While busy nights have prevented me from doing proper Science, it has taught me the X22 has a favorite chair, and not just because of catnip brand alternatives. He now, with rare exceptions, loafs himself up there as soon as he arrives at night. He rubs up against the other chairs, but he doesn't get on them as much as this one.
#spookykittiessciences — Public Fediverse posts
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Unicode X22 really really likes Trash Panda Reefer Madness Phase 2: The Quest for Peace's Chair 3. It seems it is just the right level of dampness to give the cat herb's the soggy scent that the kitties like, but not too wet that it would give him the soggy kitty face that he probably doesn't like.
#SpookyKittiesFerals #SpookyKittiesSciences #Cat #Cats #TabbyCat #UnicodeX22 #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon
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I am going to find a way to use "Rebuild of Trash Panda Reefer Madness 2.10: You Can (Not) Advance" for something else. Naming wise, I think it could fit for something after Phase 2
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Quite disappointed. While it was still a cold day, it basically stayed above 0c the entire day. The chairs were a soggy mess most of the day, and only briefly a froze during the night. Resorted to just handing out party favors. I don't know about Dorian, but I know Euler loved it. X22 loved it as well, but was slightly distracted by me petting Euler less than a cats length away from him.
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Booooo!!! It never stayed cold enough for the snow to last long enough for testing, so the kitties got RAINED and snowed on for nothing. Plus, it is still cold and the chairs are not usable yet. However, the Euler and X22 will accept offerings placed near them or on the face(Euler).
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If my mind isn't borked from sleep exhaustion, the snow doesn't immediately melt because it still 1c on my porch, and, mostly importantly, I actually remember, I will be be doing an interim phase called: Rebuild of Trash Panda Reefer Madness 2.10: You Can (Not) Advance. Not sure yet what it will be as I have to be awake in 3hrs 20 minutes, but it will be snow, chair, and cat herb related. Possibly anti-climatic.
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My most handsome of Dorian's continues to be very helpful! I wasn't 100% certain anyone had also gotten completely into the Chair 2 for an extended period as well. About a half hour after he got in Chair 3, and after I had gone to bed, Dorian rolled around and rested for another 5 minutes in Chair 2.
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Thank you to my Dorian for confirming that Chair 3 will indeed be usable for Trash Panda Reefer Madness Phase 2: The Quest for Peace. Dorian, the Dr. Professor, Unicode, and Murphy all expressed interest in the chair, but I hadn't seen any non-Euler's get anywhere close to being in it, let alone rolling in it.
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Why, my The Inspector? Why must you always position yourself in the mystery spot so that the porch awnings post blocks you from view?
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2026-03-25 Mysteries Upon Mysteries: He sniffed around a very small area, doing that little sneeze kitties do when the huff too much catnip. Checked out the area and I haven't found anything yet. It is still dark out, though. On first look over with a flashlight, there are no obvious extra plants. It is just grass, none of the extra various little plants growing throughout the lawn. No cat has been within 3 meters of the area for the last 2 days. Raccoons, maybe
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2026-03-25 Mysteries Upon Mysteries: this morning, I decided to shift around the sticks to try and narrow down the mysterious Most Intriguing Spot. In a act of most helpfulness, X22 walked over there right after eating, so I was able to rush out and observe. While there is a possibility that he was interested in the stick, I believe I have found the exact spot of interest.
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Murphin's face as well, as he sometimes participates.
While the final set of cat herbs is still being determined, the following will for sure be included:
1. Catnip
2. Silvervine Fruit, Ground
3. Silvervine Fruit, Powder
4. Silvervine Leaves
5. Tatarian Honeysuckle
6. Tatarian Honeysuckle, Lemon Balm, Valerian Root, Catnip, Silvervine Fruit, and Silvervine leaves blend.
7. Valerian Root, if a new supply can be acquired soon.
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The main testing will focus on Dorian Gray, Inspector Clouseau, Dr. Professor Euler, and Unicode X22. If Carl(Gauss) comes around enough, their testing will focus on a combination of phase 1 and 2, as there is currently no data on what Gauss likes. Ori Chalcos visits are still few and far between, but I will include Ori reports if they happen(hopefully). This final part applies to any of the non-Spooky Kitties that sometimes come by as well.
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Replacement of herbs throughout the day will be allowed to ensure that each cat gets a turn. This is mostly for Silvervine Fruit, Powder, which goes quickly when Dorian is around, and Catnip, which Euler tends to easily pickup when he rolls around in it.
As the testing surface does not depend on the weather, phase 2 will run for an extended period, likely until phase 3. Phase 3 does not currently have a start date, but likely not start until at least May.
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Each chair will received a different herb from the others, rotating each day. By the end of phase 2, each herb should have been tested against the others at least twice, hopefully more.
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Trash Panda Reefer Madness 2: The Quest for Peace's testing will go as follows: each day at midnight(or as close as possible), water will be poured on the seat of each chair to wash off the previous days herb. Then, a pinch of cat herb will be placed on each chair. The pinch measurement is not exact, but will strive so that each chair has the same amount of coverage. 3/
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While winter appears to be over, which means the apparently best surface for cat herb distribution(ice) is not longer available. Thankfully, the materials tests from the end of Phase 1 led to the discovery of camp chairs as an adequate substitute(and a good Napasaurus Rex spot). To facilitate comparison tests, I have acquired 2 more camp chairs made from from the same material.
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Spooky Kitties Sciences is happy to announce the second phase of Trash Panda Reefer Madness: Trash Panda Reefer Madness: The Quest for Peace! While Phase 1 provided excellent data how much much most of the kitties like all the herbs, the changing weather made determining preferences difficult. Dorian clearly loves Silvervine Fruit, Powder more than anything else, but that is about it.
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I do hope X22 wasn't overly confuzzled by things today. Got rid of some of unused boxes down here last night, which gave me room to start setting up Trash Panda Reefer Madness 2: The Quest for Peace. I am undecided on whether or not the feeding station will be moved off camera to the west more, but it might take a while. X22 will allow me to stand 80cm's away from him(I measured), which doesn't give me much wiggle room to move right now.
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2026-03-23 The Strange Lives of Kitties: Sadly, that is where my data ends for the moment. I have two more earlier days of video, but no evidence of any cat walking within 3 meters of the spot. There is no way of knowing if there is nighttime cat activity, but it is unlikely. The only cat I have seen coming from the north at night is X22, and nothing indicates he goes anywhere near the area at night, as he hugs the fences.
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2026-03-23 The Strange Lives of Kitties: Euler then spent 2 minutes sniffing and rolling around before returning to his planned meal time. About an hour later, Murphy spent 2 minutes doing the same thing. Unlike Euler, I cannot determine how far away Murphy was when he first noticed. There is an odd 10 second gap leading up to it where Murphy is at the shelf sniffing the foot, and suddenly he is walking in the direction of the spot.
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2026-03-23 The Strange Lives of Kitties: While the "new" data continues to provide no answers, the old data has revealed that Euler also visited the spot, and is so far the first known kitty to do so at 18:02 on 2026-03-15. Going over the video, Euler was walking towards the feeding station from the west side of the house. He paused when he got to the drainage ditch, and started walk sniffing towards the spot.
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2026-03-23 The Strange Lives of Kitties: It was a very slow day in Pink Pantherville. Continuing Inspector Clouseau's streak of being very confusing, absolutely no new information was reveal about the mystery spot. He visited the spot, but only once, and he didn't roll around in it. Still, he returned, which means whatever intrigued him is likely still there. Not intriguing enough for anyone else to visit, but still.
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It apparently takes Inspector Clouseau 10 minutes to walk around the house. I also discovered that Dorian sometimes loafs himself right outside my door. Not for very long, but it is for more than 0 minutes.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: Whatever X22 was doing, I don't believe he is the reason everyone is interested. I have only found 1 additional The Inspector visit to the spot the day before. The camera recording the area only keeps the most recent 100GB, so I only have a limited time frame to check. So far, I have found no other traffic during the day. While secret kitty traffic at night is a possibility, it is unlikely.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: while that was Inspector Clouseau's only visit for the day, both Dorian and a surprise Gauss also sniffed around the spot for a few minutes each. Closer inspection of the video from 21st reveals that X22 also visited the spot, but the sun wasn't up enough to see anything more than a moving shadow.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: Inspector Clouseau did not roll around in the area from what I could tell, but he did stop in the spot for around a minute. It is too far away from any of my cameras to tell exactly what he was doing, but movement suggests sniffing around.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: Unfortunately, this leaves me at square one. The makeup of the plant matter is similar to the surrounding area. Any of the various creates that pass through here could have easily urinated in just that area, but the amount of animal traffic would make it difficult to narrow suspects.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: additionally, something I missed due to primarily going outside in poor lighting: there are violet flower patches all over my yard! It just so happens that there aren't any in the areas illuminated at night.
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2026-03-23 Hum The X-Men Animated Series Theme To Yourself: After initial observations during the day of the area Inspector Clouseau rolled around on, my initial hypothesis that it was violet flowers appears less likely. When I re-watched the video, and traced his steps better, the spot in question had no flowers.
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While I don't think I will be able to answer that first hint, his actions today suggests that there is in fact something he will go crazy for. Thus, in addition to the other testing I will be announcing soon, I will also be doing a dedicated Inspector Clouseau investigation that I will be calling "The Pink Panther." Also have a candidate: Violet Flowers(checked, they are non-toxic to cats).
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Now, as some of my Spooky Kitties Sciences readers may know, the motivations behind that tests are not just to entertain the kitties. While the most important aspect is the genuine curiosity I had seeing the kitties rolling around in the snow, I really wanted to find something that The Inspector liked. I came out of the initial testing with only a single moment to hint that he liked something. What that was is still a mystery.
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There Inspector Clouseau was, rolling around like crazing about 2 meters NE of the tree, mostly hidden by the unfortunate placement of the awnings east post. Still, there he was for 5 minutes, at which point he ran back up the tree, walked across the lawn to the hill, flattened himself at the bottom, and then ran off camera, presumably in the middle of The Zoomies.
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In a surprise Inspector Clouseau twist, I now have an extra thing to investigate for Spooky Kitties Sciences!
I was doing a quick scroll through the evenings secondary camera video, when I spotted a curious The Inspector standing on the trunk of the tree near the feeding station. Kept jumping around, finding him near where the magpies had been, so I initially suspect(edit) he was simply chasing them as they sometimes let him do, until I randomly chance stop... -
2026-03-19 Napasaurus Winks: In a surprise extension to the unfortunately delayed continuation of Trash Panda Reefer Madness, I woke up to a certain Unicode X22 napping in the Catnip Massage Chair! Admittedly, a good chunk of the reasoning for this is probably that the new neighborhood dog had eaten all the food, and it was a good place to wait. Still, while X22 is a very patient kitty, he has never been '2 hours' patient. Luckily, X22 mostly eats at night.
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2026-03-13 Time Capsule Pool Party: when I looked at him through the door window, he had the look he gets after he has gotten a good huff of something he likes. I realized then that all of them, except my The Inspector, had also been spending extended periods of time drinking out of it. I thought that most of what I had put in there had been washed away the last time I dumped it, but, it doesn't look like it.
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2026-03-13 Time Capsule Pool Party: at this point, the Catnip Whirlpools(which used to be the Catnip Ice Rinks), are filled with water from the snow melt since i last dumped them, and I didn't think about them much. Dorian's most recent visit, however, got me thinking, as I had missed that he had arrived because he had been sitting at the Pool that is sitting right outside my door for 5 minutes, periodically taking a sip.
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2026-03-13 Time Capsule Party: as I hope some might recall, during the last snow snow, I placed a few Catnip Time Capsules around. A good chunk sadly blew away. Some, like the the window sill, continue to produce surprise Euler ears at the edge of the secondary cameras FOV. Lastly, some were unintentional, like the Catnip Whirlpool. That last one was supposed to be a proper Pool test, but it never properly froze.
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2026-03-10 Tartar in Honeysuckle Sauce: the continuing wonder that is the Catnip Massage Chair has brought so much joy to the Spooky Kitties Ferals. While my time is short, I am continuing to go through my supply to test everything on it again. Today will be Tatarian Honeysuckle. Yesterday's was Ground Silvervine Fruit. Don't yet know the full extent of its success, I do know that Euler liked it enough to roll off the chair onto the grass twice.
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2026-02-09 to 2026-02-09 Where I forgot the today was is not yesterday when writing: with the weather warming, I feared that I would not be able to find a replacement for kitties low of the rolling around in cat herb covered snow. None of the dried Catnip Whirlpools or Ice Rinks really took off(apart from the Dr. Professor). To think, the thing that would allow Euler to "fall" feet first off of something was sitting right there the whole time.
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2026-03-07 Where I attempt to summon a Napasaurus Rex: no opinions yet on the added chair. Euler ignored it, and Murphy briefly puffed up before going out. However, as expected, the Silvervine Fruit Powder I put on the ground has been used to great success! Murphin got distracted completely from what he went out to do, and it ensured Euler wasn't annoyed that he didn't set off the motion alerts for some reason.
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Spooky Kitties Sciences has been a bit slow the past couple days. Been taking care of a Murphin who was recovering from a stomach bug this week. Doing a lot better now, but I have been distracted and haven't looked at the videos for the past few days. Plan to do a longer write-up either tonight or tomorrow, and then plan my tests for the week.
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2026-02-22 Pretest Longevity: while the ground fruit part was also rolled on, it appears not to have significant rolling activity after temps were above 0c. But, they have all sat on it, and the surrounding snow also has paw holes in it, so not completely solid during the day. Right now, each area is solid enough to not make paw prints, though the combo pack area is slightly softer.
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2026-02-22 Pretest Longevity: What I now suspect happened is that the remaining herbs/powder in that area leftover after Euler rolled were mostly pressed further into the snow. While the area was mostly solid, based on paw holes it wasn't completely, and it had gotten above freezing on my porch by that time. There was only one Euler visit before it dropped below 0c, and he ignored it by that point. Every other visit occurred hours later.
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2026-02-22 Pretest Longevity: I just checked, each spot still has herbs on it as of 0557 the day after this pretest. Have those 3 unused spots already lost all their scent, or is it something else? Looking back the day before, I took a look at Euler rolling around in the combo pack. It was actually combo pack + the silvervine fruit, powder area. Euler got at least most of the combo stuff on his fur, with the rest less concentrated than before.
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2026-02-22 Pretest Longevity: Overall, only Silvervine Fruit, Ground, Tatarian Honeysuckle, and the Catnip were visited yesterday, with only Euler visiting the Catnip. Only Euler gave even a hint of attempting to check out the other 3 spots. The Silvervine Fruit spot seemed to be the most popular overall, though the time Euler spent in the Catnip Time Capsule Whirlpool might make it even. All three spots are attracting interest as of this writing.
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2026-02-21 Catnip Time Capsule Smorgasbord Pretest:
X22 sampled everything, primarily showing interest in the ground and Tatarian Honeysuckle as well.
Inspector Clouseau, to my great disappointment, showed not interest in anything but the food. I was really hoping that it wasn't the Valerian Root he was interested in, but it is looking more and more like that is the case. The Valerian Root test didn't produce any results, though. So, I don't really know.
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2026-02-21 Catnip Time Capsule Smorgasbord Pretest:
Overall, Dorian sampled everything, but seemed to prefer the Ground Silvervine Fruit and combo pack. Euler spent time rolling around in everything at least once, but did prefer the Silvervine Fruit and combo pack. Euler also rolled around in at least one of the Catnip Time Capsules that are sitting around the area. Others might have as well, but I have no evidence to support that.
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2026-02-21 Catnip Time Capsule Smorgasbord Pretest: Not long after, a surprising Murphy did the exact same thing, and over the entire time period, everyone but The Inspector did at least once.
The Silvervine Leaves seemed to generate the least amount. Everyone stopped to sniff, usually more than briefly, but not rolling around in it. How much of that is because of its proximity to the Silvervine Fruit, Ground is a good question. Will need to test this later.
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