The Seasonal Cat

For 8 months out of the year, I'm only on feeding terms with one of my cats. Magic is more than happy to let me scratch his back for a few seconds in return for his breakfast and supper, but getting him to spend any more time with me during the warmer months is almost impossible. He hangs out under the porch and sleeps in the bushes under the dining room window. He takes naps on the seat of one of the porch chairs and goes off alone on frequent hunting trips, returning occasionally with a mouse or swallow.

The other two house-dwelling cats have an uneasy truce with him. There is much hissing and growling through the office window whenever Callie or Orion spots Magic lounging on the deck or in his chair. When the cats do have one of their infrequent meet-ups outside, they spit and swipe at one another, though thankfully there hasn't been any out-and-out combat.

Magic is, of course, neutered. And as the house sits about 1/4 of a mile off the quiet country road I'm not worried about him getting anywhere near traffic. Besides, he's pretty much spooked by anything that moves, so I trust him not to try to make friends with hungry coyotes. It's not that he can't come in -- I have two doggie doors, one of which is open 24/7. No, he just prefers to keep to himself and live up to the stereotype of the totally aloof cat for those 8 long months.

Once the temperature starts dipping below freezing, though, Summer Magic disappears and Winter Magic arrives to take his place. Winter Magic is a house cat who can't be enticed outside even on mild winter days. Winter Magic does his best to avoid Callie and Orion the first week or so after he moves in, during which time there is much hissing and spitting and swipe-taking that happens neither outside nor through the window. While they never fully accept one another, Callie and Orion eventually and grudgingly come to tolerate the interloper.

For his part, Winter Magic naps in one of the spare rooms upstairs and takes his meals downstairs in the dining room. He meows pathetically in the kitchen for me to hurry up while I'm preparing his royal feasts and demands I lift him up to the window sill where he can gnosh without being challenged by the other cats.

Winter Magic even plays. His favorite game is dunking the plastic ring off a milk jug into the water bowl, retrieving it out of the water, then starting all over. Most wonderfully, Winter Magic at night snuggles up in bed and snoozes away with the rest of us, purring in my arms.

Who is this Winter Cat and where does he come from? Selfishly, I wish he would stay and not, like Frosty, come spring simply melt away.

Do any of you have a seasonal friend?

From Our Farm to Yours ...

Here at Rainbow's End, we have our own version of the chorus to "The 12 Days of Christmas."

12 snakes a-sleeping

At least we hope these guys are hibernating now!

11 novels selling

Other new titles can be found at Steel Magnolia Press

10 blog posts waiting

With 3 blogs to contribute to, I always seem to be behind in my posts!

Confessions of an Animal Junkie

Dare To Dream / Be Thrilled

Where Imagination Blooms

#2 on New Year's resolutions is to get ahead and stay ahead in 2012.

9 hens not laying

The flock is older now, and winter is a poor season for eggs anyway.
But who cares as long as the girls are all healthy?

8 'keets a-singing

Well, OK, there's a zebra finch in there, too.

7 roosters crowing

Generally crowing at 4:00 am

6 dogs 'n cats a-fighting

Well, maybe we're exaggerating the fighting part a little.
From left: Loki, Angel, Ginger and Orion, the cat.
Not pictured: Callie and Magic (both cats)

5 po-o-nies


Pic on right (from left to right): Bella, Ricky, Bonnie, Cody, Lyssa

4 Pekin ducks

There's also the boy mallard, but his character was cut during the edit.

3 silly guineas

Best alarms for alerting us to coyotes and stray cats ever.
The guinea at the top is a pearl, the other is a lavendar.
Both of them, and the third, are boys.

2 goats a'buttin'

And they do use those horns - especially Lucy on the right (that's Rowdy, her son, on the left).

And an iguana in a pear tree

Technically Fafnir is in a crabapple tree here, but there IS a pear tree right next to this one that she also hangs out in.

Wishing you and your beasties a holiday full of peace and love and, most importantly, warm beds and warm laps for all.

Here's Mud in Your Eye. And Mane. And Tail...

I promised this week there'd be pictures of the herd masquerading as shaggy mountain ponies, thinking I'd snap a few shots of them in their winter coats. Then we got rain. And more rain. Not Thai-flood amounts of rain, but a deluge measured in inches with more coming as I write this. What a lovely sight!

In addition to the rain (edited after looking outside to add sleet and wet snow!), cold weather is moving in. And the horses love it. So much that they're skidding around in the mud and making their own wallows. So instead of the long-, thick-haired mountain pony impersonators I'd planned, we have little horses impersonating mud monsters instead. Definitely not the beasties at their besties.


Ricky

Bella

Cody

Bonnie

Lyssa

This is one of the stalls given over to grass bagged from one of the pastures.

I still need about 10 more bales of hay to get everyone through the winter, goats included. I generally buy coastal bermuda as I supplement with (too much) grain and pelleted feed. Right now, I feed my own blend of alfalfa/timothy pellets (the wild rabbits love me to throw a handful or two of these their way, too), rolled oats, sweet feed (which has yummy molasses mixed in) and a special pelleted concoction for older horses who can't digest hay easily. After my older mare, Lyssa, had an episode of choke (a blockage in the esophagus), the vet suggested the special pelleted mix, which is easily digested. When Bella went through two episodes of colic recently, I added it to the mix for everyone. The horses hate it and won't eat it out of the bag as it's meant to be consumed, but it goes down readily with all the other goodies.

Then, of course, they also get apples, carrots, alfalfa cubes and peppermint-flavored treats. Keeping them fed isn't the problem; it's keeping them from getting too fat -- a battle I fear I'm losing with my miniature gelding, Cody.

Some gratuitous shots of the dogs in the rain.

Loki

Ginger

Angel

And the cats waiting for lunch.

Callie (l) and Orion (r)

 

Black Dog Syndrome

As we slide into the holiday season, I'd like to offer a reminder to consider adoption, rescue or fostering when the time is right to open your heart and home to new forever friends, whatever their species.

It's your reward as well as theirs. I know. I'm mom to a number of rescues and strays myself, animals that either came from a shelter or found their way into my life without my planning for them: 3 dogs, 3 cats, 2 goats and 2 chickens.

Many of you are already aware of breed discrimination when it comes to shelter dogs. Pit bulls, Dobermans, German shepherds, and rottweilers often aren't given the same chance to find a new home as the dogs without breed stigma have. Did you know there's also color discrimination at work too? Black dogs, mainly large ones, are often overlooked at shelters. Are they too common? Not colorful enough? Too intimidating?

Please take a few moments to watch and share this video to help educate others about the plight of black dogs in shelters around the world.

A new Vet Tech Tale will be waiting when you're back from holiday shopping.

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow animal junkies, no matter where in the world you are. And special thanks to everyone who has given a beastie or two a home not just for the holidays but for forever.

Ghost Kitty

This post was originally published October 31,  2010.

What better day than Halloween to introduce you to a black cat named Magic?

About two-and-a-half years ago, something mysterious took up residence under my large, wraparound porch. A there-but-not-there presence I couldn't quite see. I did catch a few phantom glimpses, though: a streak of black out of the corner of my eye, a blur of movement in the dark. Occasionally, I heard a soft, eerie mew. Bowls of food I left as offerings were emptied in the night. Once, I saw a possum scavanging the bowl in the wee hours of the morning -- but was it eating the main course or leftovers?

I took to referring to the presence as my ghost kitty. After about a month of playing hide-and-seek with my spectral guest, I began sitting on the porch steps just after dark, talking gently to the unseen spirit, and rattling the food bowl, which when it's filled with a mix of dry and wet food doesn't produce near the kind of rattle you were probably imagining.

Nevertheless, after a couple of weeks of patient coaxing, a small and timid kitten finally slunk out from under the porch. It took another couple of weeks before the kitten didn't dart off the moment I moved and another couple of weeks before he allowed me to touch him.

I didn't press him; I allowed him to come to me when he was comfortable about it. Another couple of weeks and I could pick him up and hold him while he purred for a few seconds before struggling to get down. I tossed around names such as Ghost and Spirit and Shadow for him and finally landed on Magic.

Then it was time to introduce him to the safety of the house. Gray Kitty had no doubt already made his acquaintance under the porch and was his usual accommodating self when Magic moved indoors. He promptly became Magic's surrogate mom, pouncing on the kitten and holding him down while he licked the kitten clean. They were good buddies. And when winter came, they snuggled on the warm bed with me and the dogs.

Magic, though, never lost his shy nature. No one else has ever seen more of him than a glimpse of his freakishly long tail disappearing under the porch or up the stairs. (These pictures, taken this morning, are the first proof to others that he does, indeed, exist.) And while he'll hiss and threaten when another cat bullies him, he tends to be the one to back down even though he's grown into quite a large boy.

Last fall, two other cats joined our household -- cats who took an instant dislike to Magic. During the winter, he hung out in one room as far away from them as possible where Gray Kitty kept him company. When his best bud went missing in the spring, Magic moved outdoors, back under the porch, and has only come in a couple of times -- each at my insistence -- since.

Nowadays, he comes running for breakfast and supper when I call. He'll sit in my lap for long minutes at a time and purr. But he's still afraid of every shadow and every sudden movement. As temperatures dip I'm hoping to be able to entice him back in for the winter. The other two cats will no doubt put up a grand fuss, but they'll just have to get over it. Magic was haunting this house -- and my heart -- long before they ever showed up.

H A P P Y   H A L L O W E E N !

Free With Purchase

This post was originally published November 13, 2010.

August a year ago I was preparing to bring my dad home from the nursing home after his stroke. Because he was relearning to walk and use his left arm, he needed to be in a home that was handicap accessible and modified to his needs. And there needed to be room for a live-in caregiver. That meant modifying his mobile home. Or--

One of my neighbors had their property up for sale -- a large, older home with a small guest house and a metal barn on 10 acres -- that I considered purchasing. For various reasons, the house wasn't going to work for my dad's needs, so I went ahead and had the needed modifications made to the mobile home he knew and loved.

Meanwhile, I decided to try for a land grab. I negotiated with the owner and they wound up selling the house and structures with 2 acres to the town's deputy sheriff and the other 8 acres that abutted my property to me. Imagine a capital T with the crossbar being my original 19 acres and the leg being the 8-acre tract. The acreage even has a narrow egress to a paved road, so my little farm, though not a corner lot, now has access from two roadways.

Problem was, the deputy wasn't going to be moving in immediately and the neighbor couldn't take their dog or their two adult cats with them when they moved out. The real estate agent agreed to take the dog and I agreed to the cats, who were living outdoors with access to the garage. They were friendly enough, not feral, and I figured they could hang out in my barn where they would be dry and safe.

First, though, I needed to get them habituated to their new place. So I moved Orion, a black-and-white neutered male about 3 years old, and Callie, a spayed calico female about 4 years old, into a bathroom to start the acclimation process. They immediately got the hang of the litterbox, so I gave them the run of the house the next day.

 I'm sure you see where this is heading.



The mound these guys are on actually covers an
underground storm shelter. You can see a bit of
the access door to the right and one of the air
vents at the top. The shelter came with the house.
I'm certain to never use it because, while the
beasties are perfectly happy to be ON it, I'm
not sure how I would ever get everybody IN it.

Acclimation was accomplished within 24 hours. They figured out the doggie door, the food situation, the comfy bed and lap privileges. Living in a house was sweet. They eventually found their way to the barn, visiting it on one of their brief outings. They were unimpressed.

Well over a year later, they are total prima donnas. They've chased Magic, the former feral kitten, out of the house; have taken over my workspace; and refuse to eat anything but tuna canned for human consumption mixed with their dry food. Because of the potential health issues associated with too much tuna, I do try to limit their intake -- one small can lasts them two full days, 12 meals total among all 3 cats.

Orion follows the dogs around, follows me while I'm doing my outside chores, and sleeps on my pillow at night. Callie is the geek, snoozing on my keyboard and purring in my lap while I'm working. She sleeps in the unused second sink in the downstairs bath. I don't know why. But I've put a bit of fleece in the sink to make things more comfy for her. While I would love a magazine-perfect home and I avidly watch design shows, my decorating style is based solely on my beasties' habits.

I'm also one of those frugal folk who chase bargains and clip coupons. I bought 8 acres of raw, unimproved land for $42,000 and the owner threw in 2 free cats. Yep, I've always been a sucker for a good deal.