Funky Fang Shui Friday

Beware of doors closing on tails. The reward might not be worth the pain.
This is me checking out the inside of the big cold box. Mum turned away and the door closed. All you could see what my tail. I am usually looking for ham. Mum always has ham in the big cold box.

The snowstorm is finally over. Mum went outside Wednesday night about 8 PM to use the snow eating monster. By that time the snow had stopped and the wind wasn't so bad. So she cleaned off the snow for the forth time that day. Plus she had to clean one last time on Thursday morning after the plow went by to clear the street. She thinks we got about 13 inches total.

Thursday after she came home from work, she raked the roof of the house, then cleaned up after pulling all of that snow down. Then she shovelled the patio off. Here are pictures of the patio after she cleaned it off. Mum says the top of the piles is about three feet high.
Her little sign on the gate fell off into the snow. She brought in in to be safe. Soon, hopefully, it will be nice enough to put it back on the gate to welcome people to the flowers.
The actual worst of the snow was between me and Bonnie Underfoot and VictorTabbycat in Madtown. Some places got up to 20 inches of snow, lots of people got stuck in their cars on the interstate road.

So where was I during all of this, snoopervising, ummm, well napping and snoopervising.
Ok mum you are finally inside, kick off those wet boots and clothes. Warm up and let's snuggle!

Mum says she wishes she could have a resting weekend, but that isn't going to work. She still has all of the normal stuff to do. Laundry, buying food. Plus Grampie will be coming over on Sunday.

Fevver Friday

Mr Downy Woodpecker

Keeping Up with the Piney Woods Cats

This is what they posted this afternoon about the snowstorm we are going to get. YIKES. It started snowing in the past hour.

We live in the area that says 14-18 inches target area. Mum got more stuff so that the snow eating monster will run. But she says if it is that deep her little machine will have a hard time eating the snow.

Mum also stocked up on food for the birdies today, we had gone through over 160 pounds of bird seed since Thanksgiving. The deep snow and cold weather makes the birdies very hungry.

Mum says it is time to snuggle on the couch. I agree!

UPDATE: Wednesday about 5 PM. I have been napping lots today and watching the birdies at the feeders in the storm. Mum had to refill all of the feeders late this afternoon. The birdies had eaten everything mum put out yesterday!

Mum worked from home, the company even sent out an e-mail to tell people to stay home.

We have had about 10 inches of snow so far. It is still snowing. Mum has used the snow eating monster three times today. Just to have it eat smaller amounts of snow at one time.

Guess we will continue to snuggle tonight.

ManCat Monday

Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives. - Stephen Baker
We kitties are good at napping, but remember our ears are still awake!

We had a blast at our first M-Cat Club event for the Stouper Bowl. We watched the game, the ads, had lots of good food and beverages, fun visiting and letting our furs down in a mancat only atmosphere. We even had a few of our UK members drop in, Fat Eric and Eric and Flynn, although they don't know Mericky football at all, they just dropped by to hang out. Eric and Flynn were able to see it on their TV in the UK.

I am furry sorry to all of my blogging furiends who wanted the Pats to win. Darling Millie, Kaze and Miss Peach. It was a good and close game, but it just wasn't meant to be for the Pats.

The Giants took the lead with 35 seconds to go in the game. The Pats tried to get close enough to maybe try a field goal but they couldn't do it.

The ads were OK, nothing that special. I guess I liked Hank the Clydesdale the best myself.

Stoupor Bowl Sunday

I had hoped to be cheering on my team in the big game, but that was not to be. This was supposed to me be cellybrating my team going to the game. I was even modest covering my spots 13 and 14. So I won't have to paint my furs green and gold for the game and get ready to cheer with mum. We will watch, both the game and the ads that they show. Mum and I don't really care exactly who wins the game. We sorta like the Pats, but then you never know about the Gigantic team either. So I will stay neutral. Can't you just tell I am real thrilled about this?! BTW, Happy Belated Groundhog Day. We hope spring comes soon. I have had enough of snow and cold. I want warm weather so that the windows can be open.

We had another hawk attack on late Friday afternoon. It was already getting dark so mum's pictures are not the best. You can see the feathers stuck to the metal cage that covers the feeder. Mum is not sure exactly what type of bird that it caught. Plus by the coloring mum thinks that this is a juvenile delinquent hawk. The breast is different than the mature hawk she got pictures of a few months ago. Here is a picture after the hawk got the birdie out of the cage and you can see a bit of stuff hanging from his beak that he was eating. After Mr Hawk finished eating she went outside to check things. You can see from the above picture lots of feathers on the ground. Mum said there was feathers scattered all around for 8-10 feet.

What was I doing when all of this was happening. Watching very intently from the bird watching spot. Mum was by the door taking the pictures, I was happy I was inside and safe. This morning she went out to check in better light on what happened. It had snowed some so the feathers on the ground were mostly covered. But you can see more feathers on the cage including a little bit of blood. Mum brought a few feathers in for me to see. I sniffed at them to smell the outside. Mum thinks these are most likely feathers from the hawk, due to the size and color. So that is all my excitement for now. Purrs.

Funky Fang Shui Friday

Shadow cat are auspicious on sunny days. Beware of shadow cat on cloudy days. It has been sunny but cold, now it is cloudy and snowy. How about a birdie for Fevver Friday! Here is a Red-bellied woodpecker who stopped by recently. No mum does not eat my treats and I don't eat hers. I only like her stuff when it is ham, chick-hen, beef, fish, tuna and stuff like that. But mum keeps my treats by the couch as that is when she gives me a treat or two while we watch the tv or mum reads a book, or we check out what my furiends are doing.

Otherwise, it has been sort of nothing really big happening. Just hanging out, waiting for the weekend to get here. Oh wait, if its Friday that means the weekend. Purrs!

Treats

Mum has these little boxes near the couch.
Something for her and something for me.
I will take some of the treats from my box!
It got furry cold here again. Yesterday it started out furry warm 40 F and then suddently it got windy and the temperature thingy drop and dropped and dropped. Quickly, down into the 20's in under two hours. By the time mum went to bed it was just 2 degrees out. It got really cold again overnight too. But lots of sun today, so sun spots to nap in.

Lots of purrs for ML, KC, Missy and the Mites mum. She has been feeling poorly. So we all need to send healing purrs to her. PURR, PURR, PURR, PURR, PURR.

ManCat Monday

To assume a cat's asleep is a grave mistake. He can close his eyes and keep both his ears awake. - Aileen Fisher
Mum took these two pictures just a few seconds apart. My ears heard the flashy box going off, so I figured I better open my eyes and see what she wanted. Do we really need to do a photo shoot right now?

My buddy Icon Baxter Bently wanted pictures of those of us who have tents. Happy to oblige. I have four of the tents that are hooked together and they go along the back of the chair mum uses to watch birdies from, sort of an L shape the the long side you can go through in a straight line.
Sometimes I just nap.
Other times I play hard and put them on their side then..
crawl right back in or...
tunnel under them.
Coming through! I love these as I run through them and hide from mum and sometimes ambush her as she walks. Makes her go 'eeek'.
About the soup mum made on Saturday. She got this recipe from her aunt Mary in Ioway a few years ago when she and Grampie were visiting. Her aunt served it for lunch and both mum and Grampie liked it. Mum says it is easy to make. To cut things up she uses a little hand machine to chop up the stuff. Faster than actually dicing things, plus mum likes the smaller pieces rather than big chunks.

Potato Soup

6 cups diced potatoes
1/2 cup diced onions (mum uses more, she likes onion)
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
2 Tbsp parsley
2 cups water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Salt and pepper

Put all of the above in a big microwave safe container and cook, covered on high until veggies are tender. With a 1000 watt microwave that is 25-30 minutes.

1 pound Velveeta cheese cut into cubes
4 cups milk
2 Tbsp flour.

When the veggie part is done cooking, dump in the cheese. Add the flour to the milk, stir up good. Then add to the veggies

Cook another 8-10 minutes until the cheese is melted.

Stir well and dispense into containers or serve. This soup freezes very well. Makes 10-12 one cup servings.

Enjoy!

More ME, ME, ME, ME, MEME

Another MEME and I guess I am ready to singing my song. I got tagged by Mr Chen & Ollie.

It's an easy one, all you have to do is tell everyone 3 things that are new with you! Link it back to the kitty who gave it to you and Tigmuthep and pass it on to 3 more kitties you'd like to know more about!

This is hard, I can't readily think of three new things. It is just the same old stuff, mum, me, birdies etc. So I gotta think about this a bit. So amuse yourselves for a few minutes. Or you can look at my picture.
Three things that are new with me are:

1. I am now a naked kittie. Mum has not put my collar back on since I came back from the kittie spa back in October.

2. I wait in the kitchen window until I see the postman coming. Then I run to the front windows by the box, then when he walks away, I run to the other end of the house and watch him go to the neighbors house. The post man never looks at me and mum thinks it is funny.

3. I let mum rub and pet my tummy but I won't let her brush me with the ZoomGroom on my tummy.

The three kitties I tag are:

Wrigley and Cobalt

Goldenshade (Goldie)

Lyra and Caesar

Yeah that is more than 3 kitties but they share blogs! And these are some new kitties to blogging. So go say hello and welcome them if you have not already done so. Wrigley and Cobalt even joined in our purrayer vigil the other evening.

So what else has been happening in the house lately. Mum has been playing music, specifically The Phantom of the Opera cast album. She saw in the newsy paper today that the show opened in New York 20 years ago today.

Plus she has been furry busy doing stuff, the sucking monster, getting her fur cut and making a huge batch of soup for Grampie. I wanted to help, but mum said no, so I went and watched the birdies.
So you cut up lots of these.
And these.
Put them in here for a long time.
Add cheese!
And milk and put them back in the rotating box.
Dish it out into little dishes.
Mum saved one bowl for her, added some crackers and enjoyed.
I finally got to have a lick or two of the empty bowl. Delish!

Funky Fang Shui Friday

Thinking inside the box can bring inner peace and a good place to nap.
This picture is from last year when mum's shipment of orinch balls comes from Florida. Mum calls them sunshine you can eat. I like the box in the sun to nap in. It is a win-win situation. Mum gets her orinch ball to eat, I get a box!

We ManCats have a new place to hang out. The M-Cats Club. A nice place for us ManCats and ManCats in training to let our furs down and chill. No worries about impressing the ladycats, just a chance for us to be us. Drop by and check it out, it's a real cool place!

It is supposed to finally get warmer here this weekend. It has been way too cold, so cold that mum keeps the blinds down to keep the warmth in the house. But I can still get at sunny windows to get my sun spots. And behind them to see the birdies in the back yard.

To brighten up the landscape, which is mainly white a picture of flowers from last summer. Virginger and Phat Flower Eric (PFE) with the pretty impatient flowers. I can't wait until spring gets here, when we have flowers again and open windows.
WooHoo, the weekend is here. Have fun everyone.

ME, ME, ME, MEME

No, I am not getting ready to sing, at least not just now. Maybe at 3 AM to wake up mum.

I have been tagged to do a meme from my friend Sammy Meezer.

This meme was created by the charming cats at http://www.petspics.blogspot.com/.
The rules are: you have to post who tagged you and link back to them and then to petspics.blogspot.com.

Then you have to tag 3 other kitties, beans, woofies, or any other assorted animal.
What three things would you do that you have never done before, if you knew you wouldn't get caught, get in trouble, or suffer any consequences?


1. Open the big cold box and eat all of the meat mum has stored in there.
2. Open the big plastic box that mum keeps my crunchies in and eat it ALL.
3. Open the cupboard and get all the treats out and eat them.

Hmmm, I detect a pattern here. You would think I don't get fed enough! But if there are no consequences, then I won't get fat or sick from eating too much!

I would like to tag:

Max, The PyschoKitty
Patches
SophieKitty

Oh Snow

Yes the snow machine started up again. It started yesterday morning and just kept coming. The nice thing is that mum came home from work early from work on Monday. Before the driving got really bad. But it still took her 45 minutes to get home, twice as long as normal, but she and everyone in her department all got home safely.

Plus when she went out to use the snow eating monster this morning and raking the snow from off the roof. It took a long time to clear all of the snow, nearly 10 inches. It was light and fluffy snow, but 10 inches is 10 inches. But then, instead of leaving to work, she stayed home to work! Yipee, I had extra mum time!

So here is a picture of the new snow! Plus we had a lovely sunny day, so I had lots of sun spots to nap in.
Plus you see me here being a sort of lap kittie. I was sitting next to mum and putting my paws on her lap! I am sort of like Darling Millie. I will snuggle and get close to mum's lap on MY terms.
My furiends Beau Beau and Angie gave me an award. I make their day. Thanks. I am tagging all of the Cat Blogosphere as you all make my day.

ManCat Monday

Never try to out stubborn a cat. - Robert A. Heinlein.I've got the end of my bungee toy, mum is on the other end. Sooner or later she will give up and just let me play with it on my own.

Packer game was EXCITING. I was the second coldest game in Packer history, after the Ice Bowl of 1967. It went into overtime tied at 20 at the Ginormous team missed a field goal as time expired. But then in OT, old Brett threw an interception the the Ginormous team finally got a field goal to win 23-20.

Mum, I and my furiends watched from the warmth of our couch. You can see all of us below. If mums jumping, shouting, cheering, cursing and used of many bad words and loud voice scared anyone, I pologize. She certainly scared me at times, she isn't normally that loud and she kept coming to me to pologize for being loud and scaring me and the others.

I was joined by my lovely Princess Mia Bella, Beau Beau and Angie, Opus and Roscoe, Parker, Momo and Sassy.


Momo and Sassy led the cheers for the team and we cheered. But I think that Opus has his eyes covered there. Must have been at one of the tight spots in the game. I look like I was sleeping, but I think I couldn't watch at times too! It didn't end up the way we Packer Backers wanted but we did have a good run this season. All I can say now is GO PATS! Now let's have a few niptini's to drown our sorrows!

Lots of purrs to Caesar's family. He went quietly to The Rainbow Bridge Saturday night. May he live on in your hearts.