Sun Moon Star Spooky Blossom Midnight Minx Simon Sootfoot Max Punkinpie Sable Planet Faith Bermuda Isaya Taxes Tarzan

Meet our cats! Click on one of the cats above to read their story and see more beautiful photos.

 

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A "cat portrait" slideshow!


 

Cat Habitat


We live in Eastern Washington, coyote country, so we practice "coyote curfew". Every evening before dusk we call all the cats indoors for the night. During the day they are free to come and go as they please through their home made cat-door.

Inside, the cats have an 8 foot high, floor to ceiling, sisal rope scratching post. It is very easy to make one of these. The post itself is made from a heavy cardboard tube originally used for a roll of carpet. A tube such as this can be found at any carpet/flooring business. The tube is coiled tightly with 3/8" sisal rope. An 8 foot long tube requires 300 feet of rope!! I have replaced the rope on this post several times - they use their post a lot and wear the rope out until it falls off! The cats love to stretch and sharpen their claws on it daily, and when feeling frisky, they will zoom straight up the post to the cat shelf at the top.

 


Every cats' dream - floor to ceiling scratch post!

 

The cat shelves are cedar boards, 1" x 8", covered on the top surface with carpet and trimmed along the edges with sisal rope. These shelves line the bottoms of windows and run the entire length of one side of our mobile home about a foot below the ceiling. There is a series of short shelves that are positioned like stair steps so the cats can easily walk from the floor to the window shelf and then up to the ceiling shelves. Our cats love these shelves and use them as lookout perches, sleeping areas, exercise tracks, and dining areas well out of any dog's reach!

 


Faith sits on one of the cat shelf stair steps.


The cats also have, of course, the couch, bed, cat-baskets, boxes, paper bags, cat-beds, and any chairs they want! Whenever they want! Not to mention, plenty of home-grown catnip!

"We can do whatever we want, whenever we want to do it!"
- The Cats




Outside,
the cats have a plethora of field mice and prairie voles to hunt, as well as birds to watch. We have a very large (approximately 10,000 square feet) area that is fenced with a 6 foot high wire mesh fence. Most of our cats stay in this area, as well as our dog. However, some of the cats can fly over this fence...the catnip is always greener on the other side! Grasses and shrubs grow high in the summer making an excellent mini-jungle for the cats to explore. Here they make their own tunnels and bedding areas. There is a grove of hawthorn trees that serves as a shady, protected place where the cats like to sleep off lazy summer afternoons. Here they also like to play chase with each other or with the swirling leaves.

 


Spaz surveys the hawthorn grove.

Sootfoot rests in his leafy bed.

Faith and Spooky play cat tag.

 

There are lots of logs, posts, and beams around for claw sharpening. A catnip patch dominates the herb garden where the cats can stop and nibble. We harvest and dry the catnip for winter use.



Simon partakes of the catnip.

Simon enjoys the catnip!

Star, Sun, Moon, Midnight, and Planet live on another part of our 8 acre farm - a little house, art studio, and greenhouse which are about 40 feet down a hill from the mobile home. Planet spends most of his sleeping time in the barn or in the little camper which is heated during the winter for him. Star, Sun, Moon, and Midnight live with me in my humble abode next to Planet's camper.

 


Here the cats have a cat bridge suspended over a pond. Bells jingle as they traverse across it from a teepee frame to the roof of the art studio. Another cat bridge runs next to an aqueduct. This bridge is actually a large amadinda (xylophone) that plays random notes as the cats walk along its length! At night the cats can access a large outdoor enclosure (formerly a chicken pen) where they can hunt small nocturnal creatures. They can roam the art studio and greenhouse at night too. I plan to make a nighttime accessible enclosure for the cats living up in the mobile home as well.

 


Moon on the cat bridge.

"We like to do it!"
- The Cats