A Long Journey through Good and Evil

Ramona and I have been away on a long journey. We've met wise leaders, gentle healers, loving mothers and adorable children. We've battled evil villans and terrible rogues who will stop at nothing to gain power. We've seen everything we love destroyed and struggled to rebuild. We've lost dear friends and tasted the pain of and longing of illicit love. We've watched helplessly as brave souls died fighting for their families and children starved.

Yup, we've been reading.....




When I put down the latest book I asked my dear Ramona if she would rather live a thrilling life in the wild with Firestar and Thunderclan. She would be a medicine cat for sure.

She looked at me with her lovely green eyes.

My Clan is here, she said.

Note to Dolce's and Baci's daddy. If you haven't read these you are in for a treat. Makes me think of your Darkening Road. They will probably inspire you as they do me to get back to the keyboard.

Try to Remember

the kind of September...

I'm cheating here because this photo is from October of last year. The burning bush hasn't turned yet. In fact, we are still having summer like weather and I have a wealth of tomatoes to turn into sauce and soup and freeze. I dry them too. And make pesto.

September is my favorite month. I could easily hit rewind and do it again, especially this year. It was almost 60 degrees out early this morning and the sky is blue with a a good breeze. The trees are starting to turn but we haven't had a killing frost so the flowers are still out everywhere in town and here.

Harper and Ramona are having a wonderful time. This morning we were taking it easy, too easy for Harper, who was ready for Border Patrol. " Out?" he asked. And when he got no response he got more communicative about it.
"OUT!"
"Out?"
"Out Please" this with a wonderful pleading look in his eyes.
"OOOOOOUUUUUUT!""
Then one last pleading and soft "Out?"
That did it, Olof got up and did Border Patrol.

Harper is happy now, the territory is secure. Ramona went out and came right back in for a morning cuddle. She loves to lie on top of us.

Brendan's garden looks lovely with white and purple mums planted. I do miss him a lot but I often feel as if he is still with us, guiding the younger cats into their role as grown up guardian cats. Ramona now sleeps with us every night and Harper was with us too last night and this morning when we woke up. They head out for the Territory as soon as they can in the morning, (after breakfast, of course) they will both run in at noon for lunch and in every hour or so for a hug. Then around 4:30 or 5 they are ready for dinner and I shut the door. For a while this summer I was letting them back out after dinner but they thought it was very funny to make me chase after them in the yard so I realized they would come in when they were hungry. So I said, you get dinner and the day is over.

Everybody is fine with that. They hit the sleeping spots a second after eating and don't stir until they have had a good long nap.

I was thinking this morning that if Brendan had had a goodby message to us it would be something along the lines of " Got to go now, the little guys will look after you, I'll be checking in and I'll see you when you get here."

I do miss his calm spirit. The little guys are growing up and taking a bigger role in being our companions. They'll be two years old on Feburary 5th. Their personalities are growing and they are creating their ritoileys. Ramona knows when I whistle I am asking her if she is hungry (she always is, it seems, but she is not overweight). She will answer me, "Yeah!" She also loves to go downstairs in the morning before me, bouncing down the stairs at an amazing flowing speed.

Harper is really a Boy Cat. He gets on Mona's nerves once in a while when he wants to wrassle and she doesn't. She'll tell him where to stick it. He is a happy boy and as cuddly as a big teddy bear. He loves to get under the blankets for a nap.

I have some stories to post about a new animal welfare project I've been helping with. Now I better go start on some of those tomatoes.

A Grand Old Man

I want to thank everyone who has written to us about Brendan. As soon as I can I will go through and try to add all your blogs to our blog roll.

We miss him very much but I feel quite calm about it. It's a sadness and sometimes a sharp sorrow but many times I just feel as if he is still with us. Brendan was like that, he wouldn''t want us to suffer, though I am sure he would want to be missed. I have put autumn mums in white and purple on the spot in the garden where he lies with his brother and Slias.

Harper and Ramona have been doing well and I believe that B explained to them that he would be leaving and they would be in charge and would have to be grown up cats for us. The other possibility is that they can comunicate with him.

Nothing cats can do would surprise me. Nothing Brendan could do would surprise me.

Thanks to the Blog Pound for the post calling Brendan a Grand Old Man. That he was.



This is one of my favorite photos of B. The caption is " Well. what do you expect me to do about this?" The kittens are Fergus and Silas, who would wrassle like crazy and then cuddle up together. Silas looks like he is getting the worse of it in this photo but in reality he outweighed Fergus by enough to sit on him if he wanted to.



I also love this photo and the caption for it is "Tell me again, why did we get these guys?"