Lisa's Blog

I know. I'm way behind in updating this blog. That is because I play with the kittens every night for a couple of hours now rather than sitting on my computer. Their names are Sally and Steve French, by the way, and no, they aren't staying, I just haven't found a home for them yet. Everyone is interested in Sally, but I can't part with her and not Steve French.

Anyway, you will no doubt hear about the massive snow storm in Nova Scotia trapping people in their cars for 15 hours. It wasn't here. We have a small sciff of snow, but none on the roads. Sounds like Halifax has more than we do.

Blue beauty, our car, is at Chrysler today getting it's winter studded tires put on. The drive in was slippery this morning so I can't put it off any longer!

The wood stove is working well. I like that I can stoke it up and start a fire without relighting it HOURS after we last put wood into it. We can put the last couple logs in it at 10pm and the next night at 7:30pm I can still uncover red coals. I just open the damper all the way to get the air flowing, add a couple pieces of newspaper, and before I get more than a couple pieces of kindling in I have fire! Love it.

More later. Including photos from the ocean on Sunday. It was +18 and very very windy so we went to the ocean for pictures, but it wasn't so windy on the coast. I'll put a few up later anyway though.

This morning:

A few moments later:

Now it looks like the first photos outside again!

All the stores seemed to have morphed into Christmas over night! And we fell for it and bought lights for our first Christmas tree we'll have in December.

Hallowe'en was last night. We didn't have any trick-or-treaters, which is fine by us - I always hate trying to keep all our animals secure in the house while giving candy out to children of strangers. Our house is at the top of a scary, steep, dark laneway so we weren't expecting anyone either.

I let the kittens out to play loose upstairs by putting a baby gate at the top of the stairs to keep the curious dogs back. Zeus has really taken to the male kitten and they chase each other all over and then play hide and seek on each other and pounce. It's really cute. I've never seen Zeus play with another cat so it's neat to see. Zeus is about 9 years old, maybe more (he was from the pound) and he's at least twice the size of the kittens. They are growing really fast now though - they are probably half their adult size now already. When cornered, they'll let me pick them up, and they never try to bite or scratch me, and purr lots, but they don't come to me when they are loose - well, unless I have an open can of cat food in my hand. They'll come to me for a stinky can of cat food!

Gorgeous chilly fall day here today. Jeff was up early hunting deer with his bow and arrow. A young buck has been teasing him mercilessly. Jeff is hoping for a bigger buck so he might just continue to enjoy his hunting for the next 5 weeks of the season.

Last night I was flipping channels while Zeus and the male kitten where racing back and forth upstairs and I saw a show I haven't seen since I was a little kid. THE SMURFS!! What a great cartoon! Check out Teletoon Retro if you get that channel. It has lots of the old time cartoons of my youth.

You've gotta get one of these electric hedge trimmers!

I've always just used twig snips and cut the sticks here and there, but a few weeks ago we picked up an electric Black & Decker hedge trimmer (22 inch). Jeff assembled it for me yesterday and then I attacked our hedges. It was so much fun! I felt like Edward Scissorhands.

I trimmed up several of the front bushes that haven't seen a trimmer in a long time. They are all so overgrown, I'm not sure if they can be retrained to grow as little shrubs, but I did my best! They are all dormant already for the winter, so we'll see in spring how they'll grow.

The electric trimmer made it easy to make any shape I wanted - round or squared off. I did it a little big and then stepped back to survey how it looked. It is double sided so I could trim in both directions as I whirled it around. Eventually Jeff took it away from me and put it back in the shed.

I had the kittens upstairs in the empty spare room to play today. They are making good progress. The male is still a little aloof but he lets me pet him. The female now rubs herself on me to get pet. She's getting really friendly. Here are some photos.

I let Zeus in with them sometimes. He growls and hisses a lot, but doesn't mean any harm. After spending time with the kittens, Zeus looks like a giant cat to me ;-)

The kittens are doing well. They are very playful now and I had problems keeping the calico girl IN the cage this morning - she really wanted to stay out with me! They both still quite wild when they are loose. Once in a while I let them have the spare bedroom at the top of the stairs to run loose and play in there. Zeus has gone in to play with them. He's curious about them, a little scared of them, but still growls and hisses to tell them he is the king cat in the house.

I got worming pills for them at the vet yesterday. They said all kittens, especially feral ones, will have worms when they are born. Luckily they both ate their pill with no extra effort so we didn't have to force it down their throats (I have no idea how we were going to do that - they have razor sharp teeth and claws!)

So last Thursday night I had an asthma attack in the middle of the night. I haven't had an inhaler for eons - probably 10 years. Cold air always set me off before so I needed it when I lived in Thunder Bay. I had felt it coming for almost 2 weeks. I remember having a tight chest and wheezy when I was in Hamilton and at Dad's house and Mom's house. And then when I was back here. It was a long scary one and I almost woke up Jeff to take me to the hospital. I woke up coughing - a wheezy cough. I went to the other room to lie down so I wouldn't disturb Jeff, but I couldn't lie down and breathe. I went downstairs and drank a cold drink and tried to get my lungs under control while watching John McCain on Letterman. I think I was up for 90 minutes.

The next morning I went to the emergency room before work. There was NO other patients there so I was in and out in under 10 minutes. The doctor prescribed me Flovent - a steroid inhaler to use for a week now and to use whenever I get sick or have these symptoms again. He gave me the regular asthma inhaler to - in case it happens again. I haven't had to use it. The steroid one is killing my voice. I'm completely hoarse and Jeff said I sound like a cartoon character. Soon the week is over and I can stop taking it.

Friday after work we cleaned our bedroom. The dogs have always had their own bedroom to sleep in, but with all our company this summer they migrated back to our room. It is so nice now - it's clean and hairless. The dogs and their beds and toys are in another room again. Monty isn't walking on us during the night anymore. The air is so much fresher. I imagine that could be one of the causes of my breathing problems. At least it started before I rescued the kittens, so I know they aren't causing it.

I can pick both kittens up and pet them on my chest and they don't bite or scratch or hiss! In fact the orangey one now meows for me when I put her back in there!

We also did some investigating and our hunches were right. The one with orange and white is a female and the striped one is a male.

Jeff was able to pet the kittens last night with a leather glove on.

This morning I bribed the orangey one with soft cat food on a spoon and she let me pet and rub her head with my bare hand while she ate. VICTORY!

She's meowing like crazy this morning. I got her to wag her tail a little bit. I think they are coming around!

We had the wood stove going last night. We actually got heat in the bedroom on the top floor of the house! (much to Jeff's grumbling - he'd rather sleep in an ice box). I can't believe we put up with that pellet stove last year - it didn't ever push heat to the upstairs.

This morning there was frozen dew on the windshield!

Oh and it's Monty's 3rd birthday today!

We took a trip to Canso today to watch the fisherman bring their blue fin tuna catches in to the wharf. We were lucky enough to see THREE of them! Here are some photos. I'll warp out the fisherman and the dock worker's faces since I don't have their permission to make them famous here on my blog.

Town of Canso - view from the wharf:

I really wish there was a way for me to capture the smell of Canso today. It smelled like someone had dumped 50 tanker trucks of rotten fish oil in the sun. I think I could get used to it. Jeff on the other hand.... he didn't care for it so much.

Tuna #1 - 306 lbs (weight after gutted, and fin, tail, and head are chopped off)

The seagulls really loved the tuna scraps. Seagulls out here are GIGANTIC compared to their Ontario cousins.

I like this one - he looks like he's dancing in delight:

Tuna #2 - 466 lbs

Tuna #2 came in by pick up truck from further down the shore. I imagine they had to bring it here to be processed. They have a warehouse with ice packing facilities in Canso. Often these tuna are auctioned off to the Japanese.

The heads and tails and guts are taken back out to the ocean to be dumped.

Tuna #3 came in while they were still processing Tuna #2.

Tuna #3 - 510 lbs

The price of blue fin tuna was $16/pound last week. That makes this last tuna worth $8160. Not bad for a day out fishing!

I just happened to look outside in the dark and noticed Momma cat on the driveway with a mouse hanging out of her mouth. She came up on the front deck and sat here for a few minutes. What a good momma bringing her babies a mouse. She cut them loose over a week ago. I wonder if this was the first time she came to check on them. I teared up

I wonder how much it is to spay cats. We should probably use one of those live traps to spay her and release her back outside so we don't have to rescue kitties every year. I think she might have been someone's pet once - she isn't that wild - not pettable, but not terrified. We've seen her around here since we moved in. Maybe she even belongs to one of the neighbours.

I'm so heartbroken for her out there looking for her babies. Jeff said "we can put them back".

As for progress inside, the dark one is playing with the toys now. He's so funny. Both have been to the front to eat and drink while I'm in here. They are very interested in Zeus and come right to the front of the kennel to see him. He sits on a chair in front but hisses once in awhile and makes funny noises. I wonder what he is saying to them.

Overnight the kittens ate every morsel of food, every drop of water, and they peed & pooped in the litter tray! Woo hoo!

Now they have resumed their positions in the back of the kennel looking at me.

Today is our turkey day!! We're planning to put the bird in the oven around noon.

It's a crisp fall day. The fog just lifted here in Lochaber. It's very rare to have such a still day. There isn't even the slightest breeze. The lake is completely still. It's almost like the world is frozen in place from our view on the hill.

Now if I could just keep Monty and Zeus out of my office. Monty is obsessed with staring at the kittens. They aren't ready for prime time yet!

--
Noon update! They each just ate a tablespoon of soft cat food off a spoon while Jeff held the spoon! Progress!

I did it! I can't believe I caught them! I schemed a bunch of plans yesterday but none were working. Then I got smart.

I had been feeding them by leaving cat food in the back of Monty's plastic puppy carrier. But if they saw me at all, they were off like a flash and I couldn't catch them.

So I needed a new plan. A plan that let me catch both of them on my first attempt.

After Jeff went to bed, and took Monty and Trooper (the dogs) with them, I put out fresh cat food and positioned the puppy carrier so the door was facing our front porch door. I opened the puppy carrier door enough for a kitten, and then I opened the door to the house a crack, a crack big enough that allowed me to pass the handle of a broom through the door. I put end of the broom handle against the puppy carrier door. I turned off the outside lights and all the lights inside. And then I crouched down, practically lying on the floor. I stayed still as my legs and feet fell asleep from the awkwardness of the angle I was crouching in.

Finally I saw a shape go into the carrier and I could hear it eating the cat food. I stayed so still. My heart started racing. If I just shoved that broom stick I'd have one! It would work! But what about the other kitten? No. I had to wait.

Come on kitty, come one, come out from hiding, come on. Listen to that chewing. Yummy cat food. Don't let your sibling eat it all. Come on.

Suddenly, I saw the shadow of kitten ears.

My heart was beating out of my chest. The thrill of the hunt!!!

Finally the second one went in the carrier, but just a bit. I knew if I slammed it now, I'd get a tail. No. I had to wait. Out it ran. No, did I miss my chance? Wait, it's looking right at me. Don't move, don't move, don't breathe, you can't see me.

And then it went all the way in the puppy carrier too.

Slam!!

I shoved the broom stick and closed the carrier door. Then I had to slide myself over like a paraplegic to get the door of the house open so I could secure the puppy carrier door. My legs were totally asleep.

The kittens quickly darted around and froze - staring at me.

I secured the carrier door, left them on the porch, and ran up to wake up Jeff to tell him I did it. My legs regained their bloodflow as I ran up the stairs and pounced into the bedroom to tell Jeff I did it!! As I panted to catch my breath!!

I went back downstairs and carried them inside. They were so still and calm. I imagined lots of hissing and meowing, but they didn't do either. I set up one of the dog's big extra large plastic vari-kennel like dog kennels in the basement and Jeff dumped the little carrier inside the door of the bigger one and they willingly climbed over. I put in a litter tray, dish of water, dish of kitten food, some toys, and towels. They stayed at the back, frozen like little statues.

I dreamt all night of kittens and cockroaches (don't ask) (well if you insist, I killed an odd bug in the basement last night, but I'm sure it wasn't a cockroch - just some weird Nova Scotia bug with legs and wings and a sinister gaze that I haven't previously met).

This morning I went down stairs. The kittens were curled up on top of each other behind the litter tray. They had eat some of their food over night. Jeff carried the kennel up to my office so they could be around people as they get used to us.

I guess I expected movement, but they are scared little statues that haven't moved much. I picked one up with leather gloves for 20 seconds, and it bit and growled a bit so I put it back. They are so scared. I can't believe I bought them toys. They'd have to move for that.

All day they've stayed at the back of the kennel. I sat it up on the trunk I have and angled it so they can stare at me while I sit here at my desk on the computer. They are wide awake right now. Here I just took their photo:

They are so cute. I have no idea what sex they are - although don't orange calico's have to be female? Or did I get that wrong. They have ear tufts and have long hair - like maine coon cats have - but they surely aren't purebred.

My plan? Well I hope we can tame these two. I will have to bring them in to the vet to get checked over so until then I'm keeping them separate. The one with the orange has had a runny right eye since the first time we saw her. Otherwise they seem healthy, but I'm not a vet. I've googled all day for tips on how to tame them. They are a little on the old side I suspect, but I really don't know how old they are - 3-4 months I guess?

I'd like to tame them, have them spayed/neutered and then find them new homes. Of course I already love them but I just can't have more pets here. I already have 1 cat and 2 dogs and I'm very allergic to cats. Wouldn't you like to adopt one of them? Pretty please?

We decided to catch the 2 kitties, now that their mom has set them free.

We've been feeding them every day so they aren't going anywhere else. No way will they survive a winter. So we bought some supplies last night and we plan to catch 'em, tame 'em, and then find them a new home.

I'm allergic to cats and there is no way I can keep them. But I can't let them die either.

So last night I was plotting a plan and I had them both in a kennel (I put the food in there) but they are too quick and can run away before I can close it. We might use a string to pull the door shut from farther away. The trick is to catch them both at once.

I went in side to tell Jeff my progress/plan and then went back out and came face to face with a SKUNK. I saw his tail go up. Then he dove under the front steps! Do skunks eat cats? He was probably attracted to the smell of cat food. Luckily later on I saw the kitties out again so they are safe. No sign of the skunk.

This morning before the sun came up Monty was already up watching the kittens. One was sitting on top of the puppy crate that is out there, and the other one was in side eating.

I'm guessing this is going to be way harder than I think to catch them.

Let's hope it's not.

Want a kitten?? They are SUPER cute!

Really. I need to learn to pack TWO days before I leave. Then I can take out half of the stuff I packed. Lugging around more clothes than I would wear in 2 weeks has been silly. At least I have a wide variety of outfits to choose from and can change clothes a few times a day.

It's early morning at the hotel. I'm on the 17th floor!

The conference has been excellent. REALLY long day yesterday but every presentation was interesting, they kept strict to the time, and the questions afterwards were engaging.

My nose has been running like crazy so hopefully the allergy pill I took this morning will stop the flow before I get into that grand ballroom with 200 people again.

I got to visit with Leigh and her son last night. We were Junior Rangers together in 1992! She hasn't changed a bit. And her son is the cutest boy. He was due on our wedding day so I wouldn't invite her because I told her she wasn't allowed to upstage the wedding by giving birth. HA! He held on until Dec. 29th though. Poor kid was teething and wasn't too happy in the restaurant.

Getting hungry. Good thing they put on a big spread. Actually I'm on this special club floor so I have access to a room with free drinks and appetizers but so far I've been too chicken to go there. It has big wooden doors and you have to swipe your card, but no window so I can't check it out from the hallway before I dive in. Maybe today.

Library staff pub crawl tonight. Should be ... interesting.