…leaving the front yard defined in mounds of mulch (flowerbeds) and pathways. You are either a mulch-heap, or a pathway. Or a rocky streambed. There is no other choice in our front yard. We are weeded, and mulched, pathed, and we are both quite, quite tired—Jane most of all, because she was out there supervising and toting bales herself. I mostly went after things, like ice, and food; and a timer; and such.
Now the front yard looks as we designed it to look, except we need some basalt edging to rim the mulch-mounds. It’s sooooo much easier to weed when you have a good barrier of weedcloth and newspaper down, under mulch. Weeds that ordinarily sink a fierce taproot come up without a struggle.
Pictures are very much in order — after at least one good night’s sleep. Isn’t it marvelous when a plan comes to fruition, with the added pleasure of good interactions with good human beings.
We had unexpected interactions with our neighbors this morning. I woke up wondering where our kitten/cat (~10 months old) Mousie (aka Mao Tse-Tung) was. He wasn’t pestering me for breakfast and then didn’t come trotting when I called. I remembered hearing a thump last night above the whirr of the ceiling fan (it was a very hot, humid night), I called and searched the house, opened shut closets, checked down cellar. No kitten. My spouse got into the act. Then I double-checked the bedroom, including the window I’d opened right before bed. Open window — no screen. That was the thump — indoor-only cat leaping onto window sill only to discover the normal, trust-worthy containment field wasn’t there. We keep the drapes pulled on that window because of neighbors and never noticed the roofers (or contractor) raised the screen to work on that edge of the house in the winter. I certainly didn’t think to check late at night.
The first calls outdoors of “Mousie!”, around the perimeter of the house and yard, produced no cat and I started to range afield. Though it was only a bit after 8:00am, several neighbors were out and I got invites to check in their yards, under their porches. No cat replied to my calls, although I now know more yards (and probably neighbors) than ever before. I am incurably curious how people landscape and garden, but my heart wasn’t in it like this. I searched the small, back woods, we called again and again, checked under our own porch and in our bushes and no cat. I ranged several streets afield, just in case. No flattened cat in middle of road but no desperate, high-pitched mew either. I cancelled plans to spend the day with my family in New Hampshire and settled in to work on my laptop in the back yard, calling the cat every few minutes. Even if he had taken to the ground in a small, dark hole (likely because despite his piratical nickname of Captain Hawkweed, he spooks easily when guests or the vacuum come), I hoped that the sound of my voice if he was nearby would orient him and calm him.
Finally I left off revising my summer class syllabi (couldn’t concentrate) and started in on the chore of emptying the winter leaves, sludge and green water from our small water garden, tossing bucketfulls on shrubs and garden beds about the yard. Scraping the bottom, I dumped a bucket on the roses by the chimney, one on the day lillies next to them and returned with a final bucketful for a rose in the front when I heard an unhappy mew. What a lovely sound and I heard it again when I quietly called out “Mousie…” A very hesitant and wet cat head peaked out from behind a bush, looking very wary but let me come up to him slowly, pick him up and bring him in, to both of our great relief. He had been nearby the entire time, but too scared and panicked to feel it safe to reply until I doused him in the bushes and accidentally drove him out.
Our garden is lovely this Memorial Day weekend, rose and irises out and the rest green, green, green but all eight hours of search and worry it was like there was a veil between my eyes and my heart each time I walked through it. I knew it was beautiful but it couldn’t reach me. When I went outside after settling Mousie back in with pats, kisses and some crunchies — although he was still too agitated to eat and went over to the goldfish tank for a long drink of fish soup — the garden too settled back into its calm, lovely demeanor. I interrupted the family gatherings of our nearest neighbors on either side to tell them the good news and that they wouldn’t have to hear me calling the cat’s name again and again. Then I retrieved the bucket from where it had been abandoned and finished up the water garden. I settled out on the patio with the paper from the morning, listened to the burble of the stream into the now-running water garden and relaxed. Safe inside, Mousie slept.
Whew! I’m glad things came out well for Mousie, you, and the garden.
Of my cats, only Birdie and Sadie have gotten outside, and only for a couple of minutes. I was able to scare Birdie back into the house by coming around from the back door and letting her run into the house through the open front door. Sadie was on the deck in the back with me (in the new house), and I was able to pick her up and deposit her back inside the house where she’s remained since. They have enough to explore in this house, they don’t need to go outside.
And many blessings upon the Gardening Angels. It is kind of them to have taken you under their wing (pun intended!) Raesean, glad to hear that you found Maousie; it’s always nerve-wracking when they disappear for so long.
Such satisfaction to have an area, especially the front, neat and looking the way you envisioned.
@Raesean……so glad your story with Mousie has a happy ending. I went much the same thin a week ago with Aloysius. He leaked out at midnight when we were walking the pup…..got chased and was not found for two nights….we found him by his pitiful cries and lured him into the yard……attitude of ‘Hey, where ya bin? Yu got lost!’
Alls well that ends well! 😆
Two days for Aloysius — I would have been frantic!
Two sleepless nights and anxiety filled days!
Thankfully, my two have not been stuck outside in a very long time. I think they’ve been persuaded, between neighbors’ dogs and Loud Strange Noises that being Locked Out of Paradise is a bad thing indeed. They like getting to go out when they can, but they no longer make a game of fooling the human, because Yikes! it’s scary except for our own home and yard.
Very glad both Mousie and Aloysius are safe at home. My last experience with Goober had him stuck under the deck for hours before he’d come out, before a certain younger cat (Smokey) moved in.
Glad to hear the garden and yard are fine front and back. I’m envious. I have to weed my small garden plot in the next few days. BUT I now have small green tomatoes on one of the plants! I’m so excited!
Your gardening angels do lovely work and you have a useful place to put all the Stuff you are clearing out, including, you say, the old bathroom sink. An excellent arrangement for both parties, and the angels get to admire your yard every Sunday when they attend services, a bonus.
And Raesean, what a terrifying story; I am so glad it had a happy ending!
I always worry, but Tabitha seems to know she isn’t up to a lot of adventuring now, and her outdoor sneaks are perfunctory. Her predecessor’s last outdoor activity, at the age of 20+, was to dart under the neighbor’s fence and chase their big retriever around the back yard. No problem finding her — the poor dog was crying — but it was a challenge to catch her! We kept her inside, I think, to protect the neighborhood.
Ever since our older cat, Froggie, died in late February and joined his brother Mackie, we have been wanting another kitten to be a companion to Mousie (and our two bunnies strongly second the motion. They are tired of being bowling playthings). Several days after Mousie’s outdoor adventure, I can announce:
Whiskey and Tango, the Foxtrot brothers! Our vet called us up, per our request, and said a house a few blocks away had two 8-week old, orange kittens up for adoption. My spouse was off to pick them up in a flash. After the great years with Mac and Frog, we can’t resist a pair of kitties, even if our original plan was just one more.
Mousie fled in horror and hid from such alien creatures the much of the first 24 hours, cautiously watched them from afar and ahigh the second, sniffed bums and noses the third and is now (still somewhat roughly) wrestling and playing chase with them. It’s been an anxious week for him, but for us — we’re delighted with the sound of galloping kitties three, and then the snoozes of exhausted kittens two and Mousie continues to get lots of extra pats and attention and pointing out that the top of our high bed and window sills are kitten-free zones — for the moment.
Congratulations to the whole family on the new arrivals! Mousie may be too busy training the babies to be interested in the big scary outside world for awhile.
Oh, we’re so glad. There’s nothing like the thunder of little cat feet to cheer the soul!
Our two have proven to be princes on the road—absolute gentlemen, excepting a few hisses, but that’s just Shu’s way of saying ‘give me space!’
Blessings on the new arrivals!
Gardening Angels. If they touch you, “[y]ou are either a mulch-heap, or a pathway. Or a rocky streambed.” — and whatever you do, DON’T BLINK! 😉
They’re cutting down our big old (dying) maple tree today. It was the oldest tree in the yard and the neighbor complained. Rather than have me fight it out with him (since Russ still lives in New York), Russ just called around and found someone who would not only take the tree down, but was willing to do so and be paid in several pieces.
So I have been watching it come down piece-by-piece. Amazing how fast they can work. They’ve barely been here an hour and about half the tree is gone. This was a HUGE tree, too.
I’ll miss that shade, but ther were several dead branches and better to take the entire tree than have to pay again in a few years to have the rest taken down.
I have been busy the last few months, editing, editing, editing and trying to get a few books out. I just released a new science fiction novel. I am also going to go back and re-edit a couple pieces that are already out. That, at least, is one of the great joys of the new world of publishing. I can fix it.
I just don’t always recognize ‘it’ right away. LOL
CJ, I remember that you and Jane have an interest in the geology of your area, specifically how glaciation has affected it. I got links to an animation of the last glaciation event:
http://emvc.geol.ucsb.edu/2_infopgs/IP2IceAge/aDeglacNoAm.html
You will need to download and open a ZIP file. It is a brief but interesting look at the last 22000 of glacial activity in North America; in the last few hundred years, I am particularly interested by the ‘spray’ in Hudson Bay as the glaciers finally retreat enough to allow sea access.
The Boston Globe published an interview with actor Morgan Freeman today (6/4), who narrates a series on the Science Channel called “Through the Wormhole.” In answer to the question “when did you first find out about wormholes?”, he replies “I used to read a lot and I remember reading a book called “Downbelow Station” that dealt a lot with space travel… [sic] that you could reach a certain speed and be anywhere in the universe you wanted to be. That’s wormhole travel.”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2012/06/04/morgan-freeman-returns-wormhole/AIRqJK5dQGL6eRE1W8kr7N/story.html
(I don’t know how long this link will be good: the Globe has taken to not letting folks read older articles in full on its website.)
Also in the same section of the Globe today was an interesting article on the publishing industry and 3-day BookExpo America convention, with the thesis that independent booksellers are doing surprisingly well and regaining a bit of lost ground (today’s definition of doing well: “I’m not dead yet.”)
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2012/06/04/publishing-industry-gathers-for-annual-convention/mfhLy2hlJVT693Z1vICLwK/story.html