No-Bake Energy Bites & 2 Orange Kittens

  Meet the 2 newest occupants of the Ranch, Charlie & Mel Gus Gus.

 Mel Gus Gus saying it was feeding time.

  A Family friend found these little babies at his work and decided to take them home to care for them. After seeing pictures on Facebook, I told them that I could take care of them if they wanted since they are still really young. So Friday night my mom and I went over to pick up the kittens. These babies brings my total for kittens that I've hand raised to 13 16. They are quite older than the others that I have received seeing as they are about 3 weeks old. We named them after the couple that we got them from and it turns out that Mel is a little boy and Charlie is a little girl. I had to give them a bath since they were found in an engine and were covered in dirt and they both hated it, but they will need a few more to get completely clean.

  Mel Gus Gus, who I really want to rename Elvis since he is so vocal, is the darker & fuzzier of the 2, is an expert milk sucker, timid around dogs,but not cats, and is a huge cuddle bug! If I'm sitting down, he will curl up either on my arm or sleep under my neck.

  Charlie the little girl is a contradiction and I say that for this reason..she is the little explorer & isn't afraid of the dogs, but will hiss and hide from certain noises or movements.  She is a lighter orange than her brother and has bigger eyes, she reminds me of  a golden tiger. She is more advanced than her brother in the way they she bites on the bottle instead of sucking it, likes canned kittens food better than her milk, and was the first to try the little box.

Little Charlie girl.

  Tigger is not thrilled about having 2 new strangers staying in his room and sleeping with me so he now stays completely downstairs except when they are in my bedroom sleeping at night. The other cats don't seem to care and Playful, Dusty, and Little T, our dogs are completely obsessed with them and will run upstairs if they hear them crying for me to feed them.
   I decided that I haven't posted in a few days, that I would make something simple, yet yummy and these no-bake bites are it. I've been wanting to try this recipe for a while, so I decided that since I stayed home today that I could make these no-bake energy bites while the kittens took a nap. I was wondering if I would really like these since I like the flavor of coconut, but I can't stand eating shredded, dried coconut- it's something about the texture, but I loved these little bites!

No-Bake Energy Bites

recipe from: gimme some oven

Makes about 20-25 balls

1 cup oats (I used old-fashioned oats)
1 cup toasted coconut flakes
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter I used natural pb
1/2 cup ground flaxseed I used wheat germ
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed. Let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour or longer. Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you would like, I used a small cookie scoop to get about 1'' balls. Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Notes:

The blog I got this recipe from had a list of options that you could add in or substitute certain ingredients to  fit your taste like adding is dates, raisins, nuts, different nut butters instead of peanut butter, and you could use white chocolate or pb chips instead of chocolate. One thing she said though, was to keep the honey instead of using agave because of the thickness of the honey helps keep the mixture together.