watching...

Tater, GG and Milo watching a buggy on the porch... and Stachie, in
the bottom of the picture, watching them!

Frederick and Biff...partners in crime

Frederick and Biff are now BFF's...and partners in crime. Frederick has had run of the house since Saturday morning. He is still skittish..but coming around. As you can see in the later pictures... Frederick is enjoying the cat tree! All of our cats love that thing... maybe Mike and I should start making more of them to sell!!

My Sunday Project....

Saturday marked the 2nd anniversary of Wheezie's passing. I had all intentions of planting the crape myrtle on saturday, in her honor.... but, after thinking long and hard on where it should go, I realized that I wanted to make a new flower bed for it. So, on Sunday morning after Mike left for work... I headed out to home depot to get some wall blocks and the building began! I was finishing up, just as Mike was getting home from work (around 1 or so...). I have helped with the other walls and such around the house, but this was the first one I did on my own. I think Mike was kind of shocked that I could do the manual part of it... I typically come up with the idea or "vision" and have Mike to the manual labor. I told him that after 22 years of watching Larry landscape... I've picked up a thing or two along the way!

A little bit about my new Crape Myrtle:

WHITCOMB CRAPEMYRTLE 'SIREN RED'
Lagerstroemia indica 'Siren Red'
PPAF (WHIT VII )
Siren Red® "Oxblood red" flowers are distinctly darker red than Dynamite® or Red Rocket®. Darkness/intensity of red is less effected by cool, cloudy conditions. New growth is wine, then quickly changes to dark green. The slowest grower of the 'Whit' reds but may reach 3 feet in one growing season in a 3-5 gallon container. May reach 10 feet at maturity. High mildew resistance. Darkest red flowers yet. Can be grown as a bush or multi-stem tree.
An introduction from Dr.Carl Whitcomb of Stillwater, Oklahoma.

our poor man's barometer...

We got a poor man's barometer when we were visiting Colonial Williamsburg with Chuck and Christen. It can detect changes in pressure... indict a storm is coming up to 48 hours in advance. They use to use them on the ships coming back and forth from England to the new world! The higher up the neck the water goes....the bigger the storm. It has usually only risen about an inch or two during a storm for us. So, when I saw this... my first reaction was "holy crap head to the basement" .... then I remembered, we don't have one. But...in all honesty, it had me a little worried...especially after the lady at Colonial Williamsburg told us about a lady down in florida who had one (she too had colored her water) and when a hurricane came through Florida, she ended up having colored water all over her ceiling and walls!! Then Mike reminded me that Hurricane Danny was just off the east coast (but north of us...thank goodness!). Pretty cool that it can pick up something that far away (and...by the end of the evening, the water was pretty darn close to coming out of the thing!!)

Frederick and Biff ...Playdate!

Last night, Biff finally started accepting Frederick and they had a play date in the kitten cage. Frederick still gets a little overwhelmed by being out of the cage (but is getting better). So for now... most of the play dates will take place in the kitten cage. I am so glad that this happened last night, b/c Frederick was looking so sad and depressed (like he was missing his brother and sister). You could tell that he wanted to play...but our other cats (with the exception of Paisley, Cowboy and Emmy (Emmy probably hasn't even realized there is someone new yet!)) are being unusually stupid about accepting him into the pack.

oh yeah, Stachie has been really good with him when we are holding him. He is very curious and comes up to sniff and say hi. But...Stachie can be a little intimidating to a tiny little kitten!

Little Wise Owl...

Did you know that the meaning of the Irish origin of the name Shannon is "Little Wise Owl" .... funny that I just learning this now. I think I remember seeing "wise" somewhere out there. But never "little wise owl." Maybe I have something new to collect! too bad I got rid of most of my owl stuff from college (sorority mascot). hmmm.....

Introducing....

Frederick (aka... Fritz). Sorry for the bad pictures. I just wanted to get some to show you guys. We were keeping him in the spare bedroom. But, because of how nervous he would get by noises and movement...we decided to resurrect Tipsy's big cage and bring Fritz into the living room to get acclimated to the sights and sounds. He took to the cage really well. Did'nt hide in the condo at all.... he investigated every shelf and played with the toys and watched all that was going on in the room. I think he is really missing his brother though... when we let him out for a supervised room investigation he got really excited when he saw Hank (I think he thought it was his brother). Too bad Hank didn't see it that way (they are related, can't tell you if they are brothers, cousins, or what...but they are blood relatives). The welcome committee of Paisley and Cowboy greeted him with plenty of licks and love. He just purred and purred. oh, and as you can see in the one picture...he loves to have his belly rubbed!

Plum-berry

This is my newest kitty. I made it as a gift for a friend that
donated this multi-color yarn to me. She is also purchased the most
kitties. She loved her.... and then the next day at catnip, she buys
another crocheted kitty!
only two left now... Wrigley and Oliver.

my lap on any given night...

pictured left to right: Winky, Biff, my left leg, and Gilbert!

Biff's favorite prime-time show....

we refer to it as "The Laundry Show" (TLS). Biff isn't the only one fascinated by TLS... big brother, Cowboy loves it, and so does Emmy (but half her time is spent snoozing in The Catty Shack!)

>

Blankey Love...

When little Biff gets really tired... he heads straight to his (formerly, my) red blanket. He grabs hold of it with his mouth and then starts kneading away. and, he doesn't just stay in one spot... he moves around, getting the whole blanket nice and wet with kitty slobber!

p.s. we have started washing Biff's Blankey about once a week now!

Uncle Chuck wore Biff out....

Baby Biff had lots of fun playing with Uncle Chuck (and vice versa)... So much fun that he passed out while playing in the box from our new barometer (from Colonial Williamsburg).

a surprise in my couch...

I was sitting on the couch the other day and felt something grabbing at me from behind... this is what I found!

Puppy Love

The newest pillow pal, "Puppy Love"