The Mobile Home Woman

We have four of the kittens left here at the farm.  The three girls and one fluffy orange boy.  We’re keeping one of the torbie girl kitties, Lilly, but the rest are looking for homes.  We had a good lead on one but it fell through.  We’ve brought them inside the house and have been working on teaching them good house manners.   So far, they love this bar stool in the kitchen!  haha… it’s like the Ninja Kitty Climbing Fort and they all like to camp out on it.

It’s very hard to get a picture of the kittens because they are constantly moving about! They are so crazy and cute.  Maggie is really enjoying their antics and they love Maggie…  she’s so often horizontal so she makes a good kitten hangout as well.  She often has one or three camping out on her and snoozing.

Jessy made them a safe place in our farm nook area by taking a baby gate and putting heavy plastic on it, wrapping it like a present!  It’s to keep the little boogers from climbing out in a heart beat!  They have a dog crate at night to sleep in, just to keep them from wandering about the house and making a mess.  The gang of four can wreck havoc with anything in a heartbeat.  They LOVE to knock papers and magazines all over the floor.  And God forbid you leave a glass of water somewhere… it is soon all over the table and floor!  Plus we want them to have good potty habits and they have a little litter box in their crate and the big kitty box is right next to them.  So far, they are EXCELLENT at their litter work.

During the day, we let them out to explore the house and learn about dogs and other kitties and such.  The funny thing is that as soon as we let them out, Dixie Chick is RIGHT in their crate and snoozing in their box.  The kittens visit her and climb all over her throughout the day but she is in love with their box.  I think sometimes she misses the chance to be a mom and so she likes the smell of the kittens and their nighttime hangout spot.  Or, she just likes a good box.

I thought this was adorable… my little Lilly kitty sitting on the loom pedals!  We were working in the studio today, sorting and pitching and the kittens were all in there, ah, helping.  Yeah.  Kitten helping is pretty much useless help and a lot of laughter.  They are just so silly right now…  10 weeks old on this Monday.

I would sure like to keep them all, but we can’t.  Keeping Lilly is enough at this point.  We will have three girl kitties inside and the two boy farm kitties outside.  Yes, of course, Lilly will be fixed as soon as we are able.  And she’s old enough.  I know you can fix them pretty darn young, but I like to give them a wee bit of time to grow and all before submitting them to surgery.  I want her to know where her home is and be comfortable with it and us so that when the unpleasant adventure happens, she will be happy to be home with us in her comfy spot.  She’s getting very comfortable with the layout of the house and the existing pets, etc.  It’s funny, she’s the very best of the four when it comes to the dogs and other cats.  The other three kittens are sill unsure of the dogs, especially, and will hiss and spit at them.  But not Lilly.   She lets Evie lick her and plays with Ratchet and just acts like she’s always been part of the Windhaven Gang.  I’ll admit, I also love the fluffy orange boy kitten that we call Mittens..  (yeah, pretty clever name!)  but four house cats is pushing it for me.  Luna and Dixie seem to have accepted Lilly already, so it’s a good thing.

We’ll see how the week goes but pretty soon, I think we’ll have to say goodbye to the last three.  The shelter has graciously allowed us a little time to turn them all in for the same fee…  (they have a mom cat and litter option)  rather than the single cat fee.  So we don’t want to abuse that.  And they will get to hang out with their other siblings as well, so that’s good.  The folks at the Williams County Humane Society are awesome and I’m glad they are willing to help out.  I hope we don’t have a repeat of this adventure too soon, but I guess it’s part of rural living.  Still, it’s been a fun experience and I hope that they have at least a better chance of a great life then being feral scaredy cats in some farm field.  We’ve done our best and they are super sweet natured little rugrats.

 

Pin It

We have this old mirror and the frame went south, so I decided to set it out in the farmyard.  Just thought it would be interesting.

The most interesting thing, however, has been watching the animals interact with it.  And themselves.  However, it’s curious that most of the animals don’t recognize themselves, I’m sure of it.  Especially the birds… they always seem to want to peck at their images and to fight with themselves…  We watched a robin do battle for a good half hour as we were doing chores one morning until we finally shooed him away.

Miss Eleanor, our lovely old red hen, she likes to admire the fine beautiful hen in the mirror.  She goes and puffs up a bit, stands straight and tall and just seems like she thinks highly of that beautiful hen in the mirror.

I really wondered about this one…  it’s Bridget and her little newborn son, Travis.  She sniffed and looked and sniffed the mirror for a good long while…  Makes you wonder, since she knows what Travis looks like and then she sees another Travis in the mirror, can she put the two thoughts together and recognize that it’s a reflection of herself and her son?   What that her confusion?

They say only primates seem to understand self-reflection in a mirror and have a sense of “self”.  It’s sure been amusing to watch our animals interact with the mirror.

Rana is one of the most funny of our animals.   She routinely interacts with her goat girl friend.  She really wants the pretty goatie to come and play.  She gently head butts her, like Buttercup and Daisy do to each other, tenderly, with a little goat smile and a tail wag.

She looks at her side view and turns her head back and forth, and her imaginary goat friend does the very same thing!   It’s like they are twins!  (ggg)

Such a pretty girl…

 

 

Baron Kitty just sees that other pretty orange farm kitties get bothered by farm animals too, in this other land.  Just lets him know that it’s normal for farm animals to bother kitties.

Thing One has to try and set his alter image in place.  After all, he’s a randy young rooster and that other one is just an intruder!

Cody Pony often checks out the other pony in the mirror as well, just looking and watching the reactions of the other pony.  He’s so cute when he nickers and waits to hear any response.  I guess he feels the other pony is rude, and won’t talk back.  I love it when they stand about half way near the mirror and try to look inside it, like it’s a window.  Silly critters.

I guess best of all, I like that everyone seems to interact with it and find it interesting.  The lambs all do…  they will run by and then stop and do a double take, coming back to peek at the other lambs.   Daisy and Buttercup will amble by, stop, admire the pretty goat girls and then walk by.  The dogs don’t seem to really care much for it.  But then, they are usually much more interested in all the cool farm animal smells when they are in the back area.

I highly recommend putting an old mirror out in your farm yard…  just a garage sale find…  it’s a lot of fun.  It took our gang a month or two to really start watching it.  Ours is falling apart a bit, but I was thinking that next time I was out there with some liquid nails or other such adhesive, I would glue it to the side of the barn.  It’s kind of fun with our farm  still life diorama we’re building.  It’s hard to stick anything to the side of this barn, because of the waviness of it, but I try!

 

Pin It