Cats

The House of Two Tabbies

/ 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.)

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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The Cute Cat Post

/ 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…

Mr. Tommy Orange

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.

Meet Miss Mini

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

Yes, this is a cat post.

Filled with adorable pics and anecdotes that only a cat lover will appreciate. Just a warning so all others can stop reading now…

When King Henry the First died in November, we had no intention of getting another cat anytime soon. Not only were we grieving his sudden dying, we had  planned a Scotland vacation for ten days in June. All our cats had chosen us by just appearing and staying and loving. We were sure our next cat would do the same.

But 2020 disrupted life as we know it. Maybe for a long time to come, who knows? So mid-April, mid-pandemic, we made an appointment to visit the local humane society. We had viewed the cats online first (Who would have thought we would Ever. Do. This.) and I had liked the little one-year-old grey tabby named Teacup. When we phoned, they told us she was reserved for another family. But please come and look at the others.

We weren’t allowed in, but we sat on the back deck and they brought us out cats one at a time. We looked at all ages and all colors, and it turned out Teacup had not been taken after all. She was a teeny, tiny kitty who had been in a home of thirteen cats. No, they assured us, she hadn’t been abused; thirteen cats had just turned out to be too many. (!) We laugh about her ravenous hunger now, blaming it on her being the tiniest of thirteen and never being able to push her way in to get any food. She will eat anything from pizza to grilled salmon to tortilla chips that have fallen on the floor. She will clean out any bowl, no matter its contents. At dinner time, she sits and begs food like a dog. When the refrigerator door opens, she is there. I’m sure that someday she will step right inside…

How can we resist this?

The vet said we could give her as much food as she wanted for the first few months, and she has gone from a 5-pound mini-kitty to an 8-pound smallish cat with a bit of a tummy roll. Teacup seemed to us a stupid name for a kitten. I’ve since read that it is really a thing–tiny cats are called Teacups– but it certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue. It only took a day to decide to call her Mini. She comes running when we call her. Especially when  you say, Mini, Mini, Mini… and you have the treat jar in your hand.

Our other cats came to us as 3-year old male adults with plenty of experience. They were loving lap cats who didn’t play much. Mini plays with everything. Miss Mini was born to move stuff around: she knocks pens, combs, rubber bands, earrings, hair ties off tables to get them on the floor so she can play one of her favorite games–hockey. We find leaves brought up from the basement in every room, pieces of paper moved from tables to the floor. She skitters around the house like a small tornado leaving the rugs in the bathroom in disarray and attacking feet as if they were stink bugs. She runs between legs with abandon and camps out in front of the refrigerator door or the cupboard where she knows her kibble is kept.

Both our other cats were worldly strays–tomcats who loved the outside. At the Humane Society they tried to make us to promise we wouldn’t let Teacup outside. She’s timid, they said. She won’t like it and it will put her in danger. We didn’t exactly promise, but we said we would be careful with her. Mini desperately wants outside. She sits at every door and tries to escape when the door is opened. But each time she manages to escape, she suddenly realizes she hates it outside. After the first disaster, we realized that just shaking the treat jar gets her back inside where she belongs. But lately the falling leaves have been driving her crazy. She wants every single one that she sees flutter by the door. Mr. H.C. actually let her out the other day so she could chase a flying leaf. She brought it inside and batted around the floor until it fell apart.

This is a favorite box and when she crouches down in it, she cannot be found…

And yes, she is a snoop. She loves to sneak into Mr. H.C.’s workshop–it’s a dead giveaway–her whiskers are covered in cobwebs or sawdust… Mini has never met a cupboard or closet she didn’t love. She used to bury down at the bottom of the bed underneath the sheets. We have broken her of that habit, but we often have to wander around calling her because 1. She might have snuck outside when the door opened, or 2. She has a ton of hiding places where she could be catnapping illegally. Mini still has one bad habit. When she thinks it is time for Mr. H.C. to get up, she jumps on the bed, attacks his hair, and then zooms out of the room as if he won’t know who did it. This is repeated until he gets up and feeds her. She does not do this to me. (She must know it wouldn’t work…)

Mini on her favorite chair.

Our male cats were the strong, silent type. Not Mini. She talks all the time. She meows when it’s time to get up, she meows when it is time to eat, she purrs while eating, she mews to remind us that she needs a dessert treat, she yowls to remind us that she Really REALLY wants to go outside. She greets us when we come home, she answers when we ask her questions. We carry on regular conversations all day and she usually has to have the last word. Yesterday morning she sat in the living room caterwauling for reasons known only to her. She runs for the joy of running; I think she talks for the joy of talking.

When a cat lives in a house that is still being renovated, she either has to take to the basement when the air compressor starts up (that’s what Henry did) or just be brave and become a construction cat. Mini, the skittish little kitty is fearless and nosy about all construction messes–she loves it when nails fall on the floor. She jumps on the desk, knocks off rolls of tape, and chases them all over the room. Yesterday I found her carrying a pair of tweezers around the house. Today she stole a fuzzy new mini roller cover and carried it around as if it was her own little kitten. (It was a fuzzy white little thing, after all.) And like all cats, she loves the fact that the furniture in the room gets moved around daily. And of course, after work, there’s always time for the nap.

Proof she loves her leaves…and the porch.

On this last most beautiful day of Autumn, I relented and let her run out on to the porch when I went out to give the herbs one last watering. She was good for awhile, chasing the leaves and soaking up the sun. But then her curiosity got the best of her, and she just stepped right over the porch rails onto the 3″ ledge that runs all the way around the porch. She just sidesteps on the ledge, and soon, there she is on the steps that lead to freedom.

She is our little pandemic kitty, and she does her job well: She makes us laugh.