Sunday, July 19, 2009

Catching up on Cats

Kitten season is in full swing. These guys should find homes, it's the older ones that I hope will also go. The sociable adult cats can move into the community room, which houses about ten in peaceable comfort with climbing trees and cubby holes to nap in. Of course, I have always gone for kittens but as I get older it is only right that if I adopt any more cats (No!, says Ramona) they should be adults.
Someone dropped fourteen cats and kittens off at the shelter either at night or just without warning. One is a Himalayan I haven't seen yet.


Tootsie

Simon

Raul, an elegant House Panther if I ever saw one.

Oscar, obviously a real character here.

Mai

Leo

Felix

Cameron

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

In the Garden

Hello friends who have not given up on me since my lack of posts for over a month. Here for you is a tour of the garden on a rare sunny day in June. It has been raining for over six weeks here and we are all waterlogged and somewhat gloomy but in our Yankee way, resolute. The rain is pouring on the roof this morning and the felines are only opening one eye to say "what a fricking drag and jezzes christ." The garden has been growing, it is on a hill and well drained but what the sun loving tomatoes will do is anyone's guess. We do have onions, garlic greens, lettuce, peas, chard with beautiful stalks of pink and yellow and the last of the strawberries to gather before they rot. We did mulch them with straw but this summer, they should have had more. Any lying on the ground are grey and gone. The strawberry farm down the road is probably a disaster this year and the corn fields by the river are sodden with stalks only a few inches high. But here is a tour on a lovely, hopeful day in June. Everything has grown a lot since these photos.


The raised onion bed. Good thing it's raised and drains well. The purple flowers are Olof's beloved patch of chives.


The potato field with the squash just beginning. The elder's home below with their summer gazebo on the deck. The felines hide in the tall grasses behind the potatoes and keep watch. They also have catnip bushes to lie in and dream away the summer days. When it is not raining.


The path by the onions, well mulched this year. A good thing or the weeds would be knee high. They like lots of rain.


Another view, our house below.


The upper terrace above the terraces for strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Potatoes can be seen and small broccoli, radishes and chard.


Olof lived in Brussels once and never forgot The Little Pisser.


The Tea House. Below it is a lovely ravine where the brook is rushing waterfalls this year. Olof built this one summer when I was away for a week. I should go away more often, eh?


Our beloved Brendan lies here by the upper pond with his brother Finnegan (known as Innigan Outigan Finnegan) and Silas the Faithful. Fergus is in an urn on the shelf, waiting for when we shall meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.


My favorite room in my home. We have dinner with friends here on summer evenings. When it is not pouring rain.
Hello to all, how's your summer?