Category: Life

What A Way To Begin The Day

Laboratory mouse
Image via Wikipedia

I was up at 4am which is not unusual. The cat gets antsy at that time of day and wants to go out. I get up, make my coffee and begin checking my e-mail while the cats go in and out.

This morning it is pouring rain but Richie HAS to go out. First I open the slider and he just looks, so I shut the door. A few minutes later he is back at the door and when I open it this time he dashes out into the rain. I know he won’t stay out long, but those hunting instincts are very strong in him and I swear he just has to kill something! This time of year the chipmunks are hibernating and he really misses torturing them, so he has turned his attention to the birds, but they aren’t out this early.  In fact, the cats catch a lot less this time of year.

Richie has a bad habit of throwing himself against the screen door, paws up, to get my attention when he wants to come in and if I don’t see him right away he’ll climb up the screen. He refuses to be ignored.

So, sure enough, after a few minutes he is at the door and I know he is soaking wet, so I let him in and go to get a towel to dry him. That is when I notice that something is not right. I find to my horror, that he is holding a little gray mouse in his mouth. I immediately pick him up and throw him out the door before he can drop the thing, which is probably only half dead, and as soon as his feet hit the outside deck he turns in a flash and runs back inside. This time he won’t let me near him and heads for my bedroom. Sure enough he drops the mouse – I was right, it can still run – and as I close my bedroom door on him, I see the mouse scoot under my bed.

So I waited until he began meowing at the closed door and then went to see what was up. I opened the door and the cat came out. No sign of the mouse. Now I must go search for the half dead thing that is probably hiding some place in my room.

This has not been a good day so far and it’s only 5:15am.

Update:
At 6:00am my son got up and helped me flush the mouse out of the bedroom. That is not what I intended, but while the cat was looking the other way, my son started yelling, “there he goes!” and I saw the little thing waddling off toward the kitchen, so I grabbed the cat and threw him out the door towards it and a chase ensued which ended up with the mouse and cat in the basement. Okay, that’s good.

At 7:05am Richie comes walking through the kitchen with – yup, you guessed it – the mouse in his mouth, and he is heading to my bedroom again! (I leave the basement door open because the litter box is down there.) So, he dropped the mouse and began playing with it. He chased it around under my bed and out into the hall and finally picked it up in his mouth, so I picked him up and ran to the door and threw him out – way out – so he couldn’t quickly pop back in.
At last I can relax and not think about that mouse any more.

Read about my Adopted Shelter Cats here.

Richie Is Trouble

When we adopted our two cats from the Manchester animal shelter almost a year ago, I did not know what to expect. It had been a long time since I’d lived with cats.
There was a time of adjustment and at first I lost some sleep while the cats would roam the house all night and scratch at our closed doors, but once they began to go outside and run and play, they were better. Usually I now get a pretty good night’s sleep, but last night Richie had me up most of the night. I blame it on the moon because I don’t know what else to blame it on.

cat face
Richie aka “Trouble”

Fontana goes into the basement and sleeps quietly all night. I never hear from her until I get up and she hears me in the kitchen.
Richie on the other hand sleeps at the end of my bed until he gets antsy and then walks up to my head and sits staring at me while purring loudly… very loudly.

If I ignore him, he will do various things to get my attention such as knock over my water cup, chew on my eyeglasses, jump up on the bureau and chew on whatever he finds. His big trick is to flip upside down underneath my bed and pull himself along using my mattress!
If I refuse to get up and let him outside, he may dig his claws into my feet through the covers or dig at the side of the mattress.

Lets just say that Richie will not be ignored!

So I get up and throw him out and shut my door. That usually stops him for a few hours, but last night he kept on clawing at my door and meowing. Next, I tried the basement. He still spent much time clawing at the door, but I was able to ignore him.
So I am sitting here this morning not quite awake thanks to his antics. Once I get my wood stove going, which is in the basement, I won’t be able to shut the basement door at night and that will be a new problem.

New England’s Foliage, October 2010

I have seen this red tree in the afternoon sun and it is breathtaking! But I happened to have my camera in the early morning when the sun was not hitting it.
It’s still pretty and the orange tree beyond is also nice.

Fall color in New Hampshire
Red and Orange

The Fall colors are at their peak right now and will most likely be less after our rainy and windy nor’easter that is coming through tomorrow.
The picture below was taken by the lake, also in the early morning. I was worried about this Fall, but it has turned out to be just as spectacular as all the others. I guess the hot, dry summer didn’t affect it.

fall foliage
Early morning by the lake

The photo below is one of my favorite type to take. The bright red and yellow leaves against a blue sky. How perfect!

Fall leaves against a blue sky
Foliage season sky

I hope you’ve enjoyed this wonderful season as much as I have.

Just an afterthought: This post is an old one and the photos were taken with my camera and not a smartphone. I didn’t even have an iPhone until 2016! I did a lot of walking in New Hampshire and it was a beautiful place for that. I always brought the camera. I also knew nothing about blogging and it shows in my early posts. So, forgive me. I’m trying to go back and update some of these older posts. I did have some lovely photos of the Fall season. 

Recent Blog Posts Here

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

One Beautiful Day

This past week has been very rainy. With the remnants of tropical storm Nicole dumping over 5 inches of rain here yesterday and a few inches the day before, the gorgeous day we had Wednesday was just a good memory.

It was so beautiful that I took the cats for a walk. My landlady recently had someone come out and cut some trees for her to use as firewood so they made a path through the back of the yard in the woods. It’s a nice place to go for a quick walk and my two cats love to follow along.

They run and climb the trees chasing each other and then just flop down on the rocks watching me. I am not as graceful and they probably wonder why I am so slow, but I stopped to get some photos of some mushrooms I found. I had wanted some foliage photos, but it’s just not a great year for that. Or maybe it’s too early, but I don’t think so.

woods
Cats in the woods

When we get to the end of the man-made trail, I cut into the trees where it’s easier to walk, except for all the branches that have fallen, and that’s where Fontana decided to rest on a mossy rock.

black cat on green moss
Beautiful Fontana

She looked so regal with her long dark fur on the bright green moss. I am a terrible animal photographer and I thought for sure she’d hop down before I got a decent shot of her, but I am very happy with this one. I even caught Richie in the background resting on his own rock.
It’s hard to believe that we adopted them 9 months ago. Instead of spending their days in little cages, they now have the whole big woods to roam. I think they are happy. And it was a beautiful day.