cats

Experimenting with my cats

May 18, 2021 Kara HartzLeave a comment

So I recently read this study: If I fits I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) by Gabriella E.Smith, Philippe A.Chouinard, and Sarah-ElizabethByosiere. And since I think only the summery is freely available now, here is another article about it: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/if-i-fits-i-sits-experiment-shows-felines-also-sit-illusory-boxes-180977681/

Naturally, I wanted to try it out on my own cats, because this is partly why we have cats, right? For example, my cats couldn’t care less about zucchini, and they will happily sit in a square drawn with tape on the ground. Panther is faster to get into the fake boxes than Meeko, even though they both love a real 3-dimesional box. So I printed out the little pac-man shapes, and while I was arranging them and trying to decide if I was happy with the spacing, Panther came along. . . and the above picture happened before I had a chance to tape them in place.

Meeko had wandered over and sniffed at them, interested in what I was doing, but he generally has better manners than Panther and doesn’t interrupt what I’m working on. Although, in terms of the published study, I was doing this all wrong in that the cats should not have had access to the square as I was placing it. They should have been in a different room and only allowed in when I was ready for them. I never claimed to be rigorous in my home cat experiments, I’m just having fun. If you are interested in learning more about how cats perceive things like optical illusions, read the linked articles. They are interesting!

P.S. Shortly after this photo, Panther began batting the pieces around the floor because I never bothered taping them.

April Temperature Blanket

May 15, 2021 Kara HartzLeave a comment

I think it’s looking pretty. It sort of looks like April. One lone grey day in the middle of that upper green band, but otherwise I think I might be able to put away the grey yarn until fall. May will be the start of breaking into the browns.

As this is mid-May and I’m only now posting April, you might have guessed that I’m behind. The blanket has gotten big enough that it’s unwieldy to take with me to work on wile waiting for something or hanging out with the family away from home. Plus, it’s big enough to more than cover my lap, and it’s getting warm (note again the lack of grey yarn) and not exactly ‘cuddle under a heavy blanket’ weather. So while I don’t intend to neglect this project, and I’m still having fun, I doubt I’m going to do much better than staying a little behind.

Let’s go May!

books · cats · crafty things · crochet

The Crafty Kids Have Leveled Up

May 10, 2021 Kara HartzLeave a comment

Black Cat with magical book pipe cleaner art by A. Hartz

My Mother’s Day gifts from the kiddos this year really blew me away. The teen who makes pipe cleaner art created this wonderful cat touching a book with their paw and magical swirls coming out. So amazing. I don’t think photographs really do justice to her sculptures. Even the tiny ears have the perfect kitty shape and bend to them if you feel them. The book pages can turn, and the paw can move.

Child, the younger, has discovered amigurumi. In the past weeks she has made a ton of cute little bees. Then, in secret, she learned to read a pattern and made this llama for me. All on her own.

I’m a proud Mama Llama today.

garden

The Unexpected Pumpkins

May 2, 2021 Kara HartzLeave a comment

Tomato plant with unexpected pumpkin sprouts

So, this (in above picture) happened a few days ago. My first thought was that maybe it was zucchini from the compost. Then my husband pointed out it was probably pumpkin, and I realized he was right.

What happened:

We didn’t make jack-o-lanterns last year because of Covid. One of the two years before that we bought pumpkins, but never got around to actually carving them. The kids might have painted them, I don’t really remember. Either way, we set them next to the house in a small strip of rocks and dirt about a foot and a half wide that runs between the house and the sidewalk up to the front door. That area had at one time been covered with decorative rocks but over time they had thinned out and it was part rocks, part dirt.

Then we just left pumpkins sitting there. then they started decaying and we thought, “We should throw those out.” But didn’t do it right then. As you can imagine, it didn’t get better over time. A week later we were deliberately leaving it alone because it was a gooey mess no one wanted to touch, and over more time it was basically dirt and seeds. And it stayed that way. For years. Until I decided to use some of the ground to plant things in, cleaning up the rocks and putting down new potting soil. I didn’t bother to pick up all of the many many dozens of seeds because they had been sitting out in the sun and rain and dirt for years. Surely, if they were going to grow they would have already done so, yes? Apparently no.

A week or two after planting a little tomato seedling there, the above picture happened. Yesterday I dug the sprouts up and moved them into little pots. There were even more sprouts under the soil that had small yellow leaves and hadn’t made it to the surface (I’d added many inches of soil on top of them), so I repotted them too. I moved one a little further down past the tomato plant to an open area, and a couple over to the space where I had hoped to grow grapes. The dormant grape stick has been there over two months now with no sign of life so we are pretty well given up on it now. Any of the seedlings in the post that survives my transplanting process I will find good homes for.

In other gardening news, the sunflowers are growing amazingly well, and I can’t wait to see flowers: