As it turned out, Mango was dead by early afternoon on that Wednesday, the day of the last post...
...and don't want to follow this thought down the reminiscing bittersweet thoughts; I've got folks coming over today!
(... the beginning of the end of isolation...? )
Mango's a real trooper. Or maybe it just seems so because I am human and not as closely connected to my Source as he is. His gait is different, by necessity; but it is not making him crazy or weird. He seems to stay a little closer to home. But it may only be that he checks in more often. Once he's out the door, I don't know where he goes. Though he loves to visit our neighbor, Shaula, where they have a cat door, too. Not all of their cats appreciate his presence, but Dick seems to like him.
It never occured to me to wonder if his coat was a different color at the skin. Who knew? He's a white cat under all that orange. From the left you can hardly tell anything is different. His left back leg (the only one, now) is a little more center when he sits than it used to be. And he has a funny little hop now. And so far, he prefers to avoid long jumps upward. He can scale the back fence, though, if he wants to badly enough.
He does mostly avoid running into his brother, Carmel. They were never good friends. Mango was always the stronger, quicker one. Now he seems to realize that he has some disadvantage now that he didn't used to have. Since Carmel outweighs him by 4-5 lbs, that's probably a good thing to understand.
So, it's weird here this winter. We built a heated cat condo for Carmel in the mudroom. He only comes inside now in the small hours of the morning before the dogs get up. Carmel must weigh 15 lbs. Our biggest dog weighs 8 1/2 lbs; other is 6 lbs. But dogs chase and Carmel runs, and that just perpetuates the cycle. Mango knew early on just to take a swipe or two at the dog that was bothering him - usually Bearly - and now peace reigns among those three. Carmel doesn't get it, and he's HUGE compared to them. I'm not sure how we'll deal with this over time. Carmel is happy enough that he has not run away from home. But in a 2 human-4 animal household he remains an outsider. It makes me sad. And while I try not to antropomorphise with the animals, can he really be happy like that?
Now, too, we're thinking of traveling - getting a trailer or something - and hitting the road. It appears that Mango may become enough on a home-body that he can go, too. But that will never work with Carmel. I think I'll be searching for a new home for him over the next several months.
He's a beautiful boy - we've forgotten if he is 6 or 7. He loves massages. It is a puzzlement. I've sent out an email. But I don't have the impulse to put him up on FB yet... Makes me sad.
Gotta go... dogs need feeding; I need a hug. see you later.
Here are the two little cuties that are brightening my days away from home.
The gray one is Phazie (Phaedra) and Bobby is the other one.
And here is just one of many gorgeous skyscapes from this location.
This one is of our first (tiny) snowfall - Oct. 3rd. You'll have to click it (for the larger image to even see it!) This one was taken near HMHC.
This has been a very interesting season. For now, I'm going to tell you about the last couple of days and how I spent my Christmas time.
Almost first thing, after starting the coffee, was my morning walk. The coolest thing has developed: Mango goes with me! He really likes the walk, and becomes impatient (so it seems) if I take too long to get to it - or if I don't get to it at all.
Here is that cutie pie:
Our walk is only a half mile circuit, but it has some BIG hills. I guess that Mango covers about 3 times the distance that I do.
Christmas Eve morning was gorgeous. We were out early enough to see the morning sun hit The Mountain.
So. yeah, you can't really see anything for the trees, but it was great. And contrasted sharply with this morning. We had sunshine for our walk, but the western sky (where The Mountain sits) was gray & cold & promising interesting weather for later on... I tried a picture, but it showed even less that this last one did.
We always see deer, usually in the yard as they were this morning:
This shot shows a buck at the end of the driveway, and more of his herd across the street in the meadow.
Carmel met us in our neighbor's drive way, but won't take the walk with us. We've finally got some great shots of him:
Here's a closeup of Mango, too.
I love the way the light hits his fur in this one. Be sure to click on it to see it larger.
Aren't our boys beautiful?!
OK...that was Christmas morning until about 7:30 or 8:00.
Now it's time to get down to the food.
Carol & Nancy came over for breakfast. Nancy brought a terrific casserole of grits, cheese, green chili, and eggs. I made my famous (Rachel Ray) bacon: thick sliced with brown sugar and red chili flakes. We had some outstanding sour dough bread that Carol brought, and a Finnish Breakfast braided bread that Nancy & I found in a Great Harvest bakery in Albuquerque on Monday. If there is one of those any where near you, check it out. They grind their own grain and the baked goods are wonderful.
Here we are enjoying the feast: Nancy, Carol & Joel in that order left to right. That's me, behind the camera.
And now, I'm enjoying playing with the blog and thinking of stuff. And enjoying some quiet. Everyone's gone right now; some to the Casino, Nancy to her family across town.
I'm heading to the bath tub to enjoy a soak & a good book. Later on, we'll meet at the baby casino (The Travel Center) for a family-style turkey dinner...unless it just seems like a better idea to order pizza or eat left-overs.
For my money, this day has been about perfect so far.
I'd love to be seeing my brother & sister, but I'll see them soon; and on holidays they tend to be followed by lots of other people and quite a bit of noise.
There is one really special thing that happened this year I want to tell you about. You may not really understand, but it won't matter; I got it.
In a recent conversation with my friend Shaula my Mom's quillows came up. Mom made some years ago; mine had a cat on it. Shaula saw it years ago - oh, maybe 15 or more. She loved it and commissioned Mom to make some for her & her girls which Mom did...all five of them. And Shaula & her girls still have them & love them. Shaula found out that mine was gone. (Why it's gone is another story for another time.)
In any case, Shaula came over on Christmas Eve with a gift for me - we usually only exchange cookies or such.
Shaula had packed up her own quillow and brought it to me.
I have one of my Mom's quillows again! Oh, the bawling that went on...we had Joel & Carol crying too. It was so sweet and so touching. Thanks, Shaula.
And for those who don't know, a quillow is a cross between a quilt & a pillow. They're usually about lap rug size, as these Mom made are. The quilt has a special pocket into which the quilt folds, so that it can sit out on your couch and look just like a beautiful pillow. Here's my 'new' one:
I wanted a good shot of it unfolded, but Mango got involved and is now certain that the quillow is his. We will have to talk.
And for a final treat, I believe it has begun to snow.
Love & Joy to you & yours
I see that you have not been blessed (?) with new pictures of our babies since April and April and ! Oh, no - how remiss of me...just a minute, let me pull out the photos...
It's very hard to get them all in the same frame anymore, and they no longer sleep in a little pile of orange fur-all together.
But here you go, anyway...
These two above are from June - they still have not been outside, but not for lack of wanting to go... in the photo on the right, they have to stand on a box to see out the front door.
This one is in July, shortly after they were micro-chipped and got their new halters. I didn't realize how reflective the halters were until I saw this shot taken with a flash.
Now, we're into August - This is Mango, aka Mangolese.
Same time in August - this is Carmel, aka Carmelicious
And here is Punkin' Pie, aka Pretty in Pink Miss Pumpkin Pie
(yes, I know, but this one is a drag queen!)
They are litter mates - triplets and very hard to tell apart without the different colors on the halters.
But Carmel is definitely the old man. He' quite a bit bigger, larger more solid head, with a quieter temperament. He was also the first to suffer from a neighborhood battle wound. We're not sure if it was at the hands of one of his siblings or some rogue bully. He ended up with stitches and some quarantine time (that NObody liked since we made them all stay in). But he's fine, and he's gotten over the issue of my hands being the ones that tricked him at meds time.
He loves a good shoulder rub - first cat I've had that preferred that over head massages.
We started out calling Mango GoManGo; he likes climbing and daring stunts. But it was actually Pumpkin, the baby, who made the first successful hunt. Her prey of choice at that time was grasshoppers. Fortunately, she usually played them to death before bringing them in, so it wasn't too traumatic for the Moms.
It wasn't long, though, until they advanced to birds - still thankfully used up by the time they were presented.
BUT -
I just had to leave this post to help Joel try to rescue a little chipmunk from our bedroom. It is NOT dead, not even wounded, but very scared and probably more than a little pissed off. So are the cats, btw, since we locked them up while we tried the rescue mission.
We don't really know if the mission was successful. We had created a clear (to us, at least) path to the open front door, but we lost track of the little critter.
Hope we don't learn of his/her whereabouts in the middle of the night!!
So back to pics:
All the rest of these are from yesterday, Oct. 3rd.
This is one I call Carmel on the Rocks.
A rare shot of the three of them together. It took 'candy' to make it happen and they wouldn't pose...go figure.
Mango, Pumpkin, & Carmel clockwise from nine o'clock.
This is Mango enjoying a culvert. We have three: one at each end of our curved driveway, and one that goes under the street. They LOVE them.
And here are Carmel (back) and Pumpkin (foreground) across the street visiting with some deer who were enjoying the neighbor's lilac bush. I have one of them nose to nose with a deer in a video, but I'll have to learn to edit it first...
The training still works. They will tolerate leashes; they come to a call or a clicker (and expect candy), they don't freak out in the car or the small carrier that takes them to the vet. But we made some mistakes in the way we introduced - and failed to introduce - them to our bedroom. We are now paying the price for that. Hard to remember proper parenting at 3am.
And they are worth it! What little treasures.
OK... not only did we fail to multiply cat poop times three...we made the same mistake with vet bills.
OMG - we now have VERY expensive cats. What on earth were we thinking of?
Well, we were thinking about how cute they are when they are all cuddled up right under your chin and just a-purring like little engines.
Joel's actually asleep in this shot, and yes, that's her coffee in her hand... So all four of my babies are resting comfortably. And the kittens were asleep until they heard me coming with the camera.
We're actually doing very well with them. Marmalade, Mango, and Pumpkin Pie are trained already to come to dinner to the sound of a bell. We'll keep that up for a few more weeks. Then they will be trained to harnesses and then to leashes. I'm excited about that.
They do well in their travel case, too. We take them for rides every day because we want them to be comfortable in the car. It all seems to be working.
We went to the vet today to check up on spirochetes (not unusual parasites for pound kitties) and for the general checkup that must be done to make sure they are all they were represented to be. They had to be dosed with antibiotics for the parasites, but that has all cleared up. One or more of them may have a mild virus - genus undetermined, so they will be getting a little bit of a particular amino acid everyday for awhile.
Generally, we're told they are healthy. They got treats at the vet's so it was not too traumatic. (Though I personally, do not want my temperature taken THAT way!).
But the bill was $283!
OMG
guess we can sell one of the cars... :)
I'm really kidding... they will be inside cats for several weeks to come (and maybe forever) so their exposure to nasty microbic critters should be minimal.
But they are our babies, and we've signed on for the duration.
They have to earn their way through college though! I draw the line.
Well, we couldn't stand it any longer. We just had to have a little kitty... uh...kitties...
or as Laura called them, our three little shredding machines.
This shot on the left is their very last minute in the Lincoln County Humane Society's shelter. They are just 8 weeks old and each weighs less than 2 lbs. (all the photos are clickable for larger images)
This photo on the right is the first sniff of their new home. mmmm... what is that smell...?
Oh, btw, they are all males (we think) ...or at least for 3 more weeks. (ouch)
Aren't they just the cutest little things? Their names at the shelter were Bumble, Boo Boo, and Butterbear. We've talked about those and considered several others. We wanted to call them Winken, Blinken & Nod - but that really only works if you call them all at once. We were less happy saying, 'come here, Blinken'.
That could be a raindeer, for goodness sakes!
Then we thought...orange tabbies...hmmm...famous redheads.
Well, we can't call one Lucy, and most of the redheaded men were just called RED. Red Skelton, Red Buttons, Red Auerbach, Red Foxx... no way.
So ok, now what? Well, there's Marmalade. That's nice. So what else? I know!
Now we have Mango, Marmalade, and Pumpkin Pie (punkin, for short. Marmalade is the alpha male.
Biggest cat - biggest name, and the brown print collar. He's also a little darker. Mango, 'cause man, can he GO, and 'cause he's orange, of course. He's wearing the striped collar. And my little Punkin' Pie - the cutest one, I think. He's in red.
I mean, really, aren't they just the cutest things you ever saw?!
And get a load of these two shots:
The left one I call '2 Heads & a Butt', and then there's 'The Flip Side'. All sleeping peacefully.
We spent too much money - they've already paid it back. It so nice to have some kittens in the house.
