Saturday, December 1, 2012

Sandbox Training the Cat.

Andrei was here Thursday afternoon and using our electric chainsaw, helped Tanya cut down a dead apple tree and trim up a number of others.  I worked on my report so I could ship a chunk of it out Friday.  I have used chainsaws but they terrify me.  Along with pressure cookers and deep fat fryers.  When you make Clumsy Carp seem like Rudolph Nureyev, you should avoid things that have potential to wreak grievous harm to yourself and others.

Friday morning I helped Tanya clean up all the branches and haul them to a burning pile over on the abandoned lot because it was threatening rain and could have turned to winter before it dried out enough.  The burning pile will still wait for spring as most of it is too damp.  There was a barrel of garbage in the dogs' yard that hadn't been burned in two years.  Mostly dog hair and food bags but likely other stuff too.  I didn't tell Tanya but dumped some BBQ starter on it and lit it just before I went in the house.

It caught and burned as I could see smoke drifting by our north window.  In a couple hours the sky cleared up and the day brightened.  We were both upstairs on our computers when we heard this awful "BOOM".  I said it must be thunder.  Guess there was something in the barrel I didn't know about.  Good thing the dogs were gone.

I had let them out in the morning for a run and they disappeared until this morning.  They were happy to come home and were so tired they could hardly wag their tails.  They are still young enough to stay out all night.  

And such a nice night it was.  The temperature had gone up to +15C (60F) Thursday night and the wind howled all night.  Friday and Friday night it stayed +15C which broke a more than 100 year record in Ukraine.  There are actually lilacs blooming in southeastern Ukraine near the Azov Sea. Crazy weather.

So the flower garden is all ready for winter, if it ever comes.  Earlier in the week we banked loose soil around the bases of the rose bushes and raked most of the leaves and dead flowers off.  I was allowed to help though I almost wrecked it and cut off one of the small stems of a clematis.  Normal for me.

Kuchma is getting old so we will try to keep him in the house most of the winter instead of booting him out at night.  Which means we have to train a 12 year old cat to use a litter box.  I locked him in the passageway between the house and outbuilding with the litter box.  It worked.  He used it.  And didn't use one of Tanya's boxes of dirt covered bulbs and roots.

So I tried it again some time later. He used it again; but only half in the box and half over the edge on the floor.  This presented him with a problem as to covering it so he dragged a floor rag to cover his deposit in box and on floor.  Not very accurate but can't fault him for neatness.

11 comments:

  1. our cat just turned eighteen and she sometimes has one of those senior moments when she stops in the middle of the floor and seems to be thinking 'where am I going - what was I doing?'
    I know that feeling myself.
    the Ol'Buzzard

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I'll write a blog post "Why am I here". If I can remember what it is supposed to be about.

      Delete
  2. Like you I have a horror of chain saws. I think I read Robert Frost's "Out, Out–" when I was at an impressionable age, and the effect never left me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Had not thought of that poem for a long time. What a gut-wrencher.

      Delete
  3. Dangerous? Ha! Try using an angle grinder to cut metal while wearing a paper suit in a confined space. Now there's a scary trick.

    As for kitty they actually make Depends for pets. I kid you not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why a paper suit? I hope it is treated with flame retardant? I'm sure if they figure people are dumb enough to buy them, they will make Depends for anything. I do think he will learn though to use the box and aim better.

      Delete
  4. Depends for pets! Along with massage therapists and MRI's and psychologists and physiotherapists and so on. Growing up on a small farm on the Canadian prairies in the 50's and 60's we seldom used a vet. Either an animal made it, or they didn't. I know, I know. Times have changed.

    And get a load of this: http://business.time.com/2012/10/04/millions-on-pet-halloween-costumes-why-we-spend-more-and-more-on-pets/

    Now, how did I get onto this train of thought? I share something in common with Ol Buzzard's cat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love Halloween costumes for pets. So does MayB. In place of annoying your children you can annoy your pets. Their expressions in some of the pictures I have seen are priceless. I'd be afraid to sleep afterwards.

      Delete
  5. I'm not crazy about chainsaws, either, but I'd rather operate one myself than watch Hubby wandering through the forest, wearing shorts, swinging our 16" gas-powered chainsaw from one hand, WITH THE CHAIN STILL RUNNING!

    I just retreat to our cleared area, find something else to do, and wait for the screams. It hasn't happened yet - I'm hoping his luck holds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why women live longer than men.
      I do have a funny (to ME) chainsaw story though. One hot sweaty summer day in Oregon a friend of mine decided to trim up some trees and climbed up with his chain saw and no shirt. He is cutting away when the chainsaw goes through a bunch of poison oak growing on the tree and sprays him with the sawdust all over his shirtless top. Agony.

      Delete
    2. Agh. It made me wince just to read that... though I imagine it was fairly amusing from a spectator's standpoint.

      Delete

Comments are encouraged. But if you include a commercial link, it will be deleted. If you comment anonymously, please use a name or something to identify yourself. Trolls will be deleted