A very tricky shot. First I had to build myself a stable rock step, as that’s too high for hopping up for me. Then I had to build a stable platform for the camera and get platform height and camera angle acceptable. Then I had to get at least one cat of the three available to cooperate. Cotton was investigating my camera platform. Rascal was being offended that I had Other Cats. Satin for the win.
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Interesting light study. There are vertical blinds on the window just behind this. My couch does not actually have stripes.
My resident mountain lion.
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Mary. She hits the top 5 of cats I have known in my lifetime (over 100) for interesting personality. She is one of the three feral orphans from a few years back, and while Psalm and Brio have totally settled into life with people, Mary hasn’t. She remains spooky even with me (would have jumped here if I had advanced another six inches), and with anyone else, she is the Invisible Cat.
But… while obviously not a touchy feely sort, she will play with me around the corner of the doorway of the walk-in closet when I’m getting dressed. One paw comes around the corner from outside and swats at me. She will get in bed and lie at my feet at night. Once in a while, she will jump in my lap and back out a few seconds later.
And she watches. You can see wheels turning all the time. That is why she is Mary, because she keeps things and ponders them in her heart. And she talks to me, a quick meow in a whole string as if trying to explain to me why things are like they are.
We understand each other, but she is not the cat most people want when they think of having a cat. Most folks like to be able to pet their cats more than an occasional touch 5% of the time.
My little wild one.
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From the woods:
And Solo, on Mom’s cat quilt that she had at the nursing home. I bought the quilt to give her something “catty” there, and she got a lot of smiles from it. As for Solo, she has no self-esteem issues.
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Autumn 2023. From the eastern sugar maple to the western sugar maple, a distance of 150 feet to the inch. Well, it was when I planted them in 2002, 150 feet between trunks. They have grown thicker, of course, from the original lollipops on sticks, and probably the distance is a bit shorter now, but as the trees are still nicely matched in size, it will have decreased symmetrically. Note Rascal on the porch. The trees predate the house, but I always knew I would build between them, thus measuring it out so precisely so they could flank but not overhang a building between them at maturity.
And then me playing with the timer on the camera. The original thought was to get Cotton in the tree, but Rascal joining us complicated things, because she was growling when he approached the tree and she thought he was approaching her. Cotton, who knows that Rascal demands respect, was making sure he didn’t cross the line, and with me running back and forth to the camera/timer and to the tree, I couldn’t stay there long enough to get him focused on me instead of her. But I kind of like how these turned out anyway. (Okay, will do those two one at a time as COTH suddenly got a burr under its saddle. See below.)
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Rascal on October 30, 2015. Picture taken at Cat Lady’s. When Cat Lady got sick and went to the hospital, I still went over to her place daily to take care of the cats. Everybody else could be summed up as “pet me! Feed me! I haven’t been fed/petted in 24 hours!” Not Rascal. She would sit there and just look at me, eyes boring into my skull. She wanted to know what was going on, why her world had turned upside down, why her lifelong person had disappeared. She was sure that if she tried hard enough to communicate, she could understand this, and she knew that I had the key knowledge here. Such a thinker, Rascal is. Always has been. Unfortunately, Cat Lady eventually died after over a month in the hospital, and then the grand cat export to my farm occurred. Some of CL’s were placed in other homes eventually, but from the beginning, even while I advertised around, Rascal was the one off the list. I knew she would stay with me. The one, now two-person cat who still is antisocial and doesn’t care to expand her acquaintance with the world. But I hope that somewhere along the way, some of her questions got answered.
Cotton this morning in his kingdom.
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Cotton, Satin, and Rascal. All three from Cat Lady. CL died in November of 2015, so somehow, it has been eight years. Rascal is around 11 (approximately 3 then). Cotton and the dumped litter were most definitely kittens in 2015, so Cotton and Satin are 8.
Her majesty in her woods.
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Mary’s eyes. This cat is one of the most interesting personalities I’ve known in felines, and I have encountered a lot of cats through life. Even with me, she still has a wary edge on her. Of the three feral orphans, she has always been the wildest. I had the other two tamed in just a few days (“Food! Scratches! Well, okay then. I’ll vote for you”). Mary also has always been a thinker, keeping things and pondering them in her heart. She and I understand each other, but she is never going to be a snuggly pet.
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This Christmas season memory came up on Facebook. HRH Rosalind playing with the new toy the cats got for Christmas while all others wait their turn. Nobody would dare take a toy away from her, nor did she encourage joining her in play. She was a very solitary cat.
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