Marmalade, your wee puss, raised by hand since he was only a couple of weeks old, is a horror. He seldom touches the floor, preferring to zoom about the room flying from chairs to tables to couch to sideboard, leaving a frothy broken tide of disaster in his wake and trailing wild dogs and cats behind him. No-one can go to bed until I put him back in the basement. He is the terrible christmas toy. The loud drunk at the party. The loud mouthed teenager. Dennis the Menace. He is a thief and a robber, always on the bench gnawing at anything left out. Leaps onto the table when we are eating. Eats the dogs food while the dogs are still eating it. Pounces from a great height onto anyone and anything. Every time a door opens he is lined up and through it, whether it is inside or outside or the toilet. No wastepaper basket is safe. No cupboard left unscathed. Every basket of laundry has him in it. Every time I throw the blankets across the bed to make it, he is under them. Every load of dishes in the dishwasher has to be checked for the cats tail as he licks the cutlery clean. He is a horror.
Look at him pretending to be just the sweetest kitty. We have raised a monster. And I don’t know about you but if butter does not melt in a mouth there is something very wrong going on. Just adorable our bad kitty is.
Tui, the most inquisitive of the two peahens was eating out my hand today.
Though I was wearing gloves or this would have been a scary exercise. Have you seen how sharp their beaks are?
The temperatures came up above freezing, so the dogs and I went for a walk. No wind. But my face was burning with cold.
The creek that is really a ditch.
What can you do. Dogs love walks.
My afternoons are filled with trolling through all the winter posts, looking for just the right ones to supplement the little Winter on the Farmy book. So I love the walks too.
Sheila was well and happy this morning, she ate her vegetables and we had a chat, she had a massage then she was happy to wave us off and go back to her deep warm bed. Do you remember when we took Charlotte in to be bred, it took almost two weeks for her to ovulate so I am not concerned yet. At least with this farmer I can visit every day and maintain the connection with my big fat pig. I am feeling positive.
Good morning.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
84 responses to “Marmalade poses as Dennis the Menace”
Kitty Crazies…. Like Boo had puppy crazies…. they grow out of it thank goodness, but it seems to take forever.
Reading about Marmalade was deja vous for me. Basil was a tiny tiny barn cat when he arrived at our home. From the very first day his paws never touched the floor. He would fly from table to couch, to chair, and then left skid marks on our mahogany dining room table stopping only when he sent a pair of Waterford crystal Candlesticks crashing to the floor. That’s it! He is going back to the farm! Twenty years later he went to kitty heaven and left an enormous emptiness in our lives.
The terrible Christmas toy that you can’t “lose” the batteries for… oh but what wonderful kitty company he keeps… I loved every single one of the Commenters’ Lounge anecdotes, and had a good laugh at “Colin Firth in a wet shirt” 🙂
pretty quilts the pretty kitty is laying on…who made them?
The blue quilt was made by Johns great grandmother, i am not sure who made the pink one, I must ask The Matriarch. morning nanette.. c
evening now, hello 🙂 thanks for the info about the blue quilt, that has been around for quite some time then, lovely that you and the sweet kitty get to use them. I’ll be interested to hear about the pink one too.
Hi Celi, Lovely post today as always. I hope you will include in your book the post about finding Mama. That was a riveting and amazing story. It happens to be the post through which I discovered your blog, so I’m partial to it, but it’s also the kind of story that needs to be told. Very moving!
Ah yes, that was in winter too, I shall find it, thank you for the idea, I had forgotton about that one.. c
What a naughty catling he is 🙂 And I had never thought about butter not melting in a mouth, I guess that must mean you are ‘super cool’ how funny! I meant to ask did you ever get a warm hat in the end? I think of you every time I plaster my beanie on my head and sigh ‘hat head’ to myself (such a city girl I am) xx
I have very curly hair, so i dread the hat hair, Viv (in france) has knitted me a hattie and it is on its way, until then I am under two deep hoods and have Hood Hair! Worse!.. c
Maybe Marmalade has cabin fever, and needs a season in the outdoors (coming up in due course) to work off all that energy. Or just growing up. So glad to see the temperature has lifted a little. You need these times of reprieve. I went to the beach yesterday, just for you, and have posted. I pretended you were there too, lying in the warm sun with a big sigh.
It would be a HUGE sigh! A HUGE beachy sigh, i shall come and have a look, but if you do not see my comment you know why now.. c
Being absolutely hopeless with names did not quite realize there were four pusscats calling your house home at present: OK ~ Marmie [sorry, bad Marmie!], Egoli [following Marmie’s behavioral patterns it seems!], LuLu [who seems to get the good rap!] and Scrapper [another wild one!]. Oh dear . . . as if there were not enough problems on the farmy!! Easy enough to laugh from here 🙂 ! And I am!!!!
So cute, TonTon!
As a fairly newcomer to your blog, I had not read the story on how you got Mama. Hard to believe there are stupid people out there keeping animals. Well, yes, I have seen it, too, and it just breaks my heart to see things like this. Isolating a sheep or any herd animal is cruel, IMHO. Yes, I, too think it would be a good story for your Farmy book.
Oh, Marmalade!
Visiting via a link on Robin’s blog, and what a great visit it’s turned into, Cecelia, (now I’m hearing Simon n’ Garfunkel singing in my head) many thanks for sharing your life and humour. xx
Marmalade is a “caution” as they used to say, probably because he’s totally secure and warm and loved by humans and canines alike. Total security equals the freedom to wreak havoc at will for sheer entertainment 🙂 I love every single thing you write Celi!
Oh, I love the wild ones, the only partly domesticated animals. I love the full-heartedness of them: Fully Cat. Fully Dog. Like Marmalade. And my Lou – part cocker spaniel part Tasmanian devil. He puts it all out there and he’s in, on, over, and on top of everything. He inspires me to be “all in” with life.
Marmalade has hit his “puppy” stage, or whatever it is called for a cat. This, too, shall pass. 😉