Better Purring Through Technology

While the original Summerhill Kitten Farm (built in 1890) was transformed into an electronic cottage before we had cats, these days many of the technological advances at the Kitten Farm West are actually driven by the Feline Overlords.

For example:

• The main reason we own a an HP CP2025dn LaserJet is not because it's a fast networked duplexing color printer, and that it uses powdered toner which doesn't dry out. No, we bought it because by combining the function of a color inkjet and a B&W Laserjet, we have a single taller printer that leaves more space in my office for cats and makes a better launch pad for Whitey or Penwiper to do a spider-cat worthy jump to the top of the library bookshelf.
• Recently, we adjusted the shelving in the living room entertainment center so that the receiver, a smarter brother of the Big Black Kitty Warmer in my office, now has the shelf clearance to be used by a feline for its true purpose of keeping a cat toasty. They haven't discovered it yet, but they will.
• Back at Christmas, we replaced +Katherine Derbyshire's aged iPad 2 with a iPad Mini 4, which is faster and smaller. With the recent addition of a Zagg keyboard and an iOS beta of her favorite writing tool, that means more futon time in place of sitting at her desktop, with more room for a feline in her lap.

Alas, our work is never done.

Yesterday, Katherine pinged me from her office to ask me to print a document that she'd put on the cloud. I found this odd, but complied. While I printed it and fetched the result, she explained that she was on her futon with her iPad -- and the cat on her lap had decreed she didn't need to get up just then. She had already searched for how to print directly from her iPad and found something called AirPrint, but our monster of a printer, released in 2009, has never heard of it. Fortunately, Google search has.

After I chatted with our local server, the Chief Kitten Valet can now print from her iPad. I don't know how she'll retrieve the result, though.

p.s. We interrupted writing this post after the word "complied" to worship the just-arrived-on-my-desk Penwiper. He was petted, and settled on a desk pillow to groom himself. 

We then returned to our previously scheduled blog post ...

Spider-cat: The Next Generation

Those who have followed our cats for any length of time knows that Whitey is the Spider-cat: he loves heights, and generally never falls off his chosen perch once ascended.  (We've chosen to ignore a certain unfortunate incident in 2014 -- at least he did execute a good landing that day.)

However, the younger generation does have its own spider-cat talents, doing something even Whitey has never tried:

Coach Penwiper ready to ride the exercise bike with me

My coach checks me on almost everyday I ride.  A few times when he's seemed interested I've boosted him up there, but usually only to where his hind paws are on the reading ledge of the front side of the console.  But I didn't help him today -- I wasn't even near the bike when he hoisted himself.

If that looks hard, it's because it is; that console is about an inch wide, and curved.  Without the paw on the handle bar, even he would tip over.

Self-Storing Nap Kitten

Last night, when I was putting clothes away before bed, Billy jumped up into the drawer for my Land's End shorts, and after poking at the drawer above it (it used to hold kitty treats, years ago), he settled in for a nap. I warned Katherine not to walk into the drawer when she came to bed, and crashed myself. He was still quietly curled up in the drawer at 2:30 AM when I got up to check why his brother Whitey was meowing (for no reason, it seems). At least one brother was cute overnight.

Best Toy Ever! (at least for 2016)

For years in the original Summer Kitten Farm, we had a Van Gogh reproduction hanging in our bedroom. After we moved to Kenmore in 2007, we meant to get it promptly unpacked and rehung.  Honest.

Today we got it unpacked:

Our finally unpacked Van Gogh reproduction

The boys don't care if we hang it, but they think it should have been unwrapped years ago, because the inner wrapping paper is fun!

Whitey checking out the Van Gogh reproduction wrapping paper, AKA his new blanket.

Whitey and his new blankie

And where is Billy in all this?  Very happy, thank you.

Billy nestled deep in the folds of the blankie.

Billy is actually nestled deeper than it appears in the photo -- the flash lit up his comfy cave.

Penwiper has also visited the paper, but Whitey reclaimed his ownership of it before I could get a picture.

We'll get the print hung later today.  I'm not exactly sure where the valets are sleeping tonight, since the boys do love their new present . . .

Kage, The Grey Mouser, Has Gone Over the Rainbow Bridge

We have sad news from +Erika Rice Scherpelz, valet to Kage, the Grey Mouser:

You and Katherine should know that Kage passed last week. We found out a few months ago that he was starting to have kidney issues, but we could not be very aggressive in treating it because the medication options conflicted with his heart medication. A couple weeks ago, we took him to the vet again because he had stopped eating. They kept him over the weekend, but when he came home, it was clear that he was failing. He died a couple of days later, with mommy cuddles.

We're still processing the loss. He's been such a good kitty, and we're so glad that you passed his care to us.

I had not seen The Grey Mouser since we delivered a cat tower to him at his new valets, and we were unaware of his heart condition. Yet even with the years having passed, I find myself sad at his passing.  As Erika said, he was such a good kitty, and he was still relatively young.

All four of our current overlords have been petted.

The Return of the Master to the Big Black Kitty Warmer

While Whitey has always loved warm spots around the house, but for some reason after we moved to the Kitten Farm West he gave up on using the Big Black Kitty Warmer.  For years, it's been of the domain of Billy, Penwiper, and Oscar, but never Whitey. 

Whitey on the Big Black Kitty Warmer (Mark I) in Stoneham, December 2006

Until today, that is.

I'm delighted to see Whitey reclaim his rightful spot this evening.   (This delight included misting Penwiper when he tried to commandeer it!)

And yes, through the years, Whitey has slept through AC/DC.

Whitey On the Big Black Kitty Warmer (Mark II), November 2015

Menu Changes at Le Cafe Matou

Whitey has been fickle about eating off and on all summer, and after the vet visit early this month he went turbo fickle mode, eating little or none of his kibble for multiple meals in a row.  So we tried to wake up his appetite by:

• spiking his food with hard kitty treats.
• begging and petting.
• spiking his food with Kitty Crack (http://bluebuffalo.com/product-finder/cat/?facets=cat_treats)
• giving him partial portions of wet food.
• giving him all wet food.
• giving him wet food spiked with Kitty Crack.

All this worked in varying degrees, and after several false starts for now he seems happy on a full diet of all wet food. This is not as good for his teeth, but we'd rather have a properly fed cat needing his teeth cleaned than a hungry cat with clean teeth.

However, all this wet food flying around has a spillover effect.  In particular, we need to also give consideration to the others in varying degrees:

• Oscar has never liked wet food, he'll walk away from kibble any where near wet food.  So we can and do feed him kibble as always.
• Penwiper wolfs wet food down mixed with his kibble, and clean up Whitey's bowl when allowed to after everyone else is done. So he needs a little reasonable restraint (to avoid premature clean up) to be a happy diner.
• Billy is now making us shake our heads:
• Traditionally, he likes wet food ...
• ... The smell excites him as we serve up the meal ...
• ... Once eating, the smell will drive him to abandon his own kibble meal half way through. Never mind that he is locked in the bathroom, he still has the nose of a cat ...
• ... but if we give Billy wet food, he doesn't eat it. This is a new development in the past week.

The solution to Billy (for this morning at least) was let him eat his chosen meal (kibble) with everyone else for the dining room.  He was a gentleman to Penwiper and Whitey (Oscar started and finished early enough to not be an issue), no one left more than crumbs, and everyone was happy.

Suffice to say it's all a fluid situation with the regulars at Le Cafe Matou.