June 2007 Blog Number 30

I sit here at my makeshift desk, in the dark, Kitsu curled between my chest and the keyboard and the Engineer snoring sonorously beside me. I've been at this keyboard every night for the past month, one cat or the other curled up before me purring, typing away. Sometimes the Engineer's here snoring, sometimes he's out of town and I have a light on, but it makes no difference in the blogging.

It's a pretty silly blog covering the cats and the garden, a little nostalgia and the silly trivialities of life. I haven't shined a pellucid light on anything or stimulated anyone's intellect, but it's been fun. I hope fun for my readers too.

Gads, this is sounding like a farewell speech. It's not, I'm figuring this is more of a beginning. I'm pleased with myself for actually managing to go a full month of nightly blog entries without fail. I'll try to do it next month. Don't know if I will succeed or not, but now I do know I can.

One thing I have been doing is checking out other blogs; what a wonderful world of blogs exists. I've been leaving comments too, and getting the occasional comment back. Nice folks out there in BlogLand. Smart folks. I think I'm going to have to be careful not to get too deeply into it -- real life comes first. Even on the frustrating days.

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon National Park

Thoughts on Gardening With Cats

I love my cats, you know I do. They have me wrapped around their long stripy tails. But I wish they didn't have such a calling to help me with my gardening.

I like to garden in the evening when the cool breeze blows down the canyon and the raised beds are in the shade. I can only really do it when the Engineer is out of town. When he's home I'm busy cooking dinner, washing up and bonding with him like a nice little wifey. When he's out of town, though, I can do what I want when I want. I will usually have a light dinner late afternoon, then when it starts to cool I'll go out and work. The cats think this is the bestest thing ever. They adore outdoor cat/human activities.

When I fill my watering cans, they zoom around me, sticking their heads into the cans and drinking if I put them down. Cat like to get their water from interesting places. Here is a list of the girls' favorite watering spots:

1. Watering can -- mysterious little hole to stick head through
2. Mud puddle -- magnificent bouquet and depth of flavor
3. Bathroom faucet -- makes a lovely trickling noise
4. Female human's beverage container or glass -- male human drinks beer -- yuck!
5. Swimming pool -- chlorine gives it that extra zing
6. Toilet -- not that they have much experience, it's mostly fantasizing, because the humans keep the lid shut.
7. Inside cat fountain -- moving water is better than still
8. Outside cat water dish -- bore-ing

They are very good at supervising. They like to get right up there with me and grab any seeds I'm trying to plant. If I shoo them off, they will go lie down on the closest cushy plant, though members of the allium family seem to be the most comfortable for some reason. When I pull up weeds and toss them aside, they jump on them and kill them for me.

The girls also find it very interesting that I dig holes and then don't... use... them. And they think it's hilarious to hop up onto the raised bed and dig their own hole because the human gets so excited when she catches them at it. Kink tail, run away laughing.

Butterflies, bugs, hummingbirds, squirrels and all manner of game can be found 'round the garden. Sachi caught her first yellow jacket last week. It caught her back. Her right front paw swelled up to three times its normal size, but she hasn't given up on chasing them.

She caught a cabbage butterfly this week. Jumped right on it, then lifted her paws to inspect it. Was she ever disgruntled when it flew off. Prey is supposed to stay alive enough to keep things interesting, but not get away, for heaven sakes.

Kitsu ignores bugs and stuff, she's a big game hunter -- birds, mice, voles, snakes. She scared the beegeebers out of me last summer when she went after a six foot gopher snake. I thought it was a rattlesnake because it was striking at her. I turned on the hose and blasted them both, it was the only way I could think of to get her away from it without getting too close myself. It was an adrenalin rush for all involved.

Wouldn't have it any other way, though. My cats are the best, cutest, sweetest, most loving felines ever.

Seduced

I went to Sam's Club today to buy trash bags and dish soap. I was walking down the aisle in the middle of the store when it happened, when I saw...

A grove, a veritable forest of seven foot tall palm trees with a big sign announcing, "Only $10.97."

How could I resist? I checked out all the palms I could see and picked the perfect one. I put it into my cart and hurried to the checkout, trying to navigate, peering through the fronds.

Luckily the lady parked next to me returned to her car at the same time I returned to mine, so I put the glamour items into my trunk and waited as she pulled out.

With the front passenger door all the way open, I managed to get the enormous palm into the car, then I drove home with my prize, gloating all the way.

When the Engineer got home I made him help me pot it up into a bigger pot. It looks grand.

Then, after having made the financial (well, $10.97 plus tax, recycled pot and soil) and emotional commitment to it, I looked it up on the Internet.

Majesty Palm, Ravenea rivularis, native to Malaysian river sides. Requires warm weather, partial shade, high humidity and lots of water and fertilizer. Does not do well as an indoor plant, but very nicely in the ground in warm humid areas of the country where there is no danger of frost.

Which doesn't exactly describe Utah.

This is going to be interesting.

The Best Easter Vacation Ever

When I was five, I went to Florida to visit my Grandparents and Great Aunts at Easter. Grandaddy was the coolest companion a kid ever had. He took me places and led me into adventures. Grammy often didn't appreciate our shenanigans. We always knew we'd stepped over the line when we heard her call, "Arm-strong!" We were in trouble then.

We found a baby blue jay that had fallen from the nest and rescued it. Grammy was tipped off by the hysterical screaming of the parent jays as they chased us to the house, pecking holes in Grandad's bald head.

"Arm-strong!"

Grandad had to brave the parents again to return the fledgling to where we found it. They knocked off the hat he'd slapped onto his head before he was halfway there. By the time he was back inside his whole head was red and splotchy with blood and peck marks. He let me wash it off for him and put Bactine on it.

I was always accused of being "a dreadful wiggle worm", a charge that I denied. Grandad bet me my Easter basket that I couldn't sit still for three whole minutes. I think I could have done it if he hadn't tickled me. Nothing had been said about tickling though, so I surrendered my Easter basket. Grammy came into the room and saw Grandad munching on my chocolate bunny as I watched with tragic eyes.

"Arm-strong!"

I got my Easter basket back. Along with a lecture about gambling.

We were out in the garden one day when a big hail storm blew up, so we ran into the shed and watched the huge white ice rocks pelt the ground. I remembered the old sauce pan he mixed his chemicals in -- the perfect helmet. I clapped it over my head and asked if I could go out and collect some hail stones. Of course he said yes, so out I ran. That lasted all of about 10 seconds before I got hit on the foot and changed my mind. We didn't tell Grammy about that.

Sometimes she found out even if we swore secrecy, though. Like the time he took me pony riding. We went out to the farm and he slung me up on the back of a pony with no saddle or bridle and popped the pony on the butt. It took off and the rest of the herd galloped with us. We ran like the wind! I turned around to watch the pony herd following us and didn't see the low branch we ran under.

Whack! Flat on my back on the ground.

The ponies tried to split and run around me, but one of them wasn't able to. It stepped right in the middle of my chest. Left a great big hoof print.

Grandad and I both knew there would be trouble if Grammy found out, We pricked our fingers with pine needles and took an oath of secrecy. Unfortunately, Grammy had no respect for a five-year-old's privacy and walked in on me in the bathtub that night.

"Arm-strong!"

Mostly we got Arm-strong'ed for relatively little things like pulling the tails off chameleons when trying to catch them. Whenever one of us did that, we'd be told by our partner in crime, "I'm gunna tell Grammy on you." Our blackmail lists were longer than our memories.

Once I tried to pat a live alligator. It wasn't the biggest alligator at Gator World, it was probably only six or seven feet long. Grammy heard him laughing at me climbing over the wire fence to get at the big lumpy fang-face. She turned around just as my feet hit the ground on the gator side of the fence. The gator saw me too and smiled real big.

"Arm-strong!"

Grandad leaned over the fence, grabbed me by one arm and hoisted me out as the alligator came running over to get his pat. Then I had to go sit in the car for a long time while Grammy and Grandad had "An Adult Conversation."

Fortunately that was the last day before I flew home to Michigan because it put a bit of a damper on the fun.

Grandad let me know we were still partners, though. About two weeks after I got back home, there was a box on the front porch after school. It was a baby alligator. A real baby alligator.


I had the coolest Grandad in the history of the world.

The Art of the Blog

I've been looking at blogs since a little before I began this one. One thing I often do is to hop from blog to blog after I've finished my entry for the day. I think that when you click on the next blog link up at the top of many Blogger pages, it takes you to whatever page was most recently updated. Since that's usually pretty late at night when I blog hop, it seems that many American bloggers are asleep and the blogs are in different languages. Some languages I recognize, some I don't. I like the blogs with pictures best.

One thing that consistently surprises me is how many commercial blogs there are. Blogs that want to sell something. I thought that was what formal web sites were for, but I guess they don't control all the turf. Lots of religious blogs too -- which doesn't surprise me. People who have found The Lord frequently want to testify.

When I was hopping earlier today, there were lots of kids' blogs. Again a surprise, I though the kids all inhabited MySpace or FaceBook.

Some blogs are totally bewildering, like this one: http://donmarmur.blogspot.com/ All I can say is, "Huh?"

I think what I like the most about blog hopping is I feel like it gives me little glimpses into things I didn't know existed.

Way cool.

What Is a Day?

If one chooses to be arbitrary, it is the space of time from one midnight to the next. I, however, firmly believe it is from the time I get up in the morning until I lay down to go to sleep at night. The part when I'm actually sleeping (or not sleeping, depending upon how loudly the Engineer is snoring) is something of a limbo. Neither yesterday nor tomorrow, it only exists in the now.

That being the case, even though the clock says 1:29 a.m. and officially Tuesday, it's really still Monday because I haven't gone to bed yet. Therefor, I am still going full speed ahead on doing a blog entry a day for the month of June. Those few times where there is no entry one day and two entries the next day, or the next day, are simply artifacts of an artificial delineation of time. (Can you tell I got a 4.0 in that logic class I took as a college sophomore?)

Sometimes it's darn difficult to make a blog entry each and every day -- as can undoubtedly be discerned from this entry. I have determined not to allow myself to succumb to writer's block or sleepiness. I thought about doing a limerick tonight, but the only rhyme scheme I could come up with was nude, rude, blued and tattooed -- we won't continue on that theme any longer because it was getting truly scurrilous.

This blog entry isn't particularly edifying, but it is a demonstration of self discipline, a quality I am sadly lacking in, so be happy for me.

Here's a picture of one of my orchids to say, "Thank you for putting up with me." Providing, of course, that you've read this far...

The Garden Is Growing

For the most part. Only the beans seem truly unhappy. I planted four short rows of bush beans and four trellis feet of pole beans. None of the pole beans have sprouted and only a very few of the bush beans. I think I'm going to sprout some between paper towels this week and put them into the garden as soon as the tips of their roots begin to show. See if I can get a decent stand that way.

The sugar baby watermelon are doing very well and have cute tiny babies to show. The squash and cucumbers are up, the cucumbers starting to vine. The horseradish I transplanted is recovering and putting out green leaves. The shallots, however, are suffering from being laid on by cats. Why cats like to lay on the shallots, I don't know, but they seem to find them a delightful bed.

The tomato plants are finally starting to take off and the first Black Prince (a Russian heirloom variety) is setting.
I have basil to go with the tomatoes.













Of course the bindweed is trying to make a go of it too.