The Ingenuity of the Male in the House

I noticed something strange on my kitchen counter this weekend...


What in the world?

Need a closer look?


I guess the human male in our house got tired of butter getting wasted.

It was a while back when the feline male of the house broke my nearly indestructible Fiesta covered butter dish.

And ever since then this long lanky thing has been creeping up on the counter to get a lick of the pure joy that I always leave on the counter.


Which has resulted in many, many tossed sticks of butter.

Great solution, honey!

***hint, hint...maybe we need to pick up a new butter dish?***

A Peek at the Blooms in our Yard

We have been so blessed by inheriting a master gardener's yard. I don't think there is one non-blooming thing planted...even the trees are showing off gorgeous blossoms.

Azaleas

Dutch Iris

Chinese Fringe

Jasmine

White Dogwood

Yellow Lady Banks Roses

Narcissus

Japanese Maple

Pink Dogwood

Some of those have faded and new things are blooming now! Unfortunately it's not just the flowers that are thriving. The weeds seem to love this soil too. So if I gave you the full view...just to keep things real, you'd see this: OVERGROWN MESS!

As well as a dismantled play system that we finally got out of storage. Jerry got it pretty much put together this weekend...just in time for the rain and cold to set in. Boo!

Oh and the tour wouldn't be complete without a shot of another overgrown flower bed that the cats have chosen for their litter box. Lovely.

Of course I did say I wouldn't care where they went, at least I am not changing a litter box anymore. A neighbor just told me about Critter Ridder which I will be putting down soon. I love pulling weeds, but I think running into "litter" would take all the fun out.

Cats gone wild!

I do NOT know what has gotten into our kittens. They are five months old now and it seems that they have forgotten that we rescued them and bottle fed them for weeks.

They have turned from:

darlings to devils
dainty to destructive
delicate to dominant
delightful to distressing

The list could go on and on...but basically, the more demolishing they do, the more dismayed I have become and long for them to disappear.

What do they do, you ask?

They CLIMB everything ...
the shower curtains
the regular curtains
the roman shades
even right up my body...nothing like feeling a cats claws grip the back of your jeans and make their way up your back.

Another of my favorites...
Orangi likes to climb up the back of my laundry room door.

I'll never forget the first time I rounded the corner with a load of fresh towels in my arms and found her staring at me.

I'm pretty sure I will need one of her nine lives to extend mine after that.

They have been helpful in one way over the last week though. Jerry has been out of town which makes me sleep very light, if at all. I've found that any little noise I've heard I've been able to easily dismiss by blaming it on the cats.

Yep, that is pretty much the only positive I can think of at the moment.

Oh, yes. Then there is the subject of the litter box. Oh my! I would rather change the diapers of ten babies than the litter box of two cats. I scoop it daily and that just about does me in. Their waste used to fill one large Dickey's cup, but now friends, it fills THREE. Absolutely degrading.

I've joked with Jerry that maybe we should try for a third...at least I wouldn't be allowed to change the litter box for nine months!

But that is all about to change...they are getting fixed this week and then we are moving. And when we move into the new house, they are getting the biggest litter box ever. It is called the backyard, the front yard....heck, the neighbor's yard. I don't care!

Yep, the once abandoned feral kittens are returning to the outdoors.

I'm just hoping they don't find my window to meow at in the middle of the night.