Our cats, these days

9 May 2008 | Text

It has been warm, hasn’t it?

14 April 2008 | Text

It’s a tough time, Kyoku

24 January 2008 | Text

Scenes in the living room

19 December 2007 | Text | Comments (1)

Preparations for winter

It has been chilly, so we thought about winter weather and bought cat beds. The colours are not so great, but they were 71% off. In addition, we thought one of them was beige from the picture on the net shop web site, but actually it’s pink! Anyway they were very cheap so we shouldn’t complain.

25 October 2007 | Text

Every day, every time, like this

This is the meal-time view of our cats.
Kyoku and Hachitaro don’t go to their bowls by themselves, especially at lunchtime.
It doesn’t mean they don’t want to eat: they eat when I carry them to in front of their bowls.
(If they want to eat at another time, Kuro of course also wants to eat more, which is not good, so they must eat at the same time!)
Some parts are blanked out. Thanks for your understanding.

18 September 2007 | Text

The scene in our living room after the rainy season

Hot! Suddenly it became hot. Today’s highest temperature was 33 degrees.
These days, I really don’t want to be close to my computer, in my east-facing room on the second floor, during the daytime. After it’s turned on, everything becomes hotter within one metre from the monitor.

26 July 2007 | Text

It’s finally done!

We know Kuro’s vaccine is only once a year, but to hear Kuro’s sad crying when he was put in the cat bag in the basket, it brought a pain to my stomach.
At the animal clinic, we tried to finish up as quickly as possible, but even so Kuro seemed to be sweating on the counter. When we think about his fighting with the vet last year, this time he was a really good boy compared to his past behaviour! He is the kind of cat that is basically frightened of everything and panics easily.

20 July 2007 | Text

Is it their entertainment?

In the afternoon, when I opened the window after a spell of strong wind and rain like a monsoon, our three cats started to stare at something through the window. There were some sparrows chirruping. The parents were teaching their kid how to fly. The baby sparrow couldn’t fly well yet, and perched on our fence in the tangle of jasmine and passiflora.

11 July 2007 | Text

It wasn’t raining today

We took Kyoku to the vet to get his shot.
They say cats have to get vaccinated twice a year in their first year, and then once a year after that.
The shot is a blend of vaccines that can protect against five kinds of infectious diseases at once, so it’s pretty expensive for us. But if the cats got those diseases, it would probably cost more, so we take them to the animal clinic. In many cases the prices at the vet are higher than they are for people at the hospital!

5 July 2007 | Text

No one uses it!

It’s been getting hot. We imagined the cats were also starting to feel hot. Kyoku only drinks from the bathroom tap, so we bought a water feeder for pets that uses a PET bottle as a water tank. It was about three weeks ago.
No one shows any interest in it!
It’s not expensive, but somehow we feel mortified.

26 June 2007 | Text

Three cats’ current feeding style

Kuro has been throwing up sometimes since the end of August.
But otherwise he was fine, and had a good appetite, so we started to feed special food to Kuro and have been watching how he has been.
You are not a stray cat any more. Please don’t eat until you throw up!

28 September 2006 | Text

The birth of a new Kuro?

Well, Kuro got the surgery yesterday, which means he starts a new life from now. The part that got the treatment looks like a pickled plum. Poor Kuro: his backside was shaved again. We feel that Kuro’s fur grows slowly. However, we don’t even know how fast Kyoku’s fur grows, so we actually don’t know how it should be.

15 July 2006 | Text

You were in high spirits but…

On the 14th, finally, it was Kuro’s surgery day.
He had to stay inside our house because he couldn’t eat or drink after the evening of the 13th. It wasn’t many times, but he did pee in the cat toilet. (He might have sprayed somewhere, but we couldn’t find where it was, so I sprayed smell remover in the suspicious places.)

14 July 2006 | Text

Poverty is caused by cats (postscript)

Actually, Kyoku hid in a closet for more than twenty hours after he got his shots. He didn’t even miaow, he just crouched quietly. We worried about him and called his name, but he only blinked his eyes in low spirits. He was already tired because of stress (i.e., Kuro), and we gave him a bath because he looked itchy, then he got carried off to the animal clinic and got an examination, and finally he got a vaccination shot.

5 July 2006 | Text

Poverty is caused by cats - 2

July 3rd. Kyoku’s runny nose has become very much worse, even though we tried to ease his symptoms by feeding him a supplement. We guessed if we let his runny nose go, he would lick under his nose and it would get sore. His face looks like a tanuki. Every time he shakes his head, we get sprinkled by his snot.

3 July 2006 | Text

Poverty is caused by cats - 1

After we spent time with Kuro, we can tell for sure that we can’t live with him in the same house.
Kuro originally wants be a pampered cat: he is a self-centred kind of cat.
However, the best cat for us in this house is Kyoku.

2 July 2006 | Text

We figured out where they were!

As I mentioned before, I felt both relieved and disappointed when the kittens suddenly disappeared a few days ago. Yesterday I heard that the rainy season had finally arrived in northern Kyushu, and it was raining, too.
And Chris found where they were!

9 June 2006 | Text

It’s their debut today

Indeed, they belong to the black and white family. They are greedy. Even though they are kids, they pushed out Kuro and Icchan, who’ve become adults, and crowded around the dry food. The kitten that looks most like Ryo put his front paw on the bowl and protected his food. Their talkative personalities are also a proof that they are part of the family?

3 June 2006 | Text

Our first event in a while

An event! But it’s about cats again. On Sunday we found that our garden cat Kuro had an injury at the bottom of his tail again! We wondered what we should do about it, but we had some things to do that were hard to cancel, so we sprayed it with pure water to calm the infection and kept an eye on it.

31 May 2006 | Text

Our gloom

Boss cat Ryo often comes to our yard for food and girls. His current aim is Icchan and Komoku. We think these two are aunt and niece, and they seem to get along with each other in our front yard. We actually want Ryo to bring them to his house and look after them there. But it never happens.

11 May 2006 | Text

Recent garden cats

The recent garden cats are:
first, Kuro and Icchan (Kuro’s sister) are the main cats;
second, Moku (Kuro and Icchan’s mom) and Komoku (Moku’s sister) think our yard is their restaurant;
and third, Shiro (she is the oldest female cat in our garden) and Ryo (our area’s boss cat).
Surprisingly, they are all female except for Kuro and Ryo.

9 May 2006 | Text

What happened to the garden cats?

Kuro and Kogu. Two nice cats we were happy to see. We wanted them to live happily in our garden forever. But we haven’t seen Kuro for the past few days, even though we usually see Kuro around here. Soon they will be one year old. We don’t feed them in our house, and they are indeed adults in the cat world, so maybe we don’t need to worry about him…

10 April 2006 | Text

Somehow cute, our afternoon

It has been a warm afternoon under the sun. It’s a time when the front yard, which is shady in the morning, becomes warmer. After the spring equinox week, the cherry flowers will be in full blossom soon. And today also our garden cats Kuro and Kogu are good friends.

24 March 2006 | Text

We are friends

Our garden cats Kuro and Kogu are getting along well. They both had a nap on the roof next door, which we can see from our living room. At first they were sleeping one meter apart, so we thought ‘It got warmer, so even though they get along well they don’t sleep side by side.’ As soon as we said that, they moved and were right next to each other.

8 March 2006 | Text

Where the cats are

Kuro and Kogu get along well and usually sleep together in the same box; but chubby Kogu might have been touching Kuro’s injury whenever he moved his body, and it seemed Kuro got mad at him whenever he did. Both of them usually get along well and have a tender personality, but personality never reduces pain.

18 February 2006 | Text

Cats, of several kinds

When I was hanging laundry upstairs, I heard a rattling noise from below. I casually thought our garden cats were poking at plastic bags full of dried leaves, so didn’t go down in a hurry. But what I saw in the back yard was…

10 December 2005 | Text

Kuro and Kogu

Our outside cats have increased since early October: now our house has indeed become a ‘cat mansion’ – even though we can hardly call our house a ‘mansion’. There are often five or six cats in our small yard, including Ryo and Shiro, for the morning and evening feeding times. Sometimes unknown cats also appear to get leftover food. Even at a cat-friendly house, we can’t say that any old cat is free to come by; so, we feel sorry, but we ask them to leave…

29 November 2005 | Text

Autumn cats

In this past summer, our cat Kyoku became a completely inside cat, and there were some changes in the world of the outside cats, too. There are a few male cats who always fight with Ryo-kun at night. Easygoing Kyoku is living in our house as usual. Without knowing the changes in the world of outside cats…

8 October 2005 | Text

A little different: summer Kyoku

To tell the truth, since the termite incident Kyoku has been forced into training to be inside the house. It’s because we thought we might have to move from this house in about one year. Kyoku first sneaked in to the house we live in now, but if we have to live in an apartment in the future we can’t live with a half-outdoor cat.

26 July 2005 | Text

Cats, these days-2

When I’m in the kitchen, she sits down by the window and asks charmingly for a meal. And as soon as she notices I’m out with a cup of food, she rushes to the shed roof. (This is her dining room.) She used to hiss at me when I stretched out my hand to the bowl but she waits for it calmly now. Although she still has a ‘Go away!’ atmosphere.

22 June 2005 | Text

Sad cat

In the evening, while C was trimming the long branches of our Naniwa rose, an unknown cat was walking past the parking. No collar; beautiful long black and gray hair, and bushy whiskers. But there was something odd about its walk. It couldn’t walk straight.

15 June 2005 | Text

Cats, these days

Very bright morning sunshine, these days. Sleeypyhead Kyoku wakes up and says ‘I wanna go out!’ before eating breakfast. Even if he is a cat, he shouldn’t go out without having breakfast. I feed him half a package of wet food as he eats his cat salad (barley, grown to about ten centimetres tall). He leaves a little food as usual and starts to say ‘I wanna go out! Wanna go out!’

2 June 2005 | Text

Talking about cats

A walking park built along an old railway line is about ten minutes walk away from our house. The other day, for the first time in ages, we passed there on our way home, and found many cats! Not everyone likes cats. But we want people who have a mind to keep or feed cats to think about what happens to the local cats. Because it’s so painful to see sad cats.

10 March 2005 | Text