A Truce?

If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure at some time or other over the past two months or so, I have mentioned now and again about the way one of the cats we had become extremely demonstrative and downright mean to poor Sammy.

That would have been Chino -the gray cat -and her change didn't come about towards him until she had the litter of four kittens back in late February. Prior to that, Nina, the orange cat, didn't like Sammy sniffing around the kittens she already had here when Sammy moved in with us, but generally, all Nina ever had to do was to arch her back and hiss at Sammy and he would go high-tailing it, yipping and yelping -downright wailing it seemed -loudly enough that you would have thought he had just been mortally wounded.

Well, with the recent onslaught of little kittens that we had when Chino had four kittens first -on a Monday -and the following Saturday, Nina had yet another litter of five kittens -both those cats were on the warpath almost constantly with Sammy. Except this time, particularly with Chino, she didn't just hiss at Sam! She came out swinging and often made claw contact on him too. So his bawling around then was probably pretty warranted cause we all know how razor sharp cat's claws can be, don't we?

Well a funny thing happened though about two weeks ago now. Mandy had pretty much been forced into taking the six kittens we had left -after having been able to find homes for only three of the little ones -and also, Nina -the orange cat -to the shelter as we absolutely couldn't keep up with that many cats and kittens here. Just the litter box alone was driving me bonkers as it seemed every hour on the hours, sifting litter was a must on the agenda here. That, plus the costs too of litter and the extra cat food -well, she decided much as she hated to do it, the kittens had to go and it would be best too if one of the Mama cats went along.

So now we are down to just two cats -Chino and the Tom-kitten, Fluff-Nuts. And, of course, Sammy or Sir Samuel J. Muttley as I told Maya was Sam's full name one fine day. (Maya then asked -since Sammy is supposedly Grammy's dog -if Muttley is Sam's last name then is that Grammy's last name too?)

And we are also trying to find a vet that does spaying/neutering of dogs and cats at an extremely low fee and who takes a certificate of payment assistance through the PAWS organization too. So far, the fees we've been given -even with using the certificate -are well over $100 and well, the game plan has been to get Chino fixed first, the Fluff-Nuts and finally, do the same honor to Sammy too. So, please -wish us luck in that endeavor so we can get Chino spayed before she decides to go courting again!

But I digress there. The intent of this post is to tell you about something that happened just a couple of days after Mandy had taken the felines to the shelter.

Sammy almost always sleeps on the foot of my bed and he rarely gets up and leaves my room too until I rise and try to shine.

So on this one morning, as I got up, found my glasses so I could see where I was walking and headed out into the hall outside my room, there stood Chino just outside my room -all poised and ready to attack Sammy as soon as he poked his nose out.

However, that morning -and ever since then too -something different happened.

Instead of Chino lashing out at Sam before he could think twice, he saw Chino there and let out a couple of loud, somewhat ferocious sounding (well, as ferocious as any of Sammy's barking ever gets anyway) barks towards Chino and she was a bit taken aback by that. When he saw her back up a tad, he moved towards her then, barking some more until he ended up having backed her into the dining room and she had taken up camp under the table then -kind of cowering in her boots, ya know.

I have no idea what happened to cause him to do that but he only runs yelping now if sometimes she sort of sneaks up behind him and takes a crack at him with her claws.

This change in Sammy is almost such that you begin to wonder if maybe he hasn't found himself some kind of testosterone booster or some such thing -if there is anything like that for dogs, that is.

Sammy and Fluff-Nuts though are still friends, still race and chase from time to time and play with each other but just not quite as often as they were doing oh, a month ago.

However, just to let everyone know that Sammy is still our little cutie dog and a bit of a hammer-upper one too -not one to shun cameras, our Sam -here's a picture Mandy took of him the other day -showing off some kind of glasses she got someplace or other -I have no clue where she got them but doesn't he just look ever so dapper and debonair wearing these specs?


And, because I've been more than a bit lax of late in posting any pictures of the grandkids too, here's two recent pictures of them.

This shot of Kurtis was taken on Friday afternoon by Maya's TSS (the aide who works with her at home to try to improve her social skills). This is where he likes to lay, with his bear-bear close to him and look out the door, watching the world slowly go by.

And in this picture, Maya was out on one the many really nice days we had about two weeks ago, riding her tricycle down the little grade of a hill in our side yard. Mandy also got some videos of both the kids out in the yard that day, both riding their trikes, but I haven't gotten around to putting them on YouTube as yet. I'll get around to that too -one of these days!

And finally -here's the most recent embroidery project I just completed yesterday. This set -along with a floral tabletopper I did about two weeks ago -will be getting packaged up and mailed off in the next day or so to make their home with my cousin, Ruth Ann Hill Kazenske, who lives way far away from me now -down in Austin, Texas.

This set is called "Proud Rooster" and the first picture is a shot of one corner of the tabletopper followed by a picture of the whole cloth.



This is the matching tablerunner and below it is a picture -closeup -of one end of the tablerunner.



And now, because I sure don't want my fingers to get all stiffened up on me, I'm gonna close the blog for tonight and return to try to get a couple more stitches in a new piece I just started early this evening. Judging by my initial contact with the new tabletopper though, it's gonna be one that will really have me rejoicing -if and when I survive working on it and manage to get it done!

Wish me luck!