LostWoods Blog

Well, I didn’t get the bonus shots of the kittens posted this week. They are on the LostWoods Facebook page but I feel obligated to at least say something interesting – or try – when I post here and that takes time as well as something original to say. I’ll make sure I get some extra three week pictures posted here after I take photos this weekend or Monday. They are getting funny and cuter by the minute. The other night Tanith was toddling around the kennel and decided to “attack” Dawnie. She reached over and swatted Dawnie’s face, then fell over. They are starting to wash themselves — or try anyway. Mostly they lick at their paws and flail around. I gave them some toys the other evening, but so far they could care less.

I’m working this weekend, then will be taking next Thursday through Monday off to go to Colorado. A quick visit to my parents, then Denver for the TICA cat show, and home again with McCoy. Basia, Danica, and Kefira will all be excited to see him. And then I’ll probably be in the same shape as Deb at AZWegie – three litters born very close together and a bunch of kittens wreaking havoc in my house. Not that I’ll really be complaining or anything! LOL! I won’t be home until Monday, so I know that the four week pictures will be at least a day late. Maybe two.

Speaking of Deb and the AZWegie clan, Fantasia had her babies last week and I have a photo of the contented mother and her beautiful babies that I’ll include in this post. And as I’m writing this post, Scarlet is in labor with Keegan showing signs of delivering any time, too. Gabe (dad to Dawnflower’s Valentines) is the dad of Fantasia’s kittens and of Scarlet’s soon-to-be-born litter. McCoy is the dad of Keegan’s litter. I can’t wait to see the latest additions to the AZWegie family!

I did spend a little bit of time last night posting the latest pictures of Tori’s babies to the ForestKatz website. Donna took new pictures last night and sent them to me. I thought I better get them added to the site before I lost these, too. BTW, Jim and Donna are having problems coming up with a theme and names for this litter, so maybe we ought to help them out. If you send me suggestions, I’ll be sure to pass them on. This is Tori’s last litter, then she’s retiring from motherhood to rule the house full time. She’s been an awesome mom-cat and I’m sure Donna will miss watching her raise her babies to be the fearless, friendly, and smart cats they are. If you ever have the opportunity to talk with Donna in person, ask her to tell you some stories about Tori’s mothering… I guarantee you’ll laugh until you cry. After hearing them, you, too will likely agree with Donna’s assessment that if Tori had thumbs, she’d run the world and we’d all be her slaves. In a couple of the pictures of the kittens, you’ll also see Tori hanging out.

A short update this evening. If you’ve been watching the kitten cam you might have noticed that Dawnie and the Valentines have moved from their bed to the kennel. Dawnie had been spending a bit more time outside the bed, stretching out to take naps when the babies didn’t need her. The bed is a little cramped for her, so I can understand why she’d rest outside it. So I moved the kittens across the room to the kennel last night.

Dawnie sniffed them and the kennel, then went to sit in the bed, giving me dirty looks for daring to move her kids. I picked her up and put her back in the kennel and she consented to stay with the babies. And at least this evening, she mostly stays there even when the kittens are sleeping. All in all, a better place for the whole family.

The kittens were all little piggies in the past 24 hours. Taavi gained a full ounce while Tanith and Carywyn each gained ,9 ounces. That’s about three times what I expect in a day. They probably won’t keep that up, but it’s always nice to see them have a great day.

I realized last night that I hadn’t told you all that Torianna had her litter of kittens awhile back. This is her last litter and soon she will be retiring to be the Queen of Everything full time at ForestKatz. There are a few pictures of her kittens on their site if you’d like to see her kids. I need to nag Jim and Donna for new pictures of them so I can update their site. I also have a few pictures of Lucy’s litter to post as three of her kids are still in need of homes. If you’re looking for a kitten right now, Jim and Donna would love to hear from you.

I’ve been meaning to post these pictures all week and just haven’t gotten to it. Bill and Kaye sent me some new pictures of Odin Kyrith (from the New Companions litter). He’s a big handsome boy — reminds me very much of his older sister, Lira Bug.

I also have some pictures of Keegan from my trip to WY last weekend.

Dawnflower is home and is looking gorgeous. She feels pregnant with her round tummy, but she’s not hugely rounded yet. But I wouldn’t expect that quite yet. Give her another week or so. The first couple days she was home she was being very hesitant with the other cats. I put her in the guest room the first couple nights and during the day I’d just let one or two of the other cats — mostly Talia and Natane — go upstairs during the day. That way Dawnie could be out of the guest room and reacquaint herself with her surroundings without worrying about the other cats. Basia was being the meanest, and she got exiled to Jeremy’s former bedroom for the day on Tuesday. She’s been much nicer since then. I will try to get some new pictures of Dawnie this weekend. Now Dawnie is roaming the house and playing like she never left. She is very excited about our nightly games of little red fairly.

Another thing I need to do this weekend if I get time is scan some pictures of Lander (from the Little Lions litter) and some pictures of Seely (the Joyful litter) so I can share them with you. Both boys look wonderful!

One last note… I set up a page for LostWoods in Facebook. If you’re on FB and want to become a fan, do a search for LostWoods Norwegian Forest Cats. If I remember, I’ll update this post with a link this evening. (but don’t hold your breath… I’ve been awfully forgetful lately!)

Dear Daddy-Jim and Momma-Donna,

lisa-mom says you read this blog sometimes so I went in the office while she was at work, found where she wrote down the new password, and decided to tell you — and the whole rest of the world — how mean my lisa-mom is. I want to come back to Texas where it’s warm!

It’s been cold here for awhile now. Remember when I was just little and I told you I thought snow looked like a soft blanket? Well, the first time lisa-mom let me check out the snow I learned that it is NOT!!!! It’s cold and wet and HORRIBLE! I do NOT like it! I do NOT want to be in it! I do NOT even want to sit by the door and watch it come down like some other stupid cats I could name. (Some of them even want to go out in it. Stupid, I tell you!)

lisa-mom knows how I feel about snow. But she teases me all the time and tells me how my coat will keep me warm and I should go outside and let her take pictures. I tell her no. I go hide when she opens the door. I said Grandma Shira wants HER picture taken in the snow. So does Uncle Spaz. But what does she do? She THROWS ME OUT INTO THE SNOW! It was so deep, it’s a wonder I didn’t get lost trying to find my way back to the house. I stood there shivering and looking mad and what did she do? She crouched down with that stupid camera and took my picture. Me, all covered in snow. Me shivering. And she laughed at me!

So as soon as I can figure out how to get to the airport without walking in the cold and the snow all that way, I’m going to charge a plane ticket to you and come back to Texas where it’s warm. lisa-mom tried to tell me it snowed there, too, but I think she’s making it up. Besides, you’d never throw me out in the snow. Would you? I love you both best. lisa-mom is mean. Ken-dad keeps telling me to chill out (I think that means he’s going to throw me in the snow, too) and to go back to Texas. Do you suppose I could him to take me to the airport? Maybe I’ll talk to him about it tonight before lisa-mom gets home.

Love,
Basia

P.S. I found my Grandma-Donna’s phone number and called her this morning just in case you don’t want me to come to Texas. She said I could come to Florida. I told her I heard that was the Sunshine State and she said that was true. That sounds like a good place to be, too. All I know is I want to go somewhere warm. All the blanket caves in the world don’t make up for being thrown in the snow!

For Fall pictures, that is. The other day when I took pictures of the little boys, I also convinced Basia to pose. Her coat has been filling in nicely in the past month and I thought Jim and Donna would like to see some new pictures of their beautiful girl.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Buzzy? She’s one of the cuddliest cats I have. She almost always sleeps with us and most mornings, as soon as I show signs of wakefulness, she comes and lies on my chest purring like crazy. She let’s me pick her up and give her kisses and often leans into my face to give me cheek rubs while we’re at it. She loves to hang out in the office with me — or even on my lap — for as long as I’m in there. When she’s not cuddling, she’s a wild girl who rarely fails to entertain me with her goofy leaps into the air and her dashes from place to place in pursuit of who knows what. I LOVE my Buzzy girl!

She does have her moments, though… like when she decides to be mean to Danica or Natane. Usually with Natane, Basia is just a little out of control in her playing. But she intends to be mean to Dani. And if I catch her doing it, she gets removed from the room and gets a stern lecture about her behavior. I don’t know if it really works, but she does seem to be a little better behaved after one of these episodes and lectures.

On a more personal note… My grandson Merrick (who is 17 1/2 months old) fell over the railing on the second floor at his house onto the floor in the front entry and fractured his skull last night. He was taken to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland and thoroughly checked out. They kept him over night, releasing him this afternoon. As scary as that sounds, he’s actually very blessed that this was not much worse than it is. He fell about 13 feet onto a hardwood floor. He has no other injuries and the CT scan did not show any evidence of bleeding or other complications with the head injury. Still, the little guy is going to have a rough couple weeks, with severe headaches until the trauma has healed a little more. And the fracture may take up to three months to heal. So please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

One more night on swing shift, then back to “normal” next week. I kind of like swing shift — I like staying up late and sleeping in. But it will be nice to be back in sync with friends and family.

Fire and Smoke are five weeks old now. They are pudgy little fur balls who think getting into everything is a fine idea. Smoke is especially big, he just plain looks like a little chunk and picking him up just confirms that. He is also the one who has the distinction of being first to climb out the top of the kennel. He accomplished that feat this morning when I was being way too slow (for him, anyway!) to get the kennel opened up for them. Their five week photos are on the website now, too.

Talia and Kalispell continue to provide most of the mothering of the boys, with Kefira just nursing them from time to time. Talia is corrupting them — teaching them to sleep under the bed with her. If I can’t find babies, that is where I’ll find them — next to the wall on my side of the bed, sound asleep with Talia.

Talia’s spay and dental went fine, although she did lose several teeth. But the first thing she did when she got home from the clinic was go upstairs and check on her babies. She has hardly left them since. I’m wondering if she’ll get over this obsession with babies now that she is spayed. I guess she’ll have to if she goes to live in New Mexico and isn’t around babies any more.

She’s also been very sweet with me lately. Don’t get me wrong, Talia is a sweet cat. But she’s always been rather reserved.  She loves to be combed, so to get her to cuddle, I’d hold her on my lap and comb her until she relaxed and would stay there, leaning against me and purring. But the last couple weeks, she’s been coming up on the bed and cuddling for a little bit every night, sometimes even cuddling up to me and staying for awhile. This is good and bad… Good because I love it when she does this. Bad because if she keeps it up I’m not going to want to let her leave in a month or so.

I’m Home!

I had a very good night and morning at the hospital (as these things go) and thanks to me being almost off the pain meds, able to get up and walk around, eating exciting semi-solid food like applesauce, and spending a chunk of my time sitting in a chair rather than the bed my doctor declared herself pleased with my progress and agreed with what I told her Sunday night before surgery — I heal pretty quickly. She’d told us before surgery that 7-10 days was my possible hospital stay, but she though it would likely be about 5 days if I did well.

I’m not totally back to myself, of course, but I feel even better today than I did yesterday. I had the energy (and semi-functioning brain) to banter with my nurse, Penny, and cause her to declare that she wasn’t letting me go home because she liked me. She thought I should stay a couple more days because she’s working this weekend. I liked her, too, but not enough to stay.

Ken took a picture of me with the Joyful babies after I got home. Terrible picture of me, but a picture that shows why I so wanted to be home.

So… the plan for the next few weeks is to let Ken and Jeremy handle all the heavy stuff — this is a heck of a way to get out of doing litter boxes, though — and get lots of rest so I can heal up completely. I’ll probably go back to work part time in a few weeks. I’m really hoping that it will only be 3 months before I’m declared healthy and ready for surgery number two. Not that surgery is something I’m looking forward to but the reason for it I am.

I’m going to try to get pictures of the kittens tomorrow — the last set of everyone. Fayne will be going to live with Dr Jennifer and Rick mid-week. Corliss will be going to Lyz in Missoula later in the week, too. Still working on homes for Allegra and Seely, but I think that might happen soon. I won’t mind at all having my darling little Allegra lap cat and trouble maker Seely-puss around a bit longer but they do need to have homes.

Enough for tonight. Need to call my parents and let them know I’m home. Then I think it’s about time to go wash up and get ready for bed.

Hi! Ken-dad and lisa-mom left us home with the Jeremy-boy. Pray for us! No,really, we like him. We like everyone. We’ll be fine.

Yesterday I wrote our story while lisa-mom was at work, but I see she hasn’t told anyone about it so I guess I have to. It’s called Happy Kittens and it’s on our website.

Other than that I don’t have much to say. Bye!

Plans are being made for the MO-KAN August 8 & 9, 2009 CFA Show. The MO-KAN Cat Club will be hosting a Norwegian Forest Cat Breed Specialty Show. NFCFA (Norwegian Forest Cat Fanciers’ Association) is sponsoring the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Norwegian Forest Cat.

There are many activities planned for the weekend including two wonderful guest speakers.

Susan Little, DVM, President of the WINN Foundation

Roger Brown, DVM, CFA Director at Large, CFA Scientific Adviser

Both presentations are open to non NFCFA members.

(Non members of NFCFA will be asked for a small donation fee which will be donated to the feline research supported by the presenter.)

Please join in the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Norwegian Forest Cat sponsored by the NFCFA and hosted by the MO-KAN Cat Club.

You can get more information on the following websites:

30th Anniversary Website

http://www.forestcats.net/30thAnniversaryInfo.htm

NFCFA website

http://www.forestcats.net/ 

MO-KAN website

http://www.mokancatclub.org/events_August%202009.html