It seems my husband has made pretty decent progress in socializing the kittens!
He spent some time in the sun room, with the outer doors open, this morning, and got all sorts of visits. Doom Guy is quite happy with attention now, and even Corvo isn’t immediately running away.
Before I started working on cleaning up the old dog house for the cats, I made a point of sitting in the sun room for a while, so they could get used to me, as well.
Someone else was very interested.
DahBoy likes to sit at the bathroom window to watch whoever is in the sun room. Including the outside cats!
I went in and out to top up the bird seed, and found Doom Guy lolling on the ground in front of the sun room. He even played with my fingers.
I put a bit of cat food on the floor to tempt the kitties, then sat on my late father’s favorite chair to see who would show up.
The answer is. all but one of them! Only one of the calico torties came over.
Corvo is now willing to at least come close to me while going by, even if he won’t let me touch him. He was having fun chasing the flies on the window.
Doom Guy even joined me on the chair. <3 Such a cutie!
Even the moms came out while I was working on the dog house.
When I finished with the dog house, I went back inside through the sun room, and found this.
Doom Guy has claimed my butt spot! He was snoozing when I came in and startled him, but he didn’t leave his spot. :-D
This one, at least, has gone from “semi-feral” to “semi-domesticated.” :-D
Well, today was certainly a productive day outside!
I decided to see how much I could get done on the old kitchen garden today, and ended up finishing the job! So I’m happy. :-)
When I came out of the house, I startled cats in all directions, including that new grey ball of fluff. A few of them even hung around while I moved things around the garden to prepare.
My husband has taken on the morning feeding of the outside cats, so I haven’t been getting photos of them coming out early in the day. The kittens are getting used to him, I’m told, and have started to come running when he fills their bowls.
Every now and then, though, the kittens come back, sneaking around us, to get to the food bowls.
Corvo is most amusing.
He now goes straight to laying half his body right in the bowl, and even rolls around in the kibble, pushing away any other kittens coming over.
Here we have Corvo, Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern), Jim, and Bob.
Bob is the teeny tabby. So named, because his body is so small compared to his head, he looks like a bobble head toy.
He is filling out, though, which is a relief.
Doom Guy and Guildenstern (or Rosencrantz) didn’t make a showing this time, but when I came out later, these four were still there.
Still completely ignoring the second food bowl. :-D
We’ve spotted a couple of new cats lately. One, an adult grey and white, gets referred to as “dad cat”, because we’re guessing he might be the father of one of our litters.
Then there’s an all grey ball of fluff, about the same size as Corvo and Doom Guy. While my husband was in the sun room today, he left the door open and tempted some kittens in. This grey came by, but didn’t stay (though Dhoom Guy spent about an hour, curled up in his arms!).
I just went out to leave some roasting pan juices for the cats, startling kittens in all directions. As they came back to investigate the smells, I finally got to see the grey.
That’s the best photo I could get of him, though! :-D
We are wondering if these other cats are coming over from my brother’s place, as he has his own collection of outside cats, and his place is the closest with anyone living in it.
I hope we see more of them, wherever they come from. :-)
I’m told there’s a tangential story behind this name. I don’t know what it is. :-D
Jim wasn’t too keen on me coming closer to get his photo, and kept moving around. From here, though, you can see the “platform” the cats like to sit on, to look into the kitchen. This is where this tree had been cut down before. There are also places where I can see larger branches had been cut down, too. And yet, in a remarkably short time, when it comes to growth speed of trees, it is once again overhanging the roof.
Which is why we have decided that it’s going to need to come down completely, to protect the house.
While that will solve one serious problem, taking it down is also going to loose a lot of the shade it provides, which is why it was planted there in the first place.
It also means taking away one of the cats’ favorite spots.
I’m still entertaining the thought of leaving a trunk tall enough to make it a table.
Spotted out the kitchen window, while making lunch.
I know we’re going to have to take this tree down, to protect the house, but when that does eventually happen, I’m going to miss watching the cats playing in it.
I try to do a walk around the yard every evening, while there’s still light enough to see, and just check on things. The inside cats tend to different windows as I do. The mama cat likes to sit in windows and meow at me, while DahBoy likes to sit quietly and just look at the other cats.
Last night, I got to see this. :-D
Doom Guy, checking out DahBoy. He hung out there and played at the bottom of the door for a while, but wouldn’t let me do much more than touch him, while I was sitting on the concrete and he went under my legs.
Tonight, I was away for much of the day, meeting with my older brother and his wife in the town where my mom is in the hospital, driving to the airport to see our relative off as he returns to Poland, then going to see my mom at the hospital. She was asleep, so we let her be. She is healing well and, if they can get home care worked out, we expect her to be going home on Monday.
So it was pretty late before I got home. After supper, I took a walk around the yard again. Butterscotch came out and started following me, trying to rub against my legs as I walked, so of course she got kicked in the head a couple of times. :-/
It looks like the kittens have been sheltering in where the old wood pile used to be, and where Butterscotch took her kittens for a while. As I came around the house, I could see some kittens by the old dog house there. Doom Guy, the tuxedo, was barely visible in the half light. Much to my delight, he came right up to me, and not only accepted pets, but seemed to want to be picked up. So I did, and he started to purr and enjoy being petted. He was even okay with me continuing to walk with him in my arms!
I was so thrilled!
Eventually, I let him down near the food bowls, then sat in the chair by the sun room. The other kittens had come out and were running around, climbing the arm rail by my mother’s white rose bush, and generally being very entertaining. I took lots of photos, but the light was just too low for any of them to turn out. I hoped some of the other cats would maybe come by, so I just stayed in the chair with my phone handy. Only the tuxedo would come up to me, but not for pets. He tried to climb up my leg a couple of times, and another, jumped up can clawed my butt through the back of the chair! I’m glad he’s more comfortable around me, but I didn’t expect it to be so painful! :-D
Then I heard a noise and looked over to see…
… that’s…
… not a cat.
Nope. It was a skunk, ambling towards me as if I wasn’t even there!
Doom Guy started hissing at it, and the skunk stopped and lifted its tail. There I sat, trying to take pictures (they didn’t really turn out), thinking, “I’m about to get sprayed…” over and over!
The skunk, of course, won the battle of wills, the kittens all ran off, and the skunk continued to amble over to the food bowls.
As soon as it started eating, it was a confirmation for me. Many a night, I’d hear a strange crunching sound outside my office window. It was not the same noise the cats make when they eat, but any time I looked, I could see nothing. I thought it might be a skunk, and now I know for sure.
It’s so cute!
Which means that those shallow holes I’m finding in the yard, that I thought might be a skunk digging for grubs, were probably made by this little guy.
I’ve read that skunks can be very friendly, make good pets, and are very cat like. We’re not about to make a pet out of this one, but I certainly don’t mind it being around.
As long as the cats don’t bother it and cause it to spray! :-D
One of the things we like to do is leave the inner doors open, so our cats can look outside. The outer door at the main entry has a window almost all the way to the bottom, at the perfect height for them to sit and look out. The step outside, however, is lower than the floor, so the cats outside have to make more effort to look in.
As I walked past this morning, I heard DahBoy making some noise at the door. He was batting at the bottom of the window, where I could just see the top of a head and front paws of another tuxedo, batting back! :-D
Seeing this, I decided to grab some cat treats and see if I could convince some kittens to come close.
With the rain we’ve had lately, my usual places to sit are on the damp side, so I opened up the sun room, leaving a trail of treats, to see if any would come in.
Of the kittens that did come out, all but one of them eventually came into the sun room!
Doom Guy, the tuxedo, was quick to go inside, though he was not willing to let me pet him today. While I saw the bigger orange tabby around, only the teeny tabby stuck around. Only one of the calico-tories showed up.
This is the closest Rosencrantz or Gildenstern has come near me in ages!
Corvo, the grey, came in, but was more about checking things out than having treats.
He was the only one to actually start climbing around, going up onto my dad’s chair. It’s a rocker, so I’m a bit surprised he’d go onto something that moves. He also started to push his way into the cube shelf, knocking out a spare insect zapping racket in the process, and scaring himself out of the room! :-D
Even the teeny tabby came in, but not much farther than the doorway.
I’ve left the outside doors to the sun room open for now. There were still treats on the floor, and I figure my not being there would let the shier kittens have more of a chance to get some.
The Re-Farmer 