Petunia's first adoptive family.

 For those of you who have not met my newest little angel, this is Petunia. She is just three months old now, although we brought her in from under the garage about a month ago. She was living under there with a family of skunks--as skunks and cats are kissing cousins in a way--they really tolerate each other in a very convivial way.  

I was sure that the skunks had moved on long ago. I rarely see.That is until I went outside to take pictures of the Super Moon eclipse a while back. I went out into the dark with my camera and started taking photos, leaning on the pea trellis to steady the camera as I snapped. In short time my husband came out to join me.

Then he heard a noise, a rustling of the hosta leaves under the sunporch. We had just taken Petunia into our house a short while before so we anticipated that this may be another relative who also had been abandoned/orphaned. I turned my camera toward the sound by the rain barrels and pushed down the button to focus, knowing that it would produce a dim light that would illuminate whatever it was without causing too much of a fuss. 

Whoa. What a surprise. Walking along the pallet beneath the rain barrels not five feet away was a very large skunk in all its fluffy black glory with two thinnish white stripes on this side of its back that ultimately converged on its tail. Lovely beast. It looked a lot like my Frankie, but shorter, and with the white stripes, but just as large. Now Frankie is a good 12-15 pounds these days and his fur is 4-6 inches long so you get the picture. 

I focused a couple more times so I could appreciate this magnificent creature's beauty some more, but did not actually snap a picture so as not to scare the poor beastie with the flash and the noise. We decided that indoors was a better place for us while he was out for his nightly foraging. He--I say he like I actually know, and I don't--scurried off into the hostas towards its den, and we took our cue and went swiftly but quietly into the house. 

Now I had, on occasion, seen skunk scat about the gardens, but not in gross proliferation. We never smell them. My husband says they like us because of our critter-friendly yard. We give them a safe place and in turn they eat our grubs and slugs and all manner of not garden-healthy vermin. 

Now we know for those two weeks we were feeding Petunia before we snatched her up and brought her indoors, that--despite being apparently orphaned or abandoned by her original family--she had been adopted by these, our resident skunks.They shared their home with her and never caused her harm or fear. I love skunks!

 

Jack the Cat

Jack the Cat

Jack the Cat is very special to me. The poor darling was starving when we took him into our home. He had been outside, fending for himself as a kitten, and had taken to eating from our compost pile. Our compost pile consisted of the typical fare from the kitchen, scraps from cooking, so he had a wide variety of vegetables to choose from. After his feast he would wander over to the catnip patch and have himself a snack before leaving for the evening to hide in whatever secret spot he was calling home then. 

We started feeding him cat food, dry at first and then canned. Slowly he came to trust us, enough that he would let me sit with him while he ate, patting him and pulling burs and bugs out of his fur. At first he would eat two cans of wet food, a total of 13 ounces, at a sitting. One day, with sub-freezing temperatures arriving, I invited him in, and he willingly leaped over my legs to get inside. The rest, they say, is history. 

Pac choi growing hydroponically

We switched all our cats over to canned food because of a growing concern with the content in dry food. This seemed to help all of them physically. The overweight ones became trimmer and Jack the Cat seemed to lose his IBS that had plagued him since he had arrived. No more smelly, loose feces. 


When I started to harvest our pac choi from the hydroponic box that sits in the hallway under a plastic tent, however, I was curious that Jack the Cat wanted a nibble. I know cats eat grass outdoors, and I would love to grow it for them, except my allergies prevent me from that, so I let him taste. He liked it. He loved it. Every time I went under the tent to get some herbs, lettuce or pac choi for my family, Jack the Cat insisted on having a nibble or two of the leaves. 

Pac choi leaf for Jack.

I don't have issues with nibbles on my leaves, but others might. Instead of letting him forage amongst the plants under the canopy, I select him the best leaf from amongst the most mature and tie it onto my apron string that hangs in the hallway. He gets a leaf every day or two. Now he is happy, getting his veggies to help with his hairballs. I am happy that he has less issues, and no more nibbled plants.

Going to be working on that new crustacean of mine. Here is the preliminary. Also have a couple more designs in the works, all MAINE related, of course. I don't know how to bring snow into the theme work yet, but I am sure I will come up with something.

What other things remind you of MAINE??? What are the classics that say, AYUH, that's Maine?

Well, I know that there is some dispute over the Whoopie Pie, but being a Maineiac, I do not  give it a second thought. So Whoopie pies are in order for the future, and BLUEBERRIES quite naturally.

The furry five are settled down for their morning naps, so I am going into the sewing room to see what I can do there. MEow, for now.

Starving to thriving

Mary Elizabeth in 2009 at 2+ years of age, post pregnancy.

I was looking through my pet photos of all the kitties that have been for the last 15 years or so and was shocked by the apparent transformation of my mom's two kitties, Mary and Emma. 

Mary, as seen here on the left, was so emaciated that I originally believed she had some exotic species blended in there somewhere. But that was not the case. She was just starving. 

Mary had been given up to the SPCA for adoption because she was pregnant--not that that was her fault. Her previous owner did not have her spayed, and either let her out to do what nature calls for, or allowed another of their cats that were probably also not neutered, to mate with her. She was given away, pregnant. 

Mary Elizabeth one year ago

The SPCA sent her to a foster home to be cared for during the gestation.  Look at her face. She is starving. I have had a lot of cats throughout my life and have had one or two that became pregnant along the way [I have learned through the years that it is better to have them spayed/neutered] and if they are eating right, they do not get like this. She weighed just five pounds! There is no excuse. 


Her most recent picture show that she is now a healthy weight, despite not having any teeth! It seems her malnutrition and poor care through the first two years of her life led to gingivitis and bone loss in her jaw. She started losing her teeth and instead of prolonging her suffering through the eventual loss, we chose to remove all her teeth at once. That has not stopped her from eating and, in fact, she has stabilized her weight at 10 pounds. Just right for her frame. 

Emma in 2009 from shelter

Emma also came home that day in 2009. She, like Mary was also starving, and not quite four pounds. She was 1.5 years old at the time. She should have been full grown. She should have weighed more like eight or ten pounds. She slept a lot in those first few months, slowly gaining strength and weight. She has the softest of voices, barely audible, and her fur is as soft as silk. She has that adorable calico nose, although the rest of her is pure tiger. 

Emma 2013

Now Emma is quite the little princess, and fully formed at a normal weight of 8.5 pounds. She doesn't like when I visit because I am the one who gives her the hairball medicine and trims her toenails, but she gives me head butts anyway, and always poses for pictures. 

Last year I took in two pussycats who were roaming wild through the area near my home. They both were full of fleas and ticks and cling-ons of all sorts, but they were not as emaciated as my mom's two cats had been. They were starving--they were eating out of our compost pile until we started giving them "cat food"--and they were both about the same ages as Mary and Emma--but they each weighed ten pounds when we took them to the vet for a checkup and plans for surgery. 

I can only conclude that people, and not the otherwise circumstances of these cats' lives, were responsible for Mary and Emma's advanced conditions of starvation. What does that say about those people? I don't know for sure, but I know they would not be my friends. 

Mary, Christmas 2014

Ratz4Katz.etsy.com

Sketching

I have resumed my sketching and painting and, at my dear friend's insistence--who is, herself, a great artist--opted to focus on kitties as they are the focus of my life anyway. With that said, here is the first of many sketches, in preparation for future paintings, and perhaps to stand all on their own. We shall see. 

This is a cat of memory only and perhaps not even that. She reminds me of my sister's cat Samantha, who is long since in kitty heaven and was the most delicate fluff ball in shades of white and gray.

I have loved many kitties over the years and dedicate myself to their health and happiness. If you appreciate your furry one, perhaps you will visit my shop www.Ratz4Katz.etsy.com where toys abound and other comforts for our creatures will soon follow.