My cats - last updated 02/08/16


If you know me, you know how important my cats are to me.  I'm always afraid of flooding my blog with cat pictures and cat stories.  I figured I'd do another page dedicated just to them!  If you want to look, c'mon over!  If not, that's ok too.

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160203 - Cuddling with my Benny.  It's not a cuddle without a paw on each side of my neck.  This is a new thing for him.  He never used to be such a cuddler!  He's been watching his sisters!!


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160128 - Ava, in her favorite spot.  On my chest!  This girl is a cuddler!


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160103 - Ava, not impressed with the football game.  She was even snoring!


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151220 - Lily and Maggie.  When they are not chasing each other around the house, they are joined at the hip!


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151213 - Maggie.  When she's not getting into mischief, she's napping!  I just woke her up this afternoon trying to get a shot.  She was chilling on one of the window seats enjoying some quiet time.


151213 - Hemingway!  My first outside cat.  I went to take a picture of Adrienne and Blue (below) and he wanted his picture taken as well!  He's my boy!


151213 - Adrienne and Blue, two of my outside cats.  That is a wood glider on the left, which is wrapped in tarps for the winter.  I have bedding underneath and I just got an outdoor heating pad to put under there as well.  I try to keep them warm in the winter!  But today is such a nice day, two of the kitties are napping outside of the shelter enjoying the day!  Adrienne is in the foreground and Blue is behind her.


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151206 - My Lily!


151115 - This is my youngest cat, Maggie.  She is 2-1/2 years old.



A surprising thing I have learned about cats is that they all have their own distinct personalities!  Maggie is my quiet one.  The other three may be laying together, but more than likely Maggie will be in a quiet corner on her own upstairs.  Maggie is very vocal when she wants to be, and she will "chirp" her little heart out telling me all about her day.  When she wants attention, she wants ALL of my attention!  Both of my hands need to be ON her, rubbing her fur, scratching her chin, whatever she wants.  Both hands!  She has the softest fur, I could pet her all day long!  She is a beautiful loving cat.

And she loves mischief!  If there is mischief to be had, Maggie is leading the way.  One of her favorite things is stealing things off of the kitchen counter.  No one is allowed on the counter by the sink and she doesn't even try to get up there when I'm around.  Heaven help us, when I am sleeping, she is all over that counter.  How do I know?  I have to play hide and seek most mornings looking for the little things.  The sponge, the vegetable brush, the scrubber.  They will be all over the house in the morning, thanks to my Maggie!

The other day, she saved my LIFE.  Maggie, up on the counter she's not allowed on, attached and killed a roll of paper towels.  I'm sure the paper towels were on a mission to take over my house!  The towels were on the floor and that girl's bite when ALL through the towels!



Miss Mischief Maggie!  She saved my life!  I love her!!

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151107 - And the whole outside gang!  Left to right enjoying dinner is Adrienne, Blue and Hemingway.  I love them all!


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150610 - The whole gang watching over the neighborhood.


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150410 - Ava and Maggie enjoying my bed when I forget to shut the bedroom door!


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150125 - Lily, hogging all of the heat!


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150120 - Benny!  We share the water glass!


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141001 - Ava tonight.  I don't think she's going to let me go on vacation without her!


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141001 - One of my outside cats, Hemingway.  He is the first cat to ever adopt me.  Most nights he comes and waits at my door until I go out and give him wet food!  He'll eat the dry food if he HAS to, but he prefers the good stuff.  And I give it to him.  He will stand there for hours waiting for me!




 He looks a little mean in this picture.  It's my bad photography skills.  He's really a beauty!

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141001 - My Jasmine!  She's my latest rescue that again didn't work too well.  She doesn't like the girls and she is terrified of Benny.  She's a gorgeous little girl that loves to play but doesn't like to be with other cats.  I have her on the list with Love a Stray and with Friendship APL to surrender her and put her up for adoption.  It breaks my heart, she is such a good girl.


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141001 -  Ava likes to climb into any space she will fit into.  This time she climbed into the game cabinet because I didn't close the door!


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141001 - Maggie and Ava sharing one of the cat beds.


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140803 - Ava enjoying time on my lap this morning.  Such a cutie!


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140803 - While I can't get a cat in a cat carrier without a fight, just take the door off of the carrier and most of them will climb in to take a nap!  Go figure!

Here is Maggie enjoying the small carrier.  She can be found napping in here often!


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140801 - Benny's new favorite place to chill!  He's such a good boy!


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140704 - Benny's favorite place to curl up, in the corner of the couch.


Maggie's favorite place to curl up is in the space between two of the cushions.  She can really wedge herself in there some times!  Benny had the corner, Maggie and the space between the cushions and Lily decided she wanted some sibling love and crawled right between the two.  Too cute!


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140622 - Maggie getting some Mama love!


140622 - And Lily got her turn, too!


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140606 - All four cats checking out the new door mat that says "Cool Cats Welcome"!


140606 - And, playing with their new toy.  This thing is the best $20 I've spent!  There is a rod with a ball on the end of it and it goes back and forth in an erratic pattern under the yellow tarp.  It drives them all nuts!  Ava, directly across from the camera, has a huge prey drive.  Who knew!!?!  She will play with this by the hour!


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131118 - Maggie (on top step) and Lily playing on the cat tree.


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131116 - Lily spooning Benny.  Is that cute or what!


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131115 - Maggie taking a nap in Ron's computer bag


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131110 - Ava and Benny spooning!


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131030 - And here we go again . . . Out of her litter of five kittens, Adrienne has two that survived.  Today they made their first appearance on my front porch.  Heaven help me, here is the next generation!


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131020 - My Ava!  Such a photogenic cat!  Ava is a lot of fun to watch.  She will get into everything!  She loves to crawl inside of things, especially inside of covers.  The other day I happened to look at the bunch of covers and I see a tail sticking out!


I recognize that tail!  I pulled the blanket back a bit and there was my girl!


Ava is a girl after my own heart - just trying to find the most comfy spot in the house!

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130929 - It's been a rough couple of days cat wise, but I'd like to introduce you to my new cat family.

I had my two cats, Benny and Ava.  Then I brought two in off of my porch that were sick, Blonde and Maggie, hoping to get them well and find homes for them.  Then I was dumb enough to take two more in, Lucky and Lily, and I was going to foster them until Love A Stray could find homes for them.  Is anyone surprised that I now have five cats in my house??

First, Lucky.  He is a beautiful Siamese mix that was adopted a few weeks ago.  I hope he will live a long and happy life in his new furever home.


His sister Lily went from being a shy little kitty to being my new buddy.  She is in the video in the last post.


My plan was to send Lily and my Maggie


up for adoption with Love A Stray.  I tried last weekend and couldn't do it.  I tried again this weekend, and well . . . I couldn't do it.  I started with a phone call to my sister Cathie asking her to give me a pep talk and tell me it was the right thing to do for them to surrender them for adoption.  Cathie did her part, gave me my pep talk and wished me luck.  I got so far as to have the two kittens packed up in the carrier and the carrier was in the car and ready to go.  At the last minute, I couldn't go through with it.  I was a mess that was having severe separation anxiety.  I don't know who in the hell I was kidding, but I changed my mind on surrendering them and told Love A Stray thank you, but the kittens are mine.

I had already decided to keep Blondie.  How could you say no to this little girl??


Actually, I knew that kittens had a better chance of getting adopted than an adult cat, so I thought she would be better off just staying here.

These new cats join our family of Ava and Benny.



I may be the only person around with cat hair on TOP of the refrigerator!  Only my cats.

So, I have five cats, three adults and two kittens.  It might have been better for Maggie and Lily to go out and be adopted but you know what?  It wasn't better for me.  For whatever reason, I have a hole in me and these cats fill that hole.  As long as I am able, I am keeping them. I need them.  Look at breakfast time at my house, all kitties all together!


From left to right we have Lily, Blondie, Maggie, Ava and Benny.  This is love people!

Other than that, just a few more pictures just because I think they are so damn cute!

130811 - Blondie hiding behind the curtain


130817 - Maggie in a box


130922 - Benny in the same box


I know I'm nuts taking this on.  But, they are mine now and in my future I see a lot of poop scooping and hair sweeping.  And that's ok by me. 

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130920 - As if my cat life isn't crazy enough, I've had two foster cats here.  They are foster cats because I took them in to get healthy and get spayed and neutered and then the plan was to get them adopted.  That is easier said than done but I digress.

I had a brother and sister set of kittens here at the house.  The brother, Lucky, was adopted a couple of weeks ago.  Due to health problems, Lily didn't get spayed until last week.  Now she needs some time to heal from the surgery and then the plan is to send her out for adoption as well.  She and her brother both have been such joys!  Considering they were both born on my porch and were raised for the first five months of their lives out in the wild of our neighborhood, they are both loving and gentle kitties.  Right after surgery, Lily was locked up in the bathroom to help her heal right after surgery.  I would sit in there and play with her and was able to shoot this video.  She is a cutie patootie!   I promised my sister a video, so here it is!

As an FYI, Lily really is now six months old.  She is three weeks older than Maggie and almost half of the size of Maggie!  She is just naturally a small kitty.  Her Mom is still on my porch and her Mom is on the small side too.  Just a dainty little lady, my Lily.

 

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It's a known fact:  cats love helping you make the bed.  Ok, "help" is relative!  Recently I had stripped the bed and was trying to remake it when Ava decided to "help" me.

130914 - Ava hiding under the sheet


130914 - Benny knows she's under there!


130914 - after all of the help, life is good and it is nap time!



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Blondie and Maggie doing what they do best . . . napping!

130828 - Blondie


 130705 - Blondie and Maggie hunkering down under my desk getting ready for a nap.


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130615 - Blondie and Maggie, making themselves right at home on the window seat.



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130523 - Since I got the new cats a new bed, Ava wanted one too.  I think she likes it!


130524 - And if Ava likes it, Benny likes it.


130602 - But nothing beats mama's knee.


130608 - And Maggie says, "As far as I'm concerned, you can HAVE the expensive pet beds that kitty mama bought - I want the REAL thing!"


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130513 - Ron and I buried another of Blondie's kittens.  She had already passed away and she was left behind in the second nest.   I found Blondie's third nest and so far I could see one kitten is alive and well and out exploring.  I hope the second one that's left is doing as well.

130506 - Benny curled up in a box that I thought was WAAY too small for him!


130506 - As soon as Ava climbed in the box, Benny wanted back in!



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130510 - Life in my cat world is not good.  From my main page, my baby Penelope died on 04/13/13.  I am still not right over this.

Prior to Penelope's passing, Adrienne had her litter of four kittens.  Adrienne is my healthiest, and my most wild, outside cat.  By wild I mean she has come to the food bowl just about daily but she has NEVER let me get anywhere near her.  She is very skittish and will run at the thought of me going anywhere near her.  She did produce four beautiful kittens though!

The last picture I posted on this page was of her kittens under my back step.  Her babies have since been moved from under this step, but I don't know to where.  This past weekend, she had her kittens out in the driveway, enjoying the sun next to my garage.   Phil went to leave and I was afraid he was going to run over the kittens, so I went outside to make sure the kittens were safe while he pulled out.  That's when I saw one of her kittens was having issues.  This poor thing got separated from the other three.  Once Phil left, I made sure he made it back to his siblings.  But this poor thing looks like he has two badly infected eyes.  This is how my poor Benny was the day I brought him in.  Both eyes were crusted shut they were so bad.  This poor kitten brought back a lot of memories.


While Phil was pulling out of his parking spot, the other three kittens went to hide in the weeds.   I caught sight of this little one.  OMG is he adorable or what?  If you look closely to the bottom right of the picture, there IS a kitten in there!


Three out of four appear to be very healthy.  These pictures are a week after the picture of the kittens on the step.  Wow, how they've grown in just a week.  Anyway, a little after I snapped this picture, and all four kittens were back together in the weeds, our friend Larry came over.  I was trying to show Larry the babies when the light gray one became ferocious!  She puffed herself up as much as she could and she gave a fierce kitten hiss and growl!  She was definitely protecting her siblings!  It was beyond cute!  We respectfully backed off and gave them room and tried not to scare them any more.  I think at least that little gray one will do very well.

By the way, I have no idea what sex any of the kittens are.  I throw he/she out there willy nilly.  I am purely guessing.  The older cats I know all for sure what they are, but not these two batches of kittens.

On April 15th, Blondie had her kittens in the stray cat bed and breakfast on the front porch.  Here is Blondie enjoying a little love from Ron while her brother Tarzan pretends not to be offended that he's not getting any love.   Blondie and her two brothers all love interacting with us and will line up to be petted.


Blondie and both of her brothers have various health issues.  They all have a cough that they've had for months and both boys seem to have varying degrees of eye infections.  I think Tarzan's eye problems started after an injury that looked like it came from a fight.  Junior, who I need a current picture of, also had a red eye, but I don't think he got his in a fight.  So, since Blondie I know isn't 100% healthy, I am more worried about her kittens.

We found one kitten that didn't make it in the door way of the bed and breakfast.  Judging from the size, I think he was still born.  Blondie never removed him totally from the bed and breakfast, so when I saw him there, I said something to Ron and Ron removed the baby.  We buried him in the flower garden in the yard.  Blondie knew right away that her baby was missing and she needed a little extra love that night, but hopefully she was able to turn the rest of her attention to the rest of her babies.  Here were the four remaining babies in the nest.


There are three gray striped kittens and one orange kitten.  This was the only time I had looked in the box and all looked well in their world.  This picture was taken May 1st.  Unfortunately, last weekend when I looked in the box, the orange one had turned so that I could see his face.  This poor little baby was not well.  He had some kind of growths over both eyes and around his mouth.  That was Sunday the 5th.  I grabbed a soft towel from in the house, I scooped the kitten out of the nest and I had Ron drive me back to the emergency hospital.  I knew this little guy was suffering and I couldn't stand that.  I held his little body and tried to comfort him, and I kept telling him it was all going to be ok.  I really suck at this because that poor little guy was FAR from ok.

They staff at the hospital took one look at him and suggested euthanasia.  I know what that word means but it was never really part of my vocabulary.  Penelope was the first pet I ever lost so dealing with this is all new to me.  They took the baby out of my hands, carried him away and had me sign the papers.  I wasn't even out of the door yet and the deed was done.  That quick.  I don't know what I expected but that was a knife in my heart.  Ron and I came home and again gave Blondie some extra love.  Heaven help her, she was trying to be a good mom.  The cards are just stacked against her I think, with her not being 100% healthy.

So there is my dilemma.  What do I do?  What is the RIGHT thing to do?  As I said, Adrienne's one kitten reminds me of Benny, since both of his eyes are crusted shut.  What I also remember about that time is that it cost me over $3,000 to get Benny healthy.  He was worth every penny to me, but I don't have the financial means to spend that kind of money on ELEVEN more stray cats!  Honestly, what do I do?  Go broke trying to fix all of them?  I can't bring them all in the house since physically, I can barely take care of the two I have.  I don't have it IN me to do it for ELEVEN more.  Do I let them stay out there and die one by one?  What is going to happen to Adrienne's blind kitten?  Can he take care of himself?  Will mom and the siblings watch out of for him?  I don't know where Adrienne has moved her kittens to.  I see her maybe once a day, so I believe her kittens are close by but I don't know where.

As for Blondie, she had moved her kittens out of the B&B.  I know where her new spot is, but I can't get an easy look in on the kittens any more.  Are the rest of them ok?  I don't know.  I don't know if I am doing them all more harm than good by leaving food and water out every day.  My heart was in the right place, I just wanted to help.  I just don't know if ultimately, I AM helping them or hurting them in delaying nature taking its course.  I honestly don't know what to do.  It's killing me watching them die one by one.  I don't know if I have any more trips to the emergency hospital with a dead or dying cat in me.

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130429 - Adrienne, one of my outside cats, had a litter of kittens about 6 or 8 weeks ago.  They were out on the 29th enjoying the sun when I got home from work.  Cutie patooties, each one of them!


130420 - Ava, looking fierce!


130420 - Benny and Ava, curled up together taking a nap.


130420 - Benny and Ava - I think they are missing Penelope too.


130421 - I miss my Penelope.  This house is totally different without her.   My heart is still broken, missing my baby girl.

130312 - Ava chillin' with kitty mama


130313 - Penelope and Benny meeting me at the door when I come home from work!


130214 - My valentine, Penelope!


130113 - Ava meeting a new member of the front porch food club.


130113 - The SCN (Stray Cat Network) said this was the place for free food!


130105 - Cute Benny


130105 - Penelope looking to get under the tree


130105 - Ava, chillin' with kitty mama


130105 - three kitties in the outside food bowl


121230 - Penelope:  Hey, when you're taking pictures of me you are NOT petting me!


121230 - Benny and Ava napping together


121229 - Penelope loves her new catnip bag from Uncle Jim!


121229 - Benny:  No wonder my kitty mama likes to spend so much time in front of this screen.  It IS comfortable here!


121205 - Ava napping


121210 - my best present ever


121207 - Benny and Ava under the tree


Ava is making herself right at home!  She will not back down to the other two cats and is carving out her piece of our world.  For real, her and Benny are getting along GREAT!  Penelope is even starting to hiss less at her.  That's a good sign, right?

121111 - Ava and Benny


While the two of them were napping on the couch, Penelope was trying on my shoes.

121111 - Penelope


121009 - baby Ava


120626 - Penelope and Benny


120401 - Penelope and Benny


120401 - Hemingway


110628 - Benny at the fish tank


110628 - Penelope chillin'


110628 - Benny ready to jump!


110630 - Benny and Penelope


110712 - Hemingway


110717 - baby Lola


6 comments:

Cathie said...

I just love your cat page!!!

Anonymous said...

Great page. Please keep it updated from time to time. I love to see cat pictures!
I also love the design of your blog. Great colors, beige and purple!

Unknown said...

I am copying you, Georgia! Every time I see you change your theme, I want to change mine!

And, I will keep updating. You can never have too many pictures of my cats!! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Love the new pics!

Unknown said...

Oh Ree, you crazy and big hearted wonderful Kitty Momma!I understand your pain and grief. What can you do!? You can't do more than you already do. You can't risk your money, because we all have first duties in our families. You can't cure the world. There will be always another little kitten, that needs help, another child, another man or woman... You can only do what is in your hands without risking your own life. Nature is cruel, life is cruel, such cruel that I sometimes think that there can't be a god who wants all this. Life is sometimes too cruel to stand. No, you can't do more. And I am very sorry that there are so much bad experiences all at the same time. I deeply wish that all turns out better from day to day. Only one step at a time, but better.
There is the same problem over here in Germany. People have cats, but don't care for them. They grow more and more and the problem grows bigger and bigger. Where there once were two or three stray cats, there are now 30 or 40 and nobody can help them. It is a shame that people buy pets, but don't care, that people don't neuter them at the vet, before their number grows and grows. I hope that there will soon be a cat tax like we have for dogs. This could avoid that people buy cats, but don't care for them. At least I hope so. But this does not help you at the moment. Concentrate on the cats in your house and what you do for the stray cats is more than most other people would do. You can't do more.
Thinking of you! Hugs, lots of hugs.

Unknown said...

Coooooooool door mat!