Abandoned Kitty (Abby)

On Monday, when I returned from lunch, there was a commotion on campus, so I had to go check it out.  My boss' wife was there with the tiniest little kitten snuggled into her jacket.  It seems that she and their son had been out grocery shopping and saw a box with "free kitten" written on it.  The box was in a grocery cart parked in the middle of one of the aisles with no one around. A little black and white kitten face kept poking up out of the box.

My boss' wife is an animal magnet - if there is an animal in need, it always manages to find her.  She and her son claimed the kitten, picked up some canned food and brought it to work.  She had a new owner in mind, and it wasn't me, but when I saw the kitten, I knew we had to have it.  We've been looking all over for a kitten that wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg.

Since the weather got cold a couple of weeks ago, the mice have been getting bolder and bolder to the point where they would just stop and look at you like, "I dare you!".  We had mouse traps out, but hadn't bagged as many as we had hoped.  I hate to hear them in the walls, but there they were, scrabbling in the wall between the bathroom and mudroom.  It was past time to get a cat.

I texted Jay and told him we now had our kitten.  I'm not sure she even weighs a pound yet and she fits curled up in both of my hands.  She also had worms (yuck), which we realized when she started dragging her butt on the carpet like a dog.

She definitely likes being up and would not stay in her box, despite taping it shut, for the drive home, so she sat on Digger's shoulder.

After I dropped Digger off at his place, she climbed onto my shoulder and slept the whole way home.  It was tough work being abandoned and then claimed.

She wasn't so excited about Allie-bird when I first introduced them, but has now decided that Allie is her dog.  However, she immediately claimed Jay as her human.

She's a bold kitty, not afraid of much, and has immediately taken over the house.  The first couple of nights were really rough.  It's been a long time since we've had a single kitten with a ton of energy.  It made it kind of tough to love her those first few days.

But she's just so darn cute when she's not terrorizing everyone and so loving when she wants to be that she'll get to stay.  It didn't hurt that she killed a mouse her first night home.

We (de)wormed her and gave her her shots yesterday.  The shot(s) was easy, but the wormer pill was not.  Between the two of us, we were able to choke it down her throat without losing any fingers, but it was a close thing. Because we didn't want Allie to end up with worms, we also treated her.

Abby likes to "help" whenever I'm on my cell phone, so I downloaded an app for her to play with.  How cute is this?

Things That Made Me Smile

I've been kind of a sad panda lately and not much has made me smile.  But in the last twenty-four hours a few things have made me smile.

Last night...Frito Pie...

So yummy, I had two bowls

Today, between classes, I came home for a couple hours and the kitties made me smile.  They're six weeks old today, only two weeks until they go to their new homes.  Today, they found the sun beams in the middle of the bed and took a snooze with me.

Gizmo (the mommy) and Toes enjoying the sun

Thing 1 in her sun worship pose while Scout snoozes

Kitty cuddles
Thing 1 and Scout

Toes: "Oh, hi Mommy"

Toes posing for the camera

I got a little worried that Thing 2 wasn't up on the bed with us - she's a bit of an introvert and is often off by herself, but she doesn't usually miss a cuddle puddle.  I found her in the hallway cuddling with Scamp, her daddy.  I was too slow to get a picture, but they sure were cure.

I headed back to work to give my finals.  We had planned a potluck to bribe thank our volunteer patients.  One of my students is a flipping baking whiz.  If the whole medicine thing doesn't work out for her, she should open a bakery.  (But she's a damn good medical assistant, so I doubt she'll open a bakery any time soon.)

The prettiest cupcakes I've ever seen

Not just the frosting was pretty,
the inside was almost too pretty to eat.
Almost.

In addition to being beautiful, they were the lightest cupcakes I've ever eaten.  My cupcakes are always a bit dense and these were light and moist.  When I asked my student how on earth she made them so light she told me that she had to whip the color into the batter forever, much longer than she would usually mix the batter, and she's pretty sure that's what the difference is.

Who knows?  Who cares?  All I know is that, hands down, those were the best cupcakes I've eaten.

That's what made me smile in the past 24 hours.  What made you smile?

Heck With Swimming Tigers, We Have Swimming Kittens

I'll admit it, we allow our animals to drink out of the toilets.  Heck, it's better than having to remember to fill a water bowl every time and it's fresh water (as long as everyone remembers to flush).  Allie-bird has a hole in her lip that makes it not so pleasant to walk across the bathroom floor once she's been drinking, but that's just a minor annoyance.

On Saturday, the kittens were watching their mom drink out of the toilet and thought they'd give it a try.  It was sort of successful.  They fell in.  But they didn't freak out.  They obviously trust that their humans won't let anything happen to them.  They stood in the bottom of the toilet and drank to their little hearts were content.

Like any good blogger, I ran for the camera before rescuing them from the toilet.  The grey and white one was the one who fell in first, but I wasn't fast enough to catch all three of them in the watering hole.

I pulled them out and plopped them on a towel on the floor to dry off, then I realized that they were shivering like crazy and realized they were hypothermic.  Aw, heck, who needs to be to work on time anyway?  So I spent a few minutes drying them briskly until they stopped shivering.

Sad thing is, they think that's how they get drinks of water now.  They don't think twice about jumping down into the toilet instead of balancing delicately like their mother.  There are water trails throughout the house now that the kittens can water themselves.

K. Told Me So (A Zoo Update)

I have to start with an apology to K. Erickson over at Preachers and Horse Thieves (even if he did get to spend the day blowing shit up without me, never mind that I'm in Colorado and he's in Texas).  When I first posted the pictures of the brand new kittens, he told me that the white lab rat-looking ones would probably turn out cute.  To say I was skeptical would be an understatement.

Guess what?

No Name, Paleface, Little Grey Kitten

He's right.  They're kinda cute. 

So, K., I apologize.

They're now three weeks old and all look to be long-hairs.  Ashee-butt is set on keeping Little Grey Kitten and the other two are spoken for, so the kinda cute lab rat-ish kittens have good homes in five weeks.

Dashurie took her first bath today.  We were told just to fill a sink with baby shampoo and warm water and turn 'er loose.  So we did.  It became quickly apparent that the bathroom sink was too small for her, so for her rinse cycle, she got moved to the tub where she did lap after lap.

Who would have thought a hedgehog would turn out to be such a great pet?  In fact, Dashurie's part of this week's True Story Tuesday.

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.

The Three Most Adorable Kittens Ever...& A Spoiled Horse

The latest batch of kittens are sooooooo dang cute! Ash hates the names I gave them, but they all look so much alike that I used horse face markings for their names, so let me introduce (from left to right) Snip, Blaze (can't see his markings behind Snip's ear), and Star. They're not quite five weeks old and they're so dang cute. I know, I already said that, but they are!


Estee's been acting a little sore recently and really favoring her right foreleg, so she got a good stretching out before our ride. Since I don't want her "unbalanced", I stretched both legs, trying to loosen up her chest and leg muscles. Sometimes she likes it, sometimes she doesn't. Today, she wasn't thrilled, but allowed me to stretch her out. Could be that I bribed her first with Black Oil Sunflower Seeds first.



Finally, I was finished stretching her out and decided that she was sound enough to take out on a short ride to try to work out a little of her soreness. Bill hopped up on Ranger and we headed out onto the mountain. Estes was a little pissy at first because she didn't want to go on a trail, but we found a trail that we hadn't been on in a long time and she was much, much happier.

When Estee's happy, everybody's happy!