Feeling Lazy These August Days....

The Veggie Kitchen has actually been producing some yummy things these days, and not by my hands. M. was inspired in the kitchen this past weekend. On Friday he created his own risotto, including creating a broth from garden picked oven roasted grape tomatoes. On Saturday he made butternut squash ravioli using a butternut squash from our garden, and making his own sheets of pasta. I sat back and revelled in not having to cook, and quite happily consumed his delicious results. But like a bad blogger, I neglected to take any pictures.

Scandalous, I know.

The other project that has kept me hopping these days is our current "Rescue the Stray Kittens Living in Our Yard" enterprise we've embarked on. When we moved to the apartment in May, we quickly learned that there were two stray cats who happen about the neighborhood. We've nicknamed them "Stripey" and "Orange", which were our very original attempts at naming them based on their appearances. In late May, we learned that Stripey had a litter of kittens in the yard next door. We were concerned for them, but since it was not our yard we couldn't get to the kittens.

Fast forward to August. All five kittens began hanging out in our yard. We actually think some of them were living in our garden, having gotten in but being too small to climb the wall to get back out. M. has taken up kitten catching, and has successfully captured 4 of the 5 kittens through a variety of means including dumb luck in grabbing one as it ran by, cartoonish traps involving laundry baskets and other creative kitten catching methods.

We have decided to keep one kitten as a companion for Helios (the one pictured at the left and below). They remain unintroduced as the kitten we've chosen had an upper respiratory infection and is currently on antibiotics. Once the antibiotics course is completed, then he can do all the feline leukemia testing necessary to make sure he's safe to introduce to Helios. He's also unnamed at the present. Artemis was a strong contender (until it was realized that the mythological character was female). I am partial to Ezra, but M. prefers Soma. Meanwhile - he remains kitten. He's absolutely adorable, but with him sequestered upstairs, his three siblings sequestered downstairs and Helios running around in between - it's been a little crazy here in Brooklyn. Three litter boxes, five cats needing feeding, one kitten needing twice daily antibiotics .... blogging time has been limited.

Hang in there though - we've decided we MUST give the three siblings to a shelter this weekend if we can't find a home for them. So, hopefully (although we will be sad to say good-bye to the cute little kittens) life will become a bit more normal next week.

How cute am I?