Cricket's 1st Christmas 2010

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....Well, there was one creature 'stirring'; our Cricket watching for Santa, and guarding the presents.......

Click pictures to enlarge!

Cricket's first Christmas started at 2:30 this morning as we got up to open presents! We sorted the gifts then got Cricket's stocking (we had to keep it hidden as she kept trying to sneak a peak), and had fun watching her 'discover' her presents!

Cricket had so much fun!

As we opened our gifts we watched Cricket have fun with her toys and the wrapping paper. Her first Christmas done, next year should be fun!

I can be a present too!

From our home to yours. We wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Cricket and the Santa Hat

You know all those cute pictures of cats with Santa hats or Christmas collars? Well, either they have Very Patient Cats or they use Photoshop! This is the story of Cricket and the Santa Hat.

I was wandering through ALCO one day, and saw this cute Santa hat with Paws on it. I thought it would be cute to take a picture of Cricket with the hat on and have it printed as Christmas Cards. Well, if you got a card from us, you know that didn't happen!

Several attempts were made to get her to sit for 30 seconds with the hat on, the following pictures tell their own story.

One Cat; Cricket

One Santa hat with Paws on it

Attempt 1

Attempt2

Attempt3

Attempt 4; Does this cat look happy?

So Cricket won; the hat will be stored until she is older, maybe she will have 30 seconds of patience then.
I hope this brought you a laugh or two; at least a smile.
One last picture. I bought a Nutcracker, and Cricket decided she liked the box (we still have it). So here is a picture of The Nutcracker Cricket!

I hope all of you have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Blessed New Year!
Love from Dave, Me and Cricket.

Story of Cricket, Part 6

Yesterday was Cricket's 2nd visit to the vet for her booster shots. We put her new carrier on the floor and she walked in and laid down! Cricket doesn't seem to mind riding in the car, and we are going to start taking her with us for rides so that she doesn't always associate the car with the vet. There were 2 meowy cats at the vet and quite a few dogs. Cricket seemed to take it all in stride. When we were called we went into the examining room, but Cricket didn't really want to leave the carrier. The Assistant took her temperature, and I can never see that without thinking about the scene in the 'new' Dr. Doolittle (Eddy Murphy), where the dog is sitting there, talking about how his butt just swallowed the thermometer! Cricket is now 5.4 lbs, and in good health.

Our vet Dr. Tyler is a bit concerned about Crickets gums though, he thinks she may have what is termed
Stomatitis syndrome, which is an inflamation of the gums. He said that there is a lot of research being done on this problem, because they don't know much about it or why it occurs. Our first step is to daily use an enzymatic tooth cleaner to see if that helps. We hope so. The tooth 'paste' comes in poultry, beef and malt, and is used for both dogs and cats. We got the poultry flavor to try first.


Cricket kind of surprised us by hissing really loud at Dr. Tyler when he was checking her eyes, heart and teeth. But he said he understood, because he probably smelled like a Great Dane. Cricket obviously isn't impressed by 'doggy' smells.


Cricket was great at the vets and getting her shot. We made an appointment in 2 weeks for her to get spayed and to be micro-chipped. 

Dr. Tyler had very carefully explained to us how to get the enzymatic tooth cleaner onto Cricket's teeth, we weren't perfectly successful this first time. Tried to tell her it was a 'nummy' treat, but I don't think she bought into it.

As with the last shot, Cricket has been a bit under the weather and wants to sleep a lot. We decided to forgo the tooth cleaner adventure for today and try tomorrow. 


Cricket is such a little doll, we adore her.


Well I will close for now. More later.

HI! I am almost 6 months old already!

Halloween

Not my favorite holiday, but part of the Fall and lots of fun. We always have some kind of potluck and costume day at work in celebrating Halloween. Some of the costumes are amazing. This year we had to split the potluck and costume day due to scheduling issues with some of the main players. Thursday we had a ghoulish treat potluck and people brought in all sorts of interesting things. One that I liked was the 'Veggie' Candy corn. Strips of yellow bell peppers formed the top, followed by small carrots and the point was cauliflower! This was paired with hot pepper humus which was excellent. There was also a jello heart and brain that looked really disgusting, especially when you jiggled the plate. My contribution was an orange flavored graveyard cake. Everything was edible; I made the tree's, ghosts, bats, eyes, spider's and skeleton's out of candy melts. The head stones were sugar cookies. The pumpkins were purchased......See picture's below.

Monday we are having our 'Halloween Costume' day, I am still in the process of making mine...Will add picture's later.

This is Cricket's first Halloween and she is very interested in the pumpkin that Dave is going to carve either today or tomorrow (will add pic's later). Was thinking about trying to get Cricket to wear a little witches hat, but somehow, I don't think she will!

What's this?

We love Halloween here, the kids (no matter what age) are always escorted by their parents. The tiny one's are so cute! And they all say Thank You! Hoping you have a safe and fun Halloween So will leave you now with a 'Happy Halloween' Wish and another pic of Cricket and 'her' pumpkin!

Mine!

Cricket, Part 5: The Vet

Today was Cricket's first trip to her new Veterinarian for an initial checkup and vaccinations. We weren't exactly sure what her reaction would be; but she was fantastic! She was quiet on her ride to the Vet's, which wasn't totally surprising since she hadn't been in the cat carrier or the car since her first trip to come live with us. She was a bit reluctant to leave the carrier once we were in the examining room, but we got her on the table with no difficulties.

Our Vet was happy with how shiny her coat is and her teeth are in really good shape. She is 5 lbs, had her temperature taken, heart and lungs listened to, and her first shots. We go back in three weeks for her boosters and to schedule her for spaying and micro-chipping. We are constantly amazed at how resilient and fearless she is. Our Vet said, it looks like we got a great cat. We think so.

It was a little hard for Dave and I to visit the Vet today, as our first visit was 8 weeks ago to put Gato to sleep. From where we were sitting in the waiting room, we were looking almost directly into the room that we said good-bye to Gato in.

We opened the cat carrier on the way home to see if Cricket would come out and sit on my lap, but she seemed to prefer staying the carrier; that is until we got home. We gave her some treats and praised her for being so good. She has been talking at us, we can just imagine what she is saying, but she doesn't seem the worse for the trip.

She has her dinner, so she is happy again. Until next time!

Layed Back Cat

Autumn.....Fall......Canning

Crisp, cool days, high of 62. Leaves are turning and apples are on sale! I have done a bit of canning over the years, always using a hot water bath. A couple of weeks ago Dave bought me a pressure canner. Have never been really comfortable around pressure anything, because was in a kitchen when a pressure cooker blew up, many years ago. But there are a lot of things I would like to try canning and a water bath just doesn't always work.

My friend Sine told me about a great way to make slow cooker applesauce so last weekend I made a batch and refrigerated it. It was not only easy but tasted great! So today I decided to make some more and can it! My day today was very busy in the canning department. I not only canned applesauce in the pressure canner, but also made and canned salsa and spiced apple rings in a hot water bath. Right now we used the last of the apples to start cooking apple butter. We used Gala, Golden Delicious, 1 Red delicious, and 2 Granny Smith. The apples need to cook on high (in the slow cooker) for 4 hours until soft, then I will use the new immersion blender that Dave got me to blend it smoothe and add some sugar (if needed) and cinnamon. The apples will continue to cook all night on low to reduce. Tomorrow, I will then pressure can pint jars of apple butter!

This year is just practice, am hoping to do a ton of canning next summer and fall. We want to take advantage of our local farmers market to keep us in lovely fruits and veggies through the winter. Will add some pictures tomorrow.

Happy Autumn!

The Story of Cricket, Part 4

It's been 6 weeks and it is hard to believe that Cricket was a feral kitten! She is a very loveable and helpful kitty. As an example, Cricket is helping me type this blog right now, she loves the tv and the computer. She is watching the cursor at the moment as I type the words across the screen. (uuuuuuurknr m8 ,mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm) This is her contribution to the bful7log! She is also very helpful with mopping floors, shredding paper, inspecting her kitty litter box,  and cooking.

Helping shred paper

Cricket has grown so much it is hard to believe she was small enough to fit in your hands just a month ago. We have been introducing her to our friends to help socialize her, and she has been doing great! She doesn't want to be held by them, but she will walk up to them and sometimes let them pet her.

We cut her front claws the other day, and she did really well. She is still very 'kitten' and none of my baskets or anything else in the house is safe from her. She challenges Dave over his basket of stuff on a daily basis. If she is quick and he doesn't notice her right away, she sometimes can grab things (pens, chapstick, paper, etc) and run away real quick. The other game she loves to play with us is hide and seek. She hides behind doors, under baskets and wants us to find her. She is an absolute doll and we love her to death.

Though we still miss Gato, Cricket is a joy and look forward to a lot of years with her. Will close this segment out with some pictures of our little sweetheart.

None of my baskets are safe!

The Story of Cricket, Part 3

We have had Cricket now for 3 weeks. She is totally kitten; here, there and everywhere! Saturday, we made another milestone, Cricket climbed up on Dave's lap. Now, she wants to be on his lap all of  the time. Play time, Nap time, anytime! She is still a little skittish, but she knows the sound of a spoon on her food dish, and she wanders around getting into everything. Her cat tree is supposed to be here tomorrow (Monday) and I really hope that satisfies her desire to climb up on everything. We shall see.....For now here are some updated pics of Cricket!

My Lap!

Am I cute or what!

Hi There!

Watching TV

Watching Tom and Jerry!

Nap Time!

Bye! Until Next Time!

The Story of Cricket, Part 2

The feral cat websites say that a feral kitten over 8 weeks old, may never be able to be tamed. And for every day over 8 weeks it takes a long time to get them comfortable. I guess we were lucky; James did hold her when he could, so she wasn't totally feral. But she definitely wasn't used to being indoors, and it has taken only a week to get her to start to trust us.

Friday evening (9/3) Cricket let Dave pet her, in fact she was bumping her head against his hand. She also has started to act like a kitten....Not sure whether that is good or not. She is playing (with everything and anything), climbing the curtains, dumping pillows on the floor, etc.....Curtains are the only thing I really care about (Is this where the term 'Curtain Climbers' came from?).

She has a toy mouse that squeaks, which she loves to pounce on. Friday night I ordered her a cat tree, hoping that will satisfy her urge to climb. Should be here next week or so, Amazon.com is pretty good about shipping times.

Today (Saturday), she stayed in the TV room with us and slept for awhile on the chair. She let's Dave rub her tummy, but still skitters away if she thinks you are going to try and pick her up. We absolutely love her, she is such a little doll. Since she is still a bit timid, we got her one of those emery scratching posts today, hopefully she will use it enough to file her claws down.

Her meows have definitely changed over the last few days, she still yowls (LOUDLY) if we aren't in the room, but she trills and mews quietly when we talk to her and play with her. She is a kick.


We keep working with her and talking to her as she makes advances in becoming a 'house' cat. She seems to be happy, she is eating well, playing and her curiosity is definitely up to par. She doesn't cry out anymore like she did the first few days (calling out to mom), so I think she is beginning to adopt us as 'big cats'.

More later.

The Story of Cricket, Part 1

Meet Cricket!

 When we lost Gato we were devastated. We didn't realize how much it hurt to not have that furry little face around us every day. So I started searching through a web site called 'Pet Finder', this is a site that a lot of shelter's use to provide pictures and information on their adoptable critters. It is also a heartbreaking website when you see how many animals have been abandoned or cruelly treated by irresponsible people. There was a shelter in Pueblo that had a number of kittens and we had decided to go look at them over Labor Day weekend.

Our friend Sherri, helps out at the Conour Animal Shelter here in town, and she mentioned that they had a flier at the shelter for a couple of feral kittens that needed a home. I went to the shelter to look at their pictures, they even came with a 'dowry' of 25$ to help with their spaying/neutering, one was a female and the other a male. Sherri called James to find out if he still had the kittens and if I could come look at them on Friday (Aug. 27th). We made the appointment for 3p Friday afternoon.

I met James at 3pm on Friday, and we talked about the kittens and animals in general. I was glad I had the opportunity to meet him, he is a very nice and interesting person, who cared very much about what happened to these feral kittens. I also got to meet the 'mom', she of course is feral also and has been living under James' porch since about last fall. James admitted that he didn't know much about cats as he was a 'dog' person, but was amazed that this cat could survive one of our harsh winters under his porch. James mentioned the dowry, but I declined, he then offered to donate the dowry to the Conour Animal Shelter and I told him that would be wonderful.

As I was driving home with our new kitten; I was a bit concerned over the fact that she had been living under a porch and not had a lot of human contact. Once home, we kept her in the cat carrier for a couple of hours, talking to her and petting her. We let her out of the carrier (which cat sites about feral cats don't recommend), and she immediately darted away and hid. We left her alone Friday evening, but made sure there was water and food for her.

Saturday morning we were glad to see that her food dish was empty and she had used the litter box....This was another concern of mine, since I knew that living under the porch she had never seen a kitty litter box. Again, we left her alone, except to check and make sure she was alright. She meowed a lot and stayed hidden. It is amazing that a kitten that small can find even smaller spaces to hide in. We seemed to be playing a game of hide and seek with her, because every time we found her hiding place she would change it at the earliest (unobserved) opportunity.Saturday night was interesting; or to be more accurate early Sunday morning. We could hear her meowing downstairs on occasion through the night, then about 3am in the morning she announced her presence in our bedroom. She stood in the doorway and yowled! We couldn't believe how loud she got. I finally got up and went downstairs, though I never saw her, she hid a way and continued to meow for a short time.This routine of 3am was repeated again Monday morning, 2 hours before we 'had' to get up to go to work.

Monday and Tuesday she continued to hide and meow, but if we moved to different rooms, she would also move so that she was closer. We spent as much time as we could just talking to her.

Wednesday was a thrilling afternoon for us. After coming home and relaxing, talking to her as much as possible, she finally came out while we were eating dinner. She had been hiding in our pantry and was watching me cook dinner. I know this because even though she was still somewhat hidden, I could see her white whiskers and bright green eyes staring at me. After we sat down to dinner, she came into the middle of the kitchen and meowed at us. The first breakthrough!

Monday through today (Thursday) we could tell that she wanted to be around us, but instinct is a strong thing and we knew there was a conflict going on inside her between not wanting to be alone and being fearful of humans.

Today, (Thur. Sept.1), after we got home, she meowed at us as usual, and then she started to come out more. We were sitting in the TV room and she first came to the door and looked around, then started to come in. Of course she was meowing the whole time, but she has a wonderful range of sounds that we are still learning to identify. She carefully wandered around the room, coming very close to Dave and I. Knowing that she is still skittish we haven't attempted to touch her. At dinner she came and wandered around the dining room table,although mostly just out of reach, she did at one point come up to smell Dave's hand.

So I will end Part 1 of her story here. We'll see what new adventures await over the 3 day weekend.

We did make the decision this evening to name her 'Cricket'. I had been considering it for a couple of days because she acts like a cricket....She will meow loudly until you come close, then she goes silent!

Gee, Am I behind on my Posts! Update on the backporch project

Actually finished the back porch project over a week ago! Been busy with our kitty, more on her later....
I think the porch turned out pretty good. Below are some pics now that it is mostly done (still need to put up some shelves and a cabinet, and do a bit of trim work).....

The new floor (dirt colored)

new home for jackets and stuff

Organized storage!

Love the bright clean walls!

Well that is it for my quick summer project. Our new project is taming a feral kitten....Once we can tame her, so that we can take a picture of her, will start her story.

The Back Garden

Some pictures of our back garden.....

Left edge of the garden...Got a steal on an antique Monte Vista Farm Milk Can

 

Back Porch Continued!

We had to go to the Lumber yard Saturday when I discovered what I thought was thin wood that had warped, was actually 1/8" cardboard! So I ripped it out, and we spent Saturday cutting and putting up the bits of wall.

The bits of Cardboard

Bits of wall missing

More bits of wall missing

Still more bits

Once we got real wood in place we spent the rest of Saturday evening at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundations annual banquet. It was fun seeing people we hadn't seen for awhile. Sunday spent most of the day priming the whole room. I have learned with this house that KILZ primer (Zissner is another good one) is the only way to go! Also, KILZ casual colors paint is good too..... However, this time I am using a True Value paint. The backporch will be painted in a green tinted white called 'Sea Salt', all of the trim is in a plain White, but some of the trim I am painting this really neat blue/green called 'Hallucination'. Started painting the trim today.....But first things first.....The following are pics after everything was primed....I love beadboard, but what a pain to paint!

Glad this is only the primer...Too Much White!

Look! Real Wood this time!

Well, this is taking more than 3 or 4 days I fear, but will keep going till it is done! More to come later.....