Hording Cat

Continuing with the theme of a very odd little cat, our dear Smudge, this is a shot of some of the things that Smudge has absconded with from various parts of the house and left the kids wondering what happened to that thing!

Since Smudge is deaf he doesn't realize the racket he makes when he starts whacking these objects around. It always seems to happen around 5 am or so and it's always me chasing him through the house trying to grab the item he is knocking around and banging off of everything so we can go back to sleep. I swear since Smudge has come into our home I haven't managed to get a full night sleep more than 1 or 2 nights in a row! It's like when the kids were babies again!

All these items somehow seem to migrate together and end up under our kitchen stove which is gas, I might mention, so the sight of a lighter wedged under it bothers me a fair amount!

Smudge loves those small rubber bouncing balls the best and loves to rip around after them and leap in the air when you bounce them. I had no idea we even owned that many! Along with half of an easter egg and a gold foil chocolate, a t-lite a tiny toy penguin and the most odd a small plastic grey cat that looks an awful lot like Smudge, weird! Lip gloss tube, a door jam, a few clickits, a piece of quartz stone, a medival shield from playmobil soldiers, a pistashio, half of a plastic holder from a kinder surprise egg and 9 rubber balls. After picking up all of this stuff I gave a ball back to Smudge, 10 mins later it's missing so Tim give him another and as I write this it's gone under the stove!! I can't reach it without a coat hanger so Smudge is now lying by my feet starring at the stove hoping it will spit his ball back out. I think I'll leave it until morning so I can go to bed without interuption of my sleep. Who am I kidding, he will just find something else to knock around and make lots of noise with! Arrgh!

Smudge, aka Hockey Cat on Ice!

Smudge is definitely the oddest cat I've ever lived with and there have been a few over the years. We had the perfect conditions on the river for skating and a bit of hockey. It had rained buckets and then flash froze on top of the already thick ice on the river so no snow removal and no flooding, just perfect skating ice as far as you could see.

So we run out there one evening before dinner and start hitting the tennis ball around and skating back and forth and the dog comes out but won't go near the ice since it is super slippery. Our older cat Baxter checks us out from the shore and then wanders off. Not Smudge, he is out on the ice and following us around and then starts chasing across the ice everytime someone shoots the ball! It's a good thing he has claws because he went skidding a few times but managed to recover fairly quickly. It must have been so crazy cold on his paws! His tail was puffed up to twice it's size so I imagine he was pretty chilly but he would not leave the ice until we did. Crazy cat!