All Creatures Great and Small Archives - Page 15 of 24 - Ruffing’s

Posted on June 12, 2011July 31, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Ever-growing piles

My workroom is getting very full! I took this video last week, and now there are at least twice as many art toys in progress, squeezing me into the center of the room.

I received such a nice email from a lady who purchased a Hug Me Slug for her daughter’s eleventh birthday. She said her daughter gave her a list of ten things she wanted for her birthday, and a Hug Me Slug was number one! Not only that, but iPod was number two! She told me I beat the iPod out. How cool is that?

I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.

For some time now, I’ve been meaning to make a big Hug Me Slug for my cousin, who is still battling peritoneal cancer, and who has been unable to eat for weeks now. I found it hard to do, I guess because I felt so sad about the whole situation. I sent this blue guy out and I hope he gives my cousin a smile.

Over the past two weeks, I have been stuffing toys by the bunches, mostly in the smaller sizes, but I stuffed one extra in the 12-inch size, for no one in particular. This Friday, I received a request for a custom 12-inch Hug Me Slug, and in the color I had just happened to have chosen. From the gift note, it sounded like the Hug Me Slug was for a seriously ill person. I checked and it was indeed for a baby, who was potentially going into the hospital this weekend, and who may need a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. I am so glad I had that slug ready! I will be able to get her out right away on Monday. I hope that little girl gets all well very soon, and I hope her new friend gives her some comfort.

I wanted to make a special card for her. I digitally colored the card above, using Painter and Photoshop Elements. This is one of my first efforts. I am still very much uncoordinated with the Wacom tablet and pen, and I still feel lost when I open Painter. I was pleased I was able to sign my name with the pen! I still have trouble even staying in the lines. I wanted a card that was simple, that would appeal to a baby. I hope to make more pictures for kids, once I get the hang of this.

Josephine has been helping me in every way she can. She tried to take my Wacom pen away many times. She still takes all my pens, turns on the Wacom tablet, and jumps on the keyboard. She even tries to call people on Skype!

“nnn” is not on our contact list. One day she may pick someone who is.

Marie, who is fostering Jack, brought him over for a visit. Jack is doing very well. He played in his carrier, with a fresh catnip knot I made.

He’s been healing up nicely.

Eventually, he wanted to come out and play too. He had just had his leukemia test, which came out all clear. So, he was able to run around with the other cats.

Once he discovered the Bigfoot cat gym, he was obsessed. Jack loves to climb! That’s not surprising, considering I found him living in a tree.

He was determined to make it to the top, as small as he is.

Of course, he made it, because he is a go-getter. 🙂 I hope he gets his own cat tree in his new home, once he is adopted. Marie is still taking care of him, and he’s still got that stitch to get, to reattach his lower lip, but he’s been doing great. Update: Jack has been adopted.

Posted on June 1, 2011July 31, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 2 Comments

Happening upon kittens and a slug holiday

A lot has happened since I last posted. I missed wishing you all a happy Slugs Return from Capistrano day, on May 28th. I didn’t know this was a holiday I was asked to write an article about it.

It’s true…it’s an official holiday, recognized by Chase’s Calendar of Events, the compendium of American holidays like Labor Day. I put a copy of my “Happy Slugs Return to Capistrano Day!” article on our Ruffing’s blog too.

I sent out the last one of my coral-peach Hug Me Slugs yesterday. I am now out of that color, but I do have a light peach that is similar. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.

I finally took the plunge and started the visible part of our Ruffing’s blog migration. I still have many pages to add, and many more links to redirect from the old pages and posts. I’m sure that will take months. Eloise, Max Bailey’s new, original, one-of-a-kind ginger tabby cat art doll is the first doll to grace the front page of our new blog.

We kept meaning to photograph Eloise last week, but real-life kittens kept happening into our lives! This is Miranda Panda, named after a panda art doll of ours. I had accompanied Marie on two TNR trips the weekend of May 21st, one to a lady’s home in the country, which you can see and read about in this album, and one to a fast food restaurant, which you can find more about in this album on Facebook. (I took lots of photos.)

I went back later, on May 23rd, to the lady’s house, to pick up some traps, and came back with Miranda Panda. Miranda had somehow gotten into a dog pen with a pit bull and was lucky to have been rescued on time. The woman had never seen Miranda before, but it is likely she is one of the kittens from one of the litters of kittens on her property.

I got Miranda to our house and Marie came right over. Miranda drank so much water. She was very dehydrated and very skinny. Marie got an appointment with the vet, and miraculously, Miranda was unscathed by the pit bull. She was very malnourished, but Dana and Brian took her into their care, where she is doing very well. Update: Miranda was adopted.

Then, on May 27th, I went back to check on the water at the fast food restaurant, and found another kitten, hanging out by the bowls! He seemed to want me to catch him, but kept running around and up and down the mulberry tree that was there. It was on a very steep hill, full of pricker bushes and garbage. I went back home, and asked Marie if she could take another kitten. She said she could take one more. I grabbed the Fancy Feast and a carrier and headed back to the fast food restaurant.

The kitten was still in the mulberry tree, on a branch overhanging the ledge. I lowered myself, holding onto another branch, and propped the open can of Fancy Feast on the mulberry branch, as close as I could to the kitten. He ate out of it, and I moved it closer to me, so I could let go of the branch I was hanging onto and grab him. Instead of grabbing the mulberry branch, the kitten grabbed the can of Fancy Feast, by the edge, in his mouth! He didn’t want to let it go. It was probably the most wonderful thing he’d ever eaten.

I dropped the can, trying to hold onto him and get back up the hill, but I had more Fancy Feast for him in the carrier.

I got him home, and flea combed him and fed him some more. He was loaded with fleas, but absolutely loved getting combed and cleaned up. He also had a cut that was healing over his eye, and a burn that had separated his lower front gums from his lower lip. He will get a stitch for that later, once it heals enough.

Tia wanted to name him something food related, and so I suggested Monterey Jack, since cheese is in abundance in his former location, and since he is a bit of a lumberjack, with great tree-scaling skills. He’s being called Jack, for short.

The next morning, May 28th, Jack was still very happy and bouncy and hungry, but it became apparent that he had a prolapsed rectum. Marie and I got him to the vet, who put him back in order, but then the day after that, Jack was having more problems. He needed to go to the emergency vet on the 29th. The stitch the first vet had taken was too tight. The emergency vet removed it and observed him to make sure he was okay. Then Marie took him home with her to take care of him and get him the medication he needed.

Mom and I went to visit Jack yesterday, and he is healing. He is just the happiest little guy, with such a positive personality. He has purred through everything with a great loud purr. You just have to admire him. Update: Jack has been adopted.

Posted on May 19, 2011August 1, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Tens or twenties

I kept forgetting what day it was, and getting lost in the all things I have to do, and want to do. So, I decided I needed to break my toy making down into manageable chunks. I’m not very good with making schedules, because I can’t really tell how long it will take me to make a toy or a doll. They take as long as they take. Rushing only causes me to make mistakes. Instead of trying to make a time schedule, I thought it would be better to give myself sets of toys to work on, in numbers I can hold easily in my mind. Missing a self-imposed deadline only makes me feel bad, but striving to complete ten or twenty toys is an attainable goal that makes me feel more in control. Above is part of my first group, fleece Alley Cat Angel sock kitten on the way. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.

These are the first two art toys, in my first set of ten. I haven’t made any cotton print Hug Me Slugs for a long time. I had started these before, and left them unfinished. The appliquéd cotton toys tend to be challenging, especially in regard to stuffing them. Whenever I make any, I vow to never make any more. My first Hug Me Slugs were all of this variety, and I made quite a few of them. I’m not sure where I found the patience. I have other dolls of this type, still waiting to be finished, like my Lucy Dolls. Eventually, I will get myself to finish them. I was proud of myself when I finished these today, a green Hug Me Slug and a pink polka dot Hug Me Slug.

Feeling encouraged, after completing these cotton Hug Me Slugs, I picked up a few batik fabrics this afternoon. I’m going to hand sew fleece features onto them. I really like batiks, and have others in my stash I’d like to try too. I’ll see how my first experiments look.

I uploaded my TNR photos from Mother’s Day to the Alley Cats and Angels Facebook page. You can view the Spring Hope album here. My Mother’s Day photos start a few photos into the album. I added play-by-play captions too, like the last time. The fast food cat-trapping photos are in this album. The photo above is what my mom calls Marie’s jungle combat photo. There is a tabby cat on the roof, taunting Marie with her indifference.

The tabby eventually came down, and she was spayed and vaccinated the next day.

The kittens all saw the vet, got medications to take, and are doing well. The little hissing one stopped hissing too.

Our own Josephine, who also came from a hoarding-type situation, seems to have left her past behind completely. She is getting spoiled, and enjoying it very much. Tia suggested she needs someone to fan her with palm fronds now. I’m sure if Josephine ever learns of this, she will demand someone perform this task immediately.

Posted on May 10, 2011August 1, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 2 Comments

Blue-spotted sock toads and Mother’s Day kittens

The mom of a girl named Emily, who has a collection of my Hug Me Toads, wrote to tell me that Emily’s grandma let her pick her own birthday gift this year, and a Hug Me Toad was her first choice. I thought that was so great. I felt very touched hearing that. Emily picked out her own colors, from the socks I had, green with blue polka dots, with an orange fleece heart. It turned out to be a super combination. I liked it so much, I made a toad sibling with a tomato-red-orange heart too.

The first toad is already on his way to Emily and the one with the tomato-red-orange heart ready for a home. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shops.

Another of my Hug Me Slugs left for France today. He stopped to pose with the toads before they got ready to go. One of my Super Slugs went to Paris just last week. My slugs are becoming well traveled.

I am still working on getting more sock dolls and fleece animals together. I will add them as I get them ready.

My workroom is full of fleece and socks right now!

This is my redone hang tag for my Hug Me Toads. I’ve been going through all my tags, sprucing up the designs a little.

I also scanned and resized our art doll body pattern for Max Bailey, and Max got right to work. I expected to see one or two bodies when I went in to look, but there are five! Max is always puzzled by my tendency to make things in groups, and I always say it is easier for me that way. So, I was extra surprised to see a group sitting on the desk.

On Mother’s Day, I went along with volunteers from a local cat rescue, Alley Cats and Angels of NC to see a huge group of real kitties. They have been working hard to TNR, trap-neuter/spay-return, a colony of feral cats. I went along to take photos, and took a tremendous number of them. They “debriefed me” on the way there, because the size of the colony was a shock to them when they first arrived. I had already seen photos, and so I was prepared for that part. I wasn’t quite prepared for the surroundings.

There were also lots of goats and dogs on the property, which is owned by an older man, who appears to have a disability which gives him limited mobility. He has been trying to take care of all these animals himself, and more and more strays kept arriving. The rescue responded to his call for help, even though it is an hour trip each way, because there were no similar resources available to him where he lives. They’ve been working very hard for weeks, to trap all the cats and get them spayed or neutered and vaccinated. Several litters of kittens were newly born when they first arrived, and many of them disappeared.

While they were busy trapping cats, something they needed to do for hours, trying to get the few remaining unfixed cats, I wandered around the property, which had many, many old, abandoned pens and coops, looking for kittens. They found this first one, under the front porch, and I managed to reach in and grab him or her. He was in pretty good shape.

Then I went back to looking through the pens. Sadly, I saw a dead kitten, apparently killed by some predator, in one of the pens, and went in to look for others. It appeared that no one had been in the pen in a long time, probably years, and there were no open doors. The mama cat had to have carried the kittens in, over the roof. I squeezed inside, whacking at the tall weeds with a flashlight, not sure what might be in there, and wanting to scare off anything dangerous. On my first pass through, I didn’t see any more kittens. I went back and got everyone to come along. The owner told me there were poisonous snakes in there, but I knew I’d worry that there were kittens still in there, if I didn’t look, and I’d already been inside. Marie squeezed in the pen with me, while I poked at things, peeking around with the flashlight.

I was about to give up, when I was surprised by two little faces looking up at me! Two tiny kittens were wedged between a board and some rusted old chicken wire and corrugated metal, just a couple of feet from the one who had been killed. I tried to pull the board off, but couldn’t get it by hand. I tried to reach in, but the little tabby was scared and hissing. I asked Tia for a towel, and Marie helped “herd” the little ones out with a stick from the other side of the wire.

The little hissy one seemed to be trying to protect himself and the gray kitten behind him, but he finally emerged. I waited for the hissy end to get past me, and grabbed him around the tummy. I passed him over the chicken wire to Tia, who kept him wrapped in the bottom of her T-shirt. The gray one came out next, and I passed him over to Tia too. She put all the kittens in a carrier and got them some food.

The hissy one kept on hissing, and his one eye looked very bad. The gray baby had some eye infection too. Tia and Marie got them to the vet the next morning, and happily, they are all doing well. The vet even thinks she can save the bad eye. And…the hissy kitten stopped hissing. He just needed some love. The gray kitten is eating up affection too. They are staying with the rescue now, and when they are old enough, well enough, and fixed and vaccinated themselves, they will be available for adoption.

We were at this location a long time, and I took a great number of photographs. I am working on getting the photos adjusted and resized in batches, and then I’ll put them together, like I did last time. A couple of my photos from that last trip are in Heart2Home, The Triangle Pet Adoption Magazine, this month, in a great article written by Tia all about TNR and how you can help feral cats in our community.

Update: I’ve uploaded my trapping photos to Facebook, along with captions. You can find the Spring Hope album here (my Mother’s Day photos start a few photos into the album), and the fast food cat-trapping photos here.