I was patting Puddy the other day while she was curled up on my lap and my fingers brushed something hard on her ear. I instantly thought “flea!” because it felt like that familiar little hard body they have. I learnt all about fleas when we first took Puddy in as a stray – she was absolutely covered in them and I would spend hours picking them off her and drowning them in boiling water. Eventually, with the help of flea medication from the vet, we managed to get rid of them all, but it was a horrible, horrible experience.

Anyway, with my “flea!” thought, I grabbed it between my fingers and yanked.

Whoops. Turns out it wasn’t a flea, it was just a bit of dried something (blood? skin?), and I had managed to pull out a tuft of her fur! Puddy didn’t react, but I sat there looking at the fur in my fingers thinking, “Oh, oh!”

See the little bald patch on her ear? I felt so bad about it, but she didn’t seem to even notice. Hopefully it will grow back quickly because now, every time I see her, it’s all I see!

At least it wasn’t a flea!

Not literally, because I think that would be borderline animal cruelty?

Anyway, turns out enviro bags are just like boxes, because Puddy did this:

I had left the bag next to the chair while I gathered up a few things to put in it. Turning around, I saw that the bag had been claimed by Puddy, who was sitting in it, ears perked up, looking quite pleased with herself. I must admit, it’s a nice roomy bag, so it must be pretty comfortable in there, with its padded floor and flexible sides.

Do you use enviro bags?

Or rather, do your pets use enviro bags? Heh.

Last week Phill and I went to Bunnings to buy some plants. We’d had a sudden urge to grow our own vegetables, especially tomatoes, since the tomatoes in the stores at the moment are ridiculously expensive and very bad quality. We came home with a chili plant, a cherry tomato plant, garlic chives (because I love them!) and a strawberry plant. The strawberry plant was a last-minute purchase, one of those impulse buys.

Bunnings don’t offer plastic bags, but they do offer cardboard boxes for you to carry your plants home in. Great idea if you ask me, although transferring your plants from your basket to the box at their tiny little desk of a register is a little bit of a hassle, especially with a queue of people behind you.

We got the plants home and decided to set them up on the BBQ, where they would receive plenty of morning and afternoon sun, but lots of nice shade too. While we repotted them, we absent-mindedly left the cardboard box on the table. Minutes later, we saw this:

Seriously … what is it with cats and boxes??

I love the leg up on the side of the box. She doesn’t like her legs being touched. One of my favourite games with her is to poke her legs as she’s lying down – she curls them up close to her, then when she can’t curl them any further, she lunges and swipes at me. She’s so cute.

Are you talking about me?

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted at Paulchen’s Foodblog, the Carnival of the Cats is being hosted at When Cats Attack and the Bad Kitty Cat’s Festival of Chaos is at Nikita Cat. It’s been a loooong time since Puddy last participated in any of these round-ups so she’s very excited this weekend! I’ve been a little quiet lately because I’ve been sick with the flu, but I’m finally recovering (and my voice is back, yay!) so I’m eager to get around to your blogs this weekend to leave some lovin’.

I was concerned that Puddy wouldn’t like her new (second-hand) cat furniture, but this last week has really put my concerns to rest, because she’s been using it like a crazy cat, especially the tunnel! She loves to scoot under the tunnel on her back, using her claws to drag herself along. She scoots through, then twists herself around and scoots back the other way, clawing at whatever she can reach.

It’s quite amusing to watch and I took a few photos to share:

You can probably see a fair bit of scattered fluffs of carpet in the photos – that’s another reason why we wanted to fix up her scratching post. She’s been using the posts of her big furniture as scratching posts, but it’s very messy. I’m not sure whether it’s completely designed to be scratched to death, so maybe offering her an alternative might spare it a little.

She loves using the tunnel and the section under the tunnel, as well as the posts, and she’s ventured onto the platform a few times, but she refuses to get into the little bed at the top. In the last few photos, you’ll see I’ve placed an old jumper in there, one Puddy loves to knead, but she still won’t get in there. I’m thinking maybe the last cat who owned the furniture spent a lot of time in there, and her scent must be very strong. Any tips on how to kill off that scent?

Anyway, I’m thrilled she’s using it, and it’s so cute to watch her go crazy, scooting around under the tunnel! I’ll have to try to get a video of it to share. Oh and side note: you can see the carpet in the first photos but the second photos were taken after we’d redone her scratching post – we just hadn’t given her the leftover carpet back yet!