Twofer Tuesday

LAZ AND LORI:     

Flashback Friday

AYLA:  My best picture.  I was here a few moons.   Most of our flashbacks are of the same date some past year.  This one isn't.  I climbed trees then.  It was October 2008.  That seems SO LONG AGO. 

I stopped climbing trees after I got caught in a heavy rainstorm.  As I backed down, the rain got all in my nose and I hated that. 

Womancat Wensday

AYLA:  I love to sit up on the top of the fence.  Its narrow, but so am I.  But I was also watching stuff.  What stuff you ask?

This tree...   Its a mulberry tree and lots of fascinating critters love the berries.  Birds, Evil Skwerls, even crows.  One time there was even a groundhog.  Who knew they could climb trees?

You can barely see me way down in the bottom corner...

Freaky Friday

IZA:  I was staring intently out the deck door last week.  Ya wanna know why?

Cuz there was some guy up in one of our trees cutting a big branch apart.  TBT said the tree was so lopsided, it was in danger of falling over.

It looks a little funny now.  Like the tree is staring at us...

TBT says he may have to paint it!

The Tree

IZA:  Well, I watch TBT at this sort of stuff more that Ayla or Marley do.  What can I say?  His odd action fascinate me.

I'll leave it to him to expalain all the steps of setting up the fake tree, but I will show you the ornaments.  THEY fascinate me.  Whappable stuff...

But he told me most of that stuff is old, new-valuable, or gifts from Beins-Who-Have-Gone-Before.  MOUSIES!  He can take the fun out of whapping stuff.  But he says this stuff really IS special and he sure tosses me enough toys to make the tree-stuff "off limits".

Urk.  Would I be losing "cat-points" iffen I agreed not to break the nice stuff.  Anything I break, I wont see next year.  An since they ARE sparkley, I WOULD like ta see them again.  Its a dilemma!

So I agreed not to whap off anything lower than the cat ornament.  Well, I GOTTA respect the cat ornament.  I may have been tricked though.  There ISNT anything hanging on the tree lower than the cat ornament...

But a deal is a deal.  And as a practical matter, TBT  pointed out that any broken glass would probly get in MY paws not his and iffen my paws got any glass, it would be STRAIGHT to the VET for me.  Mousies!  He sure knows how ta bargain sometimes. 

Marley an Ayla said they had already agreed not ta mess with the decorations.  He said he would give them some plastic ones ta whap around.  He dint offer that ta ME.

Oh Bast, I'm a poor negotiator...  THIS TIME!

Well, at least I get ta show you some pictures of the decorated tree.  (And THEY don't, NYA, NYA, NYA)

SET UP...

LIGHTS ON!

 ORNAMENTS ON!

 OK, wholly CARP...  I never saw annything like THAT before...  I fell over.

Ya gotta go to  HERE

UPDATE:  Wait til you see the closeups tomorrow!  I could really only see the ones close to the floor, before, ya know, but TBT held me up to see the others higher up (and a good safe paw reach away - darn).  O...M...COD!  There are Hummingbirds and Butterflies...

Marley an Ayla came inna the room and THEY fell right over too. 

We have all agreed we GOTTA get one of those Cardinals, and a Hummingbird...

We're Back

IZA:  It took some werk.  TBT allus gets a bit hyper and easily hissy at this time of year.  And when he realized that he dint have to do those captcha and check boxes evry time, he calmed down pretty well.  But we still had to "close the deal".

So I calmed him down by keeping him still and warming him up.

 Acting "cute"

Often...

 And letting him see that he had a project half-done.  Actally, this is the picture BEFORE he opened the base of the tree and fussed with the branches the first time, but we seem to have lost THAT picture somewhere. 

AND we pointed out that there were boxes of tree decorations all stacked up around the rooms FOR A WEEK while he dithered like a mousie about whether ta return it and get a live tree FOR A WEEK and that he should be embarassed about the indecision of the mess.

Well, a few good cats who know him well, KNOW what they are doing.

When we got THIS look in his eyes, we knew we had one won..

Now is THAT seriously sad or not?  We mean, we have grabbed mousies who didn't look THAT sad!

So he went right to werk!  Said:

"OK, first the branches need spreading, he said
just have to be spread and that's not much werk, 
I will spread them now, so to not be a Jerk.

Its just TIME he sniffed. with a finger to nose.
The order to do, instructions say those
Evry branch must be bent and there isn't much time.

There's likely a pattern he stated and claimed, 
As he studied the warp and the woof of the tree.

Aha, I have found it, he shouted to we.
One left, and right, down, and then up, he decreed
Its a pattern that lets a smooth werk flow to go!

And as he began settling down to his werk, 
The base, Part One was suddenly done.  
 And suddenly Part Two was begun and then done!

He went to Part Three, the highest of tree
And suddenly there before was a tree for we.
Was something that WE considered a TREE!

Ok, not much smell of a real tree to US
But appearances count, and we're telling you all
That we are OK with all that on this one Soltice Day .

The Big Thing and We have decided this day,
We will alternate fake and real Holiday Trees.  
There are nice things to like of the real and the fake.

The real trees smell woodsy, and we get some boughs
From a real tree this year while TBT dont water.
And next year a real tree while the relaxes.

And the moral of this story is, we really can abide
Adjustments to our expectations,  for holiday to tide
Us over years to year, the difrences to hide."

Peace to all we say, and whatever makes you happy in this time of the darkest days and shortest nights.  WE are happy because TBT reminds us that the days will be getting longer soon leading to Spring when we can go outside without feeling TOO cold again.

The tree IS decorated BTW.  When TBT gets going, he doesn't stop.  But those pictures are for tomorrow, The Solstice Day.  And WE will do more when we open our prezzies on Christmas Day.  Sometimes we do it Christmas Day, sometimes on the Solstice.


Love to all

Ayla, Iza, and Marley

Holiday Tree Delay

We're not havin great luck on the Holiday Tree.  First, TBT spent a lot of Caturday just moving stuff around and cleaning.  We told him it dint need anny cleaning, but that was cuz we dint want the sucky machine turned on.  By the time he finally had made room fer the Holiday Tree, he was too tired ta set it up.

So he got at that after lunch today, and oh wow was he surprised!  He opened the box expecting to find a tree where he just folded the branches down an evrything would be good ta go ecept hanging a few special ornaments and the bubble lights. 

WE were upset cuz it dint SMELL like a tree.  Well, he dint tell us it would, but he dint say it woundnt either, and what WOULD ya espect a tree ta smell like ecept a TREE?

The problem seems ta be as iffen we had ta construct our own toy mousies.  There is a lotta werk involved.  Like bending 12 bazillion branches and twigs into position...  So he is gonna decide tomorrow whether ta keep or return it.  OUR view is that he is welcome ta return it.  Iffen it doesnt smell like a tree, WE arent innerested.

TBT has some thoughts on his own blog that dont really apply ta us cats, so we will leave that ta HIM!  Cavebear's Lair

Holiday Tree Day

AYLA:  It is holiday tree day here and we have never seen that before.  TBT was talking about it and we WERE wondering about all the sealed boxes he brought into the Living Room. 

We are worried a bit.  The first thing he did was move our cat trees away from each other.  Apparently the new tree takes some space.  But also, we are worried about the size of the tree.  The trees we know of are REAL HUGE.  We're not sure how one could fit.  Mebbe he just uses the top of one...

But he says it will fit, unchopped, an he's usually right about stuff like that.

We cant wait ta see what happens later today.   Heck, I've been here almost 6 whole years an I've never seen a tree in the house.  An I'm the eldest kitteh in the house. 

But here is an odd thing.  Marley says he saw one once.  He says there was one in the first place he lived after the shelter briefly before he came here forever.  We sometimes forget he lived annywhere before but he did live with a really nice Bein right at this time of year when he was a kitten.  So mebbe he did see a house tree once. 

We will hafta compare opinions later...

Garden Tour Thursday

IZA:  Hi!  Welcome to this weeks Garden Tour... 

Mostly, the same flowers are blooming as last week, but they seem a bit bigger an with more flowers, so we'll see those as we pass by.  But we got a couple of new things ta show too!  I'll save those fer the end.

First is our pot of pansies.  They are growin thicker an more cheerful even in this heat.  We are amazed!  There are twicet as many flowers as last week.

The annual flower area is fillin in.  Especially the white wave petunias an the marigolds.  They would all be bigger now, except TBT delayed plantin them cuz he needed ta dig up nasty runner grass roots first.

The white ones may have more flowers, but we like the red/white ones better.  More color, though the white ones DO show up better at twilight.

The red sa,via are gettin bigger too.  In a month they should be full size and bloom.

The yeller marigolds are bushier and lots of flower buds are developin!

Hey!  I hear somethin in here.  Mouse?

Nah, just a big bug.  A cicada, I think...

Here's the first surprise today.  Its a volunteer butterfly bush!  And its a large flower fer a small plant, so we will have to save it.

 

We found two birdie nests on the ground!  We know one is a robin nest, so we guess the other is too.

The Moonbeam Coreopsis are bloomin now.  They are in pots, but will go into the garden inna Fall.

We are in the front yard now.  Can ya guess what this is?

Well, do ya remember the trees covered with tiny yeller flowers I showed ya a month or so ago?  Its a Golden Rain Tree.  These are the seed pods.  They look like tiny Chinese lanterns.  When they turn brown, they fall off.  An they crunch when ya step on them.

Marley has put out some snacks up on the deck.  Lets see what he chose fer us!  Ooh, Cowboy Cookout stinky Goodness, Pounce treats, chicken jooce, and bowls of water with cracked ice!  Thats differnt...

The New Cat Tree!

MARLEY:  Did ya notice somethin in recent pictures?  There is an addition to our house.

Well, it actally showed up a coupla weeks ago, but with Ayla's problems last week, it wasn't right to show it off.  Now she is feelin better, so it is OK.

The box got delivered ta the front door several weeks ago and some Bein banged on the door.  We all went straight unner the bed fer safety of course.  That let TBT get the box inside without us tryin ta get outside.  Not that we try ta get out the front door much (scary territory), but he never knows.

So he dragged the heavy box inside an it sat there.  Fer 2 weeks.  We dint know it mattered ta us or we wouldda yelled a lot and sooner.  But he finally opened it and started ta carry stuff upstairs.  "Some Assembly Required" he said.  So we decided this was a serious snoopervisin event.

It started when TBT cleared out the space next to our cat tree.  That made us worried.  Ya never know what things like that mean.  Iza went up ta watch from above. Ayla an I watched from below an around corners.  To get an 3 cat view, ya know?

And then STUFF came outta boxes. I ran ta check them out, but I didnt know what it meant.  

Ayla knew though.  She said (ecitedly) "Oh Marley, those are scratchin posts and boxes...

"Its a nother kitty condo!  Iza agreed, an walked all over the parts while I sniffed carefully.  It looked like dangerous stuff to me, sisal rope tubes or not!!!

But TBT started ta put it together.  Iza went right in the first box.  She can be scary brave sometimes.

 So I HAD to check it out too.  Cant have the sisters being braver than me.  Bad for the mancat image, ya know?

This is what we ended up with.  A bit scary at first.  Ya got ta climb it inna differnt way. 

I settled fer a middle box.  That was enough ecitment fer one day, know what I mean?

This is lookin massive!  Iza is still nappin on the old tree.  We got ta get used ta this.

I have JUST learned that I can hop from one tree ta the other.  That is SO cool!  Hmm?  Well of course I dint think of that before or I would have DONE it before.  Gimme a break, Im not a year old yet!

TBT is showin more about the details of building the thing HERE...

Togetherness!

HUGO:

I am pleased at how quickly Ayla, Iza, and Marley are getting along!  Here they are in the cat tree together for the FIRST time...

They all seemed quite calm about it...

 Marley wanted to play with Ayla, but she just said "Don't push it"!

So he just relaxed...

The Big Thing called to me to come join them, but by the time I got there, Marley and Ayla had hopped down.

Marley Updates, 2

AYLA:

Im not crazy about the new kid, but Im getting used to him.  He taps me when we pass!  Hugo says he is OK, Iza says he is OK, and The Big Thing says hes stayin,  So I guess I have no choice.  He IS kinna cute...

He likes ta crawl unner things like I do...

He got into my hidey-hole a couple times, but TBT hasnt got a good picture of that yet.

He likes ta sit on TBT's lap at the computer.  Iza doesnt seem ta mind being near him...

And Iza doesnt mind him on the cat tree with her...

She even gave him some advice on the best places ta perch and nap...

He is still gettin ta know us better.  Here, he is caught engaging in a cautious butt sniff.  Iza dint even know it, but I saw him...

He likes ta stay close to TBT cuz he gets lots of attenshun.  He sits on the chair near him...

Or takes a nap on him....

So he is settlin himself right in.  Well, I got used ta Iza.  I spose I'll get used ta Marley...

THE BIG THING:   I just noticed that we had our 75,000th visitor 2 days ago!  I am amazed.  Thank you all for coming to visit us...