Tag Archives: Video

Cat Grass Fever


I used to think cat grass was a perineal, like regular grass, and that I was just somehow terrible at keeping it growing. Now I realize that it is not like regular grass and will always die after a few weeks. I don’t know for sure but knowing how everything centers around money in America, I assume the seeds are picked less for the cat’s benefit and more for the benefit of the company’s bottom line.

After my last batch of cat grass died I just left the pot outside for several months. I had no desire to try again but I was cleaning out my shed and noticed a half-used bag of cat grass seeds and decided to give it another go. I knew it wouldn’t last but I still thought it would be worth it for the cats’ sake.

After a week or two the grass was tall enough to bring in for the cats.

As expected, Chris was the king of the grass-eating with Frankie a close second. Floki seemed to show just a mild curiosity. I guess I need to accept the realty and just replant the cat grass every so often.

What about you? Do your cats like cat grass?

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Our New Turbo Scratcher


We have had a Turbo Scratcher for years and it has gone through many cats. It is one of the best cat toys we have ever had and most recently it was one of Floki’s two favorite toys, the other being the three-way cat tunnel. We brought both toys with us to West Virginia but came back with only the tunnel. There wasn’t much room in the car but I probably could have squeezed the Turbo Scratcher in with us but I just didn’t think about it.

The other day my wife reminded me that I needed to order another one so I looked on Amazon and found this one (affiliate link). It arived Saturday and as soon as I took it out of the package Chris was interested in it. Of course, it may be because I added a little of the included catnip.

Floki finally did get to play with his toy after Chris was done hogging it. By then Chris was more interested in the box that it came in.

That of course got Floki interested too.

Victory at last. Now things can get back to normal.

360-Degree Tour of Our West Virginia Home


Before we came back to Florida I took a 360-degree video of our home in West Virginia so you could get an idea of what it was like for Rose and I and the cats. I took it using my GoPro Fusion camera that has two 180 degree lenses. It is essentially two cameras in one with a software program called Fusion Studio that stitches the two images together.

Unfortunately, Fusion Studio is the worst software program since Windows Vista and possibly even worse than that. Both the camera and the program were discontinued shortly after I bought the camera so there is no hope for an update that will improve it.

In any case, it would not work on my computer in West Virginia so I had to wait until I got back to Florida to process it. When it did process the video, it tried to keep the video pointing in the same direction even though I turned the camera. So watching it will require you to use your mouse or finger to turn the image so you can see everything. Better yet, if you have VR goggles you can use that.

A couple of things I didn’t mention in the video are that the home is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and two people told us there is a ghost in the house. One said the ghost is a woman wearing clothing that would have been worn at the turn of the Twentieth Century. He claims to have personally see her, multiple times, in or near the gossip room. Another says the ghost is male and can sometimes be seen in the upstairs window smoking a pipe. I have not seen or heard any ghost but I think it would be fun to partake in a city-wide ghost tour which I heard they have done in the past.

As you can see the cats had plenty of space to run around or just hide if they wanted personal space. Even so, I think they are happy here in our Florida home too. Our next task is to find a larger vehicle so we can transport them more comfortably. But that is something I won’t have to worry about until the summer.

What do you think? Were you able to see the video okay?

Carter the Kitten


Recently, friends of ours lost both their cats not too far apart from each other. After a short break, they decided to adopt a kitten named Carter. A couple of weekends ago they went away and needed a cat sitter. My wife immediately volunteered, even though she was going to be out of town, at least for the first visit. That meant it was my job to take care of the little fellow.

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It turns out Carter is a very affectionate kitten with a loud purr and it was a pleasure to spend a little time with him.

 

He seemed to take to me like he knew me his entire life.

Very few cats can be so intimate with a stranger. It is one of the appealing qualities Chris had that made me want to adopt him.

How common is this? Do you have a cat that likes strangers?

The Kitten Whisperer


We went to my sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving this year. Felice works at a vet and has taken in several “unadoptable” cats with her husband, Jeff. She has also become an expert at bringing newborn kittens back from the brink of death. Felice saved one of our cats, Puck (see here), as well as Miss Luis (see here). Her ability to be such a great surrogate mother to so many tiny kittens makes me think of her as “The Kitten Whisperer.”

While she was raising Miss Luis, she was given two more little kittens to bottle feed (see here) and recently she was asked to help two more kittens. Here are some pictures and a video of the newest kittens, which, I believe, are about five weeks old. Enjoy.

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Pull ‘n Play Cat Toy


Two weeks ago we bought two cat toys from Friskies called Pull ‘n Play. The toy is like a Weeble. which they call Wobbert. It is weighted on the bottom and it wobbles. It is shaped like an animal but I’m not sure what it is supposed to be, perhaps a bear. The head twists off so you can put treats inside. It comes with a bag of Friskies Party Mix and it also has a string-like treat that you thread through the ears. There is a small hole at the bottom so treats will fall out when it wobbles just right.

When we introduced it to our cats, Chris dominated the toy. As expected, he was the first, and still only, cat to figure out how the toy works. I recorded the first few minutes of them playing with it but later, after the camera was put away, I watched Chris wobble it and then immediately look for treats. Sometimes treats would come out and sometimes they wouldn’t but he was smart enough to expect it.

Later we brought the second toy to Rose’s sister, Felice. Her cats were different. The were more interested in the string and our cats were after the treats.

I used to buy the Party Mix as a treat for our cats and they loved it. Here is a video from a few years ago related to those treats.

I will say that I stopped buying those treats because I wanted our cats to have a more healthy treat. I now give them a raw, freeze-dried cat food that I use as treats. The brands vary because they love everything I have tried so I buy whatever is a good deal. Currently, I am feeding them Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw. After the Party Mix was gone I put some of the raw treats in the toy. Even though they love it when I give it to them as a treat, they mostly ignored it in the toy. Cats can really be frustrating at times.

Has anybody else tried this toy or another treat toy?