Feather Whirl

Raven investigating the feather whirl

“Oooo, mom, a new toy?”  Raven looked on as I put the batteries in this thing and put the feathers on.  All this took me longer than expected.  This little gadget has a Phillips screw that comes out revealing a small compartment for the AA batteries on the bottom.  It surprised me that I was able to get them installed properly the first time.

What I like about this toy is that the bottom is weighted so the cats can’t turn it over.  It also has an on/off switch and the toy flicks the feathers in a random motion, similar to something alive.  It stops and then starts up again.

 Raven up higher than this "critter" so he thinks he has the upper hand

Raven approached it carefully, as cats do when it’s something they’ve never seen before.  He crept slowly toward it but was too afraid to get too close.  About then, Koki came out from under the furniture to see what was going on.  She was braver about it and actually attacked it after her creeping act.  Raven looked on with wonder when it didn’t attack her back.

 Koki attacking the feather whirl

I picked it up and took it downstairs where there’s more tile.  The cats followed me.  Once I turned it back on, I got the camera and sat back to watch.  Tootie was too afraid to come near it, but she’s older and not feeling well right now.  Koki and Raven had a blast for thirty minutes taking turns attacking this toy.  Here are some of my pics.

 Raven and Koki

Koki

Koki in a sneak attack

Raven sneaking through the coffee table

Raven says, "What?  I''m not doing anything."

 

New kitten wreaks havoc around my house

 Raven

  This little rascal has turned our environment into chaos.  I’m sure things will settle down in a while.  Being only three-months-old, he’s always on the move.  We are fortunate he usually stays in bed and sleeps most of the night.  But lookout when he wakes up full of vim and vigor and ready to take on the world.  You don’t dare move your feet because that’s just an invitation to attack.

It’s fun having a kitten around as long as you pick up the breakables.

 Raven

I’ve had so many cats over the years, so we have a ton of cat toys.  A friend of mine gave me this furry ball with a bell on it that sits atop a spring.  Raven attacks this vigorously and is so carried away with excitement when playing with this that he does flips in the air and landed on the edge of the coffee table tonight.  Luckily, he didn’t get hurt, although he did sit there a while staring at it.  I imagine he thought the table was attacking him.  His head made a loud thump when he whacked it.

 Raven

After a quick nap in the cat tree, he was at it again.

I feel sorry for Koki who wants to come to bed so bad, but she won’t do it as long as this little squirt is on the bed.  There’s plenty of room, but after hanging out a while, she hisses and stomps off in disgust.  This may be a good thing as she sleeps on legs and pins me to the bed at night.  As a result, I usually have to get up a couple of times with a cramp in my leg or foot.  I hate to throw her off, so usually I’ll be still and go around with a backache in the mornings.

 Koki

On Friday night, I thought we had a breakthrough because Koki and Raven were playing footsies under the chairs upstairs.  Of course, these are low to the floor so they couldn’t see each other.  Maybe that makes a lot of difference in a cat’s world.  Today it was back to the same old thing with Koki keeping her distance and hissing at him again.

 Raven and Tootie

He’s doing his best to make friends and win the two older females over.  Tootie doesn’t mind him at all now except to look at him weird when he’s jumping around like an idiot.  Tootie loves everyone, so I’m not too surprised she came around first.  I guess Koki doesn’t remember being in Raven’s shoes not so long ago when she was the new kid on the block.

Maybe some cats are like people in this respect where they don’t remember what it was like to be a kid.  I’m giving Koki some extra attention and haven’t given up hope yet that she’ll come around.  We’ve had Raven two weeks today and he has settled in here as if this is home.

Other than kitten watching, the moving endeavor goes on.  We’re making slow progress because we’re still waiting for contractors to show up to do a few things we can’t do.  This is the last weekend of the Parade of Homes, which a large annual event here.  We still don’t have the “for sale” sign on the house and that was the goal for the middle of February.  This whole moving venture can get you down if you let it.

Tootie

On a happier note, it is warming up enough to open the windows again for a short while.  Hooray!