Outside in the sun

While the day was cold - 10 degrees when I took this photo - the sun was out all day so it felt warmer in the sun.  Rascal wanted to go outside for a short time.  I watched to see when he wanted back inside the house.

Here he is sitting in the sun.  I don't know what he was looking at.

Norwegian Forest cat info

I saw a recent post on Reddit showing a beautiful cat.  I - and others - think it may be a Norwegian Forest cat, similar to Rascal.   This cat's fur is longer than Rascal's fur.  Apparently Norwegian Forest cats are a much more common breed in Europe, so I suppose some of them can have longer fur than Rascal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/rjer0f/what_breed_is_this_beauty_found_this_cat_in/

Norwegian Forest Cat – The Cat Fanciers' Association, Inc (cfa.org)

Here is a YouTube instructional video about Norwegian Forest cats.  While the video says Norwegian Forest cats tend not to bite or scratch you, when Rascal doesn't want to be petted, he can try to bite or scratch me.  As Norwegian Forest cats are not lap cats, Rascal usually only sits on my lap when he wants to be petted.  When I stop petting him he will then leave my lap.  Sometimes - like right now as I type this - he will lay and sleep on my lap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhS80xObrMI

Snow

Rascal doesn't go outside much these days.  A month or so ago I found lots of white fur in the backyard.  I think a neighbor cat got into a fight with Rascal.  Rascal now sometimes will go outside for a short while.  Often, as he thinks about going outside, he will smell the door.  Many times then he won't go outside. I look and often find the door had been sprayed.  Today I was outside for a little bit to take photos of the snow and Rascal wanted to come outside with me.  He stayed outside with me until I went back in the house.

Here are a few photos of him.

Usually Rascal like to nibble on grass.

Rascal doesn't wag his tail as much as Daisy did. I often knew Daisy's mood due to her tail moving.  When Rascal's tail is not moving he often has the end of the tail curved over and not completely straight.

Rascal helping with part of the fence rebuild

On my main Tall Pines blog I recently wrote about rebuilding the fence between my yard and the hayfield.  When I first started the work Rascal came out to "supervise" my work.  A little surprising as he doesn't like to get near the road due to the vehicles and their loud noise. But there was a quiet time of no vehicles so he came to check my work.

It took me around a month to rebuild the fence.  Later on, and as I got closer to the house, Rascal would only sit on the house steps to watch me.  He didn't come out to inspect my work.  I guess by then he realized I knew what I was doing.

Playing with an apple

I still haven't found the horse chestnut I gave Rascal to play with.  But today I found an apple and one of his toys in an out of the way place.  An apple?  So that is where the apple from the kitchen counter went.

Horse chestnuts

A few people mentioned the nuts I found may be chestnuts.  So I Googled chestnuts and discovered these are "horse chestnuts", not merely chestnuts.  Earlier today I nibbled slightly on one of the nuts and it tasted terrible.  Good thing I barely nibbled on the nut as horse chestnuts can be toxic.  Other than the bad taste, I had no other reaction to my nibbling on the nut.

https://www.anses.fr/en/content/learn-distinguish-horse-chestnuts-sweet-chestnuts-avoid-poisoning

Acorns?

Last week, as I was riding my bicycle downtown Kalispell, I saw some nuts on the side of the road that had fallen from a tree. I brought some home. I don't know what kind of nuts these are.  Acorns?

Rascal likes to play with them.  I let him play with one.  He batted it around and around and then down the stairs to the basement.  I went and got it and then put it into the dining room.  Days later I have no idea where the nut is now.

I cracked one nut.  This is what is inside the shell.  I haven't tried eating it yet.

Helping with re-fencing some trees

Last week I started re-fencing some small evergreen trees in the NE pasture before I let some cows into the pasture.  (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2021/10/re-fencing-some-pasture-trees.html)

Rascal "helped" me when I did the work last week.

Helping with the recent fence rebuild

Rascal "helped" at times when I did the fence rebuild last week.  (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2021/09/fence-rebuild-between-two-buildings.html)

Checking to see that I dug the post hole deep enough.

Sitting in a tree

I'm working on a fence rebuild.  Rascal has joined me and sits nearby.  Here he climbed the tree and sat there watching me, and watching for birds.

I am thinking about the Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland", and also, for some reason, of Garfield.

Rascal is happy I'm back home

I'm back home after my surgery.  Rascal is very happy I am back home.  Instead of sleeping on his blanket alot (as seen in the photo), he now wants to sleep on my lap, or right next to me when I sleep in bed.  And since I am recuperating, Rascal gets to spend more time with me.

Helping with the hay cart

Rascal is going outside more and more, especially if I go outside.   Earlier this week when I had to fix the hay cart Rascal came over to supervise me.  Just like Daisy used to do.

Time to take a break.

Sitting on a tree

Rascal now likes to go outside in the morning for a while, and then in the evening after the sun sets.   Yesterday morning I got a photo of Rascal sitting on part of a tree looking out at the hayfield.  Probably listening for mice in the hayfield.  Today it rained off and on so we spent much of the day inside the house.

I took the second photo so you can see where Rascal was sitting earlier.

Norwegian Forest Cat info

Recently I read an article listing the top ten cat breeds.  I don't remember if it was the 'top 10 long hair cat breeds', or what.  Anyway, I captured info about Norwegian Forest cats.

Rascal is doing fine.  He is taking the heat better than I expected considering he has long thick hair.  He spends the day inside the house where it is cooler.  He goes out more often at night and in the early morning.  He still quite often goes in and out of the house in the early morning causing me to wake up over and over.  Early this morning I left one house door ajar so he can go in and out of the house without waking me up.  Still he meowed and woke me up repeatedly.  This time he would sit outside my bedroom and meow.  I don't know... was he doing that to let me know he was in the house and planned on going back outside?

Out early routine

Rascal is getting braver to go outside the house.  But only during the nighttime or early morning.  Once in a great while he will go outside before midnight.   However he usually waits until I go to bed, which is around 2 am.  Often for not a long time.  But sometimes it can be for 2 hours.  My bedroom window is near the backdoor and Rascal figured out that is how to get back in the house.  He will sit on the doorstep and meow to the window to wake me up.  It works for him.

Lately he has gotten into the routine of going in-and-out during the time from around 5 am to 7 am.  By in-and-out I mean, by waking me up.  Usually it is a half dozen times over roughly an hour period of time.  Daisy would eat a few big meals a day.  Rascal eats small meals, but often.  So he wants in the house to get a quick bite to eat or a drink or water.  Sometimes 3 minutes later he asks to go back outside.  Fortunately I can fall asleep fast.  Still, up and down six or seven times in an hour early in the morning can get tiring to me.

Donna says I should make a cat door so Rascal can go in-and-out on his own.  That may be an option if Rascal doesn't change his routine.

Here is a photo I took of Rascal after he went back outside early one morning a few days ago.  Daisy isn't the only cat who would climb to the top of the fence and walk along it.  By the time I got my camera to take this photo Rascal walked back and was jumping down from the fence.

Helping with tree stump work

Last week I worked on removing some ground level side roots on a tree stump in the front yard.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2021/06/tree-stump-17-for-year.html

Rascal came out to "help" me.  It was hard to get a decent photo as he kept moving around.

He Came In Through The Kitchen Window

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVv7IzEVf3M

Well... Daisy never did this.

Earlier this week I thought Rascal was outside when I was.  It was that I got sidetracked doing something and was gone longer than I expected.  When I got back to the house I called for Rascal.  No Rascal.  When I opened the house door there he was inside the house waiting for me at the door.  Oh.  I guess I remembered wrong.  You were inside the whole time.

Later I noticed by kitchen window screen was loose and cockeyed.  Odd.  But okay.

Last night Rascal would go out briefly.  Then wanted back in to get a quick bite to eat.  Rascal doesn't eat a lot at one time, but quite often he will eat a quick bite.  Then he wanted back outside.  Okay.  A short time later I was on my computer and I heard a sound from the kitchen.  What? Something fall or break?

I went to look and then saw Rascal standing in the narrow window sill and he was pushing on the screen to try to get inside.

What?!  How did you get up there?!

I opened the door and he jumped down and came inside the house.  So, the previous time I was right.  He was outside and then he figured out how to jump up and push on the screen to get inside the house.

So now if Rascal is outside and I'm not around I will have to only have the window open a crack so he can't jump up and push his way inside the house.

This morning after 6 am Rascal was interested in going outside.  I usually fall right back asleep.  But this time I didn't as I knew he would want back in the house after a short time.  I closed the kitchen window to a crack.  Rascal came around to the other door by my bedroom window and meowed.  I let him back in the house then went back to bed.  He ate and then he wanted back outside again.  Really?  Okay.

So again I didn't fall back asleep as I knew he would want back inside after a short time outside.  After a while he again came to the other door and meowed.  This time he wanted to stay in the house and jumped up on my bed to sleep next to me.  After at 7 am I was able to go back to sleep.

This evening Rascal was outside with me when I did some grass removal from around a fruit tree.  After an hour or so he headed back to the house.  I then headed that way to do something.  I looked over and Rascal was standing at the house door but he was also looking up at the window.  I didn't have it open.  Whew.

What a cat.

The window doesn't open that wide.  The distance up is quite a bit.  The window sill is not that large.  Who would have thought.

You talking about me?

"Stop reading", said Rascal

Today Rascal sat on the couch and talked to the birds as I ate my lunch.

Then after eating lunch - yes, the clock is correct.  My schedule is late and my lunch is around 5 pm.  Anyway, after eating lunch today I didn't go sit on the couch to finish reading.  When I did that after breakfast today Rascal then laid on my lap and got lots of petting and brushing and before I could finish reading I fell asleep for 45 minutes.  So this time I planned to finish reading my article at the table.  Well, you can see what happened.  I never got to finish reading the article.  So I had to get up and go outside to do more work.  Later Rascal joined me outside as I removed grass and weeds from around a fruit tree.