Tonks and the Great Outdoors

As you remember, I now am the keeper of Stephanie and Sean's two little cats, Paralax and Tonks.

Tonks is the scardiest cat I have ever met. She stayed in the closet in the bedroom for 3

days...NEVER coming out when she first came to our house. Then she moved to staying under the couch for over a week, and only came out at night... I mean when everyone was gone to bed. Then she game out early in the morning, and evening...

Now she is out often, and its not a shocker to see her, like it was the first few weeks. That being said.. Terry and I walk softly around her, careful not to move too suddenly, or make sudden noises because she darts under cover for an hour when she is spooked.

She loves all the windows of our house and its not uncommon to come home from work and see her sitting in the basement window, looking out at the world at ground level. She watches "Bird TV" quite a bit too. Terry trimmed our bird feeder tree yesterday and filled it up with sunflower seeds. The little chickadees spent an hour diving and foraging... giving both cats a fabulous "Action" show. Pika.. slept quietly on the couch... bored with such mundane viewing.

The blue jays arrived with their big voices and large presence and that turned the cats into "Flat" cats, because they couldn't have lowered themselves any lower into the bench...

We were as much entertained by the cats as they were by the birds.
This afternoon, a nice cool fall afternoon, I spent time outside, transplanting some Christmas Bulbs and potting some outdoor plants into indoor plants. Now, Paralax uses every opportunity to get outside, and she plays around the cedar (under the bird feeder) or in my side garden but she doesn't wander far. We keep a close eye on her. She keeps a good eye on every moving object, from leaves, acorns to poor helpless bugs.Well, today... Miss Scaredy Pants, Tonks... watched me out the window of the door.... and when I offered her the wide open view of the front yard... curiosity overrode her fear.She stayed in the foyer with the door open to her for a few minutes, just looking. Then she moved to the doorway... and stuck her head way out... just to look. Then... onto the door step.... At this point... she had been in and out of the door no less then 10 times. We stayed very still, so as not to spook her... and she moved to the bench. The little birds were fluttering around, and she was on the hunt.... She overcame the initial fear of the outdoors, and just became skiddish with every new texture... pavement, rocks, dirt.. and the little pond!! She explored every little movement, under the bench, under the tree....following Paralax, and joining Pika. It was a fun little afternoon for all the cats. Paralax enjoyed having Tonks outside. Mainly so she could take off and explore our next door neighbours yard without us knowing.

You can see her little grey body sneaking behind Mac's house...... Geesh.

.. I just about had a heart attack when I couldn't find her. She then skirted all around Mac's house with both Terry and I following her, trying to corner her. She darted all around and finally made her way back into our yard, where she laid down to rest... probably relieved that her brush with unknown territories was over.

We have opened a real can of worms now though, as both cats seem to love the idea of going outside now. Ugh... try getting out the door with a purse, a school bag, three lunch bags and my keys.. and a jacket.. while kicking a cat out of the door... geesh...