It’s been over a week since the previous cat update. Many apologies to the zero people eagerly awaiting another update. (Actually, there may be a non-zero number; I have had some nice feedback on the cat posts, which I greatly appreciate.)

Firstly, some sad news. You may recall the alien black cat that has been visiting our cat house (pictured in the above-linked post). Unfortunately, someone hit this cat as it was crossing the street, and we found it dead by our front fence. We figured it was a feral or stray (since it didn’t have any collar), so we gave it a respectful burial in the little graveyard we have for our pet cats. A few days later, Jenn saw a sign asking if anyone had seen a black cat, so she called the owner to give them the bad news. They were appreciative, and I’m sure it’s best to have closure, but we know how sad it is to lose a pet cat.

Here’s our cat graveyard, overlooking the pond, with memorial stones for our previous cats, some grass that Pixel used to like, and cat mint:

On to other topics. We’ve still been visited by raccoons and a possum regularly, as they’ve learned they can often find food left in the feeder:

Though sometimes not:

Possum:

So to try to eliminate that temptation, I have replaced the automatic feeder with an internet-connected model. This new one will dispense on a schedule like the old one, but also has an app. So I can have it dispense an amount of food that the cats are pretty much guaranteed to eat, then use the app to manually (and remotely) dispense addtional portions as needed, ensuring that they don’t leave any food to attract the unwanted visitors.

Here’s the new feeder in the cupboard above the feeding area, along with spare food, the light remote, an Eero internet router (to extend the Wi-Fi range), plus camera and heating pad plugs:

The app lets me adjust the schedule, dispense custom amounts manually, see the feeding history, and other info:

I just installed that today, so I’ll fine-tune the meal amounts till I figure out the right amount. Hopefully I’ll be able to eliminate leftovers, and thus phase out the non-cat visitations. We’ll see!

Anyway, that’s the news of the week, so let’s close out with an assortment of cute cat pics:

New shrubs behind the cat house, to eventually make it a bit less exposed:

Cat by the beehives: