tracylovesdevons's blog

Well Gina made it back to Homer yesterday from all of her travels. She called right away to have her handsome man join her at home. So Aidan and I biked into town with Cheetah in the cat carrier and took him to the plane. Off he went to his new family. I have to say that Cheetah, like his mother, to me exemplifies all that is devon: totally addicted to people; demanding; a trouble-maker; completely unconcerned about things that matter to his people, like staying off the tables, super loving; an absolute pain in the butt; and a dog lover. It has been very hard on Mark to lose Cheetah because they were so bonded. Cheetah helped and prevented Mark from working for months on end. I will never again keep a kitten this long (she says for the 2nd time in her breeding life) b/c I get too attached to them. It's too too hard to give them up after they are part of the family. I missed sleeping with Cheetah last night. He usually fell asleep on the couch downstairs and then came up overjoyed to see us at 2 am. He would sit on my face and purr away. He also like to try to sleep on my neck, which cut off my blood supply to my brain. Here's a picture of of little man with Chloe. XXXXXX Cheetah!!!

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Here is Blue Velvet aka Beave at 7 weeks pregnant. She is due on the 29th of May with babies by my husband Lang. She is looking kind of bored, kind of cool here, almost like she's having her children listen to some soothing disco.

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but husband man has the camera out in King Cove. That's where he was last night at least. He called to regale me with stories about trying to catch a ride on a hovercraft. I don't even know what those are. At any rate, he seems to be having a good time. And he's got the camera so I can't post baby pictures.

I wanted to surprise our neighbors Andy and Damara with one of our babies that we named Annyong, which means "hi" in Korean. We got it from the short lived series "Arrested Development" (which you should rent right away if you haven't seen it; I bought it. Another reason we're in debt. But I digress). Anyway as you'll see below, Annyong was my favorite kitten. But he died. He nursed and did so vigorously but he didn't gain even a fraction of an ounce. All the other kittens were like 5 ounces and he was holding at 2.5. I hand fed him goats milk, but he didn't like it and he wanted to nurse. So I let him. He had no cleft palate so really I don't know what was up with him. Our house was nice and toasty too. It was very sad.

The other 4 babies are thriving though. And hilarious, especially the only boy here Zang. He is fat fat the water rat and makes all kinds of crazy poses for us. We have 2 torties that have the most bizarre markings on them. One is named Wing after a South Park character (which in turn was named after a real woman--look it up!!) who is Chinese and sings songs like ABBA's "Dancing Queen." So now that kitten is singing for us all of the time.

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This is a picture from what I was doing last year at this time: dying as I crossed the finish line of a mini-triathalon. I have the best friends anyone could ask for.

XXXXX to you all.

And even though they are freaks, we are freaks, they are super cute. So first let me explain....

As you will recall, my lovely husband Lang from Texas returned to Seldovia with us after his show in Anchorage. My goal was to have him breed with Beave, which he did after some time. I had everything planned down to the second because we humans/breeders are a dumb and trusting lot; in us you can see the triumph of hope over experience. I knew exactly when I would encourage him and Beave to mate to ensure a wonderful summer litter of kittens.

To that end, I kept them separate. I had Beave in the giant cat condo. I put Lang in his stud pants, which are supposed to keep him from spraying his man pee all over. I was talking to Mark as he cooked dinner, not thinking at all about the dangers that lurked in those pants.

Then I heard it: that unmistakable sound of cat mating. I ran upstairs to see Teeny rolling on the floor, looking quite pleased with herself. If you'll recall, Teeny is not an oriental shorthair; she is a devon. She was not in heat at all. I had just spent many days with her and she indicated not one ounce of longing for sex. Well well. And there's Lang, still in his pants, looking like Lang, in his pants.

I cried and cried. Mark told me that I shouldn't be surprised: he was certainly not the first man to have sex with his pants on. That kind of made me mad too. Men.

After I stopped crying, I remembered that cats are spontaneous ovulators, that they release eggs after mating, which is why they can have babies in the same litter with different daddies. So I shipped Teeny up to Shrek and had them spend some quality time together. I figured if she must be pregnant, which I didn't want, then at least she could have some devons for me.

Fast forward 64 days and you will observe the results of the previous tale: 5 freak babies. They bear no resemblance to devons. Their hair is longer and was standing up when they came out. Teeny is the best mom in the world. She's fertile; she takes care of the babies; the cords; the placentas (yum); and nurses them all while giving birth to more. I am a bad woman.

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this video combines two of the people I love best: chimps and cats. I know it's old. It's been around the block. But seriously how can you not love this?

Here's a recent picture of Gustus, formerly Thee, doing a manly check: Yep. They're still there. Whew.

Bet ya wish you could do this