Ours will sometimes start the hurling process from the top level of their cat tower. If we’re home and awake we will rush to move them to the hardwood before the culmination of the process. If we’re not, we don’t usually find out about the incident until we discover the dried remains down the side and on the carpet.
We have an open compost container on the counter which usually goes out daily. (So good for the vegetable garden!) In Winter this is not a problem. In Summer it starts a new ecosystem every day. The spiders do a really good job of keeping the traffic light. I do, however, have to disagree with Burt’s characterization of them as tidy – they stay busy and do good work but I wish they put the carcasaes in the compost instead of leaving them scattered around wherever they happened to be.
As the unfortunate owner of a day-after-Christmas birthday (Everyone’s done and wants nothing to do with another party) I ask young couples to please get a calendar and learn how it works.
I bought some fennel for my vegetable garden once and let it go to seed. Every year I let the new plants grow in with the rest of the veggies. It really brings in a variety of insects. I see the swallowtails laying eggs on it, and this year one patch had several caterpillars, at least two of which became chrysalis and turned to butterflies. A first for me!
And the corollary: you really can’t have too many scratching posts.