Brook Alert!

Mrrrr Friends,

It has been rainy the past few days. I'm happy padding about in the wet grass especially in our back yard. Sometimes, it takes a little reminding for Oom to remember her top priority, outdoor explorations with the cat, right after the morning cuppa.

This morning it was grey and cloudy, but I was looking forward to catching up after a few days away from dedicated perambulating.

The Juncos are here and many a nattering Nuthatch.

Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees already. They are fun to chase when they are dry but also provide amusement when wet. Clumps come along that just seem life-like to the paw...so they must be neutralized - rumpled up and battered about a bit. It keeps humans in a good mood too when you've drug them out on a rainy and wet day.

So we strolled out to our bench. The brook has been loud since the long rains of the other day and I knew it would be worth checking out, but it was fun to see how high and how fast.

Here's the view from our bench...that's my usual mid-brook meditation rock on the left there and the path I usually hop along (from the tree trunk on the right) is, as you can see, inundated.
Nevertheless, undaunted, I went to to make sure. Nope no crossing here.

And look upstream...this is usually pretty tame.

Nevertheless, I puttered upstream along the bank and found a nice little tree root sticking out that allowed me a good perch for looking into the water and catching a few tasty licks.

Afterwards, I tried to talk to one of the little White-breasted Nuthatches scolding me from the fine pine tree. He wasn't having any of it and wouldn't even pose for a photo.

But we did think the lichen on the pine was quite lovely.
I still have not yet scaled the big pine...I did a run up today but instead chose to tackle one of the lindens overlooking my brook. (Be patient.)

We've included my aborted first set so you can see the careful head-bobbing motion that takes place from launch and all during the climb. Even when I chose to not climb at the last minute, I always continue this scanning motion as it is critical to measuring trunk girth in relationship to grip and velocity. In the end, that was a pretty low climb for my standards but, given it was a new tree - single trunk, no branches, I was pleased with the effort (though the cameraperson still faces a learning curve...perhaps a little advanced technology would help?)

Not bad for a rainy weekend.

Recovery

Mrrrrr Friends,

I know you've been wondering: where's the Big D?

Trips take a lot out of a cat, no doubt about it. On top of that, when we came back from the little house, where it was warm and toasty outside, it was dipping down into the 20's at night in our corner of the Adirondacks with some frequency. So, I've been focussing on sleeping.

And I've been eating.

And I've been engaging in cat-antics.

Just in case you were wondering.

Travelogue

Mrrrr Friends,

They say a picture is worth a thousand flecks of kibble...humans have a variant on this wise cat saying, but you get the picture.

What are they thinking, my people? Are they concerned that U-Haul will go belly-up (another odd human saying because a belly-up cat is quite pleasing, when you think about it)? That, or, more likely, they are gluttons for punishment.

We drive 7 hours back to the little house, Oom takes off to party in Santa Fe with the people she computer-writes to all day long when she's home "working," Boo hangs out with people talking about an old dead guy who walked around 100 years ago drawing and taking photos of town, then they get this little, ugly rolling dog house and try to cram all kinds of leftover stuff in it.

I just don't get humans. They don't give a cat much of a chance at understanding.

Don't get me wrong. Alex and I got some great Hamptons party time in. I was pretty busy hanging with Uncle David, my cool North Haven human neighbor who has old boats cats can play in, plenty of power tools - including the Sawzall reciprocating saw, likes staring at fish in water, and enjoys sitting in the garage in the morning hanging with me. For some reason, he didn't buy the house next door to us in our new home in the big park. I'm going to miss him.

I also partied with some of my old friends in the neighborhood. Boo "lost track" of me for a while. I showed up after a bit of revelry and dust painting - the Hamptons is an artsy scene for cats.

Oom got back and was all tired and sick after the New Mexico party, so we opted for a nice romantic dinner for two... Three of the four cat food groups: double cream cheese, a good red wine, and dead bird - Alex likes bread, but I prefer kibble. Boo figured it out and brought his own chair.

The next day, this nice guy named George came over and told stories (more about the dead guy who took pictures) but let me make long-distance calls on his cool hip phone. Oom should get one of these instead of the kind that flips over like a clam, making it hard for a cat to make long-distance calls.

We had more nice red wine that night - this one from Hungarian Oak casks. A nice complement to the roaring fire of dry sticks from all the great climbing trees in the yard. It was our last night all together in the little house.

Then this began.

And it went on all day and into the night.

I walked out of the house to a packed car and trailer at 8:00 in the evening. I took a deep breath, saddled up, and hung on for the next 8 hours at 55 miles per hour back north. I slept through most of it - except for the nice little Tom Kha Kai Thai soup break. At the end of it all, somewhere near Albany, I had to comfort Oom a bit as Alex decided to present unscheduled wailing oratory from about 2 am to 3:21 am.

It's good to be back inside the Blue Line. We're never leaving again.

Ever.

Period.

Island Bound

Mrrrr Friends,

We’re heading south for a few days.

Alex and I were getting that something’s-going-to-happen-that-involves-the-litterbox-in-the-car vibe from our people for quite a few days. I was worried for a minute there that I was going to have to go back to the vet with Alex…but then the big rolling suitcase came out.

That means Oom is flying on a plane somewhere to drink, talk, and eat lots of food with the people she normally just talks to on the phone and e-mails a lot. Board meeting and conference she says…Boo and I refer to these as “bored meetings.”

Though she always seems reluctant to go – she just misses my furriness so much, I think – she must have a pretty good time, because she does this at least three times a year.

But we’re all going to the little house on Long Island first. I’m gonna remark the yard one last time. As I understand it, because we don’t live there anymore, Boo’s mom traded it for money and some other people are going to live there. She should take the money and invest it in kibble and cat toys, but that’s a whole other topic….

It’s all a little sad for Boo because he spent lots of time there starting when he was a human kitten. And he likes water with salt in it, which I think is yucky, but it is pretty. I’ll miss the fine trees there and I’ll miss my neighbor David, but…I’m a cat and moving on is really okay…indeed, it will feel more like a visit than a going away. Me, I live in the Adirondacks and I’m good with that. I just like sticking with my people and Alex.

Alex is going back too. She needs to oversee the relocation of her Prairie garden. Boo planted it for her in Wisconsin. Then we took part of it to the little house. Now we’ll move it here and transplant it again. I’ll take some pictures of it for you in the spring.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll get in while I’m away. Indeed, I might take one of those mysterious cat walk-abouts.

Don’t miss me too much.

Before I go, here’s a couple pictures of the cool fungi I found on my climbing tree. (See it up there on the trunk in the middle of the photo? The leaning trunk on the right is my primary scaling trunk in the Linden.)

I was just bolting up the tree trunk one day and there it was. Kind of surprised me. I thought it was pretty and kind of creamy, musty smelling, so we got a photo of it. I like the way it grew out of an old branch hole.

Oom knows nothing about mushroomy things. I just know it was nice to have it there for a while. Cold nights have reduced it to a fraction of its former self. What is its name?

Ranger Rob - Part II

Mrrrr Friends,

I know you’ve been wondering. But some of you knew we were going to think about burning. All those nice dry blackberry stalks and dead wood and things would make a nice little bonfire. And it’s autumn…so it just seems a nice opportunity to partake in one of those cross-cultural human obsessions – burning stuff. 

Obviously, cats are fascinated by fire. Visually, it is very interesting, and there is the warmth thing. But we are also fascinated by the human desire to set fires as frequently as possible. (We assume you do it because you can…the opposable thumb thing?) There’s the cooking thing, we get that…but this whole wood/brush fire thing, as long you haven’t treated it with anything, that’s just plain entertaining. Now, the trash burning thing is yucky. Especially plastic stuff - stinky, smelly, toxic yucky. Here in New York, they finally figured that out and have banned all trash burning effective soon. In the Adirondack Park, you can imagine that fires are a serious business from the get-go.

So my people applied for a burn permit from the Man. In this case the Man was the DEC, that’s Department of Environmental Conservation to you. I was very excited because the Ranger said he was coming over to the house to give us our permit.

The other morning, we were visited by our local Ranger, Ranger Rob. He lives upstream a ways and has a little boy person. It sounds like they play in the same stream we do.  He met me, gave Oom our permit and walked out and chatted for a bit about where we live.

We had questions about critters and plants and other stuff, and Ranger Rob had answers.

Let’s get straight to the big news: Oom was wrong, I was right. I knew I was seeing critters in my brook…Ranger Rob says the Brookies get to 12” upstream and that they live in our part of the stream too. I’ve always wanted to be engaged in the native trout fishery. I’m already making plans to improve trout habitat on our little portion of the stream.

Equally important: there are quite a few fishers among us. This kind:

Now, I know fishers can be dangerous, and that a cat might seem a tasty treat (though my tracker friends in Wisconsin feel that fishers don’t really want to eat house cats), still I feel a real affinity for these little guys. Look at that photo…doesn’t the little furry guy look a lot like me in action?

The trees in the wild side of the yard that Oom couldn’t figure out? Fire or Pin Cherry (Prunus pensylvanica). Nice little native that, in our yard, hangs out with a bunch of bushy alders that we can’t quite pin down species-wise.

And we talked about the likelihood of deer (certainly), moose (maybe), coyotes (maybe), skunk and raccoon (uh-huh), Ravens and Broad-winged Hawks (yep, yep). We’ve met the latter two, but I’m looking forward to meeting the others – from an appropriate distance, mind you. We’ll hope that if Alex sees a moose, she’ll choose not to chase it – she did this once with a deer…the deer was so amazed, it ran. I hear moose poop smells nice and musty.

Ranger Rob was full of information critically important to a furry feline looking forward to introducing himself into his new environment. And he was a nice quiet kind of man. I hope we can invite him back soon…maybe he could come and help with the new trout hatchery I’m planning?

Oh, the burn permit?

We had quite a little scorcher on the parking pad. Alex and I stayed in and watched from the windows. In a couple hours it was over…amazing how quickly all that work went up in smoke.

Ranger Rob - Part I

Mrrrr Friends,

I’ve mentioned my humans’ predilection for outdoor busy-ness? It seems to have reached new levels over the past 2 weeks. Boo kept going outside on the roof of the house with sandpaper and paint. After all kinds of sanding and hammering, he’d take out a can of white paint, and then cans of grey paint. I think he’s getting indecisive. Alex kept trying to help him, but the thought of her zipping around the rooftops makes his knees turn to jelly. Here he is out with the little scamp on his shoulders.

But Oom took the cake with her activities of late last week into this past weekend. She spent days pretty much murdering all kinds of brambly plants in order to make one particular part of the yard safe for big tall blackberries. Pretty species-ist, if you ask me, but then again, I kind of like the big, tall stalks. Walking through them makes me feel like I’m some cool explorer cat…and it has opened up a whole new area for digging holes and filling them up with goodies.

Here’s one end of the row of freed up stalks. Some of them are 6 to 7 feet high. Look at all those big piles of stuff! And this picture has about ¼ of what she pulled out. She was getting kind of possessed there at the end. We found a sweet little volunteer Trembling Aspen – we think – all covered by vines and shaded by Staghorn Sumac, something we have a bit too much of, in my opinion. I have hopes of climbing the aspen someday, but the sumac, just isn’t climbing material. The birds like it so, for their sake, much of it remains even after the hillside vegetation genocide.

Now we have all these nice blackberry plants all ready to do their thing next year. But we also had a big old pile of soon to be dead stuff to add to the already big pile of already dead stuff that they’d collected over the past few months.

Now what?