icanhaspnutbutr??

The weather has been cool but decent and it’s keeping the cats busy, hence the lack of visibility here. With warmer spring weather comes all sorts of activity outside for us humans, and the cats love nothing more than ‘helping’ us with various spring tasks.  It seems that no matter what we’re doing, there is a certain tuxedo cat right at our heels, lending expert advice or quite possibly, making for all kinds of distractions. It was really nerve wracking trying to stain a fence with his incessant need to be underfoot all the time, and heaven forbid we should venture into the attic space in the garage without his guidance. The one thing he really isn’t particularly interested in helping with is mowing the grass.

And of course, let’s not rule out the fun of the occasional early morning adventure of ‘Bird Chasing’ in the house. I swear I often rue the day Mike made that cat door……

simply because we never anticipated the fact that once Bustopher captured some poor critter who was being forced to become his friend that he would try to bring it inside to play, or share with us. We have chased more mice and poor panicky birds around our kitchen than we care to recall. And let’s not even talk about the ones that require no chasing at all.

But then again, they both have free reign for going in and out without further destroying the screen or making us nuts with the opening and shutting of the screen door.

And there is the new scratching post; this has been a huge source of amusement and mischief.

Bustopher’s favorite game is something we like to call ‘Cat Spinning’. He lays on the base of the post, grabs the center and yanks himself around and around, propelling himself with his back feet. I’m sure it feels great to stimulate his back with the pressure and the pile of the carpet, but if you happen to toss a few toys on the post as he spins, well, the mischief level amps up considerably. Often we see some pretty heated rivalry going on over who gets dominion on the post at any given time. Bustopher, being the Beta, simply acquiesces regularly and Harmon sits proudly by the post, appropriately regal, when he gains the upper hand. It’s not like he wants to use the post, really; he just wants to assert his Alpha.

There are moments of peace and camaraderie too.

Here they contemplate the huge crow that landed outside on the patio. I can imagine their conversation:

“Look at dat huge bird!”
“Are you gonna go get ‘im?”
“No way….YOU go get ‘im!”
“No YOU!”
“Maybe we both stay here and pretend we don’t see ‘im”
“Oh good idea….Dat ok wif me”

I don’t blame them for laying low. The scratching post is way more fun than chasing a huge bird with a sharp pointy beak.

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Mike and Griffin got busy over the weekend and made a nice new scratching post for the cats. Both cats, being rather large in terms of your average cat size, needed a larger post so they could stretch to their full height while scratching- a very important need for their back and legs.

Here is the result:

Harmon is quite tall, and at his stretchiest he can get his toes on the countertops, and that is the standard 30″. He can get his front feet on our table edge, and this post is tall enough that he can stretch out his full length. With a good rubbing of fresh catnip on it to get them interested, it was an all out Fun Fest for them.

Why, even the cute little toy mice got involved!

The catnip seemed to do something rather odd to them, as Harmon is noticing.

Needless to say, with this cool new post, the fun factor has gone a bit higher at our house. There have been lots of shenanigans surrounding the post; some ownership has been attempted but never established, and it’s been great fun for them to stand on the very tips of their toes and scratch endlessly. Great work, guys!!

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Cat toys…..how can you resist something so cute? These soft furry mice caught my eye on the recent jaunt for cat food. Given Bustopher’s admiration of all things mouse-like, I thought these would be awesome. He looks thrilled with his new friends, errrr….I mean toys!!

Those mice….they are so stinkin’ cute! Look at ‘em! In this picture, they kind of remind me of the mice in the movie ‘Babe’.

Byootaful Puddy and the lovely aussie Katie are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging- The Down Under version. Head on over and check out all the cats but stay away from the Vegemite!!

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Harmon has this fixated need for food; he does weigh around the 20# mark, big guy that he is, but he seems to want to eat everything without so much as a fraction of thought as to what it is or how it might taste. He has snatched peas off the floor, eaten popcorn, oatmeal and dust bunnies. He isn’t picky at all.

Case in point: Mike is eating a leftover homemade veggie burger, made out of brown rice and black beans, and without thinking on HIS part, he leaves the table to answer his phone. Of course, this leaves a wide open chance for our feline food monger to sneak up on his chair and check out what he left behind. I come out of my office just in time to see Harmon’s paw swipe a huge chunk of veggie burger from Mike’s plate, knocking it onto the floor. He leapt off the chair and gobbled the chunk down, almost without chewing (which happens A LOT) in an effort to prevent me from grabbing it away from him. And here I stand watching the whole thing, laughing so hard that I don’t even consider stopping Harmon. He’s eating a veggie burger! This I had to see!

Thankfully, we didn’t need the sign.

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After sitting through much more sad face at yet another Spring snowstorm, it looks like the weather has warmed to much more acceptable levels. Bustopher is manic about being able to get outside, and we have occasionally let him in the front door only to watch him circumnavigate the kitchen by way of the food bowls (to be sure they are still full) and trot right to the patio door, skipping outside again with his ears held high. He loves the sense of power and control he has over using ’sad face’ at the door in an attempt to guilt us for leaving him outside too long.

There have not been any more mice gifts, but there has been lots of sneaking around on the patio attempting to chase the birds away. He managed to tree a squirrel in our little hawthorn tree, sitting at the base of it watching with amusement as the squirrel sat, stunned, trying to determine his means of escape. For the split second that Bustopher turned his head, the squirrel leapt from the tree, Bustopher in high pursuit. Naturally, the critter got away.

And of course, the strong spring winds have kicked up many a dry leaf, and it’s highly amusing to watch Bustopher chase after them, his tail whipping around in frenzied delight.

Then, when he’s inside and restless, he gets into all sorts of shenanigans.

Climbing the kitchen cabinets is tops on the list. Harmon watches him climb ever higher, maybe with a mixture of jealousy and whimsy…..I just can hear him calling to Bustopher ‘You’re going to get in trouble!!’ and snickering behind his paw, while maybe silently wishing his girth did not prevent him from following.

Both of the cats are extremely happy about the catnip pushing from up from the earth outside. They spend many enthralled moments sniffing it and examining its progress, occasionally chasing each other away in an effort to enforce dominance over the weed. Once in a while Harmon will come inside looking quite fluffed up, with bits of dried leaves in his fur and a somewhat dazed expression on his face and I know he’s been out there rolling around in it. The guy just can’t help himself; he loves the stuff. Then he takes a really long nap. Really long.

We’re preparing for G-man’s 14th birthday this Saturday. It should be a rollicking good time!

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The birds have returned in force now that the weather is nice, brought out by the promise of seed at the backyard feeders. Bustopher delights in sneaking outside and twinkle-toe-ing across the patio in an attempt to sneak up on them with a surprise attack; he flattens himself as low as he can go and sneaks over to the edge of the patio, waits for an opportune moment, usually when the birds backs are turned to him, and then he leaps off the patio wall, scattering all the birds with a chorus of angry and indignant squawks. He has never caught any this way, mostly I think he does it for sport.

Today he was watching at the patio door, waiting to run outside at the first moment to ‘play’ with the birds but among the feeder dwellers was a noisy and obnoxious Grackle (those are the ones with the iridescent blue heads) and as soon as Bustopher ran out the door and down the steps, that Grackle squawked, plain as day  ‘CAT!!!! CAAAAT!!!’ and every bird within five feet of the house, not to mention the two squirrels that were hanging out, scattered like mad, flying to nearby trees or racing away across the lawn.

Poor Bustopher just stood there, his head down and ears flat, staring at the noisy Grackle who insisted upon staying in the hawthorn tree, reminding everyone nearby in a very loud voice that there was a “CAT!!” in the vicinity.

I haven’t a clue who appointed the Grackle the ‘watchbird’ of the yard, but as long as Bustopher stayed outside, that Grackle made sure everyone knew he was there.

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I spy subterfuge involving a lemon

I spy mischief involving an apple

I spy intimidation with size and status….

I spy invisibility

I spy something scary…

Yikes.  Put the camera away….quick!

Join other mischievous felines at Bad Kitty Cats, where all kinds of shenanigans occur.

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Yup…..it’s snowing AGAIN.

There has been lots of sad face around the house today.  Surprisingly, a lot of it has come from Harmon.

Ohhhhhh, Spring! How we yearn for thee!

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and someone is often stir crazy……one day it’s warm, then it’s cold….its warm again and then the mornings are cold and then it’s a warm afternoon and then…..and then……

Luckily he is getting out, hunting for meeses and exploring quite a bit, but I just dread another late season snowstorm. He was so crestfallen at the Good Friday/Easter snowfall we had- like he wanted to just lay down and die.

However, Harmon is taking it all…….well, like Harmon does.

As long as there is warm sunshine and a nice blanket, he doesn’t really give a hoot what is going on outside.

Obviously, nothing really exciting is happening here. We’re really gunning for Spring too. There’s some faint green shoots in the garden but with the chill in the air, they aren’t poking their heads out too fast yet. I’m sure as soon as they do some feline is going to chomp them to pieces; my cats and their greenery consumption- why would you knowingly eat something that almost always makes you barf? I don’t get it. And then they look at you so innocently, while you’re wringing your hands over the state of your carpet, as if saying “What?? Got a problem with that? I feel SO much better!”

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted over at Catsynth with the lovely Luna. She has some very interesting toys and gadgets around her house even though most of them are still packed away in boxes.

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*sigh*

That white stuff is back…..AGAIN! I don’t get it; for days…..DAYS! I can go outdoors, chase the meeses in the sunshine and get wet muddy feet, and then…….THIS.

MORE white stuff and cold wind. Mom says it’s March snow, and that it doesn’t last long. But all I can think about is all the meeses getting away. She keeps telling me that we are celebrating Easter, but I recall one year we did that and it was SUNNY and WARM and I was outside and instead of finding meeses, I found a bunny to play with. Mom got really mad at me for it- how did I know the bunny wouldn’t want to play with me?- and told me that it better not be the Easter Bunny.

Anyone know what she meant? I just wanted to have fun; it was a cute little bunny.
Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by the boys at Paulchens, even though it says they are still on vacation. Head on over and check out the fun!

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