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You are here: Home / Archives for cats

cats

Girls and Cats

August 13, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When I looked through the photos I had from July, I noticed a lot of pictures of my little girls, and several of the cats–and some of both girls and cats.

Princess spends a lot of the winter in front of the fire. Usually she is curled up facing it, but this one day it looked like she just flopped down as she was walking!

One of the boys took this picture of Miss Joy while he was supposed to be doing school.

The girls love walking with their daddy! He often takes them around the block or down to the river.

The fad for awhile was crowns. Little Miss found a book on our shelves that showed her how to make a crown out of foil, so she made a number of them.

It’s always special to get Jo-Jo to sit on your shoulder!

One evening, Miss Joy was quite cranky. When I remembered that we had recordings of Grandma reading several picture books we have, I spent a few minutes transferring the recordings to my iPad and finding the books on the shelf. Her evening was suddenly transformed; she spent the next 45 minutes till it was time to eat totally engrossed in stories.

Goofball

A craft project we did one day was to make fans, since we had just spent a couple of days learning about Japan. The girls then packed a tea party and took it outside.

Goofball is Miss Joy’s favorite cat, because she is always gentle. We had our homeschool group meeting here one day, and while the children played outside, these two sat on our vine-covered stump and watched for quite a long time.

Our little mommy. She loves her dolls!

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: cats, Girls, Little Miss, Miss Joy

More Pictures From October 2018!

November 17, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Well, I should have looked at my memory card again before publishing last week’s post of pictures. There were several more good ones.

Mr. Diligence made the lions for the skit they performed at the concert. I found him a picture of a lion online, and Esther enlarged it. He glued them together, cut them out, and painted them. Then, he glued them to cardboard and made them stand up.

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Simon learned to ride a backwards bike when someone loaned them one many years ago. He has wished for one ever since, so when he had a couple of days off work on a recent long weekend, he built one. When you turn the handlebars right, the wheel turns left, and when you turn the handlebars left, the wheel turns right. So far, all three of the older boys have learned to ride it.

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I looked in the living room recently and saw Mr. Imagination telling Goofball to hold still. He wanted her to pose for him to draw a picture of her, but she wouldn’t cooperate. I suggested he hold her still while I took a picture, and then he could draw from that.

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Here is the picture he drew and cut out.

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Some of our friends from Dead Boring came to see us a few weeks ago. We met in Moana, and had a picnic together beside Lake Brunner. They had two 9-year-old girls along, and Little Miss, once she warmed up to them, had great fun helping them build a “hut.” It was basically an outline of grass, with flowers arranged artistically in it.

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I wished I had taken a picture of this scene earlier. When we first arrived, the lake was calm and the mountains were mirrored in it, but then a wind came up. It was still beautiful!

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This coal train came along, and stopped on the side track. Soon, we saw the passenger train come from the other direction and pass it, and then the coal train started moving again.

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Filed Under: Activities at Home, Away From Home Tagged With: cats, Picnic, Random Photos

December 2017 Pictures

January 23, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon helped me harvest the garlic on Christmas Day. We got 89 heads from an area about a meter square. 14-IMG_3928

We’re having a problem with fleas on the kittens. I don’t want to spend $30 each to buy the pour-on stuff from the vet, because the mama cat would just lick it right off and I don’t think that would be good for her, so we’re dusting them with diatomaceous earth every 2-3 days. They hate it!

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This cat has always loved to sit in boxes—but I think she found one almost too small for her, this time!

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This hen hatched six babies right after Christmas. We were able to sell the mother and all the babies.

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The positions we find the kittens in are sometimes pretty funny!

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Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: cats, Garden, Kittens, Random Photos

Kittens

December 25, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We are really enjoying having two kittens in the house! They are about six weeks  old now, and spend a lot of time playing. In fact, they are in my lap right now. Goofball is asleep, and Grizzly is chewing on her (yes, Goofball is sleeping through the chewing!). We gave them their names when they were quite little. Goofball has always been laid back about life, and would relax in our hands from the beginning. She has always liked to lay on her back to sleep or play. Grizzly, on the other hand, complained about everything—hence her name. She has been the favorite of their mother since the beginning, and the one that Princess almost always dragged into the house in the mornings. She would kick and scream the whole way in, rather than curling up like kittens are supposed to. Grizzly took about four weeks to stop crying every time we picked her up, but now she loves people as much as Goofball does.

Here they are at two weeks old.

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Three weeks and starting to play.

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Mr. Diligence holding them at about four weeks.

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Mr. Imagination with Goofball, the one he chose to keep, at a month old.

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Five weeks and wrestling. Grizzly is the one on the floor here, kicking at Goofball.

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Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: cats, Kittens

Cats

April 25, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our little kittens aren’t so little anymore! They are nearly full-grown now, but we’re enjoying them just as much. One problem they are running into, though, is that they don’t both fit on the same lap at the same time anymore. This morning, I was sitting on the couch reading my Bible, and Princess jumped onto my lap from one side. A second later, Bandit jumped on from the other side. He was on the inside, though, so she had to jump off while he curled up for a cozy sleep! She had to spend a minute washing herself to get over the disappointment.

We find them sleeping in all sorts of funny places; here are just a few pictures from the past couple of months. This first picture was when they could still both fit on my lap.

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This was one of the first days this fall that we lit the fire in the coal range. They loved the heat, and spent most of the morning in front of it.

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We found Princess asleep on my laptop one evening.

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She also loved sleeping on the coal range a few hours after the fire went out, while the cast-iron top was still warm. One day, however, she decided to take a nap there while I had the fire going. I suddenly heard frantic skittering and turned around to see her running away from the stove! She raced into the other room and stood there looking very scared and offended. Her paws were slightly scorched. She has stayed away from that stove ever since!22-IMG_2140

Just a few days ago, we found her here—apparently there wasn’t a human lap around that suited her!

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They don’t always sleep, though. Until the past week or so, there would be fierce fights every morning. Bandit got sick last week, though, and for several days didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t even eat for a day or more. We were pretty concerned about him, and prayed for him. Soon, he started eating again, and now he’s back to normal.

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This was the first time we saw Princess on top of the garage roof. She couldn’t figure out how to get down. She would look down, scratch her shoulder, run a little way, give herself a few licks, run a little way, lick herself again…. We just cracked up watching her; it looked for all the world like a person scratching his head while he tried to figure out a puzzle! And sure enough, within half an hour she was down.

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I had the boys clean out the garage one afternoon. They threw out this pile of boxes to be burned. The cats had great fun stalking each other through the pile before it was loaded up and taken out to the paddock.

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We bought a couple of suitcases one day, in preparation for our trip to America. The cats thought we got them just for their benefit!

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Little Miss did the same thing!11-20170405_203021

“Aw, I’m too late. The lap is already occupied.” So he started scrubbing his sister.

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Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: cats, Kittens

New Babies!

January 9, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our cat disappeared a few weeks after the earthquake, so we decided to try again. Some friends of ours had new kittens, so we requested two of them. They had the mother spayed when the kittens were five weeks old, and the kittens learned to eat dry food then. We picked them up a few days later, on Christmas Day. We are sure enjoying having kittens again! They were tiny when we got them, but now, about two weeks later, have grown a lot. They are also changing fast in behavior. They have learned how to play much better, and are getting friendlier all the time, especially the little boy kitten. The girl has always been friendly. She’s a fighter, though, and unless she’s sleepy she’s playing—which often means chewing on the person she has chosen to bestow her favor on at that moment! We named the black girl Princess and the gray boy Bandit. These first two pictures are on the way home. Those poor traumatized kittens! They were terrified.

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They fell asleep on a chair as soon as we got home, and slept for several hours.

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Later that evening, they woke up and played some.

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Once, early on, Princess fell asleep on my hand. She’s too big to fit like that now!

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Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: cats, Kittens

Last Pictures From June 2016

August 9, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are really enjoying our kitten. He isn’t as playful as he used to be, but still gets himself into funny places. He also sleeps in very strange positions.01-IMG_005808-IMG_0084

I got a book from the library about the Denniston Incline. One of my boys liked it so well he took pictures of most of the pages in it!

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Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence go to the dump at the end of our road (a transfer station) every time they can. It’s only open for three hours, three days a week, one of which is Sunday and another of which is Tuesday, our day for going to Dead Boring! They go almost every Thursday, and the Tuesdays that we are home, to search for treasures. One week, they brought me this incubator! The thermostat didn’t work, so I bought one online last week, and plan to try hatching chicks. I’ve never done it before, but have wanted to.

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The pot this kitten is sitting in is another dump treasure. Mr. Inventor found the skillet underneath it at the Kaikoura dump for less than a dollar. He has since cleaned it thoroughly with a wire brush and seasoned it, and I’m now using it in the kitchen. The pot is a little harder, and in worse shape, but he’s hoping to restore it as well.

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Mr. Inventor made these two knives. He sold the bigger one.

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The children playing at Dead Boring. There were a lot there that day!

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Our Dead Boring group—even Esther was there that day!

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Filed Under: Activities at Home, Away From Home Tagged With: cats, Dead Boring Concert, Random Photos

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The Family:


Dad and Mom (Gayle and Emma)

Girl #1, Esther, my right hand

Boy #1, Seth (Mr. Handyman)

Boy #2, Simon (Mr. Inventor)

Boy #3, Mr. Intellectual

Boy #4, Mr. Diligence

Boy #5, Mr. Sweetie

Boy #6, Mr. Imagination

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Girl #3, Miss Joy

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