Mythicbells Sunroom progress report

Moving right along.  As construction projects go, this one is going well.  The concrete slab has been poured and you can now picture how big (or small) the room will be.  Remember to subtract four inches for the wall thickness and on the side furthest from the living room there will be an additional 16″ taken off with the bay window going almost to the edge of the slab.  It’s going to be tiny, but cute.  Good thing I go for tiny, cute things — prefurrably with furr.

Most of the construction junk is gone as of yesterday.  Today they will pick up their horrid wheel barrows.  Honestly I don’t see how they managed at all considering the condition of those things.  Monday the sunroom people come and do … whatever they do.

The concrete is ready to pour and the kitties and I are going stir crazy inside.

Finished concrete slab

The Mythicbells Persian Sunroom project in progress

Bobin has put me to shame with his great blog posts….that, and I have nothing to do but wait for the ‘worker bees’ to show up and clean all that rubble out of my back yard. They are supposed to put the re-bar down today as well. It’s past noon. Finally some action. Two guys showed up with a plastic tarp and I foolishly thought, “great, now some action.” The tarp was thrown on top of the heap and the two guys left. That was an hour ago.

In any case, I’ve been meaning to get around to blogging about this project. It was conceived late last year when I was offered a breeding queen. “But I’m retired,” I said. In my usual roundabout manner of reasoning, I started thinking of all the reasons it was the stupidest idea in the known universe. Thus, I compiled a neat little list of what I might need to make it possible–AND make it possible without re-homing my current kitties. Bear in mind it’s still the stupidest idea in the known universe, but that’s never stopped me before. I need a male cat, of course, and since the breeder of the queen is going to mate her one more time, why not go for a mother-daughter team along with a male kitten. At some point, I plan to blog about the new cats–IF it comes to pass–with photos and genetics lesson adnauseum, but I don’t want to do that until I have more positive news on that front. However, in summary, my objective is to maintain the same genre (silver and golden CFA registered pedigree Persians) and the same “look” (unbelievably cute) that Mythicbells kitties are known for.

Stupider and Stupider!

Said queen is not yet pregnant, and no other kittens are yet on the way, but while I wait, the gears are turning. I need at least one more room to make this less stressful on my current kitties and more feasible for me. I decided on a sunroom that opens off of the living room (the only available space for expansion). By the time the city and the Home Owners’ Association get done with my idea, I’m whittled down to an 8’x12′ room with a pop-out bay window. It will be fully insulated with double-pane tempered glass windows, a heated tile floor, and it will be nicely finished inside.  It’s one of those pre-fabricated dealy-bobs, officially called a “four seasons sunroom.”

The first week in January, I jumped right on the project and called a contractor I’ve worked with before. It’s now nearly the end of March, but we have the permits from the city and the approval from the Home Owners’ Association and we ‘broke ground’ this week. NOW I’m committed because there’s a huge hole in my back yard. Theoretically, if the worker bees do their work this weekend, we will be ready to pour the concrete slab this coming Monday which will be the foundation for the room. Once that’s done, the sunroom company will come out and take their measurements,  then I believe it takes a couple of weeks for them to fabricate the walls and ceiling at their manufacturing facility. It should go up fairly quickly, after which it will be wired for electricity, ceiling fan and other fixtures installed (including a cat door), tile floor laid, and the exterior part of the current house which is now the interior of the sunroom will be sheet rocked and painted.

Before

Photos I took today along with two rough renderings of what the room might look like when finished.  The poor kitties are locked inside on a beautiful spring day on the off chance the worker bees will show up:

Sahara looks wistfully out

Sequoia and Simba Kahn at the top of the stairs

Looking out from the living room at “the hole” they finished yesterday.

“The Hole” and rubble from outside

Better view of the the rubble heap

Gravel they dumped in my driveway last night

Rough sketch looking into the room from the sliding doors that exit into the enclosure. The sliding glass doors on the right go into the living room and will remain as is so the room can be closed off as necessary.

Rough sketch looking into the sunroom through the livingroom patio door

Sahara of Mythicbells

Hi everyone.  I know the blog has been languishing.  I’m hoping to get a nice newsy post up at some point soon.  In the mean time I caught these photos of Sahara this morning while she was hoping for treats and thought I’d show her off a bit before I end up hacking her coat up too much.  So far so good with her, but this is a rough time of year to keep the fur-kids in their fur coats.  It turns out that as a lady of leisure Sahara has quite a fabulous coat.

Mythicbells blog – 2012 in review

It’s always fun to see what the blog did for a year.  I’m amazed, actually.  Hopefully I will find some interesting things to blog about in 2013 … See you all then.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of the Mythicbells kitties and I.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Recap: current activity of each Mythicbells kitty

Hi everyone. It’s a cold and dreary day here in Northern California and as I was sitting on the couch, I looked around and thought it might be interesting to see what each kitty was doing at that very moment. This is the result!! BTW, they got two new doughnut beds yesterday and I threw out the old, worn ones. As you can see, Sahara and Sequoia like the new beds. I also washed all of the braided baskets. For some reason the kitties have been showing less interest in those, but I’m sure they will get back to them in due time.

The scariest thing that has happened here in recent days: yesterday I found a LIVE snail stuck to my bedroom door about 5 feet up. Now I wonder who brought THAT in. My first guess is Kalahari.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the new year.

Kalahari

Nugget

Sahara

Sequoia

Sirocco

Simba Kahn & Gypsy Rose

Tiny Bear

Tiny Bear this morning

I fear the BLOG has been lying dormant.  I have been busy with … life.  Mostly tending The Pride.  I usually attempt to create an e-Christmas card, but haven’t gotten around to it and here it is almost Christmas!!

I hope everyone ‘out there’ is well.  All is well here with me and the kitties.  Tiny Bear caught some kind of a bug (or something) a week or so ago.  These things happen and I generally wait it out unless it gets scary.  This seems to be a popular month for ‘The Bug” which probably isn’t a bug at all but perhaps is related to excessive fur.  One or two of the kitties do have issues around December, but it hits Tiny Bear the worst.  She stopped eating for three days, was vomiting and had diarrhea.  All of which prompted butt trims all around just in case.  But she pulled out of it and no one else got sick.  I happened to get these two photos of Tiny Bear this morning which show her looking very fine indeed, so I thought I’d share them.

Happy Holidays from all of us to all of you …

I fear that my thoughts have not been profound or obnoxious enough to actually write any blog posts.  However, I have been keeping up with videos, and thought it was about time to post a gallery of the video stills I’ve collected since last posting a ‘still gallery.’    Here they are.  All the kitties are doing fine and keeping me busy: feeding, grooming; feeding, grooming …. oh, and cleaning!

Mythicbells Persians 2013 Calendar

The calendar is ready for anyone who is interested.  As in the past, it’s available through CafePress.  They do all the work: print on demand, packaging, shipping, etc.  They will even take returns if your order is not quite … in order.  The 2013 calendar features only the “K” litter.  I usually put the mother kitty on the cover, but I managed a really great group photo of the K Girls, so decided to use it.  I wish I could say that about the rest of the photos.  Actually I got some pretty good photos of the girls — enough to fill the calendar — but it was up hill work.  They were such busy little kittens that many photos were not in good enough focus for print.  I so often hear the comment about any given photo I post “THAT one would be good for the calendar,” but I fear that I’m as finicky as a … well … a cat!  If there’s dirty laundry in the back ground, or it’s cute but the composition is off, etc. etc.  The list goes on.  Usually the fatal flaw is the focus.  It might look fine on a webpage, but is not good enough for print.  In any case, here’s the link to the calendar and I will also place it over to the right in the links section.  Also below is a preview of the calendar pages.  You can see which month each kitten is in by the file name.  No special order.

To purchase the calendar  http://www.cafepress.com/mythicbells2013calendar (please note that CafePress is doing something different with their calendars this year by allowing you to choose the starting month.  It’s default seems to be set on the current month, so if you don’t change that, your calendar will begin on that month.  I like my calendars to begin in January, but you choose what you like.  Just be aware that you do have to change this if you want it to start at the beginning of next year)

**I didn’t know this until someone asked, but there is a CafePress UK now.  Interesting.  And it translates without me having to do anything.  So for those of you in the UK who are interested in a Mythicbells Calendar: http://www.cafepress.co.uk/mythicbells2013calendar

Mythicbells update and HUGE screenshot gallery

Just messin’ around lookin’ for something I aught to be doing.  It’s too hot outside — one excuse, but I’ll think of more — as to why I’m not being productive. SO, I thought I’d look at the screen shots I’ve saved for video uploads and make a little gallery.  On YouTube, if you are a partner, you can select any photo you want to be the thumbnail (rather than have it assigned) so when I process a video, I take several screen shots, then choose one when the video is up-loaded. That’s what these are, so they will likely be poorly labeled and you’ll have to guess who and what you are looking at.

First an update. Thank you all SO much for your wonderful and very kind words and support in your comments on my last post. Thank you! Thank you! Sahara and Simba Kahn have both recovered very nicely from their surgeries and they both seem more ‘kittenish’ and playful — but that might just be my imagination. All the kitties are coming into their winter coats and Gypsy Rose is outdoing herself this year.  I expect no less than several feed of snow in central California if her coat is a harbinger of the winter to come.

Here is the gallery of screen shots.  They date from August 8, 2012 to the present.  remember, the file names on many won’t make any sense, but the date preceding any file name will be correct (yy mm dd).

Mythicbells Hiatus/Retirement Ramble

I’ve been trying to get my mind around this post for several weeks and finally gave up.  I’m going to dive in and start rambling and see what develops.  As many (or most) of you already know, I’ve announced that I will no longer be breeding.  I’m going to call it a hiatus (a term I saw a friend use) which leaves the back door open should I find the will and a way to start up again.  I made the ‘official’ announcement last week via Facebook and on my website around the day I took Simba Kahn in for his neutering; however it’s a decision I’ve been struggling with for several years and more so these past few months.  Any breeder who wants to continue breeding simply MUST re-home their retired breeders, and must do so on a continuing basis while bringing in new breeders.

In many ways I’ve been lucky beyond my wildest dreams.  Had I known the pitfalls and tragedies possible in this endeavor, it’s likely I would never have begun.  From the very first year I was forced into a crash course in breeding, feline husbandry, nutrition, and health.  I was not atypical in my hazy newby plans with the idea of how much fun it would be to have kittens every year to play with.  Cute!  Fun!  Yes and yes!!  To my credit, I did want legitimate breeding rights and CFA registered cats and a CFA registered cattery and I did NOT view this as a money-making home business, as is often the greatest newby pitfall.

The first year both kittens became ill before they were even a year old.  Tiny Bear recovered from what they called a ‘fever of unknown origin’ after $1100 of testing and a week in and out of the clinic.  Nugget was not so lucky.  She had a congenital eye condition in both eyes and it was necessary to remove one of them.  She became my first retired breeding cat.  Tiny Bear went on to be a first time breeder’s dream queen.   Initially finding homes for the kittens was a huge concern for me.  As it turns out that was the least of my problems.  From the onset quality kitty parents found me and over the years Mythicbells kittens became in demand.

I could go into any and all of my adventures and quite possibly might at some point, but overall, though I’ve had some problems and tragedies, they have been minimal compared to what I know other breeders have faced.  The positive side of the ledger far outweighs the negative.  Breeding these wonderful kittens has brought fabulous people into my life from all over the world and has created a unique “family” who have my very special kittens as well as an extended family who love and follow my cats and kittens.  I look back over the eight years since I began this endeavor and I’m astonished at all that has happened and all that Mythicbells has become.  The past few months have been a joy to me due to the very special “K” kittens and the wonderful people who were waiting impatiently to bring them into their hearts and their homes.  It’s also been a rough time for me in other ways.  THE DECSION!  I so do NOT want to lose all of this – and I don’t just mean the wonderful WONDERFUL experience of raising the kittens, but the whole package that is Mythicbells.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  Sincerely!!  For your interest in me and my kitties; for your support of me and Mythicbells.  I hope to maintain contact with you all.  I would like input on KittyCam, the newsletter, the BLOG, etc.  I plan to leave KittyCam up for the foreseeable future.  It doesn’t cost me anything, and I see that people do enjoy the chat room at certain times of the day.  Of course we know that even that can’t go on forever, but for now it stays.  The newsletter does cost me a fee and I’m thinking that with Facebook now so prevalent that I will likely phase out the newsletter.  Many of the Mythicbells alumni are now connecting via Facebook and sharing photos etc.  A Facebook group started up just this week for Mythicbells alumni and anyone who enjoys sharing cats.  If you are interested in this group, let me know if you don’t already know about it.  I believe that you need to be “a friend” of either me or someone already in the group, at which time one of us can simply add you.  I intend to keep the BLOG up and hopefully active so that I can bore you with “All Things Molly and All Things Kitty.”  My website will also remain up as a source of information for cat care.  JAFO is still making the Granny Bells Stud Pants and Princess Panties that she and I developed.  How long that continues will be entirely up to JAFO.  Thank you JAFO!!

Sahara is scheduled to be spayed next week then I guess that will be it!!  I ask myself why this is so depressing since it’s really no different than any post-kitten adoption blues which I suffer each and every time – lol.  I had hoped (half-hoped?) that Sahara would go back into heat before I neutered Simba Kahn for one more litter this year.  I knew that I could manage that stress until the end of the year, but could not go into next year … waiting.  The headaches have been rough the past couple of months as well as mounting behavioral issues with the rest of the gang.  SO, if Sahara goes into heat between now and next week, I’ll shoot her myself!  (Just kidding, of course!)  If this were Tiny Bear we’d have the “L” litter on the ground by now.  I fear I had to disappoint a number of my favorite people who asked to be put on the waiting list at the last minute when they saw the K litter.  Well, they WERE pretty darn cute!!

I think that’s end of ramble.  Oh, yes, the videos will continue ad nauseum per usual and if you’ve been keeping up with the latest you will see that I am very much enjoying reconnecting with all of the resident kitties, playing with them, fussing over them, attempting to make them feel like the center of my universe (which of course they are).

I love you all!

Signed:  Molly, Nugget, Tiny Bear, Gypsy Rose, Simba Kahn, Sahara, Sirocco, Kalahari Falcon, & Sequoia