LostWoods Blog

All is well on the Basia front. No babies and no signs of imminent labor and delivery. But she didn’t want me to get out of bed this morning. She was happily lounging on my chest with her paws on my chin and cheek, purring as loud as she could. I moved her off me so I could get up and she was right back on me before I could even sit up in bed. Eventually I insisted, but I really would have liked to stay there.

So the geekiness… I posted info about the kitten cam yesterday, then spent some time last night neglecting email and other pressing items in favor of playing with webcams some more. I discovered that my netbook (an HP Mini Notes 2133) has a built in webcam. So I set it up to broadcast on my website, too. The camera isn’t very good so the picture quality isn’t great. Also, it uploads still images in a series rather than a true live video stream. It’s supposed to automatically refresh, but I’ve had issues with it quitting the auto refresh. You might have to refresh the page to get updated pictures. If a refresh doesn’t work, either the camera is stopped or nothing is moving in the room. The link to that camera is:

www.lostwoodswegies.com/kittencam

And as if that wasn’t enough, I set up the built in webcam in my Dell laptop to also broadcast on the internet, using the software that came with it. It, too, broadcasts a series of still images rather than live streaming video. However, it refreshes automatically. It’s a little distracting as it reloads the pictures. Not ideal, but another way of watching what is going on. Link:

http://www.lostwoodswegies.com/kittencam2

Both of the above provide larger pictures than the video stream I talked about yesterday. But the live image is clearer and well, LIVE. The camera I use for it is the best of the webcams I have. It’s what I’ll use when kittens arrive to focus in on them in their bed and kennel. But by using all three cameras right now, I’m able to position them in various locations so I can see almost the entire room and keep a closer eye on Basia. Poor girl — no privacy, no place to hide! Okay, not quite true, there are a couple places she can go, including opening the closet door and going in there, but not many. Another advantage of using more than one camera and different software is it provides options for viewing if you don’t have a Windows Media Player compatible pc or don’t have ActiveX or…

I hope you’ll all enjoy watching Buzzy (and her kittens when they arrive.) If  you have comments about the cameras, send them my way. I’m trying to figure out what will work best for the most people. Your feedback will help me provide a better viewing experience. Yikes! That sounded like I’m in marketing or something! (No offense intended to those of you who might be in sales or marketing — I only mean that I’m usually not that person! LOL!) Anyway, I really do want to know what you think.

Err… make that the Buzzy Cam, for now. Yes, there is a live webcam running, broadcasting from the hippo room/office at LostWoods. Two ways to watch:

www.lostwoodswegies.com/kitten_cam

www.lostwoods.camstreams.com

On the Camstreams site it’s limited to 15 viewers — I’m not sure if that limitation still applies if you watch on my website. So please, if you go to watch the Buzzy Kitten Cam and you get a message telling you anything about no connections available (or similar message that would indicate it’s at the limit,) please send me a quick note and tell me the message, date, and time. Camstreams do occasionally allow the limit to be increased and if I find that people aren’t able to watch because of the limitation, I’ll ask if they will do it for me.

Another issue is the size of the video. It’s pretty small — which might not be bad for watching kittens, but it’s not so great for watching the entire room like I’m doing right now. In theory, I should be able to change that and I’m going to take another stab at that this evening, I think.  

That is, if someone doesn’t decide to have her babies way too early. I saw some blood-tinged discharge on her backside and on the mat in the kennel this morning. But she’s been acting fine all day and when I went home to check on her at lunch time, there was not any new discharge. I combed out her britches and cleaned her up, so I should be able to tell if that changes. But keep her in your thoughts and prayers — this is really too early for her to have the babies. Even a couple more days would make a big difference.

Back to watching Buzzy on the internet and trying to get some work. News as it happens.

I may have mentioned that we call Dawnflower “Chompers”. I know, yet another terrible name replacing a perfectly good — and pretty! — name. In case I hadn’t explained, she earned that name because she’s an ankle and foot biter who loves to ambush us. She also is a paper towel shredder, but the chomping is the more memorable of her traits as far as Ken is concerned. But I’m still laughing about the demonstration so gave tonight that further proves Chompers is a perfect name for her.

I was sitting in the living with Jeremy watching TV. Colter (our 75 pound dog) was lying on the rug, hanging out, minding his own business. Along comes Chompers and plops her little self down by his back legs. And proceeds to start chewing on his leg!!!

Colter just ignored her. (He’s such a tolerant dog!) I started laughing and Jeremy informed me that she does this on a regular basis. The first time she chomped Colter he looked at her with a “what do you think you’re doing?!” look and growled a little bit at her, but she just ignored him and continued chewing away. So now he ignores her.

After a few minutes, Colter spotted a neighbor walking his dogs along the edge of our property. He got up and walked over to the patio door to get a better look at them. Chompers, not done with her gnawing and tormenting, wrapped her paws around his leg and chomped as he walked. And still Saint Colter just put up with it.

We love our Miss Chompers, but even I’ve got to admit she’s a little strange. Wait — I say that about almost all my cats, don’t I?

And speaking of chomping, here’s new pictures of Galia that Connie sent me last night. I don’t think she’s terribly into chomping people, but she’s an absolute pro at destroying cardboard.

Connie reports that Galia (now known as Olivia Galia, Ollie, Squawk, and a number of other names — see it’s not just me who renames her cats!) and Zelda — the baby of Connie’s furry family prior to Galia’s arrival — are now BFFs. Sounds like she’s doing great in Colorado with her Connie-mom and new siblings.

And going back to strange cats before I close, Talia is at it again. No screaming and carrying on wanting a man, she just wants children. In the absence of kittens to mother, she is now allowing Rand to nurse. This time I don’t think there’s milk — especially since this has only been going on for a day or so. If this continues, she’s going to be really happy about Buzzy’s babies.

Oh yeah, some of the time the kitten cam is running. You may have to manually refresh the screen while I work out some problems. And the best choice of viewing (right now anyway) is to do Simple Page Refreshment. Who knows what you’ll see!

The future kitten cam is running! Okay, right now it’s just broadcasting a lovely view of the hippo room, but it’s up! It will probably be up and down over the next two weeks as I play with it, but it should be up full time as of about the 1st or 2nd so I can keep an eye on Basia while I’m at work. Jeremy told me last night (the cynicism of a teenage boy who has had quite enough of cats, kittens, and the chaos of living with a crazy cat lady) that he doesn’t know which is more pathetic. Me for setting up a kitten cam or the people who will watch the kitten cam. Obviously, he just doesn’t know how much we love seeing kittens! I told him I was sure there would be plenty of people who will watch them — who are probably looking forward to it. Don’t let me down, okay? Here’s the link, but like I said, it’s just showing the hippo room right now and will go up and down, so who knows what you’ll see if you check it out!

http://www.lostwoodswegies.com/kitten_cam

I was going to post the show report from the Denver show, but it’s not displaying correctly. So here’s the link:

http://ticamembers.org/showrep/2009/090314b.htm

Look at all the Norwegian Forest Cats! (Look for NF following the cat’s name.) It was a great weekend of showing off the fur kids!  

I’m back from my sudden whirlwind trip to Colorado. I had a great time seeing everyone and the show results for the NFCs were an incredible added bonus! When the show report for the show is posted I’ll have to share the full results with you. In the meantime, here’s the short story. (Or maybe not so short — you know me!)

There were six NFC kittens entered in the show. Four of them were Keegan and McCoy’s babies bred and owned by Deb O’Shaughnessy. There were four NFCs in Champion class — McCoy, Deb’s ForestKatz Gabriel of AZWegie, Sondra’s Vanir Maverick of Rockatts, and Ouijakatz Nova. There were three NFCs in Alter class, including LostWoods Colyn, owned by Kris Main.

Let me just say that Keegan and McCoy’s babies are ADORABLE! And beautiful! They are so sweet and friendly — I could have kidnapped every one of them and brought them home with me. And the really cool part (as far as the show goes) is that the judges thought so, too. On Saturday, every single kitten final had at least two wegie kittens in the final and two of the six rings had THREE NFC kittens in the final! All four of Deb’s kittens were in several finals over the course of the weekend and Shane MIGHT have been the best kitten in the show. I’m not sure… didn’t have all the finals written down and didn’t do the math, but he should be pretty close, if not the best. He got three Best Kitten finals, as well as a number of other placements. Scarlett and Fantasia also each got a Best Kitten final along with other finals. And Simon was in a number of finals. The judges definitely had their work cut out for them in deciding which of those gorgeous kittens deserved the breed awards.

In Champion class, McCoy, Maverick, Nova, and Gabe all got finals. Both McCoy and Maverick earned a Best LH Cat award! McCoy’s full results:

Best LH Cat, 2 – 3rd Best AB Cat, 4th Best AB Cat, 5th Best AB Cat, 6th Best AB Cat, 2 – 7th Best AB Cat, and a 9th Best AB Cat. Plus he was the 2nd Best Cat in the Male Congress. (I know, I’ve never explained Congresses to you. Keeping reading… I’ll tack that on after I’m done babbling about results.) For those keeping track, that’s finals in 9 of the 12 regular rings, plus the Congress. I know you’re going to ask for new pictures and I intended to get some, but in the crazy running from ring to ring, we didn’t get it done. But he is a magnificent big cat. No wonder his and Keegan’s babies are so spectacular!

In alter class, Colyn and one of the other wegies (Winteridge Black Forest, aka Java) got finals in nearly every ring — if not every ring. That is, one or the other of them was in every final, I think. Honestly, I lost track, so I’ll have to wait for the show report to know for sure. But I do know that Colyn got a Best LH Alter award!

Okay, Congresses… in TICA (The International Cat Association), some shows have Congresses where cats compete in a different grouping than the normal AB or Specialty Kitten, Champion, or Alter class format. Sometimes it’s by breed, sometimes by color, sometimes by a group of breeds (at the upcoming HotLanta show in Atlanta, there will be a Northern Lights Congress for NFCs, Maine Coons, and Siberians adults) or by sex. At this show, there were two Congresses — one for adult male cats and the other for females. You generally have to enter and pay extra for a Congress. They are scored for points just like the other rings.

We all had a lot of fun — shows are a blast when your cats are rewarded as much as the NFCs were in this show. And beyond that, we just plain had fun. We hung out and chatted. We did a little shopping. We ate. We joked around. We teased Deb for being such a flake — including taking Scarlett to a final and putting her in the cage with Simon’s number on it. (Simon was the one she should have taken.) I saw Scarlett was missing from the benching cage, but scooped up Simon figuring that Scarlet was being judged elsewhere, only to get to the ring and spot Scarlett sitting in his cage and the judge looking puzzled — Scarlett was not the kitten she’d remembered! LOL! Deb was running on little sleep and we all decided that my job was to keep track of her and the cats all weekend.

Another of my duties for the weekend was to help take care of Keegan’s newest babies. Keeg had mastitis a few weeks ago and has been producing less milk since, so Deb had been hand feeding the babies. The babies weren’t doing very well and after a number of emails back and forth last week, Deb took them in to the vet. Sadly, they lost four of the eight kittens. But the remaining four are on meds and Deb was still feeding them, giving them fluids and trying to get them to eat solid food. The good news about all this is that the meds really helped and the babies finally decided that solid food was good over the weekend. One of the little red guys was so enamored with solid food that I came back to the room Sunday afternoon to see he had climbed up on the big cat food dispenser and was standing in the bowl eating the big cats’ food! I am hopeful that they’ve all turned the corner and will now grow and thrive.

Keegan purred every time she saw me and spent some time snuggling on the bed with me.  I don’t know if she really remembered me or if she was just happy about the wet food I kept dishing up every few hours. Either way, it was great to get to love on Keegan. She was one of my special babies and she hurt me more than most to give up. I sat on the floor with her and the babies yesterday morning for awhile before I finally had to catch the shuttle to the airport. She was nursing the babies and I wanted to scoop up the entire family and take them home with me. Good thing I was flying, not driving.

Upcoming attractions… I am researching software and the how to of setting up a webcam so you can see Buzzy’s babies live on the internet once they arrive. I hope to have it up and running the week before her due date so I can keep an eye on her while I’m at work. I think… not sure yet… that I’m going to let her have the babies in the hippo room. I have to clean, organize, and move a bit of furniture in there to make it safer for her, but she really loves being in there. And since that’s now my home office, I spend a lot of time in there, too. It might just be the place for Buzzy and her babies to be — at least until they are old enough to move into Ken and my bedroom. Anyway, once I have the webcam up and running, I’ll be sure to post something about it. And, of course, once I get it all figured out, I’ll use it for future babies, too — not just Buzzy’s! 

 Starting with the Rand update… Rand got his stitches out last week and is doing fine. The head tilt is still there and if you look very closely, his eyelid on the left side droops just a little. This is probably a very mild case of Horner’s Syndrome, caused by nerve damage during the surgery. It almost always will resolve over time. As I said, you have to look very closely to even notice it. The thing I notice most about Rand is that he is more kitten-like than he’s been for a long time. It’s not that he wasn’t active and playful before the surgery, but he’s even more so now. It’s hard to really put into words accurately, but I guess I’d say that he’s more carefree.

Basia is continuing to “blossom”. She has decided she wants to have the kittens in the hippo room/my office. When she’s not talking me into letting her in there, she has taken to lounging on the kitten scratching couch in the living room. Here are a couple pictures of her from this weekend on her new throne.

Those were taken as part of a bunch of shots I took of the LostWoods kitties during nap time this past weekend. They were all over the living room and looked so peaceful. Here are some other photos.

Back in Virginia, Crenshaw’s mom finally got to take some pictures of her boy in the snow. She’s been waiting all winter for this! Here are some of my favorites.

And last in the photo updates for the day, one of Magic’s professional shots from a show in January.

I’m off to Colorado tomorrow afternoon thanks to the generosity of a dear friend. I cannot wait to see Brenda, Sondra, and Deb — not to mention my son, Justin. I’m not showing anyone, but I’m sure I’ll be very busy helping everyone else.

I need to post the story and pictures of my painting efforts a couple weekends ago. Connie K, you’ll love the pink and green reference! Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow before I leave. I’ll try… I also want to remind all of you that this is the last week to purchase tickets for the HCM fundraiser raffle. There are some great prizes and the money goes to a wonderful cause! More info is in my post about the raffle about a month ago.