Double Trouble on the loose: 4 '20

The second brother finally decided to  come out of hiding, and is busy exploring the house.

He isn't as  much smaller than his brother than I had first thought, so I am still having difficulty  telling them apart based upon appearance.  ( When they arrived they each had a different colored  temporary collar, but they both lost them overnight).  Right now I can tell who is who based upon which one  seems more comfortable when they enter a room, ( or we do), but   both are pretty friendly, and once both are comfortable inside, it is going to be very hard to know  which cat we are looking at.

Meanwhile we are enjoying getting acquainted no matter what their names are.  

Our family has Doubled in size: 4 '20

My neighbor delivered the two brothers to us yesterday at about 6 pm.   

Their first family  gave them the names: "Lil Bit" and "Teddy Bear."

It was  our first chance to see or interact with them.   

Physically they seem like  identical twins,  so  I have no idea which is which.  We are hoping that their given names mean that one is larger than the other. (If not, they will be given 2nd family names based upon their personalities.)

The first thing we have learned is that there is a big difference in the personalities of the two cats.

The larger is very bold and vocal and friendly. ( In fact I have been having a hard time posting this because he keeps wanting to sit on my lap ( or on the keyboard) to get my attention and /or pets.) and he has become Bruce's new BFF.

The smaller of the two is very timid.  When he speaks it sounds like a low chirp, and while he is not aggressive, he  is definitely not a risk taker.

As soon as I opened the carrier, the quieter one made a beeline into the furthest recess of the cat condo and buried himself in the blankets that came from his first home. I can see he used the litter box while we were asleep, but he hasn't come out while we've been up and about. I am not pushing him. The doors  to the  cage are open, he isn't locked in, and he is watching his brother coming and going and interacting with us. I'm hoping that, his brother will coax him out to join the  family.

Our family is about to Grow: 4 ' 20

Surprise!  Bruce and I have made the decision to double the size of our family

with the adoption of two  five-year-old male black cats.

We had been thinking about adopting a bonded pair of older cats for some time, but of course we were thinking that when we adopted it would be under less dire health conditions when when we could expect to do a meet and greet  be for making a decision.  

 Yesterday morning  neighbor who is involved in cat rescue, contacted me to say that the rescue  organization she works with  had just taken in two black cats.   She said that their elderly owner had died, and the bonded brothers were  scheduled to be euthanized this afternoon.   They re little younger than we had in mind, but otherwise fit our criteria and they really need a home now.

We spent the morning cleaning and  refurnishing out Carolina room.

  Bruce has always been big on protecting  all of the neighborhood  strays during from hurricanes, ice storms and  other natural disasters , so we keep a fair amount of cat stuff (cages, litter, food, soft old bedding towels ) on hand, and we have quite a bit of experience at setting up the Carolina room  in a way that helps reduce the animal's anxiety when it finds itself trapped in a strange place with no means of escape.

What we want to do is to keep the cats in that room  until they feel safe and  then release them into the rest  of the house. I  have set up two of our large wire cages  in a corner  so the cats would be sheltered on two sides by the house-walls.  Then, I put large two large houseplants on the other two sides so they will feel even more hidden from view.  I've covered the floors of the cages with lots of  soft clean towels. And put our a large bowl of water with a circulating fountain so they had a fresh flowing water. 

The prior owner's family has very thoughtfully sent  us all of the cat's personal comforts  including their  blankets and their  personal toys which we've added into the room and cages so they will find things with their own scent to help make the area seem a little less foreign.

Now it is just  time to wait and see how it goes.

Stormy Day 4"20

We woke up this morning to thunder, lightening and

zero visibility rainfall.

It sounds like the world is coming to an end  again

but then again we have a tin roof on our house and even a drizzle sounds like

a hurricane is pounding us.

I tried to turn on the weather channel,  but the TV wouldn't turn on.  

( Damn remote is broken

 and Spectrum is taking their time getting us a new one)

So I  dialed into our Myrtle Beach live news station on my PC.

It turns out that the storm we were expecting yesterday

  has finally arrived complete with tornado warnings .

Unfortunately this station is not as helpful as we would like.

Their  Weather Doppler Station is located in North Carolina (about 50 miles North of us), 

and  some dense tall trees on a neighbors property

 just to the South of that station

are blocking their signal from reaching Pawleys Island.  

The only thing the station's newscaster can tell us about our area is

 that conditions are ripe for a tornado  touching down.  

(Right now that threat seems to be  about 5 miles to the North of us 

and moving in our direction).

 Due to the low visibility  the road conditions are hazardous.  

We are being advised to stay indoors and away from windows. 

Needless to say there will be no COVID emergency meal kits  delivered into the area today;

So this weather-maker  is imposing some very real hardships

 on some of our communities' low income families.

Happy Easter, Y"all: 4 '20

Wishing you all the love and  happiness that only  Easter can bring.  Have a joyous celebration with your family even if it is only shared in cyber space!

Update 4/12/20 7 pm : 

Usually, Bruce and I leave our exterior holiday decorations up ( at a minimum) until the day after any holiday we are celebrating. That is a long way to say that we would normally be putting all our Easter decorations away tomorrow. BUT, Bruce and I have been getting weather advisories on our cell phones all day long warning us that our geographic area might experience wind gusts up to 135 MPH overnight.

I am not sure I believe that will happen, but if it does get that windy, all of our exterior Easter decorations would be sent flying. Rather than putting our own, or our neighbors' property at risk, we brought it all inside this afternoon, (just before the heavy rains started). TBD if we were over-reacting, but in a year of horrors, and exploring unknown climate patterns, we don't want to be the ones who let others get hurt because we chose ignore the warnings. Setting out holiday yard art has been out way, of trying to bring a little joy and fun back into the lives of our selves and our neighbors, Right now I am just happy that we were able to keep our Bunny Family on display through most of Easter Day.

Passover 2020

It seems odd to be celebrating a Jewish  holiday which commemorates  Jews  isolating themselves in their homes to avoid avoid dying from a plague, while  we are isolating ourselves in our home to avoid dying from a different plague.  But then again, perhaps recounting the story of the Exodis is  just a good reminder  of all that we have to  be grateful for.

but here we are enjoying our first night of  Passover supper, 

complete with a Passover Seder plate and a wine glass for  Elijah.

 I have full confidence that this is what we will be doing every night  through the 16th of April.   After all,  if a rag-tag group of ill-fed slaves could  hunker down  to survive 10 plagues followed by wandering around in a desert for 40 years, I am pretty sure Bruce and I will manage to  get through this COVID19 pandemic,  by isolating ourselves in our comfortable home
with a well stock fridge and cable TV.