Patricia Stoltey

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The Critters Are Out to Get Me

September 15, 2014 By: Patricia

On September 4th, I wrote about my war with the squirrel over the bird feeder.

I now wish to report that the match stands at Squirrel 2, Me 0.

Today, however, I bought a really, really long S Hook at Wild Birds Unlimited and hung the feeder from a high limb on the aspen tree just outside my front window. It’s far from the trunk, a scary climb down the hook, and nothing to hold onto. I’ll report back later!!

(But just to show you I’m not heartless, I did put some seed and a seed bell in the tray feeder for Ms. or Mr. Squirrel. Maybe I’ll buy some peanuts too.)

The other critter story is about my Katie Cat who has developed a fun activity for when she’s bored and no one wants to play.

She pulls books out of my bookshelves onto the floor, then gets on the shelf and pushes out a few more, then walks away from the mess.

It goes like this:

Hard at work

Need to dump a few more. See the one falling (near the floor)?

See her peering from the top shelf, waiting for my reaction, happy with her work?

Katie’s books from the living room bookshelf.

She also spent a little time with the books in the den.

As you can tell, I have a lot of books. Three bookcases plus piles of books on the coffee table. Most of them are books I haven’t read yet, but a few are keepers. By the way, Katie highly recommends that one in the top photo, Mariano’s Crossing by David Jessup. It’s an excellent historical novel set in Northern Colorado.
Now I need to go pick up all those books and put them back on their shelves.

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Comments

  1. Patricia Stoltey says

    September 16, 2014 at 9:12 am

    I’m sure I’ll have more Katie Cat stories in the future. She never fails to come up with new entertaining quirks. This morning she’s sitting on the back of a chair, staring at the ceiling and meowing frantically. That usually means there’s a moth, spider, or fly to chase, but this morning we can’t see even a gnat. Crazy kittty!

  2. Eileen Goudge says

    September 16, 2014 at 8:03 am

    Of course an author would have a literary kitty 🙂 Sounds like the makings of a cozy mystery

  3. Mason Canyon says

    September 16, 2014 at 5:55 am

    Patricia, love the Katie story. Maybe she just wants you to read to her like Jim Qwilleran does in Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who series. Good luck with the squirrels. My problem is bees and wasps trying to run the hummingbirds from their feeders.

  4. Hilary Melton-Butcher says

    September 16, 2014 at 12:25 am

    Hi Patricia .. love Katie the cat – and she’s so clever to read so quickly!! Cats always amaze me .. I’m surprised she’s not outside chasing the squirrels – they are really little terrors .. we have them here … and good luck with the S hanger! Cheers Hilary

  5. M. K. Theodoratus says

    September 15, 2014 at 11:01 pm

    You make me glad we started hissing at our cats when they were young.

    And yes, they do have their ways of demanding attention … Both are yowelers.

  6. Kenneth W Harmon says

    September 15, 2014 at 8:04 pm

    I was hoping no one noticed that

  7. Patricia Stoltey says

    September 15, 2014 at 6:50 pm

    Yes, Ken, I’m sure she saw you at the last critique group meeting pulling books out of my bookcase and throwing them on the floor.

  8. Kenneth W Harmon says

    September 15, 2014 at 6:37 pm

    Looks like I’ve been a bad influence on Katie.

  9. Patricia Stoltey says

    September 15, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    I hadn’t thought of that, Margot. Maybe if I put more books about cats on the shelves….

  10. Margot Kinberg says

    September 15, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    Oh, my goodness, Pat! Yes, those critters most definitely have minds of their own! Or perhaps is just that Katie Cat is a bilbiophile, but just prefers different kinds of books to what you have on your shelves. As to the squirrel? I do hope you find a way to keep it away from the bird feeder and birds. Those little guys are pretty slick, though…

  11. Patricia Stoltey says

    September 15, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    Alex, that squirrel is totally focused on food, so it would probably be the kitchen cupboards that got ransacked instead of the bookcases. Right now, I’m wondering if that squirrel’s going to get so fat on bird goodies that it can’t climb a tree anymore. That would be worthy of a video clip (if I can only figure out how to do that).

  12. Alex J. Cavanaugh says

    September 15, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    Could be worse – just think what the squirrel would do to your bookshelves.

Meet Patricia

I read, I write, I blog, and sometimes I do the laundry and cook. My 2014 novel, Dead Wrong, was a finalist in the thriller category of the 2015 Colorado Book Awards. Wishing Caswell Dead (Five Star/Cengage, December 20, 2017) is a historical mystery set in 1830s Illinois in the fictitious Village of Sangamon. The novel was a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards for General Fiction. Read More…

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