Kayli

 

                Kayli, the sun kitty, died on Saturday morning, just a few weeks short of 19 years old, which is pretty impressive for a cat. On Thursday, she spent the day in the greenhouse, negotiating the entire house, three cat doors, one low fence, and a chair climb up to her preferred spot in the sun on the planting shelf.  On Friday night, she basked by a fire until all of the heat had gone. The end came quickly, although we knew she was fading.

                She was about six months old when I found her, isolated with a nasty, drug resistant respiratory   infection, at the shelter. She was in her own cage, huddled far in the back. When I talked with her, she came forward slowly, and then pressed her head against mine, purring. That was her last purr for several months as we took her home and battled the infection. It finally broke on sunny afternoon in late November when we took both of our new kittens outside to explore the yard. While Lucy ran up the tree, Kayli faced the sun, eyes squinting, basking in the warmth. I will be your cat and you will be my people, she told us, under one condition: I go out.

                And so, she went out. She roamed the neighborhood for power nap spots, spending days on the neighbor’s porch (they put out a pillow as she grew older). She was trapped, not once, not twice, but three times in structures around the block because she loved to explore. She rode in the trunk of someone’s car all the way to McMinninville. Fortunately, they caught her as she jumped out and hosted a cat sleepover before she was brought home the next day. She sat under the Ark and accosted people walking by; she had a fan club in China for several years. It was not uncommon to see someone sitting on the curb, holding a conversation with our fluffy, flirting cat.  

                Kayli was a social beastie. She liked a potluck, a gathering of people, and loved a meeting. She would greet each person as they entered the space then sit in the center for appropriate worship. Online, she would wrestle the door open, then howl loudly, weighing in on whatever the pressing issue of the day was. There are countless council shots of her very fluffy tail waving across the camera as I tried to redirect her interests elsewhere.  She even liked to visit Mark at work on the way home from the vet, always on the back of my bike. Bike rides were better than van rides.

                We will miss this fluffy orange cat who was so engaged with the world that she helped read council packets and the newspaper; who slept on the foot of the bed because it was too warm to be too close, but moved into the pile of covers when we got up; who loved the sun and a fire and warmth on her face, as well as tummy rubs and rolling around on the fence, almost but never quite falling off. We buried her in front of the greenhouse, very close to the spot where she decided that we were her people.

Third Winter

 

Last week, there was some serious lobbying to go outside during class. The sun was out and the temperature was in the fifties, which is pretty darn nice by Oregon standards for early March.  I am often susceptible to pleas to read outside; I want to be out as much as the next person.

“We neeed to go out, Ms. Ellis,” they implored. “It’s so nice and you know Third Winter is coming.”

It’s true. Third Winter is coming. In the Willamette Valley we have First Winter, from November to late December, where the days are growing shorter and the clouds are low. But First Winter is improved because of Christmas lights which go on in mid-November and stay on until ….well, there are still some on now.  And there is Winter Break. And the hope of a snow and ice day. And presents. Then there is Second Winter, which starts when school begins again and is plagued by sniffles, colds, flu, and the end of the semester. It rains and drizzles and no one wants to go out ever. Not even the cat. It’s grim. But, the light is slowly coming back and the snowdrops bloom. We can handle it.  Barely.

 Third Winter is the worst. Early March teases us with dry, clear, warm days. Buds swell. We go out to read in the sun.  Gardeners clean out old beds, plant seeds, and monitor the soil for warmth and moisture. There is hope. Then Third Winter hits, usually the week of Spring Break. The sweatshirt you have worn every day all winter is dingy and unappealing, so you leave it home and shiver in the morning instead.  It’s cold and rainy and the clouds are low. There’s hail. Downpours. Creeks flood.  Anything that you foolishly planted out sits in the ground, dodging slugs, and refuses to grow. Third Winter is the worst.

This year, I have been struggling with this knowledge.  For some reason, I am ahead in the garden. I have turned and prepped four beds—the early peas and leeks and parsnips bed, the spring greens bed, and both potato beds.  The starts in the greenhouse are bursting with life. The peas, especially, are ahead of the growth curve, dying to be planted out. “It’s only four feet,” they call to me. “Four feet away, on the other side of the greenhouse wall, is our bed. You even put the strings up!”  Like a bunch of sophomores on a sunny Friday afternoon, they clamor for release.  It is perfect pea planting weather. But….there are no volunteer potatoes up yet, a real sign that the soil is warming. And, after  thirty years here, I know that Third Winter is coming.  We will wait. At least another week.

 

Revenge Pee

 

                Our cat is elderly. Her back legs are weak and her bladder is small and grumbly with an occasional bladder infection. Last year, we all gave in and put a litter box in the bathroom.

                Although she has always preferred going outdoors—under the Ark in bad weather—to a litter box, she is also the master of what we call the Revenge Pee.  This is the perfectly targeted pee (or poop) right by the door, or at the bottom of the stairs, or, once, in the middle of a laundry pile in the basement.  She occasionally indulged in Revenge Pee when we locked her in the house with a litter box because we did not want her roaming while we were gone for a few days, or when we did something else to cause her wrath.  It was always a statement.

                For the past month, we have been struggling with a variation of the Revenge Pee. We set up two litter boxes when her infection was bad. One in the bathroom and one by the front door, because she was peeing on the floor in an attempt to go out.  She really liked that, but I did not. So, I slowly moved the second box across the living room and into the bathroom. She moved with it. It paused over the heater’s intake grate in the hall for several days and then I moved it the last few feet. She showed her displeasure by peeing in the grate. I showed my displeasure by pitching her out. To clean up the mess, I stacked the two litter boxes in the bathroom.

                While we were gone, she came in, ate some crunchies, and went into the bathroom. Then, on her tired old back legs, she climbed into the stacked boxes and pooped. Mark thinks it was a sign she is ready to make peace. I am not so sure.

 

 

 

Saturday Chores

 

The weather report read  heavy rain on Sunday, so we spent all of Saturday outside. First, we walked to the market, had some excellent chats, and bought the vegetables for the week. Then, when we came home, we went outside, without even stopping for lunch. Mark worked on compost. I cleaned up.

·         Transplanted several small plants I’ve been rooting inside.

·         Watered all of the starts and adjusted the lights so they would not wake Mark up in the morning.

·         Cleaned up the area around the recently remodeled and planted rose bed.

·         Pulled nails from the rotten wood and tossed it into the compost area.

·         Moved large and small bricks back to the storage area in the chicken run.

·         Turned over the first bed so that the organic matter would break down faster and moved the hoops over so that I can start drying it out in a week or so.

·         Cleaned up the strawberries in the wheelbarrows; they were surrounded by dead and rotting foliage and needed some air to breath.

·         Moved empty garden barrels around.

·         Trimmed some branches for vases in the house. 

When I was finished, I came inside, took one look at the very messy kitchen, and put my boots back on. There was clearly a storm coming on, but it hadn’t started yet. I grabbed the second pair of trimmers and headed back to the compost piles. Working together, while the wind rose around us, Mark and I  trimmed the ENTIRE pile of branches into the rings. There is no plant matter waiting to be composted at this precise moment. It’s won’t last of course, but, as the rains began, we felt like we had accomplished something major. 

Snow Days

 

Snow Days.

When I was young, living in New England, I dreamed of snow days. When a blizzard moved in, I fell asleep to the sound of the plows out, clearing the roads. If they lost the battle, my mother and I turned on the radio at 5:30 to listen to the list of closures, read in alphabetical order. Hampstead was a third of the way down the list; Pinkerton Academy was much further—and the decisions was not always the same.  My mother remembered the radio just saying “all schools in all towns are closed today” which was more efficient, but lacked the drama of the long list. Now, the district sends out a robo call at 6:25  and then posts the information on the website. I lie in bed, listen to the weather, and hope.  A Snow Day,  for teachers, is a gift from the Weather Gods. And I treat it as such (we’ll have to scramble to make up the time later, so there’s no point in doing school work).

 

Thursday was a Snow Day. This was my day.

·         Muffins for breakfast.

·         Second mug of tea, with the cat, watching the birds at the feeder. Bluebirds came through. The birds got a second coop of seed; it was cold out.

·         Finished a book.

·         Washed all of the great grandmother’s dishes that are on the open shelves in the kitchen. They were covered in dust.

·         Swept the basement. De-sprouted the potatoes.

·         Cleaned the kitchen, getting a jump on the weekend.

·         Read the news online.

·         Walked downtown to escort Mark home.

·         Spent an hour looking at bills in the legislature in preparation for the Council committee meeting, which we had online.

·         Made dinner.

·         Watched an episode of the Great British Bakeoff with the cat.

·         Went to bed, hoping, not for a snow day, but a late opening, which is what happened.

The key to a good Snow Day is completing a project or two that would not get done in the normal flow of things, balanced with time spent just staring out the window, watching the weather. I have it down.

 

 

 

 

Seed Starting in Cold Times

 

                It has been a colder than usual few weeks; there was a week and a half of bright clear sun and cold nights, followed by a week that threatened “Wintry Mix” but never quite followed through. Because of this, all of the outdoor plants are in the greenhouse or the dining room and all of the greenhouse plants have come into the house. It’s a bit crowded everywhere.

                Last Sunday was Candlemas. We took a long walk—without threatened rain—finished up the pruning, and planted greens in front of the fire. But, it was too chilly to move them out to the greenhouse, even with mats, so they have been living on a drying rack in the Cozy room for the last week. Kale, mustard, arugula, lettuce, leeks, early cabbage, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower, plus pansies. I planted extra, just in case and so we can share.  They are all sprouting now and starting to lean towards the light, reminding me that, even though the groundhog saw his shadow, spring will come. Until then, I am checking NOAA weather, hoping for a break in the cold so that the starts can leave the house. They need the light; we need the space.

Social Media

 

I have seen a great deal of worry about social media, Face Book, and other platforms in the last month, with the new administration’s election. In fact, the concern goes back further in time, as I just finished reading The Anxious Generation, which connects our mental health crisis directly to the rise of cell phone. I agreed with the author’s premise the smart phones are not good for our mental health; we do not have smart phones at home and still answer (or not) a landline.  Obviously, we are not a technology free household but we have some limits that help to keep us sane.

First, all of our engagement with anything online is through our shared laptop. Mark has a computer, but it is in the basement and its cold down there. So we negotiate for my laptop upstairs.  I use it when I come home from work because I have council business to deal with. Mark works on his stuff while I cook dinner. If one of us has an online meeting, we have to arrange ahead of time. It’s like having only one car (we have one car, too).  Because we are not always online, we have a break. There’s not a constant pinging in our lives.

Second, I have curated my Face Book account.  After the first Trump election, I deleted everything political. I unliked all of my news sources and political pages. It was amazing. This left me with a whole lot of potato sellers and garden seeds, which is lovely. And it has held. I have no political junk cluttering up the feed. I do have underwear ads (the nice socks have disappeared) and some photos of Boston in the 1970s, but I can live with that. I post nothing political.  It helps.

Finally, every Friday evening, I shut down the computer for a technology Shabbat.  No email. No New York Times—not even the games. No checking social media. No packet questions, or printing. The laptop is closed. Mark usually participates as well, but he is not bound by it. If you want to reach me, you have to call. Or catch us on the way to the market. Or stop by with a question.  It’s all good.

I have found that having these limits keeps me sane and rooted in the real world. I have control of my online life—we all do. We just need to take it back.  And it’s Friday, so it is time to make dinner, read my book, maybe draw the garden plan, stretch my eyes away from a screen, and have a real life. In this, as in so many other ways, we have agency.