Cat Life

It's easy to see that the cats in our house are pretty spoiled.........

One of Olive and Astrid's favorite activities is bird-watching.

They can spend hours here watching birds. And with the early spring and warm weather we've had, I can open the windows so there is also sound as well.

The window perch is also a great place to nap in the afternoon sun. Astrid loves to groom herself as well as the other cats.

Any open window in the house is THE place to be..............

The window perch looks down on the back yard, where the bird feeders, squirrel feeder and the bird bath are located.

The birds also often land on the rain gutter right outside the window, for great close up views...........

Even the front hall window, with a very un-interesting view of the driveway and street can be fun, especially if I'm right outside working in the flower beds.

This extra bedroom that we don't use has kind of become the "cat room". I brought this cat tree up from the basement recently and put it near the window. A friend of Erik's actually made this for him years and years ago. It has been a favorite of both Olive and Astrid's, so I finally brought it upstairs.

 You may notice it has a hand crocheted cozy on the top 'scoop'. (I made it, using leftover yarn!)

As I said......I bet nobody can tell how spoiled our cats are.................  ;-)

The scoop is a great place to look out the window, lounge and of course, nap.

The kitty condo is actually an ottoman. It has a hidey-hole that Astrid really likes.

 When she doesn't feel like napping in the hidey-hole, the top of the ottoman works just as well.

....or the couch in the parlour......

Olive will sleep just about anywhere.......usually in a very un-ladylike position!

E.B., being an elderly gent of 15 years old, isn't much interested in bird-watching. He really likes sleeping.

Although, playing with toys is still interesting for this old guy.

When the weather is warm, Astrid likes to sleep with her tummy on the cool hardwood floor. I call her "Super Cat" when she lays like this.

Pets can be such a joy to have in our lives!
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Bird Watching

Astrid loves bird-watching.

It's almost like deja vu.....

Olive, last spring.....bird-watching!

The bird feeders and squirrel feeder are actually outside a different window, but they like this one a lot as well, because my climbing rosebush is on a trellis right outside this window and birds sit on the rosebush all the time. During winter there are no leaves on the bush and they get a close-up view of the birds here!

Frequently throughout the day I will see either Astrid or Olive at this window. Sometimes they both sit here together! I will have to try and get a picture of that some time!

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Update on Astrid

Just wanted to give everyone an update on our new kitty, Astrid!  She is doing very well and is adjusting to her new home wonderfully. After her isolation period was over, we started slow introductions to Olive and E.B. by wedging the door of her room open with door stops so they could look at each other through the crack in the door and smell each other, but not touch.

I was surprised by how mellow and unfazed she seemed to be about the other two cats. I thought there might be more agitation, but she did really well. Olive and E.B. were also well behaved towards her. They were mostly curious about her and anxious check her out.

After a few days of this, we started letting her out of her room for short periods of time so she could have supervised interactions with Olive and E.B. There was no fighting, or hissing or anything of the kind, which was a relief. She was eager to explore the rest of the house as well.

It's now been over a week since she was "let loose" in the house full time and she is doing great. Her first few days she spent a lot of time upstairs in the 'cat room', which is an extra bedroom that has no particular use. It has lots of windows and faces south, so I keep my plants in there in winter. One of the windows faces the back yard where I have the bird feeders and squirrel feeder, so we put a window perch in there for Olive to look at birds and squirrels. I've seen Astrid on it a few times as well, so I'm guessing she'll be an avid bird-watcher too, once spring comes and the birds come back. There is also an old futon in there and a bunch of cat toys and a cat tree, so it's just sort of become the 'cat room'.  After she got more comfortable being out all the time, she now spends most of her time wherever we are, just like Olive and E.B.

Just like Olive, Astrid likes to be where the action is. Here they are "helping" me a couple of days ago when I was putting away Christmas tree ornaments. Yes, my Christmas tree was still up. I had all my other Christmas stuff down and put away three weeks ago, but I got a terrible cold and I had no energy to deal with the big tree until a few days ago.

This is one of Astrid's favorite ways to lay; the " flying frog".  She's a real cuddle bug and loves to sleep on your lap. She does like to play with toys, but she's not as addicted to toys as Olive. With Olive, it's play, play, play all day long. Astrid loves to lounge and nap a little bit more, but she does enjoy playing with Olive. They are the same age and they have fun chasing each other around and stalking each other. E.B, being a stately elderly gent of almost 15 years old now, prefers to watch them most of the time. When he gets feisty and wants to play (which happens occasionally, even for an old guy like him) he prefers to self-play with various toys, rather than participate in chasing games.

Resting after an exhaustive play session with the cat charmer wand and yarn ball toy.

Pretty soon I'll be taking Astrid for her first visit with our vet so they can meet her and check her over. She seems to be pretty much over her URI, but she still seems a little stuffy in the nose and occasionally sneezes, so we might need to get her some antibiotic nose drops.

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Meet Astrid

We decided to add a new furry child to our household just after the holidays:

We adopted her from the Wisconsin Humane Society. She is two years old, a domestic long hair calico.

I don't know much about her background; she was a transfer from another shelter and though tame and socialized and very friendly, she was apparently brought in as a stray and was unclaimed. She was not declawed or spayed, but the WHS spayed her.

We have named her Astrid.

Right now she is in her "isolation" room ( our guest bedroom) with her own food, litter, toys, bedding etc. Because we did not know what kind of environment she came from, we don't know if she lived in a home with other companion pets, so we wanted to introuduce her to Olive and E.B. slowly. She is a little more shy and less gregarious than Olive, who is a total social butterfly and adjusted so quickly to our home that it was quite amazing, but we know that Astrid's personality is little more cautious and that she would need more time and much slower approach than Olive.

The folks at WHS have different personality categories that they use to determine how easy it will be for a cat to adjust to a new home and how they will interact with people, based on their own personality. Astrid was placed in a category that was in the middle; the "Sidekick". She's very friendly and social, and loves to sit in laps, but she needs to be comfortable with that person first. She won't just walk up to anybody and be their instant best friend, like Olive does, but she's not fearful, like E.B., who is very shy and will only come out from hiding if there are no strange people in the house.

Both Olive and E.B. know there's a new cat in the "secret" room; they often sit outside the door hoping for a glimpse when we go in and out. Olive's curiosity is much more rapacious and she'll sit outside the door for hours on end. After Astrid had been with us about three or four days, we started opening the door a few inches and held it in place with rubber doorstops on either side so that she could look out through the crack at Olive and E.B. and they could smell each other and look at each other without being able to touch. Olive is, of course, totally unfazed. E.B. gets a little weirded out. Astrid seems to be pretty unruffled so far.

I had hoped to continue the slow introductions with letting Astrid out for short, supervised durations to let her explore the rest of the house and see the other cats, but she started sneezing on Thursday night and had a little bit of a cough. Because we had only brought her home five days earlier, it sounded like feline upper respiratory infection, which is very prevalent in shelters. Olive also had it when we adopted her. So now I have to hold off continuing introductions while Astrid gets her antibiotics and gets over her infection. Feline URIs are very contagious, so I don't want Olive and E.B. to get it. I don't know if I can handle giving liquid antibiotics twice a day to three cats!!!

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Super Cute Cats

I got a new camera for my birthday two weeks ago and I've been playing around with it, learning how to use it. Of course, I had to find something to take pictures of besides all my Halloween decor!

Why not my super cute cats????!!!!! 

Olive. Super cute, but also super naughty sometimes. This last week she broke two things; a candy bowl and a decorative pot.

E.B. is also super cute, even if he's super weird sometimes. ;-)

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Olive Hopes to See A Bird

Poor Olive......she wants spring to get here as much as I do! Last summer a very brave goldfinch built a nest in the very thorny climbing rosebush outside this window. The bush was too thick for us to be able to see the nest or babies and by the time Olive joined our family last August, the babies had already fledged and the nest was empty. Lately, however, a sparrow has been investigating the nest and Olive was delighted to be able to watch the bird close-up (the sparrow didn't seem fazed by her looming on the other side of the window). Now she sits in this window several times a day in hopes of seeing a bird there.

She was so busy at another window, she missed seeing this guy on the squirrel feeder this morning. He was a little bit angry this morning because there was a rabbit eating the spilled corn on the ground.

And there were several birds eating the corn as well.

He sat on the garage roof and scolded.

And when that didn't work, he went into the tree where the birds were sitting and scolded until they went away. Can you see him in the tree? He's almost the same color as the branches!

My corn!

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Mosaic Monday: The Faces of Olive

                                                 ** click  images to view larger**!

I'm joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosiac Monday. Thanks for stopping by!