Urban Jungle Bloggers: Jungle Animals

This month’s Urban Jungle Bloggers edition is all about the cohabitation between our jungle plants and our jungle animals. A funny coincidence, because our cat already made his appearance in last month’s Urban Jungle bloggers post. I love plants, I love our cat and our cat loves plants also, so this seemed like the perfect (some people might say purrfect…) blog post topic for me.

How the cat came into our life

All kids love animals and our children are no exception. They had been asking for a pet for a long time, but my husband and I were very hesitant to get one. We were both working and caring for four little boys at the same time, and already had a hard time keeping the house tidy.  Adding another member to our family felt like too much trouble.  I promised the boys we would get a pet when we moved into our new house two years ago. I was thinking about chickens. You can keep them in the garden, so the mess stays outside and you get eggs! But when a friend asked around to see if anyone wanted to adopt a young tomcat we thought we’d give it a try.

And I must say, we haven’t regretted it for a moment. Well, maybe in the beginning when it felt like having a toddler all over again. We put away valuable items and watched his every move. He climbed on everything, knocked over a vase of flowers and chewed on the yucca leaves. That’s what I meant when I said he loves plants.

It was exhausting! Luckily, he is much calmer now and sleeps most of the time. He still has his moments. He loves to bite when we play. He likes to hunt mice and bring them inside the house, dead or alive. Other than that, he is the perfect pet for us. He is beautiful, soft, and he will purr when you pet him. The boys feel very responsible and try to teach him good manners. They like the mouse hunt, though. According to them, it’s eat or be eaten.

Even though we feed him twice a day, and he complements his meal with the occasional mouse, he still likes to check out the kitchen to see if he can find any food. He jumps on the kitchen counter even though he knows perfectly well he is not allowed. Luckily he still has the decency to jump off the counter when we enter the kitchen. Well, most of the times.

Cats will do whatever they want to do, that’s what makes living with a cat so much fun.

I made the cat these little flower crowns. It’s very simple. All you need is a needle and a thread and some dried or fresh flowers.

Urban Jungle Bloggers is a monthly series hosted by Igor Josifovic of Happy Interior Blog and Judith de Graaff of JOELIX.com. Every month they and many other bloggers from around the world share ideas to create an urban jungle through styling ideas, DIYs, and green tips & tricks. If you want to join in, find out how on their website. You can also join via Instagram, by tagging your pictures with #urbanjunglebloggers.