Meanwhile, back at the ranch...: WTH am I feeding outside?

Ok – so here’s the deal…

We have yet another new cat in the house.

Remember a while back I had Bubba (after my old cat Felix) and he disappeared? Well, I got Cinder to replace him about a month after Bubbi left for parts unknown. We still had the yard sale kitty, Lightening, but I prefer having my “own” cat since she is\was Hunter’s. Plus, I had never seen her catch a mouse…

Yes, you heard me correctly, I said “was”. Grrrrrr! I’m not sure what the heck is “taking” my cats but I am willing to bet that it is the pair of owls we have seen around here over the years.

It got to be where every time I turned around Cinder was slipping outside. She was completely black so I didn’t worry a whole bunch since she is hard to see at night for the owls. But, she was mildly retarded and thought everyone was her friend and there just to pet her. Lightening was a calico and even though she was easier to see in the dark I usually didn’t worry about her because she “always” came back before dark.

I think that these two girls got to fraternizing with those feral barn cats and who knows what those bad kitties taught them. Cinder & Lightening stopped coming home sometime after the 4th of July.

I gave them several days to return home before I started worrying about mice in the garage. On the 14th of July I decided that I needed to go looking for a cat. Hunter & I went to the Humane Society of the Ochocos and looked at several – it is so hard to pick an adult cat when they are all kind of freaked out.

There was one huge black male that I was thinking about but all I could picture was getting my hand shredded if I opened the cage. The nice lady (I am bad with names!) that works there all the time came over and got him out of the cage and then proceeded to flip him over and start rubbing his belly! She says that he came from a home that had dogs and that he prefers dogs over cats. OMG – I was so shocked I caught a little floating cat hair in my mouth when it dropped open – yuck!

She then tells me that he came in with the black female in another cage (who is almost as big!) and that they are having a two for one special! Oh, what a bargain, especially when my husband sees two behemoth black cats inside the house! I maintained my stance with one cat and Pip came home to live with us. He was huge when we got him but he is even bigger now. We call him Pipper and he does whatever the hell he wants to do. I just weighed him and he weighs 15.5 pounds – I could have swore he weighed at least 18. I’m sure that he has gained at least 2 pounds since we brought him to paradise. So, my question is this…is he too big for the owls to lift off the ground? I am going to try and keep him in the house for sure…

He plays with Peaches all the time; they fight over toys and chase each other around the room constantly. Boone totally tolerates him but will get up and leave if Pipper gets too close. Pipper loves to get into Brandy’s bed on the couch and Brandy gets up and leaves (remember the do whatever he wants? They let him!) And at last, we have Maddie who seems to be totally oblivious to the rest of the world unless it has shiny things. Pipper loves to play with Maddie’s tail and she doesn’t really notice until he sticks a claw in it and then she wakes up!

Here are some pics for fun and for the memories of past cats…

Pipper under my desk with Peach

And sprawled out by the dog food bowls And nappin’ with Peaches