Category Archives: Delilah Carroll

Happy Birthday, Delilah!

Dee would have been 13 today and, truth be told, we miss her – and her Catitude – a great deal.  But as with all things in life, time and events have begun healing our hearts and when we speak of Dee now, there is more laughter than tears in our voices.

Here’s a link to last year’s B’day post with some pics of her that I put on our former blog site.

Luv you, Dee.

TBC Updates…

Was feeling a bit too much gut pain last night, so Joanne schlepped the cans to the curb for Tuesday morning pick up. When she came back in, she mentioned there was a rat tail (only) on the far end of the porch… maybe Mom-cat was leaving us a present (or asking us to clean up the place a bit – you make the call). Haven’t seen Mom-cat around (nor any other cats), but am happy for her efforts / rewards if she’s policing the grounds and grabbing a meal @ the same time. Go Mom-cat!

(Speaking of Mom-cat, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’m visiting the kittens this week and will post fresh pics of them soon after our visit.)

We (and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word) picked the remaining cherries yesterday. OK, Joanne picked all but 3 cherries (it hurt too much for me to do it)and also harvested the apricots… birds’n’squirrels got 95% of the cherries and there really weren’t too many ‘cots this year.

The garden is flourishing and I hope to post some pics of that over the next few days. Joanne has just planted some, ahem, “late” carrots – they ought to be ready about Christmas – hey, just in time for Carrot Claus to come down the chimney, right? (It’s Monday – gimmeabreak.)

The latest Lil’ Bob (baby dove from the nest outside our bedroom doors) fledged over the weekend and we watched it being fed / moving about the yard, interacting with its parents. Lots of posturing and wing-flapping going on all weekend; Interestingly enough, Mom-Bob appears to have taken up residence in the nest (after re-stocking it with new materials) after doing the hey-baby dove dance of love on my fence.

(I MEAN IT – GET A ROOM, YOU TWO – SOME THINGS I DON’T NEED TO SEE AGAIN!)

Based on the finch nests with moms nesting, I’d say we’re down to our final two batches of eggs / chicks to hatch. This year we’ve had (as best we can tell) a total of 7 finch families return to the nests to lay eggs; as best we can tell, they haven’t lost any babies as we’ve seen fledgling’s from each family as they’ve taken flight. It’s been great watching / listening to them participate in flight school around the property. I’ve recorded ~3 hours of HD video and audio of all of this… someday it’ll make it to The Legend of the Two Big Cats. (some day….)

That’s it for now. Drop a note, give a call or stop by if / when you’re in the neighborhood.
hal

Sunday, Memorial Day weekend…

And it’s a lovely day here. At 5PM it’s ~81F, light humidity and 5-15mph breezes… it’s just about perfect. “Just about” because I’ve just completed my initial steps of exporting the TBC blog to a word doc that I’ll then massage in to the hard cover version of the journal of our activities that I’ve intended it to be.

Update: We had a lovely dinner this evening with Ellen, Al, Maureen and Jules @ Ellen’s place – thx, Ellen! Great to see Simon settling in and becoming so social 🙂

Welcome Homeless Cat Network people…

I am doing a bit of maintenance on the blog and noticed the many visits from up and down the peninsula today. Glad you’re visiting and I hope the photos of Calvin and Cherry serve as a reminder (and encouragement to continue) of the good work you folks do in working to save / connects homeless cats and their caretakers-to-be.

Calvin and Cherry are settling in nicely and seem to be feeling as though they’re home. Good thing, too, because (as I tell them daily) we’re glad they’re with us 🙂

They’re both eating well and have acclimated to the house nicely. They’re both social with our friends and neighbors… in fact, when someone comes to the door, I have to keep an eye out for Calvin because he’s usually nearby and waiting to greet them with head butts and fanny/tail rubs. Everybody loves Calvin’s upfront and in-your-face friendliness, and everyone loves how sweet and friendly Cherry is with them… she’s quite a love.

That’s it for today!

Why women shouldn’t take men shopping

(sent to me by long-time female friend, Suzanne C.)

“After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women – she loves to browse. Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Target.

Dear Mrs. Samuel,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both
of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Samuel, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other
people’s carts when they weren’t looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute
intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the
women’s restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice,
‘Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away’. This caused the employee to
leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that
in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time
and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on
layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a ‘CAUTION – WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children
shoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from
the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and
screamed, ‘Why can’t you people just leave me alone?’ EMTs were called.

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a
mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked
the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming
the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his ‘Madonna look’ by
using different sizes of funnels.

13.. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through,
yelled ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!’

14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed
a fetal position and screamed ‘OH NO! IT’S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!’

And last, but not least:

15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile,
then yelled very loudly, ‘Hey! There’s no toilet paper in here.’ One of
the clerks passed out.

If you don’t send this to 12 of your dearest friends, your property taxes
will go up, your stocks will go down, and your middle will spread. (How’s
that for a curse?!?) What? It’s already come true? Then send it
anyway–you’ve got nothin’ to lose!”

Calvin and Cherry: 1st week update…

I’ve been away and busy since last Sunday mid-day, so haven’t posted. Here’s the latest:

They’re both doing well and seem to be settling in nicely. They have adapted to wet food a couple of times a day and continue to eat a fair amount of dry food. They continue to live in the back half of the house, including the kitchen. Good news: the weather has been very nice, so they’re enjoying the sunroom and bedroom french doors being open to watch the “bird show” throughout the day and early evening before sundown; Calvin loves to sit by our bedroom window watching under the bushes just outside… he reminds me of Dee in that regard. When the dogs are outside during the day, we open up the house so the cats have full run of the place in hopes they’ll become become comfortable.

Pepper and the cats watch one another through the kitchen door glass – Calvin gets his nose right up to the glass, while Cherry watches from the foyer / bedroom of the guest suite. Last night I placed Calvin in my arms and walked him through the front room and den w/Pep and Penny looking up @ us; Calvin got antsy, so I returned him to his comfort zone area. It’ll probably take another week or two before he, Pep and Penny settle in; I think it will take months for Cherry to feel comfortable with them… As Ringo said, “Time takes time”, so we’ll just have to take our time.

Lots of flowers and veggies growing around the place – I’ll put pics up over the next day or two. Of course, what else grows in nice weather? Yep, weeds and grasses… soooooooooooooooo much to prep after the long winter.

That’s it for now – back over the weekend w/pics.

It’s our pleasure to introduce…

(remember to click the pic – these are beautiful creatures and the detailed pics are pretty nice.)

Cherry…

and

Calvin…

Here’s Cherry sitting with me on the bed. Displayed on the TV behind her is what she wanted done with her “Return this cat to the rescue center.” bus ticket she was given. 😉

As you can see from these pics, they’re in a private room of their own with lots of climbing / hiding places, have been eating and, um, doing “natural” things right on schedule. They’re both very curious about what’s outside the door of their room, so later this evening I’ll likely open their bedroom door to let them cruise through the foyer and bathroom of that suite area. They’re settling in very nicely.

(I’ll write and post the details about them and how they BOTH came to be with us later this evening.)

Kittens… oodles of kittens!

A busy day, first working with Keith on fine tuning our Mac’s new 2TB drive. After that, an introduction and visit with Ilene – a very nice creature. Then back home, do a few “things” around the house and off to meet the kittens.

Woof!

Tiny little things… they’re maybe 5 weeks old and Ayame is only about a pound – I swear that Pan and Dee coughed up bigger hair balls! But they were darling… just a hoot! I spend about 45 minutes with them, letting them adjust to me, me feeding them out of a medicine dropper, watching them play and then, finally, tucker out and try to keep their eyes open. Boy, are they cute.

Here are several pictures of them – don’t forget to click for the BIG PIC. The orange cat is Eliza – not nearly as alpha cat as i imagined and she got along very, very well with Ayame and the others. The two torby’s are Rex (not the name the foster mom calls him) and Ayame… I wish I could point them out specifically to you, but they’re a little jumbled in my brain.

Eliza

And here’s a little one (I think it’s “Rex”) trying to call GrandmaCat on my iPhone:

Here’s one (Rex again, I think) hitting the bottle – look how tiny!

TwoSmallCats
The one closest to the feet is Rex, the one in back and asleep is Ayame – notice that her coloring is much like Dee’s… a touch of red in it.

I have to say that, as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing and being with the cats and kittens we’ve met so far, I’m most impressed with the people who foster all of these creatures. Without hesitation I can say that each of them have clearly been very caring people who want the very best long-term home for each of their charges. And as far as I understand it, they’re all volunteers giving of their time, money and unlimited love… I don’t know how they do it, but they do and they each seem to receive something meaningful from their efforts.

Next time you’re in a pet store or some other place and there’s a rescue operation / fair going on, dig deep and give them a donation – what they do for these creatures is uh-mazing.

Joanne is going to meet Ilene on Saturday and possibly the kittens, too.

Well met, Ilene…

I had the pleasure of meeting two of the volunteers from Homeless Cat Network ( http://www.homelesscatnetwork.com ) along with, oh, about 15 or so of their cats… including Ilene. Except for “nice people”, I was unsure of what to expect and was very pleasantly surprised to find an open and airy room for the cats and volunteers to exercise and hang out in, and the areas that the cats live in were enclosed with (dang, was it chicken coop wire or…? shoot, I can’t remember!!!) a form of wire barrier so they could lounge, sleep eat and powder their, um, noses while keeping an eye on everything going on in the room.

The cats I remember meeting were Joey and Candy, both short-medium length coat cats – both very nice and friendly, and Calvin and Ilene, both Maine’s. Calvin’s a big orange Maine and was very friendly and polite… a real charmer. I had seen him on their web pages but eliminated him due to his maleness… and the fact that he has an adoption in process. (Although not quite as big as Dee or Pan in their prime, he would qualify as a BigCat… plus, he’s a charmer 🙂 Here’s his pic:

Ilene is even more beautiful in person than in her photograph! She’s a little on the lightweight side (~13 lbs), but she is clearly a full-blooded Maine… beautiful head, face and body structure – absolutely beautiful and silky coat (Remember how silky Pan’s fur was compared to Dee’s coarse fur… both were wonderful, they’re just different). Ilene took her time in visiting with me but based on her interaction with the volunteers of the center, she’s a very, very loving cat. And remember Pan’s voice – something of a light chirp? Ilene has that voice, too, which is an acknowledged characteristic of Maine’s.

Here are a couple of pics of Ilene that you might enjoy:

I had a very nice visit with Homeless Cat Network and Joanne will visit with Ilene on Saturday (I may attend, too, but may stay here with Pepper, post-op.) FYI, I have more pics to post but have to take care of some things right now, will post more over the next day or two.

Overnout.