Good Night, Sweet Girl

D and I were talking about how to keep Cricket warm as the cold weather descends upon us.  We came to an agreement that we would put some sort of container on the front porch to provide a shelter for her.  She had sheltered under the deck through the summer, but surely that wouldn't be warm enough for the winter.  D's vote was for a cardboard box, but I didn't think it would hold up against the elements.  I was thinking we cut a hole in a rubbermaid container (like so).  We kicked around the idea of a low wattage bulb for heat, as is used by several chicken coop owners around the internet.  D's mom, advised us to keep straw in the box, not a blanket, because straw retains heat easier and blankets must be warmed up against the cold. 

It'd have been easiest if we could bring her inside.  We very seriously considered it, despite the fact that we're already teetering on the edge of capacity, teeming with animal life.  But she and Max just weren't in to eachother.  She'd join us on the deck or on the front porch and seek out your hand, or your pantleg, or whatever she could rub up against.  She was always so sweet, lifting her forefeet off the ground in order to get more out of the petting you were giving her.  Such a sweet-tempered cat, and not a mean bone in her body.  Far too sweet to be feral.  She loved us too much and too easily to have spent long in the wild.  She never clawed either of us, not even on accident.  We'd have brought her inside if we could have, and lord knows she tried to come in with us.  We tried cracking the door open to allow her and Max chances to sniff eachother in relative safety.  We tried bringing Max out to sniff Cricket.  We tried bringing Cricket to the windowledge to sniff Max.  It always dissolved into hissing and growling. 

Nemeses?

It's gotten to be sort of like Wild Kingdom in this house, so one of us might invariably ask, "did you feed Cricket?"  or "have you seen Cricket?"    If you wanted some company you only had to call her, and she'd emerge from under the deck, ready to be sweet on you until you tired of it, because she never seemed to.  She listened better than Bobby, that's for sure.  And if we hadn't seen her to give her her daily dose of love, massaging her kitty chin and scratching her kitty shoulders, she would make sure we didn't forget.  She took to stretching her paws up to the front window and scratching it until we came out, cat food in hand.  "oh, there's Cricket."  Or she'd meow for us on the back deck "hey, is that Cricket?" 

furry helper on the most recent deck project

There was no question that she was ours though, our lives-outside-but-we-feed-her-and-pet-her cat.  She was as much a part of our daily lives as anything in the new house.  She was a witness to most of the outdoor projects, as a furry little cheerleader.  She walked right up to our guests, even those she'd never seen before, and she introduced herself.  She'd be there by the front door to greet me as I came home from work, or as I left to take the dog for a walk. 

We didn't quite want to part with her, though we did try to find her an indoor home.   But everyone we know already has a cat (mostly they have two) or else they have intentions of remaining cat-less.  We certainly weren't going to take her to a shelter because odds are she'd have been euthanized.  So we were happy to let her stay with us, albeit outside.  Things might change.  But for the present we had cat food anyway, so what's one more kitty mouth to feed?  

Cricket's naptime spot

Monday morning we left for a run.  Ran into a neighbor outside, and chatted with him because the dog wouldn't stop barking at him until we crossed the street and let him sniff the man from close up.  Then D, and Bobby and I ran as the sun turned bled from blue to orange and pink.  Things get incrementally easier, I think.  As in, I walk in smaller and smaller time increments.  It's still quite taxing to my unaccustomed cardiovascular system.  If we had run the other way we'd have found her sooner, though it wouldn't have made a difference. 

D was the one who found her, not far from the house in the street.  Our sweet little garden-cat was hit by a car some time last night.  D went and carried her away from the road.  She looked like she was sleeping (insofar that a cat with limbs stiff with rigor can).  Anyway, I'm saying it looked like she didn't suffer.  We buried her this evening, in the spot by the deck where we first met.  It was painful, but we said our goodbyes by her grave.  Bobby, oblivious to the solemnity walked around on top of it.  Well, he's a dog.   

It's all so wrong.  D wondered how we might better have protected her.  I'm convinced I should have looked harder for a home for her.  We'd have never seen her again, but she might have lived a long and happy (and warm) life.  I wish we had more photos but I just assumed we'd have more time.  She was too young to go so soon, and far too good to have been run over in the street. 

The familiar sight of Cricket on the deck

So please, slow down and drive safe out there. 

Otherwise the cat you could run over might be somebody that someone loves.
And the cat that you save may be your own.  

Trench: Before & After

Bobby the border collie and I got to explore the backyard yesterday, and it was just fascinating (for him).  He's got a lot of new stimuli, to say nothing of the fact that the replacement gate isn't in the ground yet so I have him on a leash in the yard and in the house (as advised by the Leerburg guy).  I dropped the leash last night in the house, and he was just fine.  I'll keep it on him for the first week anyway, just in case one of the cats streak by him and the dog lunges at him.   But we're really excited about Bobby and how he's reacting to the cats, inside and out. 

Bobby and Cricket ran into each other right away.  Bobby shows no aggression.  Curiousity in spades, and he really wants to play with her (herd her, perhaps).  Cricket has taken to the dog pretty well;  she played in the grass yesterday while I tried to work with Bobby on some obedience training (oy vay).  Max and Yuuki don't panic the way they did in the presence of Jack the puppy.  Jack would enter the room and they would immediately climb as far off of the floor as they were able.  With Bobby, Max is alert but unwary, and he walks about and lays around on the floor as he normally would.  Yuuki isn't spending a lot of time on the floor.  But, yesterday he sat on a bench and Bobby went and sat down on the floor next to him.  In boxing range for Yuuki, but Yuuki didn't thwap him, nor growl, nor get up and leave.  He was resigned.  D and I were gleeful.    

Anyway, it's been busy!  I hadn't had time to show you the side of the house. 

After the trench was done

We finished the drainage trench and filled it in, tried to make tidy.  We hadn't had time for anything else though, so after it rained it looked like this. 

Before : Welcome to our mudhole

It looked absolutely gross after a few days of rain.  When the rain finally let up, I finally had the opportunity to do something I'd been wanting to do.  

After : heuchera bed

Hm.  Should have taken a tighter shot.  

oh well. 

No longer a trench and dirt, it's now a proper home for the heuchera that have been living on the deck for an absurdly long time.  A month or more since I bought them from the greenhouse (August 19th).  They look a tad more sparse now than they did when I bought them, but at least they're in the ground now.  I ran out of mulch, and may need to put a bit more earth around some of them.  But I couldn't finish the bed because the fence post needs to be planted in this corner.  And soon.  I'd like to let doggie run free. 

Though we we warned by the humane society that Bobby may jump the fence. 

Cricket and Bob

Cricket, The Cat Under the Deck

Previously I posted about the cat that was living under the deck.  I had high hopes that this would mean we would feed and love on her, and in return she would keep vermin out from under the deck and deter groundhogs.  This has not happened.  I hope she has not had a negative impact on our resident lazarus lizards, but the groundhog is large as life and undeterred by her presence.  

We call her Cricket, and she's sooo sweet.  She is obviously a dumped cat, because she's certainly not feral.  She comes when called and just begs for you to pet her.  We were quite torn about Cricket.  It's going to get colder. Wetter.  Do we let Cricket inside when it gets cold?  We already have two cats.  And what about the dog we're trying to get? 

Max & Cricket

 The answer is no.  Not yet, at any rate, but just no at this point.  We've cracked the door to let the cats sniff each other, but nothin' doin'.  The boys are wary, and either she hisses at them or they hiss at her, which starts a hissy, growl-y spiral at which point we give up and shut the door.  Maybe we'll make a cat-house for her for the winter.  Carve a hole in a rubbermade container and put it on the front porch with a blanket.  Or something.  

Cricket's nap spot

I think our animal plate is full, frankly. 

 We drove three hours round trip to a far away to bust this dog out of prison and bring him home.

 

We like Bob. I really like Bob.  We entertained thoughts of changing his name, but that's out of the question.  He responds to "Bobby," so that's what we're calling him now.  He was trained by convicts, and though he's high distracted with all the new stimuli he's done so well.  We made certain to walk him and ran through some obedience commands before we let him into the house.  We forced him to be calm and quiet, and Max went right up to him, sniffed him, and seemed to say, "okay."  Yuuki is not so easily convinced, but nor did he hiss.  Not once.  Max was hanging out with the dog after we put him in his crate last night.  He even rubbed up against the doggie.  

Things look promising. 

This is after he threw up in the back seat

In the Trenches: Progress

In the beginning, this was the side of the house.  The sidewalk had heaved upward, creating a stupid, funhouse-style tilt. 

Before

After D smashed all the concrete

Drainage trench dug, dirt added, gravel on top of drainage pipe, fence missing

So we bought two red brick paving squares, wanting to see how we would like the look of a series of stepping stones as a concrete replacement.  I like them well enough.  We could just run to Lowe's and round out the space with five red brick pavers.  But we have already have all of these stones and bricks and rocks in the yard, courtesy of all of the owners before us who just piled them up and left them and/or buried them for us to find like treasure.  Yes, I am cheap, but also I can't abide the idea that they might end up going to waste, unable to fulfill their stony destiny. 

I'm also cheap.

Paver template

So I started to heft some of the pre-existing stone finds and mix and mess them up with the red brick pavers.  This is the pattern I thought wouldn't be bad.  I wanted to dig the dirt up and see what they would look like with just a half inch or so protruding from the ground (IE not enough sticking out to trip over, but enough so that the dirt won't continually overtake them).  But we haven't leveled it yet, so I'll have to be patient.  I think I'll end up with 2-1-3-1-2, rather than the 2-1-2-1-2 you see in the photo above.  The spacing's just not right.  Of course the surface isn't leveled yet.  I have just enough white sandstone bricks to do that.  Hopefully I don't drop one.  Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, the rest of the trench is getting dug and leveled.  This is not fun work.  This is what it looked like before.  With stumps. 

Pre-Trench

D ripped the stumps out with his spite and sheer manliness, or so he told me

This is what the space looks like now, with the drainage pipe half in and half out of the whole.  It's connected in a tunnel we made underneath the sidewalk in front of the side door.  We leveled this part of the trench, but....

This was the easy part

The trench curves underneath the sidewalk.  This is the second under-sidewalk-drain-tunnel that has been dug on the side of the house.   The earth is packed clay and roots, and its been terrible.  We began with the shovel, and then progressed with maddening slowness by twirling a trowel in the hole, but progress has become so abysmal that D ended up using the prybar to desperately try to scrape deeper and deeper under the sidewalk. I myself tried sinking the trowel into the clay and tapping it with the sledgehammer to get some penetration.  It's been slow going, and knuckle-scraping.

tunneling

It seems that we've been stymied by this ridiculously huge root.  Which is two car lengths away from the nearest tree, and yet very shallow.  What is it doing here?!  We've yet to connect the two sides of the tunnel because we think the root curves around and is blocking any progress forward with the trowel.  D attacked it with a number of approaches and tools, even bent his hardened steel breaker bar, to no avail.  We gave up Sunday evening when the bugs chased us indoors. 

Enter your favorite wurty-durd here

 While we worked, one of the neighbors popped over to let us know that she was living underneath our porch.  Which is fine.  Ideal, really.

Startled the crap out of me, For a moment I thought she was Yuuki

I take this to mean no vermin under the deck.  She's totally tame, I clucked my tongue at her and she popped up like a daisy and rubber her face into my hand.  And the food I set there?  No real interest. 

Between the cat under the porch and the lazarus lizards in the front, I think we're all set!

Right in front of the solar light.  See him?  They're tough to photograph!

Kitty Transport. a New Addition (Question Mark). O-Town foods.

D & I were postponing things and putting off tasks at the new house so that we could go home and check on the cats in the apartment.  We stayed there a few days last week because we felt so bad about leaving them alone. 

Okay, we missed them.  So even though we are only halfway moved from the apartment, we decided to bring the kids to the new house.  So this past weekend, along with some furniture and almost our entire library (minus about sixty lbs of books we sold to Half-Off Books for a pittance (a welcome pittance)), we corralled the kitties and put them in the van.  We wanted to make sure that we had their belongings prepared for them when they were finally unloaded.  The cat tree, the cat bed (which is too small for either of them but they fight over it and the victor curls his body inside like a clown in a teeny car), whatever smelled home-y to them.  We hoped that would make the change less jarring. 

Max is a trooper.  His hero moniker would be Adapta-Cat.  Max's so easygoing, and he likes the cat carrier and car rides.  He just settles in quietly and watches the scenery fly by.  He got to the house and wandered from room to room, his paws tap-tapping on the hardwoods because of the claw-caps we have on him.  The only thing that gives me pause is that he goes down to the basement and begins a litany of MAO MAO MAO, until I go and call him from the top of the stairs.  I wonder if he forgets where he is, or (like the dog in Hyperbole and a Half) forgets how stairs work. 

Yuuki, on the other hand, does not travel well and never has.  He began bleating and panting crazily from the moment he was forced into the cat carrier.  The entire way there his anxiety was giving me anxiety, as his tongue was out like a dog's and his chest was heaving in and out so much I thought he might have a feline heart attack.  He yowled without letting up until we got him into the house, where he promptly settled into his post-travel routine of snobbish mistrust.  He's still startled by every little noise, jolting his entire body, and he's displaying some kitty -uneasyness.  But its only been a day.  I  think he's come through fine. 
--
During the process of moving, D has mentioned several times that he wants to adopt a dog soon-ish.  I've been wary of doing so, beacuse I feel your animals shouldn't outnumber you unless you live on a farm, in which case the mere fact that some animals are taken away and eaten keeps the others in line.  But dogs are so cute, and we could make a habit out of dog walkies, which will be great for our health also, and having a dog helps you to meet your neighbors, and it might help us settle in to the community, and these are doggies that need homes, and he/she could play in the yard, and chase our kitties and ... well just see for yourself:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19757338  Dazzle
http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19663004 Penny
http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19831327 Nayla
http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19831161 Sunday http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19100044 Murphy
http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19873310 Madison

It may be somewhat of a challenge because the dog needs to be young enough to settle into a house with pre-existing feline conditions.  And the place needs to be reputable, and have programs that enable us to meet the dog beforehand, or see them interact with cats, or allow us to return the dog to the foster family if problems arise among the kids.  We want to save a dog, but not at the expense of our cats.  We are responsible to them first.

We like programs like Recycled Doggies (http://www.recycleddoggies.org/Available_Dogs.html ugh, what a terrible name).  But we need to do our homework and find a good local source. 
...

Here we are halfway through the moving process, and I totally want to sell my earthly belongings because I'm sick of moving and boxes, and "maybe I'll use that at some unforseen time in the future," etc.  We did reward ourselves with a night out of the house(s) and away from packing/organizing/renovation at Oakley Pub (AMA-ZING stuffed Portabellos, awesome craft beer list) and Aglamesis Brothers.  I think I enjoy the Oakley Pub more than Habits (seemingly better food) and much more than the Oak, because we did not have to go and look for a drink/a server/our food after ten minutes, which has been our experience both times we've tried it.  But maybe its been a fluke both times that we've had to wait a reaaaaaally long time for beers and/or food.  We'll see.