It rained a lot last night; it was very heavy with thunderstorm and lightning. I am half-awake and half-asleep when my mother wakes me up to look after my turtle. Since I am dead tired to wake up from severe headache, I just whimper and went back to sleep. I had a developing headache before we pay a visit in our second degree cousin confined in a provincial hospital and it became severe when we went home, I think it was from eating barbecue chicken head; it was maybe frozen for a long time so food intolerance strike. I didn’t wake up too because I was a bit lazy and I have thought the turtle can breathe underwater and won’t escape and even if he escape it won’t matter since I am planning to set him free anyway.

This morning, I was still in bed when my mother yelled that my turtle was gone already. I get up and look at the pail where I have kept it, the turtle was really gone and the pail is full of water, although I have already accepted that the turtle might be gone when I wake up in the morning I still look and asked around if anyone see it.  Well, I’ll surely miss Thurty, Baol as my father fondly call him.

Shopping for second hand clothes when they are on huge sale is one of the things I enjoy the most, it is somehow therapeutic for me. We normally do it in well-knows surplus shop but a few months ago we decided to go to a smaller surplus shop because they were on sale that day. While looking around the surplus clothes a kitten passed by, the sale lady picked it up and when she put it down I picked it up and give it a touch. The sales lady then asked me if I want to bring the kitten home,  I check it first if the kitten is a male or female since we already have a lot of kittens at home we have adopted from the street.

The kitten was a male, so I have asked if the owner is giving it away, the sales lady replies yes just asked his “Kuya” but we told her she should do it for us since we don’t know his employer so she did, and the surplus shop owner gave it to us and we bring the kitten home.  I named him “Kat-kat” derived from the surplus shop’s name, Kat-kat Ukay-Ukay.

Kat-kat is such a playful kitten, he plays a lot from wires to rags. On his first three weeks at home, it was a pain to teach him where to litter. He keeps doing it in my father’s room below the cabinet and speakers, I almost give up cleaning his smelly poop. We decided not to let him in during the night because we noticed he just do littering inside at night, and during the day he did it in the sand but Kat-kat is such an intelligent cat when he found a way how to get inside by following the older cats but his ways didn’t change he still poop inside because it seems he is so lazy to go outside but when my father built windows in his rooms and Kat-kat grow a bit older he already learned to do his business outside. What a relief that was!

Adopting kittens from the street is quite normal for us, when we found kitten being abandon we immediately pick them to bring home.  Well, but Monina a black female cat is different although we can consider her abandon in some aspects. She was given to us by a relative’s wife who owned a rice store in town, she doesn’t own the cat but it stays on her store every day.  We are told that the owner doesn’t take care of the cat anymore so it needs a new home and family.

We brought her home and immediately introduce to our cats; their first meeting didn’t turn out good. Monina is somehow irritated with the presence of the male cats so we just let them to  be familiar to each other.  After few hours, we found out that Monina is missing so we search around the house and she is nowhere to be found and that is when we heard a cat fighting with another cat, we immediately rush to our neighbor’s house and there we found her in the roof agitated with the pregnant cat of our neighbor. It took us long time to bring her down because she was not familiar yet with us, when we are able to get her we decided to leash her at home which is not normal but putting her on leash, will make her tame and secured hence we are worried too that she might runaway from our home.

We noticed Monina likes to wiggle her tail a lot maybe because she used to stay in the town market where there is a lot of flies and to get rid of them she moves her tail. Her right feet is twisted too but it doesn’t make her to limp when walking.

Btw, Monina was the name given to her and we didn’t changed it anymore since she is already older and might confused her. 🙂

The other day while I am watering the plants and my mother and sister is having a group conversation with relatives about the recent crime that happened in our town, my male cousin started tinkering something in the irrigation field and I was called to take a picture of it by an uncle. It turns out it was an unknown specie of large purple crab. Nobody would like to touch it or prepared it as a good meal believing it is something should not be touch by human.

My mother recalled that a long time ago when they went to a feast she also saw a large crab and was fascinated with it that she informed everyone and run after the crab and then afterwards she felt sick.

Anyway,  my cousin said he found the crab the other day and it always stay in the mud rather than the water, after taking photos of it we just let the crab wander in the muddy field.

The kids of my first cousin have hamsters as pets, my sister asked for a pair for her own. She was given two pairs of hamsters, since we have no proper cage for the hamsters they were just kept in an open plastic fruit container.  Time flies and they were very healthy and older, we decided to separate both pairs when one of the female hamsters gave birth but due to unfortunate event, the baby hamsters didn’t even lasts a day.

After few weeks the second female hamster gave birth to eleven baby hamsters, and she is nurturing them well. Some of our neighbors already asked for a pair for them to pet and we said yes since we can’t take care all of them.

We are also planning to give hamsters to my kid’s cousin, since their hamsters died.  The mother hamsters went missing after being taken out from the cage and since nobody will nurture the baby hamsters died afterwards.

We actually don’t know what happened until a neighbour kid asked to borrow a hamster for school project, she told us my cousin’s son asked her to do it.  After long deliberation we found from our grandmother what happened and the real reason why my cousin’s daughter and not the son is asking for a hamster.   Our grandmother’s guessed is maybe my cousin’s daughter told her teacher about having hamsters at home so the teacher asked for her own hamster to take care but their hamsters are all gone and since those time our hamster are still young and no babies yet we told our grandmother we can’t give them a pair of hamsters yet since what we are having is still the pair that were given to us.

It was a normal morning, as I am busy collecting water I heard a cat crying. I stopped on what I am doing and locate where the cries coming from. I looked at the nearby field and irrigation but I didn’t find anything so I called for it and the cries continues and that’s where I looked up. I’ve seen a scared cat trapped in top of a tree. As much as I want to get him, it was not possible because the tree is a bit high and the bamboo bench wouldn’t reached him so I called for my sister, we tried to scared him down by pushing him with a stick but he is scared even more that he keeps hanging in the tree trunks.

We decided to get the small ladder at home, we put in the bamboo bench and I just hold it very tightly while my sister is climbing and reaching the scared cat. We are able to get him and I took him home, the cat was really scared but he is kind of sweet and loves to be touched and scratched.  The cat was also starving so I feed him a little, I initially tied him so he won’t run away since he is very scared of our little dog probably he got chased by dogs during the night making him climb in the tree.

Within the day, I decided to unleash the cat since he won’t stay still. I initially thought, he will return to his home but he decided to stay in our home, my family named him “Dongsu” he is a very sweet young male cat that loves to sleep in top of throw pillow. He loves to be pat and carried, he acts like a dog as well that wherever I go he keeps following us, it is either I have to walk the dog or I will just simply go out to buy something in the store.

Rescuing a  cat in a tree is easy as long as you stay calm as well as the the cat, you have to ensure the cat that you are his friend and you won’t hurt him. Always used a ladder when trying to rescue a cat to avoid falling.

Pets are like family members; we cared and love them unconditionally. So when they get sick and hurt we also felt worried and disturbed. It was just less than a month ago when we brought two kittens home from Manila, they are slightly bred compare to local cats.

It was very heart breaking to see your pet lying in the ground of a private road after being hit and smashed by a heartless truck driver. It hurts to see how the life of your pet being robbed in front of your eyes. What is more disturbing is when you confront the driver and instead of being sorry, he just treats it as nothing happened with a smile on his face as in there is no remorse at all. How conceited!

Our house is situated in a lot owned by my grandfather; it was divided into 8 siblings. Few of my aunts build their house at the back which is a vacant and unproductive field before houses were built.

When construction materials are being delivered, the trucks go inside since the road is wider to accommodate a truck; the front lot was not yet fully occupied unlike the field part. It was the construction delivery people’s responsibility to check if there’s dog, cat or kids around because it was a private property where kids sometimes play and run and dogs rest and sleep but they failed to do it that day, was informed by a young cousin once removed that happened to be in our house after being sent to have a documents to be photocopied that one of their delivery team went down and only removed the ball in site but didn’t seen our black kitten on the way and it happened. I couldn’t say it was an accident because it happened because of their carelessness.

Seeing my kitten lying in the ground, with stomach parts out made me shiver, I felt like crying but there is no tears flowing in my eyes. I was shocked, it was just minutes ago when I fed him with other kittens, it was only few minutes ago when I saw him alive trying to get well, he is a bit sick after I fed them with sardines in can since we are not able to buy them fish. Yeah, right our cats has separate viand from us, they have their own fish. I also bought milk for my kittens and even feed them pellets since they eat it as well and seeing your kitten died because of someone’s carelessness is not easy to bear.

My sister cried her heart out, and cannot control her feelings especially when she saw the driver smiling his heart contents after the truck went out in the main road. I felt the same way upon hearing it while digging for my kitten’s resting place. We may be at fault for letting the kittens out but it was a private property where not every day a truck or car passed by and the dirt road was situated between two houses. It was unnecessary and heartless of the truck driver to ask us to talk to the person were construction materials were delivered. It sounds like he wanted us to blame their customer, isn’t it? It is their own responsibility; they should inform us or home owners that they are coming in to deliver something so at least their’ pets could be put kept to safety. He should at least felt sorry and show a remorse for what happened but he didn’t not, such a heartless person indeed!

With this incident, I hope other people are considerate of pet owner’s feelings; pets are like kids too and should not be treated as just a plain animal without feelings. They might be just an animal to their eyes but it was someone we cared so much, a pet we love. +

What you do to others comes around; life is like a wheel after all!

The other day, while busy into something I overheard my mother and sister talking about finding two little birds in my shoes and planning to give them to my 3 year old second cousin once removed. I immediately finished what I am doing before my sister can go out to hand the birds, I disagree with my mother’s plan and reasoned a lot that birds has family too; it has parents, brothers and sisters. It was not a good idea to play with the birds because it has feelings too and they should be freed and not to be put in cage.

I was told that they are pest in the rice field and there are a lot of them, I could free them but I have to take charge of looking after the birds in the rice fields or even so I freed them our cat will eventually catch and killed these tiny birds. I am firmed with my decision so I didn’t hand them to my sister; I took them to take photos. I put them in our window but as the stronger bird trying to fly, it fell outside so I went out to pick it that’s where my father saw me and I told him my ordeal, he disagree too of giving them to a little kid to play or to be caged, he also want to free the birds.

After a while, I went to our roof top and put them in a place where our cat couldn’t reach and then closed the door that goes upstairs, when I returned to check the birds a bird fly away and one bird was left so I went down to bring water and rice to feed the remaining bird. Hoping the second bird can learn how to fly sooner and be safe.

We travel to the nearest city so my younger sister can take an exam for work purposes. After the exam we headed to Manila, we stayed in a relative’s house for few days. They have large cats and kittens since they have happened to have a breed from their former cats, and we are given kittens to bring home. We choose to bring the two black kittens because the third kitten is still untamed and it might create trouble when it is accidentally gone out of the box.

I was able to bring the kittens without problem in the bus and ferry; I made sure they are well ventilated and feed. They are so adorable, I have to tie one of them on their first day at home because they might wander around and the surrounding is still unfamiliar to them and I am afraid to lost them both.

It was less than a month ago when we found her in the highway, trying to survive and we bring her home and named her Jinjii. Yeah right, we are on our way to gasoline station when we saw a cat in the highway eating a piece of bread I can’t control myself and shout “Ming” we discussed if we are going to pick it or not, and when we returned back we stopped and my sister went by the neighborhood to ask if someone owns the cat, well nobody owns it so my sister took the kitten with her, one gas attendant sigh with relief saying “finally someone felt pity with the kitten” it turns out it was surviving there for days already.

Since we are still going to the market we brought the kitten with us even when we stop at the bakery. When we reached home our adult cats specially Junsu was not happy with the kitten’s presence so when we turn our back for a minute he immediately grab the kitten in the neck trying to suffocate it, luckily my sister was able to grab the kitten again, since that incident we are extra careful with Jinjii, I fed her at top of the cabinet while looking after her and even secure her with temporary cage to avoid the older cat from grabbing her when we are sleeping.

Today, the kitten was not a threat anymore to the older cats; they’re already friends and play together.