More Deer at Casa de Gato

We actually have two deer family that make the rounds around my house now.  This beautiful family showed up recently.

It thrills me every time I see them.  On Thursday, two of the babies from the first family showed up in front of my house. I saw one walk by and I was so excited that I jumped up and immediately started a Facebook live to share. The deer walked out of the view so I stopped and I moved to a different window.  The deer moved right in front of my driveway.. it was so cool.

I ran back to my office to get my DSLR and take close up photos. I took some stunning photos. The deer moved off to the side of my garage and I ran to the side window to wait for it and this deer looked different. The sibling was also there. I got some poor shots of them from the angles they were at. The smaller one moved to the back of the garage and I could see it out the back window and I took some great photos.. then I realized I could see the other one in the reflection of the window and I took a few photos trying to get a good one and I grabbed a pretty good one when the deer were spooked and ran off.  As they were running I wanted to try to get one of it bounding, and I saw the No SD Card warning on the display.  I nearly banged my head on the wall.. They were really great photos. I mean I was less than 10 feet away from them and I had my zoom lens..

I am guessing I am going to have more chances.. I am just going to have to be very careful to keep an SD card in my camera..

NH Wildlife

When we moved to this community, I knew full well we were moving into the middle of the woods and there would be wildlife.. but I never realized I'd be this close.

First, there was the woodchuck

He was super cute and enjoyed chewing on the flowers that were in front of my house. This above photo was taken through the screen so he was probably no more than five feet from me. S/He kept showing up and we kept thinking it was adorable until we put the house on the market and in the process realized s/he had made a den right next to the front of the house. I probably wouldn't have cared (although I probably should have) but we figured this would be a negative trying to sell the house so I put a couple of piles of kitty poop near the den and poof, s/he was gone.

Then in July there was this:

Can't see it? Let me show you what I got from a different window.

The purple flowers in that last photo edge the walkway to the front door. She was probably 20-30 feet from me. Annoyingly someone in a van saw her and drove right up my driveway (past where she was about 10 feet) for some reason, I mean all the way up to the garage. I have no idea if they were trying to get a photo of her or scare her away.. I was not fit for human consumption at the moment (being in my pjs) or I would have run right out there and given them a piece of my mind.

Then we moved.

As I was driving back to the new house I rounded the corner and nearly smacked into a family of deer.

I was amazed at how close I was able to get to them. If I wasn't so fearful of deer ticks I would have gotten out of my car and tried to walk up to them (no one tell me this is a bad idea, I'm afraid enough of deer ticks to not do it). My husband and I have both seen them in that spot several times as of late. Sometimes with the fawns, sometimes not.

Then one morning in our backyard..

The rescuer in me wants to put out food and vitamins and whatever else I can to "help" them, but again my fear of deer ticks and the knowledge in the back of my head somewhere says that is a very bad idea.. but deer.. and deer with baby deer.. in my backyard!! come on.. you can't tell me a small part of you would want to do it too.

I have a ton of bee and butterfly photos on my larger SD card but I put that "some where safe" to move and haven't uncovered it yet. *sigh* I need a nap

A final kittenpillar update

I went out and checked on the chrysalis in my peonies on Wednesday night and it looked like this.

It was going to be very cold Wednesday night so I feared that Toby wouldn't make it, so I didn't report on the fact that you could see the wings.Thursday night Toby looked like this

More cold nights were forecast, so I still worried but come Saturday..

I went and checked on Toby several times and I missed his/her departure (apparently you can tell the gender from the wings so if anyone knows monarchs you'll know if Toby is male or female) I've never looked closely at the chrysalis once it has hatched and it was so interesting to look at.

Unfortunately, Pickle did not make it. Pickle emerged with wings that would not straighten out. I feel more than a little guilty that I took him in and he never knew life outside but I'm trying to not let that get to me. I was trying to help and there was a very good chance that he wouldn't have even been able to form a chrysalis (aka he would have been eaten) if I had left him outside.

I enjoyed this quite a bit and will see what I can do about planting milkweed at my new house next spring.

Fleurp face pretty much sums up my mood

Things over at Casa de Gato have been quite wonky lately.A couple of weeks ago I noticed this

For some reason, Skippy has been over grooming his back feet and had started working on his belly by the time I realized it.  I've tried my best to spend one on one time with him, I've been dosing him with Rescue Remedy in case he was getting paranoid about all of the packing going on (and I've slowed down on that quite a bit). The fur stopped disappearing, but then he started losing weight, nearly half a pound. I had a feeling it might be an issue with all of the fur so I have started plying him with all kinds of hairball treats and giving him extra food and he seems to be on the upswing.

We are still having issues with Jack and his thyroid. I even went so far as to buy the name brand for human thyroid meds and we are still having issues. To give him enough medicine that his body will regulate his weight, his bladder becomes unhappy and he starts to urinate outside of the box. So I am giving him enough to maintain his weight and seriously hoping that is enough.

Fleurp has started licking mirrors. It is the first sign of her anemia. I've been thinking for a while that when she sheds her coat that is somehow interfering with her blood count. Now that her winter coat is coming in and she is losing her summer fur, I'm even more convinced. I can Furminate her but she hates it and usually ends up snapping at me. Hopefully, with some extra iron and a concerted effort to groom her more regularly will keep her on keel. I plan to give her a lion cut in the spring and we'll see first hand if my theory holds out.

My caterpillars are still green and hanging in there. It has been 10 days since the one in the house formed and they can take up to 15 days, so hopefully soon.. I fear that they are both dead though, but that's just because I'm me.

Sadly, it looks like Muffin has developed a growth on her nose.

I really really want it to be a dirt spot but it is raised and it bothers her when I tried to clean it off. She will have to see a vet again.. *sigh* the bump behind her ear has also started growing and she has a tooth that could use some attention. My poor old girl.. (I'm quite worried)

Now, on to the less depressing things. I saved a frog yesterday

and by saved a frog I mean I herded the frog out of the garage and back into the yard. Not a very exciting rescue, but it was fun watching him jump.. He jumped impressively high.

Now, on to the what was that from Friday

Unfortunately, there was no good way to get a perspective image but many of you guessed that I was in quite tight.  A couple of you were close with a molar, but it is actually a wad of tartar that I was able to scrape off one of Twee's teeth. I asked the husband to pick a number between one and eighteen, the number of comments and he picked 12. Greg from Feline Cafe and his Perogi comment that actually made me lol totally wins.

Kittenpillar watch 2017

There were a few cold nights over the weekend, and then I didn't go out and check on Toby and found he was still there and still green.

Getting photos of Pickle was much harder. Since he attached himself to the top of a mason jar and the leaves went right up to the top, my camera had no idea what to focus on and I wasn't doing a great job of getting the right focal point manually..

I wasn't thrilled with the small opening and the leaves all being up in Pickle's space, not to mention the poop that accumulated at the bottom of the jar was starting to mold, so I moved the cover to a wider mouth jar. What I am going to do in a few days when hatching starts, I'm not sure. Anyone have any suggestions?

We have chrysalis!

Wednesday night I saw this:

I checked on him several times in the evening but he continued to look like this (I should so totally name him - and a non-gender specific name since I have no idea if this is a boy) so I went to bed. In the morning I had this:

I"m kind of glad I missed the whole spectacle because instead of spinning a web around themselves they literally break their skin and molt into their chrysalis. There are interesting time lapse videos on YouTube if you are interested in seeing it. So in nine to fifteen days, hopefully, there will be a butterfly.

The one that is outside is a day or two ahead of the one inside so that one could very well hatch first. We'll have to see.

So, I'm back to not having anything to care for.. *sigh* I kinda hope my cats don't take this as a signal to get into trouble to make me care for them. Although, with this cold that is coming on, maybe I should just take some time and care for myself.

There is just no stopping the grabby hands

Well, I couldn't help myself. When I went to check on the three remaining caterpillars on Monday morning and I could only find two. One was still eating the other was off on a peony plant just hanging out. I was running a little late so I didn't have time to try to collect it so I decided to do it when I got home from work. Losing them one at a time like this was hard.  When I got home there was only the one left and I really could not stand it, so, yeah, I collected it.

At first he wasn't eating but after a few hours he started to eat so I am hopeful that he will thrive and we'll have a chrysalis soon.

For fun, I went out one last time yesterday to see if I could find any others. No more caterpillars, but there was this.

And then there were three - the caterpillar saga continues

I am going to admit that it has been a bit depressing to go from nine caterpillars to three. I don't know what is happening. I've seen some of them wander off into the peony plants right next to the milkweed, so I've been looking to see if I can see if they formed chrysalises in my peonies, but so far nothing. I'm not sure that is because my peonies are so dense or they just aren't there. Once again, I am tempted to intervein and take them inside but I'm not sure that is any better for them. I wish I could see just one form and hatch, but unless I do I won't be sharing any more updates.

I did find two interesting things this last time out to my garden. First, I received a fall strawberry. It was yummy.

There was also a moth hanging out in the garden

This caterpillar is a little lost

I went out after work to check on my kitten-pillars and I could only find four of them until this fifth one caught my eye. It was a little frustrating because the mosquitos were out in full force buzzing in my ears and trying to make a meal out of me so I might have overlooked someone.

They have eaten all of the leaves at the top of the milkweed and left all of the bottom two-thirds of the plant. Looking at the photos I wonder if it is because they are all full of poop, and I am wondering if I clear them off if they will be more appetizing. *shrug* I do not know as this is my first real time watching caterpillars.

I feel bad about the other four. Part of me wants to find out what happened to them, mostly to know if I can save the others (yes, I looked to see if they started to form their chrysalis). I should look to see if I can find another patch of milkweed just in case.