The cats enjoyed dust baths in the driveway all summer long. They flop and roll and stand up covered with dust, really pleased with themselves. The fall rains have arrived now, and the amber lawn of late summer has returned to emerald green again.
dust bath time
Miss Nimbus seemed to be outgrowing her collar, so I treated her to a new baby girl pink one. It is missing this morning, I will have to search outdoors for it. This morning’s preliminary stroll netted me wet shoes and nothing more.
With the cooler weather, bead making season is winding down too.
There is quite the parade of wildlife here in the backyard. One day I spotted a pair of pileated woodpeckers working on a dead maple trunk. I have seen a mother and cub raccoon a few times and one morning got some good shots of them at dawn as they were headed back to bed after a night of prowling for food.
Mom and cub raccoon
Raccoons have escaped into the wild in Japan and Germany and caused tremendous damage to crops and buildings. Japan’s problem started when a children’s cartoon featuring a raccoon caused them to become popular as pets. Now importing them is banned. Read more about the problems at this link.
They stand on their hind legs often for a better view, behaving like a miniature bear. They have learned to avoid cars and keep to their small territories, finding plenty of food in urban settings. Click on any of the photos for an enlarged view.
Checking for danger
pileated woodpecker on the maple tree
Mo loves visiting the greenhouse
Mr Mo often comes out to help me tend the vegetables in the greenhouse. There are some carrots, corn, lettuce, tomatoes, basil, beans and peas. Lemon verbena, dill, strawberries and cosmos complete the crew.
Mo follows me out there, flops on the cool concrete and enjoys the heat of the hothouse. Seattle has had a cool summer, so much more comfortable than the rest of the country, so the warmer greenhouse has pleased the plants. The radishes however, were too hot and had to go outside.
Chilling with the lettuce and cosmos
…
Meanwhile, Miss Nimbus is locked indoors, wishing she could come out and play. There she is looking out the kitchen window.
Not until dark! As soon as she hears me shut the blinds she starts begging to be let out. Maybe when she is older she will lose interest in hunting birds.
I see birdies, please let me out!
Mo with buddy Heath
Mr Mo has his stuffed animal pal named Heath. They are pretty cute together. This week I was given a new toy for Miss Nims, a sweet little handmade wool mouse. This special mouse was from The Snow Leopard Trust. Handcrafted items are made in Central Asia, home to the Snow Leopard, and sold to support their global conservation efforts.
It must have had an interesting scent, as Miss Nims curled back her lips to enjoy the aroma. This grimace is called the flehmen response. She then chased it all around the kitchen.
Nims has a mouse by the tail
With the long summer days, Miss Nimbus the expert bird hunter is trapped indoors until 9:30 now. Since the Anna’s hummingbird has become a regular visitor at the pond, protecting these avian jewels is even more important.
The handy cat door has a large concrete block in front of it, how frustrating! It is on a small magazine to protect the floor, and Nims has been scratching at the paper in a vain attempt to escape. I clean up the scrap paper and there is always more. She can see outside through the hole in the concrete block and get little whiffs of outdoor air, but it is too heavy to move.
darn obstacle
can she tunnel out?
She has gotten to where I think she can tell time, as soon as the hour approaches she is begging to go out. She knows the words “want to go out?” She knows a finger held up means no, and a finger pointed at the door means yes!
is it dark outside yet?
Both of them have alerted me to strangers in the yard by growling. They play fetch and go for walks with me. All these tricks that only dogs are supposed to know, what smart cats.
The upstairs of my 1933 vintage house is a half story, so the side walls are half height knee walls. I have sliding panels there to allow access to the great storage area back in the eaves. This dusty and mysterious part of the house must be a library of old scents, memories of a half century of resident cats. They really enjoy being let back in there to explore. Mo always dips his normally curled-over-the-back tail so it won’t hit the fabric. Miss Nims looks so astonished, click for a larger view.
Instead of being let outdoors, they get to go exploring in the attic. Miss Nims is only allowed out after dark. With the longer daylight hours, now it will be 9:00. Sorry little girl, but I saw you chasing that hummingbird at 8:30 so you have to wait even longer tonight. She did capture and kill her first rat, I was sure to praise her for that.
The elephant batik on the wall has been donated for a quilting project, more on that to follow.
the portal opens
Mo vanishes but for tail
whack! take that!
Miss Nimbus gets rather upset if she sees neighbor cat Jasper sitting on the outside windowsill. She will charge him and smack the glass with her paw, trying to bat him away.
I sometimes hear an odd thumping from the next room and come to investigate. She is often successful in chasing him away. The scratches in the tabletop bear testament to the vigor of her defense. She really gets indignant.
He doesn’t go to far, hanging out on the porch in the sun, that loud raspy voice greeting me if I go outside. Jasper seems pretty pleased with himself and life in general, just look at the picture below. He and Mo get along well, they are outdoors together during the day.
Miss Nimbus remains housebound during daylight hours to give the birds a chance, such as the hummingbird spotted at the waterfall this week. Keeping her on the night shift works better than bells on the collar. It would be super for wildlife if more cat owners followed this policy.
happy cat jasper
Hello Mo fans!
Mo and Nims are doing well, they have slimmed down a bit. Miss Nimbus got outside one day when I was mowing the lawn. I saw her doing her business over by the brush pile, digging a little hole and burying the results. Here comes Mo to inspect her work, he scrapes a bit more dirt on top to help out. I had to stop and watch this and laugh. He sometimes does additional work in the indoor litter box as well.
Miss Nims has found a way to climb up on the wicker shelves in the kitchen. She loved climbing up here in the last kitchen we lived in, and has trained me to come over and pet her when she is up there.
the highrise petting station
She climbs up, flops on her side, gives me the look, the one that says “Here I am, come and pet me!” I come tickle her feet through the wicker and pet her, releasing clouds of white cat hair that shower down over the contents of the shelves. Life is messy!
Spring is in full bloom here; cherry trees, wallflowers, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips and trillium.
trillium
Soon it will be warm enough to try making some glass beads. The Glass Art Society will be holding a conference here in Seattle in early June.
It has been a long winter, and a few of the cats around here are getting a little plump. Mo is getting positively portly! At 12 pounds, for his small frame, he is a couple pounds overweight, which for a human would be the equivalent of 20 pounds.
happy cats hanging out
Of course it is their owner who has been too willing to comply with their requests for more food who is to blame. Mr Mo specializes in the ankle dance; Miss Nimbus is the one who is very loud and vocal. But when she also stands up on her hind feet and waves a front paw in the air, alas the cuteness is too hard to resist.
I saw a story on Sunday Morning about people who walk their cats like dogs. Could this be the way to encourage Mo to lose a little weight, and a way to have Miss Nimbus be outdoors without hunting birds?
One cat was shown wearing a cloth harness called the Kitty Holster, this looks much harder to wriggle out of, it makes me wonder if they come in white? Time to go feed said cats.
Big handsome gray cat
This giant gray cat stops by from time to time, another regular in the neighborhood. He is as big as a raccoon, and the same color, so it would be quite hard to tell them apart in the dark.
My cats like to watch the action from the window, and I call them over if I spot a cat or squirrel they would like to see. No deer in the backyard here, but moles and raccoons are around, and the odd possum.
It is possible that this visitor is a Maine Coon cat, the oldest native cat breed in America. Wikipedia has a nice article about the history and origins of the breed. I will have to observe closely to see if those big paws have the polydactyl extra toes the breed sometimes exhibits.
the mo report | mary | 
October 17, 2011 2:16 pm | 
Comments (0) 
Subscribe