With my new exercise schedule I spent more time at the task, well over 2 hours, but despite the more strenuous workout, I'm feeling no ill effects.
It's Spring, so the grass has already grown up high enough to spend a couple hours cutting the entire front and side lawns. And water a bit, since no appreciable predicted showers arrived over the weekend.
Then on to those little projects -- like putting up the porch swing on our front porch. I generally need to make a few adjustments once the thing's up (I discovered I was up one link too high after I took this shot), but now there's a place for repose when it gets a bit toasty inside.
After tackling the porch proper, I was in a clean up mood. So, while the temperature headed toward eighty, our two criminals were on the hit list.
I don't recall T.S. Eliot in his "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ever mentioned anything about bathing the darlings, but it is a task not for the faint of heart. Actually, I was projecting my own trepidation -- I know well enough that the noise of a filling tub terrifies the critters as much as the water itself. So I thought ahead and made sure there was a nice bath drawn before getting the varmints into the bathroom.
Mr. Frodo was first -- it was Sunday afternoon and he was snoozing. He was not hard to get ahold of. I talked fast and constantly to him as I dipped his feet into the water. He was downright patient as I laddled cup after cup of water over his thick fur. Then came the shampoo and the brush. He didn't cry out or hiss, but was a perfect gentleman. By the time it got to rinsing him off with fresh water he didn't mind the sound of the faucet, and we him ready for a pile of dry towels.
With other cats we've owned I have used a hair dryer to get them dry, but that is an even more perilous practice, so usually a bath awaits really warm weather to avoid a chill afterwards.
Mr. Frodo was looking more like a muskrat after his toweling off, but within an hour or so he was in good shape. He spent time grooming in a warm corner of the living room and then disappeared to parts unknown upstairs, probably under a bed or in a closet.
***
Next stop was Samwise, who was already clued into what was in store. He evaded my entreaties and skipped upstairs, but strategically gave up on the landing where I craddled him in my arms and carried him to his Waterloo. Samwise is the feistier of the two cats, and he was clearly less indulgent once his feet his the water. But I smooth-talked him into submission and he, too, was remarkably tame once he got into the thing. Samwise is also the smaller of the two, and when I turned on the faucet to rinse, he stood up on his hind legs and allowed me to rinse him thoroughly in the running water.
He wasn't quite as bedraggled as Frodo after his toweling off, and eventually the two joined on the floor and attended to each other in their final grooming of the day.
I returned to some "sort, save, or toss" projects and thus ended a Sunday at the Cochrans.
No comments:
Post a Comment