LostWoods Blog

Pictures, as promised, and a few more details.

The theme for this litter is the Warrior Cats from a series of books that Sondra’s girls love. Oh, yes, I’ve read them, too, and they are good. (www.warriorcats.com) We’ve named all except the dark boy. Notice I say “dark” boy. That’s because the jury is still out as to whether he’s a black and white, or a cold brown tabby & white. Now that I’ve seen pictures, I’m leaning toward black and white, but we’ll see if more tabby markings develop over the next few days. Right now he has some faint stripes on his tail, but it’s possible they are just ghost markings.

Kitten one is a boy, as I mentioned before. His name will be either Feathertail or Thunderstar. Kitten two is a girl, named Tawnypelt. Kitten three is a girl, named Brightheart. She’s the one with lots and lots of white. Kitten four is a boy, named Firestar. He has a lot of white, too, but not as much as Brightheart. Kitten five is another girl, named Dawnflower. She’s the one with the patches of brown and red.  

I can’t update my website from work, so you’re just going to have to check back tonight for individual pictures of the kittens. I do have them and all I can say is, Danica and McCoy did good! These babies are absolutely darling!!! I just wish I could see them in person, but that will have to wait all the way until mid-July when I go through Colorado on my way to Wichita Falls. But I’m sure Sondra, her family, Brenda and Grant will love these babies half to death — like they do all the kittens.

Just a preliminary report… I’m waiting for Danica’s other mom Sondra and our faithful friend and assistant midwife, Brenda, to determine the sexes of the kittens and send me pictures. And maybe even names… But just to whet your appetite (as mine has been), here’s the news from Colorado. (Sondra’s account of the events, slightly edited by me.)

At 3:20 this morning Sondra’s daughter came in to tell her she woke up to a kitten crying. So kitten one was born about 3:20 am and is a brown and white male who weighed 4.2 oz. Sondra called Brenda and she came over to find that now kitten two had been born just as she walked in. A red and white, lots of red and this one weighed 4.1 oz. They were a little worried when they cut the cord and it started to bleed so they called me but all is fine. Kitten two was born at 3:32 am. At 3:58 kitten three made it’s way into the world. Another red and white but this one has a ton of white and a really big inverted V on the forehead. Darling. Kitten three weighs 4.0 oz. No wonder she was so big huh?! But she was still big and so they knew another was in there and sure enough at 4:40 am kitten 4 was born. Scared them a bit as this one was breech and just as Sondra was about to help the head out, Dani gave another push and out the baby came and is fine. Brenda said she thought this one was a big one and she was right, kitten 4, another red and white, a good mix of both, weighed 4.5 oz. So Brenda had to leave so she could get ready for work, but still another was on the way. Brenda was not here to see kitten 5 born at 5:02 am but it came probably by the time she got home. This one is for sure a girl since she is a patch tabby much like her mommy. She is the smallest but still weighed in at 3.8 oz. Mom and babies are doing fine and Sondra will try to get pictures later.

Like Sondra said, it’s no wonder Danica was so big. Five babies is a big litter for an NFC and their birth weights are all above average. Since then I’ve talked to Sondra on the phone and she reports that Dani has thoroughly cleaned herself and the kittens and the whole little family is settled down to contentedly sleep and nurse. I can’t wait to see pictures!!!

As requested… or at least partially meeting a request… here’s a six month picture of Rand I took a couple weeks ago.

Taiba… well that little miss is a pain to photograph because she always — and I do mean ALWAYS — talks to the teaser. So all I get are weird pictures with her mouth open and her eyes all squinty. I keep trying. Really, I do! So one of these days I just know I’ll catch her with her mouth shut, eyes open, and doing justice to her pretty self.

More news when I have it.

Time flies… A year ago I started playing around with blogging, never expecting anyone except my family, friends, and kitten owners to read it. Since then I’ve heard from quite a few other people and discovered that my family and friends don’t read it very often at all! How funny! I was much better in the beginning about writing nearly every day, so my new year’s resolution is to get back on track and write more for you. I’ll try.

Danica has not had her babies yet, but Sondra is thinking they’ll arrive any time now. Here are a couple pictures of our very fat girl. The one of her on the toy box shows her favorite position — flat out on her tummy on some cool, hard surface.

The Winter Gifts are 14 weeks old today. Keona and Isadora have their health certificates and are ready to get on planes to their new homes. It’s looking like Keona will be able to leave Friday afternoon, but Izzy will have to wait until Saturday. Izzy has to be on the earliest flight out of Helena in order to make her connections across the country and the Thursday and Friday early morning flights are full. So I get an extra day or so to play and cuddle with her. There’s a new group shot of them on the web site, along with their 14 week pictures.

Xaria came home with me from Oregon. It’s a long story, but comes down to she wasn’t a good fit for Heather and Patrick’s home right now. I’ll be looking for a new home for her. Brenda and I have a lead that she is following up, so maybe that will work out. Here are a few pictures of her.

Oh, by the way, Comet has been adopted by a couple in Colorado Springs. They are crazy about him and he seems very happy with them. He’s close enough that Brenda can visit now and then, and she’s going to show him a little this winter in Premiership.

Speaking of Brenda and our boys… She took McCoy to a TICA show in Albuquerque last weekend. Our Smack earned finals in six rings, including a Best. She has yet to send me the complete list, but as soon as I get it from her, I’ll update the Show News page with his results. He’s more than likely a Quadruple Grand Champion in TICA now, needing only a few more points and another Best to be a Supreme Grand Champion.

I have more show news coming up… The results aren’t official yet in TICA, so I’ll wait a little longer and put all the LostWoods season award brags in one post. It was a pretty good year for some of our babies and grandbabies.

Yes, I made it out here safe and sound and have been hanging out with Heather, Patrick, Braysen, and baby Merrick. We’ve been blessed with a couple days of sunny weather, so we’ve had a chance to spend some time outside and also go to the park. Braysen thinks that plants need to be fed with rocks, so he has spent a lot of time dropping rocks onto the shrubs in Heather and Patrick’s front yard. I’m not sure why rocks are the food of choice, but he spends long (for a two year old) periods of time “feeding” them.

Also in the plant front… this morning Braysen got in trouble for playing in the dirt in the potted plant in the family room. I got out the vacuum and cleaned up his mess. Not ten minutes later he did it again. And I cleaned it up again. Then we went to the park for a little bit. After we got home, while we were all getting and eating lunch, Braysen once again visited the plant. He took a handful of dirt and neatly piled it up on the floor beside the pot. Then he got the toy vacuum out and proceeded to take it to clean up the dirt. I had to go into the kitchen so he wouldn’t hear me laughing at him, leaving H & P to deal with their little mess maker. Kids!

I’ve taken pictures of Braysen, Merrick, and Xaria so far. The sweetest one I got of the boys has Braysen sitting on the floor holding Merrick’s hand.

It’s not the best shot I’ve taken in the past couple days, but it is certainly the one with the most “Awww!” potential. Braysen is much too busy to pose for pictures, so I just hold the camera and wait for a worthy shot. Neither he nor Merrick respond to a teaser worth a darn! LOL!

Xaria is beautiful and funny. I see a lot of her mother, the Queen of Everything, in her. She also has the most gorgeous green eyes. I’m still trying to get a shot that shows them off well. I have one, but her face was a little dirty, so I’m trying for a better one.

BTW, the runoff election for Breeder Division Secretary in NFCFA finally is over and I will be spending the next two years doing that, along with serving as By-Laws committee chairman. Going to be a busy time.

Our dog Colter (part Husky, part Golden Retriever) has been spending more time in the house lately. He’s a good dog — he’s two weeks younger than Shira and we’ve had him since shortly after she came to live with us, so he grew up knowing the cats and learning that touching the cats was unacceptable behavior. Not in time for him to refrain from carrying Shira by her tail and injuring it, but he has never hurt a cat or kitten since. Of course, we don’t leave him with the kittens unsupervised as one wrong move — however unintentional — could seriously injure or even kill a kitten. When he’s in the house, he lies down on near the couch and chews on his bones or toys, happy to be hanging out with us.

Basia is fascinated by Colter. She watches him closely and has inspected him from all angles. He ignores her. The last few times he’s been in the house, she decided to go a little further. She sits down on the floor about six inches away. Then she reached out and touched his nose. Repeatedly. Petting him, maybe? She bats at his paws. She rolls around on the floor looking up at him, almost begging him to play with her. He ignores her. The only time he ever reacts is if she gets too close to his bone. Then he makes a kind of snorty sound to warn her away.

It’s pretty funny to watch her. I think she really is trying to make friends with Colter. Or maybe she’s just taunting him. I prefer to think that her sweet self just wants to be friends.

Off to Oregon in the morning. I’ll stay until at least the 10th, and most likely the 11th, so no new photos of the Winter Gifts this week. I probably will write in the blog once or twice while I’m gone though. Heather and Patrick have one of my kittens — Xaria from the Wedding Gifts litter — so I’ll try to get some pictures of her for you all. And I plan to go visit another person or two in the area that have NFCs, so maybe I’ll have some pictures of them as well.  

As you probably noticed, I didn’t take pictures last night. The girls were all very tired and grumpy after vaccinations and a routine blood draw to do a FeLV/FIV test at the vet’s office yesterday afternoon. So I let them snuggle up in the blankets and take naps. They returned the favor by letting me take group photos tonight. Here’s one I think is amusing because they all posed alike.

There is another one on the website along with their individual pictures.

The vet appointment went fine — everyone is right at, or just short of 3 pounds. Just right for their age. They behaved very well and were declared “perfect”. The FeLV/FIV test — done routinely for each litter — was negative as expected.

Kefira, who has weaned the kittens, has taken a page from Kalispell’s book and has been regularly “killing” the pink plastic baby spoon and calling to the babies. Apparently her lessons in hunting are sinking in, as I’ve seen the little girls carrying the pink spoon around, too. Luckily, they all like “killing” toy mice, so I don’t think they are completely domesticated yet. LOL!

In other developmental milestones, they all have started getting up on the dining room table — and often nap there. I apologize to their new owners for letting them learn bad habits, but it’s impossible to keep everyone off the table and counters. I try harder when it comes to counters (yes, they can get up there, too) but since we don’t eat at the table all the much, I don’t fuss a lot about it. It’s Bug’s favorite place to nap, after all!

One last thing… I added a picture of Merrick to yesterday’s post so if you want to see him, he’s there now.

The newest addition to the family arrived yesterday afternoon — a 9 pound 1 ounce, highly anticipated baby boy. Merrick Conner is the son of my daughter Heather and her husband Patrick. I don’t have pictures yet. Don’t they know proud grandparents who live hundreds of miles away need pictures the second he’s born? Or at least within hours? I will post one or two here once I have some to share. I will be headed out to Oregon on Saturday morning to spend a week getting acquainted with the little man, as well as having some fun with my other grandson, Braysen.

(Photo added 05/01/2008)

In case you haven’t noticed — in case you’ve been waiting for me to tell you about them — I posted 11 1/2 week photos on Saturday. Then the Winter Gifts finally decided they would introduce themselves to the world yesterday, so their story is in the Cat Tails section: http://www.lostwoodswegies.com/cat_tails54.htm. They say they are sorry for being such delinquents. Sorta.

Tomorrow the little beasties go off to the vet for their second set of vaccinations. I can’t believe they will be 12 weeks old tomorrow! Izzy will be leaving in two weeks — just as soon as she gets her health cert, turns 14 weeks and the weather is acceptable. Her new mom and dad are so excited. Brenda and I need to decide when we’ll be able to meet up so Keona can go to Colorado. Yes, Brenda has decided Keona is her girl. Ohanna is going out west and I’ll deliver her in person to her new mom in Chehalis, WA in mid-June at a TICA show. Natane is still hoping someone will love her forever. In the meantime, we’ll continue to spoil her rotten. I should have time to take pictures of them after we get home, but I may wait until Thursday evening — especially since I just took new ones on Saturday.

Rand has a likely new home — a home that is willing to wait until I’m completely comfortable with allowing him to leave. I still worry about lingering issues from his ear infection. He still has his head tilt. I’ll get him neutered, wait for him to recover, then work out the details for his adoption if everything looks okay. Here’s a picture I took of him a week or so ago.

He has a wonderful coat — thick, plush, long, and so soft! I love touching it. His personality has just blossomed, too. He loves to sleep with us and in the middle of the night he’ll decide he is in dire need of loves. Then he walks around on the bed purring and trilling, with the occasional little meow mixed in. It’s cute — if a bit disruptive to our sleep. But he’s such a doll, who could be mad for long?

I have other news — non-cat news — that I’ll share tomorrow. I’m hoping to have a picture to accompany the news, but even if I don’t get one, I’ll share. Promise! A hint… I’ll be heading off to Oregon on Saturday to spend a week.

Most of today will be free for some sightseeing or shopping or a bit of both. Our ride to the airport leaves at 2:30 so I’m free until then. I don’t have a lot of room in my suitcase, so lots of shopping is out of the question — not to mention what it does to my budget. However, I can’t pass up the chance to visit a few stores that we don’t have in Helena in search of things I just have to have.

Yesterday we finished up about 5:00 p.m. I came back to the hotel, freshened up, and took the train to NJ to meet up with Barbara Chronakis, her husband George, and their beautiful cats — the wegies of Kashi Saga. I’d send you off to Barbara’s website to meet them, but as yet she doesn’t have a site. Hopefully that will soon be remedied as her cats are absolutely stunning. Barbara has been a NFC breeder for many years and was full of stories about the history of the cats here in the United States. She is also an avid pedigree tracker and knows a ton about the lines here in the U.S. especially — not just which cats are in the lines, but about the health issues that have occured in some of the lines. Our time together just flew by and I wish we were closer so we could have more enjoyable evenings (or weekends in the show hall) together.

Well, if I’m going to get anything more than packing done this morning, I need to make this short. I can’t wait to get home to see my babies. It was great to get my kitty fix and some cuddles from Barbara’s cats (they were sweet and friendly as well as beautiful) but it’s not the same as having my own cats around me, cuddled up to me when I sleep.

Oh, baby news… Heather still hasn’t delivered my new grandson. He’s not due until May 1st, but she and her midwife both were just sure he’d arrive early — especially since she’s been having contractions for several weeks and ended up in the hospital once, with both Heather and the staff thinking it was the real deal. But no. Not yet.

…or not so phun (fun)…

Greetings for sorta sunny Philadelphia. I’m waiting for a backup profile to regenerate so I can do a restore, so I thought I’d take a short mental health break and write in the blog. Much more fun than real work.

Our phun filled five day trip started out with omens of the doom to come. It snowed quite a bit on Saturday night, and we had light snow continuing on Sunday morning. Our flight was scheduled to leave Helena for Minneapolis (then on the Philadelphia) at 8:00 a.m. Unfortunately, both (yes, Helena’s airport is small enough that it has just two, count ‘em TWO) de-icing trucks broke down. We did not leave Helena until 10:30. Then we had to stop in Billings to refuel — something necessitated by a very full flight and the need to keep the fuel load light to get us over the mountains and out of the Helena Valley.

We landed in Billings, refueled, and were de-iced. Off we taxied to the run-up area where we sat waiting for Flight Operations to recalculate the weight and balance for our flight. Somehow they had lost our flight info… We sat there so long they sent us back to the terminal to be de-iced again. Finally we were back in the air on the way to Minneapolis. As you can guess, we missed our connection in MSP. Part of the group was rescheduled on a flight leaving MSP at 4:10, but some of us (me included) weren’t able to get a flight until 7:45. We finally made it to the hotel in Philadelphia just past midnight.

Yesterday morning we started all our work at about 9:45 a.m. (The mainframe and network staff started earlier, but without their parts working, I couldn’t do all that much.) We had a fairly decent day yesterday and miracle of miracles, we went back to the hotel around 8 p.m. Had dinner and a couple drinks, went to bed.

We started work again this morning about 8 and have had our ups and downs. We had hoped to have everything up and available for testing by late afternoon (like right about now) but one group will have to be rescheduled for morning, meaning we won’t be able to tear down until midday. But it’s still looking good for getting done at a decent time tomorrow — which means I’ll get to go to dinner with a local NFC breeder and get a kitty fix. It’s hard being away from cats completely for even one day, let alone several days. It’s just not right to go to sleep without a cat in my bed!

I haven’t posted a song of the day since Christmas time, but I’ll share a few that seem to be theme songs for recent days — two for the DR drill and one for NFCFA…

DR -

Sloop John B - Beach Boys (referring to our travel phun & games)

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beach+boys/sloop+john+b_20013644.html

M.T. A. - Kingston Trio (this relates to how we felt stuck on the planes, waiting and waiting for de-icing in both Helena and Billings)

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_kingston_trio/m_t_a.html

NFCFA

Whistling in the Dark - They Might Be Giants

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/they-might-be-giants/whistling-in-the-dark.html

Well, I suppose I ought to get back to work. My restore is nearing completion, at which time we may be ready to restore something else. Maybe.