Blackberries Hunting

It was a quiet November day in Charlottetown. Boris was attacking the Flame Bush in the backyard:


Cocoa was relaxing underneath the deck:


Suddenly, Boris notices the arrival of his mother, Nasha-Tasha:




Inside the pen, Farah also senses that something out of the ordinary is happening:



And she's not the only cat wondering, "What does Nasha have there?"


Boris moves in for a closer look:





Nasha seems willing to share with Boris. But Cocoa approaches more tentatively:





And then, somehow, the prey manages to dart into a pile of leaves!



WHERE DID THAT VARMINT GET TO?


Cocoa joins in the search:





But the Varmint is nowhere to be found:




Boris is sorry to give up on the search. But, he might as well get back to his Flame Bush, while Nasha goes off in search of new prey:


Maybe the Varmint is still here, somewhere?


That's all, folks!

New Furniture! (August 2009)

Today Pat told us she was going to the store to buy us our favorite wet food. But, she came back with NEW FURNITURE!












Summer and Hershey compare notes: The New Furniture is GOOD!


By day . . .


And by night!

Day 4 and Counting! (August 2009)

Ally came to live with us on Monday, and already, today is Thursday!

So how are we getting along?

Well, Pat has been giving us all lots of special attention, and more time outdoors than usual. The weather has been great! and out in the yard, everybody has been happy and calm:


Indoors, however, there are still a few issues to be resolved.

Nasha hears something suspicious:


As she feared - the interloper is still here!


Now he's playing with our toys!


Tootsie is NOT amused:


Of all the nerve - Ally has decided to take his afternoon nap in the upstairs study!




Cocoa prepares to defend her favorite chair:


But Ally ignores her show of ferocity. Does NOTHING faze this guy?


Everything stops for afternoon nap time:


Waking up from our afternoon naps (remember - CLICK the image to enlarge it):


Stay tuned for more developments in this fast-breaking story . . . .

Tent City!

Soon after Boris and Natasha came to live with us, Pat bought them an orange and blue tent. It has been their favorite toy ever since!

But Boris -- who enjoys jumping on top of the tent to make it collapse -- has broken one of its rods. So, Pat bought a second tent, which is blue:


Now Boris and Natasha EACH have a tent!




Boris checks out the new tent:


How easy will it be to break this one?


A really fun game is "grab the toy and pull it into the tent":






Boris demonstrates how he jumps on top of the original tent to make it collapse:



But both tents remain standing - at least for now:

Hello My Name is ALLY! (August 2009)

I'm nearly a year old and Pat met me while I was staying at the Prince Edward Island Humane Society. I badly need to find my "forever" home. Here's hoping this is it!

So far, so good -- I'm enjoying the Pen:


Even more important - I'm working at establishing diplomatic relations with Hershey and Tootsie:


I've decided that Hershey is a cat who really knows his way around:


Unfortunately, Boris and Taffy still seem a bit suspicious of me:


Taffy seems to think she's some kind of princess:


And Natasha was downright annoyed when I snuck up on her:


At least we can all agree that treats are GOOD:


Now to check out the upstairs: Nice playroom!


Hmmm . . . I wonder if I could persuade Boris to share one of those baskets?

Natasha's Excellent Adventure! (August 2009)

Today, for the first time, Natasha escaped from the house. What a great time she had in the flowerbeds!


Meanwhile, Schooner relaxed in the grass:


Farah, who was inside the pen, settled down to glare at her arch-enemy Summer, who was demonstrating his ownership of the deck:



How will we keep Nasha in, now that she knows how much fun it is to escape?

The Joy of BASKETS (August 2009)

Warning -- Kitty-Porn: The following pictures are intended for adult viewers ONLY.

Our Recreation Area - EXPANDED and IMPROVED! (July 2009)

The Cat Recreation Area has been expanded, by the addition of many new walkways, along the sides and over-(human-)head!


- Photo courtesy Anna Baldacchino



On a hot summer evening, there's just no place better!







I did NOT invite Simon, in fact, I thought YOU invited him!:







- Photo courtesy Anna Baldacchino







- Photo courtesy Anna Baldacchino

July 2009 Celebrations!

Some humans we know (the Canadians) celebrate July 1. Some (the Americans) celebrate July 4.

But we cats celebrate July 13, for a VERY important reason:

Wednesday, July 13, 2006, was the day Pat first volunteered at the Prince Edward Island Humane Society!

But that's not all. On that very first day, Pat met:

Summer Cat - who had already been resident at the Humane Society for a few weeks. Pat thought he was SO beautiful and SO sweet that he was certain to be adopted soon - especially when he was named Pet of the Week!


Farah - who was eight years old at the time, and had been dropped off at the Humane Society that very morning. Pat was worried about Farah, because Farah was SO frightened, her beautiful eyes were absolutely enormous, and she wouldn't let anyone comfort her.

Hershey, Cocoa, Taffy and Tootsie - who, along with their mother and their brother Smartie, were brought to the Humane Society, just a few minutes after Pat arrived, by a Good Samaritan who had found them dumped on his front yard. The kittens were too tiny to be at the Humane Society, so Pat offered to foster them.

And then - on Monday, July 18, 2006 - the nice people at the Humane Society decided that Farah should also be fostered, until she had time to calm down. So Pat brought her home, too!

We were all supposed to be temporary residents. But as it turned out:

Pat and Henry decided right away that Farah couldn't live with anyone else but them!

As for Summer Cat: the weeks went by, and to Pat's amazement, no one adopted him! Pat was sad to see Summer becoming more and more depressed. SO she brought him home to us, on August 21, 2006.

Soon after that, Smartie and Mom Cat went off to live permanently in other homes. But by then, Hershey, Taffy, Tootsie and Cocoa had decided that they weren't going anywhere!

Here's what we looked like back then:


Hershey was always a Bossy-Boots to the rest of us kittens:


But Summer Cat was his hero:


Which brings us to NOW:

This summer, as part of our celebrations, the Cat Recreation Area (Pen) has been expanded and improved! We'll be posting those pictures soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of us celebrating in the yard:


Sure, we have lots of toys in our Recreation Area. But it's always fun to go to the yard directly behind us and play with the toys there:


Farah and Schooner enjoy the bushes in the front yard:


Although Schooner only came to live with us last November, he fits right in, and we are SO glad he's here:


Unfortunately, we can't say the same about Simon the Siamese, who lives two houses down the street from us. He's not a bad guy - except for the fact that, even though he lives in a beautiful house with a cute little dog and two humans who love him, he seems to want to move in with us:


Pat used to tell us that Simon was SO beautiful! But she stopped saying that when she realized we didn't like to hear it.


Simon wasn't exactly invited to our ongoing celebrations. But (sigh) he insisted on attending anyway:


As for the Blackberries (Natasha and Boris - who now look so much alike we can't tell them apart without a good sniff) - it's always a party when those two are around:


(Remember - CLICK the picture to enlarge it:)


This is NOT the master bedroom, it's our PLAYROOM!


All in all, it's been an exhausting month:

The Great Escape (April 2009)

Although the autumns are beautiful on Prince Edward Island, spring never comes too early. Finally, we had ONE DAY of warm summer weather. Pat knew it wouldn't last, so she decided to let Summer and the Four Golden Jets out of the pen for an hour, under her careful supervision, of course.

How did we spend our brief period of freedom?

SUMMER had a sensual experience in the grass:





TAFFY also stayed close to home, perhaps because she loves Summer Cat so much, that she always wants to be near him:





TOOTSIE, in contrast, ran away, so Pat got only one picture of her (but the good news is, she came home in time to go back inside with all the rest of us):


COCOA and HERSHEY indulged their fascination with bushes and trees:




OK, now that we've warmed up on that bush, let's move on to the heavy-duty stuff:




Cocoa demonstrates that she can still climb higher even than Hershey:




Hershey pretends not to notice. He's much too busy making sure that all is in order under the deck and in the rest of the yard:

We were pleased to meet up again with Buddy, the dog who lives next door. Pat says that Buddy is a Chihuahua, and that Chihuahuas are the smallest breed of dog. Well, Buddy is certainly smaller than any of us cats - so much smaller, in fact, that the first time she met us, she was terrified, especially of Summer!

The human in the background is Al, who lives with Buddy:


Al raked up all of the leaves in their yard and put the leaves in bags that say "The Home Depot." WHY? We had better check this out:







Well, these leaf-bags do make comfortable roosts. Is that what Al intended?



We all had so much fun! But SOME of us worked hard too. Time for Cocoa to relax:


If you would like to see the street we live on (looking north), CLICK to enlarge:

A Change of Plans - or - Now We Are Nine, Permanently (February 2009)

We, Boris and Natasha, have decided that we like it here. A few reasons:

THE PEN. Boris is still too small to go out there, but Natasha loves the pen:



While Natasha is in the pen, Boris can relax on the electric blanket in the family room, which is always left on for the cats:


EVERY cat loves to play stick-bag-on-the-landing. If only we could persuade Pat to play this game with us, 12 hours a day instead of the present limit of 4 hours a day:



(Note from Pat: As these pictures show, Boris is now almost as big as his mother! Soon we won't be able to tell them apart!)




The food is good. (And Pat says it is healthy, too.)


Pat says I wouldn't like oranges or apples. But shouldn't I be the judge of that?


We like the way Pat and Henry have furnished the house:


Summer Cat is the best friend a guy kitten could ever find:



Now that Boris has grown so much bigger, he fits perfectly into the upstairs perching tower:



If we stay here, we will always be together:





We have other reasons for liking it here. But the bottom line is, WE ARE STAYING!

Thank you -- Natasha and Boris

The Pen In Winter (January 2009)

Some readers of this blog have been asking: Are we able to use the Cat Recreation Area ("pen" for short), even in winter?

Well of course!

For technical reasons that we cats refuse to acknowledge, Pat and Henry say that in winter, we can't have the windows open 24 hours a day. This silly rule just makes life harder for them, because they have to open the windows for us whenever we want to go out or come back in again.

In these pictures, Natasha and Summer enter the pen from the laundry room on the first floor:






Meanwhile, Tootsie and Hershey demand access from the basement window:



Every cat has a great time out there:









Although Schooner enjoys the pen, he thinks it's even better to be outside and on top:





Hershey decides it's time to come back inside: "Hey, is anybody there??"


"I SAID, Let us in NOW!"


"What do you think the problem could be, Cocoa?"


Cocoa is the last one in:

Now we are (temporarily) Nine! (January, 2009)

Just in time for the New Year, Natasha and Boris came to stay with us! Mother and son, they were left at the Prince Edward Island Humane Society. Boris was too tiny to be there, so he and his Mum will be living with us for a few weeks now. We have lots of fun playing with them!


Boris loves toys!




Natasha is SO svelte and elegant, we all think she is quite the femme fatale:



She must think so too, because she enjoys looking at herself in the mirror:


We will be posting more pictures soon . . . .

Important Note: If you live in the Charlottetown area, please consider adopting this dynamic duo!

Now we are Seven! (December, 2008)

It's been a long, long time since we posted any news here -- but you will understand why when you read about what we've been up to!

In November, Schooner Cat came to live with us. Schooner is big, beautiful and very silky:


Schooner is fifteen years old, and was a bit down on his luck when he came to us. But we are all so glad he's here! Especially Summer Cat, who is delighted to have a new friend whose tail is as plumey as his own.



Schooner and Summer are best buddies!

Our New Fortress! (August 29, 2008)

Since the playground opened in mid-July, the basement window leading to it has always been open. Cats have always been able to go to the playground whenever they wanted, day or night.

Until today. When, to the amazement of the cats, the window to the playground was CLOSED!

Even worse, the cats heard sawing and hammering. For hours and hours.

FINALLY, the playground re-opened. The cats bounded through their basement window to find -- A FORTRESS!


Cats set to work exploring. They soon saw that the Fortress serves as a massive entrance to their basement window, and that it will provide shelter in bad weather. On the first landing, there is plenty of room to relax or play. A ramp leads from the landing down to the ground. Or, cats can jump from the landing, to higher shelves within the fortress.

From the top of the fortress, which has a peak so that snow will slide off, the cats can jump up onto the highest rafters in the playground. Best of all, from a shelf mounted on the back of the fortress, they can run in and out of the first-floor window that now provides a SECOND portal to and from the playground!

(Remember - CLICK TO ENLARGE any picture on this page):




The cats also discovered that one of the posts inside the playground has been transformed into a circular staircase. They saw immediately that they could use the stairs, not just to climb up to the rafters, but as launching pads from which to ambush each other!





The cats are increasingly excited as they figure out more and more ways to play on the Fortress and on the circular stairs. They are grateful to Dean Martin and Brodie Machon, who built the Fortress and stairs:


Pat and Henry say, THANKS AGAIN to Dean Smith Carpentry Services, 69 Kingston Road, Cornwall, PEI, COA 1HO.

Compare our Fortress to this one, at the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, MN. To see more photos of the cats' big cousins, go to http://www.wildcatsanctuary.org/index.htm:

Our New Playground! (July 2008)

Welcome to our new play area! As you can see, we have lots of space to run and climb and hide or just relax. We have plenty of fun in here, especially at night, when we can stay out as long as we want. And best of all, Pat and Henry know we are safe . . .






















Again, we want to express our thanks to Dean Smith Carpentry Services, 69 Kingston Road, Cornwall, PEI, COA 1HO, who designed and constructed the cats' fenced-in playground.