Furmination

I bought Henning a cheap clone of the Furminator comb, which has special blades that are supposed to strip out the underfur.  And wow, I got a lot of fur off him!  I could knit at least 2 new cats... It seems to be much more effective than an ordinary rake.

Unfortunately, he's not wild about having his sides and belly done - he'll let me do his beard and face as much as I want, and the back and tail are also allowed, but not the rest of him.  So at the moment he has fluffy bits on the sides which make him look even fatter than usual.  Still, I am hopeful that this wonder-comb will eventually significantly reduce the amount of fur sticking to everything we own.

I was surprised to find that Furminating Perl also produced a mountain of fluff, as we don't usually bother brushing her as her coat is short.  Perhaps we should do this in future.  Oddly, Footie, who has the same coat type and is probably some relation of Perl's produced no fluff at all. He seems to be doing really well this year, we haven't had any recurrance of the skin problem that usually bothers him in the spring.  I wish I could work out what we are doing differently.  The only thing I can think of is that he is getting more high-quality wet food.

Garden update

Much of the area I had cleared earlier in the spring has been taken over by nettles, so I have just been out strimming enthusiastically.  I have piled an old cotton rug, 2 large cardboard boxes (flattened) onto it, and on top of that, some lawn mowings. With a bit of luck that will discourage them a bit.