And Then There Were Three

His royal highness, Pierre

Had a request from a Pierre fan for an animal update.  So I'm calling this one, "And then there were three."


We have been really careful to keep Raz and Pierre apart for the most part, with supervised visits. So far it has worked just fine.  The staff at the veterinary hospital advised us to make sure we keep the boy's water, food bowls and litter boxes separate due to the virus Raz carries, even though Pierre is vaccinated against the virus.  So Raz has his accoutrements in one room of the house, Pierre's in another.  Raz sleeps in that room at night too, so we don't worry about the boys getting into a spat while we're trying to rest.

We've been gradually letting Raz out for longer and longer periods of time, and on Sunday, he stayed out of his room the entire morning.  Raz kept chasing Pierre on previous days, but finally the two cats settled into the living room. As long as Pierre is up high - perched on the back of a chair, or on the back of the couch, or even sitting on the coffee table while Raz is on the floor - he's fine with it.  Raz is an awful jumper.  He can't even jump up onto the bed. He seems content to box up on the floor the way cats do, folding his front paws in to make a neat little box of himself.  He sits there and trills a little song to Pierre, while Pierre glares at him down his regal nose.  Then the two just doze off and that's that.  No fights, no fuss, no muss.

Raz discovered the couch...

Raz is an odd little cat.  He doesn't seem to know how to play.  I have a bunch of toys in his room - a stuffed opossum we call Opie for some strange reason, a stuffed chicken with feathers, a toy mouse, a ball.  He doesn't play when he's alone.  He liked to watch out his windows, and he seems to like to sleep on things I've knitted, which does wonders for my ego. I have a cat bed that I knitted for my old black cat. She hated it.  I then tried to entice Pierre into it when he was a kitten. We have one photo of him as a fluffy gray kitten, blue eyes matching the blue of the cat bed, staring up at us.  But the next night he refused to sleep in the cat bed.

Raz loves it. I made him a bed in the garage on his first night with us using a cardboard box, the knitted cat bed, and a flannel blanket I'd gotten from the Humane Society as a thank you for a donation made long ago.  I made him a nest, and moved the box upstairs to his bedroom. He prefers that box to the fluffy cat bed I bought him at the store.  Pierre already snagged the cat bed, but it doesn't matter. Raz prefers his cardboard box and homemade hand-me-downs.

He has a good appetite, he drinks and does all the natural things a cat is supposed to do, but he doesn't seem to know how to play.  When he's with me in the office, he does bat around a green toy mouse.  But only when he has some company.

He purrs, he enjoys being petted, and he loves Shadow. Shadow is like his big furry mama.  She licks him and when he meows inside his room in the morning to let us know he's ready to come out for the day and sun himself on the couch, she lays down outside of his room and watches with worried eyes until she can sniff him and reassure herself he is okay.

And then there were three...

Shadow is really an amazing dog. She already knows the names of the cats - and she herds them.  Shepherds them, I guess, since she is a German shepherd.  If Pierre is doing something bad, like trying to jump up on to of the television set, I yell, "Shadow. Get Pierre!" And she's off and running, herding him out of the living room and into the dining room away from trouble. If Raz starts sharpening his claws on the couch, we just have to yell, "Raz, NO!" and Shadow bounds into the room.  She's gentler with Raz, but she herds him away from the object being destroyed, pushing him with her nose and biting him gently on the back when he disobeys.

Raz returns to the vet hospital this week and I hope he is showing more improvement. In the meantime, I have to rummage through the box of old Christmas stockings in the basement and find one to remake over for the new guy.  Santa has to leave him toys, too!

Whatever Happened to the Kids?

"Me and my Shadow!"

 The furry kind, I mean! It's been forever since I've written any Pierre and Shadow stories.  Aside from Pierre biting his doc, Mark French, at the Ridge Animal Hospital last week, it's been rather quiet here. (Dr. French: "Dr. Gates has a note on Pierre's chart that he's difficult to give pills to; is that true?" "Only if you value your fingers, doc." )  Pierre got a clean bill of health but his considerable bulk has everyone a tad bit worried.  He tops the kitty scale at 17 pounds. If he grows any bigger, we're going to have him walk onto the dog scale. And Dr. French, if you are reading this please don't feel bad; Pierre woke us both up this morning by biting us.  He's just that kind of cat. He bites with a gleam in his eye and without drawing blood, but unfortunately he does think his fangs are for communication rather than hunting.

As for Shadow, her allergies are under control, and we got an A+ for her coat condition. Aside from pollen allergies (which she has, and which we can't do anything about), she's doing well on just her special dog food and homemade dog biscuits.

Shadow

*   *  *

So that is the update on the furry kids at Seven Oaks.  As for the human kind, there's so much nonsense this week in the news it's just making me angry, so I try to move on. The woman who gives her 8 year old daughter Botox - did you hear about that? Can you believe the absurdity, the abuse of injecting your kid with Botox?  And how does she have Botox AT HOME to inject her child with?  I was glad to read that there is an investigation into that.  Honestly, those pageant shows on television and the "dance recitals" where kids shimmy around in sexy, totally in appropriate costumes with sexualized dance moves make me want to throw up.  When will the madness stop?  When will we let little girls be little girls? When will we learn? Never, I guess.  Yikes, I'd better go back to work or else I'll rant more!

Sunday Fun and Frolics

A 50 degree day in January!

After a wonderful church service (thank you Father Mack!) and some catching up with friends, I came home to find my goofball German Shepherd outside with John fixing bare patches in the lawn.  She actually allowed me to snap some pictures of her today.  We ended up going on a nice, long 3 miles walk together as a family, then home to homemade dog treats for Shadow.  She mugged for the camera in a rare mood of picture-taking, so at last, here are photos of my best gal and friend. We decided that Shadow's theme song is "Take a Chance on Me" by ABBA; we took a chance on this sad sack at the dog pound, and never regretted a moment.  Enjoy a few photos and Happy Sunday!

Pierre the Super Star

Move over, Morris. Look out, Dewey.

Pierre is a super star.

For the second year in a row, the Charlotte Courthouse newspaper will run a picture of Mr. Pierre in the Christmas edition, due on new stands tomorrow.  You may wish to buy your copy early, for there's sure to be a run on the paper when folks realize that Pierre is back!

This year's picture is entitled: Stalking Through a Winter Wonderland.

Here is Mr. Pierre, out in the snow storm we had last week.

Pierre wishes to say,

"Thank you Aunt Crystal (Crystal Vandegrift, who works at the newspaper) for choosing my picture again for the paper.  I shall autograph a copy for you."

P and Mini P

This is a true story. You might not believe it, but it's absolutely, honestly true.

It's about Pierre, who goes by the nickname P around here, and his newest toy, which we nicknamed "mini P."

Mini P is large stuffed mouse I acquired at Dollar Tree. He's gray like Pierre, and has a white belly like Pierre, which earned him the nickname Mini P, like "mini me" in the Austin Powers movies.  Mini P makes a nice rattling sound when he's batted around the house, which really excites Pierre.  We hear him jingle-jangling his way all around the house with that thing.

Now, Pierre has managed to lose several mini P's over the past few weeks.  One is still at large in the house, but he has another he enjoys.  Still, when he shoves it behind the TV cabinet or under the sofa and can't get it out, he gets frustrated.

Early this morning, he took matters into his own paws.

I was sitting in the plant room enjoying my morning coffee when the sound of Mini P's rattle jingled throughout the house.  Then I heard a thump and a muffled crash.  I considered checking Pierre's whereabouts, since I had a feeling the crash came from his antics, but the next sound was a short jingle, as if he had his Mini P toy again.  I thought nothing of it and continued reading.  About half an hour later, I walked up stairs and went into the bedroom, where I found the source of the noise.

You see, we had a new mini P, still attached to his store cardboard backing, on a high bookshelf.  Pierre had lost his toy, and decided to take matters into his own paws. He's climbed up onto a bookshelf about 3 feet high, jumped to another piece of furniture, then made the leap up another several feet to reach the desired toy.  He grasped the cardboard back and walked it across the living room, up a long flight of stairs, and left it at the foot of the bed...hoping, I guess, that one of us would play with him.

I had to show it to John.  We got such a kick out of it that I didn't even mind the books Pierre had knocked over in his attempts to grab the toy off the shelf.

So now not only can this cat open doors by hitting the door latch with his weight, he can climb up bookshelves to get his toys.  Lucky for us all his Friskies bag is safely  in a closet, but woe until me when he realizes he can pop open that door, too!

Slayer of Serpents

So we've had an unusual fall. First, the mice are back. Pierre was on patrol the other night and sure enough, we heard the scurrying tread of mus musculus (that's a mouse to you and me) in the laundry room.  He managed to chase it into the kitchen, where it had nowhere to hide from the plastic container we used to scoop it up.  I was delegated the mouse catch and release person, so off into the woods I trudged in the wee hours of the morning to release my stunned visitor. Pierre sat in the window all twitchy-tailed and jittery. I got such a glare from his golden green eyes when I returned to the kitchen.  He kept sniffing the now empty plastic container, clearly miffed that I'd stolen his prize.

We thought nothing then the next evening when Pierre didn't make an appearance for his evening repast or his nightly round-up of stuffed bird toys, which he loves to carry upstairs and deposit in a line leading from our bedroom door to the bathroom. I thought for sure he'd found another autumnal visitors and I'd spend another evening futilely chasing a frightened critter with an old plastic ice cream container.  I went down the basement steps to clean out his litter box the next morning, thinking nothing of it, flipped on the light, and stopped short.

There was a SNAKE curled upon the basement floor.

Pierre shot out from under the basement stairs with glee, circling the snake and making high, trilling cries of excitement. I called for Hubby and yelled "There's a snake in the basement!" Both Hubby and my father in law came on the run.  My second yell was "Pierre - NO!" as the cat ran right towards it.

I had no idea if the snake was alive or dead, poisonous or not. At least it was small. It was less than a foot long and about the thickness of a clothesline.

Pierre ran up and poked it with a paw, and by that time I realized it must be dead.  We hurried downstairs and out came the trusty plastic container. First a mouse scoop; now a snake catcher.

We took the picture above of the snake outside to try to identify it. I don't see a photo of this exact pattern on the Virginia department of fish and wildlife site, but it looks most like a rat snake, a very young one, and friends agree. We found fang marks on its back, the same size and width as Pierre makes on his stuffed bird toys, so Pierre has a new nickname: Slayer of Serpents.

So what does the slayer of serpents do on his day off?

Snooze, of course.

There is NEVER a dull moment around here.

Pierre Grows Up

Mr. Pierre turns two today and would like the whole world to know it. He is, after all, a cat, which means his ego is larger than any human's ever could be.


After my old kitty died, a week later I answered an ad in the newspaper from a man in Farmville giving away kittens. Mr. Archie Dunkley, who I keep wanting to call Archie Dunker and then make him Archie Bunker, had a lovely striped mom cat in his lawn mower repair shop near Longwood University. When we walked into the shop, all I saw was a tangle of gray kittens rolling over and over again in a big adorable lump on the floor. I couldn't choose. One guy with a jaunty white tail walked right over to us to investigate. I liked the little girl hiding shyly behind the door. We ended up taking Mr Whitetail home, as he was known around the neighborhood, and rechristened him Pierre. He was so bold that on the car ride home, as I sat in the back seat with him tucked securely in a cardboard box, his little head kept peeking up at me over the flap of the box. Not content to sit demurely and ride, oh no, not Pierre. He wanted to see and experience every last detail of life around him.

I had never owned a kitten before. I'd always adopted adult pets from the shelter. Even as a child, I never bought baby hamsters....always adults. Having a kitten was an experience. I was so afraid I'd hurt him, or drop him. I discovered he was such a tough little thing that he'd climb the highest shelf and leap down just to get a good jump on the dog's head. (He still does this. Last night he hid on the couch and jumped Shadow as she walked by. I'm also really lucky she's gentle with him. But he is a bold thing, attacking a German Shepherd 4x his size!)

For anyone who says "all cats are alike" or "all dogs are alike", they haven't owned a pet, or at least haven't spent enough time with a pet. Pierre is night to my old cat's day, opposite in personality in almost every way.

From 2 pounds to 20 pounds, my little puffball kitten has turned into an enormous tiger.

The photos today show him the day we got him home. Note the green books on the bookshelf. The second picture shows Pierre around age 1 1/2, next to the same books on the bookshelf. It's like watching time lapse photography!

Move Over, Morris

Move over, Morris. This photo of Pierre under our Christmas tree was chosen for one of the local newspapers this week. I can ink Pierre's paw if you'd like an autograph.



This has been a great week for the whole family. Pierre's photo was chosen to grace the local newspaper. A friend from college who now teaches high school in northern Virginia asked me to speak at the high school's career day about careers in writing, so I'm heading north in February to bore 60 high school students to death. Should be a blast. Best of all, the high school is in the same town as my brother, his family, and my niece and her family, so I will get to visit my precious new grand-nephew too.

I was given the title Senior Writer on LovetoKnow, and Helium just awarded me "Journalist" status, which is a nice professional badge and provides additional writing opportunities.

Luckily, we have Hubby to keep our heads from swelling too much, right Pierre?

Cat Person or Dog Person?

I never thought of myself as a dog person until this morning. Shadow gets me up at dawn, whenever dawn is. Either pet jumps on the bed, whining for breakfast. Pierre's technique is usually to bite at your legs under the covers, while Shadow prefers the whine and dash.

After feeding Pierre (the king is always fed first), I feed Shadow and take her out for a walk. We usually walk about half a mile to a mile, watching the sun rise over the woods and fields. The wildlife is the best at this time of the morning. On any given morning, I'll spot all sorts of beautiful birds - thrushes, pine siskin, cardinals, orioles, and many more. There are rabbit, of course, and deer - always deer. One morning we saw our resident skunk waddling off through the woods. We often hear tiny feet rustling through the leaves.




This morning, Shadow was a total goof. After doing her business, she was leaping around on the end of the leash, snapping, grinning, tongue hanging out. I don't trust her off the leash on a frosty morning like this; the deer scent is too strong, and I heard hunters moving through the woods, their dog packs barking. Last week, she stood off and barked off a pack of hunting dogs. They chased deer directly at us as we were walking up the driveway. After the deer ran at us they veered into the woods, with three large hounds snapping at their hooves. Shadow was on full, German Shepherd, defend-or-die alert, and those three dogs took one look at her and took off back down the road. It was pretty amazing.

After I headed upstairs this morning, crazy dog wasn't finished with me. Back outside we went, with me chasing her pell-mell around the lawn. After 20 minutes of play, she was finally satisfied to come back inside. I've sure gotten my exercise today.

I never thought of myself as a "dog person". When I was a little girl, I loved dogs, but I loved all animals. When I was 8, a friend's dog bit me in the face so badly I needed stitches. After that I was afraid of dogs until college. When I began riding horses, the barns all had dogs (what's a stable without a dog?) so I got to like dogs again. Then I met John, and he had Mr. Foxhound, his golden retriever mix...it was "love me, love my dog", with my hubby being the quintessential dog person. So I learned to like dogs.

But Shadow has taught me to love dogs. She keeps me from getting too serious about myself. She makes sure I get fresh air and exercise. Every evening, just as dusk approaches, she tugs on my sleeve while I'm writing, or she comes to my desk and whines; quitting time, she says. She lays on the floor of my office, often with her head on my feet as a I work. I have to take breaks and get outside and walk her; this gives me about 2 miles or more of walking every day, if you add up our romps.

She protects me fiercely and loves me unconditionally. From dog packs heading down the driveway to a black bear that dashed across our path last year, she'd stand off anything to keep me safe.

I love Pierre and I'm still a cat person. But this rescued German Shepherd has chosen to love me, and I've fallen back in love with dogs. She's made me a better person all around.

Today's photo is Shadow in her Christmas finery. I made the bandana with fabric from Heartland Fabrics, the new store by Miller's in Farmville. Fantastic selection and service. The lady there is helping me pick out squares for my winter quilting project. I made a matching collar for Pierre, but he won't wear it.

Cattitude and Gardening

This month, two new critters joined the family. Shadow, a female German Shepherd, came into the family on April 30th and Robespierre, a gray tiger striped cat, joined us on May 8th. They both integrated so well into the family it feels as if they've been our pets forever. I've never owned a kitten before. My last cat, Baloo, was already an adult when I adopted her out of the town animal shelter. Kittens are amazing. Annoying, fun, delightful and sweet all in one. Shadow tolerates her new companion fairly well, although I'm nervous about how she 'plays' with the tiny gray fluffball. Pierre is pictured here. Who can resist that gaze?

The farm continues to flourish. We added hazelnut bushes to the orchard this week, so if the squirrels, bears and birds don't get them, we'll have bushels of delicious nuts to add to the fruits. I've got the tomato plants going well in pots out back, joined by cucumbers and herbs. Next year we'll plant a huge garden and I'll preserve the harvest, but this year we're still settling in. The stones arrived for the walkways and John was finishing up the mulching and landscape fabric today while I worked.

I don't know what it is that drives me to want to raise most or all of my own food. It's always been a dream of mine, over and above simply owning a hobby farm. The fact that the beef defrosting in my fridge right now grew just up the road at the Hertzler's farm, so I know where it came from and what they fed it, the fact that the basil gracing the top of my eggplant parmiagiana served last night at dinner was growing right outside my back door...there is a feeling of security and safety that I can't explain as I dream of harvesting the fruits of our labors. Adding chickens and dairy goats would be the ultimate dream for me. I imagine creating delicious dinners from food we grew ourselves...fried chicken marinated in buttermilk from the goats, served with a side of green beans and salad grown in our garden, washed down with wine pressed from grapes grown on our land...I dream of all of this and in baby steps we make our dreams come true here at Seven Oaks!