Category Archives: Backyard Bowl

I Haven’t Lost All My…

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As I noted a couple of months ago, the classic Backyard Bowl has been discontinued in favor of daily offerings to the various Gods of Feral Critters, over on the other side of the house, near the catio.

However, we* do maintain the water bowl in its historical location, and it continues to get visitors.

* Although I say “we”, 95% or more of the actual maintenance is done by Maggie.

Meet Marbles.

Named, as local tradition has it, by appearance. He*’s a marble tabby, so the name is pretty much inevitable.

* Conjecturally. We haven’t gotten a good look at putatively his hindquarters.

He’s not as consistent in his visits as G’aw; sometimes weeks will go by without a sighting, but we’re always happy to see him. He’s very skittish when it comes to humans. Where G’aw will keep a cautious distance, but say “hello” and “can’t you fill that bowl any faster”, Marbles will vanish if he even thinks someone is looking at him.

Which is perfectly fine. Not everyone needs to be friendly–and to be blunt, it would be highly hypocritical of me to cast aspersions on someone for being a curmudgeonly anti-social grump.

That said, we do seem to be the only ones in the area who are pleased to see him. G’aw faces him down if they both show up at the same time.

And as for the other neighbors, well…did you notice the bird sitting on the fence? It did its best car alarm imitation the entire time Marbles was in the yard.

Big Spider Is Really Big

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I’m not kidding here. If spiders are on your squick list, stop reading now.

 

Seriously!

 

Here’s a small picture of Emeraldas, as protection against getting too much of the post on screen. (She’s warming up her eye lasers to save you from the evil arachnid.)

 

 

So, yes. Continuing last week’s recognition of new visitors; though in this case, she’s not hanging out at any of the bowls. She’s strung her web in front of the house. Across the path to the front door, in fact. We suspect she wouldn’t mind a bit if she snagged a UPS or Amazon driver.

Not a great shot, is it? Night photography in gusting winds is tough.

Of course, so is Ms. Arachnid’s web. It’s held up remarkably well against those winds and a week’s worth of foot traffic.

Hang on, let me get a shot from a different angle.

Much better.

She’s rather cute, in a “way too many legs” kind of way, don’t you think?

A New Face

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Although the classic Backyard Bowl is no more, we continue to maintain the tradition of offering goodies* to the neighbors. The actual food bowl is on the other side of the house, near the catio, but the bird feeders and the free-and-open water bowl are still where they’ve always been.

* Primarily cat food and catnip.

And every so often, somebody new stops by and discovers the offerings.

This handsome individual showed up earlier this week and hung around for half an hour or so, snarfing down the sunflower seeds that had fallen from the bird feeder.

We’ve always said that anyone is welcome, as long as they’re well-behaved. Which is why the coyotes are distinctly unwelcome, the trash pandas get periodic reminders of the rules, and there’s cayenne in the bird feeders for the edification of the squirrels.

This person, however, was minding their own business and performing a useful function–denying the squirrels a free meal–so we made no effort whatsoever to suggest they go elsewhere.

Though, to be fair, Sachiko–as the closest member of the Ooki Brothers Security Service–kept a watchful eye out.

As far as we know, they haven’t been back. But if they continue to comport themself with dignity, we’ll be happy to say hello.

From a safe distance, of course. Welcome only goes so far; 3-methyl-1-butanethiol goes much, much further.

Insert Annual Blessing Here

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The new year is supposed to be a time of change. Hanging a new calendar. Making resolutions to improve oneself.

What we often forget is that it’s also a time to renew the old.

“Auld Lang Syne” is, after all, a reminder to cherish what’s behind us–those who have passed, those places we won’t visit again–and drink to their memories. It’s not an invocation of what’s coming.

So take a moment today for your own auld lang syne. So what if it’s a day late. Even a few days, weeks, or months don’t matter. As long as you keep those memories, they’ll keep you.

New Years is also a time to renew traditions. That song is one, certainly, but so are spending time with friends and making new friends.

There are personal traditions as well. Our original Backyard Bowl is long gone, but Maggie continues to put out food every day. That’s a tradition that goes back to at least 2013.

Meet G’aw.

He’s the most reliable visitor to the current Backyard Bowl; most days he’s waiting when Maggie takes the food out.

We continue our tradition of naming visitors by appearance. He’s Grey tabby and white, but that’s unwieldy for daily use, and the acronym is unpronounceable, even to one who grew up reading science fiction about aliens whose names generally lacked vowels. So, one quick apostrophization, and “G’aw” he has become.

Let me clear: we have no plans to lure him inside. Indeed, we continue to make plans so as to not lure him indoors, or even into the catio.

He’s acceptably friendly: he says hello from a cautious distance; waits for Maggie to come inside before approaching the bowl; and hangs around in the yard when he’s done eating, but quickly abandons even the best patches of sun if he hears us come outside. That’s about right.

Old tradition, new friend.

Happy New Year. May it be better than the last one; indeed, as the old-and-possibly-faux Irish proverb has it, may it be better than you deserve. Because really, at this point, I don’t think there’s anybody reading this blog who deserves the kind of years we’ve been getting lately.

Post-Thanksgiving Turkey

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The day after Thanksgiving, we had a…well, “invasion” implies conflict, and there wasn’t any. “Visitation” is a bit better, but it suggests an element of social interaction that was entirely lacking. Let’s go with “encounter”.

The day after Thanksgiving, we had an encounter with some of the neighbors.
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They spent half an hour or so wandering around the backyard.
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We almost never see them on our side of the fence, yet there they were.
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Sachiko peeked out the window to see if there were any birds at the feeders and promptly hid behind my legs.

At that, she comported herself more bravely than the rest of the security force, who apparently all clocked out and went upstairs to have a little lie-down on the bed.

They left as quietly and peacefully as they had arrived.

Was it a celebration of having survived another Thanksgiving? A wake for those who didn’t? A plea for some leftover stuffing and gravy?

Perhaps it was all of these.

Unhappiness

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No cute picture this week.

Sorry, I’m not feeling the toe bean love. Or the sleeping cat, cat in a small space, or, indeed, any other cuteness.

A family of coyotes–mother and four or five pups–has moved into the neighborhood, and is hanging around the area outside our fence.

All the cats have gone into hiding. Hell, even the damn Trash Pandas have made themselves scarce.

We’re doing our best to annoy the coyotes into leaving, making loud noises and throwing pine cones when we see them. And we’ve moved the Backyard Bowl to a somewhat more protected location. The felines sneak out when things are quiet, grab some food, and vanish back into hiding again.

We saw MM late Wednesday night.

Tuxie hasn’t been seen in more than a week. This is not good.

We’re clinging to the hope that someone else saw his charm and charisma, and has given him the indoor home he’s been angling for. It could be. We know he’s been visiting more people than us, and the last time we saw him was a couple of days before the first reports of coyote sightings.

But it’s hard to maintain optimism, especially knowing he’s got a microchip registered to us. Surely if someone had adopted him, they’d have taken him to the vet for a checkup, right?

Or maybe someone spotted the coyote and gave Tuxie some temporary shelter. That could be too.

And there are still other cats around. We’ve caught glimpses of a black cat from across the street and an unknown black and white critter.

But they’re not our buddy Tuxie.

So, no pictures today. Maybe next week.

Tuxie Beans

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Tuxie has been very friendly of late, sometimes preferring cuddles to food. And he’s developed a taste for a tummy skritch–a taste he shares with Rufus, by the way.

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Pardon the blurriness. Even when he’s getting the attention he wants, he’s still rather wiggly.

But check out those handsome, two-toned pink and black toe beans.

Odd Couple

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Tuxie and MM have, for the most part, arrived at a workable arrangement. There’s always some jockeying for position when the food bowls go down, but after a minute or so, they settle down to the serious business of eating.
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To be quite honest, we’ve arrived at the point where they spend more time shoving each other aside to get petted before they eat.
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It’s a bit awkward, but quite endearingly cute.

Adaptation

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As I’ve mentioned, it has been cooling off around here lately. Not to the ridiculous extremes everywhere else in the country, but enough to be noticeable.

Tuxie and MM have been evaluating different approaches to maximizing sunlight acquisition and retention.

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Sharing body heat, in other words. MM has decided that Tuxie makes a darn good hot water bottle.

Though some positions work better than others.

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We’re pretty sure she wound up with a stiff neck after trying to sleep this way.

But it’s nice to see how nature adapts to changing conditions.