Perimeter patrol

My cat ownership goes back to my college days, and I've never permitted a cat on a counter.

At the old house some cats were hell bent on hitting the counter when the two leggers were done in the kitchen. Purrl was an awful offender, looking for the last splatter.

Toby had Purrl to show him how to do it, but was never interested.

The first time I saw Toby in this window he raised two paws and said, "You caught me, but it's the only south facing window I can reach. Don't take it away from me."

And, I haven't.

As you can tell, he did have a job to do up here. Something has his attention. He is all purpose.

Watching him settle in is worth the price of admission.

Of all our treasures up there, 

only the bird moved.

Look at that tail, just so, around the butterfly, under the bird.

And look at those ears! Something he must know about is happening on the street.

The responsibilities of an indoor cat

This is Purrl, our last indoor/outdoor cat.

He was fourteen years old when he departed last January.

Purrl was the last of a long line of indoor/outdoor cats who took the business of rodent eradication (and the occasional bird) seriously.

This is Toby.

He takes his job of surveillance equally seriously.

Like a general with no army.

Toby is not so sure about outdoors.

He two excursions between the legs of a grocery laden two footer coming in the door have been stopped short by "Where do you think you're going, young man! Get back in the house!"

And Toby obediently trotted back up the ramp and into the house.

Even the mice he has waylaid have not inflamed his desire for more from the outdoors, which they smell of. 

Toby simply comes into the living room with the butt and tail of the evidence protruding from his lips,

and a completely unharmed but greatly startled mouse is deposited on the railing when Toby is carried out and instructed, "Drop it."

Toby sits in the window watching my handicapped bird at the feeder.

The bird is not a sparrow, but a house finch. Watching it up close (and it lets me within a couple feet of it), the bird's wings are deformed, the cause of the hovercraft style of locomotion.

Toby keeps track of the finch through the studio window.

And the chipmunks, squirrels, and doves on the ground, and the incessent squadrons of birds at the feeders.

And then there are the chipmunks. 

Without Purrl, we have companies of chipmunks in residence.

They completely ignore Toby,

who, in retalliation, ignores them as completely.

Toby deigns to overtly betray his presence to the little intruders.

See how perfectly they understand each other!

The appearance of the "Neighborhood Cat" however,

and the chipmunk disappears 

and Toby flys from window to window to let Neighborhood Cat know this house is completely defended by the indoor cat.

Toby, a retrospective and an achievement

Facebook sent me a picture yesterday of one of the few things I've posted there, a picture of Toby the day he came home, four years ago. I titled the picture "Lucky Kitty."

My friend Carol and I were on a two day excursion to the Three Rivers Art Festival in Pittsburgh, to visit Linda and Cara, exhibiting there, and do some shopping. Back at the motel the first night everyone heard a kitten in the bushes, in distress. No one could locate or capture it.

The next morning there stood a young girl holding the struggling kitten. The kitty app on her phone brought it straight to her, one quick nab and he was hers. Then the girl's mother was in distress; she learned the Humane Society did not open until ten and she wanted to be on the road long before then. "I'll take him," I said.

The kitten had no energy left for hissing, spitting and clawing, only to struggle to be free. Carol and I gave up all thought of a second day at the fair, and started home. The little guy and I spent two hours in a hand over hand battle. He squeezed high enough in one hand to escape and I fastened the other around him. And yes, he still howled a tiny kitten howl.

At home he fell on a bowl of kibble softened with water, drank a lot of water and climbed the quilt to sleep in my bed. I took him to the vet the next day, where he was pronounced barely four weeks old and lucky to be alive. I started a blog the same day, and my first post was about the Lucky Kitty, whose name became Toby.

Of course we take far more pictures of the babies than of the growing children. Here is the kitty his first summer, 2011.

Toby had two stepbrothers to annoy. Purrl was the outdoor cat who avoided Toby.

Ryon was the indoor cat, who he could easily annoy, especially in Ryon's safe and secret place on top of a dresser in a closet.

Ryon and Toby got along for the most part, especially as timid Ryon abdicated the catbird seat to Toby.

Yes, Toby, there is a Santa Claus.

That's the end of kitten pictures, and I had so many to select from!

He had so much energy, I bought him a gross of ping pong balls.

They were fun for quite a while,

but went on a high shelf when they weren't quite enough fun.

He has located the basketfull, and when the last little white globe disappears under a cupboard, or under the basement door and down the stairs, he merely climbs the quilt display in the studio and forks himself another from the basket.

He's more mature now. Here he is at breakfast with Laura, but only to keep her company. He will not accept table food and ignores any tidbit left in his bowl. My brother-in-law grumbles, "He won't eat real food!" He does appear from nowhere to lick the empty tuna can, however.

He still monitors the neighborhood,

and the studio,

and the front door, where he has perfected "The Lean."

He still begs for leaves every fall,

and has turned into our live-in flycatcher. No fly enters our house and lives.

Imagine Jan's surprise the other night. Toby trotted from the studio, head high. He was prevented from making the "Look what I caught!" squeak by the tail and hind feet of a mouse protruding from his mouth.  Jan called, he trotted proudly up. She picked him up, carried him outdoors and set him on the deck rail.

Not the outdoors! This cat has the same opinion of the outdoors as of table food.. It is not good. He dropped the mouse, in shock, and was rewarded by being put back in the house.

The mouse eventually left, scampered under the ramp and disappeared. Lucky for him, Purrl is on mouse patrol in cat heaven.

Birds du jour

Weather west of the Mississippi is heartlessly rolling over us.

It's cold.

Without gloves or hat I took the camera and tripod out

to discover useful things about photographing these birds.

Today's results, in the order they came out of the camera:

A chickadee, taking away a seed from the ground.

A tufted titmouse. There were several of these today.

They were very, very wary.

A finch, eyeing me from above.

Another chickadee, on Laura's favorite feeder.

The feeder was presented free, a nice gesture after we made their day at the bird store.

Laura could select from red, green or blue.

She took the blue bird feeder.

She says bluebird feeder.

The titmouse. I'm too close, he left.

My wonderful little flying pigs.

They look like so many piglets. I count eight.

Finches, that is.

Three more flying pigs, waiting a turn.

I heard doves, and an obnoxious blue jay sat in a tree across the street, crying danger, danger, danger most of the hour I sat and froze. It certainly did not add to the titmouse's comfort level.

I expect we also will have several varieties of woodpecker, juncos, nuthatches, cardinals. Already I've also watched fat chipmunks and squirrels filling their cheeks with seeds from the ground. I believe we have a going enterprise here.

We fed the birds for several years, long ago, but quit because our indoor/outdoor cats took advantage, as they would. Now only old Purrl is an outdoor cat, a mighty stiff legged old cat who brings home the occasional mouse, and is no longer a terror to the increasingly fat chipmunks hurrying about on chipmunk business.

Only the robin worm feeder is a disappointment. I'll have Laura put the worms in the compost pile and we'll begin again with orange slices, to see if there are any takers. And, for tomorrow I have a story about worms and Laura's  mother.

Cats

Our cat population dwindles; we’re down to the old man, Purrl, and Toby, the two year old parking lot kitten.  Ryon, the silver and grey tabby, took an afternoon nap on the sofa last January, and didn’t wake up.

Toby misses Ryon’s ear licking.  Toby licks my arm and rubs his ears on the spot.  Poor fella; I’m not about to lick his ears, although I will scratch them until he hollers Uncle!

Toby hasn’t asked for a new kitten, which shows good judgment on his part. Until all these grandchildren came to fuss him up, we had the luxury of a bedroom for cats plus two guest bedrooms.  Now the box is hidden away upstairs, and sometimes Toby races up those stairs just as fast as a little kid who played outside too long.

We had a cat door and still do, but it was stoppered up while Purrl was in his adolescence, after a couple of unfortunate raccoon visits to the cat and dog food bowls.  Purrl and his late brother, Jazz, learned to ask at the door to come and go.

Ryon was the next foundling we took in, and Jan deemed him an indoor cat.  He was six or eight months when we got him, and an indoor cat.  He came for his looks; we didn’t think he could outsmart the great outdoors and certainly not the hawk rookery that has been established across the road these last ten years.  Ryon was always on the look out to make a break, but the several times he escaped he was back in a few hours, to go to the bathroom and get his supper.

Toby came as a four week kitten, a certain hawk treat if he left home.  In spite of the coming and going of Purrl and an occasional escape by Ryon, Toby has no interest in the outdoors. Perhaps after that pitiful night he cried away in a parking lot in Pittsburgh he knows out is not place to be.  He’s the inside man.

Today Grandma’s Gardeners pulled a few weeds and spread a lot more mulch.  Toby looked on from one of his windows.

Purrl generally sleeps on the gravel under the studio window, but I didn’t see him when we started on that side of the porch.  Then there he was, under the peony bush.  I called and he did not move.  Not a whisker. My heart sank.

Laura came over.  “Purrl, get out of there.”  The old fool came out and got a belly rub from Laura, while Hamilton put mulch under the peony.  The he went back and resumed his nap.

Cat Rules

There are two evening laps in the family.  One belongs to Janice, one to me.  On winter evenings cats sit on laps, and these two laps also feature flannel quilts.

Jan’s lap belongs first to Purrl.  Because he never acknowledged Toby, Purrl remains the superior cat.  Purl is Toby’s mystery cat, who goes outside occasionally in the winter, most of the time in the summer, and comes in bringing exquisite smells that almost overpower Toby.

Toby begins most evenings at the bottom of Jan’s lap and her flannel quilt.  This is merely to let Purrl know Toby exists and may challenge him for top of the lap some day.  But not tonight.  The bottom is not very comfortable and Toby leaves, generally sooner than later.  He just had a point to make.

Toby moves to the lap he can occupy for the rest of the evening.  My lap.  It generally also contains knitting, but I accommodate him. 

 He cannot resist wool yarn.  He is very polite if I am attached to the other end of the ball; he feels it move under his paws or through his mouth.  Rather like a little kid.  Which he is.  If I leave knitting unattended overnight or during the day, stand aside.  He tears into it, chasing the ball around chair legs, through the living room, down the kitchen, over and under until he runs out of action.  I’ve spent a few evenings untangling his work to turn it into my work.

At last he falls asleep.  He sleeps hard, like a little kid.  I can work my knitting in my lap for the rest of the evening, not held close to my chest.

I occasionally lean over to admire his whiskers.  They are magnificent.  But I have a high regard for this little charmer.

Are you looking at me?  I’m outta here, too.  And he moves to the top of the chair.  He doesn’t care how lucky he was to be found in a parking lot.

Holy whiteout, Batman

My ends are pretty loose in this run up to the next hearing.  Flipping my calendar pages to find something else I realized the magistrate also set a trial date, if needed, for March 21^st.    I’m visualizing not needing that one!

Ann emailed yesterday to let me know they lost Bandit.  He flashed across my mind this morning, thumping along on three legs, shoulder to shoulder with Herman.  Well, shoulder to kneecap, Herman hopping up and down to shout in Bandit’s ear. They knew each other only briefly at Ann’s, but they were vivid in my mind’s eye this morning.

January has been tough on pets.  We lost Jan’s buddy Ryon on the Sunday of Epiphany.  I wonder about him, too.  He did not leave the basket on my dresser if there were strangers in the house or too many feet on the floor.  The grandkids would crowd into my closet to entice him out of the basket.  That Sunday he was napping on the sofa.  Jan looked up when she heard his claws unhook from the fabric.  Ryon rolled over and was dead.  Heart attack?  Stroke?  Aneurism?  He got a brand new pillowcase and is buried in the cat graveyard.

Toby kitty took a few days, but has settled into being the number one indoor cat.  Purrl only knows there is one less cat accosting him at the door.

I just hate snow!

On the other hand, I don’t go out in it, and it is lovely falling down so.

I hope you’re reading this, Jan

I was putting the wrap on last night when the sound of Toby attacking the coat tree to have Tom’s hat for his own came from the living room.  Turning on lights as I went, instead I found Ryon’s great behind sticking out of the waving stand of walking sticks crashing and clattering over his head.

“Get out of there!”  He backed out immediately, pursuing a very small mouse that moved along the wall’s edge like a wind-up toy, no visible legs.  I cursed quietly, not to wake up sleeping girls, and headed for the kitchen for a towel to drop over the little fellow.  Taking mental cat inventory, Purrl was out all evening, so I didn’t have him to blame.  There would be only two cats and me after this mouse.

The nimble left this grandma long ago; I could not move furniture or myself fast enough, or elbow two cats out of the way soon enough to capture a very young mouse that already knew rule one of houses:  hug the wall.  Twenty minutes in I wished for Purrl, who knows exactly how to dispatch a varmint. These two house softies were all wound up with a magnificent toy.

In the end I left the mouse to his own devices and went to bed.  It was midnight.  At six I woke up and saw Emily in the hall.  Behaving the good grandmother I asked if she wanted me to drive her to the corner and wait for the school bus.  “I’m OK, Grandma.  It’s not raining.” God love that little girl; I went back sleep.

I got up at seven and found Laura eating breakfast.  She put down her spoon and told me her adventure.  Toby had a mouse on her bed at midnight!  She grabbed the mouse tail to get it away and Toby bit her and grabbed the mouse again.  She hit Toby on the head with her book, but he ran away with the mouse.  She shut her door and went back to bed.  But Ryon scratched the door until she let him in.  He didn’t want petted so she let him out and shut the door and went back to bed.

There was no sign of a wound on Laura’s finger, but Grandma sent her to wash her hands really well, again, and went to the door to let Purrl in.  When I turned around, I read Emily’s note on the blackboard.

Then Laura and I drove to the corner in the pouring rain to wait for the school bus.

Table talk with Purrl

Get down

Get down

Go away

I can't feed you from the table when someone is looking

No fatal attraction

Our studio was added onto our house sometime in the sixties, and like the rest of the house, has plenty of windows.  The north facing windows are high above the ground and overlook our little ravine and stream.  The south window received that standard of mid-century modern, a picture window.  Flanked by two additional windows.

(Grass like shredded wheat this summer.)

All the years we were weavers there weren’t any bird vs. window incidents of note.  Perhaps because there were sunflowers and other goodies in the garden below the window birds stopped short of the big window.

But last summer, as Jan was quilting, she heard a major THUMP behind her, at the window.  She went out to look, and found a woodpecker on the ground.  Alive, but completely comatose.  She couldn’t leave him.  Purrl would have put some puncture wounds in the fellow, just to carry him to the door and let us know he’d moved up from dropping live chipmunks at our feet.

She was standing in the front yard, holding the poor fellow, when I came home and went straight for the camera.

She stood and held him for perhaps half an hour.  Woodie opened his eyes once, then settled snugly in to recover by hand.

There was nothing to be done that we knew of, bird concussions not in our repertoire. He needed to go somewhere to recover.

How to put him in a tree was a problem.  Woodpeckers cling to the sides of trees and don’t perch, as far as we know.

Jan put him first in the tulip tree.  It’s still a bush and dense, like a nest.  He seemed quite comfy, but it was not beyond Purrl height, so she took him out back to the cottonwood tree and put him in a comfy crook.  She went back to check in a quarter hour and he was gone.