🐈🐈‍⬛A Kitten's Tale🐈‍⬛🐈

For display purposes only!

          Our nest was under an old stump in a meadow. There, my mother gave birth to me and three others. I am the only son, and I was first born. I am striped and I have spots too.
            Our time together there was very nice. When mother was hunting, we waited for her, as quietly as stones or flowers. That was her instruction, to make no sound. Mother put me in charge when she went out to hunt. I took it very seriously. My three sisters obeyed me and all went well during our time together under the old dead stump.
            Among ourselves, cats don’t have names. That’s not how we know each other. It’s appearance and scent, and even sometimes, in the dark, a typical mew or purr. So when I set out into the world, I was known by no name, such as speakers use.
            Midsummer came, and I was out using my legs a little. Mother was home under the stump with my sisters, who were not ready to go abroad yet. So, I was alone. I had never been alone before.
            It was so entrancing out in the open meadow that I just kept walking! I made little burrows in among tall grass stalks. I climbed over sticks and rocks and vines. I climbed into a huckleberry bush, and I was astounded to see all that lay before me.
            After a while I thought of my mother and realized that I had become hungry. I no longer had her scent to follow home. One way seemed much like another. So, I walked. I suppose I thought that if I kept going, that I would find her, or at least her scent, or she would find me!
            It was not to be.
            I walked, and I cried out too, for a long time, but I was truly alone, except for a few robins and crows, who were no help at all. I saw some insects, but they have no power to help at all.
            After all this searching, I came upon a strange thing. I didn’t understand what it was. It was a ring of trees pulled together at their tops where they seemed to be woven together. There was a circle of rocks at the bottom of these trees, and there was what I knew later to be a door in this strange sight. I didn’t fear it, I was too desperate. Maybe there would be help here.
            My cries must have been noticed by someone, for a very amazing thing happened. Now, I knew the sun; I knew what the moon looked like, and my little eyes had even discerned stars very far away. But it seemed that a star came to me then, with tears in my eyes alone in the meadow.
            It was blue and gentle. It caused no fear. It came down near to me and rested near the ground. It was the color of the sky, but deeper blue, and maybe the size of the full moon seen from the ground.
            It moved over the grass a few inches and waited. I followed. Then it moved again and stopped again. I followed. I was beginning to understand that I was to follow it. So, slowly this blue star led me to the very doorway of the strange thing made of woven trees. I really had no choice except to follow and hope for the best.
            I followed the blue star through the doorway.
            As I followed it in, its light faded and in its place was what I later came to know was a child, a boy. He turned and smiled at me, and he said, “What a good kitty you are!”
            He was just bending to stroke me, which was a new experience, when a much larger person, who was smooth and hairless, wearing a dress, saw us there together.
            “Koba, my son, what have you got there?” she said.
            “I found a kitty crying in the meadow, Mama,” said the boy. “I think he needs us!”
            “You are right. He looks thirsty and hungry!” said the woman, who I found out later was a mother, in fact, the boy Koba’s mother. I felt safe because she was a mother.
            Koba got a bowl, and the mother poured water from a jug into the bowl, and Koba set it down before me. Now, I had never lapped water before, since my sole drink and food had been my mother’s milk. However, the woman knelt and splashed the water a little and then touched my mouth with a wet finger, and I made the connection and learned to lap water right there. I was so relieved to have just a drink that when I had lapped a bit longer, I just sat with my eyes closed and rested.
            “He’s hungry, Mama,” said Koba.
            “I know, but I bet he hasn’t had solid food yet. Let me think,” said the mother. “Maybe he could eat a little fish if I break it up for him.”
            Later I learned that her name was Leely. Leely saved my life that day, and I will never forget it, or that Koba found me and led me to her.
            She got a little plate and on it she put some pieces of cooked fish broken up into small flakes.                She placed the plate before me. I sniffed it and walked around the plate because I knew it must be food but had never eaten solid food before.
            Koba took a little flake of the fish and showed me that he put it in his mouth. I took courage from his demonstration and took a bit into my mouth too. It was a revelation. It was so good that I ate all of the small plate of food.
            “Now he will be sleepy,” said Leely.
            “Can he sleep in my bed?” said Koba.
            “Yes, why don’t you put him to bed,” she said kindly.
            Koba carried me to a sort of big basket full of soft cloth things. I didn’t know about quilts yet. He laid me carefully in the basket bed. He said, “Go ahead and sleep. We will take of you.”
            As I was dropping off to sleep, I heard Koba tell his mother that I needed a name.
            I felt safe for the first time since I had become lost.
            “When your daddy comes home, you and he can name the kitten, Koba. I think that would be very nice,” said Leely, “Don’t you?”
            “Yes!” said Koba. “I think I will go sleep with the kitten while I wait for Daddy,”
            That was my first nap at home with Koba and his Mama and Father.

✡️

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁Fall Is Coming! 🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

 

          This is just some photo I took driving around in the mountains one fall day. Nothing special, just snooping as usual, trying to get a little bit lost. Like that. It never works though, because if you know where the Cascades are, you know where the salt water is, and you know where Mt. Rainier is, and Mt. Baker, well, that would be like getting lost in your house.  

            The same day, Oct. 26, 2012, we saw this guy taking care of his Angus steers. They ran right up to him!

            Same day. A very tempting stream. This is prime territory for our Forest Keepers! You can bet they are keeping an eye on things out there.

            I didn't want to drive home wet, so I didn't "fall in." Sigh.

            Have a wonderful Cat Buttering Day! As my grampa used to say, "Tell me a story!"  If you want to!

🍃🍁🍃🐦‍⬛

It's All Too Much!

 

            “Suzy!” said Toots one day, to her friend and confidant, “It’s hot here! I don’t mean average summer hot. I mean it’s August in Texas hot, Baby! If we had a sidewalk, you could fry an egg on it. I don’t know why anyone would do that, but they say that!”
            “I don’t know how you stand it, Toots,” said Suzy. “I believe I would purely croak!”
            “Look, I know fall is coming, but not for weeks yet!” said Toots, sighing. “How are things going in soggy WA?”
            “I’ll tell you how it’s going, Hon! It hasn’t rained except maybe once all summer. It’s dry as a bone here, and smoky! Do you know about that? It looks like a cloudy day outside, but it’s not. It’s smokey. I can smell it! Trees are burning all around!” said Suzy. “It’s not soggy here until late fall, Toots.”
            “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Suzy?” said Toots.
            “Maybe! But tell me anyhow!” said Suzy, with a virtual wink.
            “I think we’re overdue for a field trip to a cool place, don’t you?” said Toots.
            “Space is cool,” said Suzy.
            “Space is very cool,” agreed Toots. “Got any ideas?”’
            “Wanna take a ride in a red car, Toots? We could ride with Starman, and orbit the sun!” said Suzy. “We would be the only cats out there in the Feline Frontier! Imagine how cool that would be!”
“I’m working with it, give me a minute,” said Toots, but she was smiling… “Oh, heck, let’s go!”
And before you could say Bunny Boots, the two little explorers rose up, as little points of vision, into the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. Once again they marveled at the beauty of the planet. They watched it roll beneath them, traced the shapes of countries, and watched storms form and then fade, and indeed saw the smoke in the US and Europe too.
            “No wonder I smelled smoke,” said Suzy.
            “I’m amazed I didn’t smell smoke,” said Toots.
            “Well, now, let’s find the red Tesla. It’s out here. It came up on SpaceX a few years ago,” said Suzy. “I think it would help if we pictured it.”
            So, they shut their virtual eyes, and thought about a red Tesla, like a satellite, orbiting the sun, around and around. It must have worked because when they opened their eyes, there it was. And what a sight it was!
            It was wild, crazy, incongruous to see. It was like a dream; the red Tesla Roadster suspended in orbit with the sun flaming below.
            “Front seat?” said Toots.
            “Oh yes, we’ll be able to see better,” said Suzy as they settled in beside Starman, shoving some random junk off of the seat onto the floor.
            “Hot wheels?” said Toots.
            “Meow! Weird,” laughed Suzy. “Is this guy just kidding around?”
            “I think if a guy has enough money, he can kid around if he wants to,” said Toots. “But it works like any other satellite. We don’t really have time to ride it all the way around the sun.”
            Starman made no comment, since he was just a crash-test dummy or something.
            “Look how tiny Earth looks from here,” said Toots.
            “It makes me a little bit sad and lonely,” said Suzy. “I think I’d rather orbit the Earth.”
            “Oh, let’s just go home,” said Toots. “There’s no place like home!”
            “There’s no place like home!” said Suzy, with conviction.
            And just like that, when Suzy opened her eyes, she was on her favorite corner of the bed facing the open window, looking out at the sky. It still looked smokey, but it was home, and she knew the smoke would end one day, and fall would come with cool rain, stormy nights, and falling leaves, and then there would be winter, and if they were very lucky there would be snow.
            And similarly, when Toots came back to her place, she was looking at her shop-mate Sammie, and she was so happy to see her. It was still warm, actually rather hot, but night was coming with cooler temperatures.
            “Everything in its own time,” thought Toots. “Just a few more days, and everything will change again.”
            “I hope we get some snow this winter,” thought Toots. And she dreamed a little of falling snowflakes, frozen grass, and breath in clouds because of the cold.

❄️

Dream Dancing & Walking

 

            Ralph’s got a jazzy head on him. And he’s in a lucid spot, walking that littoral between here and there. It looks to him like a forest, but not the Great Forest.

            “Let’s see what we can see,” he murmurs to himself, or to the dream angels.    
            There’s always an angel to record speech, right, in dreams?
            He came to a crossroad. A sign read “Choose Your Own Adventure.” There were two arrows on the sign. One pointed left, and it said, “War of the Colors.” The other arrow pointed to the right, and it said, “Just Go Back to Where It Began.”
            “I would like to do both,” said Ralph, and there was the path, ready, before him on the left. It was paved in moss, intensely green and soft, like walking on a cool damp rug.
            Through the trees, looking straight up, he saw a sky of shockingly deep ultramarine blue,
            The trees were comical, like blueberry bushes or rhododendrons, or maybe some kind of  potted succulent plant.
            He saw that the green strove upon the blue. “What does it mean?” he asked the recording angel.
            “Dance,” said the angel. Just one word.
            So,  Ralph danced with the angel, spinning and dipping, until he was quite dizzy. Meaning tickled behind his mind.
            “I see,” he said, catching his breath. “Green desires blue. It has made a new thing. Heaven's blue mixed with Earth's green.”
            “What does it mean?” he said to the angel.
            “Let it be,” said the angel. “Now walk back down the path.”
            So Ralph turned on his heel and walked back down the path to the sign and found the other path waiting at the right side. Very soon the strange forest disappeared, and he was walking down a gravel road between utterly ordinary alders and maples. The road was dusty and the air was hot, like one of those desperate last days of summer. Grass was yellowed. Leaves appeared pinched and thirsty.
            And it seemed as he walked that he began to recognize within himself his younger self. He grew smaller and smoother, more and more as he walked the dusty gravel road.
            The path his steps took left the gravel road then, and made a sharp turn into the dim light of the forest. He was quite young now, no bigger than a human man.
            He forgot how he had come here, and what he had been.
            The forest was very pleasant after the dusty road in the hot sunshine.
            There was a small spring. Kneeling down to drink, he saw that the clear water issued from great depths. But the water was good to drink, and he bathed his feet in the trickle that ran from it.
            In a bright spot among the trees he found blackberries which had dried on their vines, into a sort of raisin. He ate them, and they were good too.
            The trees became larger and were tighter together. Very little sunlight made it to the forest floor. A white birch trunk shone in the half-light, then another, like sentinels of some kind.
            In the distance he saw a strange building, and he was drawn to it, though some might have been afraid.
            It sat flat on the ground, for the supports built of timber had rotted away long ago. The outside was covered in ancient scraps of tarpaper. The roof sagged, the chimney, merely a rusty metal pipe hung off at a weird angle. The door lay on the ground. There was a wooden set of three steps, sagging and broken. It smelled of dry rot.
            On the steps sat a human child. A girl. She had cried until she had no more tears. Her face was dirty with dried tears; her hair was a long brown mess.
            Ralph approached, fearing nothing.
            A pair of blue eyes watched him picking his way between the trees and undergrowth.
            “Why are you crying,” he said when he got to the girl on the steps.
            “I’m lost and no way I walk is the right way,” she answered. “Do you know the right way?”
            “Yes,” he said. “I do; I will lead you. Take my hand, little girl.”
            So, she came to him and held his left hand, leaving the right hand free. Then they walked a pathless half mile or so, until a humble sort of house with the remains of a summer garden behind it could be seen beyond the brush.
            “That’s where I live,” she said, sighing.
            A woman was in the garden, looking toward the forest and frowning, hands on her hips.
            “Go to her,” he said, staying out of sight himself.
            As she ran to her mother, the forest around him began to drift away, like a memory, leaving only a stubborn single image.

🍃

A Rosy August 9th To You!

 I present, for your approval, the best

in my possession.

One of the benefits of August are the roses.

Which I photographed yesterday.

I hope you have a delightful day.

And!

May the Almighty bless you with his presence.

🐦‍⬛🍁🐈‍⬛

Poets & Thinkers & Singers

 

 
            “Tell me, Ralph,” said Millicent one day while seated on a piece of river driftwood by the Silver River watching it flow, “What is the essential nature of the Forest People?”
            “Oh, I see,” said Ralph. “You’ve been pondering verities again.”
            “Don’t tease me, Ralph. Isn’t that question at the very nub?” said Milly turning her blue eyes upon his brown eyes, gauging his expression.
            “I’m not really teasing you, Milly. It’s hard to explain, though you might be one of the few to get it,” he was watching the river murmur and roll too. He was thinking that somehow its continual motion must be a metaphor for something. There it was, and there it went!
            “OK, since time on this particular planet began, there have been several, at least, types of human. We are human and you, are the latest version of human.
            “You could almost see it as a huge Venn diagram reaching back into the unknown history of life on Earth. There is a considerable overlap between you and we. You know that. You’ve met my family,” said Ralph.
            “No question about that,” agreed Milly. “Then why all the mystery and the hiding, and how are we not alike?”
            “You could see it in terms of a myth. In the story, perhaps, there was a time of deciding and dividing the races of man. Your people chose material progress, and were very good at it I must say! But, in the story, my people chose to be skilled in the intangible. You could also say that this choice pleased the Creator and that He blessed us. He gave us physical strength, but more than that He allowed us to develop the unseen arts. He enlarged our memories, our ability with language too. Think of the Sagas or the songs of any non-literate society. We are like that to some extent. Our words, though many, are not written down.
            “As for remaining hidden, it’s pure self-defense. You know what has happened over and over among men toward other men. You saw what happened to the people who lived here, and were shoved to the side.
            “The fear and disdain of mankind is born into us,” said Ralph, though he was smiling.
            “How is your ability with language different from ours?” said Milly.
            “Well, I have noticed that a lot of human talk is void. Nothing comes of it,” said Ralph.
            “I have to admit that’s true. Sometimes it seems like a sort of human barking!” said Milly.
            “The Power that Spoke the worlds into being, gave us a tiny sip of that ability. That’s the gift of being able to speak a thing into existence. Or out of existence for that matter.
            “I will say that I think that ability with words and concepts is latent in your people too, if they just knew it. There is a kind of blindness among men,” said Ralph. “Some lady I heard of said ‘Words make worlds’, and that is true.”
            “So tell me about hiding from us. And what’s the deal with all those tree and stump stories online?” said Milly.
            “A guy comes out into the forest. He is or isn’t looking for one of us. If he is, and succeeds, what he sees will look like what he expects to see. A monster perhaps, more or less, depending on his heart. So we try to avoid him. There’s no use trying deceive us, we can hear your heart and intentions loudly!
            “One of the best ways of remaining hidden if he suddenly meets one of us, is to shield him from the shock by causing him to see a tree or a stump. Now, some people can see through this, hence the stories!” said Ralph.
            “How can you do that?” asked Milly, perplexed.
            “It’s kind of an override. I sort of tell him that he sees a tree and he sees a tree.”
            “Telepathy?” said Milly, nodding.
            “Yeah, but the trick is to not have him notice it happening,” said Ralph.
            “Does any of that help?” he asked.
            “Yes..” she said slowly. “How it looks to us is that in some ways you perform magic. To a materialist world, it seems impossible. To most people it’s just imagination or lies.”
            “And it seems to us that mankind wants to capture and categorize everything, render it into data, then discount it as nothing at all,” said Ralph, gazing around at the sky and the river and the forest.
            “You know, there’s only one thing that can break this divide. You and I, and my Ramona and children, have done it!” said Ralph. “Ranger Rick and Dexter and Hannah too!”
            “Love and Only Love,” said Milly. “It’s a song.”
            “Can you sing it to me?” said Ralph with a grin.
            “No! I have to play it for you on a small machine!” said Milly, laughing.
            “I’m getting a little chilly sitting by this river, can we go hang around with Ramona?”
            “Sure, she’d like to see you, and it’s warm by the fire,” said Ralph.

🍁🌲🍁

August 8, 2020

             This nice fellow guards the sheep on a farm beside the small highway which leads to Silvana, WA. He, or another just like him has been there for as long as I've been driving up to the country butcher. I've long puzzled over the orange ball attached to his collar. Maybe it's to keep him from leaping the fence when people like me stop to talk to him.

            He has no sense of humor whatsoever. It's all duty with that guy.

            A little further down the road you can make a right and cross a small river and head out to the blueberry farm. It looks like nothing is out there, so they put encouraging little signs on the power poles.

            What a green place!

            I just wanted you guys to know I was thinking of you, even if I didn't have time for a story to be born.

            These are the good old days! I wish you all the joy your hearts can hold.

🍁

Fall is coming!