Cleaning the catboxes has become almost a delightful chore with Zebedee around. He'll come racing over, leap into my lap, turn his prodigous purr-machine on full blast and curl up in a contented ball as I clean the boxes. The day will come when he doesn't do that anymore, or when he becomes too big to make it practical, and that will be a sad day indeed.

Sasha is thawing toward me and I've been able to pet him fairly regularly now. He is easily spooked by a wrong hand movement or today by the large black down jacket I was wearing, but in general it's going well. I wish wish wish we had a spare room where we could let him be inside.

Pippin goes crazy watching the birds through the bedroom glass doors, so Randy thought we should get him a feather toy. So we did and he absolutely adores it. It's the most active I've seen him in a long time. When he gets hold of it, he likes to carry it off in triumph,

Pippin loves his "birdie".

With his trophy.

Opal has her turn with the birdie.

All is quiet on the Moggy Front. Mojo has behaved. Simon takes his pill packed inside a treat with no demur. Everyone else is behaving nicely.

Randy has made tremendous progress winning Sasha's trust and affection. I had a major set-back. I went out to pet him several days ago and a strong gust of wind jerked the screen door from my hand so that it made a terrible bang. Sasha has been out of reach for me ever since. The past few nights, I was able to pet him a little by taking out a bowl of canned food for him. He's thawing, though today when I was petting him, I made some move with my hand that he didn't like and he gave me a solid WHAP with one paw. He didn't use his claws, didn't hurt me at all, just made sure I knew he was displeased. I'll have to take slowly and carefully with him.

I forgot to mention that the neighbor's little dog came back the next morning having spent a cold night who knows where. The neighbors and I spent some time getting acquainted (nice people) and when I mentioned that I have cats, she said, "Want to see something cute?" She proceeded to introduce me to a male orange and white tabby named Tiger and two mama cats each with a litter of kittens! One litter is five weeks old, at the adorable bouncing-ball-of-fluff stage, and the others are only two days old. She's already finding homes for them, thank Bast.

Mojo was being a total bully and snot yesterday. He was harrassing Zebedee badly. I chased Mojo around squirting him, but it wasn't enough. He kept picking on one cat after another in spite of more squirting. The final straw was picking on poor old Kate. I grabbed Mojo and let him have a time-out inside the multi-level cage. He was profoundly unhappy about that. By the time I let him out (after maybe five or ten minutes), he was a chastened moggy.

Someone decided that I was being stingy with the treats. I found an unopened bag of treats on the floor, a hole torn in the side and treats on the floor. Oh, Simon....

No more liquid meds! Praise unto Bast that I survived that wretched experience. Yesterday was a struggle. I had to have Randy come out to the office and help me capture Kate, who was NOT going to cooperate. Giving the pills to Simon is easy as anything. He took today's pill inside a treat. No muss, no fuss.

Mojo is reminding me more and more of our beloved, lamented Unicom. Not only does he have the orange target on his side like Uni, he also plays rough the way Uni did. Uni was and Mojo is a lover, but I'll have to break out the leather gloves to play with Mojo, and that's how it was with Uni. My scratching and bleeding hand tells the tale. I have one scratch that goes halfway around my wrist. Randy called Mojo a "ruffian". That fits. A ruffian, a roughneck and a rapscallion. But so cute.

I received a very nice piece of email from a gent in the U.K. who quite independently created a site called moggyblog.com. Afterwards, he found my site and wanted to make sure I wasn't upset about the similar name. I assured him that had I been concerned about it, I would have locked up the domain name before this. I never really thought about it. Anyway, he has an attractive cat site, so feel free to check it out.

I treated the Horde to some "pixie dust" and sure enough, Zebedee has proven to be a catnip junkie jr.

Zebedee gets down on the catnip.

It was progressively more difficult giving out the meds this morning. Zebedee and Zoe are the easy ones. They come right up to see what I'm doing each time and give me no trouble. Simon continues to cuss me out, but quickly forgives me. I was finally down to the last two. Puck retreated to the high box again, so I turned my attention toward catching Kate. You wouldn't think an old cat could be so elusive! I followed her around the office for ten minutes hoping she would get herself cornered. By that time, Puck was lounging in the sun at the window, so I abandoned Kate and grabbed Puck. In the time it took me to dose Puck, Kate had retreated to a hiding spot and let down her guard. I was able to grab her, but she sure fights me every inch of the way. Thank Bast I only have a couple of days left of this.

I haven't gotten around to introducing myself to the new neighbors across the street, but they have a small black and white dog. Not sure what it is, but it has the general build and nervous energy of a Jack Russell Terrier. Everyone over there was gone during the day with the dog left in the fenced yard. Somehow it got out and began running around the neighborhood in a panic. It's scared of people, so neither Randy nor I could get near it. Twice I managed to get it back in the yard by opening the gate and waiting until it had returned to the house and went inside the yard, then I shut the gate. But two minutes later, it would be back outside again. I had to give up and go inside my office.

The neighbors came home a little while ago and the dog was gone. I heard them calling for it ("Panda Bear" is her name, which fits her markings). I went out to the let the woman know what had been going on during the day, but this time there was no sign of the dog. She went off searching in her car, though I don't think she found it yet. I hope it turns up. Unforunately, there wasn't any more I could have done.

Sasha is soaking up the newfound love. Last night I was able to massage his neck and scratch his back while he was at the food bowl. He PURRED with great happiness. He remains skittish some of the time, but twice now he has shown interest in following Randy inside the house. We feel more and more sure he's an abandoned cat. We've made a cozy bed for him on the porch for these cold nights. It's a large Rubbermaid container with a thermal-foam cushion on the bottom and a nice, thick blanket he can snuggle in. He seems to really like it.

Sasha in his bed. You might just be able to see that his right ear is tipped.

Mojo and Simon had a romp session, with Simon letting Mojo chase him around the office.

Unfortunately, Simon has thrown up three of the six doses of meds that I've given him. I called the vet and they're giving me pills for him instead. Wait a minute. Pills? They could have given me pills?! I really have to chat with them about why they give me this horrid liquid crap to contend with when they could have given me pills! Yeesh. Anyway, it means a trip to Bakersfield, whenever I can manage that. Forty miles of I-5 is closed due to ice and snow, so it won't be today.

Randy gave Sasha some catnip. Sasha looved it. He rolled around and snurfled it up. He didn't let us get any closer because of it, but he sure enjoyed it.

The moggy roundup was a bit more difficult. This was the morning they finally got hip to the new routine. "OMG, she's got a syringe full of that damned yellow goop again! RUN FOR IT!" Puck thought he could escape by going to the tops of the shelves and ducking inside a box. Sorry, buddy. I've worked out techniques to make the process less messy, but I have to be sure to clean up the spilled droplets which turn into a sticky mess then harden into dots the consistency of gummi bears.

Zoe brought me a soggy mousie and wanted me to throw it. Clearly, it had taken one of its periodic swims in the water bowl. Soggy mousies are not fun to throw. I found her a dry mousie, added some fresh catnip and off we go.

Scooter, the neighbor's cat, is becoming a pest. He thinks he owns our yard now. He sprays the house and he gets into confrontations with Sasha and other cats. He's a very nice people cat, but I'll have to discourage him from hanging around.

Zebedee has been added to the Horde page and there are links from there and here to his personal page. This makes it official. ;)

Once again, Puck turned out to be the most difficult cat to dose with meds. It went smoothly and easily except for him, and all he did was fight me a bit. Unfortunately, Simon threw up after getting his meds, for the second time since I began. I hope he's getting enough of the Albon to do him some good. He was extremely playful today, so he might be feeling better.

Randy visited with the cats this afternoon for about as long as he can manage (around ten minutes). Zebedee was all over him, making friends and purring loudly. He's Mr. Personality.

I was petting Sasha and he forgot himself for a second and started to roll onto his back. He jumped back up within a split-second. "What was I thinking?!" I'll bet I get to rub his belly one of these days.

I'm surprised at how well the medicine-giving has gone so far. Even on the second day, they didn't give me too much trouble, except Puck who had to be caught, re-caught and wrestled a bit, and Simon who cussed me out as I was giving it. The first day, I made a mess and the stuff is horribly sticky, so my fingers were sticking together and it was a general comedy routine. But today it went fairly smoothly. This may partially be due to giving them canned food afterwards, as a way to make up for the meds. It takes about half an hour to get the meds into the eleven cats who are getting it. We'll see whether this cooperation trend continues for an entire week, though.

It's been bitterly cold the past few days, getting down to well below freezing at night. I can barely keep part of this office warm with the two oil-radiator heaters. I worry about Ariel because the Cave isn't very close to the heaters and she doesn't have the option of coming over to lie near them like the other cats do. So when I leave for the night, I roll one of the heaters over to the gate and leave it right next to the Cave. That way she can at least get some warmth as she needs it.

We continue petting Natasha as much as we can, however Randy got a better look at her nether regions...and he thinks we have a fixed male instead. I'm still not sure, but she/he isn't ready for that kind of a close-up inspection. Pending further confirmation, Natasha has morphed into Sasha the He.

Zebedee has been here for the allotted two weeks. I gave Lolette the official word that he's staying and joining the Horde. Oddly enough, she was not surprised.

Mojo's residual testosterone was acting up this morning and he was giving Zebedee a lot of grief. I had to resort the WMD big time, until Mojo finally got the message.

And now I'm back from B'fld with a humongous jar of Albon that cost me $90.00 and I was warned I would probably have to buy more because I'm dosing so many cats. Great.

I have to cater the dosage to the size and weight of the cat, so I'm creating a chart for myself. Thank Bast I only have to do this once a day, but without a chart, I could never keep track, not only of doses, but who I've gotten and who I may have missed and need to chase down later. Here I go. Pray for my soul!

Zebedee made a dash for the door when I opened it this morning. I barely managed to catch him around the belly before he made it past me.

My worries about the general condition of some of the cats has been confirmed. I left Zoe's fecal sample at the vet's last Friday, but no one had called me with the results. Today I called and was told they found coccidia, a protozoan parasite. I expected something like that. It's contagious, so I will have to treat ALL of the Horde, with the exception of Pippin and Opal, as they are in the house. And the exception of Ariel because it would be flat out impossible. She's been isolation though, so she may be free of it. The vet has a GIANT, expensive bottle of the medicine waiting for me. Oh, joy. Another trip to Bakersfield.

I don't know how they could have gotten it. My one guess is that Mojo brought it in with him. The timing would be about right.

Slowly, but steadily we make progress with Natasha. We're petting her every day and I feel confident she'll grow more and more comfortable with getting close to us. I wish there was a way a cat could tell you her life story. I would love to know how she ended up a stray with a tipped ear.

Zebedee continues his reign of terror against the trash bin. I've propped a bag of chicken feed against it, so we'll see what happens next.

Big fat Theseus struggles to give himself a bath. "Hey, at least I try."

We continue to make progress with Natasha. We both had chances to pet her today. Randy was even able to pet her while standing up rather than sitting on the steps.

Zebedee knocks over the waste bin several times a day. Yesterday, I finally had to squirt him with the WMD (Weapon of Moggy Distraction). Now he dashes away the minute he sees me aiming the squirt-gun in his direction. Precocious little imp. He simply waits for me to leave, then he gets into the bin.

Zeb poses for his fans.

Jetta craving birdies. "They're right outside the window!!!"

Simon and his fluffy tail.

Young and old orange boys: Theseus and Zebedee.

Zebedee managed to get the claws of both front feet snagged in the metal grill that protects the side fan on my computer. He was so thoroughly snagged that I had to go and unpry him from it.

Scooter came back. Reminding him that he has a home doesn't seem to work. I guess he likes the food on our front porch better.

Something fairly amazing has happened. One of our long-time feral cats is a black female that we call Natasha. She was one of the first to start showing up after we moved in, along with Bowie. We trapped her early on to have her fixed, but when I got her to Lolette's, Lolette looked at her and said, "Someone has already has her fixed. See, she has a tipped ear." That's when I was new to the whole tipped ear business. So I brought her home, let her go and she's hung around ever since.

We've been commenting lately how much she reminds us of Pippin, and speculating on whether they could be related. She's been acting less and less afraid of us. Yesterday, Randy came in very pleased and said that Natasha had actually come up and sniffed his fingers.

Today, I came home from some errands and Randy had an even better story to tell. He had gone outside to sit on the front steps in the sun for a few minutes. Natasha began scooting past him and remaining close by. He put out his hand. She didn't merely sniff his fingers. She butted his hand and demanded scritchies! He had a ten minute love fest, scratching her ears until she was purring and drooling.

I decided to see what would happen if I went outside and sat on the steps while Natasha was still around. She began doing the coy dance of darting past me, going a short distance, coming back, darting past me, circling around, etc. I held out my hand. She came over and instantly we were into full-on scratches from head to tail. She purred and purred. She butted me and rubbed up against me.

This is NOT the behaviour of feral cat! Shy and skittish, yes, but hardly feral. We're wondering what on earth her story could be. An abandoned cat that someone TNR'd by mistake? Of course, now we're going to worry about her even more when the bad weather hits.

Poor Natasha! All this time she wanted to be petted and we never knew.

Zebedee: I'm in ur binz, eatin' ur foodz!

Zebedee and Puck.

Mojo as a young teenager.

I was in disfavor with Mojo for most of Sat. morning. He gave me the cold shoulder when I tried to pet him and even took whacks at me. By the afternoon, he decided to forgive me and curled up in my lap for some lovin'. Today he's back to his bouncy self.

There was a mess to clean up this morning. One of the waste bins was knocked over, CDs, books and knicknacks were strewn on the floor. I told Zebedee it's lucky he's so adorable or I'd feed him to the tigers. I don't think he believed me.

Zebedee has decided that THE place to be when I'm cleaning cat boxes -- when he's not sprinting through them at speed -- is in my lap. He can do this because I sit on a small footstool while cleaning the boxes. This gives him a ringside seat for the fascinating process of scooping litter.

Jetta located the box that I sealed up with the plastic tape and methodically removed the tape a section at a time. What a looney.

Last night at a party, I met a woman with 15 cats. We spent much of the night talking about...well, cats, of course. I proselytized on the virtues of using chicken feed as cat litter. The chicken feed business should hire me. I could double their sales.

I have a large carpet mat inside the door to my office. When I stepped on it this morning, it went crunch. It doesn't usually go crunch. It's not supposed to go crunch. I lifted the mat and discovered that the moggies had found a small glass vial to play with, which they batted under the mat and forgot about. I got to sweep up the shards.

Jetta likes to squeeze herself inside the child gate of the Cave. She doesn't bother Ariel and Ariel doesn't seem bothered by her, thank Bast, so I usually leave Jetta there until she wants out a minute or so later. This time, I decided to let her figure out how to get out on her own, so she might think twice about doing it again. It took her a good five or ten minutes to finally squirm her way up and out of the gate, though all she really had to do was push it open a bit. I don't keep it latched during the day.

I'm worried about Zoe. Not just Zoe, actually. I was cleaning the cat boxes last night when I saw her leave a loose, bloody stool. She has dropped weight recently. A number of the mostly young cats, but also even Theseus, seem to be losing weight (he needs to lose weight badly, but not for unknown reasons) and I've seen a couple of them have blood in their stools from time to time. I put some of hers in a stool sample kit that vet gave me a while back. I'll have to ask the vet to test it for parasites and worms. I suspect something might be going around in the Horde, possibly brought in by Mojo.

Speaking of which, I must pick up the unhappy Mojo this afternoon, who has suffered An Unfortunate Series of Events. It began to snow last night and I was worried about being able to get down to Bakersfield, but there was only light snow. The house was heavily buffeted by high winds during the night and there's a layer of ice beneath the snow, but the sun is out and I have a Subaru. No problem.

Ah, Zebedee has discovered the Heights, the walkways I placed across the upper shelves near the window and the open spaces on the shelves. I left those open spaces as those are the only spots where the cats can see out the window or soak in some sunshine, as they're doing right now. Since this is a refurbished garage, I'm lucky there's even one window, though I wish I had more for the benefit of the mogs.

Zebedee says, "Hey, it's fun up here!" Down below, Puck wonders what the kid is up to.

Kitten gets to look down on human

"Hmmm...how does this thing work? Anti-grav?"

Sapphire let Zebedee hang out with her, though she did give him a pre-emptive whack a minute later.

Simon says, "What?"

It was a day of "firsts" in Mojo's life, all of which he would have happily done without. His first time inside a carrier. His first trip in a car. O' The Piteous Meowing! His first visit to the vet where he must unfortunately spend the night. And he's really not going to like what's coming up for tomorrow. Poor baby Mojo-kitty.

We were visited by a very sweet cat named Scooter who belongs to the same people that have Sabina (Mojo's mother) and from whom I got Mojo. He lives up the street a short ways and around a corner. He's never come into the yard before. He was badly hurt as a kitten and was left with an extreme limp, but it doesn't stop him. He hung around all day and sat on the steps to my office like he wanted to come in. Finally, when I was setting out for a late afternoon walk, I hauled him into my arms and gave him a lift home, just in case he'd gotten confused about where it was.

Zebedee is enjoying the respite from Mojo's over-enthusiastic "attentions". He's funny when he gets his fangs on the catnip fish. He runs off with it and growls at any cat that comes near. "MY fishie!" It's the only time I've seen him be possessive. I was happy to see him snuggled up with Jetta when I came into the office tonight, especially after she was one of those giving him a hard time at first.

Zebedee is way too smart. He's already got the daily routine down pat. When I go to get his food bowl for the canned food, he suddenly teleports from wherever he is to a spot clinging just below my chin. He knows all about getting treats and is right there with the rest of the Horde demanding his share.

I think it's time to pick him up for a cuddle and listen to that great purr-machine of his.

It is time for Mojo to lose his balls. He's been giving Zebedee a hard time today, playing roughly with him, mainly trying to hump him. I was planning on doing it soon anyway. He's certainly old enough.

Zebedee is a dumpster diving kitten. I've had to pick up the overturned bin several times and hauled him out of it a few times. He is, shall we say, enthusiastic about food. It took me months to get Mojo interested in taking a treat. By the second day, Zebedee had that down pat. "What's that? A treat? Yeah, gimme!"

Lolette sent me home with two weeks of canned kitten food. He scarfs down a can of that each morning. Naturally, this drives the other cats nuts, as they know the sound of canned food being opened. I was forced to dole out canned food to everybody yesterday.

Ariel is faring the same, meaning not great. Zebedee has bounced into the Cave a couple of times while I was cleaning it out. Ariel growled him away. As I feared, when I gave her the canned food, she didn't touch it. She is convinced that all canned food is now tainted with the hideous tranks. I waited for a while, then I put the food right under her nose to make her have a strong whiff of it. I gave her my absolute guarantee that it was plain food with nothing in it. She licked at it slightly after that, mostly going after the juice and leaving the chunks behind. I hope she gets past the mistrust.

I left out a tape gun with a roll of plastic tape on it that I was using to seal up a box. I no sooner set it down when wacky-girl Jetta was after it, wanting to eat the plastic tape. No matter who many times I shooed her away, she'd come right back. She's totally mental about plastic tape.

Dumpster-diving kitten is foiled by my cunning Cardboard Protector Device.

Zebedee discovers the catnip fishie.

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