Holiday Follow-Up

MrrrrR Friends,

We’re having a lovely week and I hope you are too.

The other day we did festive gift giving. Another nice tradition – ours is a simple version. Here’s my gift to my people.

And, here’s a wonderful video of Alex upholding a long-standing tradition in our house.

Alex’s lemon was the perfect complement to my greenfish.

Nothing like a little fresh organic catnip in a lovely toy to make a holiday truly special.

And for all of you that are wondering, Alex is doing pretty well. Her leg seems to be healing around her torn ligament. We’ve tried to follow the doctor’s orders: no running and jumping and minimal playing. She’s not limping and still trying to take it easy. Her nice surgeon lady said it is quite possible that Alex might be able to heal on her own and that, if successful, the mending would be as good as that resulting from surgery. We’ll know more in 2-3 weeks.

Merry Merry!

Season's Greetings

Mrrrr Friends,

Happy Holidays!

This is my first year with a festively decorated holiday tree, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

I’m very excited to join in this quite awesome human celebration of trees, giving, and peace. Cats don’t naturally celebrate the December holidays of humans – some of us adopt them of course. I have cat friends celebrating Eid al-Adha, Christmas, and Hanukkah – all in December this year.

For the most part, we are big fans of Winter Solstice, otherwise know as Catsolstice. All cats celebrate that event every year – think of it, the longest night of the year, any cat’s favorite time of day, maximized! Catsolstice party events usually include all night caterwauls and cat prowls, a big feast and a cat sporting event – tree climbing being a big favorite.

And, given this thousands of years old cat tradition, you can imagine how challenged we are – especially when we are just kittens – to see our first tree come into our peoples home, get decorated with twinkly lights and shimmery decorations, soft sewn ornaments that look like they might have catnip in them, and, thanks to the foolhardy among you, ornaments that are actually edible. It’s just sitting there…begging to be climbed, jumped into, swatted at or laid under. Fortunately for me, the trunk of our tree is really quite skinny, not something I aspire to scale.

Alex and I swat quite a bit, but our people are prepared for this and keep ornaments out of easy reach. They are happy to let us lie under the tree and look up into the lights and ornaments, occasionally napping a bit, and they do not get perturbed when we play with one or more of the three wise teddies and the panda that sit on the blanket of snow that wraps the tree stand. They say they did get a bit perturbed, though, when Alex tried to drink the tree water, but she seems to be off the sauce this year.

I helped decorate this year. We did lights first. Then we did glass and tin ornaments, and that was exhausting, so I had to sleep after that. The next day the rest of the ornaments went on, and you see the results above.

All in all, this looks to be a very fun week ahead. Alex and I want to wish all of you a very happy Catsolstice, Christmas, Eid, and a belated happy Hanukkah. But, most importantly, we wish you and your furry, feathered, and scaled companions fun, health, joy, silliness, excellent food and friends, and peace in the coming year.

Please consider putting your tree out for the birds and other critters when you are done.

Cataesthetics – on upholstery

Let’s talk upholstery. The upholstery in your home is very important to your furry feline friends. I’m assuming that if you read this blog and enjoy it, you are not in the category of humans that forbid their animals to use the couch or chair. Okay, I can see one or two precious items that you might want to ask us to not sit on.

Cats look at an upholstery fabric in a myriad of ways. I’ll try to break them down simply so you can catch on quickly. First, is it a pleasing color? Does it remind us of rabbit guts in any stage of decay or more of our mom’s furry tummy when we were tiny? Second, is there a pattern on it? Does the pattern look vaguely like a running bunny or does it remind us of a bowl of our favorite food morsels in a creamy sauce? Third, what is the texture? Is it stiff or does it have bumps or raised ridges that incite the completely uncontrollable urge to lean back and sink our claws into it, or is it smooth, warm, and perhaps even slightly furry to the paw?

Texture is very important, so I will dwell a bit…leather is good, but the pebbly kind not as much. No plastic is acceptable. Naugahyde is a matter of personal taste – me and Alex, we’d prefer something else. Woven surfaces, rushing, caning, woven bark or cloth, do pose particular problems. These fall in the no-no side of the texture category. You can however work with us on this one. A case in point:

My people have several very nice, very old chairs with rushing on them. When I moved in, they just drove me nuts. I knew I was bad, but I could not control my inner demon cat. They kept the chairs out but covered them with placemats that met the above conditions. After some struggle and a good deal of gentle but firm insistence on both my peoples’ part, my urges subsided. Indeed, I often slept on the chairs with their placemats. Months later, I realized the placemats were gone. I quickly averted my gaze, heart pounding but then I realized that the urge to claw had dissipated. I could simply go over to the carpet roll and claw it a bit. I had control.

Alternatives are critical. Scratchy pads made of burnable or recyclable cardboard spiked with catnip to make them attractive can be purchased for a pittance at any decent “pet” store. We are particularly fond of a good roll of outdoor carpet. Also, I heartily recommend you find a good entry way mat of sturdy woven material, like sisal, and just let your furry friends wail on it. For some of the less thoughtful felines out there, it makes them feel like they are getting away with something.

For the most part, my people have followed these strictures above. They did recently make a mistake, and, try though we do, Alex and I are making them pay for it. Note the nubby quality of the weave in the photo here...I have spared you and my people any images of the "discussed areas." They are looking into some nice chemical-free, tightly woven hemp and hemp/cotton fabrics that are affordable, smooth, warm, and pleasing of color. We also looked into the very nice Knoll fabrics (many of which are chemical free)…I was particularly attracted to the ultrasuede, but it cost a lot of cat food per yard. I heard my male person explain the situation to an upholsterer (who is also a drummer and all-around cool dude). The upholsterer understood right away—“We do a lot of work for cats.”

In the end, furniture upholstered with some attention to your cat is a wonderful amenity for all. We of course enjoy a multitude of surfaces, some smooth and wooden, others cool and ceramic, and most definitely we enjoy a warm down comforter with a flannel cover or a nice Persian carpet. I think I’ll go lay on the Moroccan pile for a bit…writing makes me sleepy.

Catolympics & Catastrophe

Mrrrr Friends,

Last weekend I attended the 1,401st bi-annual Catolympics in Needles, CA. It was quite an event, with cats of all shapes and sizes in attendance, and hosted by Muddlepuddle, one of the wisest cats in the universe. There were a lot of felines like me but there were also lynx, cheetahs, lions…cats of all shapes and sizes. (Yes, Snoopy’s brother Spike was there too…a few individuals from other species do attend.) I did some tree climbing there.

Cats aren’t terribly competitive, you know, at least not just for the sake of being competitive. It’s different, for some cats, when, for example, a mouse is involved. But at the catolympics we don't do prey items and there isn’t much scoring and trying to win…it is more a sharing of methodologies. I am satisfied to say that I awed more than a few cats with my tree-top paw work. I, in turn, was truly amazed by some of the tree-trunk management skills of my feline friends. If you’ve ever seen a squirrel climb up a tree trunk going around and around, then you’ll just begin to understand the variety of strategies for climbing a tree. And yes, since you are wondering, there were all different sizes of trees too.

Interestingly, getting back down is a problem shared by many of my fellow felines.

A great time was had by all. We ate tons of “Cowboy Cookout” – that wonderful canned entrée by Merrick – washed down with a good St. Emilion that our French cat amies brought and followed by long, yowling caterwaul-alongs with a lovely single malt courtesy of our Scottish Fold colleagues. Some nights there were cans and bottles strewn about…morning required a lot of cleanup and recycling.

You’re probably wondering how I managed to get the time away without my people knowing. We cats have our ways. You know all those hours of sleep we get in? Sometimes we’re really just not there. I can’t say more…cats have codes. But, in this case, the folks were up in the Adirondacks, and my pal Alex was having a spa weekend with her Granma.

Alex needed the spa weekend because she nipped out to Gstaad for a big cat ski party the weekend before Thanksgiving. Again the people were away and the cats did play. Unfortunately, Alex had a skiing accident…not the kind I usually have après-ski with the Scotch, but a real live “agony of defeat” kind of accident.

She hurt herself…ACL injury or, in cat terms, a torn cruciate ligament in her right rear leg. We think it happened while landing after a particularly long or slightly off-pitch jump. She’s had a full work up now by a cat surgeon specialist in Westbury, NY, and we are all discussing the surgery versus no surgery options. It’s a difficult time. Alex is bravely powering through, but we all know there is a limitation. The ligament cannot heal. It is torn for good.

The question is can Alex’s supercat body compensate and build scar tissue quickly enough and in a way that will give her a good long-term quality of life? The risk is that she will blow her meniscus – the pad in her knee between the two long bones. Then, she will definitely need surgery. Or, the vet lady surgeon can go in now and replace Alex’s ligament with a fancy plastic line that is, basically, thick fishing line. We all want to know what kind of knot she’ll use.

Cats don’t like surgery, let’s be clear. We are not like dogs. Dogs usually yowl and whimper when they are hurt. We rarely do this. We dig deep and try to act healthy. We don’t want to be fooled with or fussed over at this level. Sometimes this is a good strategy, sometimes it is not. Alex wants time to fix herself by sleeping and taking it relatively easy. A cat would rarely choose surgery even when it might be the best path to healing and staying healthy. We might need to consider some human intervention here.

I’m doing my part for Alex by licking her forehead a lot and working with her to develop ligament friendly games: door jamb paw hockey is our favorite right now. I’ll keep all of you up to date on developments.

Contradictions

MrrrRrr Friends,

It has been a long time. I hope all of you are well.

You know, I just reread my past two blogs, and I realize that they seem a bit contradictory. On the one paw, here’s me talking about the need to curb consumption, and, on another paw, here’s my people buying another petroleum-powered vehicle. Granted, the little green car may be more efficient than the black car, now happily living in Indiana, but why not a hybrid? Well, after a quick look at their checkbook, it becomes apparent…I think they spend too much on cat food.

My female person loves to drive…it’s a problem with people of the Midwestern persuasion. Cars are a convenience and they’re practical – imagine taking me to the vet on a bicycle!

Nevertheless, cars are probably one of the biggest contributors to global warming. And all that metal, plastic, and stinky, gooey transmission fluid, anti-freeze, and brake fluid just adds to the junk pervading the environment. Sure, it’s great that BMW and several other car-makers use a lot of recycled metal and plastic in their cars, but…

Road salt is another by-product of cars and the insatiable desire to drive. Road salt actually attracts mammals and birds to roads in the winter. Both have salt cravings, and birds may use road salt as grit to aid in their digestion. Unfortunately, road salt is toxic to wildlife. Not only is there evidence that road salt can poison birds and mammals, but salt toxicosis impairs them and makes it difficult for them to notice and therefore avoid cars. A vicious cycle… The number of road kill birds soars in snowy winters. As a bird-lover, I cringe to think of it.

The ecological consequences of all that dissolving salt sprinkled on roadsides and then draining into local soils and waters – and into groundwater – is a problem too. If you want all the gory details, I’ll post a link to a nifty study produced by our esteemed neighbors to the north – the scientists at Environment Canada.

Roads themselves – not that I’m in any way advocating off-roading, except on your own paws – are virtually synonymous with ecosystem fragmentation. Non-permeable surfaces, they divide up the world of snakes, turtles, caterpillars, mosses, wrens, moose, ferns, porcupines, trees, and owls and invite people to build things…things I would like to point out they have in other places that, likely, they just came from…by driving.

I could go on, but I’m out of practice and my tail is tired from hitting the shift key.

If you have a car, any kind, just take care of it for as long as seems practical. Find a nice, honest mechanic – they are out there, my person used to be one – and have them help you keep your car running safely and efficiently. No skimping on tire pressure or exhaust systems.

In the end, the best solution is to drive as little as you can. I’m proud and relieved that both my people both work from home. If they thought about it and took a little extra trouble, a lot of businesses could help their working people drive less, do more work from home, and - critically - have the opportunity to care full-time for their cats. The internet offers all kinds of communications options - many are best accomplished with a furry friend on lap. Take it from me, a blogging cat!

A new "older" thing

Mrrrr,

Wow, my people went off last week for a few days and look what they came back with:

A nice Volvo 142 E...not bad eh? Here's another picture.

This is all part of the simplification program that seems to be taking place here at home. Reva, the hot little black number I drove out to Long Island in is moving on to new owners...we don't know who yet. Here she is:

Kind of a shift in gears eh?

My person is spending an inordinate amount of time with the little green number whose name is "Via." But this is usually good for me because if she's replacing a light bulb or doing some interior work, I get to hang out outside and watch. It wan't so fun this weekend during the starter job but I'm hoping that job will never need to be done again.

Alex has personally approved Via and she looks pretty good in the passenger seat. I think we may have a great deal of work ahead but it should be quite fun.

Consumption

Friends,

In shocking news today, Alex the cat has suspended her long-standing commitment to vegetarianism. She ate ham. Not just any ham mind you, Black Forest Ham, which is very good stuff. I know this because I relish a thin sturdy piece from time to time myself.

Many of you know that Alex, except for her dry cat food, has consistently refused to eat meat…even fish. She will not eat steak, she will not eat chicken, she will not eat turkey. Me, I love all these things, but my latest rave is Bluefish. Mmmmmmmr. Bluefish is tasty, tasty. But for Alex, a lovely olive bread from Eli’s, a lemony hummus, or organic peanut butter are the things she craves.

Oh, and there’s ice cream…no problem with the enslavement of cows to produce milk when faced with a nice vanilla-fudge ripple.

I believe in the food chain. I respect the things I eat, but mostly I just have an insatiable craving for meat.

Enough said.

But since we’re talking about consumption... I was reading a recent study that discussed my fear – posted here on March 15, 2007 in “The Fourth Paw” – that pursuing the production of crops for biofuels could present significant threats to ecosystems and cool flora and fauna in the U.S. and abroad.

It reminded me of the question the lady on the You Tube debates asked the Democratic candidates. It went something like this: What do you do, or what can individuals do, to save energy? And, more importantly, how do you propose to get people to stop consuming so much and do this…and she switched off the light illuminating the room in which she stood.

Consumption and convenience. These are the real issues. The answer lies not simply in finding ways to produce what we think we need, but to reduce what we use! What can you do to stop using so much power, gas, plastic, foil, oil, toilet paper? Why would you ever, except in the most extreme circumstances, use a pesticide? Why build a new home or buy a new thing if you can economically and efficiently buy a used thing that is just as good? Why own more when you can own less? Why not buy local when you can – even if it costs a bit more?

Oh, and stop buying little bottles of water, for goodness sake! Buy something you can keep a while and put water in it when you need water. Who’s recycling all those bottles, anyway?

I can’t have kittens, but I’ve contributed to the creation of a little human. I want him – his name’s Rotor and I’ll tell you more about him down the road – to grow up in a stable, non-greedy world where animals, plants and the diversity of life are cherished, respected and preserved. (That includes animals that eat animals.)

Finally, all rich kittens should help kittens in need. The same would be good for people, I think. That includes donating money, time, knowledge, and stuff. Let’s do more of that, okay? How come the human government or your social institutions don’t place more pressure on people to donate some portion of what they earn? Just imagine if every person gave away at least 2.5% of what they earned to the causes they cared about the most.

There’s a thought.

Climbing, Physically and Politically

Mrrrr Friends,

I’ve been spending much more time than planned working on my climbing skills, thinking that perhaps I might qualify for the 2008 Catolympics in Sport Tree Climbing. Just today, I conquered the Norway Maple. True, it is non-native tree, but, as you can see, it has an excellent staging shape about 6 feet up.

Have you watched the CNN/You Tube Democratic Debates? I highly recommend them. The best link I know is to the CNN site, http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/24/youtube.debate.video/index.html You need an Adobe Flash Player installed, but it takes no time to do this and is worth the effort.

There are four, roughly 30-minute segments. Watch them all. Form your own opinions.

I’m thinking mostly about whose lap looks the most inviting, who is intelligent but also patient and clear-speaking…who actually answers real yes-or-no questions with a “yes” or a “no.” (True, sometimes a question posed as a yes-or-no is more complex and requires a more complex answer.)

Bill Richardson looks like he’d be nice to sit with, and I have always been very fond of Hillary, though I agree with my person that her approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been disappointing. Barack doesn’t really look like he sits down very often…thus not affording much lap time. John Edwards looks very friendly and intelligent, I like his talk on the environment, I like that he is inclusive when he speaks in a group, and I like his record on many things. I don’t know how much time Chris Dodd or Joe Biden would give to a blogging cat…they seem like righteous, smart men, but I just don’t find them compelling on enough issues.

Of course, it all depends who you stack them up against…

Up and Down

Dear Friends,

It has been a busy week, what with the holiday, my male person’s mom around, and the new sailboat.

Some highlights of my recent activities…

Alex and I continue birdwatching. Since the successful fledging of the House Wrens, we’ve heard the little guys around a bit, trying out their new voices, but we haven’t seen them. Their parents come and scold us from time to time, just so we don’t miss them too much. We have seen our backyard resident American Robin’s new fledgling quite a bit. We’re surprised there was only one, but the young one looks healthy and happy.

The Tufted Titmice are out, and there must be fledglings, but we never see them. Same with the Chipping Sparrows. Most interesting, though, is the fact that the flickers are about again. Are there kids flying about? We think we’ve seen one.

We’ve been most entertained by Chippie. An eastern chipmunk who has a very nice burrow in the back yard just outside my female person’s office. He is getting used to us so we see each other in the yard from time to time. Mostly, we watch Chippie from the office windows…here’s a poor photo.

Oh, and Alex has a bunny…I mean rabbit, eastern cottontail. Bunny comes out every late afternoon from under the holly tree and hops around foraging for greens and clover. Alex is particularly fond of rabbits, having helped to raise a few in Wisconsin last summer.

All this critter observation makes me want to get out and experience the world. So, I’ve decided to get back into serious tree-climbing. As a youngster, I occasionally scrambled up a tree for fun, but these days I’m considering it an athletic pastime and a way to broaden my outlook on the world.

So, at least every week, I’m planning a major climbing event. I’ve scoped out the Copper Beach, the King Maple, and the White Cedar in the backyard. In the front yard, I’ve already conquered the easy slope of the Black Cherry…the far right branch here.

Usually, I take a 10 foot run at this kind of situation…then I just zoom right up. Sometimes, I stop at the first crotch, but I’ve been all the way past the second crotch in this photo.

Kittens, don’t try this at home! You need proper training, good equipment, a reliable spotter, and a fine attitude. If you are going to climb up a tree – as my person says – you gotta be willing to climb down. Me, I just go down head first.

With the Black Cherry, the ascent was gratifying and swift. Descent was pretty easy, given the slope.

In my most recent exploit, captured here by my person, I scaled the Sugar Maple. This one is tough at first as there are no branches for about 7 feet and the trunk is a pure vertical. You gotta haul up the last foot or two – I recommend some upper body training and a lot of rest to prepare. Once in the branches, a cat can really display some paw work using the tree canopy to its fullest. The catbirds were really impressed.

Descent took some real thought. Finally, I had to opt for “the running fall.” One simply goes down head first, as if all four paws are going to stick to the trunk. You give up and jump when you realize that’s a myth.

After all that work, I had to help inspect the new sail boat. “Skimmy,” proper name Skimmer – named after Rynchops niger, the Black Skimmer - is a 20 foot Racing Swampscott Dory built on a George Chaisson design. She’s here, on the hard, with me, Rob, her illustrious builder and a very nice man, and my male person.

After I issued her catificate of reliability, my people put her on a mooring and they’re trying to live up to her design. She’s fast and tender, but I think they are getting the hang of it. Next boat is going to have full cat bunks on it so we can all sail together (yes, cats can swim).

So, as you can see, it has been busy. Then it went and got hot and, as I am a snowcat, my primary occupation for the past few days is best captured here.

Wren Update! Parts 1 and 2

MrrrrR,

As I blog, the 2 baby wrens are considering fledging. The adult female seems to be encouraging them occasionally by coming to the nest box without food. I've also seen her with food on some of these visits making sure, I guess, they are staying fed up. She has been visiting with increasing frequency throughout the morning.

The young fledglings are vocalizing a great deal and coming to the box opening - here's a picure of the larger of the two.

They are about the size of their parents at this point. We assume they are 10 to 12 days old based on assumed hatch date.

I guess this means they'll be out of the box today. Unfortunately, a large storm is forecast for this afternoon and evening. I am worried about them being out and perhaps on the ground during this...then again, perhaps the parents sense this and are hoping to get them tucked securely on a branch against a tree trunk for the evening?

We can only speculate at this point. We'll update you when we have more news.

UPDATE
Wow, that was intense!

In about a 2 hour period, our parent wrens successfully moved their 4 fledglings to an undisclosed safe zone in the holly tree and/or the bush below it.

Yes, 4! Boy did we not think there were that many...there are supposed to be clutches of this size or greater but we just assumed we had 2 until they started lining up to come out of the house.

It seemed perfectly orchestrated by the parents. One at a time, after the mom came to the house, the fledglings made their first flight from the opening of the nest box to the Japanese cherry tree 10 feet away.

Fledgling1 – likely the dude in the photo above – made it into the foliage about 7 feet high. We then lost track of him until we saw him scuttling across the roof of the garage to take off for a short hopper flight smack into the holly tree.

Just then, F2 hurtled out of the nest box and into the cherry tree at about 5 feet height. We lost track of her right away...must of scurried up the branches and headed out.

F3, a little pugnacious guy, arched out of the nest box about 10 minutes later. He didn’t do so good, landing at the base of the designated cherry tree. But within about 2 seconds, he was clambering up the trunk, stopping only to get directions from mom over in the cedar tree. Here’s a couple pictures of the little guy.

After his photo op, F3 jagged over to the cedar tree on a low flight path hitting the wood pile. (The garage where the nest box hangs, the cherry tree, and the cedar tree are at the points of a rough triangle of space, each about 8 to 10 feet from the other; the 20 foot diameter holly tree is on the other side of the garage from where the nest box hangs, furthest from the cherry.) From the wood pile he flew into the bushes below the holly. From there we lost sight of him.

F4, the baby, was left, but not for long. We didn’t see F4 take off, but it must have went well because she was gone in a flash and the parents were shuffling little ones from the cedar into the holly/bush area.

Amazing and very efficient. I couldn’t imagine my mom getting us kittens to get in line and behave so well for much of anything. These wrens have the survival thing down. I am glad we could help by putting a nice home for them away from streets and pretty much away from dogs and other intruders. Fric and Frac can always be a problem, but at this point the fledglings have good flight skills at about 12 feet. In hours they’ll be even better. In a week or two, they’ll be almost as adept as their parents who will continue to defend and feed them through most of this period.

I wish them luck. My female person and I will keep an eye for them and update you if we have news. We’re assuming (based on my person’s experience with wrens) they’ll find a sturdy, safe, crow-free zone to spend the day and feed up as much as possible. After that, their lives will become largely secret in terms of how much we’ll know. I sure hope though, that we see them next year when they’re all grown up.

Turtles Too

Mrrrr Friends,

Eastern Box Turtles seem to be trundling about more than usual.

I met a small fellow just the other day who seems to have taken up residence under the wren box next to the garage. I was very intrigued, walked up to him, noting his bright orange eyes and slightly convex bottom plate, and introduced myself, but he turned around and walked away. Given the angle of the light, I suppose he could have confused me with a dog. It upset me a bit, but I understood the little guy’s fear.

Dogs are sometimes guilty of picking up box turtles and carrying them out of their home range. Usually they don’t end up harming them, but since turtles always try to go home, they often make a turtle’s life pretty difficult.

Of course, people are harder on box turtles. Many turtles meet their end on a road, hit by a car – the most frequent reason all sorts of wild things are brought to wildlife rehabilitators. And then there is the ill-conceived notion that a turtle makes a good pet.

Remember, people, that if you remove or relocate a healthy box turtle found crossing the road, you may be separating it from its territory. It will likely make heroic efforts to return to its home turf. Some studies indicate that if a box turtle is released more than a half-mile from its territory, it may never find its way home–but it may spend five years searching for it.

Best bet, if you see a box turtle on the road…resist any temptation to think it will make a good pet; help it across, following its trajectory and perhaps watching to see that it makes it to safe ground. Then go away!

Cats indoors, turtles outdoors!

Baby Bird Central

Mrrrr Friends,

Wow, I’ve been busy.

There’s been no time for blogging with new visitors everywhere. And it’s hard to get inspiration to blog when you can’t go cat around in your own backyard without getting “lip” from flickers, chatter from wrens, wails from robins, and a host of complaints from titmice, grackles, and, always, catbirds.

I’m thrilled they are all having a successful breeding season, but I’m not going to eat baby birds…really, it is my honest intention not to eat them…maybe just a sniff and a lick?

Not that I’d have a chance because my person is accompanying me everywhere when I do get to go out during fledgling season.

Our House Wrens have about three babies, we think – maybe a week from fledging. They seem quite happy thus far. Their little house never gets too much direct sun and is well protected from storm winds. A brief, sunny warm-up in the morning, then a nice rocking breeze through the afternoon. We are looking forward to seeing them.

We already have a successful backyard robin nest. Here’s a picture of the youngster we saw up in our cedar tree. I am sad to report that the three eggs in our front yard nest were robbed one night a couple weeks ago. Likely it was a squirrel. Alex isn’t too fond of squirrels and likes to chase them.

The grackles also have children running about but no sign yet of catbird or flicker babies (woodpecker babies are just so cute…their little tongues are quite cool). And you never know with titmice…they are so quiet and secretive.

Here’s a backyard catbird scolding me. The front yard catbird’s a bit more chill…

No sign of the Baltimore Orioles. We hear them every so often, and we know there must be a nest somewhere down by the little beach, but we don’t know where the family from the recently felled Black Cherry relocated.

Oh, and we have Wisconsin prairie flowers coming right up where Alex can see them – she loves a good prairie garden.

Happy solstice!

More on new visitors soon…

New Tenants

We have tenants in our wren house.

Here’s a picture of the male wren. There is a female too, but she gets very shy when there are people around. Last week they were both taking small twigs from the cedar tree and adding them to the twigs already in the wren house.

House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) like these two will often make a “false nest” or two, but it is usually just the male. He’s covering his bets but also trying to shake off any cowbirds or competitor species. The fact that they were both adding to the nest box seems a good omen, but you never know with wrens.

Here’s a less-than-perfect video of the male singing above the house. This is territorial behavior, but it’s wonderful to hear. Turn your volume to medium or so; there’s a big boom noise at the end, it isn’t a gun shot but a delivery man in our neighbor’s driveway.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on their progress. The chances of fireworks are great…the house is a Carolina Wren house (Thryothorus ludovicianus) and they are bigger and often more assertive than their House Wren cousins. House Wrens, however, are no pushovers.

Check out the links to the two different wren species to the right in my “places to go” tab. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology always has cool bird information and great photos.

Beach Bum

I decided today to give the beach another try. I tried it last autumn and, I gotta tell you, it seems a high-risk situation for a cat. All that water: salty, usually sunny, hot and then there’s the big white gulls with the sharp beaks. I never know whether to trust a gull…

Anyway, I put on my harness and leash, and my person and I headed off down the road. She had to pick me up a couple times because I dislike trucks a great deal. It’s two blocks to the beach…the shorter block can have trucks, but once you get to the long block it’s better.

I am still a bit overwhelmed by the beach. The pebbles are cool, but the water is, well, it’s big…and it’s salty. I’m kind of a fresh water guy, but I’m working on it.

We strolled along the water a bit, but then I headed off to this bucolic spot just on the back side of the beach…a lovely saltwater pond with a Great Egret in it. I needed to go all the way to the edge to prove to myself that it really was salty water. (Black cat + sunny hot beach = thirsty cat.) I got my paws in it…yep, salty.

I’m getting used to it. When you calm down and start sniffing around, it’s a pretty amazing place. There’s so much that I don’t know out there, it’s going to take some exploration. I’m intrigued but cautious.

It was nice to get back and lay in the cool grass under the Sugar Maple.

Having a Good Time in Sag Harbor

Friends, we're interupting your Diesel Day celebration for a special blog. Read on!

As part of the Diesel Day celebration, my male person had an opening of a show of photographs from his new book, Keeping Time in Sag Harbor. All week long, he’s been scurrying about getting prints ready, finishing frames, thinking about programs for the show, and doing interviews with local journalists. I’ve lent a paw whenever I can.

On Thursday, the book arrived from the printer in Singapore, unbound. It was beautiful. We had a local bookbinder sew up a copy so people could see it during the opening. It will be a week or two before the first copies of the bound book arrive.

Honestly, this whole thing was planned separately from my own celebration, but I do think it is serendipitous that Diesel Day and my person’s opening fell on the same day.

We all had a lot of work to do to get ready for the show at the Whaling Museum. My role was to assist in the installation. I joined the museum director and my person yesterday morning to supervise the hanging. (For those of you wondering what Alex’s role was, she personally sat on every matted piece prior to framing, ensuring it had the cat-stamp of approval and just the right amount of fur inside the frame.)

The book itself was three years in the making. Alex and I spent many a late night up with Stephen, assisting with phrasing, providing comments and ideas, and generally supporting the writing of the book, planning of pictures, loading of film.

What you see here are the first images of the show, albeit as the installation was being finalized. Here I am overseeing the hanging of one wall.

I spent a lot of time eyeballing the images, making sure they were hanging straight – cats are experts at balance, you know, and we have a much finer sense of a horizontal plane than humans. Think about all that jumping, balancing, walking on backs of chairs we do. It involves a complex calculus that is simply innate to our species.

You can learn more about the show at the museum’s website; look to the right in my links section. The book – which has 94 of my male person’s photographs in it – is being distributed by the University of Chicago Press and will be in bookstores by mid-summer. If you are interested, go to your local bookseller and ask them to carry it.

E.L. Doctorow, writing about the book, said that my person “has an eye for the glories of an historic village – the way its past endures in its doorways, its gravestones, its fences, its finials. This lovely and loving book, attesting to the unorganized acts of preservation that have maintained the truth of a place for 300 years, is itself a scrupulous act of preservation.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Happy Diesel Day!!!

Consider a donation to my favorite animal shelter or yours!

The Sauk County Human Society can be reached at:
618 Highway 136
Baraboo, WI 53913
(608) 356-2520

Tell them Diesel sent you.

New post just below (part two of two)

Coming Home (a continuation)

I was sitting in my space on the top row, looking out at a couple kittens in large cages on the floor, when I heard Wendy’s voice. She’s the shelter director and she had kind of taken a shine to me.

She was walking ahead of a tall guy. He was very pleasant looking. She was saying something about ears healing. I’d been in a couple scrapes in my young life and in one of them my right ear was torn. Cats don’t use mirrors, so it wasn’t a big deal to me.

Wendy opened my cage and the tall guy was right there. I needed a stretch anyway, so I figured I’d take a walk. So, what the heck, I stood up and walked out of the cage, onto the tall guy’s shoulders. He seemed cool with it. I did a nice pivot, gave his head a good brush and sauntered back into the cage.

I think he was just a bit surprised. Wendy though, knew I was a charmer…I’d already charmed her and most of the women in the place. Just takes a few good manners and a little respect. It doesn’t hurt if you’re furry and have a nice face.

Anyway, after I returned to my cage and turned to look at the guy, I felt a real connection. He was looking at me in a way. It is hard to explain, but I think he saw something. Perhaps he recognized a fellow wordsmith. He asked for my name, I think…I felt a little lift, a bit of a flutter. But, you can’t get your hopes up.

A couple of days later a woman walked in. She saw the little furry guy two rows below me first…one of the kittens that came in with me. He had been pretty worried about the whole ordeal and had asked me some advice the night before about looking at the people who came to look at him. What could he do, he asked, to stick out from the crowd?

I liked the furry little guy. He was black like me. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to teach him the head tilt. You look deep into the eyes of your potential admirer, cock your head firmly but ever so slightly to one side and give a plaintive little mrrrw. Works every time.

The kid was a natural, he was devastating…I regretted teaching him the move immediately. Then again, how could I begrudge him a good move? It’s like a book idea…you can tell someone your idea and they might use it…but they’ll never execute it quite the way you will.

So this woman, she’s totally sucked into the kitten. But somehow – perhaps she realizes he has nothing yet to follow up with – she looks away from him. Our eyes meet. It was nice, really nice. I liked her. She was interested in me. We just looked at each other a bit.

She went away. She came back. Next thing, the door to my space is open and we’re talking. We spend some quality time together on the floor. But, after a time, she leaves. I can’t quite shake the memory of her.

Time passes. I don’t think it was more than a couple bowls of food later. Here they come in together her and the tall guy! Wow. The door is open and suddenly I smell the glorious smell of catnip. Fresh, organic catnip…laced with a scent I could only describe at the moment as stripey girl cat smell. (Oh, yeah, cats can smell color.) It is a furry mouse. I can’t help myself…it’s all licking and rubbing and purring. They are nice. We talk…

Then they go again, but they leave the mouse. It was rugged.

But one short bowl of food later, there she is. She’s picking me up. We’re signing papers together, taking vows to care for each other. She’s paying my bill for me. Into a nice carrier and then into a very nice black Volvo with a big purring engine and very nice suede seats (I made a mental note to remember to mark these later…didn’t want to get possessive right out of the box.)

Right at that moment, I could have done without the trip to the vet…but, in retrospect, it was the right thing to do.

Then I went home…which is not so much any one place but a set of emotions and relationships that are fulfilling. I owe a lot to the good folks at the Sauk County Humane Society but, I love my home.

As soon as we had some quiet time that evening, I did the head tilt move. I guess it worked.

In the Beginning

Dear Friends,

As part of our celebration leading up to Diesel Day, I thought I’d share a bit about how I got to be a former Midwestern shelter cat living the good life on the East End of Long Island.

The beginnings of my life are foggy to me. I remember my mom but not too much about my brothers and sisters, except for the fact that there were quite a few of us and not enough milk dispensers to go around.

I was young and curious and very attracted to the outside world and to books and newsprint. At the time, I primarily considered these comfortable, insulating objects, but later I would recognize that I was, from the very beginning, attracted to words. I roamed a bit as cats will, exploring my world.

Next thing I remember, I was in LaValle, Wisconsin, a tiny town west of Baraboo. I had teamed up with another guy a little older than me, Orange Cat. Orange Cat and I had found some people who did pretty good at bringing in food…we were young and foolish and didn’t really know what human commitment was.

Over time, several small cats, kittens really, joined us. By the time of the incident, there were eight of us.

Up to that point in my life, I really wasn’t thinking about the big picture. I was just going from day to day, doing the best I could. Having Orange Cat around was nice. The incident changed my life.

Again, all this is a bit foggy. One day, the eight of us were in the house. There was a little food but the people were gone. There was no way out. Orange Cat and I did the best we could to keep the spirits of our companions up, but we had a frightening few days. I don’t really know how many. I do remember promising myself that if I got out of this, I’d pay much more attention to the things around me and be more thoughtful.

We heard the sound of a vehicle. We saw several people, they seemed nice but nonetheless we were scared. They scooped up the kittens, it didn’t take them too long to get Orange Cat and me too, put us in carriers, and we went for a ride. They took us to the shelter.

The next few weeks are really a blur. Everyone was nice but they were also very firm. I took another trip, south this time. I stayed for a while there for a medical checkup and a surgery – no kittens for me! Then I was back at the Sauk County Humane Society. I had a penthouse cage: a cubicle like everyone else but on the top row where I could see everything going on.

My buds from the house were with me. We all had new names. Orange Cat was named Tucker and I was named Diesel…I think because I am dark and have flecks of white. One of the little guys from the house was just below me.

Every day people came to look at me and the folks taking care of all of us would talk to us, pet us, and let us out from time to time to explore our room. Food was regular. I got my picture taken for the first time. I figured the deal was to get one of the visitors to take me home, but how do you know who to pick?

Then I met the tall guy…



(to be continued...)

Celebrate Diesel Day!

MrrrrRrrr Friends,

Saturday 26 May is Diesel Day – a day of celebration and thanksgiving for the good that furry companions can bring into human lives and for the humans that work hard to see that beings like me find the homes and people of their dreams. It is the day I was adopted by my people from the Sauk County Humane Society in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

My blogs this week will be devoted to getting you revved up to celebrate with me.

I’m betting that none of you has gotten through life without caring for a furry or feathered creature or, at least, enjoying the momentary company of a friend’s dog, marveling at the feathers on a companion bird, or sharing the wise glance of a cat. Most of the companion animals I’ve met in my life – and I’ve met quite a few – are yearning to be in a relationship with a human. To be sure, that’s all about living securely, knowing you will be fed, kept warm, and given the respect and care due to any living thing. It is, however, also about companionship, friendship, and love.

But let’s face it, there are a lot of us out there. Because we are determined to live and love, we reproduce. Hey, we’re animals (just like you), and we simply have the urge to merge.

In the US, one 1990 estimate has 60 million cats in the care of people. That does not include the number of wanderers or free-roaming cats, which may be just as high. I can’t help you with how many dogs there are, but the news is that cats are the most populous home animal.

So the people who care for us when we are otherwise uncared for are an important part of the equation. It is a tough world out there. More cats die from being struck by cars than by any other means. But many of those struck may be impaired in some other way: a fight with another animal, exposure to a chemical, exhaustion, hunger, and, I am very sad to say, sometimes by abuse from humans. We don’t want to be confined, but we do want to be cared for.

It is then, a mixed bag when we end up in our local shelter. It’s warm, we get medical care, good food, and, in most cases, a second chance. But we do sit in smallish cages and wait…it can be agonizing at times. Certainly, there are bad places that pretend to be shelters, run by unscrupulous people with no honor. The majority of shelters, however, are run by people with big hearts and good intentions who know how to pull in the knowledge and expertise to care for their animals well. I was lucky enough to land in one of these and my debt to the good folks of the Sauk County Humane Society is great.

You note I don’t use the “P” word. It’s just that my friends and I feel that we aren’t here solely for the enjoyment of humans. We think our lives – simple seeming though they may be – have an integrity of their own. No offense, but “pet” seems so much based on ownership. We’d rather be your friends. So I choose companion animal…longer but basically more respectful.

Okay, so what’s my point?

I’d like you to celebrate Diesel Day with me. If you have a furry friend in your life, if you ever have had such a friend, if you know someone who depends on an animal companion, if you’ve smiled at a dog with its person, or a cat laying in someone’s lap, or a Mynah bird’s bawdy language, or if you simply enjoy this blog, it is a good time to give something back.

I’ll be sharing part of my story with you later this week. The upshot, though, is that I wouldn’t be here without the good people at the Sauk County Humane Society. They rescued me, they made sure I was healthy, and they worked like crazy to find me a home. And they found me the home beyond my dreams.

Please consider supporting the lives of misplaced animals and the good people that work to keep them healthy and find them homes. I am hoping that you might take the time to do one (or more) of the following this week in celebration of Diesel Day.

1/ Make a donation to the Sauk County Humane Society - $5, $15, $50 or, better yet, $150 buys food, medical care, toys, pays the electric, heat, and other overhead and ensures the shelter has the staff it needs to run efficiently. I urge you to write and send a check on or before Saturday 26 May and note on it that you’ve contributed in celebration of Diesel Day – believe me, they remember me.

2/ Donate a HUGE bag of food to the Sauk County Humane Society. You know how I love food! I ate many bags when I was there. They serve Purina Cat and Kitten Chow. Take it right in and tell them you brought it in celebration of Diesel Day.

3/ Find your local shelter, go in, and ask them how you can help. If money is as tight for you as it is for them, consider volunteering an hour a two a week cleaning, working with records, or helping with the animals. You could even join the Board if you have that set of skills. Tell them a certain ex-shelter cat sent you.

4/ Ask your veterinarian if they support a local shelter by donating their time to help care for the animals there. Tell them it is important to you that there is a network of animal health care professionals supporting the local shelter. My Wisconsin vet, Mara, gave me a free first visit – complete with shots – because my person adopted me from the shelter.

Remember, most shelters are 501(c) 3 not-for-profit charities. They run entirely on donations – which are, for the money-minded among you, tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

I promise I will not be hitting you up like this very often, but I do hope you will act. I still have extended family in Wisconsin and, you never know, you may be directly aiding a furry cousin of mine…another future feline blogger.

Giving away without regret is one of the most important things a being can do. You’ll be amazed at what comes back to you. Granted, it is a crap shoot…someone might give you back some really ugly toy with no catnip in it…but you gotta try.

The Sauk County Human Society can be reached at:
618 Highway 136
Baraboo, WI 53913
(608) 356-2520

Tell them Diesel sent you.

Diesel is Here

Mrrrrr,

There’s a disturbing development on the street. Or maybe it is a regional thing.

A couple of you have been quite distressed, so I feel the need to reassure you. I am here, in the little house, not anywhere else. Believe me, if I get in a car again soon, I’ll yowl about it ahead of time.

So the signs you see on the side of the road at particular retail outlets proclaiming, “We have Diesel,” they are really just taking a further step into merchandising. They don’t actually have me. It’s okay.

But why the move from the simple celebration of my name to a cockeyed claim to have actually purloined me? Is it more appealing? Do they think business will improve because of this odd shift from a word to a phrase? Or is this evidence of a deeper problem? Does it indicate that the dominant human society these days has moved from a practical service/consumer orientation to a kind of slavish consumption/possession?

When did humans in this society go from having enough to wanting more and more?

We have a rule here. If you buy one thing…especially a new thing (as opposed to something gently used by another) you have to get rid of one, preferably, two things in the same category. It doesn’t always work out, but it seems a good intention. That goes for cat toys usually too…though I work to maintain a certain level of need by ravaging particular cat toys, rendering them…well, rending them asunder.

We buy used things when possible. Cat toys are not often in that category, but we go for (a) biodegradable and (b) organic. Used things can be cool. Old furniture, stuff other people don’t want but still care for and want to find someone else who will enjoy it…even older cars. My humans have a thing for older Volvos…though they look forward to buying a used hybrid car someday.

And then there’s a good old boat….

Rusty Stormy

The little house is in bloom. We have forsythia, daffodils, lilac, Japanese cherry trees, dogwood and then all those green and red leaves (King maple, copper beech, sycamore, sugar maple) unfolding. It is quite a sight.

On top of that, there’s sage and allium coming up, and my male person brought us several of Alex’s prairie plants from Wisconsin: yellow and purple coneflower and ox-eye sunflowers.

It is so lovely that Rusty Stormy came by just to check it out yesterday afternoon. I was in the back yard at the time.

It was a good meeting. RS was quite the gentleman. He stayed his distance after we sighted each other. He did a full-tail salute, standing tall and still for several minutes. I, being a cat, do not salute. Instead, I strolled casually about on the side of the back yard near the garage, putting my back to RS and calmly walking about.

I then walked a few paces toward him and casually marked the nearby cherry tree. He walked a few paces away from me, toward the back of the yard and playfully rolled several times. It was not a serious invitation, but it was nice to see that he has potential as a play companion. He then retook his position. We stared at each other a few minutes (quite boring really). Then he woofed, walked a few steps toward me, turned, and ambled to the back of the yard and homeward.

As I said, it was a good meeting. Quite promising, really. Every cat is looking for a good dog. One he can join forces with when circumstances warrant. A good dog, though, is hard to find.

Raccoons and Retrievers

It’s a fairly simple life out here. In between our people’s continuing organizing activities, Alex and I have been going outside for our supervised visits. We sniff around the house and shrubbery to suss out the various nocturnal visitors to our new home, eat a little grass, roll in the dirtiest spots we can find. I do perimeter duty every day smelling the exterior corners of the house, checking under boats, marking bushes and, if needed, plants. Alex focuses on the front yard, doing blade-by-blade analysis.

We are noting two sets of frequent visitors, besides Ricky the mailman. First, there’s Rusty Stormy, a big galoot of a Golden Retriever. Sweet enough looking for a dog, but it is fundamentally disturbing to a cat to see a dog just stroll into the yard as if he owns it. He just appears, strolling (we don’t think he moves faster than an amble) through the yard, smelling stuff as he goes. He rarely stops for any period. He is never accompanied by a person. One day Alex or I will be out there when he comes through. What will happen?

Then there’s Fric and Frac. Alex named them. They are two adult raccoons who must live nearby. We hear them but rarely see them. They make quite eerie growling sounds at night as they check to see if our neighbor has any clams in his garage. Then they come over to our house to look for the trash can that used to sit outside. Occasionally, they bring over “take out.”

Raccoons will eat just about anything. Their populations have grown as individuals have become habituated to humans, as humans have encroached more and more into remaining wooded areas, and as humans have become careless about leaving trash and other raccoon food (dog and cat food, for example) unattended outside at night.

The amazing thing about raccoons is that they have thumbs! Really. They aren’t opposable like human thumbs, but if you are wondering why they can get into almost anything – especially your feeble trash can – this is it.

We like Fric and Frac, as long as we are inside and they are out. Their thin striped faces with the large eyes remind me a bit of Alex. But a lot of folks don’t seem too fond of them. I don’t imagine they are too fond of many folks, either.

Small Thoughtless Devastations

We had a bad day today. The new neighbor lady – who took control of the house after the death of our long-time neighbor and friend, her mother-in-law – killed one of the most beautiful mature Wild (Black) Cherry trees I’ve ever seen.

It soared about 80 feet high and the four symmetrical main branches of the trunk spread out perfectly forming a beautiful crown. It swayed in the wind gracefully. We loved having it watch over our home. I’m glad I got to spend last autumn with it. It was just leafing out this week and would have had lovely white blossoms mid-May.

My person says that every year a pair of Baltimore Orioles built a nest near its crown, hanging from the very end of one of the thinnest longest branches. Using plant leaves, orioles take up to 15 days to build a soft bulbous nest that hangs, delicate but sturdy, from the branch. They line it with feathers. Baltimore Oriole populations, and other songbirds, have been declining in recent years. It was originally thought this was because of habitat loss in their Central and South American wintering grounds. Now many experts think one of the primary reasons is loss of nesting habitats – trees for some, grasslands for others – here in North America.

I guess that’s one less tree for breeding birds.

This tree was our friend. It had stood for over 50 years, growing slowly, watching the world change around it. It had another 50 years in it at least – some live well over 200 years. The new neighbor lady didn’t like the tree because people tracked the small, late-summer fruits that fell on the edge of her yard and driveway into her house (a house no one lives in now).

Prunus serotina – Black or Wild Cherry – is a native to the eastern US. It was also one of the first trees imported from the New World to England, where trees were present in English gardens as early as 1629.

In most Algonquin Indian cultures, and for us, this tree was also one of our ancestors. A direct tie to our history, to the earth we live on, and to our relationship with the world. It rooted us, helped us to look around and outside of ourselves – up and skyward, to see the beauty around us.

That’s one less tree to lift our souls. A connection has been thoughtlessly cut away. As have some of the ties that bind us to the natural world that holds us.

It is difficult to look at the sky right now because our friend is not there.

Moving, Part 2

Mrrrrrr,

Well, there’s leaving, and then there’s arriving. With humans, both rarely seem to be discreet events. Cats, we wolf down a little extra food, make sure we have on a sturdy catsuit, and we leave. We get somewhere, wolf down a little food and go to sleep – a sure sign that we’ve arrived.

Alex and I have been unpacking with our humans. And I thought packing was difficult!

Unpacking can be fun for cats because there is lots of rumpled paper ready for pursuit. It is, at the same time, very boring for cats because of the prevalence of vacuum cleaner use and the constant morphing of cat runways: one minute a fellow can scamper from end to end of the house, unobstructed, chasing his gal pal, and the next minute there are 3 chairs to be climbed and 2 boxes to be forded.

It has only been a week since our good friend Joel backed the 14-foot high, 21-foot long truck, packed to the roof with people stuff, into the driveway after driving 1127 miles. Talk about a definition of friendship! We have other definitions ready at hand: friends helping repair a boat trailer, friends helping load heavy boxes, friends providing food and drink, friends simply being good companions.

Since the big truck backed up to the little house, a myriad of goodies have come out of the truck. The truck then disappeared – I dread to think that someone else will soon begin doing what we’ve been doing. We were left with a fully furnished front yard and garage. I was a bit worried about that, but the people did finally bring the stuff inside.

We unpacked a kitchen, put together two big beds, laid the thick rugs, hung clothes in closets, positioned litter boxes, settled chests of drawers (sometimes with a cat or two in them), lamps, electronics, a camel saddle, a horse saddle, and all the other stuff that people use and cats keep marked.

Then we did some very cool work cutting and laying a new floor in the basement. I was integral to this project, sitting on various portions of the flooring as it was cut, sometimes redirecting the angle of the cutting tool with my paw, and often going under the flooring just before it was laid to ensure the concrete was clean underneath. I was a little worried about installing this vinyl product, but it didn’t stink, required no glues (yucky and toxic) or tacks (bad for cat paws) so, given the ease of installation and the cushy, warm result (the basement is becoming part cat pad, part storage area), I think it was a sound choice.

Yesterday, after all this work and lots more shuffling things around and unpacking, our people reached a milestone – they claim they got all the furniture, rugs, lamps, and other goodies in their proper places. Of course there’s lots of little stuff yet…

We’ve got a nice big guestroom now with a nice comfy feather bed. Who’s first?!

Food Foibles

Friends,

There are few things as important to me as food. Having been deprived of it for certain periods in my youth, I’m serious about what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat. I like dry cat kibble augmented by the strategic and surreptitious enjoyment of my people’s food. Why, only today I was licking some lovely egg salad on fresh French bread in the temporary absence of my person! I also very much enjoy accenting various foods with a deep whiff of a good Bordeaux or, lately, a nice Long Island Cabernet.

It has come to my attention that Pounce Treats are one of the companion animal food items recently recalled because of contamination by melamine found in wheat gluten – one of the ingredients. I mentioned Pounce in a prior post and just want all of you to check the Food and Drug Administration’s web site before you share it, or any other processed animal food, with any cats.

Today, an even wider recall is being belatedly announced. Wilber Ellis, a large company that among a myriad of other things, supplies rice protein concentrate to several big American cat and dog food companies, found melamine in a supply shipment from China. Neither rice protein concentrate, nor wheat gluten, sound very tasty to me, and I’d prefer not having it in my food. I doubt that even dogs like the sound of this stuff.

Straight from the FDA web site: “melamine is a small, nitrogen-containing molecule that has a number of industrial uses, including as an industrial binding agent, flame retardant and as part of a polymer in the manufacture of cooking utensils and plates. Melamine has additionally been used as a fertilizer in some parts of the world. It is not registered for use as a fertilizer in the United States.” Mrooooow!

This is not the first time that lethal chemicals have gotten mixed up in food production chains. Unfortunately, many manufacturing or processing plants handle many different kinds of products. Mishandling and mix-ups are inevitable. Then again, a Reuter’s story suggests that the addition of melamine might have been a means to boosting the protein measurements (and dollar value) of the wheat and rice products. If this is true, it is an outrage. Animals in the care of humans should not die because they eat the food they are fed.

Alex and I hope that all people who care for animals in their homes are keeping an eye on the FDA page, The Humane Society web site, checking out a blog called Itchmo, or talking to your vet. We’ve just started eating a new food ourselves (trying to get off the corn fillers in our old food) and, frankly, our people can’t help but be nervous.

Random testing of relevant product facilities and stricter legal controls for how and where animal food (from cats to cattle) is processed would be a good idea. Laws could be tightened regarding ingredient labels. If a company changes the formulation of their product, they should have to change the bag label prior to its distribution and sale – I’ve heard this doesn’t always happen. These are partial solutions, but perhaps good steps toward a safer food supply for people and cats. Another good step would be investigative reporting of this situation by the press. We’d be interested to hear about other good steps.

Our people thoroughly research our food, what’s in it, consider the company that makes it, and yowl at appropriate responsible parties when bad things happen. As to the current dilemma, Alex and I have discussed the idea of our people cooking for us – some cats actually enjoy that – but I can’t imagine what the point is. Human food is only good when combined with the excitement of the clandestine lick or the purloined fragment.

Human Politics and Journalism

Mrrrrrrrr,

Dear friends. I’ve been receiving e-mail requests for insight on the 2008 elections. I’m not a terribly political animal by nature, however, I do believe in the democratic process and the importance of all voices being heard. If I have thoughts to share with you as we get closer to the election, I’ll pass them on. Right now, I’m still adjusting to a Democratic field without Senator Feingold, reading up on Clinton, Edwards, and Obama, and wondering just what Mr. Gore is going to do, if anything.

I get much of my news from the web through standard sources like AP, Reuters, and, on the environmental front, Grist Magazine and High Country News. But I still love the touch and feel of newsprint under my paws. I am looking forward to receiving the Sunday edition of the New York Times again, delivered right to my people’s door. Nothing like literally ripping through the sports section on the way to the Week in Review. In terms of weekly magazines, I enjoy The Economist and The Nation. I try to read them in nice light while sitting on a comfortable lap. (It helps to have your person turn the pages.)

I’ve also been known to use a headset to listen to NPR via the computer. It often helps me relax. It also gives me something to do when my person is being incredibly boring and I’m not up to a game of chase with Alex.

On a recent spin through The Economist on-line I found this cogent video analysis. Move your mouse cursor over the black box to reveal the player controls. Then, hit the “play” button (the funny triangle on the left). You must have the Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer to view the video.

Hope it works for you. This is my first foray into posting video on my blog. The video is no longer available, sorry!

Mountains, Rivers, and Tails

Day 2

We had made it to Milan, Ohio (exit 118) at the end of Day 1 and stayed in the Super 8 hotel. I am fond of Super 8 and Red Roof Inns because they are cat friendly. My person likes these two hotels in particular because they are convenient to the Four Monks Italian restaurant – an oasis of simple good food and wine amidst the culinary desert of I-80.

Speaking of food and wine, my suggestion to cat friendly hotel owners is this – a kitty hospitality basket. After a long day on the road, a little organic catnip, a can of Pounce, some fresh litter, bottled water, and something intriguing to play with after we get bored of smelling all four corners of the room, would mean a great deal. Think about it: happy cat people, less yowling, more sleep.

After our refreshing night of sleep, we skirted around Cleveland and, soon after, dipped into a wonderful gorge – the Cuyahoga River Valley – giving us a little taste of the geological wonders that awaited us in Pennsylvania. We also encountered “long scary truck.” Who decided that a big truck could safely pull three long trailers down a highway at 65 mph? Watching these things slide and shift from side to side is, well, scary.

Did I mention that it rained through much of our trip? But on Day 2 of the drive, the clouds and the fog were quite wonderful.

Pennsylvania was a treat. Eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania have a lot in common – they are both dominated by the Ohio River Valley. As we drove further east on I-80, we met the impressive Appalachian Mountains – long wrinkly folds of hills running kitty corner from northeast to southwest.


The pictures we took didn’t do them justice but the clouds were quite wonderful and the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. Midway through the eastern half of the state we crossed the Susquehanna. As Midwesterners with experience in big rivers, my person and I were, nevertheless, again impressed by this winding big river.

When we hit New Jersey, almost eight hours after our driving day began, I had had enough. I relaxed in the back seat for the remainder of the trip, even though the Delaware Water Gap was ahead. I only came up to announce to my driver that I was ready to be home as we crossed the George Washington Bridge.

It was midnight by the time we navigated the twists and turns of the NYC expressway system, made the drive along the spine of the fish toward the lower end of the tail, and landed in the little house. At last, we were home on our island on an island.

I have instituted a six month moratorium on car travel for me and for Alex.

Wandering Indiana

Mrrrr,

Hello, friends! It has taken me a few days to catch up on sleep and food after that two-day, six-state, cross-country marathon. I wanted to share with you some scattered notes from my journey.

Day 1

Last time I traveled to New York, I was in the back seat of the car. I was so overwhelmed by Lake Michigan and Chicago that I fell asleep and missed all of Indiana.

This trip, my plan was to catch some sleep ahead of time so as to test a hypothesis. If Indiana is “the Crossroads of America,” as the state license plate proclaims, is it true that everyone just drives through – as one of my people maintains – or, do folks really live there?
I have concluded that people do live in Indiana, and it is a fairly cool state. I saw farms, homes, schools, hospitals, and more. My person would not stop for photo ops so I was forced to snap these while standing on her lap at 75mph.



The people of Indiana are on the cutting edge of some cool wildlife stuff. This blurry photo shows a radar detection system along the Indiana Toll Road. (And you thought it was an art shot.) If an animal comes within a few yards of the highway (it is set up for deer but I’m thinking a raccoon or a marmot might also set it off?), lights begin to flash and signs (the yellow blurry thing) attached to them tell drivers to slow down, as an animal may be on the road. Indiana State has been testing this system with the support of the Humane Society of the United States and others. It is going so well, they are expanding the system.

So, as darkness fell and we progressed eastward toward Ohio, the moon rose and I tucked into a satisfied snooze knowing my person’s perverse hyperbole (a relic dating back to her home state and the Hoosier/Show Me wars) about this lovely state had been put aside for good.