Wrapping paper rampage

See for youself:

The Cat and the Moon

The cat went here and there

and the moon spun round like a top,

and the nearest kin of the moon,

the creeping cat, looked up.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

for, wander and wail as he would,

the pure cold light in the sky

troubled his animal blood.


Minnaloushe runs in the grass

lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet,

what better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

tired of that courtly fashion,

a new dance turn.


Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

from moonlit place to place,

the sacred moon overhead

has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

will pass from change to change,

and that from round to crescent,

from crescent to round they range?


Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

alone, important and wise,

and lifts to the changing moon

his changing eyes.


William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Snow, wind, rain, and a bad cold

We had about 4" of snow here over the weekend. Luckily the 50-60mph winds brought rain from the south to wash it all away. Now we're on flood watches for most rivers and streams in the area. NOAA has a site called the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service with realtime monitoring of major river levels across the country. Just click on your region and it will pull up a map of water sensors and you can see if they're nearing flood stage.

A local business, Bellingham Cold Storage, runs a weather station and web cam from their rooftop, which is handy for seeing just how strong those wind gusts really are. They have a few different ways of looking at weather data, and it's a really nice service to the community.

One of our neighbors is a bow hunter, and got a lovely 3-point buck the other day, his first one. Since they don't have a digital camera, we loaned them ours for a bit. Which means new pictures will be scarce for another day or so. And I've also managed to pick up another nasty cold, so I'm taking a brief break from writing more juicy posts. I do have one in the works about what pet food is made of - not for the faint of heart. I did manage to can up some oxtail soup for the humans, and some liver & veggie stew for the dogs. Mmm mmm!

In the mean time, yet another kitten pic, doing what they do best when they aren't sleeping - beating the crap out of each other....

Latest Pest: Kitchen rats!! (Kittens!)

Ever have trouble with these?

Little closer for more detail. Little pests are into everything... even freshly cleaned brewing equipment waiting to be put up. Ah well... what's another scrubbing or three?

A rare moment of rest. Thing about kitchen rats is they never slow down... this is indeed a rare moment.

The moment of quiet lasted about 5 seconds before they were back sidling under the kitchen cupboards, and climbing the walls. But look at how peaceful and cute they CAN be. Albeit rarely.

Stormy weather!

Yet another November windstorm. It blew all night, paused for breath about 7am, then let loose with 80mph gusts and knocked trees down (and power out) all over the county. We spent part of the morning chasing greenhouse parts and trying to keep it from disintegrating. That's one way to get a workout!

These downed trees happen to be on our road, not quite 1/2 mile away. No sign of repair crews, and the power company's update page says Whatcom and Thurston counties won't have power any time soon. So the generator is running and we've switched over to dark-ages-peasant mode.

And here are the little felions, taking a break from their sibling gladiator matches. At least we can watch kittens by candlelight til the power comes back on. They went to the vet today and got a clean bill of health (and we got the none too tiny bill!).

Say hello to Mercia and Magnus...

This is what happens when you find a lost cat, drop it at the shelter, then decide to drop by the shelter "just to be sure" they came and got her, even though you heard the owners came and claimed their cat. Then while there, you went by to see the kittens available for adoption, and see so many babies that need someone to care that you could just weep. There were any of a dozen or more kittens we could have picked as equally deserving of care. Alas that we can't save them all, but had to make a choice. These two were beautiful as you can see, a brother and sister, healthy, and spent the majority of the time pouncing on one another in play. Seemed like they'd do a lot of self entertaining because of this. They were also both already fixed. Still I can't articulate how hard it was to turn our backs on all those other little kitties just begging with their eyes for us to save them too.

Hopefully the other Seven Trees residents will accept them, especially our two older cats who are none too pleased at this juncture. With a little time though I am certain everyone will adapt to the new Seven Trees family members.

According to the shelter staff, any of the cats or kittens we visited who haven't been adopted by November 30th, will be euthanized.

Maybe instead of spending money this holiday season on the usual glut of gifts for people who have so much it's hard to even figure out what to buy them... I think that we should all agree to instead spend that money on going to our local animal shelters and giving the gift of life to some poor kitten, puppy, dog or cat, or other animal of your choice that sits there on death row.

It'll be a lifetime commitment, but but your love will be returned a thousand times over, and think how much more meaningful a gift that'd be for all.

It's official - Stella's pregnant!

Image From: Linda's Learning Links

The vet was out this week to give Stella a check up and confirm that she's actually pregnant. The good news is that we have a very healthy mama-to-be cow. So far she hasn't started mooing for pickles and ice cream, but there was one incident of hay-bale vandalism when I left the haw mow open.

More news this weekend, including the new kitten debate - should we or shouldn't we add a pair of little feline monsters to the madhouse....