Cottage Cats

Lowrider & Mozie

We have two cats here at Bookends Cottage. Lowrider has been with us since 2007 when she was given to us by a neighbor at St. Michael's and Mozie, a kitten we adopted during the summer of 2012. Actually, Lowrider adopted Mozie after he was orphaned at the wee age of about five weeks. She was a good stepmother for a long time, but now she can't stand him and I think she regrets having taken him in. I took over the job of taming him, which took about two weeks of constant coaxing with food and the blinky eye cat thing, and now he's the most affectionate cat I've ever had the pleasure to know. At least with our family. As soon as anyone else appears, he's out the cat flap. Both of our cats are what I call "indoor-outdoor" cats as both of them were born feral.

"It's 5 o'clock. Feed me."

One of Lowrider's quirks is that she wants to be outside most of the time, regardless of the weather. She comes in only at dinner time after sitting on the little table outside the large kitchen window, staring in as if to say, "It's 5 o'clock. Feed me." Daylight savings time doesn't seem to faze her; she always there at five, sharp. She even prefers to sleep outside, even on the coldest nights, but I have no idea where. I always leave one of the garage doors cracked so that she can get in out of the cold, and she knows where the cat flap is and how to use it. Still, she stays outside unless it's raining, when she comes in, begrudgingly, to sleep on the counter in the master bathroom. Silly cat. There is soft, cozy furniture in our house. Before Mozie joined our family, Lowrider slept on the bed with us nearly every night during the cold months. Why his appearance should change this I don't know, because he doesn't sleep with us.

Mozie sleeps in the house most of the day, moving from the window seat in our bedroom to the leather chair beside the piano and then to the antique chair in the living room. After dinner, he begins his sprint in and out the cat flap, sometimes using it as often as every five or ten minutes. In, out, in out... I can't image what hell life would be if I hadn't installed that lifesaver. He finally settles in the antique chair about 2am when Nigel can be relieved from his duties as Cat Flap Sentry. Having decided he's too grown up for his crate, Nigel now sleeps in the maroon wing back.

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And lest you think these pictures are evidence that I'm a cruel cat mom because I kept the cats outside in the cold, they wanted to be there. I let them in a number of times, but they always wanted back out. And they do have a cat flap, after all. Silly cats.