More than you ever wanted to know about Alabama native Joe Watts
What exactly have I been doing up since 5:30? See the photo below for the answer!
Well, honestly I wasn’t up taking this photo. Ann took the photo several days ago after seeing an earlier post of mine with a less than stellar photo of Samantha, our new kitty. But Samantha is certainly the reason for my early morning awakeness. When the first ray of sun (or actually pre-dawn light) hits the room, she is up and ready for business.
Samantha is the newest family member of the Watts home. We caught her about 3 months ago with the plan of having her fixed and setting her free. She was just too much of a people cat to do that. We decided to find her a home. We didn’t have luck. We decided we’d give her a try. And here she is, napping pleasantly on the bed with Leroy (who, coincidently, has been the least enamored with Samantha).
We’ve been watching this cat for the past two weeks. It acted like a stray cat, so we had planned to trap it and have it spayed and then release it. Turns out it is clearly someone’s pet. We’re trying to find out who that could be. Must have gotten out accidentally a couple of weeks ago. It is EXTREMELY friendly and pretty talkative. It appears to have already been spayed.
Leroy, our platinum Burmese boy cat, turns four years old today. When we brought him home, we still lived at the Claridge Condos in Birmingham. He didn’t get to stay there for long, though, as we moved to our current location on Lakeview Crescent shortly after bringing him home.
We’ve taken to calling him Chicken Little as he runs from anything. If the doorbell rings, I can generally expect to meet him in the hall–he’s heading for the bedroom to hide under the bed as I make my way to the front door to discover who’s ringing the doorbell.
He’s always been skittish, but for some reason, he has gotten terrified of strangers lately. It all stems, we think, from when we had a good bit of work done on our windows earlier this fall. He didn’t mind people banging around outside when they were working on the deck, but somehow, he’s decided to play it safe and avoid people at all costs. Who knows, maybe he’s been reading the Birmingham News and is worried about the crime statistics.
Regardless, Happy Birthday to Leroy!
Sometimes kitties have a better understanding of things than we do. I’m sitting in my office working (well, Ann and I did get out and rake up many of the remaining leaves and clean out the flower beds). Riley has a much better way of enjoying the sunny day.
Here’s hoping the drought in Birmingham doesn’t last through this summer and our hard work in the yard pays off. Otherwise, I should just be living the life of Riley.
It has been frigidly cold here in Birmingham, AL for the last few days. Down into the teens–and that may not seem too cold to some folks, but if you live in Alabama, it is extreme cold. We feed 4 outdoor cats that more or less came with the house–they are feral and won’t let anyone come near them, but they’ve come to depend on the food we provide. (Yes, we got them “fixed,” so no kittens!)
Two are always here and two others come and go with less frequency. I’ve seen the two that are always here (Callie and Blackie) and have seen the others, but not today. We got really worried about them so I went out and purchased a tiny outdoor dog house for them and put it under the deck. No one has dared venture into it, of course.
Our indoor cats find these outdoor interlopers boring and pay them no attention whatsoever. (The cat in the photo is Callie–she’s been enjoying the nicer weather we are having today by rolling around in the sun and basically saying, thank God I made it through, that sun feels great–time to eat!)