Alright! Alright! Calm down, I’ll leave it. You could have just said no.
Author: boolie
Almost Two
Our dear Emma turns two this month, we don’t know the exact day so we’ll celebrate her birthday with mine later in the month. It’s too bad she’s not more of a lap cat, as she’s very affectionate and will sometimes grab hold of your hand while she sleeps.
Death Defying Dinner
Another picture of the same death-defying chipmunk, in this picture it has found some seeds amongst the needles and is eating them.
Flower Child
The daisies in the flower garden out front were getting too numerous, so a year or two ago I transplanted some of them to the backyard to give us some temporary flowers until we decide on landscaping. I planted two patches and they’ve both done really well. They lean over to get more sun and many of them eventually fall over since I usually forget to tie them up.
Sam likes to play in them, sometimes hiding under the flowers so he can surprise Scout or Emma (and sometimes knocking more down in the process). I let him wreak a little havoc in the daisies since they are so numerous and he enjoys it so, but I do try to keep him out of the coneflowers. Here he was sitting beside some of the daisies, I framed the picture so he was mostly hidden by the white flowers. The cats haven’t been able to go outside much this week either because I’ve been working late or had other stuff to do, so I’ll have to make sure they get some time out there this weekend.
I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Aphids
I’ve mentioned before how it sometimes seems that everything you see is an invasive species, such as the cute little ladybugs in my yard that turned out to be an Asian species originally brought to America for pest control. But this little ladybug, fierce and ferocious (if you’re an aphid), is not the same species! Have I finally found one of our native ladybugs? Alas, no, it has two spots too few. The seven-spotted ladybug is closely related to its American cousin the nine-spotted ladybug, but the nine-spot is rarely seen these days. The seven-spot is native to Europe and, like the Asian beetles, was brought over to the States for pest control and then established itself in the wild.
This one established itself on the petals of my purple coneflower. But the aphids are on the roses! The roses! For the love of Sammy, the aphids are on the roses!
Ah well, I’ve gotten a little disoriented in foreign lands myself.
Fly High
If you’re a bird that happens to find yourself in our house, I suspect you’ll have to evade Emma, but here’s a little advice: fly high. Unlike our other cats, Emma isn’t so enamored with high places and she isn’t much of a jumper. She’s been getting a lot more comfortable in her jumping since we brought her home, though, so I’m not sure how long the advice will hold.
Going, Going, Gone!
It’s a home run!
Emma’s a real sweetheart, she really is, but not if you’re a feathered cat toy.
Swing and a Miss!
The feathered toy evades Emma’s deadly grasp.
Emma & Me
This wasn’t the portrait of the two of us I originally wanted. In the morning Emma was in bed with me and when I rolled over to curl up beside her, she wrapped her paws around my arm. I thought it would make a cute picture so I tried to ease away and get the camera but she followed me downstairs. Later in the afternoon we played with by far her favorite cat toy, the feathered one, I didn’t mean to get my hand in the picture but I like how it turned out.
One More Time!
I can’t resist another shot of Scout as a kitten. We got her this toy beaver (the state mammal of Oregon, since Scout was our only native Oregonian at the time) so that Scout could have one toy that hadn’t previously been Templeton’s.
Of course Scout never played with it much, whereas Templeton took a liking to it. He didn’t play with it all that much, but sometimes I’d hear loud but muffled mewing and then Templeton would walk into the room. I didn’t even have to look at him to know that he had the beaver stuffed into his mouth, it was the only toy he’d do that with.
If we ever had an infestation of beavers in the house, I knew which cat I was going to call …
Boolie 