Evening all,
Lovely surprise a couple of hours back when LC trotted into the courtyard. It's something she did fairly frequently about 10-11 months ago, as she used to originally come through the courtyard to get to the feeding station. But ever since I moved the feeding station to near her hidey barn (to minimise Rudi confrontations), we haven't really seen her up at the house/ in the courtyard.
The photos aren't great as I had to take them through the window on my iphone and she was busy playing under a tree with the dead mice Paddy left for us this morning!! But they're better than I've had before!
Seeing her up close made me realise that, height-wise, she really is a diddy little thing. But, my, she's stocky - not by any means overweight though. I believe that lots of spayed females get this 'chunky barrel' shape? And her markings are gorgeous and unusual - even though she's just a bog standard black and white moggie, I'm biased
. From the back, barring her little socks, you'd think she was totally black. But she's got this huge white breastplate that prompted her name, plus lots of splashes of white around the chin and face. She stayed up around the house for a full 5-10 minutes which was lovely.
http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/...ent=photo2.jpg
http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/...rent=photo.jpg
Her relationship with Rudi is still dire but it's fractionally better with Paddy. The two of them had a full-on hissing match at one another in the lean-to a couple of days back, but the fact that LC didn't back down (I leaned out of the window and shouted 'oi, cut it out you two', at which point she ran to her barn and Paddy ran to the house!) is encouraging, as is the fact she is coming onto Paddy territory.
...and Rudi's eyes are better (combo of some general cleaning up, TLC and remaining conjunctivitis drops from earlier this year), though his behaviour is still erratic. On the plus side, both of the last 2 days he's come up to the house for food and loving. On the down side, I've also twice seen him dash across the road at the front of the farm, fascinated by something in the fields opposite (my guess is fascinated by non-Paddy-presence). It's a busyish road (speed limit 30mph, thankfully) and I've never seen him take the slightest interest in it till these last couple of days - why would you when you've nearly 40 acres to play in? - though I'm not naive enough to think that he hasn't been over before. It's just the second time a car had to ram on its brakes to avoid him. We are thinking again (we first did so 5-6 months ago, when he became friendly) about bringing him in and we'll see what happens. I fear the stress of becoming an indoor-only cat might be even worse for him, an outside 'lifer', than having a new cat steal his territory. I've had stern words with him
and I'll make a decision soon - it's a tricky one, though obviously one has much higher risks....and the landlord/ farmer would never know....
Lovely surprise a couple of hours back when LC trotted into the courtyard. It's something she did fairly frequently about 10-11 months ago, as she used to originally come through the courtyard to get to the feeding station. But ever since I moved the feeding station to near her hidey barn (to minimise Rudi confrontations), we haven't really seen her up at the house/ in the courtyard.
The photos aren't great as I had to take them through the window on my iphone and she was busy playing under a tree with the dead mice Paddy left for us this morning!! But they're better than I've had before!
Seeing her up close made me realise that, height-wise, she really is a diddy little thing. But, my, she's stocky - not by any means overweight though. I believe that lots of spayed females get this 'chunky barrel' shape? And her markings are gorgeous and unusual - even though she's just a bog standard black and white moggie, I'm biased
http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/...ent=photo2.jpg
http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/...rent=photo.jpg
Her relationship with Rudi is still dire but it's fractionally better with Paddy. The two of them had a full-on hissing match at one another in the lean-to a couple of days back, but the fact that LC didn't back down (I leaned out of the window and shouted 'oi, cut it out you two', at which point she ran to her barn and Paddy ran to the house!) is encouraging, as is the fact she is coming onto Paddy territory.
...and Rudi's eyes are better (combo of some general cleaning up, TLC and remaining conjunctivitis drops from earlier this year), though his behaviour is still erratic. On the plus side, both of the last 2 days he's come up to the house for food and loving. On the down side, I've also twice seen him dash across the road at the front of the farm, fascinated by something in the fields opposite (my guess is fascinated by non-Paddy-presence). It's a busyish road (speed limit 30mph, thankfully) and I've never seen him take the slightest interest in it till these last couple of days - why would you when you've nearly 40 acres to play in? - though I'm not naive enough to think that he hasn't been over before. It's just the second time a car had to ram on its brakes to avoid him. We are thinking again (we first did so 5-6 months ago, when he became friendly) about bringing him in and we'll see what happens. I fear the stress of becoming an indoor-only cat might be even worse for him, an outside 'lifer', than having a new cat steal his territory. I've had stern words with him
