Happy Halloween!

That's it for October and Horrordailies! We're ending the series on an image with a lot of saturation and it's not particularly spooky, but yesterday we had a pentagram, so take the average and it works out.

Once again, I like it.

Foster Kitten Updates

Bailey Potato had a vaccine appointment/recheck today and she is 1.48 pounds. This girl is planning to stay with me as long as possible before reaching that surgery weight goal. She is currently sleeping in my lap.

The snack pack kittens had their first containment breach this morning. Due to the size of my bedroom and the need to have a large dog crate to hold their feral mom, the playpen around the crate is squished between the foot of my bed and the wall. One of my blankets had partially fallen into the playpen, so three of the snacks climbed onto the bed to freedom. Frito wandered into the hall; Taki and Pringles stayed on the bed. (Cheese Puff and Cool Ranch were still in the playpen.)

Then, 20 minutes after I returned everyone to the playpen and removed the escape route, I went back into the room and only found four of them asleep on the heating pad. Cool Ranch had climbed to the top of the dog crate and fallen asleep.

The other mom & kittens group is hanging in there. I'm tube-feeding three of the kittens and we're on an every 3-4 hour schedule (including overnight). Yes, I will be happy when they either wean or go back to nursing.

One of those babies is chompy. She (or possibly he, because I keep forgetting to look) lunges forward when I least expect it and clamps down hard on whatever body part she's chosen. There has been a lot of swearing and laughter in that room recently.

Okay, speaking of the babies, I need to go tube feed. I hope you've enjoyed Horrordailies and I'll see you soon!

Summoning

 Horrordailies is over tomorrow, and we can't let it go without summoning a demon, right?

I like it.

Foster Kitten Updates

I have pretty much taken over the feeding of four of the six new babies, including tube-feeding three of them. I'd like to believe this will resolve as soon as they all get over their colds, but who knows. They're old enough to be weaned in the next week or so anyhow, so the end is in sight.

Other than that, everyone is doing well. Bailey has a vaccine appointment tomorrow and we'll probably reschedule her surgery. Maybe next week?

Boo!

October is almost over, which means I only need to come up with two more spooky things for Horrordailies. Luckily, this one is so scary that it will make up for everything!

I'm enjoying drawing backgrounds and other things with a variable pen hooked up to a gradient and then giving the photo element a waterpixel filter to make it fit in better. I probably could have done more with the kitten here (lovely Sabot), but it's late and I'm tired.

Foster Kitten Updates

"Friendly" mom sometimes hisses at me when I enter the room, but then she comes over to get all up in my business so that I can accidentally pet her while I'm trying to do other things. It makes it harder to deal with getting eye meds into squirming babies when mom is shoving her head under my hand. Thankfully, she was busy eating when I tubefed the smallest baby, who isn't doing great. Fingers crossed that's enough to get him on the right track.

("Feral" mom (aka, Popcorn) hisses at me whenever she thinks I've looked at her funny, but that's to be expected since she really is feral.)

Bailey is currently the only office kitten and she cries, loudly, when I'm not sitting at my desk. Poor kiddo. She will be part of the feral mom's kitten group when they're weaned and that should make her feel better.

Pumpkin Cat

Just a few more days of Horrordailies, but I think I've finally found my calling. Absolutely nothing to do with horror, but these are fun!

Also, I still can't draw a pumpkin. Why is it so hard? The ivy brush is my salvation.

Let's move on to the more important things...

Foster Kitten Updates

I took Bagheeri, Spanner, Sabot, Sir Humphrey Grumpybutt, and Harrison Ford the Explorer back to the shelter for surgery and adoption.

Spanner

Harrison

Sabot

Bagheeri

Sir Humphrey

In an illustration of foster kitten math, I had 12 fosters, I took five back to the shelter, and now I have 14 fosters.

This mom is not feral, so that should make some things easier. The whole group has an upper respiratory infection, so I'll be watching the babies' weights carefully.

Cauldron

Sure, it's Horrordailies, but how about we just go with Halloween-inspired images instead?

I'm getting a little better at creating new objects from scratch, but that's not saying much.

Foster Kitten Updates

Poor baby Frito is still snotty. The shelter's foster coordinator is back tomorrow, so we'll probably get the kitten started on meds.

Bailey Potato is 600 grams today. She was 600 grams two weeks ago. In between, she went up to 640 and then dropped to 585 for a bit. There's no way she'll be 680 grams (1.5 pounds, the cutoff for surgery) by tomorrow, so she'll be staying. But I need to take five graduation photos tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Back to Nature

Did you know that there are only five more days of Horrordailies? I'm having a good time messing around with this stuff, though I seem to have left the horror intent behind at some point.

Anyhow, Taylor was a little dog that I transported from my local shelter to another shelter that had more room and resources. (I do more transports like this during the winter when I don't have a zillion kittens.) She was a cute little dog and I forgive her for all the bodily fluids that came out during our ninety minute drive. (Note to self: puppies need to go for a potty walk if they've just been fed. Also, bring towels in case they get car sick.)

All the textures I added are from photos I've taken in my neighborhood.

Here's the original:

I've been accused of going full Lisa Frank in my backgrounds and I don't deny anything.

Foster Kitten Update

Baby Frito is still snotty, but seems okay otherwise. Elisabeth came over today to help socialize kittens and even Sir Humphrey Grumpybutt played with her.

Other Stuff

I went to the vet hospital open house and won the raffle for a cat cave bed and some toys! Pictures tomorrow when I pick everything up.

Crystal Ball

It's not quite what I envisioned, but it's fun. I think the foster here is Big Chungus, but I'm really bad at labeling photos so...

I'm actually kind of impressed with my attempt at a wooden base. Sure, it's way larger than it should be, but it looks like it has wood grain. Go me.

Foster Kitten Updates

Frito, the orange baby, is sneezing and congested. I don't think it's a big deal because he's still eating and playing, but this whole "oh, fostering a group of kittens along with their feral mom is low stress!" thing is wishful thinking.

I warned the foster coordinator that Bailey might not be big enough for surgery on Wednesday, and she confirmed that the other three kittens in the group can still go. With most fosters I'd try hard to keep them as a group, but Bailey is mostly fixated on me, so I can integrate her into another group without her feeling left out.

Other stuff

During my 40-minute run-walk last night, I actually lost track of time and was surprised when it chimed at the end. So that's good. I may end up doing the 10k as a run-walk, which would be okay because it's just as fast as jogging the whole way.

I took a nap this afternoon. It was nice.