Monthly Archives: July 2010

The front door Basket is back in action…

Short version: It looks like (at least) Calvin has come to appreciate the basket by the front door.

Hal version (with pictures):

Come this Labor Day weekend, we will be in this house for 12 years.  From just about the day we moved in until Pandora passed away, we’ve had a basket by the front door… and the basket often had a cat in it who was busy watching the front yard activity through the windows.  When we left the house and later returned home, more often than not there was a Maine Coon waiting for us.  Except during the most difficult times of their illnesses, Pan and Dee would wait in their basket each morning as I went out to pick up the paper; when I came back through the door, there would often be a shin-rub waiting for me.  Likewise, when Joanne came home from work each evening, there would be Pan or Dee, making sure she made it home.  If they weren’t awake, they were curled up in the basket… always with a set of fuzzy Maine Coon ears pointing out of the basket.

But with Pan’s passing, the basket was an empty reminder… sometimes painful and sometimes heart-warming, as we were reminded of Dee and Pan.  With the arrival of Cherry and Calvin, we eventually we moved the basket to the sunroom where they could bask in the sunshine coming in through the skylights… until today.

When I returned from lunch today, Cal was extremely vocal and wanted to play so we brought out some toys and played “bird” – hopefully I’ll get a chance to film him leaping through the air catching “bird” and post it here.  After he tired, I headed out to the front room and opened the door for some fresh air and sunshine… whereupon he threw himself on the ground, making a sort of whoopee cushion noise just like Dee used to do when she wanted attention and to be petted.  After I crawled down to the floor and massaged his shoulders and back like Joanne does, he stretched out in front of the door and began to groom himself and fall asleep.

Recognizing an opportunity, I retrieved the basket from the sunroom and placed it in front of the windows where it has been for ~12 years.  In a flash, Cal climbed in and… here you go:

Doesn’t the world seem like a better place now?

Please email me…

And let me know if you prefer this new site / layout (WordPress) or the former site / layout (Blogger. You can refresh your memory by visiting that site by clicking here.). The reasons I’m asking are two fold: (1) Presenting you w/video / audio recordings costs $$ on WordPress and on Blogspot is free (I suppose I could set up a YouTube channel… that’s free, I think) and (2) WordPress lacks the visitor information that I like to see… mainly, what countries / states / cities are people visiting from; don’t worry, I can’t see **specific users**, but I do enjoy seeing visitor origination info whenever possible.

Anyway, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments @ twobigcats at gmail    dot      com or my personal email if you have it.  Thx in advance for your feedback.

More pics / stuff to post soon.

A daisy a day…

I remember listening to this song back in, oh… ’72… it seems like it was springtime.  Every time I see a daisy, I hear Jud Strunk singing his song as he did in this video from the Johnny Carson show:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB8G0SFmJ1g&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0]

And here are some daisy pics I took in Audrey’s backyard yesterday in the late morning:

And a few of her sunflowers…

I have more pics to post and hope to add them over the next day or two.

Fresh pics: Calvin and Cherry

When I used to find Pan or Dee in what appeared to be a particularly good cat-spot, I’d say to them, “That’s looks like a nice place for a cat.” So now it’s interesting to note that C & C are attracted to the very same spots in the house that Pan and Dee were… and for us, while it warms our hearts to see Calvin and Cherry content in the same places, it tugs at our hearts, too, for Pan and Dee and days gone by.

Here are a few pics of C & C in the same places Pan and Dee enjoyed and I captured in pics over the years:

Calvin in the dining room, hiding behind the door – Can you see me now?

Cherry laying in front of a basket in the sunroom.

I’ve seen Pan and Dee in this very same basket, in the very same pose no less than a thousand and one times.  Seeing Cal and Cherry in the basket, in the well-lit sunroom makes me happy and teary at the same time.

Yep, I’ve got pics of Pan and Dee in the very same pose… to cats, there just seems to be something about an open space that needs to be filled.

Here’s Cherry posing on our bedroom floor… in the very same spot Pan would wait for me to come in and take a bath every night.  As I passed the door, Pan would tromp in to the bathroom and take her place next to the tub.

It’s nail timming day in the sunroom and Calvin’s up to bat.

And here was Cherry, just whistling her way through the cemetery…. dum da dum, nothing to see here, just passing through.

GrandmaCat snatched her up a few moments later and trimmed her nails, too.

More fresh pics – Cherry and Calvin

So the other day I was doing laundry (yep, I do windows, too 😉 and in the process of folding, then putting away the clean sheets, I found our Art Deco hutch had been infected with… well, you can see for yourself:

We’ve got a pretty bad outbreak of HutchCats.

And then a little later I came across this: what appears to be an isolated case of Campbell BedCats:

Although not Siamese, these cats appear to be (nearly) joined @ the hips.

And finally, a rare snapshot of the TwoBigCats WindowPerch Cat:

I’ve got a few more to post but right now have to take care of a few TrophyHusband household chores 😉

So Molly says to me…

(you know that “Molly” is what I call all Hummingbirds, right?  ok, just checking.)

On Saturday morning I noticed that the front porch Molly Feeder was running low, so I prepared a batch of fresh solution (3 cups water, 1 cup white sugar, Boil for 1 minute, cool and fill feeder. Everybody’s happy.) and… let it sit on the stove until just before lunch today.

And, you know… I very well could have have let it sit there for a few more days, but I was suddenly called in to action.What caused me to change my mind, you ask?

Well, when I went in to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich for lunch, I opened the window over the sink / porch for some fresh air and a bit of “outside”.  Turns out that in addition to fresh air, I got a close-up view of a Hummingbird who was apparently upset with me for not refilling their feeder that hangs over the front porch railing in front of the window.  This bird appeared the instant I opened the window and began calling to me (go ahead, click on that link to hear what it was saying)… in fact, it stayed there – hovering back and forth (between the screened opening and the glass window, itself) and shrieking at me to refill the feeder – for ~10 seconds.

I greeted it with my typical Molly-greeting (“Hello Molly, it’s nice to see you”), said I’d be right there, then put down whatever I had in my hands, went outside, got the feeder and refilled it, then replaced it where it belonged.

By the time I got back in the kitchen and in front of the window, Molly was on the feeder having lunch… with nary a peep coming my way.

The local Hummingbird population saved from starvation, I finished making, then ate, my sandwich.

Film @ 11.

And they said it couldn’t be done…

In the past I’ve talked about using our bees wax to make balms (lip, hands, skin) and I think I even posted that I’d ordered the materials (tubes, vials)… well, that order never actually got placed because I got distracted during the order / submit process.

I’ve just about used up the tube of Burt’s Bees lip balm (great stuff, btw!), so this morning I placed my online order for a balm making kit **and** a case of tubes **and** a tube filling thingie. We can use their kit as the test / demo to learn / make mistakes, then try our own recipe(s) and fill ‘er up.

TwoBigCats LipschitzIt’s Gonna Be Great! 😉