Almost Spring

Hi! Today is Mom's birthday (I'm not the only geezer in this household!) so I thought that I'd let her post some flower photos on my blog. These are crocus in the flower bed next to the driveway.

And this is a photo of our first daffodils. As you can see from the date, they bloomed March 10. These ones are on the sunny side of the house.

Here are some mixed flowers: snowdrops, crocus, hellebores, and winter aconite. In the warmer parts of the yard, the snowdrops have already gone by. Mom is exasperated by the squirrels. They keep tearing up the crocus flowers. Too bad I'm retired from squirrel hunting.

Mom decided that she'd better get busy cleaning out bird houses. This is the "chickadee condo" that Dad built in 2001.

Mom cleaned out all three apartments.

These are the three nests that were removed.

This was built as a winter shelter for the birdies.

Guess who took up residence in it instead?

Over the weekend Mom noticed that a wren with nesting materials in its mouth kept flying into the yew bush out front. Mom checked it out and found a neat little nest yesterday afternoon.

I refused to pose in the posies as Jake used to do. I decided to hide in the shrubbery by the house.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I'm sorry that you have been so sad lately. I'm not very good at cheering you up.

Love,

~Bathsheba

We're Still Here

Hi, everyone! Yes, we're still here, but as you can see, Mom won't let us blog much. We try to visit when we can, but don't leave many comments.

We had big excitement at our house for the Ides of March. Mom had a HUGE party - 59 guests came. She called it an "Open House in Celebration of 50 Years." She didn't want to call it a birthday party, though that's what it was. With all the things that have gone on in her life over the last year, she decided that she should truly celebrate the big 5-oh.
Mom baked and prepared foods for several days leading up to the party. I, Jake, had to supervise the preparations. Despite the fact that we have lots of daffodils in our garden, Mom bought 200 daffodils to decorate the house.

I, Bathsheba, also supervised. Here are two of the three cakes that Mom baked: a German Chocolate cake (her favorite) and an angel food cake, another favorite. (She also baked a sheet cake.) These photos were taken in the wee hours of March 15. The party started at 2 p.m. and, with the help of her sister who came up from North Carolina, the kitchen and the rest of the house were transformed in time. Mom, however, was too busy to take any photos once the party started. Jake stayed outside for the party because Mom knew that he would get into trouble, and she put me in the cat/computer room. She came up to check on me midway through the party, and I told her that I was willing to socialize. I was quite popular until I decided to jump on the food table. Mom didn't think that I would be able to do that because it's too high for me, but I hopped on the chair by the bay window, then leaped from the window onto the table. Mom was down in the foyer greeting guests at the time. She heard me let out a terrible "mmRRROOOOWWW!" She thought that someone had stepped on me, but really it was just my expression of indignity when someone immediately picked me up and removed me from the table. I do NOT like to be picked up. Good grief! It's MY house; who are they to keep me off my own table?

Mom's actual birthday was March 19 and she had a nice time taking a day off and relaxing.

Yesterday was a wonderful day. Mom had to go to work in the morning, but we spent the afternoon in the garden. I love to walk along the garden timbers. The wall here is part of the side of the sheltered part of our deck. It had been covered with (native, not Japanese) trumpet honeysuckle until last fall when Mom had to cut it back in preparation of the staining by the painters. The honeysuckle is returning (see plant on left), but she needs to replace the nylon mesh support that she used to have for it. The lattice on the right supports clematis.

Mom likes her little blue scilla, so despite the fact that I did not pose in it, she asked us to include a photo. I would have been happy to pose if she had remembered to bring Temptations out with her.

Here are some of our hellebores, or Lenten rose, in bloom with some later blooming daffodils in bud in the foreground.

Now here's a good photo of ME. And I posed without receiving a treat.
I, Bathsheba, did not feel like venturing out into the garden and chose to rest on this comfy deck chair.

We have been meaning to participate in the Seven Weird Things meme that our friends Rosie and Cheeto invited us to complete, but we have been sadly negligent. We helped Mom to compile a list a while back, but it was challenging because we aren't very weird. And Mom misplaced the list that we developed. Sigh. So, this is what we submit off the top of our heads:

1. Jake: I like to slam dunk 'Sheba before dinner. I get rather frisky, and it's a way to pass the time as Mom prepares our dinners.
2. Bathsheba: Everyone knows that I have extra toes. Those extra toes on my front paws don't fully retract so I make a clicking sound when I walk on bare floor. At least this never interfered with my stealth in my hunting days.
3. Jake: I sometimes like to jump into our large compost pile and help myself to leftover cantaloupe or avocado. Mom gets mad at me when I do that and tries to remember to bury table scraps like that.
4. Bathsheba: The water that I drink must be moving. Usually I insist that Mom turn on the water from her bathroom sink, but I will drink out of my water bowl once I have moved it a little so that it sloshes around. I do NOT, however, like those water fountains they make for cats. Mom (um, Santa) bought one for me, but I refused to use it. I ended up sending it to my friend Kismet.
5. Jake and Bathsheba: We CANNOT share Mom's queen-sized bed. If one of us is there and the other jumps up, one of us (usually Bathsheba) will leave. Mom did capture on film a moment when the two of us were on the bed together with her, but it was only a MOMENT.
6. Jake: I don't think this is weird, but I have a VERY long tail and very long whiskers.
7. Bathsheba: And now for the confession to which we alluded in a previous post. It's really not so much a confession as a revelation. A confession implies that I did something wrong, but that is NOT the case. I just hope that none of you cats thinks less of me for this. Okay, here goes: I am deaf. Pretty much totally. I tried to cover it up for some time, but my secret came out early this year. Once I realized that my hearing was declining, I knew that my outdoor hunting days were over. I decided I'd stay closer to home and indoors more. I used to always come when Mom called, but last fall I couldn't hear her unless she was in the same room. She thought that maybe I didn't love her as much because I didn't come, but that was NOT the case. What ultimately gave my secret away was my lack of a reaction to the ringing telephone. Mom has a telephone on the nightstand next to her bed. Mom keeps Temptations in the nightstand drawer and I often sit on it in anticipation of a treat. Despite the fact that the ringer was on LOUD, I did not even twitch when the phone rang. It used to be that Jake and I would scatter when the phone rang no matter where we were at the time. After seeing my non-reaction, Mom did some other "tests" on me and concluded that I am deaf. She has not taken me to the vet about this and just thinks that it is age related.

It's okay being deaf. I'm a smart kitty and know that the outdoors is not a safe place for me without all my senses. I do startle when Mom touches me when I am asleep because I cannot hear her address me. That is unfortunate. But life is good inside the house. I love to sleep; I have some great cat TVs (windows), and the food tastes great.

That's the news from us here in Manassas, Virginia. We love you all and will try to visit when we can.

Love,

~J&B

Man Cat Monday - Spring Has Sprung

Mom and I could not let the deadline pass without entering the Simply Siamese "Spring has Sprung" Contest. Mancats always like to help out their fellow felines; in this case it's Sammy and Miles Meezer. True mancats aren't afraid to pose with flowers since we know how popular flowers are with the ladies.

These are snowdrops.


And these are yellow crocus.

And these are miniature iris (I. reticulata).

We also have winter aconite and hellebores in bloom now in our garden.

I have a confession to make since Bathsheba will rat me out otherwise. Mom had to bribe me with treats to pose with these flowers. She tucked the treats in with the flowers so that's why my nose is stuck in the iris here.

Happy Meterological Spring!

P.S. One of these days we will complete the 7 Weird Things Meme and there will be a startling confession from Bathsheba.

~Jake

Thursday Thirteen - Spring Flowers

For Thursday Thirteen, we present 13 kinds of spring flowers from our jungle garden. It was hard to limit it to 13, and we know that Mom is going to kick herself later when she finds some better photos she could have used. Unfortunately, she does not have the kind of camera that can take close ups of flowers.


1. Eastern Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, native to our area.


2. Trillium grandiflorum, also native.

3. Miniature Iris, I. reticulata, non-native

4. Winter aconite, a very early bloomer for us. Some patches bloomed in February.

5. Hellebores, also called lenten rose. These often start blooming in January and last for months.

6. Daffodils, of course!

7. Bloodroot, a native. The flowers last but a day, and emerge before the leaves. The leaves you see in this picture are for wood poppies and periwinkle.

8. Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, Mom's favorite. They only last a short time then totally disappear until the next spring.

9. Tulips, another favorite.

10. Phlox stolonifera, Sherwood purple, is in the foreground and bluebells are behind. It's a great groundcover along our front walk.

11. Here's a European type of dogtooth violet, and its blooms are much more prolific than the native species. The native version is also called troutlily, and can be found with bluebells in the wild. They're lovely in the wild, but you won't see this many blooming so close to one another.

12. Here's a white version of the native dwarf crested iris, I. cristata. The photo of the blue variety was too washed out and looked nearly white.

13. Of course we had to include azaleas. We have some red, white, purple, and pink ones. They certainly make the yard very colorful.

~J&B

Mancat Monday with Jake

Here I am surveying my kingdom. I've posted a similar pose before, but this time the flowers are in bloom in the background.

~Jake

Strolling Sunday with Bathsheba

It was a beautiful warm day today-temps in the 80s. It seems that we've gone from winter to summer in just a few short days.

Here I am walking through our lower garden. This time of year it's filled with Virginia bluebells and wood poppies. You can see a few trilliums (T. grandiflorum), the white flowers on the left. Cream violets (v. striata) are visible at the bottom of the photos. There is also some Greek valerian just below and to the right of the trilliums, but they resemble the bluebells unless you biggify the photo. Mom makes us learn the names of all these flowers!

Happy Earth Day!

~Bathsheba

Sleepy Sunday

Oh, it was a day for sleeping! Cold and rainy outside, it was warm and snuggly inside. Here I am on my loveseat. I even have my catnip banana with me.

And Bathsheba slept on her favorite kitchen chair, except that she's not truly asleep in this picture. I think the flash made her open her eye a crack.

Bathsheba told everyone about my little indiscretion yesterday. I just can't help it! Anyway, I didn't mind being out on the deck despite the chill. I could keep my eye on the bird feeders. If you biggify this picture and look at the middle feeder, you can see a white-breasted nuthatch. They're cool little birds that descend upside down from trees. Here he is hanging onto the wire mesh that holds a cake of suet on the bottom of this feeder. Dad made it to try to keep the starlings out of it. The other suet feeder to the right does a pretty good job at that too.

Mom made me include another photo of the garden, and since she is helping me blog, I thought that I'd indulge her. There are mostly Virginia bluebells in this bed, and the yellow blooms are wood poppies.

The winds are starting to howl tonight. I'm glad I'm toasty and warm in the house.

~Jake

Thomasina!

Last night we didn't get to blog because Mom decided that she wanted to watch the DVD The Three Lives of Thomasina with me instead. Skeezix's Food Lady sent it to Mom, who hadn't seen it since she was a little girl.













Isn't Thomasina a beautiful ginger kitty? Gingers are rarely females; maybe that's why she was originally named Thomas.





Anyway, Mom and I snuggled in and watched the movie. Mom got those leaky eyes that everyone always talks about, but she had a box of tissues at the ready. I did my best to console her because I knew that everything would turn out well for Thomasina. Why? Well, because she's a CAT.


Today we hung around the house. Jake got in a bit of trouble this morning because Mom found something that he had peed on. She tried to clean it up with vinegar before Dad found out, but he smelled the vinegar so she told him. Jake had to go and stay out on the deck for a few hours, but was back in the house soon thereafter because he's a craftly little charmer.


It was another cold spring day, and there was a bit of rain. Mom and Dad had wanted to go on a wildflower walk, but with the overcast weather and forecast for rain, they stayed home. The beautiful little spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) that complement the Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) along the banks of the Bull Run only open their petals in full sunshine.

Later tonight and tomorrow, it is supposed to rain hard, and wind will follow for the next couple of days. Despite the low temperatures, the flowers in our yard look beautiful.



In the foreground are Phlox stolonifera (sherwood purple) and the blue clump behind contains Virginia bluebells.




These are non-native trout lilies, aka dogtooth violets. The native variety is difficult to cultivate in a garden.


Mom likes to garden, and I like to help her by just keeping her company out there--when the weather is nice.


~Bathsheba