Another Fine Mess...

“Everyone moves with grace if they are in their proper element”
 Water Dancer by Jennifer Levin.

Well, I am not sure what my proper element is because I do not move with grace.

I am sort of a clumsy, uncoordinated person. I make messes. Some sort of clean-up will almost certainly be required after any activity in the kitchen that involves stirring, pouring, measuring, or transferring something from one container to another.

Yesterday at church I picked up a doughnut with chocolate icing. “Oh look,” said the woman next to me, “you’ve got it on your fingers and it’s on the table.” Sure enough. I did have it on my fingers and there were chocolate smears on the table. So she got the napkin and cleaned the table while I cleaned my fingers.

I mentioned to her that I was almost exactly like the wonderful character played by Joan Hackett in Support Your Local Sheriff!, who got flour all over her face in that hilarious scene where she is cooking dinner for her father and the sheriff. I burn my fingers now and then, but have never caught myself on fire. Fortunately.

This is probably going to be too much information, but bear with me here so you can grasp how awful this was. Our cat drinks a lot of water. We have had her tested for diabetes and other imbalances that might cause an animal to drink a lot of water, and everything was negative. So she also pees a lot. She is an indoor/outdoor cat, but she prefers to come inside to use the litter box.

She always pees right against the edge--sometimes over the edge, so I have to put plastic underneath the litter box--so instead of small, scattered clumps that can be sifted out with the slotted scoop, there is a thick ledge of it, usually running right across the back of the litter box, which I have to scrape off with the small shovel I used back in the day to scoop ash out of the wood-burning stove.

The last time I cleaned the litter box, which I do once a week, I bumbled this huge clump of urine-saturated cat litter. It hit my left foot (wearing house sandals), and a piece of it of it broke off and landed on the wood floor, where it left a big wet spot.

So I spent some additional time scrubbing the floor and cleaning the sandal and my foot.

We have had cats as pets for 35 of the 37 years we have lived here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate cats. I am just tired of them. She is 18 years old. She can’t live forever, right? Well, I have been assured by two different people who know folks who have had cats that lived to 24 years. So we may have her a while longer, but I know that we will never have another pet cat.

Never.
Ever.
I mean it too. Never

So long, farewell…until next Spring

They arrive in early spring and keep us mightily entertained through the long, hot, summer days. Even before it is light enough outside for me to see them, I can hear them squeaking angrily at each other as they fight over who gets to land at the feeder and drink.

We put 4 feeders out on 3 sides of the house, all of them out of sight of the others, which is enough for each to have its own feeder, but it doesn’t work that way with them. They tend to move around the house in a group fighting furiously at each feeder. Once in a while two of them will land at the same time and each allows the other to tank up before they start the battle again.

Although 4 hummingbirds doesn’t seem like very many, it’s fine for us. In the past, my friend Judy, who lives about 5 miles out in the country, had as many as 50 or 60 of them, which meant a lot of sugar and a lot of work keeping the feeders filled.

Can you imagine what it might be like if they could do everything that they do but were much larger—say the size of Robins or Bluejays? Their spectacular aerial acrobatics would certainly become something to see. It might be dangerous to go outside. My father-in-law used to have a Chihuahua and I don’t believe I’ve ever met a nastier more unpleasant dog than that little bugger. I was always very thankful that it wasn’t the size of a German Shepherd.

It suddenly turned cold one night last week – nothing gradual about it – and the next morning all was quiet at the feeders. They have headed south and we hope they will have a safe winter along the Gulf Coast, or in the Caribbean, or Mexico, or wherever else they go.

I will leave the feeders out for another week, which are now being mobbed by yellow jackets, in case any stragglers come through. We will look forward to seeing them again in the Spring.