If I go too long without updating you on the backyard cats, you start emailing and asking about them. So it’s about time for another update. Remember Mocha? I’ve shown you his Before (long-haired) photo, and his after (shaved) photo, but I don’t know that I’ve ever shown you what he looks like in-between. He goes from white to dark chocolate to tan!
Shaved (white):
In-between (dark chocolate):
Long (tan):
Mocha lives in the house behind us, but he’s usually sleeping on our deck in the mornings, waiting for us to come pet him and give him some food. (Ok – really, he’s just waiting for the food. But he always wants a nice petting when he has finished eating.)
He comes by several times a day, and we really enjoy having him around. Can you see the path he takes to get from his house to our house?
His owners have no idea how much time he spends over here. They think he goes to the back corner of their yard “to hunt”. Really, it’s just to duck under the bushes and come see us. Don’t you love his blue eyes? (Click on the picture to make it bigger. What a handsome boy.)
We have a new cat who comes by about every other evening to get some food. He has beautiful markings and I call him Shadow. So far, he skitters away if we open the door. (Thus, his name.) He doesn’t want anything to do with us. But Mocha was like that when we first moved in, and we won him over. I have high hopes for Shadow, too. (And Mocha and Shadow seem to be friends. I keep telling Mocha to put in a good word for me.)
And do you remember pretty little Jackie, who was put outside by her owners last year and ended up living on our deck? She now lives inside full time with Knitting Daughter in her apartment, but she does get to come over and visit us once in awhile. She usually hides under the dining room table until Zoe and Gracie (our two indoor cats) entice her out to play.
So tell me about your pet household. Cats? Dogs? Outdoor visitors? One? Two? Many? None?
Sheri gladtohaveindoorpetsandoutdoorvisitors
P.S. I’m not talking about the two beautiful orange cats that you saw on my last outdoor cat blog post because there are coyotes in the neighborhood. That’s all I’m saying. And that’s why we keep our cats indoors. I wish Mocha’s and Shadow’s owners felt the same way.
We have a thirteen year old calico, Hawthorne, who had been abandoned in the basement of our former apartment building. A neighbor noticed her first, and for some reason knocked on our door and asked, “Is this your cat?” Ten years later, I think Hawthorne would answer that with “These are my humans. They worship me.” We also adopted a black kitten, Edgar, at 8 weeks old to be Hawthorne’s friend. They never really hit it off, but Edgar is my little snuggle buddy and very attuned to humans while Hawthorne has a certain calico reserve. Both are indoors-only, though I grew up with cats who were allowed to roam outside and come in the house whenever they wanted.
We presently have a dog, Chipper and a cat, Oskar. Chipper is a shelter dog. I wanted a dog and visited the shelter close to work every Friday until he found us. He is such a part of our family. My husband is a semi-invalid and Chipper is is faithful companion. Oskar came to us via our son moving back to Sacramento from Portland, OR. Oskar, too, is a rescue cat. He and his sister hung around a porch waiting for the bowl of food that was put out each day. He kept trying to get into the house, the owner finally let him in and after a few weeks took him to the library where she worked with our son, who moved and, well, the rest is history…Oskar has a few odd habits, but so do I!
Knitters are not only special for what they do with needles but for the number of animals they won’t allow to go unloved. Our rescue animals are so special…
We have one dog, an adorable cockapoo named Petey. He’s smart and lovable. That said, my son and daughter-in-law have been living with us while trying to buy a house (lest I jinx the settlement potentially scheduled for next Friday, after considerable mortage drama) for the eleven months, since they got married in September. They have a black lab, two cats who mostly like each other, except when they decide to terrorize us all with their hissing battles, two turtles and countless fish. Way to many souls living in my small house! But when they all move out but Petey, I am sure that I will miss them. Okay, maybe not the black lab so much since my husband is allergic and she sheds enough to build a spare Pomeranian each week if we only had a skeleton, although she is a sweet hound.