Last day before NaNoWriMo

I feel your panic, marmalade cat.

...and I'm kind of terrified. Am I ready? No. Is anybody ever really ready? I vowed to Be Prepared like a good little scout, but I'm way behind. Today's goal is to sketch out fifteen more scenes. I banged out fifteen yesterday, and that will give me thirty scenes/chapters which is a good place to start. They will no doubt be shuffled, re-worked, and some of them scrapped and/or replaced before it's all over, but at least I'll have a framework to start hanging words on.

Still kind of scared.

Tenting with panthers

...and I just realized we missed Elanor's birthday on the second! I'm a terrible mom!!!! Yeah, she's "just" a cat, but that's still lame. She's my youngest and will be my baby for a long time. Happy second birthday, Spook! May the coming year bring you many more (safe) adventures.

Ceiling Cat's terrible replacement

Poor Maude (a.k.a. "Granny"). She has no idea that the Devil Cat is hovering, waiting for just the right moment to... "Oh hai!" Satanic photobomb. Maybe I should sent this to Coast to Coast. Nah, lolcats is getting it.

Happy 1st Birthday, Elanor

As of today you've been all the way around the Sun once. That's a long, long journey for a little shiny black beastie. You launch in to each day with fierce abandon, always ready to let bystanders know what's on your mind. Every exertion is punctuated by a growl, grunt or yowl. The rain, much to your disgust, has yet to cede to your muttered complaints, and yet you will rant to anyone with an ear on your dissatisfaction with the weather on stormy days.



You have ridden part of the solar circuit swaying in the tops of various trees, your nose in the wind, like a lookout in the fighting top of a ship of the line.

Part of the journey you've spent burrowed deep in various piles of bedding, visible only as a shapeless lump. The world is your gymnasium, it's wads of paper your footballs, the chickens in the yard your ninepins, and various laps your yoga mats.


You are Eric the Red's last "child", as he is growing old and losing patience with kittens whom he would once have cheerfully raised. You befriended Sam, the patch tabby we brought home from the shelter a month before we picked you up. He is no longer a sad, lonely ex-street cat with few social skills, but a happy, goofy, friendly cat who is happy to play tag with you indoors and out.




You started life with a double hernia which you ignored, but which frightened us terribly. The kindness of friends paid for your surgery and today nobody would ever know this lithe, ferocious little panther had ever been fragile and broken.

Here's to another wild ride around the sun, little demon.

 

Nice day for shooting

Gordon is off to pick up a girl and a horse, so I'm fooling with some shots I just took of him, the horses, and Gimli.

I think this one (left) turned out especially nice. I love that uniform on him (1850s US Cav). He's such a Gibson Boy.

Gimly had to help, of course. Such a gorgeous day, today! And to think it started out foggy and chilly. It was actually almost warm in the sun!

Saying Goodbye Again

We've been "babysitting" a kitten for a couple of weeks. He couldn't stay with his real "parents", as he's needed medication twice a day and didn't need his brother pouncing on him every few minutes while he tried to rest and mum and dad were at work. He was rescued from a shelter by some kind-hearted woman from whom our friends purchased him and his brother. Both Siamese "mutts", Gleb was a creamy Flame Point while his brother looks like a Lynx Point. Boris is a little bundle of energy, while Gleb seemed listless and underweight.

He had what we thought was a pernicious UTI, but today, after two weeks of love and care and snuggling all night every night, we found out he had FIP...feline infectious peritonitis. There is no cure, and it's universally fatal. Our friends took him to the vet a few hours ago and held him as he drifted to sleep, the last time in this world. We're all a mess right now. Our friends must be in a kind of hell. Boris and Gleb were brought in to their lives to fill the void left by two other of their cats who recently passed on; one from old age, and the other from a congenital heart condition that suddenly presented.

People who don't understand this kind of pain have never lost somebody they truly loved. Many people don't understand that for some of us losing a "pet" is almost equivalent to losing a human child. These creatures are our children. They depend on us, give us love and affection which we (hopefully!) return, and become and integral part of our lives. Losing them, in any way, can be quite debilitating. I believe that beloved creatures like these will be with us again someday. I don't have hard scripture to back this up, but there are hints, especially in the Old Testament. God knows the big picture, and I'll trust him.

Sunny...and still windy

Woke up to blinding sunshine this morning: OW! The wind, which was supposed to slack off by 1900 last night, is still going strong. My parents' basement flooded yesterday when they were out, of course, so they came home to a swamp. Love that wall-to-wall carpet. My brother and I pitched in to move furniture and shop-vac up the water. It's going to be fine, but it was just too much work for a couple in their 70s.

Here's Granny Cat toasting herself in the sunshine today. Usually she toasts outside on the roof of the garden shed, but today the wind would probably roll her off. I don't know why my chickens haven't blown away like fluffy tumbleweeds, but they haven't. Maybe they grasp the turf with their claws like Spider Man climbing up a wall. Hm. Anyway...

The power never went out, which is probably due to the fact that the power was constantly going out last year at this time and all of those branches and bad poles came down already and/or were fixed. The local infrastructure has been beefed up with taller, stronger poles and a new substation down the road, so we're in much better shape.

Aren't adults boring? "Weather" blah blah blah "electricity" blah blah blah. Gah, I sound like my Civil Engineer dad!

Well, I'll have you know that I'm only masquerading as an adult! I'm really irresponsible and spend way too much time fooling around on my computer, so there.

Catflap

Got the cat door/insert thingy more or less finished just in time for the rains to start in earnest. If we get a nice warmish day next week maybe I'll put some paint on it so it doesn't look quite so okie.

I just glued the shims/spacers in because I was too lazy to find screws, but that can be retrofitted later.

At least it's sealed and not just rattling around in the plywood anymore. Now, if the cats can just deal with having to open their own door (the horror!)...

When I said The Rains had started, I wasn't kidding. Yesterday's gale force winds have sucked major moisture in off the ocean, and we're about to get a good soaking. For those of you who think it rains non-stop in western Washington, I have news for you: it doesn't. Yes, we have a lot of gray days, but actual garden-watering rain? Nah. To quote a preacher from Uganda who was guest speaker at our church late this last Spring on a misty Sunday morning, "Never have I seen such small rain!" You want "big" rain? Visit his home, or anywhere in the tropics, or the Carolina's. There's a reason it's humid back east in the Summer. Unless you're out on the East side of the Olympic Mountains in the official rain forest (one of two temperate rainforests in the world), it's just not that rainy here. But I digress...

As I puttered away on the cat door project it grew darker and darker. Then just as I was installing it, there was a flash of lightening and a huge clap of thunder...which seemed to roll on for much longer than was warranted by such a quickie lightning strike. Concerned about the horses, I hurried over to where I could see into the pasture. Stampede? Agitation? Anything? No, our animals are poster children for the "Too Dumb to Come in Out of the Rain" society. That's Woody, too mellow to notice the life-threatening fire from the sky, which is fine by me.

Today's Happy Homemaker Hint: Get your husband to split some cedar logs salvaged from your dad's summer tree trimming project, then stack the logs by the wood stove. Instant cedar room freshener!

lolcats: Eric

Yesterday's photo of Eric (and Gimli and Granny) needed captions:

So there.

Peep Show

I was only going to get one of each, but the lady at the feed store gave me such a deal...! So now I have five little chicklets: two Rhode Island Reds, two Buff Orpingtons, and one Barred Rock. I may be able to trade one each of the Rhodies and Buffies at the chicken swap meet in Poulsbo this Sunday, but we'll see.

Gimli has been doing chicken toasting duty, sitting on top of their crate, since I brought them home day before yesterday. Today I caught Beany in the act. The stack of pewter plates and serving dish is to keep the kitties from interacting too closely with the peeps, because these peeps are much better than mere marshmallow peeps, you know. Luckily, they grow up to be big, scary clucks who chase kitties, as it should be.

Chilly

Got a little dusting of snow last night. Just enough to re-apply what melted yesterday when the outside temp rose to a sweltering 42 F or so. My suet bird feeder is empty, and now I can't find the mould to make another suet cake! Fooey. I guess I should clean my kitchen, then it will magically appear.

Bev brought over her big baby shire Honor yesterday to get him under saddle a bit. He's just four years and I think yesterday was maybe his third time with a rider. Nobody died. This was a distinct possibility considering that the ground is frozen right now, and coming off a 17+ hand horse could be ugly.

There is a lot of ice down by the drainage ditch/creek right now. In fact, there are huge sheets of thick ice where there has been seepage from all the rain we had. When Gordon went to retrieve Jaran and Woody from the back pasture, they were slipping all over the place: a giant wreck did NOT occur, miraculously.

Also of note: Natalie layed her first egg this weekend! It was actually a pretty decent one for a first egg, and (drum roll please)...she's a greenie! Yay! I'm on the way back to tutti frutti egg cartons! She layed her second this morning. I'm just positive that Americauna/Auracanas can lay blue eggs, too. I must find a blue girl somewhere...

At any rate, after a few months of maybe one or two eggs a week (from Ophelia, my die-hard Cochin fluff ball), we're back to business. Keridwen is almost grown back from her molt and should start laying again soon, especially since the days are getting longer. Lobelia should start pitching in, too (she's so lazy). Emma, little Seabright bird, will lay again when she darn well feels like it, because she marches to a different drummer.

Let's see. How much more prosaic can I be? I know...a cat picture!

Gimli loves his snuggly bed.