The Babies

I have lost my heart to this little minnie. We call her Angel. And she is one too.

The ring of the doorbell a few weeks ago was kittens being delivered, three of them. There were four but one was adopted the night before so I was taking over as their foster mother.

Indeed, I really was taking over as their mother. These little ones, at the time 3 weeks old, had lost their mother. She was outdoors raising them (a stray cat, most likely a drop off) and she got hit by a car. Caring neighbours took her to the vet in an effort to save her life but they were not able to.

So she died and her babies, still nursing and three weeks old no longer had a parent. The neighbours called the animal organization and that's how I got involved.

Kittens are pretty sweet but these kittens are downright adorable. A little bit dirty and smelly, I did my best to towel them off to give them their mommy bath. I tell you Mommy cat does a much better job keeping kittens clean than I do. I felt like the parent with the dirty children. I've had a hard time keeping up.

I'm pretty sure that the littlest one, the black and white female, is the runt of the litter. She's a little underweight and I wish she'd eat more.

They all love a cuddle and want some time to cuddle with me on my shoulders. For the first two weeks they kept looking for a spot to nurse. My heart just broke for them because I knew although their tummies may be full, they were seeking that special comfort that nursing could bring.

They're seven weeks old now in the photos, and four weeks old in the video.

I've had them in a spare room for their safety and also as a quarantine. Normally the mom cat is tested for the contagious cat diseases and if she's found disease free then we can usually assume the kittens are healthy and fine.

But in this case there was no mother cat to test so we're having to wait for the kittens to be eight weeks old so they can be tested.

In the mean time, I'm learning to play mother to my little pride of dirty faced sweeties.

Cat Adoptions

It happened so quickly. One minute I'm home doing my usual busy stuff and then it happened. The phone rang.

It was the animal non profit organization calling. You see, Jay's photo had been in the paper on Saturday and a couple of ladies wanted to adopt him.

Gulp! The baby.

They were also very interested in adopting Jay's bestest friend in the world and that was Whiz. This was fantastic news. Poor Whiz had lost all his best friends to adoption, including his sister, so it was time that he got to keep one.

I called the ladies and we set a time for them to come the next day. Usually when someone comes to view of the foster cats I put all the cats in the basement. That way I can contain everybody in the room and if gives each cat an opportunity to see and know that one of the cats is being put in the cat carrier and being taken away. It makes a huge difference to the cats for them to know the cat has been taken away and hasn't just disappeared.

Once one of the kittens was adopted late at night and none of the other cats saw the person come to take him. The next day his play mate went around crying trying to find him. So after that mistake I always make sure everyone knows that the kitty has gone to their adoptive home and ever since then, no more crying after a cat is adopted.

The ladies arrived and we went downstairs. I knew Whiz would be a bit panicked. He's a little shy at first and I knew he might hide but I had them all locked in the room so it was okay. But I underestimated Whiz. He went up the stairs and pressed on the door and somehow he got it to pop open.

That meant the scaredy cat was now loose upstairs where he promptly hid.

While the ladies waited downstairs I turned the upstairs upside down. I could not find him. I kept looking and it took me 20 minutes to find him. He was in the last place on earth I'd think to look, behind the curio cabinet and jammed into a 4" space at the end of a bookshelf.

I brought him downstairs where the ladies fell in love with his great looks. You see, they knew that Whiz wouldn't always be a scaredy cat. He was just nervous around strangers and once he got to know them he'd settle right in.

My frustration at not finding Whiz was quickly put in place when I realized that a power bigger than myself had better plans than I could think of. That 20 minutes with the ladies in the basement was necessary. It was just the right length of time for the ladies to meet and also fall in love with Beauty, Jay's mother. By the time I brought Whiz downstairs the ladies had decided that 3 cats would suit them just fine.

So in one day I had 3 adoptions! It was fantastic.

But boy was the house ever quiet. Everyone felt weird with the quiet. Gracie was bored and started supervising me and the other cats started sleeping a lot more. The young ones were gone.

But a week later, there was the doorbell and another cat carrier. But this time it was coming in and bringing kittens. Little kittens 4 weeks old. They had no mother and they needed someone to raise them.

Oh we've got noise now. Trust me they've got BIG voices :)

Look - BEFORE you Leap!

I just have to share with you about Jay's absolute fascination with water.

I've learned that growing up kittens go through phases of interest. They paw at little bits of string and dangling things, then as they get more mobile they head to the bathroom.

I'll walk in and find half a roll of toilet paper pulled off the roll and dragged around the room. A very brief Crime Scene Investigation quickly proves the culprit: Tiny teeth and claw marks. The perpetrator: A black and white kitten, male.

Jay got a little "snip snip" last week and so he is now neutered. But he doesn't seem to mind. All he wants to do is play, play play.

His latest fascination has been a little frustrating and a little funny. It's WATER.

I can't turn on a tap anywhere and remain alone for long. Jay will show up. He started by pawing the stuff and shaking his paws. He progressed to licking his paws from there. Then my toilet conveniently won't flush on it's own so I had to take the cover off the tank.

This tank has become Jay's new play area. He puts his paws in the water, he drinks it and lately he's starting chewing and pawing at the parts inside--I think he's trying to work out how I make the water go by touching something in there.....

Soon he'll be flushing the toilet by himself.

I always put the seat down though because I don't want any cat drinking from the toilet bowl. It's bad enough that they eat mice and lick their bums and then come and lick my face.

Once I was cleaning the tub so I had about 3" of water in it. I had to leave for a bit and come back. I did have that little voice speak to me--you know that one that you ignore because you're busy but later you'll regret not listening too? Yeah, that one. Anyway, about 10 minutes later KER-SPLASH! Yes, Jay just had to investigate this water and in doing so he fell into the tub.

I have a new deep tub and in his panic he couldn't jump out. I grabbed him up and put a towel around him.

That was his first bath.

The other day he tipped over the water dish and I found a pond of water on the floor.

He also licks at the tub and bathroom sink facets, trying to catch the drips.

But the biggest laugh of all was last night. I was in the bathroom and Jay came charging in to play with the water. He jumped right up on the toilet seat .....except that I forgot to put the seat down.

That was Jay's second bath.

I think the third time will be charming :)

View of the Day

The wet flower photos I took last week in between rain storms!

This is a closeup of a day lily just after a storm. We had many severe storm warnings last week.

But this weekend we've been blessed with SUNSHINE! That's right. You know, that round yellow thing up in the sky.

And it's been hot too. Hot enough to get you thinking about going to the beach along with 10,000 other people who are feeling exactly the same way you are :)

I had a sleepy, lazy day today. On my right slept Tom cat and on my left slept Tigger. I sat on my backyard swing for a few hours this afternoon and read some books and did some journaling. Most of the time though I just watched the birds and butterflies swooping back and forth.

Tom and Tigger have spent most of the summer outdoors and I've had a hard time convincing them to come in, even in the rainy weather. I have a roofed porch off the garage with cushions and that's where they can hang out all year round.

Tom and Tigger visited the vet today and had their shots. Tom weighed in at just over 16 lbs and Tigger at 13 lbs. No one could accuse me of not feeding them. If anything, they should probably be on diet food... shouldn't we all though?

I still have not done my back yard landscaping yet.

It was my plan to get most of it done this summer but the broken arm back in April kind of threw all my plans off schedule. There's always next year.

So my bags of soil and iron dragonfly will have to wait to be properly placed next year. I'm pretty easy about not getting it done. I wasn't completely set yet on how I wanted it so a delay will give me more time to think about it. I'd love a little pond.........maybe with an arched bridge....... Well, at least dreaming is free.

Most of my blogging this summer has been over on my other blog The Bee Journal

where I've been going on and on about my latest obsession: Beekeeping.

And here is a mystery that is solved, although I have no photographs of the culprit. Every year I'd find these perfect round holes in the soft leaves of my Red Bud tree. Now some people would be upset that some insect or creature had done this, thinking it was unsightly. Me, I thought it was pretty cool to see such perfect circles and all I wanted to know was who was doing it? And why?

When on my beekeeping course I learned that this is done by the leaf cutter bee. It cuts a round top and bottom and makes a perfect little leaf tube, and inside the tube it lays its eggs.

Just think, there's an insect out there that can cut a circle better than a kindergarten student and can fold it like origami better than you or I could probably do. Now that is cool.

Camping in Tobermory, Ontario, Canada

For a little while that afternoon Dad pretended that this was his boat. He claimed to have servants and all manner of people to wait on him.

This photo of part of the harbour in Tobermory, Ontario, Canada reminds me a little of a few harbours I visited while travelling by yaht in Australia. There are indeed a few well off people in this world who can afford these expensive boats.... we're just not those people.

Instead, we camp. But we're older now so we don't tent it any more where we're on the ground. We use a tent trailer and enjoy the comforts of soft mattresses and, forgive us, electricity. (We even have a small microwave that we use).

Hey, if you're thinking this isn't real camping, you might be right, but I must tell you I've paid my dues by camping in all kinds of weather and in different countries. I've lived outside for weeks on end and have numerous times given up the soggy tent in the rain to sleep in the car. Today though tents are much better made than in my day. We also used to cook all our meals on the camp fire (if it rained it got really interesting - cold beans from the can). Often we'd use a coalman stove set up outside on the picnic table as well.

Our camp site just outside Tobermory called Happy Hearts came with flush toilets, showers and even a Karoke Night.

For meals, each family member gets part of a grocery list that when complete, ensures we have healthy meals all week long... although the Chili on the second night might not have been such a good idea. There were 8 of us after all and that's a lot of 'music' after the meal, if you get my drift.

Oh and we had a "Chippy" too. A chipmunk found us on day 2. We noticed he was already trained to come up on the picnic table and beg for food. We happened to have a bag of peanuts so we kept him happy.

Every year I usually spend some time each day painting watercolours. A few years ago this generated a lot of interest among the family members at the camp site. They wanted to try painting too. What happened then was that everyone was busy painting except for me.

This year I didn't get to paint either. I had new students to teach, my niece's friend who accompanied us and a young girl from the next camp site.

I save all kinds of photos of wildlife and insects and flowers which are the inspiration for these budding young artists.

We take it easy for the most part and don't make too many plans ahead. Our focus is to have some down time and to relax.

My nephew Codie and I scuba dive so we had planned a few dives on some shipwrecks just off shore. I have an underwater camera but it uses film so once I get the film developed I'll post those photos.

The best treat of all this trip was the weather. There was this blue stuff up in the firmament called 'sky'. We hadn't seen it for so long that many of us couldn't recall what it was called ;)

Making Pocket Stews to Cook on the Camp Fire

I must have been only 10 or 12 years old when I learned to make pocket stew. My class was going on a day trip to a bog and part of the trip included a camp fire where we'd cook our own lunch. A man came to our class and taught us how to make it.

(Photo - my sister as she enjoys her pocket stew)

I'll never forget that field trip and the yummy stews. I have a camp fire in my back yard now and occasionally my niece and nephew come over and we make the stews.

Also, every year when we go camping its mandatory that Aunt Barb help everyone prepare their own pocket stew to roast on the fire.

Here's the recipe: Some people call them Hobo Stews.

Campfire Pocket Stews

• 1 Hamburger or Turkey Burger Patty
• Chopped Carrots
• Sliced Potatoes
• Chopped Onions
• Frozen or canned Corn
• Frozen or canned Peas
• 1 can of Sliced Mushrooms
• 1 Can Beef Gravy (or Water – but gravy is better)
• Spices such as Garlic Powder or Steak Spice, Salt & Pepper
• 1 Large Piece Extra Strong Tinfoil about 1 ½ foot long
• Campfire long handled tongs
• 1 Plate that won’t melt with fire hot tinfoil
• 1 Package of peanuts in the shell
  

Directions:

1. Cut up all the vegetables
2. Make a patty from the meat (you can put onions right into the patty if you like)
3. Make a tinfoil pocket by folding tinfoil in half. Fold the edges over about ¼” once and then again to make a double sealed seam up the sides. It helps to fold the corners up too
4. Add the following to the tinfoil pocket:
5. Place the meat patty on the bottom (but it doesn’t matter if the meat goes on the bottom or the vegetables).
6. Add a good handful of each vegetable. You only need to add the vegetables that you like. It doesn’t matter if you put a little or a lot—put as much as you want depending how hungry you are. (Leftover pocket stew tastes great too).
7. Sprinkle on spices that you like (steak or vegetable spices are good)
8. Hold your pocket carefully and add 1 can of beef gravy (the campfire is hot and if you don’t add lots of liquid – either gravy or even water, it will become too dry and burn)
9. Fold the top edge down 1/4" once and then again to create a seal. The pocket should now be sealed on all sides and not leaking.
10. Handle the package carefully so you don’t poke holes in it. Place it on the campfire coals and let cook for 30 minutes (or the oven set at 350 degrees C for 30 minutes if it rains and you can't have a fire). Be careful not to puncture the package or the gravy will leak out. Sometimes holding it on a plate when putting in the fire and removing is easiest.
11. Check the meat to be sure it’s fully cooked before you dine.

Don’t forget to recycle the tin foil.

Oh, you were wondering about what you're to do with the peanuts? Well, they're for Chippy the chipmunk of course. He's a vegetarian!

Night Time Visitor

It was not a dark and stormy night, but I had a lamp on in one of the spare rooms with the screen window open.

I was trying to catch any cool breezes to lower the temperature in the house.

The light usually attracts small moths which the cats like to chase from the other side of the screen but on this night I saw a large shadow hanging on the screen.

Of course I had to go outside to have a look.

A lovely Polyphemus Moth lay hanging on the screen - attracted by my light pollution.

Notice the lovely rose coloured markings on the wings. I did pick it up but was careful not to touch the wings.

After a few photos I put the moth back and then went inside to turn off the lamp. The light was distracting the moth from its real search, for a mate.