Happy Halloween!!!

In honor of this holiday.....we refuse to dress up.  No costumes no how no way!!!

However, we can give you lots of blacks cats:

The Dust Bunny/Amelia is growing into a big girl-cat. Her hair isn't quite as wild as it was when she was tiny either. But she still has that chocolate overtone to her furs. She still isn't spayed yet either.... gotta get over the (neverending) snot.

Mozart is of course our resident house panther. He is the light weight of the family at just over 8 pounds and mom suspects he spends a lot of time looking for ways to warm up. :)

And then there is the Goose. (you saw his brother Maverick yesterday)  He is just goofy.......

it is such a shame he can't seem to relax at all

We hope you all have a SAFE and treat filled holiday!!!

mostly wordless Wednesday.....

more proof that kittens LURV Uncle Tim

And sometimes they love on Tommy too:

the ACTUAL tabby Tuesday....

Today was supposed to be about the new kittens that came to the house over the weekend. But apparently mom wasn't paying enough attention and rather than schedule the post right, it went up right after she typed it. So, you can read about the new babies here on our Sunday post. sigh.....

the newbies - Saffron (brown female) and Basil (gray male)

However, since mom screwed it up, we decided to share some other tabbies around here:

Tim's tocks

 Junior in the cube

Maverick surveying the living room

that wasn't the plan....

Since we don't actually get many adoptions while the kittens are hanging out here, mom decided to take Oliver up to Petco on Saturday morning.

Luke was up there by himself and acting all needy since his brother Linus was adopted. We aren't sure why Luke is still up there - he is super sweet and outgoing.

Now, we know.....we always recommend slow introductions. Separate space, lots of time. So, do as we say, not as we do. Mom put Oliver in with Luke. And Luke wasn't very happy about it.....there was some name calling but it didn't go beyond that.

However, mom got a text on Sunday morning. Luke was VERY NOT HAPPY with Oliver being in the same cage. So, Oliver is back here with us again..... so much for that plan.  We think Luke would be fine in a house with other animals, but obviously need a much slower introduction with more space. MOL

tabby Tuesday....

Since mom was taking Oliver to Petco, she knew we had some space for some little kittens. So she stopped up at the adoption center and came home with this:

They are about 5-6 weeks old. A college student found them on her front porch one morning in a box with a note saying "please adopt us" on it. She has a current cat living with her but doesn't have space for kittens so the rescue stepped up to help out.

The brown kitten is a girl now named Saffron. She is a polydactyl.....yes, our girl has thumbs in front. Her brother is a gray tabby now named Basil (no thumbs on him). They purr the minute mom looks at them. They will be quarantined for a couple of weeks until they get their second vaccines and get a little bigger.

Random Fridays......

On Tuesday morning, mom got a phone call at work from the Petco store where our adoptables go. Seems some jerk person left a cat in a laundry basket covered with a board and a brick in front of the store. The girl above was terrified, had hair loss and was covered in fleas. The store manager treated her fleas and they set her up in a big crate with food and water and a litter box until mom could get over there after work. In the meantime, mom sent a text to the rescue and asked if they could help. The head rescue lady said to take the kitty to the clinic in the morning for spay and shots and everything else.

The store clerks were calling her Penelope. Mom brought her home and she really didn't want to come out of the carrier. After mom's shift at the shelter, she sat with Penelope who finally came out of the carrier and ate something and loved on mom some.

Mom got a surprise the next morning at the clinic - Penelope was already spayed and had a microchip. The chip tracked back to a small local rescue (not ours) who picked her up from the clinic and was going to contact the adopter and see what was going on. Mom is going to contact the rescue to see if we can get the rest of the story, but if not, we at least know she is safe back with the group that saved her the first time.

Mom got an update from the rescue - the person who left her was the person who had originally adopted her as a kitten. But the kitty is back with her original foster mom and may be adopted into their family.
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And then there is this gremlin. Amelia the Dust Bunny got a bath last weekend. She is getting over the snotty crap running around here but had some stuff in her furs. Mom tried to comb it out but no luck. So the Dust Bunny got a bath. She was VERY unhappy about it (mom mutter something about thank cod the nails were clipped). Mom discovered some of Amelia's furs are actually wavy - though once she is dry you can't tell.  And Oliver followed her around until she dried out sniffing her....like the bath itself wasn't embarrasing enough.
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Still no applications on our Licorice girl. It makes us kind of sad....but she seems to be enjoying living at the Petco. She gets out and hangs with the clerks on their laps. Plus mom bought some grain-free dry food that she was scarfing up the other night. Paws crossed nothing sets her back to chewing on herself again.

Good weekend wishes to all of you. It is COLD here so we are hoping for some sunpuddles.

Thankful Thursday.....

Today we are thankful for the small rescue groups that don't always get the applause they should. And we want to ask a huge favor to see if you would like to help us help one of these groups.

We can't imagine how these groups made it work before email and social media. So here is how we found this group: our rescue is on facebook (here)....they do a lot of TNR and linked to a group called Calico TNR who is also on facebook (here). This group is about an hour west of us. And they get their surgeries done at a local clinic/sanctuary called His Hands Extended Animal Sanctuary (facebook and website). And mom now "likes" both those groups. Well starting this past spring, the sanctuary started raising funds to put up a building for their cat adoptions. Now....they are WAY out in the middle of nowhere. It is about 30 minutes to the local Walmart where they can get donations delivered. We have been following their progress on facebook and mom even stopped out there a while ago after doing a dog transport to drop off some cat supplies (and chocolate for the people - MOL).

And there is where you come in.....the woman who runs the sanctuary wants to decorate the new cat adoption building in Hello Kitty. We don't have anything like that, but we wonder if some of you have some things that you might be willing to donate. If so, you can email us at randomfelines at hotmail dot com and let us know. Or if you want to donate money to the cause - mom wants to get everything together along with food, treats, litter and cleaning supplies to take out all at the same time.
 

The dogs they help are mainly puppy mill dogs - they live in Amish country and will take those dogs that need help. As for cats, it is the ones in need. Unfortunately, that is a lot. And the local shelters (that are getting tax payer money) have started giving her phone number to people so that SHE looks like the bad guy when she says she has no space. And just last week: she went to the end of her driveway and TWICE found an airline crate with cats in it just left there. The first time there were four cats shoved in a crate and left overnight - in the rain...one of the cats was so injured it had to have a leg amputated.

In addition to the sanctuary, they run a low cost clinic - providing care and spay/neuter to those that otherwise would go without. We know times are tough all over....and we don't expect anything you can't do. But we know we are lucky to live in a town big enough to support our rescues - and we still struggle. Their struggle is made all that harder by being so far away from a large town.

Wordless Wednesday (Goose in the cat tree)

Opt to Adopt

This is Oliver......

He is a sweet medium hair gray boy who is currently in foster with us. He was raised by our friend Miss Beckie and went up to our local Petco store. Then he got a cold so he came over here to recover - and spread around his germs. MOL

hanging with Goose

synchronized snoozing

He is great with us and with the other fosters here. And he would have been around a dog at Miss Beckie's house.

weekend wrapup.....

We spent the Saturday doing a lot of this:

Oliver checking out the new thing in the living room

Mo stakes out his spot.

Mom didn't want to turn on the heat but surrendered. But she also didn't want to turn it UP very far, so she broke out the space heater. Mo is a little obsessed with it.  MOL

The Sunday she put out our live-trap - she is trying to catch a feral girl and move her with the help of a friend to a safer location. Well, she went to check the trap and found this:

Not exactly who she was hoping for. And of course, once she reopened the trap, he/she didn't really want to leave without some encouragement. Mom thinks this raccoon is a juvenile from the size. After some tapping on the back of the trap, he waddled out of the trap and on his merry way.

Maybe next time mom....

And Sunday she picked up this guy:

He was at our local dog shelter and Cane Corso rescue pulled him and he was on his way east into foster for a week and then into his forever home. He is about 8 months old and full of lots of energy (though he did very well in the car).

 Our team in green did well on Saturday, but mom says they played some ugly football. All we know is she did a good amount of yelling at the tv.

Grandma and Grandpa's new house....

Grandma and Grandpa are building their new house in Tennessee. The last time mom saw the site in March, it was all weeds and trees:

That is our grandpa in the blue hat. You can sorta see our uncle Rob in the back.

All those weeds are now GONE!!

Now the basement has been dug and concrete poured. They are working on stairs and walls today. They hope to have the roof on this week so they can start working on other things. The plan is to be moved in next spring. (mom says she hopes so cause she slept on a mattress on the floor this past weekend and it wasn't very comfy)

this is the driveway looking into the garage

(and that is grandma and grandpa over there)

this is looking into the main house from the garage

this is the walk out basement - part of it is going to be grandpa's workshop

Random Fridays....

Random picture from Tennessee - it sure is pretty down there.....

And this is what we plan on doing this weekend (that is Maverick curled up with Uncle Tim and Ivy). Mom finally gave up last night, shut the windows and turned on the heat. She didn't want to do it, but finally got the shivers when the temp in the house went to 62 degrees. MOL
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If you hvae never read the blog Cat Man Do, you need to check it out - he is a vet in NYC. And this article is about orange/tortie/calico cats!!

Junior approves of all articles about orange cats  :)

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Thankful Thursday.....

We want to take a minute away from our good news to ask you to send some purrs to our mom's sister-in-law, brother and the kid. Abby is mom's sister-in-law and Max was her kitty. He had stopped eating and she noticed today he was breathing harder. She called their vet (they had to find a new one when they moved and got a great referral) and the vet said that she knew they were having to make some decisions, but as Max's advocate, it was up to her to suggest that they make today the day. So, as of this afternoon, Max has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

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Today we are excited and very thankful for....

ADOPTIONS!!!

Last Friday mom got a call from the head of the rescue about a man who had come into the adoption center looking for.....Jake and Elwood. So mom spoke to the man on Friday and explained she would be away for the weekend and that the boys were snotty and had goopy eyes. And he wanted to meet them.

So mom went away for the weekend. As she was coming home Monday she got a call about one of the kittens at the Petco store. So mom picked up that application Monday night.

Tuesday everything came together.

Linus was adopted by a wonderful couple.

Mom was glad to see it - there were actually 2 applications and the first was....ummmm....not good. But the second listed their vet and pet sitter as references. He will have a cat brother and dog brother as well.  Good luck Linus.

And then....the man came in to meet Jake and Elwood.

The boys came out and were friendly as always. They were a little distracted by the store, but the man sat right down on the floor with mom and they talked about the boys. The family lost their 18 year old cat 2 months ago and were ready to adopt again. There are three kids ages 11, 10 and 8. It should be great fun at their house. The dad had NO problems with the meds (they were giving their older cat fluids at home). And he seemed pretty smitten. Mom is hoping for updates.....(soon - MOL)  Good luck boys.

In a weird moment, as mom was talking to Abby, the phone beeped about another call. There was a weird voicemail but mom said she thought the number looked familiar. She checked back - and it was the phone of the dad who adopted Jake and Elwood. So mom called back - yep, it was a pocket dial. But since she had him on the phone..... seems the boys are doing great. He said it was midnight before they could get the kids in bed. Mom laughed and said the cats were probably glad to see the kids leave for school. :)