Raven

I saw a Raven today flying not too high in the sky, Corvus corax. What a beautiful bird. He was a feathery black man and, as a furry black man, I felt a natural affinity.

I knew he was Raven because of the fluid beat of his wings and the articulation of the “finger” feathers, his primaries. Oom was with me and we felt he had a profile reminiscent of a Goshawk…flap, flap, flap, glide. Not like a crow…crows row their wings when they fly. But those finger feathers…I was really impressed. Like synchronized cat tails they were…smooth and strong.

And speaking of tails, his was splayed out when we saw him, like a buteo.

Big bird; big black bird.

The Lost Weekday

Mrrrr Friends,

It’s been a rough few sun and moon cycles for this furry black cat. Things were copasetic. The changing weather, nights cold enough to wake to light frost, and the leaves turning, took me to my Zen cat place. Nice chilly nights sleeping on and between my people…coat thickening, no long lectures about black fur dust bunnies. I felt like I had things under control – 30 lb bag of cat food in the freezer, 40 lbs of cat litter, couple cans of special stinky treat. Life was good, I was prepared for what was ahead.

Then somebody – namely Oom – messed up the litter box entirely.

One bright and promising morning, Oom and I go outside for the world’s shortest perambulation. Totally disappointing, she murmured something about needing to vet something and in we went.

Next thing I know I’m getting harnessed up, leash attached, and up and out I go into the waiting car with Boo driving.

It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to a vet. My rabies shot is still good, but I’ve had a little trouble with my right ear and Oom gets a bit paranoid when I’m not in perfect health. That, and she’s been worried I was gonna get my foot stuck in my ear trying to self-diagnose and figure out why things felt funny.

I accept that having a doctor is a good thing for a cat. And I know that I’m gonna be the front man – the sacrificial cat guinea pig – going to the vet before Alex does, to make sure the new one is good enough. But I had made clear to Oom and Boo that I expected high standards to be maintained: we needed a vet as good as my last vet, Dr. Mara in Baraboo, whom I adored. Tough babe vet doctor with a light but firm touch and a heart of gold… How would I ever find another woman vet like her?

So Oom went out to do reconnaissance a month or so ago. Turns out we are fortunate in that the three vets in our immediate vicinity seem highly regarded. Picking was a matter of style and gut. We interviewed neighbors and other cat people. One vet was consistently praised for being very gentle and caring.

So, we were obviously booked to go see HIM.

I walk into the vet’s office on my own four paws. None of this being carried in like some insipid lap cat. I walk in, I announce myself with a firm but polite mrrwow. When asked, I step on the scale…then I sit on the scale…then I usually lay on the scale. I own my weight. I let Oom fill out the paperwork, Boo keeps a look out for D-O-G-S.

In the exam room, I’m all business. Given a little respect, I will proffer vocal chords, ears, butt hole, paws…gentle poking and prodding is acceptable.

I got some medicine for my ear…nothing serious just a little gunky buildup.

But someone forgot to tell me about the distemper shot. I can’t shake the feeling when I get one of these shots that they’re trying to give me whatever it is they say they’re trying to protect me from—like a BAD temper! Me, I like my temper just the way it is. While reeling from the sting between my shoulders, I consoled myself by thinking maybe it’s a bit like the birds eating sunflower seeds…I keep wondering when I’m going to see a cardinal with a sunflower growing out of his rear end. That thought kept me busy quite a while.

I got out of the office on all fours okay, but that shot sure made me groggy. I remember a trip to the bank…or was that a dream…me standing in front of the head teller – Cindy – at Champlain National. Was I holding up the bank? Probably not, she seemed like a nice lady.

I remember getting home, getting upstairs and falling asleep in Boo’s study. Oom came up a couple times to make sure I was still breathing. I slept through the day, the night and up to the next morning. I didn’t even eat kibble…so it was serious. I woke up with something a lot like a cat-mint hangover…kind of like a red wine hangover for humans, I think.

In retrospect, the vet seemed okay. He did have a nice touch. I’m not sure he’s used to cats with so much personality, but he and I did make a small wager about my ability to shed a pound by next year. And I do think I should open an account at that bank.

Near Fall Fun

Mrrrr Friends,

Temperatures were dropping over the weekend. We had our first light overnight frost, with ice on the porch railing at first light. For a furry guy like me, this is exhilarating. It also made Boo happy because it really cut down on the little buzzing face bugs, which give him welts and a knobby head.

So, we had an outing...which turned into a celebration! Me, Alex, Oom, and Boo all went out to the backyard and the brook and played!

Our excuse - or our people's, they do always seem to need directed activity - was the placement of the recently finished wooden bench that now affords a lovely sitting spot over our brook. Here's Boo making sure the legs are level. That's cat pal Alex in the foreground.

This was Alex's first, self-propelled foray into the backyard. She's a cautious, thoughtful gal - it is a stripey cat characteristic, I think. For the past few months, she's been observing our new world from the back porch of the big house and through all the windows. While she hasn't been out, first-paw, experiencing things, she's been learning. She immediately found a great little spot to watch the goings on.

Me, I was exploring the fringes of the neighbor's yard near the brook. This fine log will serve as a training trunk for vertical framing - a cat mind exercise that facilitates purposeful tree-scaling.

The neighbor people, who are very nice and cook smelly-tasty things, had to cut down a tree. It was an elm I think...there are lots of scraggly elms around here but this one was pretty big...and dead. I like the wood pile and I have my eye on the nearby maple as a scaling tree.

It's always hard to get a good photo of me when I'm moving fast!

Spent some quality time in the brook...I keep seeing critters in the brook...Oom insists I don't, but I think she is, ahem, wrong.

Here, I am going back to the yard side from my mid-brook, Zen boulder. I have not been over to the "wild" side of the brook. Neither has Oom.

Alex and I hung out a bit and talked about the neighbor cats, Brewster and Ubu.

She and Boo played a bit...

then we all posed for a photo...well, not Oom.

What a fun day!

Diesel is Carbon Neutral

Would I joke about a thing like this? Look, here's proof.

I figure, now, all my trips to the vet are covered, the shipping of my food and acquisition of Yeow! Brand Cat nip toys is covered, production of the (biodegradable) packaging and manufacture, even, of my portion of my litter might be covered. Basically, I hope I'm a carbon neutral cat, perhaps the first home-based carbon neutral cat. That's pretty cool.

And speaking of pretty cool - the Adirondack Council is a very effective not-for-profit organization working to protect the Adirondack Park. They had the foresight to buy 5,000 tons of carbon credits during the big RGGI "allowance" auction in 10 Northeastern states. Those 10 states got together and decided on a cap on carbon emissions. Then, they made all the commercial power plants in the 10 states buy one carbon credit for each ton of carbon dioxide they would spew into the atmosphere. If they use less, they get to sell their credit. And that's the goal, to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% by 2018. When the Adirondack Council folks bought a bunch of credits, they, in effect, secured the retirement of those credits. Supporters can "buy" 3 tons of credits with a $25 donation. I got my three credits when I joined North Country Public Radio - they partnered with our Council friends to provide these to new NCPR members.

The Adirondack Council works on myriad conservation issues large and small. They advocate for conserving the forests and wild places of the Adirondack Park, rehabilitating abandoned mines, curbing mercury use and acid rain (don't even get me started on coal and "natural gas"), and they work on one of my pet issues, reducing road salt use. They aren't the only group doing good conservation things in the park but they get my vote (and my peoples' support) for helping me get this carbon thing under control. It was giving me a bum rap.

Zen

Upper Jay is upstream from Jay on the wonderful Ausable river, whose two branches drain the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, come together, then flow into Lake Champlain. My little brook meets the East Branch not far from my morning perambulations. Most days I wend my way to the brook and hop across to my favorite boulder. I don’t mind getting my paws wet – I’m a Wisconsin Snowcat, after all – but, for the most part, this is not a problem as the smaller rocks allow a careful scramble to my spot mid-brook. If I pull on Oom’s leg, she’ll kneel down and let me hop from her knee to her shoulder. She usually knows where I’m hoping to go and gets me there safe and dry.

Here I am on my start side with the boulder that I launch from.

Here I am on my favorite boulder looking downstream.

I’ve been learning a lot of things by just sitting watching the water, listening to it and the Kingfisher and other birds close by. I haven’t seen any fish, but I do see frogs.

It is a nice place to sit and meditate. I’m sure the water holds wishes, but I don’t yet know what they are.

I hope you have a quiet place to sit and think. Alex and I both think humans are a bit too squiggly. It is good to sit still occasionally and just be in the place you are…though it can make you sleepy. We try to sleep on our people every day to help them keep still.

Gone South

Mrrrr Friends,

I think our hummingbird friends went south. There’s been no sign of them the past couple days…since the near ear incident.

You can feel it already, can’t you? Autumn is approaching. My coat is getting thicker. I’m eating a little more and catching a little extra naptime each day – shifting to “bear mode.” At the same time, I feel friskier when I’m up, out and about. There’s red in some of the maple leaves, yellow in the ash, Broad-winged Hawks are preparing to kettle, my Long Island cat pals tell me striped bass are restless, we’re seeing more bird visitors in a passing through kind of way, and my people are thinking about bird feeders and fire wood.

Speaking of gone south. My people had a recent bout of insanity.

Change is good; I love the gradual changing of the seasons and the radical reinventions of gardens and blogs. Changing my cat litter brand, however, is another thing entirely. Currently, I use Yesterday’s News, which is recycled newspaper re-made into nice ½ inch long pellets – kind of poetic justice for a blogging cat, don’t you think? I’ve used it ever since I adopted my people. It is very absorbent, can be flushed, is biodegradable, doesn’t track, and keeps smells neutral for quite a long time.

I am happier when I can go out and do some fertilizing and earth moving in the yard, but a good litter is the stuff that makes the convenience of the cat box a creative opportunity. The swoosh of litter against the sides of the box, the rhythmic crunching of digging, has inspired some great percussion compositions – I’m sure Max Roach patterned some of his best throw brush work on cat box rhythms.

Now let’s be clear. Their intentions were good. They would never contemplate clay litters – you know that is an environmental disaster, the mining of clay for cat litter. About 2 million tons of clay cat litter is mined each year in about 10 states, according to the US Geological Survey, mostly using strip-mining methods. And, not only is the manufacture of this stuff an environmental disaster, but the disposal – it isn’t biodegradable – is a nightmare too. It just sits there in land fills…doesn’t break down, pretty much ever. Yuck!

But the folks wanted to be able to compost our litter, which I think is a noble idea. They did a whole bunch of research and came home with – wait for it – World’s Best Cat Litter. I kid you not, this is the name. I looked at the label: whole kernel corn, processed without chemicals, soft to the touch…hmmm. And it is made in Muscatine, Iowa…Alex’s home state.

I am an open-minded adventurer. We poured it into a clean, dry box… It looked like stone-cut corn meal. It smelled like stone-cut corn meal. It tasted like stone-cut corn meal.

I do not poop in food, period. WBCL is food. If we get hard up this winter, we could all eat the stuff…imagine the complications.

Oom felt this was a valid position, but she urged me to “try it for a few days”.

Day 1: I held it.

Day 2: I did the door dance first thing in the morning, was taken out, and went straight to the back garden.

Day 3: I resorted to using Alex’s box.

Day 4: There is no record of my relieving myself.

Day 5: They relented, but in good trade union fashion, I waited for the contract.

Day 6: Fresh Yesterday’s News in my box, immediate use followed.

Let me be clear, WBCL seems like an awesome product. My paws got a little dusty yellow, but it smelled really nice…too nice.

I’m willing to try again, but they bought 2 big bags of pelletized newspaper, so I think further experimentation will have to occur at a later date. I’m relieved!

Hummingbird!

Mrrrr Friends,

I had a wonderful wildlife encounter this morning. After partaking of some rock hopping in the middle of our rushing backyard brook, I came up to relax on the grass above it, in sight of the great White Pine tree. I was happily listening to the sounds around me when I heard an increasingly loud buzz and saw a blur of green wings directly in front of me.

A female Ruby-throated hummingbird hovered a paw’s reach from my ears. She was stunningly small and beautiful, but much sturdier that I’d thought imaginable. I’d never seen a hummer so close. She pranced about me a bit – I think she thought my ears were flowers (they are kind of unusual, my ears – the products of teenage cat fights). I didn’t move, but calmly mrrrrred. She dipped a bit, paused once more, inches from my whisker tips, then went on about drinking the nectar of the touch-me-nots along the brook. Oom and I watched her for another 5 minutes or so.

Amazing! I am sad to say there is no pictorial record.

What was she thinking? Had she grown used to seeing me in the yard? There have been a half-dozen or so hummers threading through our airspace all summer, enjoying our neighbor’s trumpet vine and our many flowering plants. They’ve sat in front of Oom in the blackberry bushes and buzzed high above me many times. It should be time to migrate south very soon.

What an honor for a furry cat-guy.

Cats Indoors

Let’s talk about cats being outdoors.

Obviously, I greatly value my outdoor time. I’m a curious guy, I love getting my paws wet or digging around in the substrate. Rain, sleet, snow, marshes, streams, high winds, baking sun…it all works for me. I admire the wonders of the world around me and look forward to visiting with frogs, seeing birds from afar, watching little mammals scurry about, and nosing around, learning about and admiring sedges, hedges, weeds and trees.

But here’s the hitch: I’m an indoor cat and I’m proud of it. When I go out, I go out with one or two of my people by my side. They don’t let me wander off, but they do let me set the pace and direction, within reason. This is a level of companionship to which most cats happily grow accustomed and come to enjoy. I’ve blogged on this before, but, while my species has been here on the continent for generations (our histories include narratives of cats moving across the Great Plains in large packs, though there is a curious absence of any mention of this in human annals), we are non-native and voracious land hunters – the “bluefish of the land”, as Boo once remarked.

If it moves, we see it, light or dark. If it is little, quivers, has fur or feathers…we have an instinctual urge to chase it, play with it, lick it, hold it in our mouths and, in some cases, kill it. For me, the urge usually passes…unless it is a mouse in the house. In this case, I do not play; I work swiftly. My cat pal Alex gets all quivery when she sees a bird. She swears, however, that all she wants to do it lick it, but we don’t test her on that.

There are, by reliable accounts, 60 million house cats in the United States and another 30 to 60 million feral cats (some of these are life-long “wanderers” – cats who truly never come in). Outdoors, that many of us can be devastating to local, ecologically relevant populations of birds, reptiles, and in some cases, small mammals.

We do not hide our predilections from humans. We warn you. We chitter, we creep…heck, we even bring the little wonders to you. Sometimes they are still alive. So don’t kid yourself that your cat wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s a rare feline that can control the urge if left outdoors on its own too long.

For goodness sake, don’t encourage feline regression! We’d really prefer to spend our time hanging with you, doing a little catnip, chasing paper wads, relaxing by the fire, yeowling for no apparent reason, reading a good book upside down, and maybe using the back of the couch as a vertical trampoline.

Long ago – sometime after the whole roaming the Great Plains in herds thing…or maybe back in ancient Egypt – we figured out that humans were the top predators and that those opposable thumbs and 25 lb. heads were going to catapult you to the top of the food chain over time, even though, as a species, you are riddled with contradictions. We adapted ourselves to be your companions…independent (just in case you all screw up entirely, we like to keep our fundamental hunter-gatherer skill set within reach), but very much tied to a human-defined domestic life.

So you moved us all around the world. And in every case, given our evolution, we do not belong in the wild. Putting us outside at night to “do what we do naturally” is a cop-out. We do it because we can, but we’d prefer a nice can of smelly eats or a little dried kibble and napping on your pillow while draped over your head, occasionally licking your eyeballs or sticking our paws up your nose for 5 AM entertainment.

Add to that, outside is dangerous. There are diseases, critters that can eat us, other cats we encounter – feral and not, healthy and sick, and cars to mow us down. And sometimes you wonder why we don’t come back… It’s sad really, because, we know you like us. I know most humans who let their cats go out unsupervised honestly believe they are doing right by their feline, or that the bad said cat might do (nabbing a warbler) is outweighed by the good (nailing a rodent). But you don’t get to choose which species survive and which don’t.

Finally, I know there are a few hard-core wanderers out there that aren’t going to come in. But many others will, with patience. My new cat pal and neighbor Ubu came in. He’s doing pretty good and seems happy.

But what’s a proud, furry cat supposed to do? Well, hopefully, get his or her people engaged in his life and needs. Say no to outdoor forays without your people…meow at them incessantly unless they come out with you, then give them lots of positive reinforcement. Humans, when you bring a cat into your home, don’t do it because you think we need less care than a dog or a goldfish or a ferret…we need just as much care and love…but every species and every individual in it has different needs. Yes, we are independent, but we still need you to mold your lives around us a bit.

You’re probably wondering what got me going on this topic. One of the blogs I admire, the Adirondack Almanack, recently posted a blog by the observant Ellen Rathbone, backing the cats indoors position. I posted a comment then, but this issue sticks like a burr in soft underbelly fur. I figured a few more good licks would help me move on.

If you want to read more about the cat outdoor/indoor controversy from a smart, balanced human perspective, our friend Ted Williams wrote a recent Audubon article on the subject. If you want to help the critters that unattended cats malign, support your local wildlife rehabilitator. (As an aside, my friend Marge Gibson in my home state has a great blog all about big bird rehabilitation.) If you want to help cats find homes in general, support the very nice people at the North Country SPCA. Tell them Diesel sent you.

Bird Bacchanalia

Mrrrr Friends,

While on my morning constitutional, we heard a mild racket in the Blackberry bushes. I went on point…I cannot help myself, it is a native reflex dating back to my Wisconsin kittenhood when eating little flurry and fluffy things was part of a balanced diet.

We looked into the bushes but nothing seemed obvious. We walked around to the low side of our hill and finally Oom said she saw something. She put me on her shoulders. After a minute or two we saw a feathery form deep in the bushes near the top.  A small to mid-sized bird sat among the very ripe blackberries – in the wonderful high middle of the bushes where Oom had not been able to pick because of the thorns and the deepness – and was dining on the biggest, ripest specimens. Not just pecking at and nibbling, but enveloping, sloppily munching on and swallowing large number of berries.

The little bird glutton watched us the whole time but didn’t get nervous at all as we stood within five feet, me on my person’s shoulders and us taking a picture or two. We realized as the young bacchanalian teetered that the little guy was a little drunk!

We took a picture, since we were having an argument about who he was…Alex is the big birder among us, but she doesn’t come on our walks. I was right, though, we checked Sibley to confirm (I love paging through Sibley though sometimes I do drool a bit). Our friend was a young of year Pheucticus ludovicianus…Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

They’ve been around all year. Their parents and all kinds of cousins took up residence this spring and the kids all fledged about 4 – 6 weeks ago…well before our American Robins (who all did very well thanks to two extremely sharp parent who raised three kids right under the beaks of a bevy of Blue Jays). The Blue Jays seemed to get bored with the berries a couple weeks ago, but it was pleasing to see this fellow enjoying himself. He has a long migration ahead flying from Upper Jay south as far as Costa Rica or Columbia perhaps. Bold little guy, I wish him well, but I have a feeling he’ll be back next year to visit our bushes again.

The Scratching Pad

Mrrrr Friends,

Don’t touch that “back” button on the browser, you are exactly where you are meant to be: welcome to TheScratchingPad.com.

There comes a time in every young cat’s life when he has to strike out on his own and define a domain. Have no fear, I’m not going to get too big for my furry boots.

While I was planting a pee in my people’s garden the other day, fertilizing the new sedum, I decided to apply some wisdom recently gathered from my male person: drastic, root-pulling change is good. (Guy cats take pretty long pees so I had some quality time to develop this idea.)

Boo has been redoing the little garden at the front of the house. A nice neighbor lady named Yvonne offered my people the chance to go dig holes in another lady’s yard and take some of her plants away. From what I can figure, this is yet another form of potlatch or recycling – humans customs cats generally approve of as it brings new smells and marking opportunities into our world. So my people came back with a whole bunch of mostly very tall flower plants. That seemed cool and I was ready to assist…I love digging holes with the folks, it is excellent exercise for the tree climbing muscles, gives me a chance to contribute to a prairie jungle garden for Alex, and, if you hit me at the right time of day, I’m happy to place little nuggets or pools at the bottom.

What ensued was a shocking wholesale destruction of the front bed to prepare for the new plants. But from the big mess a new garden is rising…albeit slowly, you can depend on my folks to do these things one step at a time. They think of it as savoring the process…the word slow keeps popping in my head, though…

Creative destruction. When you think about it, this is something at which cats are quite advanced. Under our miraculous paws, for example, a simple couch back becomes a display of tantalizing, dangling string play toys, papers stacked neatly on the study floor become a visible metaphor for autumn leaves scattered on a forest floor, and a litter box – once the litter itself is removed (preferably with a brisk, 360-degree, spin-dig-fling motion) – can become a nice place to curl up and consider the fundamentals of life. My cat pal Alex has even earned herself the nickname Entropy for her extraordinary reorganizations of our male person’s study.

Anyway, looking around my world, I decided it was the blog that needed a little creative destruction. So, out with the Garp and the pretty colors…down to basics. Like the garden at the front of the house, though, this is a work in progress. I’ll be sticking to what I know best – kibble, catnip and observations on my greater ecosystem, inclusive of human antics, all from a feline perspective. But I’m considering how best to dig a few new holes or add a few new fertilizing elements in my efforts to inform and comment on my world.

The Learning Curve

Mrrrr Friends,

I found a new blog online, Saratoga Woods and Waterways, and I am amazed at all the wonderful pictures and information there to learn. Take a look. It is obvious that I need to hunker down this winter with a load of organic catnip and a couple good plant guides to catch up on my plant knowledge.

The lady who writes this blog knows her plants pretty good but, most notably, she is a curious observer - so much so that I wonder if she was a cat in a previous life...though she doesn't mention any interest in licking the frogs she sees and there is a curious absence of any discussion of tree-scaling.

Here's a wood frog I met recently. Tricky little guy hiding like that.