Spring in the Desert

Birds on the wall - greening of the desert

Things are sprouting here now, which makes me so happy I survived another winter.  Of course, it was extremely cold this year and not all the plants will make it.  There are sad looking ones all over town.  Raven’s enjoying all that spring has to offer too as he watches the lizards emerge and birds and chipmunks scampering about outside.  Happy chirping and animal sounds come in through the windows.

Lizard on wall

 

 Tootie and Raven napping

He’s friends with Tootie now and they take naps together.  Koki still watches from nearby.  I hope she accepts him eventually.

Rain storm with rainbow

 We had a rainstorm here the last two days.  It’s unusual to have much rain in the desert and it doesn’t last long, but the skies can darken rapidly from not a cloud in sight in the morning to dark dreary skies by late afternoon.  The winds have been chilly so I had to shut the windows, much to the disgust of the cats who like sniffing the air.

Painting of neighbor's house

The neighbor had her house painted last week and it really looks nice.  She lives across the street from me.  This was the highlight for the day, watching as the workers masked everything off and took the rain gutters down so they could spray on the new color.  The cats watched from my window upstairs while I worked on the room since I’m still cleaning it out in there.  I wonder if I’ll ever finish.  Raven did get tired and took a nap in a bag on the floor.

Raven getting comfortable in a bag on the floor

 Someday soon a house will be here

There are two vacant lots on the left side of our house and now one owner is going to build a house.  They’ve been bringing in loads of dirt over the last two weeks.  We’ll still have the vacant lot next to us and then the new house.  The neighbors aren’t pleased because it will block some of their views.  I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen any action over there before now because those two lots were sold way before we moved here.

Chipmunk in bird feeder

Bird of Prey on our back gate

I caught a chipmunk that made his way up the shepherd’s hook and into the bird feeder.  I wish I had a shot of him shimmying up the pole.  A bird of prey also came to visit.

We drug out the tunnel we got for the cats years ago – actually a kid’s toy from Target.  They all love it.  It’s seen its better days, but all the cats still enjoy it as they race through it and the best of all – it makes noise.  Raven’s enjoying his kitten hood so much he didn’t even come to bed for two nights.

 Raven in cat tunnel

He eats like a little pig and is getting bigger.  I always have to wash his face afterward because he has cat food on his nose.  He’s good about getting his face washed, but I wish he’d stop rooting.

Today I read in the paper that a nice couple adopted Quiver.  She’s the cat that was shot by an arrow a couple of months ago.  The lady I got Raven from was nursing her back to health after they did some surgeries on her to repair all the damage.  I hope the kid gets some kind of sentence when he goes before the judge on April 2.  There’s been quite an outrage over it here.  I don’t know why anyone would do such a thing.

That’s it for now from here.  We’ve had workers here and have everything finished up except for my part of getting rid of things and then shampooing the carpet.  My husband’s chomping at the bit to get the for sale sign up.

My next posts here will probably be for the A to Z challenge the month of April.  I have most of them written, which is good because it’s going to be busy around here.  I’ll be visiting as many blogs as time allows.  Don’t forget if you want to participate, go to Lee’s blog here and sign up.  You have four days left to do so.

Life’s Funny Moments

Of course, I don’t catch many of these moments on camera.  This mostly concerns the cats.  When we’ve had our spills we were into a project and taking pictures was the last thing on our minds.

Work is continuing on getting the house ready for sale, except I had to take time out to do the taxes and get that out of the way.  My sewing room is still a disaster because I’m always called away to other projects.  Someday soon, I’ll finish in there, I hope.

I pulled a muscle in my leg a week and a half ago cleaning up the courtyard and patio because I couldn’t stand all the leaves and cobwebs out there any longer.  I had to get down with a whiskbroom, get all the stuff out of the corners, and out from under the stucco where it hangs over the concrete.  My leg still hurts from this deed.  It wasn’t three days later, we had a windstorm, common in the desert.  Now all the work I did out there was in vain.  I have to laugh so I won’t cry.  I’m not tackling that again very soon and wondered why I did in the first place.  It’s like everything around here, it doesn’t stay clean for long.

My little boy continues to play until he drops over.  He plays so hard and sleeps soundly.  Naturally, he always wakes up when I’m cleaning up a mess and has his head right in it.  How are cats always able to do this when they are in a different part of the house?  This always amazes me.

Today I’m just going to do a slide show of the cats, past and present.

Music is Blind Mary by Aine Minogue

For any of you thinking about the A to Z challenge coming up in April, the time is approaching to sign up.  You’ll find this great fun to participate in and you’ll meet many new people.  I’m writing my posts now and if I can get them all scheduled ahead, I’ll do the contest this year.  I’m making a lot of headway.  Most of the posts this year will be family stories about growing up in the south.

If you want to participate, start writing and visit Lee’s blog here to sign up.

http://tossingitout.blogspot.com

My Boy’s ready for St. Patrick’s Day

Raven

Look at my little angel who was such a trooper to indulge me in wearing this hat so I could get a photo.  Yeah, I know I have better things to do than making St. Patrick’s Day hats for the cats.  However, this was a fun project that got me away from doing the taxes a few minutes.

 Please, I'm trying to sleep!

God, I love this boy, purring all the time.  He’s such a happy camper.  I wish Koki would see how friendly he is, but hopefully that’s down the road.

 What are the drywall people doing up there?

Right now, taxes are done.  We're doing a few things around the house to get it ready for sale, and I survived another winter.  I’m so happy, as I see the new growth on the trees.  So much froze this year and will have to be replanted or replaced.  I sure wish I lived somewhere that never froze.

 The desert behind the house is greening up

We have new sprouts on the trees.

We haven’t had too many windy spells here of late, but we did have a strong wind a few days ago.  It blows everything out to the desert, so unless you pick it up, you get to look at it for months.  At least it wasn’t thirty degrees when the winds hit this year.

 My husband picking up desert debris blown in by the wind

Raven squeezing under my husband's monitor

Meanwhile, my baby boy continues to grow and endure himself to our hearts.  He explores the things around him and goes where he shouldn't.  I think Tootie really likes him now, even if he attacks her all the time, and would miss him if he were gone.  She’s good and puts up with it.  Tootie’s always been mellow.

Raven looking out the window upstairs

Raven wrestling with Tootie

Raven and Tootie -best friends

Raven relaxing after a long day.

 Happy St Patrick ’s Day to all.  Something you may not know is that Stephen Perry patented the first rubber bands on this day in 1845.  I use about as many rubber bands as I do post it notes.

I’m winning then over - little by little

Raven

I've been here almost a month now and I'm finally starting to win the girls over.  At least I think I might be. Tootie will wrestle with me and play footsies.  

Tootie and Raven

Koki isn’t too gung-ho, but I think she may come around.  She sneaks up on me to nose me.  Once she’s finished, she hisses at me and slinks off.  She pays a lot of attention to me so I think maybe that she’s just trying to tell me she’s in charge.

 Koki looking for Raven

Raven attacking the laser

 

 I’ve landed in the best home.  I have so many toys I never get bored.  I really enjoy attacking my human’s feet and playing with the laser.  I take over the bed at night and wake them up at dawn to feed me.  I can be loud and demanding when I’m hungry because I’m a growing boy.  I’m really good otherwise, so they put up with this.  I make sure I purr loudly, even when they trim my nails.

 Roadrunner

I love sleeping in the sunspots in the dining room, so I was busy lounging on a chair in there they conveniently placed by the window for me.  A roadrunner happened by.  He kept flaring his comb out and making noises with his beak.  He didn’t scare me though.

Raven

Raven

Tonight I was attacking my human’s shoes.  They caught me in mid-flight and standing on my hind legs.  I don’t know why they made such a big deal of this.

 Koki, Raven, and Tootie

Raven

 

 I decided to go upstairs and check on the girls who were up there getting away from me.  They pretended not to pay much attention to me, but I know they were watching as I investigated this plastic bag and decided whether to attack it again as I did the other night after the humans kept me in the bedroom all day because some painters were here.

I really terrorized the house that night, but I had so much pent up energy.  Maybe they won’t do that to me again.

I’m off so I can beat them to bed and take my spot out of the middle.  They hate to disturb me, so things are going very well in my new home.

Raven

The Painters Finally Showed up

Free Clipart

We’ve been messing around with this issue at least two months now.  We needed to get the front door painted and the one from the laundry room into the garage.  These doors have to be sprayed, so we couldn’t doing the painting ourselves.

Last Friday a crew came out, painted the front door, and then left saying they would return on Mon to put the sealer on it.  They pulled the weather stripping out, so we had none until today.  I’m thankful it’s been in the low 60’s during the day and in the low 40’s at night and not any colder.

On Monday, the painters were supposed to come in the morning and didn’t show up until 4:30 in the afternoon.  The door was way to hot to put the sealer on it because it faces west and the sun shines on it all afternoon.  So the ordeal was postponed again until today.

The poor cats don’t know what we’re up to because we keep herding them off to the master bedroom.  We can put their litter box, food, and water in the bathroom and I throw a bunch of toys in there to keep them entertained.  They were in there a couple of hours on Friday and then again for a short while on Monday afternoon until they determined the door was too hot to paint.  Today they were in there twice.  This afternoon ended up being several hours because the guys didn’t finish with everything until 8:30 tonight.

I don’t know if all this being pinned up together is helping the relationship between Koki and Raven.  I usually hear a little growling going on behind the door.  Tootie has accepted him and now they have bouts of wrestling on the floor.  It’s so cute and I’ll post some pics as soon as I download the camera card again.

The cats were so glad when we let them out of the bedroom tonight.  They immediately went on the hunt through the house to see what we did while they were pinned up.  We had the doors and windows open to air it out a little in here before we let them out.

Tonight Raven had a lot of energy to burn and he was bouncing off the walls, playing with anything he could get his paws on and doing summersaults and flips in the air.  At one point, Raven jumped on my head and attacked my ponytail.  He reminds me of a puppy wanting to chew on everything.  I bet he’ll be worn out tonight.

I’m still weeding things out and didn’t get a lot done in that area today with the painters here twice and looking at too much property on the internet.  Tomorrow it’s back at it.  At least we can cross the doors off the long to do list.

Now we have to wait for the drywall guy.

All dressed up – where should we go?

I'm just having too much fun with these cats.  I couldn't resist tonight and had to post these pics.  My little man is all dressed up and ready to hit the town for a night out.  OMG!  He's precious and Tootie's going with him to keep him out of trouble, ha!

They both went shopping and opted for matching fedoras.


                 Raven                                                                 Tootie