Mother’s Day + Cats + the Container Garden

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On Saturday, Kendra and Kasi came over, and Kendra picked up lunch at Olive Garden. She also brought yellow tulips (a favorite of mine) and a strawberry chocolate tart. The tart was delicious!

Then Kasi headed out for her lakehouse about an hour and a half away. She said they bought a new boat and that evening they took it out to one of the eateries there.

Kendra is pretty focused on her backyard now that her patio project is finished. She loves it out there. The kids go out there to watch TV. (I just can’t see wanting to watch TV when you’re out in nature, but I’m an old fuddy-duddy, I suppose.)

She has a beautiful spot to relax, drink coffee or wine, and watch the birds, which she loves.

Cat Mischief:

Monday morning, I saw Daisy and Simon in the little office with their attention focused on something on the floor. When I went in there, I saw that Daisy had gotten one of my tulips out of the vase on the kitchen counter.

If they considered it prey, it was cornered and bound for destruction. Simon looked a little subdued as I walked toward them. He looked like he knew that my having caught them with the tulip wasn’t a good thing. But Daisy looked triumphant.

I kind of panicked, because tulips are toxic to cats and dogs. It had been nipped about halfway through. But they were okay.

I have a feeling Daisy had something to do with the tulip that looks bent in half in the above photo. She is the climber in the house. It’s Simon who mainly practices his predatory skills with cat toys multiple times a day.

Simon & The Zoomies:

He races through the house, making weird noises, pouncing on a toy, and chirping as he runs. Then he’ll be quiet for about 20 seconds, and I’ll hear him start running again. It took Daisy a while, but now she’s doing it too.

I read that it fulfills their deep-seated instinctual need to hunt, stalk, pounce, and “kill” prey. Even domesticated cats retain the need to hunt, and they use toys to simulate it.

Chasing toys is an outlet for boredom, a way to reduce stress, and to prevent behavioral issues. They are re-enacting the hunt by stalking, pouncing, and biting, which mimics a successful hunt. When this is accompanied by meowing, they are in effect showing off their catch.

Cats can detect tiny movements, dust particles, or insects that humans cannot see. When I see Daisy or Simon very still, staring at the floor, I know they’ve found a tiny ant or some such insect.

When Daisy is doing it, her tail fur looks like she stuck a paw into an electrical outlet. The sunlight streaking across the wall fascinates her.

Ivy & Tuna:

This morning, Ivy lay on the floor in front of the storm door, watching the stray cat named Tuna on the other side. Tuna is a wiry little fighter and the cause of much chaos in the neighborhood.

But I doubt he wants to tangle with Ivy. She looks like an army tank up next to him. Can you tell that these cats keep me highly entertained?

Kendra said her troublemaker is Maggie (Magnolia). Millie, the other cat, the two dogs, and the rest of the family watch as she zooms around.

She said she saw paw marks on the hallway wall from her bedroom to the living room. Then one day she saw Maggie running so fast that she was landing on the wall as she turned the corner.

Maggie is her lap kitty. I don’t have a lap kitty. None of mine would be still long enough. I like to say they love from afar.

Maintaining the Container Garden:

This morning, I went out to tend to the garden containers. There’s always a stray weed to pluck out or a petunia to deadhead. I also redistributed some of the seedlings that have come up.

This morning, I added a bit of plant food to the plants that have looked a bit damaged by the cold. Naturally, they are the perennials, priced at $12.99 each. I sure don’t want to lose them.

I think maybe I’d like to plant something like black-eyed Susans or daisies in the ground around the containers. Don’t know if I’ll get to it this year, and I’d need help digging.

My left little finger stays so swollen and sore that it hurts all the time now. I guess it’s just osteoarthritis. It isn’t rheumatoid arthritis, as I was tested for that.

If I accidentally brush my little finger against something, it hurts even more. So it’s hard to type, much less use a tool to dig.

Maybe if I got some plants that would come back every year, I’d have less weeding in those flower beds. I might ought to focus on making the flower beds more maintenance-free.

Focusing More on Perennials:

That’s why I bought more perennials this year, but I put them into containers rather than into the ground.

You can see the columbine sneaking out from under the mint and the hosta above. I don’t think the one on the other side made it through the winter. I’ll probably have to dig out some of that mint before it completely covers it.

On this side of the porch steps, wild violas are growing. On the other side is the variegated vinca that took off from one of last year’s pots.

Weeds, the Unspoken Enemy:

My whole yard is weeds, but I hesitate to fertilize it because of the stray outdoor kitties. I know the neighbors on either side of me probably wouldn’t consider that.

Randy said there’s some out there that is supposed to be safe for the kitties, but the one I found said it was for entire yards. The weed killer he was referring to was just for in between pavers, etc.

My yard has some sort of weeds that, when Randy mows it, just bend down instead of the mower cutting them off. So it looks a little piggledy-wiggledy and ragged out there.

The entire backyard is just weeds with one pecan tree toward the back. I pay neighbor Randy to deal with it. I don’t go back there because the yard is full of holes. Kendra turned her ankle back there once already.

Riley Has a Flip House:

Kendra has purchased a house to fix up for my 22-year-old grandson, Riley. She says the backyard at that house is twice as big as mine. But it’s a smaller house, about 900 square feet. Mine is closer to 1400.

Those kids are lucky that their mother will find and fix up a house for each of them. Marley is 17, so she has one more year of high school before she heads to college. Riley works about an hour away. I believe he’s what’s called a financial analyst.

He is working on his credit rating so he can get a loan to pay for all this adult stuff. I’ll show you the house once I can see and photograph it. As well as the progress. She’s still working on that hoarder house.