Happy Birthday to Gustav, 14 years old today. May he get many more years and continue to be as healthy as can be at his age. A bit more tired, but still alert enough to catch both rats, mice and birds… And begs for smoked ham as a treat. Still as talkative, still a lapcat. Gustav visits me regularly, sometimes almost every day and sleeps in his favourite places in my flat for a couple of hours. Then he goes out and home again.
It is now officially the ugly season. The period between winter and spring. And the time for the pelargonias to wake up. Snow is gone – hopefully we will not see any more snow this season. Greenery hasn’t woke up yet. But it will the next couple of days as warmer weather has been promised. It is still cold outdoors. One day it rains. The next it snows. The next it rains.
Or sudden frost and really cold nights that makes it next to impossible to walk outdoors on sidewalks and walkways. The green grass is about to wake up, but not really yet…
Gustav, the neighbour cat, got wounded catching a fat rat. Gustav is fine now and healing fast. He caught the rat that for some time was stealing bird-food and even climbed the metalrod to get to the feeder. I’ve removed msot fo the bird-food since I saw him/her the first time. Bird with a tail in the feeder? No thanks.
The rat is dead and went in to the common bin. Good riddance… Gustav killed it and brought into his mom and left it on her office floor… I am grateful that he doesn’t consider me being his mom so he has to bring me such gifts…
With the increasing daylight, the few pelargonias that have survived the winter and the dark are waking up. Above is a cutting that came from the large Mårbacka pelargonia as it broke off from it when I moved it indoors in the autumn.
The motherplant has woken too. I need to cut it down soon and make more cuttings from it. It is growing high. Presently it is 65 cm high from earth up.
The Bontrosai pelargonia – which originally, a year ago, was the top of Ulla’s Bontrosai – is ridiculously high, 75 cm from earth up. It too needs to be cut down, get a new pot, and get siblings. Any day now. I have waited for the daylight to increase.
The first springflower, a snowdrop appeared a week ago. I have seen the leafs of the crocus coming too, but so far no flowers. But soon.
I long for the real spring, warmth, more light, no frost…
Meanwhile when waiting for warmer weather I go 3 times a week to the gym. Above my gym group on February 4th 2019. Till in the middle with Anette our trainer had birthday that day.
And I knit (will return to more about that another day). Presently a multi-coloured cardigan from top to bottom. First sleeve almost don, second to follow.
I also visited the Sy- & Hantverksmässan, also called Syfestivalen, on Februari 15th with friend Ulla. I visit this fair whenever it occurs, which is twice a year. The above is what I got this time. The five balls of Opal yarn I won at a contest on the homepage of the fair. The six red skeins will become a simpla sweater when I am done with the cardigan above. This time from a Norwegian pattern that I bought on Ravelry. Looking forward to start it… I try not to knit more than one thing at the time and never start the next project until the one I am working on is done.
And meanwhile the jungle in the kitchenwindows is still there.
During this hot and sunny summer (not ended yet…) it became obvious that the birds and the bees and the bumblebees need water. They got thirsty, like we humans too. I’ve always had birdbaths in the garden for that reason. Occasionally I’ve seen a bird or two drink from them, but seldom bathing. Now I’ve got two (2) birdbaths. But almost no birds. Stopped feeding them in the middle of the summer. It got too expensive.
The green one above with the stone in it (an island for bees and bumblebees) I’ve had for a couple of years. Got via my neighbour from her ex-husbands sister who lives in a flat and don’t really needed it. Ceramics, glazed. A little bird on the edge of it.
The second birdbath, above, is of concrete. Got that recently from my newest next-door neighbour. He got it from the previous owner of his flat who left it in the garden when they moved on. As the current neighbour didn’t use it and tucked it away under a bush and a jumping-platform, I asked if he wanted to keep it or if I could have it. He gladly gave it up and I moved it to my garden instead.
Both sit on top of pieces of old tree-trunks to get them up somewhat from the ground.
Do the birds use them? Not what I’ve seen. But the cats do. They love drinking from them.
Important with birdbaths (or drinking stations for the cats) is to regularly change the water in them so it is fresh and free of drowned insects. The green one I take in over winter as I am afraid it otherwise will freeze and crack. The concrete one I don’t think I have to take in over winter. It is concrete. Should withstand cold weather and snow and ice. I’ll leave it there.
The grass got green again after we finally got some rain. Grass is recuperating fast.
Friday April 21st 2017 in the morning, Gustav, my neighbours male cat, that visits me almost daily, was in a fight.
Gustav was seriously hurt and got bitten over the forehead by “something” with a big mouth. According to the veterinary whatever bit him was probably a fox or a dog, rather than a cat. Or maybe a large cat with a big mouth… The bite was deep into his scull and nearly touched the scull-bone. Fortunately nothing happened to his eyes.
My neighbour brought him into the animal hospital on Friday to get it throughly checked out. After a wait of about 4 or 5 hours he got checked and it was decided to operate on him on Friday night and keep him over night at the animal hospital. His wounds were sewn and a drainage pipe of some sort was placed through his forehead to make it possible to remove whatever puss that might otherwise collect there. It has to be cleaned 3 times a day. It looks like he has got horns… The drainage pipe will be removed on Wednesday. The stitches on May 2nd.
When Gustav got home again he was both hungry and thirsty after not having eaten or drunk for 24 hours. He was really hungry and ate with good appetite even though he had some difficulties with the thing around his head that was in the way. Drinking was even more difficult, but got solved by changing to a larger bowl with water all the way up to the edge of it. Gustav didn’t want to go on the litter-box though until late in the evening as he is not used to using the litter-box. He prefers outside, in nature.
Gustav is also grounded and not allowed to go out by himself until drainage and stitches are gone. The cat-flap is locked. He just sat there longing to go outside. But no. My neighbour, his owner, will get a leash to take him outside under surveillance.
His friend Alice, which lives together with him at my neighbour, was puzzled first by his absence, then by how he was when he came home. At first she kept her distance and just looked at him.
I heard that medication of Gustav went well and he even liked the medicine he got, as well as the cleaning of the drainage tube. Apart from his wounds, he seems alert and just his usual self. Even though he gets irritated by that thing around his head, which he also sleeps with. He looks a bit funny walking with it and gets a bit wobbly by it. Not to mention all the corners he gets stuck at because of it. He is forbidden to jump… but how do you stop a cat form jumping when there is nothing wrong with his body?
Hopefully all goes well and he will be his old self again soon. Here are some more pictures of him. Reload page to get pictures sorted differently. Click on a picture to see larger version.
Where I live I am surrounded by cats. There are four of them just in my building, all four on the ground floor. There is one dog in the building too, upstairs, Jerry a Jack Russell. We are three flats on the ground floor and three upstairs. I love cats and they normally love me too. So I don’t mind.
The neighbour across the hall has two striped cats. One female and one male. They are siblings, brother and sister. They are both extremely friendly and like being stroked and keep on befriending ones legs of you pat them.
If you have the door open to the outside place, you have to watch up as both these cats really want to come in and are very curious and friendly. I don’t let them come into my flat. My flat is primarily Gustavs territory.
One of the neighbouring cats is Gustav, 12, who comes to visit me almost every day. He has his favourite places to sleep in in my place. Two chairs and the sofa. Gustav gets along fairly well with both the striped cats, which are much younger than him. Both like to follow along after Gustav when they are outside.
And there is Alice, my neighbours female cat that lives with Gustav. She is very shy. Took me a couple of years to become friends with her. Now she is fine with me and doesn’t run away when she sees me and she even come into my flat sometimes, if my neighbour goes to visit me, or if there is somebody in her home that she doesn’t like. She then sometime borrows one of the chairs where Gustav use to sleep.
But beware of Alice if you are any of the other neighbouring cats… She doesn’t like competition and viciously chases other cats away. Particularly female cats. And she is no lapcat, like Gustav, and it is impossible to lift her up.
Alice and Gustav are normally friends and even sleep side by side. But sometimes they chase each other around the garden (or indoors in their own home) and run like crazy (like cats do sometimes). They are both skilled bird- & mouse-killers. That’s nature though. They do not give me gifts of dead mice and birds. They give them to their owner, my neighbour. Grateful for that…
PS. I forgot the 2 small dogs that live in the ground-floor flat with own access from outside. They are small and cute and they watch you through their window beside their door when they are home alone and waiting for their owners. They are smaller than the cats in the house…
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