The Running of the Fluffenbeasts

So, for reasons best known only to himself, Yeti has taken up making noise at 5:30 am. I am a deep sleeper, so I can ignore this completely, but this wakes Mara up. We tried fiddling with the timing on the water sprinklers in the garden; no luck. I verified that the birdsnest attached to the wall above the bedroom near the eaves was no longer tenanted and took it down; no change. The only thing that does the trick is to get out the feather toy and zoom the kittens around the living room at 11:30 at night. Fortunately, the feather toy is very effective for that, and my background in physics helps: zooming the kittens horizontally just makes them spend energy to get into motion, but making them zoom up makes them pay for the potential energy as well. After Yeti starts panting, I put the feather toy away and carry him into the bedroom, then go grab Cleo, then bring in their dinner. That does the trick of keeping them asleep long enough that Mara isn’t woken at the crack of dawn.