Daily Photo: Mr. Sunshine and Giuseppe, Adventure Cats
So I have a couple new adventure cats now. You can see Mimi up on the deck watching the boys climbing the steps. I got the feeling she wasn’t happy to share her outdoors time so much right then.
Mr Sunshine and Giuseppe haven’t ever shown any interest in going out the door even when I held it open as I came in with groceries or other times, and this has been all their life here that cats have been going outside with me. All through the construction when you’d think they’d want to get the heck out of this house, no interest.
But Mr Sunshine especially started watching Mimi and me outside and then both he and Giuseppe showed up at the basement door while I was hanging laundry one morning this week.
I hung the laundry and made sure my full attention was on them, and my cell phone was ready to take pictures, then opened the door just to see what they would do.
Mr Sunshine came right out like he’d been waiting for it, Giuseppe kind of ambled out and found some grass to chew on and that was pretty much what he did the first time they came outside. Mr Sunshine however was on a mission. I don’t know if he was looking for Mewsette or if he sensed her out there as I do, or if there’s something living under our deck again, but I had to keep tabs on him.
Each morning since then Mr Sunshine has joined us, though Giuseppe missed a morning. At this point they are active enough that I’m sure they are interested and not frightened, but they also need harnesses and leashes. Even Mimi and Mewsette were on harnesses and leashes until a couple of years ago when I revived my garden and they decided they liked it there. But I still had to keep watch over them constantly. I could split myself enough to watch Mimi and Mewsette in the backyard, but there’s no way I can watch Mimi and Mr Sunshine and Giuseppe who each have a different agenda.
The main reason I decided to pursue this is that Mr Sunshine has been feeling better, but he is still feeling down and has a very low energy, and a Reiki session with Ingrid King revealed that he feels ungrounded, and that’s just how he’s been acting, like he doesn’t know his place in the house anymore physically or emotionally. I’ve been trying to work that out with him but nothing really worked to perk him up and his appetite until this. Mr Sunshine has a few end of life conditions, and I don’t know how long he has, but several times in the past I’ve seen that grounding effect of literally having your paws on the soil, being out in the fresh air, opening up your senses, has given my cats more time than we ever thought we could have. Let’s hope it works that way for Mr Sunshine.
Giuseppe is also a little sluggish, and a few personality changes, a little snippy which is not in his personality. He’s also been vocalizing a lot more and not necessarily talking to me as we all see him do, but just kind of talking to the air. He needs a follow-up exam too, I suspect osteoarthritis as I can’t trim his claws anymore and he was always a model cat for claw trimming, and possibly a bit of dementia beginning.
GIUSEPPE VIDEO
True to form, Giuseppe has something to say about his discoveries in the garden. He moved around so fast he was difficult to follow and this video really is only six seconds long!
I still have a lot of cleanup out there but at least everything is out of the way. Now I just need to figure out where to put it permanently so that visits to the garden will be much more attractive.
MR SUNSHINE VIDEO
Mr Sunshine has visited the area at the edge of the garden where Mewsette spent her time including hanging out by her chair and checking out the compost bin back in the corner, things means that Mewsette did every day too. Could be that we feel her there, could be that they’re genetically so similar that they would be interested in the same things. However it works, I think it works for Mr Sunshine, and it certainly works for me.
After a few days of this Giuseppe seems to prefer mornings, but Mr. Sunshine will go out at any time it’s available. It’s been extra hot the past few days and yesterday Mr. Sunshine was less active and laid down in the shade so we stayed inside today. No sense in tempting fate with his hypertension, and it will be cooler tomorrow and for the rest of the month. I look forward to the time we can all spend together out there.
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Scrolling down, there are Mr. Sunshine and Jelly Bean after vet visits last August-September, and Giuseppe too. What a year.
What other photos did have I shared around this date?
Updates for the Boys, 2022
Yes, boys—plural, because in between Mr. Sunshine’s recent tour of veterinary emergency clinics Jelly Bean decided he needed one too. And I didn’t even have the time to let you know about it!
Jelly Bean
I’ve been concerned about some funny noises Jelly Bean has been making for a couple of years. I even found a note in his records from my former veterinarian that he had been coughing now and then and making noises as if he was clearing his throat. It wasn’t very often and I couldn’t find a pattern. But it came up again at the end of August. I had just had my last weekend of vendor events, my exhibit at Rock the Quarry Friday and Saturday and the farmers market Sunday. On Monday he started up with actual coughing, and coughing in cats is really not good. It can often indicate inflammation in the throat or upper respiratory area, including an enlarged heart or congestive heart failure. I have seen this in Namir and I was concerned at how often he was coughing. The possibility of congestive heart failure is not something to wait around with.
He didn’t eat much dinner, and that’s been a thing with him lately. It used to be I had to pull him out of everyone else’s dishes to stop him from grabbing bites. He had a slight fever but not worrisome. He chewed and swallowed his dental treats and he did eat some food, so rather than run him off to an emergency hospital, which would probably not have room for him, I decided first thing next day I’d take him to Rivers Veterinary. I did, and this was the first time I’d gone there, before Mr. Sunshine’s visit last week.
That day I had deadlines with articles, but I could leave him there with them and they would call me so I could get my work done. I went back when my articles were finished and the veterinarian was just about finished with his exam. She told me it didn’t seem like anything serious after listening to his chest, but she’d like to do an x-ray just to be sure. Nothing serious showed up on the x-ray, and he was diagnosed with needing a dental and having some tartar at the back of his mouth that had probably been irritating his throat, and that had been removed. And he was pronounced a really nice cat.
I was thrilled it was nothing more serious than that! No coughs since then or other funny sounds, and yes, I know, everyone needs a dental. That was August 30, and I hadn’t realized it was nearly a month ago! September really sped by.
Mr. Sunshine’s update since last Wednesday
“Good to see Mr Sunshine lining up for breakfast again! It’s the first time in a week.” From Instagram last Thursday. The combined effects of Dr. Michelle’s treatment on Monday that week and the antibiotic he’d received the day before along with fluids and some famotidine for acid reflux after not eating much. He’d mostly been eating squeezy treats, and not much of that. Even that morning I let him smell a pill pocket and he wasn’t really interested, and he didn’t eat much breakfast, though he did love his dental treat. I kept up with the fluids and B12 and whatever else he wanted to eat, and by Saturday he was fully back in business, and has been since then. He still needs an ultrasound. I’m working on that.
His brothers have been getting all the attention so Giuseppe has to take extraordinary measures just to get his picture taken, like posing with a box of pasta. Such boys!
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From the Garden and Beyond
Though Our Garments Be Tattered Still We Dance
What other photos did have I shared around this date?
Whiskers Alight, 2021
Mariposa isn’t the only one around who has whiskers! JB has always had a fine display, especially once they all turned white. But even before that they were all over the place, and his love for the sunny bathroom sink always makes for a good photo, albeit somewhat blurry.
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From Instagram
Mariposa is being a doorway troll this morning. Everyone who passes gets smacked with a big white mitten, including me.
Yes, #rescuedcats, a cool autumn morning, and you don’t need to worry about cold frosty mornings coming soon.
“Will you sit down?” Mimi is in her chair, so I guess so. I have two beat up wicker chairs in my front yard that I pulled out of the trash, mostly for decoration, though I’ll sit out there sometimes, with Mimi. She loves those chairs, it’s one of her favorite spots. She put on her momcat face, and who am I to disobey?
From the Garden and Beyond
Autumn Friends
Calico asters always find their way to the autumn joy sedum when it turns that rich shade of rose, and blooms there with it, the wild and the tame, the slow bloomer and the quick, the earth (stonecrop) and the sky (aster), combining their charms for the bees in their last meals, and the butterflies their journeys. It’s one of my favorite seasonal combinations.
What other photos did have I shared around this date?
When I Was a Kid, We Just Had Drawers for Toys
When I was a kid, all we had was drawers to play with. You had to make up your own fun, use your imagination. It was just basically a wooden box. Kids these days, with all these toys, they never learn how to use their brains.
So Basil gives it a try.
Basil looks like that all the time. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. If he’s thinking anything in particular. Here he’s doing his best to imitate a box of pasta. I’d say that’s pretty imaginative!
Bella joins him in the drawer, giving it a thorough sniff.
Mimi remembers Mr. Sunshine’s childhood quite differently. Still, she hops in too and was all kinds of cute but I couldn’t get a photo of her. When a drawer is opened in this house, it sucks Mimi right inside. She has no choice.
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We had a little cable internet fixup happening yesterday, so much for all the cool posts I’d been planning, but I can at least share what my fine felines were doing yesterday and today while I was trying to catch up with work. Their weekend schedule was not inconvenienced in the least, I’m happy to say.
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What other photos did have I shared around this date?
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Daily Photo: Who’s the Smallest of Them All?
It’s really not a trick of perspective, Mimi really is about half as big as her two largest children. Here she sits between Mewsette and Giuseppe, looking out the basement door into the back yard, probably watching the groundhog devouring everything in sight.
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The Big Plot, 2103
“You watch the stairs, Sunshine—Emeraude’s asleep and I’m going in!”
The never-ending scheming to get a few bites of Emeraude’s food. She’d been defending her territory pretty heartily, but lately she’s not so concerned and looks at them, then continues her bath. Or she’s asleep on the toilet lid, and she’s pretty deaf, and they know that.
Jelly Bean is getting rounder. So is Mr. Sunshine. I have to close the door…
But still they’re cute in their deviousness. Take a look at “Two Great Minds” to see an earlier effort.
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When I Awake, 2012
This is usually what I see, looking through my bedroom door to the landing: Mimi staring intently at me from the top of the wardrobe, beautifully silhouetted by golden morning sunlight. Nice to awaken and smile at beauty.
Her children are torturing me, though, energetically pulling back the covers, tickling my face with their whiskers, gnawing on my fingers and walking all over me. Perhaps Mimi is simply watching to see that they do what they’ve been told. A cat mom supersedes a human mom.
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Morning Kitties Are Like Morning Coffee, 2011
They don’t need to do anything, all they need to do is sit there and they awaken my creative senses and make me smile.
Mewsette, Giuseppe and Jelly Bean pose on one of the last warm mornings while the leaves are still green and bright. Something to remember until next year.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
doodz! pleez N joy sum out o doorz time for uz with thanx. hopin de weatherz
stayz nice sew ewe can bee out side for manee weekz yet….we think….summerz
reddy to leeve and we say good riddance !
We are very grateful that with all that’s been going on this year our temps have been moderate, just a few days of extreme heat. It’s rainy this morning so we’ll see how the boys like going outside and getting their paws wet.
Good to hear from you!