kittens

It has been a busy month! I finally had enough of a break in classes to go hiking with my Dad and Dan. Wheee!!! We headed up to Apishipa Pass. Of course, it was rainy! In fact, it got worse. Dan and Dad hiked down one trail and I took a shorter hike up to Vista Point. The idea being that you can see for miles. Well, not in the rain. So, I headed back down a trail that was turning into a stream. I found a spot under the trees that was dry and curled up. I read my book and ate my lunch. Bliss!

It was a well deserved break. I really enjoyed my day up in the mountains. We followed it up by being absolute slugs for the next 36 hours. There are times it feels really good to just lounge about, talk and snooze.

Especially as I worked my butt off on classes. English class was difficult in that I wanted to strangle the teacher. I have not been so frustrated in a long time. However, I got an A out of the class.

Then there was Business Math. Lots of tears, frustration, gnashing of teeth and LOTS of help from Dan and Cindy the Math Tutor. Without them I’d have failed miserably. I appreciate their translations of Mathese into English. Best of all, I got an A!!!! Not bad for a 32 year hiatus from Math. To put the icing on the cake, that gave me a 4.0 GPA! I’m on the Dean’s list and the Chancellor’s list. 😛

I took some time this week to finish a pair of socks I’ve been working on for a few months. If I had just knitted solidly, I’d have had them done in about a week. Oh well… they are LOUD!!!

Another milestone today was letting the kittens out of seclusion. We figured that they were finally big enough to survive the dogs. Not that Blanca or Brandy are mean, they are just huge in comparison. They are nearly two months old, and we have actually found homes for three of them. This leaves Squeak and Squeaker.

It was a real three ring circus as the dogs tried to sniff the kittens, etc. Brandy tried to herd them. Blanca bathed them. Fun part is that the kittens wore out the dogs.

Blanca was laying on the couch with her back to the living room. She stretched to wash her tail and the next thing we knew, there was this THUD! that shook the living room as Blanca fell off the couch. She had that sheepish grin on her face like she had meant to do that. Such a Tollpatsch! (klutz)!

Well, at 4:30am, our cat Shadow woke me up. She was in labor and wanted MaaaMaaa! So, I put her in her box next to the bed and tried to go back to sleep. Silly me. No sooner did my head hit the pillow, than she was up on the bed. Tried to get her off the bed before there was any mess…. too late. So, Dan got me some towels and we did our best to comfort and midwife Shadow. She’s never had kittens.

The first one was just crowning when she decided that the only place she wanted to be was in my arms…. I almost had her all the way in my arms when “poof” we had a kitten. Next one took a bit. It was breech. Dan helped that one into the world. Third one was fine except for a foot stuck. We figured that was it and Dan went back to sleep. I curled up around Shadow and her three kittens, thinking that after 2.5 hours, that was it. Dan woke me up at 8am, just in time to see that #4 had been born. We put them in her box, and then I curled up on the part of the bed and took a nap.

I woke up at 9:45am to hear Shadow mewing pitifully. She wanted MaaaMaaa! Why? Well, because she had just had #5. So, I moved them all back to the bed and curled around them. Shadow settled down and her five wee black babies tried to figure out how to nurse. Once she drifted off, I got up. We now have 6 all or nearly all black cats. They are Solstice New Moon babies. Haven’t sexed the kittens yet, but they seem to be doing well. They are nested in the super deluxe box on the bed and will move to the floor for bedtime. Now I’m off to wash laundry.

Rainy hikes, college grades and flying dogs

The Shadow knows…..