It's All About The Cats

This past Monday was the monthly mobile spay/neuter clinic in Tunkhannock and I had a reservation for four cats. We needed to leave here around eight a.m. so I started rounding up cats around seven or so.
I was a little worried about Spitfire and Rascal because they aren’t always around first thing in the morning. Smudge was in the house so I didn’t have to worry about getting him. The only other one I was really worried about was Callie — yes, I know I spell it different every time. I’m not sure how to spell it.
If Callie wasn’t in the cat room, I wouldn’t be able to take her to be spayed. Luckily, everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Callie didn’t object when I picked her up and put her in a carrier. She didn’t have much of a chance to though. I had everything ready and didn’t fool around putting her in and shutting the door. She did, however, start butting her head against the door and sides of the carrier.
“If you cover it they won’t bang their heads,” I was told at the last spay/neuter clinic.
I grabbed an old rag shirt, threw it over the carrier and Callie quieted right down.
The half-hour ride to Tunkhannock was weirdly quiet. I’ve never before had cats that didn’t meow the whole time they were in a car, but these cats didn’t. They hardly made any noise at all.

The last time we’d gone, last month, we had just gotten back to Wyalusing when we got the call that the cats were done. So after we paid the fee we asked Lisa if she could get us in first; we’d do some shopping and hang around town until the cats were done. Lisa said she would.
Mike and I’d gone to Wal*Mart and picked up the few things we needed, then we were just driving around, checking out the town, trying to decide what to do next, when my phone rings. I looked at the caller I.D. “It’s the spay/neuter clinic,” I said to Mike. “Maybe the cats are done.” I swiped the answer button on my smart phone and put it up to my ear. “Hello.”
“Peg this is Lisa,” Lisa said. “They can’t spay your female calico.”
“Why not?” Talk about a letdown!
“She has an upper respiratory infection. They want you to give her some medicine and it’s ten dollars. Of course we’ll refund the spay fee.”
I knew Callie had a dirty face, in fact I asked if they could wash it an her ears while she was asleep, but I’ve never seen her snotty like Baby Blue used to get, so how sick she was, I don’t know. There was no help for it now though, they wouldn’t spay her. “All right,” I answered. What else could I do? After I hung up with Lisa, I told Mike what she said.
“Okay. What do you want to do next?” Mike asked.
I looked at the time. It was ten-thirtyish. “Isn’t there a Perkins right up the road?” I asked. “We could hang out there and drink coffee or have an early lunch,” I suggested.
Mike started to head that way, we were just across the highway from where the clinic is held, when my phone rings again. I didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway. “Hello.”
“Peg, this is Pat, I’m with the spay/neuter clinic. Is there a chance the little black and white cat is already neutered?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
“He doesn’t have any testicles.”
“I thought he was a male,” I replied thinking I’d sexed him wrong.
“Oh, yeah, he’s a male. If he hasn’t been neutered then his testicles haven’t descended.”
She started talking about opening him up and an additional fee and I was only catching every other word or so.
“We’re just across the road,” I told her. “We’ll come over and talk to you.”
Three minutes later Mike pulled into the parking lot, parked and we got out. Walking up to the door a lady wearing scrubs, was pushing through, coming back out to the Spaymobile.
“Are you the owners of the black and white male?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“To neuter him, they’re going to have to open him up and look around to find his testicles. It’s an extra twenty-five dollar fee.”
“What happens if we don’t have it done?”
“He can still get a female pregnant and he’ll still spray like males do, but it’ll turn cancerous in five years or so. It’s generally a genetic thing and his litter mates may have the same thing too.”
“His litter mate was a female and you’ve already done her. The other two males that I brought are cousins.” I looked over at Mike but I knew what the answer would be. Mike nodded. “Go ahead and do it then,” I told her.

Mike and I went on inside and talked with Lisa for a little while, then we went five minutes up the road to Perkins Restaurant where we ordered a late breakfast. Mike had some kind of a scramble and I had a mushroom and Swiss omelet. It was okay — nothing to write home about. We were paying the bill when the call came; the cats were done and ready to be picked up. The timing couldn’t have been any better.
We picked up the cats and the medicine for Callie. With the medicine being ten dollars and Smudge’s extra surgery being twenty-five, it was a wash. We didn’t get any of the thirty-five back that we’d paid for Callie’s spay but the good news is we didn’t have to pay any more either.
Lisa advised me that the best way to get the medicine into her is to put it into a little bit of food. Once she eats that, I can give her more food. That means I’ll have to confine her because I can’t trust that she’d be around twice a day for the next seven to ten days. I thanked Lisa and we left.
The next part of this project took a little work. We had to keep the cats separate, quiet and warm for the night because Lisa told us that after being sedated, the cat’s body temperature drops. I thought about it the whole way home. Smudge was no problem, he could stay in his kennel in the house and rather than have the others in the house with us, Mike turned a heater on in the cat room. I already had a kennel set up in there for Callie, but since she didn’t get spayed, I’d use it for Rascal. Once Rascal was out of the kennel I’d put Callie in until she finishes her course of medication. That just left Spitfire and I’d put him in the biggest of the two carriers I had.
Once back home, I opened the door of the carrier Callie was in and let her lose. She took off. She didn’t like the morning jaunt to Tunkhannock and back. I fixed up litter boxes for the boys and got them settled. After a couple of hours I gave them a little food and water and they all ate and drank just fine. They were unhappy about being penned up but it couldn’t be helped. I was just glad they weren’t in the house and I didn’t have to listen their unhappiness.
The next morning I set them free.
The boys look funny with shaved butts.

“Peg!” you exclaim. “I didn’t need to see that!”
I know, right! You’re welcome.
Callie…
She took off and I didn’t see her anymore that day, nor did she sleep in the cat room that night, so I didn’t see her the next morning either.
And then I got to thinking about it. Callie is to have the medicine twice a day for seven to ten days. I’m guessing that means until the medicine is gone. And the next spay/neuter clinic isn’t until March twentieth, a month away…
If I give Callie the medicine now and she gets sick again before the next clinic, they won’t spay her then either. What if I wait and give her the medicine ten days before the next clinic?
I asked Mike, but he didn’t know.
I called Lisa and asked her.
“Oh no. Don’t do that. I think she needs the medicine right away.”
“But if she gets sick again, they won’t spay her.”
“If you don’t give her the medicine it could …”
Oh my gosh! I can’t remember now what she said! Whatever she said, whether it was ‘get worse’ or ‘turn into pneumonia’ I don’t remember now. But I do remember how she ended it.
“…and she could die.”
“I appreciate what you’re saying, but just let me say that we’ve had this virus in our cats for ten or eleven years now. They seem to cycle through it. They get sick for a while, then they get better, then they get sick again. And I’ve had them to the vet for it many times.”
“Did they ever give them clavamox before?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I think you should give it to her and take your chances that she’s not sick at the next clinic.”
I watched for Callie all day and she finally showed up Tuesday evening. I put her in the kennel and as soon as the door was shut she started butting against the wire sides. I was ready for her though, I threw a sheet over the kennel and she quieted down. I started her on the antibiotic that night.
Callie never tried to escape, in fact, she seemed to enjoy my visits and our lovey sessions. However, when I was gone, she would try to find a way out of the kennel. At least I think that’s what was going on. Her food and water bowls were upset, and she was reaching through the bars and pulling the sheet through. And she was sleeping in her litter box.
“Git out of there,” I’d tell her and pick her up. I’d set her on the cushion I’d put in there for her.
“Purr-purr,” she’d say and curl around my hand as I stroked her fur.
After a couple of days she didn’t seem to be upset but was still pulling on the sheet. Maybe she just wants to see out, I thought and started leaving one side of the kennel open.
By Saturday I needed to clean the kennel. I gathered some cleaning supplies, a little broom and dustpan, pooper scooper and a bag, blocked off the exits from the cat room, and opened the door of the kennel. Callie had no interest in leaving so I cleaned around her. I took out the litter pan and started to sweep at the litter on the cage floor.
Hmmm…
What do you get when you mix water and cat litter? Something resembling cement, that’s what! It was stuck so hard and fast to the plastic bottom of the kennel that it was going to have to stay there, for now anyway. I couldn’t sweep it off with the broom and I couldn’t prize it free with the dustpan. I shook her cushion off and swept up as much of the spilled litter and food as I could; cleaned her box and put it back in.
Callie finished her medicine Monday night and she doesn’t seem any different to me. I let her out of the kennel but I left the kennel in place thinking she may use it again. Tuesday morning, when I went in to take care of the cats, Callie was sleeping in the kennel.
Tuesday!
Yes, today is Tuesday, my letter blog is two days late and I’m still trying to get it done!
“Some stories I have to pull kicking and screaming from me,” I told my beautiful short and sweet sister. “They don’t write easy,” and this one has been a challenge. I like it much better when the words start coming and the stories write themselves.
Cleopatra purrs! Some cats never purr (for unknown reasons) and at seven months old, almost eight, I thought she was one of those. I’ve been petting her and loving on her her whole life and never heard her purr before this past week.
“I got her to purr,” Mike says taking the credit.
“I didn’t believe it until I heard her purr for myself, but she never purred before she was spayed. Do you think that made a difference?” I asked.
Mike didn’t have an answer.

Spitfire has adopted us. For a long time now he’s been persistent about wanting to be in the house. More so than any of the other cats. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer and he never gave up. First he started coming in for a bite of breakfast, then he would come in for visits and then at the end of last week I let him stay in the house for an afternoon. He was so good. He didn’t pick fights with the other cats, he didn’t jump up on the counters or table, and he didn’t mess on the floor. He just curled up in a chair and slept. I put him out that night. The next morning he came in for breakfast and I let him stay.

“Is he using the litter box?” Mike asked me.
“I think so,” I told him. “I didn’t see him but he disappeared down the hallway and I heard him in it.”
The next day, when Spitfire went down the hallway, I got up and checked. Now I had confirmation that he was, indeed, using the litter box.
This morning…
This Tuesday morning…
The morning of my two-day-late letter blog…
Spitfire hacked up a parasite. A worm parasite.
“Eww, Peg!” you say. "I'm surprised you didn't take a picture of that!"
I know, right! I didn't think about it or I probably would have.
        Even though I’m not crazy about any parasite, I actually get a certain about of satisfaction crushing fleas between my thumbnails, setting ticks on fire, and swatting flies and misquotes, but having to clean up a puddle with a writhing roundworm in it is just plain disgusting. However, roundworms and other parasites are just a fact of life, country life that is.
I’ve been seeing evidence of roundworms in puddles on the cat room floor, I just didn’t know who they were coming from, and come spring I was going to worm every one of them, at least the ones I can handle.
And now that I’ve sufficiently grossed you out, let’s call this one done.
Done!

Fire And Ice

We have a brush pile. We have a huge brush pile. In fact, we have two brush piles but the second one is smaller. I take Itsy and Ginger with me when I go to the mailbox and we walk past the brush piles almost every day.
On Wednesday, on the return trip from the mailbox, I heard, “Meow,” then a pause, then another, “Meow.”
It sounded like it came from the brush pile. I looked, but couldn’t see who was meowing. It didn’t stop me though, “Hey kitty-kitty,” I answered back and kept walking.
“MEOWMEOWMEOW!”
I stopped in my tracks. Distress. That sounded like someone’s in distress, I thought. Itsy (in my arms), Ginger, and I walked over for a look-see. Rascal was there. He was sniffing around, poking his nose down in the brush pile. Was it Rascal I heard? I wondered. I stood and called for a little while but didn’t hear any more meows. I snapped a photo and walked away.

I get a little ways away and wonder, Did the meows draw Rascal to the brush pile too? Was he there to investigate? I stopped in my tracks and almost went back. But what can I do?  If there was a cat stuck, it would mean pulling the brush pile apart by hand. I didn’t know if I could do that or not — but I’d try — and one thing is certain. I couldn’t do anything while holding two dog leashes. I thought about tying the girls up on a branch someplace and going back, but in the end I decided to take them home.
The walk back to the house from there is probably only two or three minutes, but plenty of time for lots of thoughts to pass through this weirdly wired brain of mine. Who could it be, I wondered. To my mind’s eye came a picture of me serving breakfast in the cat room that morning. Sugar and Anon darted out of the room as soon as I walked in. Callie was there, watching from her perch. Spitfire, Feisty and Cleo were at breakfast. Rascal hadn’t shown up for breakfast for a few days now, Was he keeping someone company in the brush pile? I wondered. It’s either a stray or maybe it’s Jerry, I thought of the neighbor’s cat that sleeps at our house sometimes, but hadn’t seen in a while.
I walk in the house and un-harness the girls, dropping the leashes in the out-of-the-way spot on the floor where they live. Mike was sitting on the couch watching TV. “Mike, I heard a cat in the brush pile and it sounded like he was in distress. I’m going to check it out,” I told him and left, closing the door, without giving Mike a chance to respond.
I went back out to the brush pile, wondering the whole way what could I really do in the event someone was stuck…
“If the cat got in there, the cat can get out,” I hear my ever-practical mother in my head.

        And I know that. Still, if someone — anyone needs help and I can give it, I will. Even if it is only a critter.
Out at the brush pile, I call, “Here kitty-kitty.” Immediately I was rewarded with an answering, “Meow.”
“Where are you kitty?” I called.
Rascal’s head pops up out of the brush pile on the far side. “Meow.”
I called a few more times and kept listening but I didn’t hear anyone but Rascal. He ducked back down in and after a minute or so he popped up on my side. “Meow,” he said again.

There must be tunnels inside the pile, I thought.
I stood quiet for a moment or two. Maybe if he thinks I’ve left, he’ll call me back, and in my head echoes the distress call I heard earlier.
A few pellets of sleety-rain hit my jacket. I look at the threatening clouds and think of you. This is a view of our Mountain Home that you haven’t seen very often — if ever. This is the back courtyard just off the kitchen. The window is over my sink and there will be a door to the right of it, eventually. Heck, eventually there will be a sink under the window too!

Mike came around the corner. “Find anything?”
“No.” But secretly I was pleased. I try not to drag Mike into my shenanigans, but the fact that he supports me regardless is very heart-warming.
  We walked back to the house and I texted Jon Robinson, “I haven’t seen Jerry in a while. You?”
“Yeah, he’s around,” Jon texted me back.
Saturday found us with an outside temperature of 60 degrees! Can you believe that! 60! In mid-to-late February! In Pennsylvania!
I knew when we built the brush piles that it was Mike’s intention to burn them.
Fire scares me.
Fire is unpredictable.
Fire can get away from you.
Fire can devastate.
Fire can take lives.
Fire scares me.
I didn’t say that to Mike though. Instead I asked, “Mike, why don’t we get a chipper? We can use the chips for mulch.”
Mike is a good husband and without even knowing the real reason for my request, he shopped around for a wood chipper.
They’re expensive.
Years pass.
The brush pile grows from one to two.
And then yesterday, with warm temps, low wind, and snow on the ground, that buttinsky neighbor of ours texted Mike. “It’d be a good day to burn,” Jon Robinson said.
I’m only (half) kidding. I love the Robinson’s and don’t really consider them or him a buttinsky, it’s just that I was hoping to put off Burn Day for a few more years, or better yet — forever! I’d managed to stall Mike this long. Every time he brought it up, I’d talked him out of it. “It’s too cold out there,” I’d say or, “It’s too wet,” or, “It’s too windy.” I’d always find some excuse.
“He’s right,” Mike said after he read the text to me. “It would be a good day to burn.”
“Oh, I can’t help today,” I told Mike hoping he wouldn’t do it without my help. “I have to do litter boxes and make un-stuffed cabbage for dinner and I wanted to sort my pictures for my blog tomorrow.” All good excuses, don’t you think?
“Just help me get it going,” Mike asked, but wasn’t really asking.
What else could I do?
“I’ll get the gas, you get something to light it with. I’ll meet you out there,” he said as he went out the door.
Fire scares me.
Mix fire with gas and I get really apprehensive. All the pictures I’ve seen of burn victims, all the horror stories I’ve heard of gas and fire gone wrong came flooding through my mind. I wasn’t able to stop him, I guess I’d better help, I thought.
Mike poured the gas on one end of the brush pile, took a piece of the newspaper I’d brought, twisted it, lit it, “Now get back,” he warned me, and tossed it on the pile.
Whoosh!
We had fire.

I was scared. “Mike, what if it gets away from you? You don’t have anything to fight it with.”
“It’s not going to get away from me, Peg.” Mike was dismissive.
“It could,” I persisted. “You don’t have a shovel or a hose or anything.”
We stood and watched the fire burn. I saw a mouse or a mole or some other varmint run from the weeds and into the far side of the now blazing pile. He’s in for a surprise, I thought.
“Maybe I should go get the tractor,” Mike said after a while. “You watch the fire.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully. After all, besides yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs, what was I going to do if the fire decided to escape?
Mike came back with the tractor and used it to clean up the edges of the brush pile, to pick stuff up and put on top, to bring more stuff from the other pile once this one was burning good.

        Some of the stuff he raked up from the bottom was too wet and damped our fire down. Mike parked the tractor a good distance away, poured a paper cup of gas and threw it on the pile to get it burning again.
Yeah. Don’t say anything. I was scared each and every time he did it.
The Kipp’s stopped on their morning walk. Mike walked out front to greet them.
“PEG!” Mike yells. “COME HERE!”
“NO!” I yelled back.
Mike and the Kipp’s walked back to where I was watching the fire.
“You should never leave a fire unattended,” I said by way of apology to the Kipp’s, then I turned to Mike, “How would you like it if I left a pot on the stove and walked away?”
“I don’t like it when Rosie leaves a wooden spoon in a pot on the stove, even when the stove’s not on!” Lamar told me.
Feeling like I had an ally, I added, “And he’s throwing gasoline on it!”
“Use oil!” Lamar exclaimed. “It doesn’t explode like gas does.”
“I’ve burned many a pile,” Mike says. “I know what I’m doing. It’ll be fine.”
We chatted with the Kipp’s for a while and when they left, I went back in the house…
And on the way I worried.
If the house burns, I’ll lose all my pictures and stories!  I’ve been prideful about my 20 years of letter stories. I have a notebook for each year and ran out of space for them on the shelf. Some of them sit on the table in the unfinished library and I’ve got last years notebook in the house with me.

        I’ve often thought of the history I’ll leave behind when I’m gone. I fantasize about the headlines when all my notebooks full of pictures and stories are found in 100 years or so. “Life Of A Middle-aged American Woman.” Or maybe they’ll be valuable to my grandchildren or great-great grandchildren even.
See what I mean? I’ve been prideful — too prideful even.
“I can take your stories today,” I hear in my head and I know it’s true. The parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21 came to my mind, only instead of, “Tonight your life will be demanded of you,” I heard, “Tonight your stories will be demanded of you.” And I decided right then and there to give it to God. I won’t worry about what becomes of my letter stories anymore — but I’m still scared of fire.
Once back in the house, I cleaned the litter boxes…
Washed my hands…
Made a cup of coffee…
Sat in front of my computer…
Sorted pictures for today’s blog…
And yet I still worried…
What if something happens?
(Worry, worry.)
What if the fire gets away from him?
(Worry, worry.)
A picture flashed in my mind’s eye of Mike laying on the ground, burned.
(Worry, worry.)
Needing me…
(Worry, worry.)
And me not being there.
(Worry, worry.)
I left my computer, a picture I was contemplating on the screen, poured my coffee into my travel cup…
“You girls want to go for a walk?” I asked, snapping the lid on the cup.
Ginger jumped from the couch where she’d been sleeping, and stretched. I picked up my cup and set it by the door. “Com’on Itsy.” The dog leashes jingling as I picked them up. I harnessed Ginger, picked Itsy up from the couch, she’s fat as a porker and slow as molasses in February, set her on the floor in front of me and harnessed her up too. I picked up the handles, got my coffee, and out the door we went.
The sun shining felt warm and good.
I could hear the fire crackling and see the smoke rising before I could see it or the brush pile. I came around the corner and there was Mike, on the ground in front of the other brush pile.
“What are you doing!” I exclaimed.
Mike struggled to get up and once on his feet, he brushed himself off. “I fell.”
“Are you all right?”
“No! I landed hard on the concrete and my back hurts.” He held his wrist as he approached me, “and my wrist hurts too,” he said working the hand of his injured wrist. He sighed. “Am I wet?” and he turned around.
“Yep,” and I brushed at the wet snow and mud that clung to the back of his shirt. He’d gotten warm and shed his jacket. “What were you doing?”
“I was pulling branches out to put on the fire and my feet went out from under me,” he explained.
I parked Itsy and Ginger on Mike’s jacket and sat with Mike for a while as he tended his fire.

We chatted.
“I saw a mole run from the brush pile,” Mike told me. “He ran into the weeds and went that way,” he pointed and added, “over to the other brush pile.”
I wondered if it was the same one I saw run into the brush pile. I knew he wouldn’t stay in there long, I just didn’t know Mike was going to see him leave. I watched Mike as he got up and cleaned up the area, throwing stray branches on top of the fire, going to the other brush pile and pulling things out to burn.
“It’s getting to be about supper time and I haven’t cooked anything yet,” I observed.
“That’s okay by me. I’ll just have a ham sandwich.”
“Are you going to let the fire burn out?”
“Yeah. I’m not going to put anything else on it.”
I went back in the house and a while later, Mike came in, smelling like smoke with bits of char, that drifted from the sky, littering his hair and clothes. “I’m jumping in the shower,” Mike said unbuttoning his shirt on the way through to the bathroom.
“Is the fire out?” I asked.
  (Worry, worry.)
“Almost,” he answered.
Before bed, on the girls last walk of the day, I walked out to the burn pile. I hadn’t taken a flashlight with me and even though the stars were bright, the moon wasn’t up yet and I picked my way through the dark. I came around the corner and saw the red glow of the remaining fire. A breeze came through and lifted a flame into the sky.
I watched.
And worried.
Back in the house I expressed my worry. “I wish the fire was out.”
“It’s okay, Peg. It’s almost out and it’s not going anywhere. There isn’t anywhere for it to go. There’s concrete the whole way around it.”
I knew he was right, but I still worried. We went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d open my eyes and look out the window, hunting for any hint of a red glow coming from the direction of the brush pile, any indication of light coming from the back of the mill at all. Satisfied I didn’t see any, I’d close my eyes only to worry and have them pop open again and stare out the window.
This is silly, I thought to myself. I’m not sleeping anyway! I might just as well get up, get dressed, and go sit by the fire.
Yeah.
No. I was worried, but Mike said it was all right and I didn’t want to leave my bed. Eventually I fell asleep.
In the morning, I woke up and all was well. This is all that’s left of Mike’s burn pile.

One more pile left to burn.
Sigh.

<<<<<>>>>>

A big truck took out the Kipp’s mailbox this past week. That happened because he shouldn’t of had his truck on this road. The road curves and goes across a single lane, open grate bridge right in front of the  Kipp’s house. Lamar went out and helped him back up a few times until he could make a straight shot across the bridge and he paid Lamar for a new mailbox too. Lamar bought the mailbox and got it up before I got the picture. But you can see the old one, battered and shattered, laying beside the road.

>>>>><<<<<

Road pictures anyone?

Michael was taken with this big truck and talked about it for the twenty miles we were behind him. “How many axles are on that trailer?” he asked. “What’s that truck he’s haulin’?” he asked. Then the truck took a curve and Mike could see what he was hauling. “That’s a truck they use for hauling pipe to the oil fields! You see them out west all the time.” Then, “Look at that, Peg!” he exclaimed. “It’s got two steering axles on the front and at least two drive axles on the rear — maybe three! It’s all wheel drive. Get a picture of it Peg!” I swear, it must be a guy thing.

A couple of pictures of tractors in the fields.

A roadside spring.

And a barn.

Look what showed up at my house this week — an anvil! Mike got online and ordered one to surprise me. It weighs about twenty pounds, is hardened and tempered steel, which has a beautiful ring to it, it’s 12x4x5 inches and I can’t wait to make a bracelet on it.

Speaking of bracelets, I made this one this past week. Unfortunately, my sizing is off and it’s huge.
“It’ll fit someone,” my ever optimistic friend, Rosie, said.

And lastly, here is the ice I promised in the title. 

        The puddles, in the warming temperatures, were starting to melt and with me, you just never know what I’m going to take pictures of.

Let’s call this one done.

A Quiet Week

It’s been a quiet week in the Luby household this past week. Despite that, I manage to stay busy. I made a bunch of rings, which was a fun way to spend a few hours.

Friday night, Saturday morning and early afternoon, I worked on a bracelet. I had a couple of problems with my wire weaving. When I wove the center of the bracelet to the base wires, I got almost the whole way to the other side — almost, I say — before I realized my wire was too short.
Sigh.
I undid it, got a new wire — ten inches longer this time — and halfway through, I broke it.
Sigh.
I cut a third wire and in almost the same place, I broke the delicate little wire — again.
Sigh.
By the fourth time, I was almost a pro. I took my time, was more careful, but still fearful that at anytime I would apply too much tension and break my wire again.
But I didn’t. I attached the top two base wires and the bottom two with no more mishaps. I finished off the ends and attached a heart and this is it.
Do you like it?

I also spent some of my time this week restringing three rosary’s for my beautiful mother. She wanted square beads in place of the round ones which were too similar to the coffee tree seeds.

Feisty, one of our three nine-month old kittens, is one of the two female kittens we had fixed last month.

        Along with the spay, they ‘tipped’ her ear. When she followed me to the mailbox the other day, I thought her ear looked infected.

Cleo, Feisty’s seven-month old cousin, was the other female we had fixed and she has a bulge on her belly close to the incision site. I have no idea what that is all about, but I guess I’ll keep an eye on it.
We took a mini road trip.
“What’s a mini road trip?” you ask.
It’s where you just drive around the roads in your area for a little while, but it let me get a bunch of pictures for you.
An old honey wagon sitting by himself.

A toilet in the yard. I know people who don’t like — hate maybe?— toilets sitting in yards, even if they have been repurposed as flower pots. Do they have the same feelings for bathtubs? I wonder.
When I saw the toilet I said to Mike, “Oh. I have to take a picture for all the toilet-in-the-yard haters.”
Mike, a good and dutiful husband, slowed so I could get the shot.

“Wanna stop at the Apple Wagon?” Mike asked. The Apple Wagon is a local flea market.
“Sure! I’ll look around. I want an anvil for my workshop.”
“You have an anvil,” Mike observed.
And he’s right, I do have an anvil. A mini one. “Yeah, but I want a full size one.”
“What do you want an anvil for?” I hear you ask.
I love the look of pounded copper. Besides, I just think it would be cool.
        We stopped and browsed but didn't buy anything.

One of these days we’ll drive past this big old building and see that it’s collapsed. I wonder what it used to be.

On the edge of Meshoppen, a small town about fifteen miles from us, is a huge farm implement company. You can see it from the main road but we’ve never driven past it before. On this day, we did.

I’d love to have a couple of these.

We had no idea how extensive this place was. The farther down the road you go, the older the equipment got. This is my current desktop photo.

How would you like to have these guys for neighbors?

An old barn.

An elf house. We were almost past it before I saw it.

Not much left of this barn.

A couple of three more barns.

I got the side mirror of the Jeep in this shot. I could probably edit it out if I wanted to. 

That cat!
That darn cat!
Yeah, you guessed it—Smudge!
He’s sucking on Mike’s finger. This is not new for Smudge, he’s been doing it for months. I’ve caught him sucking on blankets and the tail of the stuffed duck that lives on the bed, at least when I remember to put it back on the bed in the mornings, that is. But lately it’s Mike’s finger he wants to suck on and he actually gets mad if Mike makes him stop.

Even though Smudge and Cleopatra were abandoned by their mom when they were about a month old, I bottle fed both of them for a couple of more weeks, at least until they started doing more biting than sucking. Do you think this is a hangover from that?
Since Cleo, doesn’t live in the house with us, like Smudge does, I don’t know if she has the same issue. But this I know, Smudge purrs, Cleo does not.
“I swear I heard her purring,” Mike told me yesterday.
“I don’t think you did. It was probably one of the other cats purring.”
“She was the only one around!”
“You’re not going to convince me that you heard her purring until I hear her purr for myself,” I admonished.
“Animals like me,” Mike countered.
“They do,” I conceded, “but I’ve handled her way more than you and she’s never purred for me.”
We got eight inches of snow Thursday, or at least that’s what they said. I didn’t measure it myself.

I took Ginger out to see if I could capture any snow pictures for you. This is what eight inches of snow looks like when you have six-inch legs.

Smudge waited in a tire track.

When he saw us coming back, he hunkered down. 

When we were close enough, he ambushed Ginger.

Ginger ran.

Although Ginger will sometimes play with Smudge, she was not happy about this sneak attack. The next time I took her out, Smudge was still outside. Ginger kept an eye on him and since she didn’t want to be caught in a vulnerable position, she couldn’t relax enough to pee.
I haven’t talked about Molly in a long time, how about an update?
       This is Molly enjoying a patch of sunshine on the bed.

         She's getting really thin. I suspect she has hyperthyroidism because weight loss is a symptom and it’s quite common in older cats. Molly is thirteen this year and we’ve had her since she was about seven months old.
And with that, let’s call this one done.

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