Lord, Love a Duck

Despite any reservations I had about adopting a foster kitten (a necessary taboo if I want to keep doing my job), adopting Duck has been a great thing for the family. He’s improved the dynamic amongst my adult cats. Serra has someone to care for and to occupy her time. Wesley has a new playmate. Buttercup has had some of the pressure to be friendly removed from her so she can be the grouchy old lady she was always meant to be (but I love her for that).

It turns out that Duckie actually does have an evil side that isn’t induced by anesthesia. He is almost as bad as Serra about my yarn. If I leave it unattended, Duck will grab a whole ball or skein and run with it. While I am trying to knit, Duck will pounce on the working yarn with the singular focus only kittens have. Like his sister Lamb, Duck loves my handmade items. A few days ago he wrapped himself in a sweater he pilfered from somewhere so he could take a nap. He drags that sweater around with him on occasion as well. Good thing the sweater was just a practice piece, and not something I was attached to!

Duck is also very food motivated. Despite the fact that he does NOT get fed from our plates (as a matter of fact, he’s not had any people food yet), Duck tries to “help” me eat my dinner. This motivation does work in my favor, though. We squish Wesley’s blood pressure meds into a treat to make him take it without force, and Duck could not be more thrilled. Since I have the treats out, I make the cats do a few tricks to earn said treats. Duck now touches my fist to open it, he begs, he sits (but not patiently), he comes when called, he jumps into a chair, and he is learning to walk on his back legs for a few steps (Michael’s idea after watching Carisa’s rats do it).

Yet another fascinating thing I’ve learned about Duck is that he trusts me implicitly. I guess he figures that if I would go as far as I did to keep him alive, I’m probably not going to deliberately hurt him. He let me carry him into the shower (while it’s running) and he let me dip him in the bathtub. I was vacuuming the area around the litter box a few days ago, and, well, see for yourself:

No fear in that one.

I may have had a hard time being comfortable with the decision to adopt a foster kitten, but I can’t say I’ve regretted it.

Leveling up

This week, I’ve reached a new level of competence in my fostering.

Tiger developed a URI within 24 hours of being at my house. She was so congested that she couldn’t eat without choking on her food, so she just gave up. The consequence of her giving up eating was that she was unable to produce enough milk for her five kittens. I had to give Tiger a mouthful of food at a time with a syringe to keep her strength up. Between each bite she had to fight the snot blocking her nasal passages just so she could swallow. Additionally, I had to bottle feed her kittens a few times a day so that there was enough milk to keep them alive. It was a rough few days.

Just like with all the kitten ailments, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. I had to leave town for an overnight business trip with Michael. Normally, for a single night, my petsitter could watch the kittens (the shelter is cool with this, given that they are a kill shelter and it’s better to keep the cats in a home, leaving space for others to be adopted out). The catch was that the kittens contracted their mother’s URI, and they couldn’t breathe either. Additionally, mommy stopped caring for them in any capacity, effectively making her kittens bottle-fed orphans with a living heat source. I couldn’t leave a sitter to deal with that, so I sent the kittens to the shelter while I was gone.

I called once during the trip to check in on the babies. One of them had to be euthanized while I was away. The shelter staff found him bloated and unwell, and the vet thought he had an obstruction. The necropsy revealed that the kitten had a perforated bowel, a very unusual condition in a kitten who was only 10 days old. I believe that his mother stopped stimulating him to go to the bathroom, so it all backed up and basically burst on him. Poor guy.

I was able to retrieve the kittens on Saturday. Michael picked them up for me at the shelter so I could get a little more sleep before embarking on the full-time mommy thing. When Michael got the little ones home and into the kitten room, I prepared a bottle for them.

I should add here that I did name the kittens. The dark ones were Bard and Paladin, only distinguishable by their weights. Paladin was the one euthanized while I was gone. Two of the silver ones were of similar weights, but one had a white face. I named the dark-faced one Ranger, and the light-faced one Cleric. The runt, also a silver kitten, I called Rogue.

As I picked up the kittens to supplement their feeding, I noticed that two of them weren’t like the others. Bard and Ranger wouldn’t latch on to the bottle, and they were cool to the touch. The spark that I call life was missing. I knew these weren’t viable kittens, despite the fact that they weren’t in the active stages of dying. For the first time ever, I called the shelter and asked if we could please euthanize the two kittens who just weren’t there anymore. While the foster coordinators did feel that I knew better than anyone else did about these kittens, protocol required me to have them examined before the call could be made. The staffer who met me to make the final call recognized Bard and Ranger from her rounds that morning. “I had them scheduled to be euthanized this afternoon,” she said. “I was surprised to learn that they were back in their foster home.” She then took the boys away to give them some final peace.

These are all that I have left now:

You might notice that the kittens are in the bathroom cabinet. Their mother apparently didn’t feel that the carrier was a safe place to keep a nest, so she moved the kittens to a dark, quiet space. I was shocked, and I thought she was getting rid of them, trying to start over. Now I think that she noticed that kittens were disappearing, and she was trying to hide them to keep that from happening again.

I have been bottle-feeding the kittens and helping them go to the bathroom since they’ve been back. On Monday, I believe, mommy started nursing the kittens more regularly. Today, she started minimally cleaning them. I would say that this was a good thing, except that now it is apparent that I am going to have to ask the shelter again to euthanize a not-quite-dying kitten. Rogue can’t find a nipple even when I pick it up for him and put his face right on it. He isn’t gaining weight. He won’t latch on to the bottle anymore. I also think he has aspiration pneumonia (fluid in the lungs due to inhalation of milk, in his case) because I can hear him breathing with a crackle. It’s bad, and I think it’s his time.

My plan is to call the shelter in the morning if Rogue makes it through the night. In truth, I kind of hope that the poor little guy just dies in his sleep so that I don’t have to make the decision. I now know that I can do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts: I just don’t like having to. The what-ifs will plague me, regardless of the fact that someone else will have to agree with me to make it happen.

It’s appropriate that I leveled up on this litter, the ones with Dungeons and Dragons class names. I’ve lost all of the party except the healer. One the bright side, Cleric is clearly robust. He eats well with me and with his mother. He’s gaining weight. Now, it’s just a matter of finding him some traveling companions.

Younger Models

Wednesday, I traded in most of the Twilight kittens. Bella was underweight according to the shelter’s scales, but she was two pounds according to mine, so she has to stay with me. Edward is going to be adopted by a friend, so he stayed as well. In fact, he was neutered yesterday so he can go home with my friend this weekend.

I got a final picture of everyone but Emmett. He was so excited every time I tried to photograph him that he would come toward the camera, making it impossible to get a shot of his pretty little face. I also managed to get a great video of Bella. She loves her fur mice. She seems unaware that there are more of these mice to be had, so she guards them like crazy, growling at any person or kitten who approaches her while she has one in her mouth. Just like Lamb with her swatches.

The thing that keeps me from missing my old kittens when I have to give them up is that I get brand new kittens right away. It means that I get no breaks, but it is the best way I know to move on and not adopt all my kittens.

This week’s younger model is Tiger

and her five beautiful babies

These babies were born on Saturday, so they are a week old tomorrow. They should be opening their eyes in just a few days. They are gaining weight, but I still have to worry. Their poor mother had a sneeze the morning after I got her. As of last night, she had so much mucus that it just drips from her nose when I see her. I have to spoon feed mommy to get her to try the wet food, and then she’ll take a bite or two on her own, only to abandon the food. A fasting mommy is not a good thing, so I’ve called the shelter to see what we can do. Antibiotics aren’t a great idea because she has infants nursing off of her, and it’s probably a viral cold anyway. I don’t want to take her in to the shelter because she will be exposed to even more possible contagions.

Unfortunately, Tiger is not the only sick kitty here. Wesley had his first senior exam on Monday, and there was bad news. His blood pressure was so high that he is in danger of going blind. Apparently, his retinas can detach from the pressure. Normally there is an underlying cause for the high blood pressure, but the vet can’t find anything in Wesley’s case. This is bad news because I am just treating the symptom and not the disease. He has a recheck in a month, so we’ll see if the blood pressure meds Wesley is taking are making a difference.

Keep your fingers crossed for all the sick ones.

A New Kitchen

The cabinet refacing and the counter top installation are complete. I am very, very excited about this because I have been without a kitchen for a while. I have other sinks and such, but I have to say, it’s been weird using the microwave in the guest bathroom (it was the only space with a usable counter top).

Even though the installers finished their jobs, there were still things for me to do. First, I installed the new faucet and plumbing. The faucet went in ok, but I had a lot of trouble keeping the pipes underneath from leaking. The new sink is a different size than the old one – it’s deeper and the bowls are off-set. The drain pipe from the wall came out too far for the new sink, and the drain pipe from the left hand sink bowl ran into the wall pipe. For the first time since starting all this DIY stuff, I suggested calling a professional. They came out to fix my drain, and like I suspected, they had to cut the pipe coming from the wall. It made me feel better, because that is the sort of thing that I don’t really feel comfortable with. Later that day, I tried out the sink and it leaked again. The plumber came back, free of charge, and redid the silicone seal around the flange. The next morning, after the silicone had cured, I tested the sink again, and it still leaked. The plumbers came out, again free of charge, and tried to fix it. It turned out that the nut the manufacturer supplied with the sink flange didn’t fit properly, and that was the biggest cause of the leaks. Who knew – it wasn’t me?!

Of course, Duck helped me every step of the way.

After the plumbing came the backsplash. I really like the idea of a tiled backsplash rather than a painted wall. A chunk of the counter top and a drawer front in hand, Michael and I went to the tile store to select the tiles for the backsplash. We came back with something I didn’t expect – travertine tiles with marble and glass accents. The sales person helped us design it, and here’s what we came up with:

I’ll admit, it’s not perfect, but it’s the first time I’ve laid tile myself. As of this moment, I’ve sealed the tiles, but I haven’t grouted. I’ll put up a picture when I’ve absolutely finished and cleaned up.

As a first timer, I had a lot to learn. For example, you can spread mortar on the walls and place tiles after, or you can back butter each tile. Counter to what I expected, the back buttering went faster. When I put the mortar directly on the walls, so much squished out between the tiles that I wasted time cleaning it up, and then the rest of the mortar would dry up while I was cleaning, so I had to scrape it off the wall and start again. The other incredibly important thing I learned, I debated talking about publicly. It’s slightly embarrassing, but I’ve decided in the end that other people need to know this. In all the instructions I read on the internet about tiling a backsplash, no one mentioned how to handle the plug sockets and switches. I removed the plates like I would for painting, and worked around what was in the wall. After I got all the tiles up, I finally found someone who spoke of his own backsplash, and he said that you need to unscrew the switches and plug sockets from the walls and rest them on the outside of the tile. There was no mention of turning off the breaker first, and this is what I think others need to know. While unscrewing a switch, my screwdriver slipped and touched what I think is a grounding screw attached to live wires. There was a huge spark, and the heat from the connection melted the screwdriver. The handle on the screwdriver was rubber, so I didn’t get hurt in the least, but it was shocking (pardon the pun) to see that sort of incident. So I’ve now learned that you can remove the switch plates without turning off the power, but don’t touch the rest of it without visiting the breaker box.

Tiling the backsplash took four days for me to complete. The problem was, I had classes to teach at the yarn shop before I could work, and with the short winter days, I ran out of daylight in a very short period of time. It’s really hard to use a tile saw in the dark, and I can’t imagine the neighbors would have appreciated me sawing tiles after midnight! Fun fact about the tile saw: it’s a grinder, rather than a cutter, so if you get your fingers in the way, it won’t cut you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you CAN injure yourself on a tile saw, but it’s harder to do than on your standard table saw.

Lamb and Duck helped me with this job, too, but I was so covered in mortar that I didn’t want to ruin my camera taking pictures of them sleeping on the dropcloth next to where I was working.

Speaking of Lamb, she finally did get her spay surgery. She is ready to go up for adoption now, but I am going to wait for the Twilight kittens (who have become incredibly affectionate) to make weight. So far, only Bella is under two pounds.I think it is a matter of days now.

This week I learned that not only am I really fond of Duck, be he loves me, too. I thought he was just a people person, but when he had the choice to hang out in his Daddy’s lap or watch me work, he hung out with me. He stays in bed with me until I wake up, just like Serra does (unless he’s really hungry, which happens a lot with a growing kitten). He was in the hallway calling for someone earlier today, and Michael answered him. Duck kept looking around in the hall until I called him, at which point he came running to get in my lap.

I started Duck on some training this week. When all of my cats were little, I got out a clicker and taught them a few parlor tricks. I have since given up the clicker, but only because the cats seem to learn from one another. I do a particular trick where I put a treat in my closed hand and tell the cats to touch. I occasionally put one in each hand and ask the cats to touch the one they think has the treat. They always win that game because every choice is a winner, but I bet they could figure it out based on smell. In any case, Wesley had to be taught using a shaping method. At first, he would touch my hand with his nose and I’d give him the treat. He moved on to licking my hand, and at some point he touched my hand with his paw. Now, only the paw touch gets the treat, but Wesley is all over it. Serra learned that trick simply by watching Wesley when she was small. She got it on the first try when I offered her the chance to do it. Duck took a few tries to learn (I think he isn’t as bright as Serra, but she is really smarter than the average cat), but now he gets “touch” as fast as anyone. I got Lamb to sit, but not Duck yet. Duck begs really well, though. Since Duck is still young and fearless, I want to teach him to balance on an exercise ball. The older cats seem afraid of falling off, so my previous attempts had been unsuccessful. Wesley used to jump back and forth between two chairs or stools I set up for him, but now he climbs off the original perch and walks across the floor to climb onto the destination. I guess the kittens I got eight years ago are just getting old!

As my constant companion, Duck seems interested in everything I do. He helps me blog by purring in my lap and occasionally walking on the keyboard. He helps me sweep by chasing the broom and rolling around in the dirt pile. He also knits when I have to get off the couch to get some sustenance or empty the tank:

He’s actually pretty good about not eating the yarn unless I am actively using it.

My favorite thing about Duck? He makes Serra happy. I think that Serra wanted a kitten to take care of and a playmate to entertain her. She tried to get Buttercup to be said companion, but Buttercup has never liked poor Serra. Now that Serra has Duck, they do everything together.

Serra doesn’t like to share her dry food, but look at this! I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

Dreaming of a White… Birthday?

I have to admit, I’ve never seen snow on my birthday before. I was born in Ohio, and I lived in Maryland and Arkansas. I had the opportunity, but never in my life has it happened. It’s kind of a shock, and I’m not sure what I think.

There has been so much snow that we’ve been unable to leave the house for 2 days. Just today, I drove in the snow for the first time.  It was a little tough to get through, and a little slippery, but I drove slowly and it was ok. I had a private lesson at the yarn shop and someone dropped off a big bag of things she just wanted me to finish for her – at my hourly rate! It was worth leaving the house today.

It was nice to just get out and knit while the kitchen renovation was going on. They made some real progress before I left. Check this out:

And by the time I got home, it looked like this:

Pretty marked improvement, no? I should point out that the contractors on this job came out to our house on the 2 days we were snowed in. I told them not to risk their lives driving in that weather just to work on our kitchen, but they were here (a little late on one day, but they made it), and they worked. Best contractors ever. They have a few hours of work left to do, so they are coming back tomorrow. Seriously dedicated people, these guys.

On Monday our countertops will be installed, and on Tuesday our gas cooktop and the sink will be hooked up. At that point we will have a fully functioning kitchen again!

Another good thing about these contractors is that they are good with the cats. One of them has 4 cats of his own, so he gets it. He also has 2 dogs he rescued. The guys were very happy when Wesley wanted to lie in the middle of the work zone because they got to pet him. The guys thought Duck was cute when he explored the demoed kitchen. The lead contractor even got Serra to let him pet her. I let the little kittens roam the living room/office area right outside of their room, and the contractors actually enjoyed watching them. It turns out, one of the guys knows how to knit as well. Is it too good to be true?

I realized recently that I will have the chance here on my blog to chronicle a foster kitten growing up. This excites me more than I expected. The best part is that here, I have an audience who is completely willing to look at all the adorable pictures that I take of my newly acquired feline son.

Duck has a habit of taking a drink out of my glass. He seems to really like my tea.

He’s also good with the other, littler foster kittens. These are some buddy shots of Duck with Edward:

Is this not the cutest?

And we can’t forget Lambie, Duck’s poor sister who is stuck here. She had a spay appointment for the day that the huge snowfall started. We couldn’t get out, so she couldn’t make her appointment. I have to reschedule when the shelter gets back in working order. In the meantime, Lamb is pretty sure that she’s part of the family. She sleeps with me, and she loves the toys I make for her. Ok, I don’t exactly make them for her, but Lamb loves to steal my swatches from my knitting projects. I’m sending them with her to the shelter so she will have them in her new home.

Lamb carries these swatches with her everywhere, and she growls when other cats get too close while she is playing with them. Maybe I should be spending my remaining time with Lamb making her toys so that she will have them long past her adoption. I really will miss her. Doesn’t anyone I know want a sweet, beautiful black kitten? She gives kisses…

While I was out

Last week, I was in San Francisco. I mostly spend my time out there on social calls, barely getting any rest. Michael  goes for work, and this time he was in meetings all day, every day. We are mighty busy while we are there, but I really love going back.

Before the trip, Duck and Lamb wanted us to know that they were going to miss us. They even offered to go.

But I doubt they’d make it through airport security.

Remarkably, I don’t think I really took many pictures of the trip. I took pictures of the yarn I bought at my favorite yarn store. I took pictures of the mitten I have in progress. Somehow, I just couldn’t seem to get pictures of my friends or the city. It’s a shame, but I will be back.

On the plane ride, I cast on a Bella’s Mittens. The version I made for my friend Vickie was too small for my hands, even before I felted it, so I used a larger needle (size 9) and a slightly thicker yarn (Rowan Cocoon). So far, the first mitten seems to fit. I am going to use it for a shop sample for the class I am teaching on these mittens. I figure it’s a good way to teach magic loop knitting and how to do cables.

By the time I left Knit Night on Wednesday, I finished the first mitten. These really work up fast, and might make good Christmas gifts…

So, of course, while I was gone it snowed. I can’t say for sure how much, but there was some snow on the ground when we got home. In fact, if you look at the back yard, you can see we have two seasons in one. Pick a lane, Mother Nature!

On the left we have winter, and on the right, fall.

The kittens continued to thrive while I was out. This is the first time I’ve ever had to leave foster kittens at the house, and I had to wonder how they would do without me. I must have good judgment in sitters because, I’ll tell you, those kittens are huge! Jacob made weight today, but he’s so far ahead of the others that he won’t get to go up for adoption while he’s little. It’s all well and good, because he’s fluffy and cute. I managed to get pictures of all but Bella since I’ve been home.

They have lost a lot of the baby look in the few days I was gone. They’ve also gotten really playful. Some of them (like Emmett and Rosalie) are even interested in people as playmates. Edward seems to have lost his mind – who knows what that boy was thinking when he chose to lay on my shoulder in the head stand position!

Duck and Lamb are still doing well. Lambie finally got cleared of the whole ringworm thing. The problem is, she is a bigger black kitten, and that makes her less attractive to potential adopters. Plus, Halloween is coming up soon, and I just don’t think it’s the right time to send her back. We’re going to have her spayed on Wednesday, and then I’ll try to get her a return appointment for November 1st, after Halloween.

I have no idea how Duck is going to take the loss of Lamb. She’s  been living with so long that she’s practically family. I have to admit, I’m not sure I can take her to the shelter. I may have to make Michael do the dirty work for me, or at least go with me. I just feel like such a jerk. She’s wonderful, really, but five cats is too many for me. Four is questionable with all the extra kittens that wander through here. Luckily, Duck is pretty easy-going. He doesn’t demand a lot of attention, and he plays well by himself. The thing is, this is all true while he has another kitten in the house who happens to be his age. He may not be so easy without a young playmate. Fortunately, Serra likes Duck a lot. She bathes him in the morning when they wake up, and she tries on occasion to play chase with him. Wesley is indifferent to the little guy, and Buttercup has decided that she can sleep on the couch with the kittens, but only if she is on the back of it while they are on the seat.  Butters still refuses to stay in my lap if Duck approaches us. Still, it’s a start. She’s way cooler with Duck than she was with Serra at this point.

In addition to all the kittens and the classes, we have another renovation going on this week. Fortunately, I’m not doing it this time – we have professionals.

This is my kitchen. We’re having the cabinets re-faced and we’re having silestone countertops installed. Fortunately, this process only takes a week, so I’ll have the kitchen back soon enough. I should get to the painting that got put on hold when the floors went in, but I think I hear the yarn shop calling…

Cuties to Tide You Over

First things first: Alice is still alive. In fact, she’s started gaining weight – she’s up 25% from where she was when I left for Houston. That is pretty cool. However, you should get a load of her next to Jacob – the difference is staggering. He is about 2.5 times her weight.

It’s hard to believe these are litter mates.

The Twilight kittens have made it to another defining moment in kitten development: they’ve pulled all the toilet paper off the roll. I am so proud! It seems odd to say that, but I had a brief concern that the little ones wouldn’t be alive at this point, so I take my miracles where I can get them. The TP destruction just means that they are getting mischievous and looking for things to do.

Little Duck and Lamb are still as cute as ever. I think I can actually see them growing right before my eyes. Look at them:

I worried that Duck would be lonely while we were out of town last week, but he seems to be handling us traveling just fine. Serra, on the other hand, freaked out. For the first time in her life, Serra chose to pee in something other than her litter box – she used our (thankfully not yet packed) suitcase. I doused it with tons of Nature’s Miracle, and later tonight after I finish packing I am going to take my wet vac to the thing. I may have lost a suitcase.

The thing to remember here is, despite popular belief, it was not anger at us that drove Serra’s new choice of litter box. Barring a medical problem, it was most likely stress. When we take the suitcase out of the closet, it means that we are going to leave her and she has no idea when we are coming back. Serra’s very attached to me, so I am not surprised in the least that my absence makes her anxious. My guess is that she figured I couldn’t leave the house without that bag, so she soiled it to make me stay. Or maybe she just marked it so I would remember that I belong to her and I should come home soon.

There is a saying: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” I am not sure who the true originator of this quote is – it’s been attributed to a few different people. In any case, I think a modified version of this statement makes sense when trying to interpret cat behavior: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by anxiety. Thinking about it that way will help you not get mad at the poor cat; rather, you’ll tend to feel a little more sorry for her than anything else. I know that there are plenty of people who just won’t see it that way, but I think it says more about those people than the cat. Personally, I’d rather not make up a reason to be mad at a creature (or person for that matter) when I don’t have to be. Anger takes too much energy for that.

I’ll give you another example of a commonly misinterpreted behavior: biting. Many believe that when a cat bites you, she’s just being mean. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You are way bigger than any cat – that alone can be intimidating. Maybe you unknowingly touched the cat in a place that hurt her. Or maybe she is redirecting her anxiety about environmental stresses (other cats, moving, new people in the house…) at you, a person who just happens to be in the way. In all of those cases, it isn’t anger, it’s stress. Having endured extreme stress on occasion, I understand what it’s like to have too much on your plate. Heck, I’d bite too if I weren’t afraid of catching something. In any case, I feel sorry for a cat that feels so backed into a corner that she has to bite me.

Those are my words of wisdom for this week. Who knows, maybe they’ll change the way you see life.

Edit: I always seem to speak too soon. I went in to visit the kittens tonight, and Alice was dead. It couldn’t have been more than an hour ago since she wasn’t cold yet and rigor mortis still hasn’t set in. At least it didn’t happen with the sitter.

Vampires DO have reflections

I have been so terrible about getting the individual shots of the kittens up this time. I feel especially bad about it because Renée died without a picture of her own. I have had only about 2 or 3 kittens die before I got a picture of them, but wouldn’t you know, they were all black kittens. The first was Fulton, my very first foster kitten to die. He was an older kitten, about 6 weeks old. He is the only one I don’t have a single picture of. (And yes, I can name most of the kittens I’ve fostered, and if I see a picture of the group, I can name them all.)

So anyway, I think it is way past time to introduce the kittens to you. Plus, I think it will help my wonderful friend, Tammy, tell the kittens apart.

Alice looks a little rough. She is a bit smaller than the day I got her, and I really don’t expect her to survive. On the other hand, Duck lived even though he was really sick for a long time.

Bella is supercute! She loves to gently pounce on your ankles, and she chatters just a bit when you play with her. The poor thing has already had mats in her fur – her new family will have to brush her all the time.

Edward is so handsome! His coat is a smoke color rather than all black. It’s really hard to get his true color with the camera flash, so sometime I’ll take him into a room with a skylight so I can get a really good shot of him. He is very quiet and quite snuggly.

Poor Emmett came to us without a family, but I have to say he blends in with these guys very well. He loves to eat, and for the longest time he was my biggest kitten. I believe he is at least a week older than all the other kittens. He wouldn’t take the bottle on the first few days.

Jacob is a tank. He outweighs the next biggest kitten by about 100g. He is fluffy and vaguely wolf-like when he moves around the room.

This is Rosalie. Michael thinks she is the prettiest kitten (I think it’s Bella). She is pretty playful, and she loves to be picked up.

Renee looked like a much smaller version of Jacob. She was so bright and friendly, looking up at me with her big, blue eyes when she scurried up my leg into my lap. She was pretty special.

I will miss these guys while I am out of town. At least for the first time it’s only two nights. I have 11 cats to kiss before I leave, so I’ll write more later.

When it’s most inconvenient

Don’t count your kittens before they crash.

This day started like every other horrible day in fostering. Michael woke me up to inform me that we needed to go the the shelter because one of the kittens was crashing. That would be Renée, the one who I was so surprised to still have alive. She was still pretty warm, which I thought was a good sign. We caught her early, and usually a kitten caught crashing the earlier stages has a better outcome. We got her to the shelter, and they rushed her back. The foster coordinator came back a few minutes later to tell me that she was dead. It honestly didn’t hit me that hard at first. I waited around while they did a precautionary Panleukopenia snap test. What I wasn’t prepared for is that the test came back positive.

This means many bad things. If one kitten in a litter has Panleuk, all of the kittens are likely to have it. The mortality rate is really high, and it is very contagious. Shelters will go into lockdown while they sanitize, quarantine, and euthanize affected kittens. This year has been particularly bad for that disease here in Colorado. For a foster parent, that means your home is going into quarantine and you can’t foster again for at least 6 months (although if you have a completely separate room, you may be able to continue fostering).

After Renée died, I had to go home and get the other 6 kittens. I worried all the way to the shelter that they would test positive. I was sure that Alice was going to come up positive, given how rough her life has been in the last week. Fortunately, not a single other kitten tested positive. But the complications aren’t over yet.

I am leaving town on Wednesday. Lamb is going to stay with Duck and the other cats until her ringworm test comes back negative. The other 6 kittens need much more supervision. They cannot go back to the shelter because there is nowhere they can be quarantined. If I had to send the little guys back, they’d be euthanized. Luckily, Julie’s going to look after them while I am out of town. The complication with that is Julie is a doula, and she has a client expecting a birth during that same time-frame. My petsitter, fortunately, may be able to give the kittens a feeding or 2 if Julie has to go to a birth. It’s really great that I have people to count on in this sort of emergency, but man – this isn’t cool.

I’m going to owe so many people so big…

Addition and Subtraction

Your favorite knitter/foster parent/blogger/insane do-it-yourself-er is finally back. The whole floor, trim, and most of the touch up painting is done, done, done. I feel so much better now.

I had a serious case of start-itis near the end of the flooring project. I think the stress and chaos of living in a construction zone made me want to escape, so I just kept starting new yarn projects. I even obsessed about plans to make a crocheted sock – my mind was racing with thoughts about how to construct the thing and how exactly I wanted to do the ribbing – to the point that I had to get out of bed one night and start crocheting. I guess when a muse takes notice of one of my ideas, she won’t let it go until we get into action. I think it would be most helpful if we took inventory of what is on the hooks and needles again.

Knittin’

1. Crocheted Sock – I am going to turn this one into a class. Unlike knit socks, I consider crochet socks to be an advanced beginner project. Yes, the hook is small (but you could make a worsted weight sock with a slightly bigger hook), but you only really need to know how to single crochet to start a sock. In my class I am going to teach skills like increasing, decreasing, and even how to crochet to fit. Socks are really great for teaching technique.

2. Mr. Greenjeans Cardigan – I really need to start layering now that I live somewhere it snows. It seems like a cardigan is the easiest way to get started.

(All of the following will be Ravelry links)

3. Two-in-one socks – I tried this technique, but it was so slow going that I had to admit I hated it. I separated the socks and began knitting them separately. I am much happier now, but I did learn that my gauge is much tighter when I knit double-stranded.

4. Robert’s Boot Socks – These are going to be much like kilt hose, but at the same time more plain. Robert is my brother in the Marines. He wanted a good pair of thick socks for hiking, and he really liked the pictures of some kilt hose I made in the past, so he asked for some. The thing is, I started it using Cascade 220. Somewhere after I made the first 20% or so of the first sock, I realized that I should have used a superwash yarn because the hiking will most likely felt the things. Does anyone know if Cascade Superwash comes in khaki?

5. Cat Couch – I started working on this project for the cats again when I started teaching classes. I really owe them something nice, and I now I’m starting to owe them lots of nice things for neglecting them. I am such a bad mom.

6. Beaded Deep Space – This is a Christmas project for a friend. I do hope to finish it for this Christmas, but it may have to wait for next. The long floor project robbed me of quite a bit of time.

7. Colorado Gloves – I am actually thinking of turning these into mittens or fingerless gloves. I realized that the fingers make it way too slippery to wear the gloves while knitting or driving, and they wouldn’t be nearly as warm as mittens.

I also took something out of my project list recently – the Earl Grey socks. I know now, without a shred of doubt, that I am allergic to alpaca. Sometimes when I help a client at the store, my throat starts to itch and then swell up. Every single time I ask the client what fiber she is using, it turns out to be alpaca. I was seriously crushed to learn this because alpaca fiber is incredibly soft and warm – as a matter of fact, it would make a great winter blanket. In the end, I rehomed this project and some unspun alpaca fiber to my friend, Julie. I know she’ll take good care of it.

Kittens

In the time when I was absent, the kittens continued to grow and change. Goose made weight, and I had to return her earlier than I expected. She is incredibly friendly. Too friendly. Every night since I got the Twilight kittens, she got to sleep with us. In the middle of the night Goosie would wake up so happy, purring and rubbing her face against mine and Michael’s. While it was perhaps the sweetest way to wake up, it was still waking up. Multiple times a night. I was a wreck.

I was completely flattered that Goose loved us so much.

Lambie is still with me. She had a lesion on her muzzle that looked suspiciously like ringworm. Since the shelter I currently volunteer for puts kittens with ringworm down (they are working to change that policy, just slowly), I had Lamb’s spot checked. What a mistake. She is still with me because the test came back positive even though the lesion cleared up within 3 days. As anyone who reads my blog regularly should know by now, no ringworm has ever cleared up that fast. Ever. While the vet agrees with me that it is probably a false positive due to cross-contamination, they have to wait until Lamb has a negative test to release her for adoption. The test takes 2 weeks for a negative result. I am leaving for a trip before that test comes back, so I was distressed. Fortunately, the shelter vet has a plan – they’ll treat her with lyme-sulfur and put her up for adoption with a note that she was possibly exposed to ringworm. It means she will be in a cage by herself, which makes me really sad. However, she is a black kitten. Nice as she is, people are superstitious about black cats, and the older she gets, the less adoptable Lamb will be. I cannot stand the thought that my baby will be overlooked because her coat is the “wrong” color. You could do a lot worse than Lamb. Lambie loves to give kisses, and she really loves yarn-based cat toys. And face it – she’s beautiful.

That Duck character – well, where do I begin. I’ve loved other foster kittens. I loved Carrot, who found a perfect home right before I left San Francisco. I knew when her new mother started to speak to me that Carrot was meant for her, the only person good enough for my baby. I loved Margo, a black momcat whom I fostered long before I started this blog. She has bright orange eyes, and she used to pull your face to hers with her paw so she would kiss you. She also had this pure joy that you couldn’t help catching. I loved Roman, the first foster kitten that I really had to fight to keep alive. He died in the end, but I thought if he lived that I might not be able to let go. I also loved Gareth, who survived Panleuk with some brain damage. He didn’t seem to have a good flight instinct when a situation was dangerous. He also couldn’t figure out simple obstacles like glass doors. He got into my entertainment center once, through an open glass door. The other door was closed. As Gareth tried to get out of the closed glass door, he started to panic. He threw himself against the glass, not noticing that there was  a way to freedom just inches away. He also panicked if he was alone. It was heartbreaking to realize what he was going through. I would have kept him, too, if a woman hadn’t come along who inquired about him, left the adoption center to really think through what she was getting into, and came back completely prepared to love him the way he needed.

Duck is like the others I’ve loved. He’s handsome. He has a very gentle personality, and nothing really bothers him. He has the innate joy that Margo had. I went through a lot to save him. On October 1, Michael took Duck to the shelter. At 4:00 that afternoon, after his neuter surgery, I adopted him. That’s right, I adopted my first foster kitten. I managed to resist the charms of 183 kittens, only to be suckered in by Duck. Save for a fight he started in his carrier the moment I signed the papers and handed over the adoption fee (Duck was recovering from the anesthesia, and we think he’s a mean drunk), Duck has continued to be the same, wonderful baby cat he always was. And now he’s mine.

The Twilight kittens are all still alive. I truly thought that Renee, at 197g and at least 3-4 weeks of age was going to die, but she is still alive. She’s still tiny, but she is bright and friendly and gaining weight, just a little at a time. Edward and Bella are alive and thriving, as are Jacob, Emmett, and Rosalie. Alice is struggling, but I think even she might survive. She looks awful, but she gains just a little weight most mornings. There will be more photos of them in the future, but they won’t be with me much longer. When we leave town, the kittens are going to other foster homes. They are off the bottle, so the healthier ones can go to any foster home. The little ones will need special care, though. These poor kittens came to me with giardia (I know, what a surprise). When the meds didn’t clear up the infection, the doctors found clostridium in their stool. This is another disease that people can catch, but not as easily as they can catch giardia. You might know other forms of clostridium: botulism, food poisoning, and tetanus. It is also responsible for lethal hospital infections, under the name of clostridium dificile. I think this may be what killed so many of my bottle-feeders in San Francisco. Luckily, there is a treatment – an antibiotic called Amphoral. I think I like that drug, given that it seems to save lives.

So, I believe that you are now caught up. If there is something I missed, please mention it in the comments so that I can be sure to update everyone. Feel free to raise your expectations to the previous level