The Cat Sitter

No pets are allowed on the Divine property, the better to preserve our wildlife, but sometimes I like up close and personal, especially with exceptionally fine cats such as those I cat sat for this past weekend: Hermann, Rufus, and Mimi (pictured).

They filled life with surprises. I opened the bedroom door after waking, and ginger cat Rufus was there waiting for me--and raced me downstairs to the kitchen where each morning we caught the suburban sunrise from the exceptionally fine eastern-facing window.

suburban sunrise

The house is on a hilltop and it is very different for me to see houses below, to sit in an armchair (which I don't have) beneath a good lamp (which I don't have), with a cat perched on the armrest or in my lap, making a continuous bubbling sound, to enjoy life and simple reading and writing as if on a vacation--because I wasn't driven to do 200 things at once, as I am at home--and some inter-species communication, mutual curiosity, and unconditional love.

Domestic animals rule, too!

It Bloomed

The amaryllis has four majestic blossoms each measuring about six inches across. The stalk is a foot and half tall. It is like an Easter lily but scarlet, and times four, and gorgeous. Thank you to Terri who gave me my first amaryllis starter kit.

Cats Do Not Belong Outside

All I wanted was a short walk and I had to step over this and think about its life and death, its owners who must have loved, admired, fed, and held it and are probably now wondering when their pet will come back to its fine warm safe indoor home, just right for a domesticated animal. They let their cat out so it could walk on the wild side, chase a few mice, kill a few birds, get some exercise; or perhaps they weren't watching and it escaped, wanting adventure instead of lazing around the house looking elegant. Its cream-colored tail lay about 12 feet away. Please keep cats indoors; letting them roam is the same as killing them. A few feral cats live around here, and while they might survive for a season they all meet the same fate; I know that because I walk these roads. Letting your dogs run loose isn't a good idea either.

Things Mom Did That I Don't

• dust with Pledge.
• towel-dry the dishes and put them away. To this day I ask her why not air-dry the dishes. She simply doesn't like leaving them out.
• percolate coffee.
• sneezed violently all day instead of using antihistamines.
• her own taxes.
• set her hair in brush rollers pinned with pink plastic pins, and then sleep wearing the whole assembly.
• wear a real rubber girdle--a sheath with pinholes for ventilation--and when rubber ones were no longer made, she wore a spandex girdle. When I was a kid I asked her why women wore girdles and she said it wasn't nice for ladies to wiggle.
• have children. She made it look extremely difficult.
• hung clothes and sheets on a line. We used to steal the clothespins and make puppets out of them.
• make and fry doughnuts. The five of us ate them all within minutes.
• remove mice from traps. I toss the trap with the mouse still in it.
• had a cookie jar.
• darned socks and sweaters, inserting a light bulb and patching the hole over it.
• canning, always on the hottest day in August, with an electric fan whirring to no effect.
• put clothes through a wringer.

Cattle with Earrings

Cattle raised without antibiotics or hormones have always been a goal of mine--to eat them, not raise them--and last year I split a quarter with my neighbor Terri, her son, and another friend, resulting in about 27 pounds of roasts, steaks, and ground beef for each of us, locally-raised, reasonably priced, and flavorful--grocery-store beef pales, and even tastes pale, by comparison. Having heard via newsletter that Crooked Creek Farms (it has two sites, handed down in the family since 1891) was selling 10-pound lots of naturally raised ground beef--we love it--for $65, we reserved our lots and today drove about seven miles over the hills to pick it up and pay. It was a beautiful December day--not an oxymoron, because the sunlight was blond and platinum, and the temperature around 50 degrees, as good as December in Missouri gets. There really is a crooked creek there.

On our way out we stopped to visit with cows with earrings. I don't know the breed (why didn't I ask?!); I know only that back in Wisconsin there were mostly Holsteins, good milk producers, and these aren't those; they seem to have Hereford heritage. Say hello to the two black cattle who were eyeing us, #314 and #379; on the far right, a red one has earrings marked 345. They all have such earrings. Terri and I discussed whether we would rather make friends with them or eat them. Split decision.

Twenty Years and Tattered

Finally this afternoon the business of a too-busy summer was said and done, and for the first time this calendar year I had time and energy to set up my tent, because in summer I like spending a few nights a week sleeping in it, enjoying the cool earth and looking up through the netting at the fireflies and stars, and waking in the dawn amid mists and freshness. Having folded my tent carefully last fall, I unrolled it-- a six-sided, two-person dome tent--took the poles and stakes from the carry bag, and as I worked the tent poles through the sleeves for maybe the 200th time, remembering adventures in the Ozarks, in an Iowa county park, on a stony island in Wisconsin, and so on--heard: rip--rip. Shredding gave way to more shredding. The netting that formed the dome was kaput.

My first thought was to buy new netting of just the right kind, cut it hexagonally and machine-sew it myself across the tent top: good as new. But, impossible. The tent is 20 years old.  It cost precisely $20 at Grandpa Pidgeon's, a chain store defunct in 1999. The twin zippers haven't worked for seven or eight years. One of the poles is a replacement, and six inches too short. It is time for a new tent.

Was it really time? I asked myself. And answered: Yes; what perfect, perfect timing! Tomorrow, day after Labor Day, tents will be on sale everywhere and you will find the next love of your camping life.

A Rare Look Inside the Divine Cabin

Began this blog in June 2007. By now you're wondering, what's her writing space like? Now you know. Welcome. This is the Divine living room. That's a "kneeling chair" that keeps my back straight while I tinker with words, building houses of words, for hours and hours just about every day. A second, faster laptop I take with me onto the porch and move around the house with; they are synchronized.

Come & Get It, You Little B-------d

Today on this first truly cold day of the season (high 32 degrees) I was making my famous Christmas cookies and had just lit the stove when a little gray blob shot across my kitchen floor. I hate meeses to pieces. So I loaded up a mousetrap.

Over many years I have learned:

1. Bait it with peanut butter.
2. Just a scant trace of peanut butter. Even a little too much and they’ll eat it without triggering the trap, the little cowards. The photo shows the bait dolloped and OVERFILLED.
3. Lay the trap in a tight spot so the mouse has to wend and elbow its way toward the trap and can’t weasel back out.
4. Listen for the sweet “snap” and gloat when you hear it.
5. Set the trap the night before you expect a guest or guests who is/are a real mensch and not too squeamish to take the icky trap with the broken-necked mouse outside and dump the body in the field.