughout the house, looking for cat pee and then cleaning up what I found. And I was still finding at least one puddle or spray, and most days multiple.

It was delightful.

I have finally (fingers crossed) managed to stop the spraying and peeing by adding a litter box to the front room (it’s at the other end of the front room, away from the living room area) and slowly, slowly, slowwwwwwly switching our litter to Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract and Precious Cat. Between the two, I find that Cat Attract is less dusty than the Precious Cat (though it’s possible I just got a particularly dusty bag of Precious Cat), and I haven’t found any puddles or sprays outside the litter box in a few weeks now. Now, Dr. Elsey’s is not perfect – Fresh Step remains better at holding down the litter box smells – but we were getting to the point where Fred was coughing a lot, especially after I scooped in the evening, and since switching to Dr. Elsey’s he hasn’t been coughing at all. If this means that I have to change out the litter more often, I think that it’s worth it not to have Fred die a slow and painful death from Anderson Litter Lung while causing damage to my hearing because when he coughs and hacks, he does so at a decibel that hurts my ears. Why can’t he cough and hack quietly? Why? Whyyyyyyy?

4. Odor removers.

(a) Nose Offense. I don’t remember where I read about this stuff, but it is flat-out amazing. I’m listing it first not because it works so much better than the other two (in section c), because they work very well too, but because it works well AND it has no smell at all. The problem with anti-odor sprays is that they have a scent added to them, and after you’ve used them for a while, in your mind you link the smell of the spray with the smell of cat urine and then you catch a whiff of the anti-odor spray and you think “Did I just smell cat pee?”. Nose Offense works immediately, it takes the smell of cat pee (or whatever horrendous smell you’re trying to get rid of) away and leaves no smell in its place.

When I scoop the litter boxes, I take the bags of scoopings out to a trash can in the garage. I have a spray bottle of Nose Offense by the trash can, and I spray into the trash can once a day, and even though there’s this kitchen-sized trash can filled to the brim with bags of litter box scoopings by Wednesday night (trash day’s on Thursday), it doesn’t smell at all. I was going to say that my only gripe is that this stuff doesn’t come in gallon-sized containers, the largest size it comes in is 32 ounces, BUT I just went and looked and that is no longer true, it DOES come in gallon-sized containers now. Yay!

To further convince you that you should give this stuff a try, the months when I was dealing with cat pee on a daily basis, I used this stuff. It took care of the smell, but what was even better was that after I’d cleaned up the pee, the cats would avoid peeing in that spot for weeks afterward. This was good because, well, they weren’t always peeing in the same spot over and over again. This was bad because it became a game of “Where’s the pee?” I really really like this stuff, if you couldn’t tell.

(b) 16 0z Hydrogen Peroxide, 1 Teaspoon dishwashing liquid, 1 Tablespoon Baking Soda. One of the places the cats were peeing to show their displeasure with everything under the sun was on the couch. Grrrr. Yes, I could have used Nose Offense to get rid of the smell, but even though Nose Offense is very reasonably priced, I wanted to soak the couch down, and that would have taken a lot of liquid. What I did instead was mix up the Hydrogen Peroxide, dishwashing liquid and baking soda, mixed it gently, and I soaked the heck out of that couch. It stayed wet for a long time, but when it was dry, the smell was gone. Thank GOD.

(c) Anti-Ickypoo and Simple Solution Extreme Cat Stain & Odor Remover. If for some reason you’re against trying Nose Offense (you weirdo), both Anti-Ickypoo and Simple Solution (which you can get at Petsmart) work really well. I like Anti-Ickypoo because the trace scent isn’t a flowery one, it’s more a spicy smell, kind of cinnamon-y, and it works just fine. They both work perfectly fine, but they do have those trace scents, which Nose Offense does not. I’m just sayin’.

5. You can buy pet cord protector to protect your cords from cats, who just loooooove to chew through wires. For reference see: the cord to my memory stick reader. Grrr. The problem with those cord protectors is that they’re treated with a “citrus scent” that smells absolutely awful. It smells like cat pee to me.

What I do is buy flexible split tubing and put that on the cords instead. It’s actually more flexible than the citrus-infused pet cord protector, and so far is working really well. The magazine where I read the tip (Family Handyman magazine, if you must know, and shaddup) said you could find flexible split tubing at Lowe’s, but I couldn’t find it there. Instead, I ordered a 100 foot roll of it from usplastic.com. I ordered the 3/8″ black tubing, but they have it in 1/4″ as well, which would work just fine to cover most cords (also, 1/4″ is smaller than 3/8″, which I confirmed with Fred the math major. Shut up. Math is harrrrd.) I’m not going to lie to you: putting the tube on the cord (or the cord into the tube, whichever way you prefer to look at it) is a pain in the butt, but once it’s done you don’t have to do it again, and it protects your cords from sharp little gnawing teeth.

6. Ham-Micks. We’ve had our Ham-Micks for a year and a half. I can tell you that our cats were immediately interested (Sugarbutt, especially, loves to curl up in the Ham-Mick in a corner of the computer room), and both Ham-Micks are still getting lots of use. The fosters like them, the permanent cats like them, everyone likes them! (If you don’t like the fabric available, I’d encourage you to email Forty Paws and see if you can get something different. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’d work with you.)

7. Cat toys.

(a) Sunstones’ crocheted catnip cat toys. These are so pretty and so well-made that I try to have enough on hand to send home in the bag o’ toys I send with my foster kittens. The cats love them and did I mention that they’re pretty? They’re SO pretty – and all proceeds are donated to animal rescue/ rehabs.

(b) Tee Tugs’ Kitty Bugs. Kitty toys made from recycled t-shirts. The cats love the toys, they’re reasonably priced, and they’re made from recycled t-shirts. How cool is that?

(c) Nip and Bones. I love this site, and I (er, the cats) love the toys I’ve gotten from them. Particularly the shaggy ducks and frogs, the kitty boinks, and the mylar balls.

(d) Meowing Deals. Do you know about this site? You get stuff for cats – usually toys, and usually KONG toys, which the cats and kittens ADORE – at a great price. I always get a little bit excited when I see that I have an email from Meowing Deals in my inbox. And I currently have about 300 Kong cat toys in this house. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good deal, especially when it involves cat toys. There’s also Barking Deals, for dog stuff.

8. Pet fountains. These are the pet fountains I have tried: Drinkwell Platinum, Petmate Fresh Flow, Cat-It Fresh & Clear, Pioneer Big Max, and Cat Mate.

Of these, the only fountain I do not recommend is the Cat-It. I was cleaning it and broke the globe within weeks of bringing it home. The Drinkwell and Petmate fountains were what I had in the house for the longest time, and the cats liked and used them just fine. The problem is that they’re made of plastic, and plastic can develop hairline cracks and hold bacteria, which can make your cats sick. So I got the Big Max, which is made of ceramic. I actually got two of them, with the intention of putting one in the upstairs bathroom and one in the laundry room. The one in the laundry room was fine, but the one in the upstairs bathroom didn’t work out because the hum was just too loud – the upstairs bathroom is across the hall from my bathroom, and even though I wear earplugs at night, I could still hear the hum of the fountain. So I sent that one back and looked around some more, and tried the Cat Mate.

The good thing about the Cat Mate: it’s super quiet. The bad thing about the Cat Mate: it’s made of plastic. The good thing about the Cat Mate: It’s dishwasher safe, so (I hope) any bacteria that get on/ in it is taken care of by the dishwasher; I run each Cat Mate through the dishwasher once a week. The other good thing about the Cat Mate: all the cats like it a LOT. The potential bad thing about the Cat Mate: a review I read (after I’d bought a couple) said that the pumps don’t last more than 8 months or so, and the company doesn’t sell replacement pumps. If that’s true, I won’t replace the Cat Mates, because that’s too much to pay for a fountain that only lasts several months.

And that’s all I can think of at the moment.

Now it’s your turn: tell me about cool stuff YOU like and think I might like too!

The Many Faces of Lucy Peppers.

I’m sorry, would you look at that little face? Could you just DIE?

Lucy and Sally, conspiring, while Everett eavesdrops.

“NO you don’t get to hear about how we’re going to rule the world! You go away, Everett!”

One cannot rule the world unless one is properly clean.

“Who, me? Yes, I plan to be a benevolent world ruler. Unless you annoy me then it’s OFF WITH YOUR HEAD.”

“Planning to take over the world is hard. We sleep now with Everett, our evil henchman.”

Solar powered Lucy sticks her ear into the sun for a little extra energy.

“Must. Be. CLEAN.” (Lucy might be a little OCD about the cleanliness.)

“Um, NO. I wasn’t sleeping! I was… um. Not sleeping! Is what I was doing!”

Clove’s pretty sure that one day she’s going to figure out how that camera works.

Sweet, snuggly Cilantro.

I was thinking about Ciara and her nose freckle (god, I love that nose freckle), and I was thinking “You know, I really don’t think she had that freckle when she was wee…” so I had to go back and look…

And FYI, at 4 days old, girlfriend indeed did NOT have that nose freckle!

Nor did she at 9 days old.

At two weeks old, she’s got a bit of darkness under her nose, but it’s not really in the right place, so I’m going to call that a booger or some sort of booger-like material.

Three weeks old, I’m still not seeing it.

Almost four weeks old, definitely not.

Five weeks, the first sight of it.

Six weeks, there it is! See it?

So, there you go. The evolution of Ciara’s nose freckle.

Clove don’t care ’bout no nose freckle.

She really reminds me of Dorothy more than a little.

We really don’t get many squirrels on the side stoop, surprisingly, but this was a day when the bird feeders were getting toward empty, and there is that bowl of cat food on the side porch. Oh, this was driving Sugarbutt crazy – I can only imagine the visions he was having about getting his paws on that squirrel.

That squirrel wasn’t skeered of Sugarbutt, though. Not at all. He was all “I have eaten my fill, I guess I’ll mosey off toward home now.”, and Sugarbutt couldn’t do a thing. Poor Suggie.

Previously
2010: This is Maddy.
2009: Check out all the awesome new Fiesta ware I got in Pennsylvania!
2008: For the record Bill Phillips emus are very violent when you offer them a cup of corn.
2007: No entry.
2006: “You pipple giffs me zee headache.”
2005: God, I love the internet.
2004: Three days into the school year, and I’m sick to death of bus issues.
2003: My weekend can be summed up thusly: long periods of mind-numbing tedium broken with a stretch of horrified disgust, with a soupcon of panic tossed in for good measure.
2002: Maine recap.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

Please pardon any typos. I spent so much time struggling to get pictures uploaded to Flickr that I can’t bear to sit in front of my computer for one more minute. If there are any horrible typos or egregious errors, leave a comment pointing it out and I’ll fix it when I don’t feel like punching my monitor.

I need to ask how you manage with that many cats. I had 4 and my house was a zoo. I tried Feliway and everything else I could think of, but one of the females stopped using the cat box and substituting the couch instead. The two males are gone now, but the little female has never returned reliably to the cat box. She pees there, but poos in the house. I love cats. I would love to foster them, but I really don’t have a clue how to manage them. Do you have any references for me, or could you do a blog entry about how you do it? (all of my cats were neutered, three were kittens when I first got them- over a spread of 13 years, one wandered in at a year old).

Before I go on to discuss how I handle having 347 ridiculous cats in this ridiculous house, I’d like to offer a suggestion regarding the pooping outside the litter box issue. I have only really dealt with this situation once (or more accurately, with one kitten who pooped outside the litter box many times), but the pooping outside the litter box is a great big deal breaker for me and I spent many hours frantically Googling around the internet desperately seeking advice.

When I say that it’s a “deal breaker” for me, what I mean is that it stressed me out like nothing else I have ever had to deal with. Years ago we did have a cat, Mr. Fancypants, who would poop outside the litter box if he was ticked off at us, but he didn’t poop on the couch or our beds or even in the tub, but rather pooped near the litter box, but not IN the litter box. That was, well, not ACCEPTABLE to me, but I could handle it.

This pooping pooper I’m talking about developed a litter box issue caused by diarrhea, which caused him to make a mental link wherein pooping in the litter box = pain, so stopped using the litter box and instead used, oh, the middle of the rug or the end of the couch.

It was delightful.

So I desperately Googled around, looking for ways to fix this issue, and I saw pretty much the same suggestions, which spurred me to give it a try.

Firstly, I am quite sure that you took Poopin’ Petunia to the vet to make sure that she has no medical issues. But just in case you fell off the feline turnip truck, I’m putting it out there.

Now, assuming that she’s perfectly healthy according to the vet, this is what you do. You decide on a small room in your house where you can relocate the pooper for several days – a bathroom is the perfect size for this. You put the cat, her litter box, and her food and water in the bathroom. And then you keep her in there for at least three days. She’s not going to be happy about this, and neither are you. It SUCKS. (Side note: I highly recommend using Cat Attract litter while doing this, too. Might not help, but then again it might – and it certainly doesn’t hurt.)

Most of the places where I read this suggestion said that you only go into the room to scoop the litter box and to check the food and water a few times a day; otherwise you don’t go into the room at all. This didn’t work for me, because the cat I was retraining to use the litter box was a SUPER love bug and it was driving us both crazy to just leave him in there without giving him all the love he was desperate for. Instead, I went into the room several times a day, sat with him and told him what a great cat he was, etc etc.

The first day he was kept in the bathroom, he didn’t poop in the litter box. The second and third, he did. I made a big fuss over him every time I scooped the litter box and found that he’d used it; I told him how smart he was and petted and kissed him like crazy. At the end of the third day, I opened the door to the bathroom and invited him out into the rest of the house. Unfortunately, he pooped on the rug a few hours later, which necessitated a trip back into the bathroom for a couple of days.

At the end of day two, we moved him up to the foster room (which is bigger than the bathroom, of course) to see how he did. He did fine, used the litter box okay, and then we started giving him access to the rest of the house for longer and longer periods of time. In the end, he was retrained to use the litter box completely (THANK GOD) and except for a couple of accidents caused by stupid things that were completely the fault of the humans rather than the fault of the cat, there were no more problems.

So if you have the room and the inclination, I would highly recommend that you give the litter box retraining a try.

Now, as for how to handle fosters, all I can tell you is how I do it.

I have a room dedicated to the fosters. Well. I actually kind of have two rooms dedicated to the fosters at the moment, but that second room is technically the guest bedroom and isn’t actually supposed to be dedicated to fosters, but it’s not like we kicked guests out of the room to put fosters there, right?

But that’s not really the point. Let’s just say: I have a room dedicated to the fosters. This is important because when you first bring a litter of fosters home, they need to be contained not only because they’re usually little and maybe a bit wild, but also because you need to make sure they have nothing communicable before you allow them around your permanent residents. Even if they seem to be 100% healthy when you first bring them home and even if they had a fecal check done by a vet that showed no parasites and EVEN if they have perfect little poops at first, at our house right around day four or five they start with the diarrhea, no matter what.

(If you’re going to foster, get used to looking at a lot of poop and determining what to do about the diarrhea. I think that I’ve had perhaps one litter in my entire fostering career that didn’t have any diarrhea, but I can’t guarantee that that’s so.)

Our fosters have to be sequestered for, at rock-bottom minimum, two weeks before we’d ever consider letting them out into the house – and usually it’s longer because even if they’re perfectly healthy, many times they’re really too small or too nervous to let out into the house. The good thing is that even though they’re off in their own room, our cats know that there are fosters in the house (because on the rare occasion that there are no fosters in the house, I leave the foster room door open because a couple of the cats really like to hang out in that room) and they can smell them through the crack under the door and on my clothes. So even though they’re not face to face with the fosters, they know they’re there, and they get used to their smell.

Once we’ve determined that the fosters are healthy and old enough to be let out of the foster room, we open the door and allow them limited access to more of the house – the foster room is at the end of the hallway upstairs, and Fred built a door that goes across the other end of the hallway so that we can open the foster room door and they have access to the upstairs bathroom and my bedroom in addition to the foster room. We let them have that for a few days (until we’re tired of hearing Jake and Elwood scrabble their way over the hallway half-door to get to the kitten food in the foster room), and then at some point we fling the half-door open and start giving them access to the rest of the house.

Some of the permanent residents don’t think twice about the fact that there’s a flood of new kittens running around the house. Some of them get all hissy and hysterical. Most of the hissy ones adjust within a couple of days, as long as the kittens don’t get too much up in their space. Occasionally one of the big cats gets a little too aggressive, and Fred or I steps in to break it up.

When they first get the run of the house, we take the fosters back upstairs to the foster room a couple of times a day so they can remember where the litter boxes, water, and food is located, but they usually figure it out pretty quickly on their own.

Annnnnd… that’s all I can think of at the moment. If you have any questions, Jan (or anyone else), feel free to ask!

I am sorry to confess to y’all that Harlan Peppers is not, in fact, named after Harlan Pepper from Best in Show. (Though I’ll admit that it’s not outside the realm of possibility that it was a subconscious sort of thing.) He’s also not named after the four-man band from Canada. He got that name just ’cause I liked the sound of it.

The Many Faces of Molly Peppers.

Contemplative.

Unconcerned.

“No, we’re not sitting over here talking about you, why do you ask?”

“This is a private meeting and you were not invited. Please leave before I call Security.”

Annoyed.

Bored.

Dopey from the sun.

Supermodel.

Making you jealous with her gorgeous stripes.

Snuggling with her boys.

Warning: Kitten totally cannot hold her licker.

Jake on his platform in the kitchen.

Elwood on his platform in the front room. Those boys sure do love their platforms!

Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: So, the boat.
2008: No entry.
2007: six cats (permanently living in the house) are our limit. (Famous last words!)
2006: And you know when I’m saying it’s hot, it must be like burning in the flames of Hell.
2005: I’m going to kill my husband.
2004: “THIS IS NOT THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL,” I said. “THIS IS THE SIDE.”
2003: No entry.
2002: Stop making those gagging noises.
2001: Is it just me, or does Mother Nature not like it when the spud or I fly?
2000: No entry.

Those of you who use Google Chrome as a browser, have you suddenly lost the ability to bring up the “search” box by hitting CTRL-F, or is it just me?

I had originally intended to work in the garden this morning, but given that we had a decent amount of rain yesterday, it’s going to be a muddy mess out there, so I find that I have no particular desire to work out there today. Maybe tomorrow. Or MAYBE not ’til this weekend!

We lost a couple of tomato plants in the storm last week, I think I mentioned that. The tomato plants we have left don’t appear to be too terribly happy with their lot in life. I fertilized them over the weekend and then we got a little rain Sunday and a little more yesterday afternoon and last night. Maybe they’ll perk up, maybe not. We’ll see. Except for the corn, it hasn’t been a particularly great garden season, that’s for sure.

The cucumbers played out in the last week or so, so I yanked the plants up on Sunday. Right now all we’ve got going are some cantaloupes, watermelon, tomatoes, and the butternut and acorn squash Fred recently planted. I’m past due for getting my cabbage started, but I have been feeling unmotivated, to say the least. I also need to pull up the rest of the carrots in my raised bed.

Meh. That’s how I feel about that: meh.

We’re still getting cherry tomatoes, and I see some blooms on the big tomato plants, so the garden isn’t quite dead and gone just yet.

The cantaloupes and watermelon did so well this year that we’re talking about using a large area behind the back yard (where there used to be a pond before we stupidly paid someone to fill it in a couple of years ago) to grow watermelon and cantaloupes exclusively next year. Whatever we don’t eat, the pigs and chickens will happily take care of for us.

Speaking of, when I picked tomatoes on Saturday, I got more tomatoes that were split or had holes in them than those that weren’t. Split, half-rotten, half-eaten and otherwise blemished tomatoes go to the chickens (unless I’m looking through my tomato harvest in the house, in which case any tomatoes that aren’t up to par go into the pig bucket). Pigs and chickens love the hell out of produce from the garden. I need to take the camera out with me next time I toss some tomatoes to the chickens, because it’s awfully funny to see chickens grabbing tomatoes and running away with them so that the other chickens won’t get them.

The Peppers Gang is doing well. They still flinch when I reach for them (which I hate – don’t they know by now that I only want to pet and kiss them??), but if they’re on the cat tree when I walk into the room, they sit up and peep at me and clearly want me to come over and pet them. If I lay down on the bed and talk to them, they’ll all eventually come from the cat tree to the bed. I’d say they’re definitely coming around.

Harlan Peppers, as some of you pointed out, does bear a certain resemblance to Corbie. You know I love me some brown tabbies!

The Many Moods of Harlan Peppers.

Contemplating that he’s got an awful lot of ear floof for a little guy.

Snuggling happily with Lucy and Sally.

Warming his ear floof in the sun.

“I am but a wee baby kitteh who needs you to give me pettins, why are you all the way over theeeeeeere?”

Sleeping smugly.

Getting ready to give Molly Peppers a whoopin’ for being so forward.

Making plans to take over the world.

Making plans to take over the food bowl.

Making plans to make plans.

Best! Box! Everrrrrrrrrrr!

“I do find this box rawther awesome.”

“This is a most excellent box.”

“Also, tasty.”

I sure wish we could figure out a way to calm Ciara down. She’s so STRESSED, it breaks my heart. Do they make Valium for cats?

Attila, I knew that if I skipped reminding y’all for one measly week, you’d completely FORGET who the MOST BEAUTIFUL CAT EVERRRRRR is. So here you go. Maybe you should make a note somewhere so you’ll be reminded every day. I’d hate for you to forget again!

(He’s helpless against the siren call of the Best! Box! Ever!)

Previously
2010: Yep, I’m in Pennsylvania visiting Nance and the gang.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: So I squished her.
2006: Hey, as long as she’s going to be an adult about it, right?
2005: “WAIT FOR THE BUS,” I said, then hung up.
2004: I do love the stumpy little bastard, but I wish he hadn’t killed that poor damn bird.
2003: No entry.
2002: Finally, I said “Would you CALM DOWN? I’m not going to divorce Fred and marry the cute waiter. Jesus!”
2001: (Dr. Phil likes to go for the sound bites and has drama queen tendencies, but I love him)
2000: Pictures from Maine.

The question-answering entry I’d planned for Friday, before the internet went down for a day and a half, will be up on Monday. But so that you don’t have to wait to meet the new guys….

Here they are. I’ll introduce them to you one by one in Monday’s entry, but here’s the whole group for now.

There are five of them, obviously.

The silver tabby is a girl, the brown tabby is a boy, and there’s one black boy and two black girls. I’m going to get collars for the black girls so I can tell them apart (and the boy will be identifiable due to the fact that he won’t be wearing a collar). Though, I can kind of tell the girls apart because one of them is ever so slightly cross-eyed (that’s her on the far right).

They’re eight weeks old tomorrow. They were hissy-spitty when I first got them, but they’re starting to calm down. The black boy is a talker. The silver tabby is a feisty little thing.

A pregnant cat showed up on a man’s doorstep. He fed her, and then when he realized she was pregnant, he brought her inside. She gave birth to these five kittens and he’s been caring for them. But he was about to go for neck surgery and wasn’t going to be able to continue caring for them all, so through a friend of a friend, they came to Challenger’s House. (He’s going to keep the mom.)

Since Ciara and the Spice Girls are ready to go when room becomes available at Petsmart, I decided we had room for these guys!

I’ll let y’all ponder what their individual names might be, but I can tell you that they’re not named after types of peppers (Bell, Ghost, Habanero would be good kitten names, though) and they’re actually not really named after anyone in particular (well, kind of, but I’ll explain that to you when I introduce them properly).

As you can tell, Ciara, Clove, Coriander, and Cilantro are super-worried that they can’t get into that guest bedroom!

Actually, for the first day or so, they sat outside the guest bedroom, all “Why can’t we go in there? Why do you hate us? Whyyyyyy?”, but after a few days they seem to have forgotten that the guest bedroom is there (though if I spend too much time in the room with the little ones, I open the door to find seven cats sitting in the hallway waiting for me to come out!)

Sugarbutt, hanging out on the platform between the kitchen and laundry room, trying to stay cool.

Previously
2010: Oh, I crack myself UP with that picture.
2009: I like how he thinks he has any choice in the matter.
2008: Meet Michele the chicken!
2007: (Miz Poo, upon seeing me pick up a fly swatter and walk toward her, whines and runs away. Like I beat her spoiled ass on a regular basis! I don’t, but I oughta. She deserves it.)
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: The morning I wake up and find a cricket in bed with me is the day I start closing the cat door at night, believe you me.
2003: I HAVE THINGS TO DO THAT CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH A PORTLY POO IN THE WAY.
2002: No entry.
2001: Yeah, like YOU don’t have a voice in your head that reads things to you…
2000: No entry.