Gallery Jungle Cats

It got really cold here in the Texas Hill Country this week.  Usually, a cold day here is 30 degrees and then it warms up the next day.  Not so this week.  It has not been above freezing for the past three days and the lows at night went down into the teens.  You might well be asking why am I giving you a weather forecast that has nothing to do with cats in a gallery.

I have three foliage plants sitting out in front of the gallery hopefully making the gallery look more attractive.  With the cold weather, I had to bring them inside the gallery where interactions with the gang of two was inevitable.  The interactions started immediately!  

Squad Car, as usual, was afraid of the new intruders and hid for about two hours.  Roo, on the other hand, was curious right off the bat.  She sniffed and did her sneaky walk all around the plants for about fifteen minutes and realized there was no danger here. Too bad for me and the plants.  The next thing I knew, she was tasting the plants.  Then she climbed up into the deep, dark jungle and started roaming through the potted plants.  Stems were broken, leaves were shredded, and dirt was dug.  She was in hog heaven.

About this time, Squad Car thinking how dangerous could it be if Roo had made friends with it, came wandering up to check out the new territory.  As she approached the plants, Roo rooted deeper into the jungle and only her little beady eyes could be seen.  Evidently, Squad Car did not see the beady eyes and moseyed up to the plants only to be pounced upon by a dangerous jungle cat, Roo the Beast.  Squad Car jumped straight up squealing like a little piglet and ran for cover with the Beast right behind her.  Roo headed back to the jungle to lay in wait for another unsuspecting target.  

Finally, Roo got tired of waiting and got up on her bench and went to sleep.  Squad Car finally came up and explored the plants, but never would get into the plants.  She soon tired of the new gallery addition and got up on the bench beside Roo and went to sleep. Roo liked that jungle motif and when she woke up, got right back into the plants and started chewing on them.  I needed to protect the plants from extinction.

I had two very large plastic bags that I put customer paintings in.  I put the bags over the plants and set the plant pots on the bag so it was like a little greenhouse (cat proof, I hope).  Seems to be working so far.  Hopefully, it will be warm enough by the weekend to set the plants back outside.  Here are a couple of photos of the jungle cats.