Both entries start of exactly the same today because this is such an incredibly sad day for me as our babies have now reached that stage where the time has come for them to join their families in their new homes. As usual, it has come around far too quickly for my liking but I know that their new families have been eagerly anticipating this day for a very long time. I have had so much fun with both of these litters, and just like the litters before them, I have also learnt an awful lot, particularly with regards to diet and kitten weaning. It is oh so very quiet in our home now with only Guinness remaining (she will be collected next week) and already we are missing these little people so very much, even though XXXX didn't leave me until 6:30pm. I suppose that I really should get on with it and let you all know how the leaving went but even this part is the same for both entries as Elaine took Ned Kelly home as well as Caffreys. Elaine turned up at approximately 10:30am to collect her new family members and I am certain that this upset Graham because he is so attached to Ned Kelly. The boys were reasonably well behaved while we sorted through all of the paperwork and they didn't interfere too much which was a very good thing. Elaine remembered to bring back the bed that she took home last week so that her girls could get the boys' scent, and I remembered to give her back Aiden's coat which had been left here a week ago as well. I am sure that Aiden will be delighted when he arrives home from school to find the boys in their home. Neither of them were particularly bothered at all when they were placed in the carrier, on their own bedding which Elaine left him for them last week. I am just so relieved that they will have each other for comfort and security, not only as they travel home, but also when they are with their new family. Caffreys has been such a delight, he is a big boy with beautiful colouring and a wonderful personality. He is such a snuggle bunny and his blue eyes are so appealing that you can't help but pick him up and kiss him. Ned Kelly is also a ray of sunshine and no home should ever be complete without and Oriental Red. To lose yet another Red boy from our home is so sad because they are such special creatures in their mischievous, loving ways. I know that Elaine is going to love this boys to bits and they are going to such a great home, but even that does not stop me worrying about them. And thank you so much Elaine for the beautiful flowers, they are lovely. Even though they are both big boys, I look at them and I remember them when they were tiny little beings and I wonder if they are really and truly old enough to cope with the stress and trauma of going to a new home. I do know that this is just me being silly and I go through this with every single baby that leaves here and our Pints and our Bush Rangers will be more than capable of settling in with their new families. I must admit to having tears in my eyes as I write this entry because having our babies leave us, is so very upsetting because they are part of us and I have spent 13 weeks with them, the most important 13 weeks in their lives and now they are in their new homes and no doubt, are already starting to forget who I even am. The thing is though, that this is exactly how it should be because in reality, I am only "looking after" the babies, they are on loan to me until they reach this age. All I can do is hope and pray that they will be very happy with their new families and they they will settle in quickly.

As for my darling Joe Byrne, for me, this is a huge loss in our home because Joe and I really "clicked" and I just love him to bits. I just do not know what I am going to do without him in the home, tearing through like a lunatic, playing with Cointreau and oh dear, she is going to be lost without her mate as well. Lee and Susie have been waiting to take him home for so long now and I think Joe will get on just fine in his new home because he has had so many visits from Lee and Susie that he already knows them quite well which is great. Hopefully soon, he will have company when Mad Max joins their home also. I am extremely fortunate in that I may well get to see Joe as he is growing up because Lee and Susie are thinking of entering him in cat shows which is lovely. He is such a massive boy and after my conversation with Susie yesterday on the phone concerning feeding Joe, I have a feeling that he will be twice as large in a months' time :) Joe left me today at 3:12pm, and I then had to fly out the door as I had a hair appointment today which meant that I didn't have to be in the home where it is so apparent that the Bush Rangers have left me. But thank you Lee and Susie, you darling people, for the lovely bottle of Australian Red :) These 13 weeks seem to have gone by so very quickly and both Graham and I can say with no hesitation at all that the Bush Rangers have had a huge impact on our lives. They have brought us so much joy and and so much love, and I guess that the time has now come for them to do the same for their new families. Drambuie can now go back to being a "normal" family member again without the stress of being a mother and have children to look after. I might not have as much cleaning to do because let's face it, the boys were messy babies and they did create havoc on a daily basis, so maybe I will have some more free time now. I think though I would rather have the boys here and be forever cleaning, but it's just not meant to be that way. I really would like to thank everyone who has followed the Bush Rangers diary and their progress from the day they were born. I would also like to thank my fantastic vet, Andy Garton who vaccinated my boys and checked their health. Thanks must also go to my family, Graham and our daughter for their help in raising the Bush Rangers. Last, but certainly not least, many, many thanks to Elaine, Aiden and Gary, as well as Lee and Susie for accepting one of the Bush Rangers in each of their homes. It is so incredibly difficult to find the "right" home environments for our babies to live in, and I have no doubts at all that we certainly did not make any mistakes about these ones. Our Bush Rangers will be loved and cared for throughout the rest of their lives and I know they will be spoilt rotten which is how it should be. I guess, that yet again, we have come to the end of another Schimmel Kitten Diary and even though I am not going to miss the extra time taken out of my day to keep the diary updated, I am certainly going to miss my Black and Red children.

A very important day today for all babies because today is "Fingy Nail" cutting day. Now, none of the babies have ever had their claws clipped before however obviously they can not go to their new homes unless they look their absolute best, so this includes not only some combing sessions, but also the cutting of claws. Now we do call them Fingy Nails because if the babies could speak in English (as opposed to Oriental and Siamese) they are far too young to be able to pronounce Fingernails, so we compromise with a bit of baby speech which works well for all involved. With the babies, I always make a habit of gently stroking their paws from a very young age because babies who are used to have their paws touched generally do not mind at all then when they have their claws cut. The trick is to do it on a regular basis. When they are in their new homes, their new families should get into the habit of cutting the very tip of each claw once a week because the last thing you want is to have a fully grown adult cat in your home that won't allow you to cut his/her claws and you would be mad to book and pay for appointments at your vet just to have claws cut when it really is so simple to do. The best time to cut their claws is when they are snoozing, nice and comfortable on your lap and it is so easy. I have just done 4 babies in the space of about 3 minutes. So anyway, let me tell you how the babies coped with Fingy Nail Cutting Day........................................

Ned Kelly was going to be the victim, oops, client. He was sound asleep on the ottoman upstairs, along with Guinness. Now Ned was beautifully behaved while I cut the claws on his front right paw. He will still a bit dozy and not at all bothered. The problem I had with his claws is because of the colouring of his fur, I had to look extremely closely to see where the pink inside the claw was so that I didn't accidentally cut into it. Remembering of course if you cut into the pink that is on the inside of the nail, called the "Quick", because it is in actual fact a blood vessel, the kitten will bleed and it is not nice at all, especially for the poor baby. After doing Ned's right hand paw, I made a terrible error because I gave him some kisses and stroked him behind the ear to tell him what a good boy he was and how brave he was. That is when he thought that Fingy Nail cutting was over and it was time to play. So I'm trying to cut the claws on the left front paw and he kept waving both front paws in the air, thinking this was a wonderful game. Rather than risk trying to cut his remaining claws while he wants to play, I will wait until he is snoozing again and will then do them. As for Joe Byrne, well I reckon that boy was comatose when I did his and even now, I sincerely doubt he even realises that they have been done. Mind you, next time he's lying around in bed counting his Fingy Nails, he might get a bit of a shock that they don't poke out nearly as much now as they used to. He had been sleeping on one of the office chairs (along with XXXX and Caffreys) here in the back room when I did his, and even as I turned him over to locate the other front paw, he didn't even murmur. On the whole, both boys were just fantastic and I'm really proud of them because they have survived their first ever Fingy Nail Cutting Day.

Today's entries are quite short as the babies leave on Friday and I just have so much to try and do before they are ready to leave, not just with the paperwork but also preparing kitten packs, making sure I don't forget anything. The photos again are of the kids playing out in the cat run because they have been spending a lot of time out there and really enjoy it.

Both boys are back in my good books today because they have been as good as gold and neither of them have done anything naughty at all which is so lovely and it means that I have a chance to sit down, write the shortest diary entry in history and then get on with preparation for Leaving Day. In actual fact as I write this entry, Joe Byrne is sleeping with his human dad and Ned Kelly is sleeping behind me, curled up with Guinness. They've had a busy morning though out in the cat run and when they finally finished, they were fed a plate of mince and since then they have just totally zonked out.

I am writing this entry through gritted teeth as I struggle to find something nice to say about Joe Byrne and Ned Kelly! In case you haven't guessed, they have been little buggers today and neither boy is particularly popular at the moment. I have spent a lot of the day trying to get the paperwork printed out for our new owners and this means that my desk is covered in papers and I have about 10 windows open on my computer. Anyway, 40 minutes into the paperwork and I heard a tremendous splash, turned around and Joe Byrne, who had been sitting on top of the fish tank, suddenly took it upon himself to become an Olympic diver! He dive bombed straight off the top of the fish tank into the water bowl below. He was absolutely drenched, he scared the heck out of XXXX who had been having a snooze on the kitten bedding, he totally soaked 2 full bowls of JW kitten biscuits which had to be thrown out as they instantly turned to mush. I had to leave all the paperwork as it was, go tearing after him to grab a towel, check he was okay and then thoroughly dry him off. Finally finished with him, came back to the desk to find that Ned Kelly was having the time of his life on top of my work surface and was scattering paperwork left, right and centre! It took me 10 minutes to work out what was what. I then opened up the door to the cat run as the sun was starting to come out again and so the babies went out there to play while I heaved a sigh of relief. Another twenty minutes later and I could hear someone crying so I looked out into the cat run and here's Ned Kelly, on top of the "tree", crying because he had managed to climb all the way up there but then had no idea how to get down. Again I had to leave the paperwork, go out into the cat run and rescue Ned Kelly. At this point, I totally gave up on the paperwork, packed it all away and went down the road to the shops, just to get away from the babies before they drove me totally insane! The first photo in today's entry shows you the distance from the top of the fish tank, into the water bowl below. This is for the benefit of any readers who have not ever been to our home but who are bored enough to read the entries every day.

Joe Byrne has decided that he is more "grown" up than the other babies because everyone has been sleeping downstairs in the back room with me today, all snuggled up on their kitten bedding but Joe Byrne chose to sleep on the chair, on his own instead. None of this babyish snuggling for him as he is a big boy now, at least that is what he tells me. He was also the only one of our babies to venture into the cat run so far this morning. I opened the door up and it's not a wonderful day, rather overcast, wet and foggy but that did not deter Joe at all from having a run about out there with his mate, Cointreau. When the door was opened up, Ned Kelly, who had been snoozing, lifted his head up, dropped his ears down and started sniffing the fresh air. He did this for about 5 minutes and I really thought that the smells of the outside world would lure him from his comfy spot on the bed but it wasn't to be as he decided he was much better off staying where he was with his brothers and sisters. Ned Kelly (along with Caffreys) has been making use of the bed that Elaine brought over for her 2 boys and they seem quite unperturbed about the scent of other cats on there so this hopefully bodes well for when they meet Xena and Misty for the first time.

I slept in this morning much later than I probably should have but it is Sunday. Of course this now means that I'm running behind on everything which means that entries are not going to be particularly long today at all unfortunately. But hey...........at least there's photos :) While I think of it, I really must add here that our diary entries for this coming week will probably be extremely short due to the fact that 4 of our babies are going within the next 6 days which means that I have a mountain of paperwork to compile for each baby. My biggest problem at the moment is that I still have not received any of the registration papers back yet from the GCCF so I'm still desperately hoping that they will arrive this week. If they haven't arrived by the time that the babies leave, then the pedigree certificates will not have the registration numbers on there, however as soon as the papers come back, I will post the Transfer of Ownership paper and a new pedigree certificate showing the registration number to all the families. Our babies are also having their last vaccinations this week so we're going to have another fun trip to the vets.

For the first time in ages, Joe Byrne decided to actually have a proper sleep today at the same time as the rest of the babies. Normally, they are all sleeping and he is still wide awake and wanting to play however I think that he used up an awful lot of energy out in the cat run with everyone else today so I've actually had a little bit of peace and quiet. This means that I've been able to get some normal household chores done such as washing etc. It is going to be so quiet in the home this time next week, even when I do bring the upstairs babies downstairs. They are still so very young that they don't really do anything much.

There are no photos at all today sorry as we've had some visitors for most of the day and I've no really had the chance to take any photos.

I simply have to say that aren't people so very kind sometimes. For example, if you read yesterday's entry for The Mel's, you will have known that I had run out of JW kitten biscuits as I thought I still had another bag in the garage. I won't go into it again here, but anyway I was without any JW which is a big problem in this home. Now yesterday, I had spoken with Lee and Susie on the phone and had arranged for them to come and visit Joe Byrne today (as well as Mad Max who is also going to be living with Lee, Susie and Joe Byrne). After we had finished speaking, I then uploaded yesterday's diaries and do you know, within 10 minutes of them being online, Lee had phoned me back to say that they had a spare bag of it at their home and they would bring it over to me tomorrow, in fact, they very generously even offered to bring it over that same day. I was taken aback at how very kind they are. It just goes to show that for every horrid person in this world, there are always good people. Thank you so much Lee and Susie :) Onto our babies now..............I really can't believe that our boys are 12 weeks old already and by this time next week, they will both be gone. Joe Byrne has been spoilt today because Lee and Susie came to visit him which was wonderful. Joe had grown a little more since they were last here and I know for a fact that Susie wanted to take him home then and there however, in 6 more days he will be living with them permanently. Joe Byrne was more than happy to show his mum and dad how playful and energetic he is and I am grateful for this because at least they both know exactly what they are letting themselves in for. I actually think they were both amazed that Joe Byrne just did not get tired at all. Even hours of playing with the feather wand did not tire him out. It's also been a special day for Ned Kelly because Elaine and Aiden came to visit him today as well. Ned, being typical Ned, was more interested in snoozing upstairs with everyone else then he was in spending any time with his new family but Elaine and Aiden did manage to have some cuddles with him. Caffreys was much more affable and had a snuggle on his mum's lap and then he also had some games with the feather wand. Elaine and Aiden also brought out a blanket from their own home so that the babies could get used to their smells (well their cats' smells rather than Elaine's smells) and I am sure this will help with the bonding process. Ned and Joe also had some cuddles from our other visitors, Sarah, Wayne and their daughter, Lola. It was the first time I had met them all and they are such a lovely family and fortunately our fur family behaved themselves and didn't put them off owning an Oriental :) Now we just have to hope that Toussaint can produce some special babies who can share their home with Sarah, Wayne & Lola.