Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Cats are funny creatures...

Monday night i cooked the rapini i had bought at the Farmer's Market. I used a recipe that called for cooking the veggies in boiling water for 5 minutes, draining them, and adding olive oil in which quite a few thinly sliced cloves of garlic had been cooking until "melted" and then red pepper flakes stirred in. Fuzzy and Sylvie are my two veggie eating cats and they were very interested in what i was doing, so as soon as the rapini was done, but before i added the olive oil, i pulled a few stems out of the colander and let them cool off. Fuzzy and Sylvie sniffed carefully, and then each devoured their rapini stems! In fact, they asked for some more! Louie wanted to see what they were eating, but one sniff of a rapini stem was all it took for him to back away quickly...

While supper was cooking, i saw something white out in the garden...it was my next door neighbor's mostly-Siamese cat, Blue. I've never been able to get him to be friends...he spends a fair amount of time in my yard, and watches me intently, but has no interest in coming close for some petting and conversation. He loves catnip, and last year i had to put a low little fence around my catnip plant to keep him from rolling on the plant and flattening it. I don't mind at all that he helps himself to some leaves, but rolling on the plants, especially when they're young and tender, doesn't do them any good.

The fence worked well...Blue could often be seen grazing the leaves that poked through or over it. (Then the woodchuck came along and trimmed the tops off all the plants...i guess it was just food for him/her, not an aphrodisiac like it is for the cats.)

This year i guess the plants haven't grown fast enough for Blue...as i was watching, he went from sniffing through the fence to leaping right over it, landing exactly in the middle of the tiny fenced area (just big enough for one pot of catnip and two pots of sage...and one cat, apparently!).

13 comments:

  1. It sounds like feast time for your kitties. As for Blue.. we he seems to be very resourceful!

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  2. Blue sounds a fun cat - might we get to see a picshure? Mom loves siamese 'cos she had a lovely lilac point called Henry who died in 2004.

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  3. Hi Milo and Alfie. I'll try to get a picture of Blue for your Mom to see, but unfortunately, he's quite shy of me and my camera is too small to have a super good zoom on it. It'll be a good spring/summer project: get a picture of Blue! D'you remember the picture of Oreo trying to be invisible under the bird feeder? Blue is her big bruvfur.

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  4. Sounds like cat heaven at your place!
    I can just picture Blue plopping onto your catnip! Very determined kitty!

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  5. We had a kitty when I was growing up, who would climb a neighbor's corn stalk, knock down an ear, and gnaw on the kernals on the spot. Naughty, but very entertaining!

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  6. Interesting about your veggie loving cats! Our first cat, Lily, loved cantaloupe and canned peas!
    Pumpkin-Bob loved to steal broccoli and cauliflower from the colander and run off with it.

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  7. Kirby likes corn ans that is the extend of the vegetables mine eat!

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  8. We had to have our humans google rapini. Looks yummy too.

    Blue sounds like a resourceful fellow - would love to meet him!

    Cliff

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  9. We hhad to google rapini too. We don't get it here. Blue sounds like big fun. Not for the catnip plant though...

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  10. Blue is a smart fellow!! The PM has had rapini too but I never tried any!!

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  11. How about asparagus?

    Estorbo loves mango, white peaches, papaya and very ripe kiwi. No vegetables, so far. But his crazy friend Spook adores asparagus and green beans.

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  12. Hi Marie. Oh yes, absolutely asparagus! Nan mentioned above how her Pumpkin Bob stole broccoli and cauliflower from the colander and ran off with it...that was my first indication that Sylvie like asparagus. She hopped up on the kitchen sink, which she never does otherwise, grabbed a stalk of asparagus by the neck out of the colander, and hopped down on the floor to shake it and devour it! Now whenever i make asparagus, she and Fuzzy dance around until i cool a few stalks of asparagus and give it to them. They generally prefer the stalks, so i keep the tips for myself!

    Karen, my old cat Babka loved to eat corn right off the cob...he would eat it raw, but he especially liked it after it had been boiled a little bit. He would even gnaw on the cob for a while.

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  13. Mmmm--your food sounds wonderful, and I'm imagining the cat hopping the fence for the catnip. In our house, some of the cats like catnip and others are unfazed. But none like veggies.

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