My Sister's Kittens

My sister's family moved out to the country last year and unsurprisingly, within a few months, a cat showed up wanting a home.  My sister already has a cat named Bob (who is one cool cat and absolutely a gem with my little nieces!), but of course my nieces fell in love with the stray.  So Bella was added to the family.  

As expected, within a few months, Bella got pregnant.  She had a litter of 5 but one died shortly after birth.  These 4 cuties were 3 weeks old when I met them, and I just had to get pictures of them!  Each of them has been claimed by one of my nieces and given a name.  I don't recall what the kittens are named or who is who, but they are all dearly loved.  I believe my sister intends to keep them all as barn cats.  Hopefully my sister can get Bella and at least her daughters into the vet to be fixed before more litters happen.  I am not someone who likes to nag, but I'll definitely be nagging my sister about this!

Prayer Plants and Spider Mites

I have a terrarium set up that is full of some of my favorite plants sitting in pots above a layer of rocks and water.  Most of the plants are prayer plants, but I also have a nerve plant and a black velvet alocasia in there.  I noticed that my newest plant, which was a White Star Calathea that I bought on my birthday, was not looking too good.  I saw bugs on it, but I told myself they were probably just harmless springtails because I really didn't want pests.  Well, upon closer inspection, I saw webbing and knew I was dealing with spider mites.  😰  

I removed each plant to carefully inspect them.  As far as I could tell, the White Star had the most pests and damage.  I saw some mites on my Vittata, but thankfully the other plants seemed okay despite how close together they are when in the terrarium.  I sprayed down each plant to remove as many of the mites as possible.  I then sprayed each leaf with Neem oil.  I returned the plants to the terrarium and am hoping for the best.  I thought about separating the two I definitely saw mites on, but I don't have a good spot to isolate them, I don't want to risk the mites spreading to my other plants, and it's likely the mites were already spreading to the other plants in the terrarium so I am trying to contain the mites to just those plants in the terrarium.  

I realize that I may not have the time or tools necessary to eliminate these pests, so in case I lose all the plants in the terrarium, I decided to take pictures of them to remember how beautiful they are.  I adore the beautiful patterns, variations, and colors of these plants.  I guess at this point my plan is to pull the plants out each week and spray them down with Neem oil.  Hopefully that is enough!  I especially don't want to lose my White Fusion.

This Manjula Pothos is not in the terrarium, but since I had my camera out and was already taking pictures of some of my favorite plants, I decided to get some pictures of the newest, gorgeous leaves on my manjula.  

 

Playing with Pen

Kira found this pen under the side table and had some fun with it.  At some point she left it unattended and Arien kinda lost her mind over it.  I haven't seen Arien so crazy over a toy.  It was adorable!  And maybe a little scary because she was going nuts!  Hahaha!