All Porky, all the time

This seems to have turned into a porcupine-cam blog, but I’ll roll with it for now.

We’ve been seeing Porky on and off a few times a week lately. This afternoon, in the middle of a windstorm, I saw him teetering on a pretty thin tree. “Poor thing”, I thought, why is he up there? The answer, of course, was snacks. When I went out to investigate, it turned out that he had gnawed off a little branch, and was methodically cleaning leaves off of it. Apparently he likes his fresh young leaves!

He was cute, holding on to the swaying trunk with his hind legs, grasping the food branch in his front.

Having taken a few photos, I went inside, keeping an eye on him. Next time I wandered into the room – he was no longer on the tree. “Odd”, I thought. We’ve seen him down-climb before, and he’s definitely very meticulous about his foot placement – and veeeery slow. My guess is that he fell, given the strength of the wind that day and the short timespan between him being up in the tree… and not.

When I went out to check, he was below the tree, chuffing to himself and fluffing out his coat. Poor guy.

When I went back inside to report all this to hubby, both of us were a bit concerned about Porky hurting himself. You know what? It must not have been too bad, though – because half an hour later, guess where I saw him?

Back up the same tree, gnawing on an even higher branch… *facepalm* Oh you poor dummy.

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He’s back!

Remember Porky? Well, it appears that he’s made our neighbourhood his home!

On a few different occasions now we’ve seen him around. For the last month, we kept seeing him napping in one of the fir trees out back.

While they may make a good perch for a porcupine, they’re pretty bad for being able to take pictures of said porcupine!

Doesn’t he look a little bit prehistoric?

Today, however, he chose a (birch?) tree farther back in the forest, providing some nice views. I think this is definitely the latest we’ve had this little leaf cover on the trees.

Unfortunately, it was getting close to dark by the time I spotted him, so the lighting wasn’t that great for taking photos. And I didn’t want to blind the poor thing with a flash, possibly causing him to fall out of the tree, poke himself with his own needles, and risk getting an infection and dying (yes, apparently they’re so prone to doing that that their skin contains antibiotics – how is that for genetically engineered superiority?!).

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Noises

This is too cute not to share.

I was working from home today, and noticed that the computer sounded a little bit strange… like maybe it was struggling with something, and the hard drive was spinning on and off all the time.

When leaning down to investigate, I discovered that there was, indeed, nothing wrong with the computer. Instead, BB has wedged herself into the spot between the desk, wall, camera bag and computer (which is above and just in front of her in this picture) – it was her contented purr, rising and falling like a wave, that I had mistaken for a computer malfunction.

How cute is she?

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Kitty-cat presents

This is what I’ve been coming home to for the last couple of days.

I don’t know whether this is a sign of affection or hint at bloodshed to come, but every day, “Mouse”, our kitties’ ancient toy, has been finding his way to the front entrance. So cute to come home to after a long day at work!

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New neighbour

I think. At least, I’ve seen this little guy on two separate occasions, ambling through the bushes at the back of our yard.

Sorry for the bad picture, but the first time I saw him, I was just trying to figure out what it was. And the second time, much picture-taking time was wasted on gleeful squealing, and running around the house clapping my hands (and looking for the camera).

Hubby calls him Porky. I’m smitten. He’s so fwuffy! I’d run out to see if I could get closer to him, but I’m afraid that would scare him away. So I contain myself. As part of trying to figure out whether to be happy about this newcomer or not (i.e. would he eat my garden? – the answer seems to be no), I found out some interesting things about porcupines. Like the fact that they climb trees, and like the tender greenery on the ends of branches. And that they’re near-sighted and a little bit clumsy… do you see where this is going yet? Yes, they fall down a lot. But fear not, evolution to the rescue – they have antibiotics present in their skin, to prevent infection when they inevitably prick themselves after falling out of a tree. Neat, huh?

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Spring is here!

This was the view out of our dining room window this morning.

Hmmm. Do you notice anything interesting?

Let me zoom in… how about now?

Oh yes, that’s right – that beautiful orange kitty sitting on our deck? Not one of ours. Then again, given that ours don’t actually get to go outside, I can’t decide whether I can be mad at that orange kitty over aggravating my own cats – after all, I figure that while he’s there, the squirrels and raccoons are not!

To make up for all the stress caused by a strange on “their” territory, both the kitties spent some time watching TV with me on the couch.

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A kitty interlude

Let me set the scene for you…

A quiet weekday evening, I’m puttering around in the kitchen, baking. Glancing over to the family room, I see one of the adorable furballs napping on the couch. As an aside, they’ve both taken to sleeping on *something*, instead of just furniture – blankets, pillows, even carelessly left magazines. I don’t think I’ll ever understand my kitties.

Glancing over a few minutes later, I see the (old, demoted to construction) standing lamp topple over in slow motion, passing a few feet away from the sleeping cat and landing with a big crash. [Perhaps I should pause here to mention that this is the world's scarediest kitty who is napping on the couch]

Over the next 15 seconds, I feel like I’m reliving one of the Tom&Jerry cartoons I used to love as a kid. BB shoots UP from her pillow, looks around wildly and leaps off the couch. Ignoring my cooing of “Shhhh, it’s ok”, she darts one way, is stopped by the pile of tools (why yes, the family room is a perfect spot to store tools while working on the laundry room, thank you for asking), and darts the other way, toward the kitchen. Seeing me stepping out from behind the counter, right in her path, she tries to make a 90-degree turn to just GET THE HELL OUT of there. Except that their bowls of food and water are right on the far side of that turn. And just like in the cartoons, I see the helplessly skidding cat, paws working futilely to dig into the slippery linoleum, slide right into the water dish.

Undeterred by this bath, she finally makes it out in the kitchen. This is about the point where husband comes in (remember, only 15 seconds after the crash) – to find me pretty much on the floor, doubled up in laughter, pointing between the fallen lamp and the direction the cat disappeared in, trying to get in a breath between the tears and the laughter, unable to articulate what had happened.

/End scene

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Knitting

Remember how I’ve said before that sometimes the kitties fight over who gets to lie on my lap? Well, they’re at it again!

I can’t remember who was there first this time, although usually it’s Shakey trying to wedge himself in when BB is already on my lap.

They’re both pretty good craft companions. If they’re in a playful mood, they will swat at the yarn periodically, but usually quiet down if I turn around the yarn/them in such a way that they can’t see the yarn. With respect to crafts, BB is also hilarious because she’s terrified of absolutely everything – and yet when I’m sewing, she’ll inevitably come and curl up on my lap, despite a big loud machine clattering away less than 2 feet from her head.

What was I working on, you may wonder? A scarf for Dan’s niece! In all the madness before Christmas, I forgot to take a picture – but this was the inspiration. Now, I’m working on another scarf – for myself this time, and using the awesome new circulars from the Addi Click set I got for my birthday.

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Box reloaded

Not content with the previous record, Shakey decided that this time he’d go for FOUR boxes. Not sure this is a fair count of four, though, since not all of them are technically full boxes.

We were rounding up the random boxes on the main floor before a party we recently had (yes, I’m aware we moved 6 months ago, thanks for pointing it out) and stacked them all near the door. Next thing we know, this guy took over the stack. As if he knew we were planning on getting rid of these, he zealously jumped in and curled up in it anytime we were anywhere around it.

Eventually, Dan found a moment when the cat was occupied, and snuck the boxes out. What’s a poor cat to do when faced with losing his favourite perch? Why, find a new one, of course. A much more cushy and luxurious one, to boot.

I kid you now, he now sleeps on top of the bag of reusable canvas shopping bags, with his head stuffed halfway inside. Is the world such a scary place, Shakey?

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Yarn!

Today I was reminded of something that every cat-owning knitter should know.

You can’t leave balls of yarn lying around. The kitties may consider them an early Christmas present.

Luckily, this was the extent of the damage – unlike when I was maybe 9 or 10, and I woke up one morning to find my room (which included a table and a few chairs) strung up in a web made from a few hundred meters of yarn. Over and under and around… in places, you had to watch where you were stepping in order not to get tripped up by the web. That cat must have had fun playing with the ball of yarn, because it took forever to unravel that web (no way was I cutting all that yarn!)

Here is one of the guilty parties guarding the other ball of yarn they had gotten their paws on.

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