I ordered a ground feeder last week in an attempt to distract the squirrels away from our new window bird feeder. While I was waiting for it, a Bluejay found our feeder. The curtain was partially closed and I didn’t want to get too close and scare him away, but I took a photo anyway.
The ground feeder I ordered doubles as a birdbath but I put corn in it, which I read is a favorite of squirrels, and placed it under the bird feeder yesterday.
Later that day I saw a squirrel in the bird feeder and looked down to see the corn had not been touched. I watched for a while and saw the squirrel come close to the corn but he never looked at it. I don’t know if he was ignoring it or just had not found it yet.
This morning the squirrel was back in the bird feeder while Frankie and Floki were there. This time he was not as nervous around them as in the past. Both cats even attacked the window to no avail. Eventually, they just settled down to watch.
When the squirrel left, I looked down and saw that all three ears of corn were gone. Somehow the little squirrel managed to drag three ears of corn away. I think now I need to buy a bag of sunflower seeds. I’d like to see him drag all those away.
If you follow Chris on social media you might have seen a similar photo but I wanted to post it here so everyone could see the sacrifices cats make so that humans can be happy.
Here is a post from August of 2015 for Throwback Thursday. After Puck died, Chris started dominating Floki in the same way, although I have not seen him do that lately.
We have always joked that Chris has to be the alpha in the house. The truth is, cats are not like dogs, there is no “alpha” cat in the wild, at least not among African Wildcats, the species that evolved into the modern domestic house cat.
African Wildcats are loners, especially the males. Each male has a single territory that does not overlap another male’s territory but may overlap several females’ territories. This may cause competition for mating purposes but there is no group that requires a leader.
About 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, humans started to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and became farmers. This, of course, was a very gradual process but eventually there were communities of people growing wheat and other grains. They stored these grains in large bins that attracted rodents. The increase in rodents, in turn, attracted cats.
Recently my wife and I started watching a show called 1883 which is a prequel to Yellowstone. Yellowstone is a show that my wife likes but I couldn’t get past the first episode because it is just a prime-time soap opera, like Dallas, but with much more violence. I thought 1883 was pretty good but Floki really liked it. Almost every time the show started, Floki was there to watch it.
Sometimes he would be in our way but often he would watch from the coffee table. Of course, he never watched the entire episode. No cat has an attention span that long.
Our cats are mostly inside only cats but I try to take out Chris and Frankie at least once a week. This usually happens on the weekend because I am too busy with work during the week. By then they are more than ready to get outside. Floki does not go out because I would never get a harness on him and he would probably freak out once outside.
Usually, I put a harness on Frankie and bring him for a walk first. Chris doesn’t need a harness because he is happy to hang around the house, eat grass, and then lie in the sunbeam, or in this case, a partial sunbeam.
I dug into the archives again for this week’s photo. This goes back to March 23, 2010, when Rose and I were still living in Myrtle Beach. We often went to a place called Murrell’s Inlet where they had several restaurants and shops. Usually, we ate at a place called Creek Ratz where we sat outside. If you click on the link you can see how nice it is there and, judging by the website, it is almost exactly as I remember it.
Anyway, while eating at Creek Ratz we were often met by a stray cat that hung out at the restaurant. Perhaps he made his rounds to all the restaurants.
I had a habit of ordering the chicken salad, which was essentially a salad with several chicken strips along the top. I always ate the salad and gave the chicken to the cat. Occasionally the cat wasn’t around and I would be disappointed like it was the cat I was going there for, even though the food and the atmosphere were outstanding. I guess the cat just made it extra special.
I brought Floki to get his nails trimmed at the vet last Saturday. He actually had an appointment the Saturday before but his ability to read minds had him under the bed before we even attempted to catch him and put him in the carrier. This time we got lucky and I drove him to the vet.
Behind the counter was an office cat sitting on a cat tree intensely looking out the window like he was going to attack something. There was a window bird feeder on the window and I saw at the edge of the window a squirrel’s tail. The girl behind the counter said his name was Freddy and he loved watching the birds and squirrels. I decided then that I wanted a window bird feeder too.
I did a little research on Amazon and ended up buying this one. I also bought a bag of bird food with a high variety of seeds so that any bird who visits will find something they like. Note: these are affiliate links and I will get a very small commission if you make a purchase.
The first animal to discover the food was not a bird but a squirrel. My wife texted me the other day about how Frankie and Floki were watching it from the cat tree.
Yesterday the squirrel was back and this time I was ready with my phone to record the encounter. Unfortunately, Chris missed the whole thing because he was napping in the other room.
I am not one of those people who try desperately to keep squirrels out of my bird feeder. In fact, I like watching squirrels, and the cats really like watching squirrels, so I had no intention of trying to prevent the squirrels from reaching the feeder. That is until this morning when I noticed the squirrel was poking holes in the screen. So, reluctantly, I removed the screens.
I doubt that squirrel will be able to reach the feeder now but squirrels are pretty resourceful. Now we need to wait for the birds to find it. Perhaps I will put something out there for the squirrels in the future.
Update: After writing that last paragraph and scheduling the post, I heard a noise next to me. I looked and saw the squirrel hanging from the screen on the far left window (far right looking from the street). He was feeling for the screen on the next window. I said, “Sorry, Squirrel,” and I really felt bad for him but I needed not to because he reached up and grabbed the thin ledge between windows and managed to scurry across the windows to the feeder.
Now I either have to remove every screen in the Florida room, which I don’t want to do, or accept that the screens will eventually be ruined, which I also don’t want to do. My other two options are to put food out for the squirrels and hope they ignore the bird feeder or find something decorative that they can climb instead of our screens.
When we moved, the plan was to get rid of the cat’s old, beat-up cat tree and replace it with a new one for the new place, but the high cost of moving delayed that plan until now. Saturday we found a very large, slightly used, Armarkat Cat Tree Condo for the ridiculously low price of twenty dollars. On Amazon it sells for $124, and even more elsewhere, so I think we got pretty lucky. It was in excellent condition except the second shelf from the top was broken, as if a very heavy cat jumped on it. A more likely scenario is someone attempted to move the cat tree and it tipped over.
We were in Rose’s Mustang and did not expect that we would be bringing home something so big. We didn’t feel like driving home to get the truck so we had to figure out how to make…
Bad Cat Chris 