I'm Sorry, But We're Gonna Have To Let You Go

My brother had two cats, Hunter and Oreo. He moved from Tampa back to California with our parents. Since he couldn't find a place for his cats, I told him we'd take them (what's 2 more, right?). However, after about 3 months of cleaning up marking (urine) all over the house and those two fighting with others (maybe we just had too many males), we kicked them outside in the backyard. I left a food bowl and water. They meowed a bunch that night. By morning, they were both gone. We saw Hunter about a month or two later, but never again. Oreo still lives outside and we continue to give him food and water. Sometimes when we go on walks, he'll come along with us like he's a dog. During the "cold" months, we leave the garage open a bit so he can sleep in there. He's a fun outside cat and Zack loves him. He'll even call for him- "O-woe!"




















Here you can see Oreo outside the window in front of our house.

Happy Mother's Day!

One of my co-workers knew someone with kittens. Her husband and good friend both told her that she was NOT allowed to give us or offer us any more cats. She discussed it with me and I told her that Amy would love a kitten. (I never let her get the kittens because no one would adopt the adults.) They were old enough to be taken from their mother around Mother's Day. She brought over the 7-week-old kitten, and in honor of my co-worker, we named her Katie. It didn't take her long to adjust to the cat house and turn into a crazy cat.
















































































































Katie still loves licking out the cereal bowls. She usually has to fight Max and Tornado for it though.

Finally- Something besides a cat

Here are some family box turtles. The top one is Boxette (Anthony's) and the other two are Box (Pat's- got him when he turned 8). These guys are so much easier to take care of than the cats. Actually, we have to fill up the sink with water for Boxette and give her food from time to time. But we don't do anything for Box- he eats cat food and drinks from their water dish also; very self-sufficient.

Number 12

Missy has a fun story. I bike to work every morning and I found a flashlight knocked down on the floor. I put it back, thinking it was a bit weird that it wasn't on its shelf. What was really weird was the next morning when the event was replayed. There had to be a real explanation and there's no such things as ghosts. Later that day, Amy had gone into the garage to get something. She came back in and closed the door. After a while, she saw the cats getting closer to the door and then she heard some meowing from the garage. Figuring one of the cats got locked in the garage by accident, she opened the door. To her surprise, this cat she'd never seen before ran into the house. She was recently spayed (as was evident by her shaved belly) and she had a tattoo there too. We looked around the nearby neighborhoods for lost cat signs, only to find none. We still have no idea how she got into our garage as we never leave it up when we're not out there. I think she might have climbed up under the car when Amy was at work and got a ride home from the hospital. We'll never know. But she enjoys being here.

Almost Lost One

We frequently let the cats out into the backyard. They love eating the grass, having a different place to explore, and catching insects (if it's the right time of year). Sometimes they get scared for various reasons (usually loud noises from cars). If they don't have a window or door open, they might try another way to escape the impending doom. We counted cats after one such episode and couldn't find Gracie. Then we heard her and Amy got up on the fence to help her down.

Feeding Frenzy

You can see the counter full of plates. Most of them aren't good at sharing, so they usually have to get their own plates. You'll also notice that there are 12 cats.

I apparently left the cupboards open too long and turned my back. Chunk felt there must've been something important in there.

Another Addition

This is Max. He came by (outside) one night. We left out some meat for him and he gobbled it down before we could even get back into the house. So we put more out with the same result. I took him into the garage and cleaned his ears out, and he was amazingly calm. A neighbor told us that some other neighbor had let him go because they couldn't afford him anymore. I talked with Amy about it, and needless to say, we upped our limit to 11 (which was to change soon). Max fit in really well with the rest of the cats.














I like to help the cleaning up process by licking the grease from hamburgers. Mmmmm, that really hits the spot. I've caught Tornado doing this too.

Here's one of many feeding frenzies. The mere sound of opening up a can caused all the cats to flock to the kitchen in hopes of getting some food.









There's nothing quite as comfortable as sleeping with two cats in front of your face.



If I had a choice, I don't ever think I'd want to sleep like this.

A Cat's Two Favorite Things

No matter how small the box, a cat will always sleep in it. Here we see Chunk unsuccessfully squeezing into a box yet sleeping in it anyway.

Yet another food to add to Tornado's list.

Not too long thereafter...

One of my coworkers (for once) was trying to get rid of his two cats. I don't remember the reason, but he even paid us $100 to take them. They didn't have any health problems and they even came with a custom made litter box (which Zack loved to climb on).



Here we have Jewel (she's the brown one). Josh used to call her 'the devil cat' because she hissed at everyone so much. But now that it's been a couple of years, she's warmed up to all and rarely hisses anymore.

Rudy is the black and white (or cow cat as Josh calls him). He's declawed (as is Jewel) and we feel sorry for him when the other cats try to play fight with him.

The Replacement

Some friends got a cat and a dog from another friend that moved or something like that. Our friends already had a dog, and the two dogs became good friend and made the cat third wheel. After calling some others and being told by all of them that we'd take the cat, we were called and we took her.

Sasha makes us back to eight.

Mmmmm... Shower Water

I don't know where Chunk learned it from, but he developed this habit of waiting 'til we got out of the shower so he could go in and lick up the water. They always had water in their dishes. It still baffles us as to why he did this.






And then he taught some of the others how cool it was and they joined in on the party.

When it gets "cold"

This was one of the cats' favorite spots to sleep- on top of the dish receiver. It was always on (even when we turned it off) so it was always warm. We had to remove the cover multiple times to blow out all the cat hair that accumulated inside through the vents.

The cats will have to live without their heater again this winter as we don't have cable/dish anymore. It just cost too much and now we actually get to spend time together doing something instead of just wasting our lives away.

Be on the lookout for cats when entering

I got this for Amy- I don't remember when. It only said beware of cat, so I had to add the 's' to make it more appropriate to our situation.

Lunch Time

Another of Amy's coworkers was giving cats away. This time her husband was allergic and not her. They were sisters, Pip and Squeak. I don't think that they were too happy with the change of venue- they lost a lot of weight and it was rather noticeable as they were kinda fat when we got them. Squeak got really skinny. We tried to force feed her with liquid food, and it worked for a while. But then she gave up eating again and died. Most of her is buried in our backyard (ask if you dare where I have the rest of her and what I plan on doing with it).

So we were reduced from 8 to 7.

Tall, but not Tall Enough

We bought a bar height table thinking that the cats wouldn't be able to get onto it. I guess we're not that smart- of all the cats we currently have, only a couple haven't figured out a way to get up there. Some jump up from the litter boxes that we keep to the side of the table. Some jump up to the counter, up to the top of the fridge, and then jump over to the table. Others just jump up from the floor.

The Tower that We Built

We had looked for cat furniture only to find that it's rather expensive. So we tried to find plans to build one ourselves. This is what we found. We did a lot of the work in the garage and then did all the sisal rope wrapping in our room with the door shut. Once we opened the door, the cats came rushing in to see their early Christmas present. We've since made 3 others and gave 2 to friends (they only cost about $80 or so to make; the most expensive part is the sisal rope.).