The House of Two Tabbies

November 21, 2024February 4, 2025 / Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

I’ve been doing everything in my power lately to ignore the fact that an aged crude, racist, sexist, criminal now runs the country where I live. And worse, that many people I know and love probably voted for the crumbum. (Thanks to Uncle Archie for that word.)

So Just for Fun to escape the news–Here is the update on our estranged tabbies. Just like your relatives, they disagree on most everything. And just like your relatives, they don’t get along.

But progress has been made. (See The Cute Cat Post for the beginning of the story.)

The cold nights have forced Tommy Orange to come inside. On the cold rainy days he doesn’t want to go outside, but he isn’t quite ready to be a house cat either. He’s in transition–unhappy in both places and quite grouchy. A far cry from the sweet lovable cat we adopted. Perhaps he just hates November too?

It’s generally an uneasy truce, with one going high and one going low. When they meet, it could be a hiss, or a swipe of paws, or a full chase around the house with Tommy O. usually ending on the bed.

But there have been some bright spots: the blanket sliding down on the slippery couch to put them together; Mini refusing to concede her spot on the bed and jumping up on it regardless; and the two of them sleeping cuddled next to me for more than an hour. I confess to using that excuse to extend my Sunday afternoon nap.

Mostly, we spend a lot of time being referees. Mini eats her special expensive Lamb cat food, mixed with immune support vitamins and probiotics in the kitchen. Tommy O. gets his cheap kibble in the bedroom. Mini covets his kibble and sneaks in to eat it every chance she gets. He could care less. He’s also uninterested in her expensive food; perhaps because he eats the real meat of mice, chipmunks, and moles every evening. But just yesterday, he was in the kitchen eating her food, while she was in the bedroom eating his. It’s enough to make the cat parents give up and say Whatever….

We purchased a rather expensive cat door for Tommy Orange. It fits into the bedroom window that goes out on to the covered back porch, and it was for him to go in and out the window as he chooses. The makers of the window (Cat Flap Fever) have been emailing me, asking for a review, which I would do if either cat had actually used it on their own. The only time either one has used it has been when we have stood there with them and opened the flap. Perhaps they are extraordinarily stupid? It’s been two weeks now, and Tommy shows little interest in using it.

There is one thing they do agree on–the sunny carpet is a good place for an afternoon truce.

DIY Cleaners, Cleansers, and Creams: Simple recipes that really work

October 14, 2024 / Apple Hill Cottage

When I wrote that post Every Day Is Earth Day I thought maybe later I’ll post some DIY recipes that I use all the time. So almost a year and a half has gone by… But today, I actually made a new batch of deodorant. I usually have to make it about 2 or 3 times a year. It’s pretty easy, after you gather the ingredients, and it only takes about 20 minutes. So I took photos. And here’s the recipe.

Homemade Deodorant

(This recipe is adapted from wellnessmama.com and almost the exact recipe is also here on Revive)

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Coconut Oil

3 Tbsp Baking Soda

2 Tbsp Shea Butter

1-2 Tbsp grated Bees Wax

2 Tbsp Arrowroot or Cornstarch

Essential Oils (optional, but unless you are allergic to scents, please use them…)

Directions:

1. Melt Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Beeswax in a double boiler over medium heat until barely melted; OR use a can instead and place this in a small saucepan of water until melted. I save my can for every time I make deodorant–I store the bees wax chunk in it, and I don’t have to wash it out. When melted together, stir well. You want all the beeswax stirred into the other oils because the beeswax is what will keep it from melting in the heat of summer, or a hot bathroom. (I use a chopstick).

2. Remove from heat and add baking soda and arrowroot.

3. Mix well

4. Add a few drops of essential oil and pour into a glass container for storage. I use an old deodorant container, but be careful. The first time I tried this, I had two old deodorant containers–the first one worked fine and the second leaked out all over the counter. Old face cream jars or half-pint jelly jars work great too.

5. Some good essential oils to use for skin and deodorant purposes include: Tea Tree Oil (sometimes called Melaleuca); Grapefruit; Bergamot; Lavender; and Clary Sage. Some lists also include Rosemary, YlangYlang, and Cypress.

If you refrigerate the deodorant, it will firm up faster. After it is firm, it doesn’t have to be refrigerated.

Laundry Soap

Yep, I make my laundry soap too. I do have to add a caveat here: This laundry soap is not for extra dirty, or hard stained clothing. It works very well for regular wash, and old work clothes that already have paint stains and grease blotches. But on your nice clothes, bad stains have to be pre-treated with something else. Also, I have a top-loader with an agitator, so I can’t address how much soap to use if you have a front-loader.

Here is what you need:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

3/4 cup Castile soap

20 drops essential oils (lemon or other citrus, tea tree oil, lavender, and peppermint are all good)

2-gallon bucket, and cleaned out laundry soap containers or clean gallon jugs

Put the borax and washing soda in the gallon bucket and pour in up to a gallon of hot water to dissolve the powders. Stir around until it is all dissolved. The hotter the water, the faster the powders will dissolve.
It’s handy if your bucket has hash marks for how may quarts or gallons, but if not, add another half gallon of water and stir around.
Add the Castile soap at the end, otherwise it will foam too much. Stir gently to mix the soap in with the other liquid.
Add about 20 drops of your choice of essential oils and stir gently.
Use a measuring cup to carefully pour into your waiting laundry jugs.
(My original recipe called for using 2 gallons of water, but I’ve found that I prefer using less water. I usually end up with about a gallon and a half of liquid soap.) Be sure to shake well before adding to the washer. I usually use the cap of the container for a medium load. This is not a wild, soapy recipe–Castile soap is not known for its sudsiness.

All-purpose Spray Cleanser 1

If you’ve got the stuff for laundry soap, you can use this similar recipe for a spray cleaner…

Ingredients:

1 t. washing soda

2 t. Borax

1 T. Castile soap

2 cups very hot water

10 drops essential oil–Lemon, Orange, or Tea Tree, or a combination

Dissolve the powders in the hot water. Add the Castile soap and the essential oils and pour into a 16 ounce spray bottle.

Spray Cleanser and Degreaser 2

1 cup white vinegar

1 t. Castile soap

1 T. baking soda

3 cups warm water

15-20 drops essential oil–Lemon, Orange, or Tea Tree, or a combination

Mix together and pour into spray bottle. Do not use vinegar on marble. This is good for stovetops, range hoods, tile, sinks, and general cleaning. I have not had success on my oven door though. Nothing seems to clean my oven door….

Right now we are working on the laundry room, so I’m cleaning and reorganizing and throwing stuff out. It might be the last room in the house. Maybe it will be finished enough for photos in a couple of weeks…

The Cute Cat Post

September 17, 2024September 20, 2024 / Apple Hill Cottage / 12 Comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in this space.

A year actually. A. Hard. Year.

And then August rolled around, and WordPress emailed me to let me know my site had been renewed for another year.

So I either spent a hundred bucks for nothing, or I’d better write something.

So for those of you who are tired of the media pretending that this upcoming election is normal and covering the republican candidate just as if he is a normal candidate, I present you with a Cute Cat Post, filled with funny cat pictures of our new stray cat, who has warmed our hearts and made us laugh when we really needed to laugh.

Introducing…

He showed up back in February as a streak of lightning dashing off the back porch and leaving the porch swing wildly crashing against the wall. I turned to Mr. H.C. and said, “I think there was just a cat sleeping on our porch swing.” About a week later we saw him again, curled up in a pile of leaves as close as he could get to the foundation.

We found him sleeping and hanging out in that same spot many times over the next week or two, so we decided we should probably give him some food.

Mr. H. C. put out some dry food nearby, and before long he was eating it regularly, and we were seeing him everyday. It took him several weeks but soon he would stay at the food bowl while we watched him from the porch. We both talked to him quietly, but Mr. H.C. was the one who really spent time just gently talking to him and whistling while they were outside together.

A few weeks later, he discovered how comfortable the porch furniture is. He would still run off when we opened the sliding glass doors. Until one day, he didn’t.

The first time he let someone pet him. The photo is dated April 8.

After he was letting us pet him on a regular basis, we decided we should probably take him to the vet to get all the cat shots necessary for a pet cat. His first appointment was cancelled because no one could get him into the cat carrier. We ended up with scratched hands and arms and a cat who had vanished into the woods. He came back though. And the next time we were prepared. We had gotten him his own brand new cat carrier that didn’t smell like THE OTHER CAT, and we moved his feeding bowl inside the carrier where he happily ate his food for several weeks. This is why humans are generally considered smarter than cats.

But he needed a name before he went to the vet. Mr. H.C’s mom, Clara, used to have a cat she called Little Orange. We tried that on him, but, well, he is not Little. I was reading the novel There There by native author, Tommy Orange. I looked at the book on my nightstand and said Tommy Orange! So his official name for the veterinarian is Tommy Orange. (I hope the real Tommy Orange is not offended.)

He has since been to the vet twice–once for his shots, and once for his gender reassignment surgery. And now? He is definitely ours. He follows Mr. H.C. around the yard. He comes when he’s whistled for. He leaves us dead mice on the porch almost every morning. He takes naps on our feet. He makes us laugh every day.

But there is a problem.

THE OTHER CAT hates him.

She has been the Queen for four years now, and she is not accepting applications for any other household occupants.

She hisses. She arches her back. She chases him from window to window. And if she gets outside, she chases him around the garage, and out of the yard. He has never tried to beat her up, though he certainly could. He seems to know that, yes, she IS the QUEEN.

We have occasionally closed the doors to our bedroom and let him inside. He has made himself quite at home.

So now we are ~~arguing~~, ~~discussing~~, brainstorming what we can do to keep THE QUEEN happy and Tommy Orange warm this winter. So far the plan is a Cat Door in the new window in the laundry room. But that’s another post…

In the meantime, he’s still very comfortable on the porch furniture.