The end of an era

It was 13 years ago that we took possession of the house where my parents had lived for almost 25 years. The first thing we had to do was put a roof on it and a few weeks later it survived a small tropical storm. Since then we have cleaned, repaired, painted and replaced to bring it to where it is today. A week ago today we signed the closing papers to transfer ownership to someone else. They signed on Friday and the deal was done. Martha asked me later that evening if I had regrets now that it was over and I said no, and I meant it. The house accomplished what it was supposed to do and I enjoyed every moment there even if it was work. I am satisfied that I did my best to restore it to what it once was.

The new owners are great people and they have offered us the privilege of using it 4 weeks a year as long as they own it and I am alive. That was totally unsolicited and unexpected. We surely won't use it that often but maybe once or twice a year.  They have many plans for modifying the house and we look forward to seeing what they are going to do.

In the meantime we will find other outlets for our time and energy. The 5th wheel needs to get out and camp and stuff needs to  be done around the home front, We need to spend more time spoiling the grand kids, etc.This will be my last post about the creek and the house but there are lots of other topics. Martha may want to chime in with her thoughts and I hope she will. She did a major portion of the work and I could not have done any of it without her.

Kittens - learning to travel

The kittens have grown and I haven't kept up the blog very well but we did take 2 of them on a trip and they did very well. We had to take 2 of them to the animal shelter which we didn't want to do but there was no way we could have taken 4 with us or kept up with them at the creek house. The yellow one we named Toki which is short for tiny orange kitten and the solid black one is coal because he is solid black like coal.

Surprising enough they rode very well for a seven hour ride and only a couple of times did they threaten to be a problem by getting around my feet. They used their litter box on the way like big cats and adapted to it being moved at the creek house. They are well potty trained and rapidly becoming spoiled house kittens. Their mother is also getting spoiled. We had a great week with both of the kittens getting adapted to new surroundings.

Kittens - almost 8 weeks

The kittens are continuing their growth and are very active. We will keep the black one and one of the female yellows. The one in front with the white feet is a male that I call Tiger. The other two yellows are both female  and either would make a great pet. We are advertising them and would like to place them in good homes because we can't keep them all. Here are a few other pictures.

They really like to climb my leg and fight each other in my lap.

This is our home made cat tree and they love it. We have had one more incident of a bird in the house, (see the last post). Sunday morning the mother cat went out and returned to the door with a dead sparrow. She wants to train the kittens about birds but we will not let the kittens out yet so she insists on coming in. We let her but the kittens refused to eat the bird so we took it out and she settled for it but was not a happy camper

Bird in the house - Teaching the kittens

Yesterday evening we left Patches out while we went to eat. When we returned we let her back in but almost immediately she wanted to go back out. So we let her out and she went to get a bird that she had killed and stashed for the occasion. Then she wanted back in, with the bird of course. We were a bit hesitant but we also realized that this was her way of teaching the kittens about wild game hunting and how to fend for themselves. Patches was wild until she came to live in the big house, and she survived by hunting and killing her food. That instinct is in her and she wants to pass it on to the kittens. So in she came, bird and all.

The kittens loved it, at least 3 did. The fourth was asleep but we helped her wake up and after a bit there were all 4 of them feasting on their first bird. Patches was nearby mumbling something like "I hope you appreciate all I am doing for you".

When they were done there was only a few feathers and some bones. Those were promptly dispatched and life was back to normal. So ends this lesson in the upbringing of kittens

Kittens at 5 and a half weeks

They are growing so rapidly and are very active. 3 of them will eat from a bowl but the 4th one will not. We have tried everything we can to get her to eat but nothing doing. I suppose the mother will have to cut her off to make her eat from the bowl. They can climb up a cat tree and can climb up on the couch. There are two boys and two girls. The black one is a boy and is the biggest of the litter. They were born on June 1st.We can no longer keep them in the bathroom where we have had them so they pretty much have the run of the house. They can climb out in an instant. All four of them are using the litter box, but their mother does not. we will be starting to look for homes for at least 2 of them and maybe 3, I guess we have to get the last one eating first. We want to keep 1 at least.

Kittens - 3 weeks old

The kittens turned 3 weeks old today so here is an update and pictures. The kittens have grown at warp speed. The black one is over a pound and 2 of the yellows are just under 16 oz. One of the yellows is about 13 oz. Their motor skills are improving and they play and attack one another. We moved them to a new box that is much larger and so far mom has left them there. The other night about 2 in the morning Martha was awakened by a kitten cry and discovered Patches moving the black one into our bedroom. She stopped her and moved the kitten back to the original box, all the time explaining to Patches that she could not bring them to the bedroom. All was well for a few minutes and then she tried again with the same result. Once again Martha intercepted. This time she left them where they were. So Martha made her a new box that has more room and we are trying that to see if it helps. Here are some pictures.

Injured Bird

Anyone recognize this bird. This one has a severely damaged right wing. We cannot recall seeing this bird before so it is new to the neighborhood. It's mate was in a tree nearby and was bigger than this one