Weird things Kamis do

Kamis are notorious for doing weird things.

This morning, this Kami got up at 6am so she could take down the hummingbird feeder (which she forgot to take in last night), thaw it, and fill it with fresh, warm nectar. She was very happy when the hummingbird showed up about an hour later to tank up.

Then she decided to take a look at her African violet seed pod. It was ripe! She danced a little happy dance, picked it, and then took a picture of it. This is what they look like:

African violet seed pod

 She's really looking forward to planting the seeds and raising them up to be new african violets. She has a bunch. This one was probably fertilized by a fly. Since then, she's hand-fertilized several other blooms, and once again her plants are pregnant. It takes months for the pods to develop and ripen.

This may not seem all that weird until you realize that this Kami already has lots and lots of African violets. Yet she wants to make more. She will probably have to start giving some away.

Kamis have also been known to go out in their robe and slippers into the snow to take pictures of their cats:

Wizard in the snow with cute paw prints

Kamis also take delight when their chickens do weird things, like lay miniature eggs:

Tiny chicken egg, laid 2/2/2014

They'll even take pictures of said weird eggs early in the morning for a blog post. It's a good thing when Kamis have others, especially Rorys, take care of them because they may be too silly and weird to survive on their own.

Cat up a Tree, and Down Again

It's been one of those weeks.

The two main things are near and perhaps impending badness.

First, Wizard got stuck in a tree. I have no idea how he got up there. All I know is that the dogs went bananas, and then I heard people talking, and saw a pickup truck. And then I heard yowling. You know how a cat sounds like your cat, but not, because it's making a weird, not-usual sound? Yeah. So I head up there, terrified that he got hit by a car, and I'm a little grateful that someone pulled over because most people when they hit an animal keep going or worse, slow down, decide that they can't cope and jet away ....

But, he's not at the side of the road, bleeding. He's about 25 feet up a Douglas fir. I couldn't find my big ladder, and the folks that stopped (I still don't know if they hit him--thanks to today's sue-happy society, I'm sure they'd be terrified to admit they did, even though they wouldn't be liable for anything) and 'noticed him' stuck up there, had to go but they promised to come back and check on him. Right after they left, of course then I found my big extension ladder. I flagged down one of the folks that use our road as a bicycle training hill, and he held the ladder steady while I climbed up there.

For my family's sanity, I won't describe what it took to get a terrified cat, who has four clawed feet, off of a tree branch that he doesn't want to leave, while perched close to the top of a tall extension ladder set up in the back of my pickup truck because the ladder wasn't tall enough set up on the ground.

Wizard had a very, very bad limp when I got back to the house, so I took him to the vet. Right now he's still on major kitty pain killers. The vet suggested that if he's still walking funny with his elbow tucked in under his ribs in seven days that I should get him x-rayed. I'll keep all y'all updated. In the meantime his limp has all but disappeared, and he seems happy, although a bit confused about why I won't let him or Huntress outside anymore.

Reason being, if it wasn't a truck that scared him badly enough to chase him up a tree, it was probably a coyote, or a bobcat, or some other critter bent on eating him. Neither cat is going out right now, and quite possibly ever again. Both our remaining kitties are older animals now, and it's simply too dangerous for them out there. I had no idea Wizard got that close to the road (assuming he wasn't chased across the road, of course) and the traffic is too ugly there, too. So, it's just best all around if they don't go out anymore.

The other news has to do with my roses. That'll be a long-ish post with pics and links, so that'll wait until next time. The gist is, I may lose some, or all of my roses over the next couple of years to a viral disease. You might too, so if you have roses, be sure to check in and I'll give you the skinny on rose rosette disease, or RRD, caused by the rose rosette virus or RRV. If you can't wait, Google a bit and prepare to be alarmed.

Seeds and Armor

Two seed trays, three bags of seedling mix, and a bunch of seeds rubberbanded together. I guess that normal people have potting benches out back or do this in their garage. I'm not normal.

I open the seedling mix bag and discover that it's essentially peat moss with a little vermiculite mixed in. Oh well, I'll know better next year. I got myself a soup spoon for a scoop, but that's for later. First, you gotta dump as much dirt into the middle of the tray as you can and then start spreading it out toward the edges. My favorite part is when I lift the tray three times and smack it (gently!) on the dining table to 'pack' the soil down. After I fiddle around with topping off the low cells, I fill the water-catcher tray with about a half inch of lukewarm water and let the cells soak it up. Ideally the cells will be nice and moist with almost no water left in the bottom.

Ah, nice, dark earth (well, peat moss and vermiculite mix--no dirt here) ready for seeds. Some seeds go one to a cell, some of them two. With the more spendy seeds I put in just one and hope for the best. With the less expensive ones I double or sometimes triple up, with the plan of snipping off all but the nicest one in each cell.

Poor things.

And then I put on the tray's 'greenhouse' cover.

I don't like the things, actually. They promote mold, which then has to be combatted with anti-fungals. But I had this worse problem than mold last year ....

And sure enough, after a trip into town, my daughter rats him out.

"Wizard stepped on your seed trays. Sorry, I couldn't stop him."

I lift the greenhouse lid. Victory! With the soil level slightly below the tops of the trays, and the smaller cell size I selected, plus the tough plastic of the clear lid ....

No kitteh footprints here. Yay!

I felt a little bad for starting my tomato and pepper seeds so late, but you know what? It snowed all day, non-stop. I might still be late-ish, but considering the weather, hedging my bets for a later plant-out might not be such a bad thing. I just hope that my indigo rose tomatoes have enough time and heat to ripen. They look soooo kewl!

Animal and Weather Update

Wizard is doing well. The minor injury he sustained under his right front leg is healing nicely, thanks to a long line of stitches. He even spent some time outside today. He loved it. Sunny, warm, mild winds ... everyone enjoyed today, even those of us who had to work indoors at a day job.

I think a lot depends on whatever your local normal climate is, but around here when there's sun, people smile, liven-up, get stuff done, and there's a crazy amount of spring-fever energy in just about everybody. The usual for the Pacific NW is a week or three of excellent weather in February, preceded and followed by storm after storm with only rare sightings of blue sky between the clouds. This year has been anything but that--and the really weird part is that we had so much precipitation in our local mountain range that our snowpack is a little above normal. More sun and more snowpack?

I'll take it, thanks.

The thing that's got me a little befuddled is the worming thing. Goats ought to be wormed in spring time. Along with the flush of nice green grass come icky, nasty worms that can kill if they overload the goat's system too quickly. Usually I hold off on worming until April or May, depending on the average temperatures. This year ... yeah. I think I'll have to worm them on Sunday, and probably again in about a month. Two wormings this spring instead of one. That means an extra miniature rodeo. Since we'll be capturing and saving them from doom against their wills anyway, I might as well trim their hooves at the same time. They really love that.

I hope it doesn't rain on Sunday or I'll be muddy from head to foot. (Actually, muddy and covered in other, less savory stuff.) Yee ha?

Masks and Website Updates

Masks is finally up on Smashwords and Amazon. On Smashwords you can get the first 20% free. Warning: if Brokeback Mountain made you feel uncomfortable, the romantic elements in Masks is not going to be any more fun in a setting with flintlock pistols, tall ships and manor houses.

I also updated my website and put up a website (finally!) for Wyrd Goat Press. I'm hoping to have the sequel for House of Goats, House of Chickens, written and put up by mid-summer. Steve Perry wrote a wonderful review for House of Goats (thanks Steve!) on Amazon, and blogged about it too.

I think this post holds the record for most links in a single paragraph, at least for my blog.

Now it's time to take Wizard home from the vet. He had to have a few stitches. Apparently he had a close encounter with a barbed wire fence. He failed to mention this (he didn't even limp!) so who knows how long he hobbled around with that one inch opening in his flesh before my daughter noticed. But he should make a full recovery. I'm sure we'll hear him yowling (he hates to be confined) the second we walk in the door. That'll be sweet music to my ears. I worry about our silly kittehs ....

Just in Time

Looks like we found Kat just in time.  She's going into heat.

Part of me is glad that she's not pregnant.  The more I'm around her the more I realize she's pretty young, younger than I first estimated.  Six months, maybe?  It would be really hard on her, although she's getting shinier and healing up fast.  But part of me would have loved to see what she'd have for kittens.  If they had anything near her temperament, they would be truly wonderful pets.

So, the beginning of next month, she'll be spayed and get all her shots and that'll be that.  In the meantime, we have a purring, trilling thing that really wishes Wizard wasn't fixed.  She liked him before.  Now she adores him.  I can understand her enchantment.  He's really a handsome guy.  Such a nice face!

Wizard's cure

Wizard's procedure went well yesterday, or so I hear. I wasn't able to be with him. In fact, I had to abandon the poor thing at the vet for the day because I had to go to work.

Wizard is so sweet, quiet and mild-tempered it's easy to forget that he was half-wild. Easy, that is, until you try to get him into a cat carrier, succeed, and then leave him with a stranger. He's never bitten or scratched us, something I find miraculous considering his trust issues, but he can wrestle like a Gracie on steroids. The power in his body is just amazing. Arnold would be jealous of his musculature. The cat knows how to struggle and get away.

I was ready for him, though. I had a good grip on him and took advantage of the fact that he won't claw or bite the cat carrier either, which might have given him better purchase. It was still a good fight, embarrassing considering that I weigh about 154 pounds and the cat weighs somewhere around 12-15 pounds. Once I got the door shut he did a quick 360 flip and proceeded to panic. No way out! His eyes got wild and he attacked the door, clawless again but with a good two-paw punch that rattled the whole cage. I spoke his name and he calmed and settled--settled, that is into yowling.

He yowled as he had not yowled since we first caught him and took him to the vet. I'd forgotten he had this ability to pierce human skulls with his voice alone. Murmuring comforting words, I carried him out. He'd completely reverted to wild by then, and didn't recognize the dogs. When Finn nuzzled the cage in inquiry, he hissed, spat and growled as if he'd never deliberately jumped into the puppy enclosure when they were tiny to flirt with the dogs.

I checked him in and left him. It seemed like only a short while later they called to let me know I could pick him up, but I couldn't, not until 3:30, a lifetime later for my poor cat. Verdict, abcess, and they irrigated it and put him on antibiotics because his body wasn't fixing it on its own. He still isn't sick-sick from it, but neither is it healing. Hopefully now the healing can finally start.

He was yowling when I picked him up, yowled all the way home, and then as soon as I let him out he ate food and became his quiet self again. I imagine this all baffles him. I'm sure his leg bothers him, and now that he's had this procedure at the vet's, his leg, well, still bothers him, except now he has to take medicine.

Humans are so weird.