Tishka (Dasha’s daughter) has had four kittens this Sunday, and once they have been weaned and are ready for the big wide world without their Mummy around, they will be available (free) to anyone prepared to give them a good home.
So, if you live in Astana, know how to look after cats, and are interested, click the Contact page for e-mail addresses etc., or leave a comment here.
(Fairly) Obviously, the image above was just a google search, as the kittens themselves are very small, and living over at the in-laws. Will try and grab some proper ones next weekend. By which time, Dasha, these kitten’s Grandma, may have had her litter.
Apparently, Olympiada is not Olympiad. That is to say that Dasha’s kitten from a few months ago IS indeed a girl, and not a boy (see last post on this subject here). Not quite sure where the mistake was made, but hopefully she will now be secure in her own identity 🙂
It looks as though I haven’t actually posted any photos of Olympiada previously on this blog, so here are a few to try and redress the balance.
A Very Young Olympiada
Olympiada Considers Using Her Door
Olympiada Being Checked By Her Mother (Dasha)
Muska Taking Karra’s Favourite Warm Place
Tishka In The Garden
As more observant readers will no doubt have noticed, I’ve also included a few pictures of the other cats that were on the same memory card 🙂
Last year Dasha had a kitten, the little sister of our Karra and Muska. She (Tishka), in turn, had her own couple of bundles of joy last week. As Olympiada (more to follow on the re-assignment of her original name) has just been given away, it was nice that these two kittens came along and replenished stocks 🙂
They are called Nushka and Simeon.
Nushka, Simeon, Tishka and Dasha
As this is Tishka’s first litter, she was at first a little uncertain as to exactly what she was supposed to do with these miniature versions of her. Dasha (the kitten’s grandmother), was eager to try and help, and can often be found giving a tongue bath to all three of them!
Our friend Dr Natalya has had a look at Dasha’s kitten from this year, and proclaimed that she is in fact a he. (The kitten, not Dr Natalya, obviously!). One of her friends is going to be taking the kitten, as the in-laws already have two cats at theirs. Olympiada is two months old, and given that it is actually male, and her sister and mother (Tishka and Dasha) have not been spayed, this is probably a good time to find herhim a new home. He really is very cute, and I’m sure Olympiad’s new owners will be very happy with him 🙂
Looking at the pair of them, I can’t believe it was a full two years ago that Dasha gave birth to them. I don’t yet know how we’ll celebrate what is an entirely normal run of the mill day to them, but hopefully we can find some new toys at the local pet store.
Almost all the details are now sorted… We have bought the plane tickets, paid a deposit on the Apartment, now we just need to sort out a pet-sitter again. Either that or re-unit Karra and Muska with their Mum (Dasha) and younger sister (Tishka) that they’ve never met. Ira thinks 4 cats in one house would be too much work for her parents, so perhaps Mira fancies trying out living on her own again?
Anyway, see below for a map of the general area we’ll be staying in.
Sadly Alex and Mat won’t be coming this year, as was originally hoped, as their flights cost even more than ours. btw, congrats to Alex – Dryad Musings has just got an Alexa rank… around 12 million, but that is better than the dreaded ‘no data’. At one point this site almost broke into the 200k region, but since then its bounced back up to the million mark again. Which is a little odd, as my unique visitors per month have been steadily increasing, but there you go. ChrisD (who doesn’t have a blog, so doesn’t get a hyperlinked name 😉 ) can’t come either, as his new work randomly tests its employees, and he is worried about passive smoking whilst he drinks.
The apartment we are renting has internet access, but it is wired, so unless Ira’s laptop comes for the journey, we’ll in communicado for a while (my PDA/phone has WiFI and BT, but is obviously lacking an RJ45 socket LMAO)
Anyway, enough on Amsterdam for now, I’m sure I’ll be boring you with more info a lot more over the coming weeks…
Other than Ildar’s first day at school, this blog is now up to date with the videos I have shot over the last few months, at least after this post. I’m saving Ildar’s collection until I know whether or not we are meeting him again tomorrow.
Anyway, first we have Tima, the single kitten that Dasha had this year, (the brother of Karra and Muska), shot last week. As he does not live with us, I doubt he will have as many photos and videos of him on this blog, but as a few people asked what he looked like, here you go…
This is the last Alex video, taken when she visited us here in Kazakhstan. Not sure what to title this, other than possibly “Alex No YouTube”? Any other (polite suggestions)? For any fans of hers, we will hopefully have some more during our Amsterdam trip, which should also include ChrisD as well.
And the last two videos in this post are from the same day Alex visited my in-laws, here we have Irina taking viewers on a trip round the garden. Over here, especially in Kazakh (as opposed to Russian) families, gardens (if present) tend to be primarily for growing produce, rather than the British standard of lots of grass and some flowers. Anyway, take a peek, and let me know if you have any questions about the plants you see… I know nothing, but will gladly pass your requests on to Ira or her Mum, who can both tell the difference between weeds and flowers, and thereby best me with their expertise by a long way 🙂
These are the photos we took of Dasha and Tima last weekend, when Balzhan, Ildar, Sasha, Dr. Natalya, Sveta, Losha, Igor & his wife, as well as Asen’s mum all came round randomly on one day!
First we have the traditional weigh in, which shows he has almost doubled in one week!
Next we have a couple of close up shots of mother and son
Now we have Dasha investigating what exactly is going on with the grey plastic box these weird humans keep putting in her box…
Finally we have Ira holding Tima, to try and give an idea of scale
PS Sorry for any blog readers who don’t find kittens cute. Tough. I do 😛
Assuming the kitten is male, it looks like he will be called Tima. He has gained grammes in three days, which sounds quite healthy to me. (I’m not an expert, but Irina and the in-laws seem happy with his progress at least.)
So first shot is the (now) traditional weighing process…
Next we have a shot of Dasha and Tima posing very nicely for a photo in the box that has seen quite a few kitten litters…
Finally we have a cute shot of Dasha protecting and warming her baby. It really is quite unusual to see Dasha with just one kitten; as she is more than ten years old now, the vet thinks that her body only produced a single kitten to ensure both mother and son would be healthy. Mind you, that vet will not be getting any more business from this family – she appeared to not be too clued up about animals, nor very professional in her communications.
