Flora & Fur

Mrrrrr Friends,

People need fur. I’ve observed this on more than one occasion, but it has really become evident to me of late.

My perambulations around my property are accomplished with my person at my side or nearby. It is a matter of friendship, but also safety. A furry adventurer like me, left on my own, might let his curiosity get the better of him, she insists, and in this slightly wilder, more biodiverse neighborhood, might meet with misfortune in the guise of a wild four-legged.

So almost every morning, and sometimes afternoons too, we head off into the yard for wonderful adventures. We have this lovely brook at the back of the yard, nice marshland with frogs (we had a very nice meeting with a Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens to you, just the other day) and a wetland with ferns and sedges and many more things that we are learning about.

A few samples:

Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum and, one of my favorites, Turtlehead, Chelone glabra













One of our many resident hummingbirds' favorites (they are all Archilochus colubris of course) Touch-Me-Not, Impatiens pallida, and one of my peoples' favorites, part of our huge Blackberry bush, Rubrus rubrus - which many species of birds love too!














Humans are pretty practical, so, oftentimes, when my people are out with me, they start doing little yard chores. One thing leads to another and, as often as not, they end up on some big project. Cutting the lawn, pruning trees, pulling weeds.

As a cat, I find this stuff pretty boring, so I usually sit and wait patiently, staring at bugs, mapping new ways to sleep on my people at night, working out a few eigenvalue algorithms in my head, or else thinking about kibble.

All this is fine. But then, mysteriously, a few days later, my folks start itching. There’s this odd three-leaved plant in the yard…with little white berries at the center.

And here’s where I get back to the fur thing. I really think people need fur. Catsuits (please see “labels” to the right to learn more about catsuits) are not a practical alternative. People are too big and they don’t have tails or paw pads on all fours…and then there are those dumb thumbs to deal with…too much trouble.

Why has evolution led them to a furless state so they are so easily plagued by poison ivy and such? Even my female person – who has never been sensitive to the leaves of three in the past – got the nasty bubbly itchies this year. Turns out exposure to urushiol is cumulative. My male person has legendary abilities in this area, having reached a threshold level of exposure in infancy. Now, all he has to do is look at the stuff and he breaks out rhythmically for weeks. Only problem is, he can’t seem to recognize the stuff. That’s why I’m here to point it out, sniffing it out dutifully, bringing in little samples for him to inspect.

I feel for them, I do, though it is difficult to watch them go through it…and they do complain an awful lot…though I guess that’s par for the course with being human.

Here’s the biggest problem though. At some point – it is inevitable – they start looking at me funny and sure enough, the next thing I know I’m in the tub getting the Johnson’s Baby Shampoo treatment.

Yeah, right, blame the cat. (But the womenfolk sure do love my sweet smell after a bath…)

A New Leaf

Mrrrrr Friends,

I hope your human holidays were fun, furry, and relaxing.

Ours were kind of quiet with spurts of busyness. People seem to congregate on human holidays. This is somewhat entertaining for cats like me and Alex. We enjoy smelling what people bring in on their clothes and persons…where they’ve been, what they’ve been eating, what lotion they use, etcetera. We do not enjoy that, when they arrive, they seem bent on sitting on all the cat spots…the couch, the nice chair. After they plump themselves right down, they look at us oddly as we stand in front of them, glaring. Or they take it as a compliment when we go ahead and try to sit on our spot – through them – anyway.

Ah well. Our people smile at our minor tribulations when we have company. They reprimand inappropriate shooshing of cats when we are comfortably ensconced on a favorite resting spot, but they do believe in first come, first serve. That’s okay by us. If you leave your seat to eat or pee, for example, and someone takes your spot….that’s life. It’s a two-way street here at our house…humans can lose their seats as easily as cats.

Anyway, it was nice to see some different faces, listen to stories, and watch the fire.

It put me in a contemplative mood.

For a long time now, I’ve been sensing a need for change. While I love the back yard at the little house, I’m feeling a bit cramped and I think I’m gaining weight. I miss the open spaces and deep snow of Wisconsin and, while I am not in a hurry to move back home, I yearn for a little freshwater stream to fish in, some new trees to climb, and a greater variety of critters whose antics I can follow.

Of course, as soon as I say that, I think about how much I love my climbing trees here, my neighbor pal David, and being close to my son Rotor. But cats do move on.

Given my slightly rounder than usual girth – my winter cat suit was a bit tight – I think some stairways are needed. Nothing like running up and down stairs chasing a wide variety of cat toys and, better yet, chasing Alex, to get a fellow into fit shape for spring-time tree climbing. Speaking of which…I’m considering a shift to conifers. Not that I don’t enjoy Acer saccharum and Prunus serotina – my favorites here at the little house – but I need to expand my horizons. I’m thinking Balsam Fir, Black Spruce, and, for variety, perhaps some Quaking Aspen.

The holidays can often be about mayhem, but they can also provide some quality quiet time that allows deep held thoughts to percolate and brew…if you let them. I’ve been feeling this way for some months now…but now I know I’m thinking in the right direction.

I hope you can take some time to relax and think this holiday…let your mind go off the leash and just roam about sniffing for hopes and dreams. Cats are good at this. If you know a cat, you might want to snuggle up with them and ask their help in unleashing your brain.

Me, I’m already working on making my dreams reality.

The Cat's Pajamas

Snakes shed their skins. Birds molt their feathers. Mammals shed hair. But those of you human readers who share your lives with cats, have you ever had that slightly odd feeling when seeing your cat again after an hour, a workday, or a brief vacation, that he or she has…well…changed? If your cat were human, you’d ask, “new haircut?” But that’s not quite it.

I’m going to tell you the truth here, now…well, part of it. It’s the catsuits. Yep, we have catsuits. They are complicated affairs carefully custom-made by sources I will not reveal…ever…not even with a lifetime supply of catnip. We change them as needed.

Think about it. Why are we so distressed when you go to take us to the vet? (Needles, through the catsuit!) Or when you take us with you on vacation? (How long will we be away? Will I need a fresh catsuit? Do I have one ordered?) Why do we stress out about being immersed in water? (Shrinkage happens.) It is all about catsuit care and availability. Every cat’s biggest nightmare is being caught without a catsuit. I know, I know, you think this is all the product of one of my people’s fertile imaginations, but I’m telling you the truth.

My catsuits are fairly easy by cat standards. My pal Alex, however, is a stripey cat, and that is one tough catsuit to make: the complexity of stripeys blending into caramel and stone. She keeps an extra on hand at all times – one reason she watches her weight and figure so carefully. Me, I’m more of a daredevil. Occasionally, I stock up on one or two but, I’m young, I love to eat, and right now I don’t have a lot of physically unique “wear” characteristics…like the little worn areas cats get on the back of our rear legs on the joint above our “foot,” or at least the part of the foot that touches the ground. If you keep a spare catsuit too long and put it on one day, you can really give the discerning human a jolt. They get used to it, but it can be hard.

We maintained for years that humans got the idea for children’s pajamas, you know, the ones with “footies,” from cats. We thought you knew. But then the phrase “the cat’s pajamas” jumped into the human lexicon in the 1920s, meaning something or someone remarkable and stylish. Many cats still figured you humans knew because we are remarkable and stylish, but slowly, irrevocably, we learned the truth: except for B. Kliban, humans don’t know about catsuits.

Sometimes I wonder if bees have these complications with their knees?