Saturday, January 22, 2011

Four-Legged Garden Pest! Caught Ya!

Cats generally are very cute, adorable and extremely "free-running". You may own a cat, and in the case of my neighbour, seven cats!, Cats can never be locked up in the house the whole day and expected to stay indoors without ever venturing anywhere they so desire! Except, of course, if you keep them lock up in a cage and of course, it is not a right thing to do! They come and go as they pleases! 


Look at these little kittens. There are actually four of them. An orange one is not in the picture. Aren't they cute? Do not let their cute faces gets to you, they are really a nuisance to my garden! I do like cats, when I was young, our family had a cat, a dog, a guinea pig, 2 ducks and a chicken as our pets! 


Three older cats, relaxing at the back of the owner's house.



One of the kitten, hiding behind the pot of curry leaf plant when it saw me. Guess what he did before that ..... 



It overturned my pot when it tried to climb onto it! This pot is half full, so it is not very heavy! It's okay, little one, there's another pot or two for you.... take your pick! 


Wanted to go into my pot of chives, I caught him sleeping on my chives one afternoon! I then poked all around the pot with 'satay sticks'. He did put a paw in, intended to go into the pot, look around at the sticks, put a tip of the chive into his mouth, and changes his mind....


well, this looks like a nice spot to sunbathe! Into my pot of curry plant he lies! ...... 


But not for long, decided to get away from this human creature who is staring at him, clicking away with some black instrument! But that chives is really tempting, couldn't help it,  push one down and sniff... got to go... that human creature is after me!


My new kangkung seedlings! One of the cats dug a hole and I guess you know why! It "poo-ed" and of course, the flies had a party! I sprayed with water-based aerosol and later, scoop it up to dispose of it, and guess what, little crawly maggots are underneath! Yucks! Yucks! Yucks!  Sprayed again, and a few hours later, did the dirty job of disposing it off. Sprayed one more time, left the pot in the sun for two whole days, covered with some bamboo sticks, just in case the little cuties thought this is their private potty pot! Threw the kangkung away, that was one whole packet of seeds! 

There's more ....

I have two little yam seedlings planted on the ground. One of it was dug out and guess what they did again? The flies had another party!

My french beans plant which was growing well, wilted within a day. Upon inspection, I noticed that the bottom stem has been snapped in two! How could this be? I then remembered that the day before, I saw the kittens was climbing on my belimbing tree, when they jumped down from the tree, they landed near my french beans, but I thought nothing of this! They must have snapped the stems when they landed!

They love my kitchen too! A piece of mackerel fish gone missing, a packet of unopened anchovies bought from the morning market mysteriously has traces of holes and tear marks on the plastic with some anchovies sticking out.  A large piece of promfret (luckily it was still in the packet) was found on the floor at my kitchen door, because the packet was too big to go through the holes at the grill.
The last straw was when I took some meat from the freezer, put that packet in a bowl filled with water to defrost, close it with the food cover, and went outside to hang out my laundry. When I came into the kitchen, guess what I found, a wet kitchen floor, the bowl and cover in one corner, but the packet of meat still intact on the floor. They did not manage to take that away in time! Saw the culprit outside, it was a stray cat!

Because of these cats, do I have to close my kitchen door all the time? I like bright sunny kitchen with nice ventilation! I should really buy some wire mesh to protect my pots, and send the bills to the owner! I had a 'chit-chat' with their owner, who says that she doesn't have the time to care for so many cats and intend to send the kittens either to the SPCA or to give away to some friends, keeping only the older ones. I told her what her cats did, I know that she is not to be blamed for what her cats did, but as the owner, she is responsible. She laughingly told me to buy a cat spray (what is that?), supposedly to keep cats away if sprayed at that particular area!  Maybe I should and pass the bill over to her! Well, I did told her that I will shoo them away with water and elastic sling! Guess what? I have her blessings!
Not to worry, I won't use the elastic sling, I'm not that cruel, maybe extremely mad, but not one to hurt any pets! Besides, I don't own any elastic sling!

I have a gun in my kitchen now! My son's toy water gun has some good uses after all!

And yes, my neighbour and I, we are still friends!

Happy Gardening !


10 comments:

  1. Im a cat lover myself and owning 6 cats at the moment.They are really a nuisance just like your neighbour's cats. Ive gone through all those things that happened to you and they peed and pooed in the house which make the whole house stinks! So to control them I bought 2 very large cages (triple decker bunglows!), plenty of space for them to roam and play inside. But twice a day, morning and evening I will let them out to play and potter around the garden with me which they love.I guess we as owners have to be responsible so that our pets wont be a nuisance to our neighbours.If you cant take care of them, better dont have them or give them away.

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  2. Your regular cute visitors is keeping you very busy I see. Maybe because the smell from your delicious cooking from the kitchen make them come so often. I heard about a herb that can keep the cats away but can't remember the name of the herb.

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  3. The 'herb' Diana is talking about could be orange peels. I remember reading that years ago. You could check it out. I am not a cat lover but as I read your post, my daughter started staring and telling me how cute the kittens are. Last year she put a stray cat in the basket of her bicycle and cycle around while the cat enjoy itself, sitting comfortably. Do you want to borrow my dogs? They can solve your problem.

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  4. O' dear. I understand you perfectly. There are some stray cats who loves to use my raised vegetable beds as their litter box too! I hate it so much because I am so afraid that they might kill my baby loofas, kang kongs, cucumbers and okras! O' dear, what should I do? Tsk tsk...

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  5. Cats are adourable... but anything sandy in the garden is their toilet..... huh.

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  6. alamak..the kittens look cute but of coz not only a nuisance but pencuri also!! luckily no cats in my area! put more satay sticks closely together. biar their buntuts kena cucuk!! but kesian pulak. i think you better plant in your porch area.

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  7. Hi p3chandan,
    My neighbour have some cages for her cats as well. She takes care of them quite well, I should say. Her son showers the cat about twice a month, and clean the cages every so often. But the problem is when she lets them out of the cage in the mornings and evenings, my backyard become some sort of a resort for them to hang-out!

    Hi Diana,
    One mentioned orange peels. Is this the herb you meant?

    Hi One,
    Will look up on orange peels. Thanks for the tip. Your dogs sounds like a very good idea! Hmmm.... !!

    Hi Hafez Carlucci Zahruddin,
    Thank you for visiting! I'm at a loss too! Only thing is to cover the soil with some sticks. And I overturned some empty pots on the ground where there are soil to prevent them from digging!

    Hi Bangchik,
    Yes, that is so!

    Hi petite nyonya,
    They are real smart! They sometimes push the satay stick to the side! Anyway, satay stick do not last long, reput under the rain and sun! I was thinking of getting some plastic chopsticks, these are longer and sturdier than satay sticks! Slowly clearing off my porch plants for my 'future herb plants'! Will do after CNY, nobody waters for me during CNY!

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  8. I shoo cats off with water. They will be frightened for a while. Sprays, repellents and peels don't work at all for me. Once it rains or when the sun is out, the smell will dissolve quickly... waste of effort/money. Even if the spot is sheltered, those repellents are not really effective also. Btw cat's vomit is even more disgusting...

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  9. My father told that rue plant can get rid of cat. They have very bad smell which can detter many animal/insect. I will blog about it tommorow. My father bought one for me due to snake visit to my garden!

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  10. Oh.. I thought I was alone!! The stray cats at the back of my house comes and dig up everything I plant.. Oh! so frustrating.. Nothing seems to keep them away. My pak choy, choy sum or whatever greens, never had a chance to grow up.. always get dug up half way.. Sigh..

    Anyway, I also cover my boxes (i plant my vege in styrofoam boxes) with wire mesh but they will still come. Sit on it.. crawl underneath it.. So, of late, I have resort to using those mouse traps that will slam on their paws when they dig up the soil.. so far so good... no more poo and pee..

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