We took a suggestion from Mom, and we renamed ‘psycho kitty’ after Norman Bates from the Psycho movies. We brought Norman and Oliver into the house Saturday morning to get Norman used to being around us. We left the dogs outside, so they’d leave him alone. He was a little skittish, and he kept going to the kitchen window and door wanting out. All was well until he figured out that he fits underneath our stove! I couldn’t believe it, and apparently neither could Oliver, because he had a look of surprise on his face when Norman flattened out and slithered in. I got down on the floor and looked under the stove just in time to see him disappear behind the cabinets. He stayed behind the cabinets all afternoon. Steve walked up to the front door once, and saw Norman sitting in the kitchen window, but by the time he got inside, Norman had retreated back under the stove. That evening, we were watching TV when suddenly Zeus jumped up and ran into the kitchen. I knew that meant Norman was out, so I got up. Sure enough Norman and Zeus were nose to nose. I grabbed the yardstick (the only thing I could find) and propped it in front of the stove opening to keep him from going back in. Soon Norman was surrounded by Zeus and Stacy and Oliver, and he was completely fine with it!

Sunday we let Norman and Oliver back into the trailer with the dogs. Norman figured out that he could climb into the kitchen chairs, then jump onto the table. Unacceptable! I threw him off the table 3 or 4 times. If he doesn’t get the message, he’ll lose his indoor privileges. I told Steve I felt like I had a preschool in my house with all the animals running around. Every time I heard a noise I wanted to jump up and see if anybody was getting into something. Eventually Norman knocked over the yardstick and disappeared under the stove again. I asked Steve to cut me a strip of wood to block off the stove, so I had it ready the next time he came out. No more kitties under the stove! He’s warming up to us, and now when we put him in the kennel he sits against the front, rather than hiding in the back corner like he used to. We’ll turn him loose sometime this week & see how long he sticks around.

Steve spent most of the weekend working on disconnecting the phone line from the old house and running it to the barn. He borrowed a trencher for the tractor from Bob. It saved us a lot of time, but it still took a while to find the old line and get the new one run. Now he needs to run another line from the barn to the trailer, so we can have a real phone inside. Maybe we can work on that next weekend.