Tales of the Moggy Horde

or
How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love Bast

Current Moggyblog Archive Index Page

Tales pre-blog 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

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I heard Puck meow twice this morning for the first time ever. He
never makes a sound, but I hadn't really stopped to think about it
until he uttered a couple of small meows while going after something
in the corner of the office. Then he raced around, bouncing like
Tigger off the furniture and ran along the top of the bookshelves,
after which he suddenly stopped and licked himself.

The rest of the moggies are all fine. The settling in is nearly
accomplished, I think.

As I left the office late this afternoon, I took a few strides and
stopped dead at the sight of a young rattler lying just off the corner
of the building. I hurried back inside to fetch my .22 Ruger auto.
Unfortunately, I didn't have snakeshot in it.

I went back outside (luckily, all the cats were inside both in the
office and at the house) and very carefully eyed it off. It wasn't
very big, but the problem is that it's extremely difficult to tell the
gopher snakes up here from the rattlesnakes. They look nearly
identical, and the gopher snakes have developed a defense of behaving
like rattlers...which might be good against animals but is a really
bad idea around humans.

I couldn't see any buttons on the tail, but as I said, it wasn't very
big. Very young rattlers don't have buttons yet, but I'm not sure at
what size they grow them. I moved around it looking and looking at
the head, trying to be as sure as possible. I hate killing snakes,
even rattlers, and I especially hate the idea I might kill a harmless
and beneficial snake by accident.

The only feature I could use to judge by was the shape of the head.
The more I looked, the more I thought it looked wedge-shaped, but it's
so hard to be sure. I decided I couldn't afford to take the chance.

I took aim at the head, but I haven't practiced shooting for a long
time. My aim must have gotten awfully rusty. Not to mention getting
a bead on a snake's moving head is tricky. I missed three times,
blasting the snake backwards each time without apparently harming it.
It was mightily pissed off, though.

Finally, it turned and started to race down a hole that was right at
the base of one of the garage doors (my office is converted from a
large garage). I only had seconds to react and I had no idea where
this hole went. It might have given the snake access to the office,
for all I could tell. Since its head was down the hole, I moved right
up to it and pretty much blew it in half.

While that brought it back out of the hole, it amazingly wasn't dead.
I refuse to let any creature suffer, so I raced up to the house, got
my .22 Ruger revolver that's loaded with snakeshot, and dispatched it.

It may have been necessary, but I'm still sorry I had to do it.

posted at 10:38 PM

 
When I came back out of my office this afternoon, I found the tiny
remnants of a bird. There wasn't even enough left to identify what
type of bird. I hate it when one of my cats snares a bird. I wish
they'd focus on the mice and gophers instead.

Artemis is lying with her big, white belly in the air...snoring.

posted at 8:02 PM

 
Puck greeted me with a very nice purr this morning. He has quiet,
steady-state, soothing kind of purr.

Then he decided to chase Artemis full-tilt around the office. I
yelled sternly at him, but I noticed that Artemis waddled right back
into the open again afterwards. I'm thinking she's not all that
worried about being chased. Given how fat she is, being chased around
the office a few times might do her some good.

Theseus brought half the yard inside. He doesn't mind that I use a
broom to brush him off. That's right, the regular broom I use on the
floor. Theseus is so broad, the broom works just fine. He hardly
seems to notice it.

Theseus also loves being combed. If I'm combing another cat, he'll
push his way in. He only loves having his head, neck and chin combed
though. As soon as I reach his hindquarters, which is where he
desperately needs the combing, he gets persnickety. Now that his
dense, winter coat is growing in, I need to comb him more often.
Every winter I have to combat the dreadlocks he grows on his butt.

This got me to thinking about the wide range of quality in cat fur.
Nefreet is the queen of magnificent fur. She is as soft, glossy and
sleek as mink. Her fur is a sensual joy to stroke. I notice her fur
easily absorbs water, too.

Whereas Unicom's fur resists water with a fierce passion. Giving him
the bi-weekly rubdown with anti-allergen liquid takes a lot of
application, with Uni grousing the entire time.

Kate has the second-nicest fur of the Horde. It's luxuriously thick
and beautifully ticked in browns and blacks. Owl has fur like a plush
toy, when he isn't pulling it out.

The rest of the cats have fairly nice, kinda average fur, except
Theseus. His fur is in some other category unto itself -- thick,
tough and stubborn.
posted at 11:43 AM

 
Puck and Tribble had what started out as a friendly interaction.
Tribble was even licking Puck's head. They both plopped down sideways
on the floor. Then Puck made some kind of playful swipe, but Tribble
took it as non-playful and suddenly they were in a whacking battle,
paws flying in a blur until I broke it up.

Puck was so defensive when he first got here, it's made the other cats
respond in kind. I think that will eventually pass. Except for minor
incidents like that, it's been pretty quiet amongst the Horde. He
really needs a playmate. He's off batting something or other around
on the cement floor part of the office.

Querida is looking good on the higher does of thyroid meds. She's put
her normal weight back on. She still hates taking the pills, but she
has pretty much resigned herself to having it happen.

Nefreet provided us with some amusement last night. She was on the
sofa next to Randy when I came in and he'd been playing "squeaker toy"
with her. Everytime he lightly squeezed the tip of her tail, she'd
meep. Squeeze tail. Meep, meep. Squeeze tail. Meep, meep. She
never bothered moving her tail, of course. I think she only got up
and moved because we were laughing so hard.

The greatest cat I ever had, in the early 1970's, was Elric, a
long-haired ragdoll with ice-blue eyes. He was amazingly smart and he
absolutely *hated* being laughed at. He wouldn't tolerate it at all.
If you laughed at him, he whacked you in the head.

posted at 10:38 AM

 
Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:14:21

Unicom was in a bad mood yesterday. He was aloof and disinterested in
his people. He didn't give us one single purr the whole day. He did
finally get on the sofa with us in the evening, but only because he
wanted to knead and drool for a bit.

He seems to be back to normal this morning, though anxious to get
outside.

Puck and Diva can't seem to decide whether to play or fight. She was
going bonkers on top of her favorite shelf and boxes. Puck got on the
cat bridge (which spans the wide space between some plan files and the
shelves) and watched her. Then he oozed below the bridge onto a lower
shelf. As he was doing this, Diva jumped down hard onto the bridge
and Puck hastily vanished.

He emerged from the other side of the shelf and jumped to the top of
the boxes. Now Diva was between the bridge side and Puck's position.
They had a long stare-down. Then Diva would pounce over and they'd
bat away at one another, back off, sit uneasily about four feet apart,
have another batting session, etc. Finally Puck had enough and made
the long jump to the cement floor rather than try to get past her.

It looks more like fighting right now, but I have hopes it may
progress into actual play.

I've learned not to leave my office chair exposed if I step away from
the desk while Puck is there. He loves to jump onto the chair and
exercise his claws on the seat.

I tried to get a photo of Puck and Kate asleep head to head, but
naturally the minute I try to focus in on them, they move.

Wed, 25 Sep 2002 11:20:32

Nefreet has bursts of insanity in which she becomes a rocket-butt and
races around the house. Look at her sidewise and she bursts into high
speed. She was racing around the house last night when she collided
with one of the food bowls. The result was an empty bowl and a lot of
cat food on the kitchen floor.

Puck the Mighty has slain the featherduster. He alternates between
sleeping in the cat bed and trying to disembowel it. He's prowling
the office looking for mischief to get into.

posted at 11:13 AM

 
I'm new to this blogging business and still feeling my way around, so pardon me if I don't get this quite right the first time around.

The purpose of this blog is to post the Tales of the Moggy Horde.

What is a moggy, you might ask, let alone a horde of them. Moggy is a British/Scottish/Australian slang word for "cat", supposedly derived from "mongrel". I am currently the personal body slave to a horde of 14 cats.

To become acquainted with the Moggy Horde in more detail, please visit their page. You will find Artemis the Polydactyl Princess, Puck the Merry Prankster, Owl the Siamese Sumo Ninja, Tribble the lovemuffin, Unicom the Mighty Gopher Slayer, Nefreet the Psycho-kitty, Theseus the fluffy tank, Querida the Dowager Empress, the mother and daughter singing duo of Tosca and Diva, and enough moggies to satisfy any felinophile.

There are years worth of previous Tales linked to the main Horde page. If I could figure out how to archive them here, I would, but that seems beyond blog-ability at the moment.

You should also enjoy the Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics.

posted at 4:32 PM