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!

The Purrsday Meow & Review

 

 
            “Good morning! Happy Purrsday to all, as Purr usual!,” said Suzy, enjoying her own mild joke. “So, I guess what we are doing here is having an informal sort of round robin interview.”
            “It’s good to catch up with each other, and give the readers a gentle heads up,” added Toots.
            “This IS the MEOW, after all,” said Suzy. “Do you have news, Toots?”
            “Only that my shop mate,  dear Sammie, caught and devoured a living cricket! Then, having consumed it, it made her tummy funny, and she urped its particles up!” said Toots.
            “Well, I, for one, am flat jealous,” said Suzy. “There is no prey around here. I haven’t seen even a spider or a fly, let alone a mouse.”
            “Mr. Baby, it’s good to see you today. Kind of you to visit,” said Toots.
            “Thanks, but it wasn’t my idea! She had to go today, so she dumped me here and took Charley along. Apparently, Charley possesses no initiative,” grumped Mr. Baby.
            “That just means that Charley doesn’t try to run away all the time,” said Suzy.
            “But, I bet it’s nice to be near Suzy,” giggled Toots.
            “Hey!” yowled Suzy.
            “Any other news?” said Toots smoothly. “How about those Tomkittens?”
            “There’s always something. Let’s see. Oh, the new backpack. Someone left it down where they could get at it, then Sweetie got the zipper open. He was apprehended wholly inside looking out. Booker looked on, full of admiration.
            “Never in all my days has it occurred to me to do such a thing,” mused Suzy.
            “What say you, in your defense, Sweetie?” said Toots.
            “Only that it is my sworn duty as a Scout to defend our Beloved Mistress from all dangers!” said Sweetie, solemnly.
            “You cleared her backpack?” said Toots.
            “Yes. I wasn’t sure about that package of jerky, so I bit it, to make sure,” said Sweetie.
            “Good man!” said Mr. Baby. “Let’s hear Booker out. What say you, Young Sir?”
          “I climb, Sir! No spot is too high, no slope too steep, for the sake of Herself, I climb to spot trouble. From my vantage on top of the easel, or the fridge, I see all below!” proclaimed Booker proudly. “Wow! M’WOW!”
            “Order!” yelled Sammie. “Please refrain from yowling during the meeting!”
            “Sorry,” said Booker. “Sometime I just feel like yelling Wow.”
            “I’m sure we all do, from time to time. It’s OK,” said Sammie.
            “I wish I could eat a cricket,” said Sweetie. “How did you like it?”
            “I saw the thing hopping around, and my compulsion to hunt just took over! I pounced on it and crunched it down! It was glorious! Then something happened and it just came back up, but for the moment of triumph, it was worth the barfing!” Sammie looked pleased.
            “Buddy, are you there?” said Toots. “News? Opinions? Wisdom?”
            “I’m listening,” said Buddy. “Regarding yowling, I quite understand the need. Didn’t you ever suddenly get lonely, just somewhere in your house? At those times it’s best to call out as loudly as you can! Sing it! Let them know you’re lonely!”
            “Oh, quite, I’m sure,” said Sammie, courteously.
            “Anything else?” said Toots.
            “Yeah!” said Sweetie, “You guys ever jump in the fridge? You should! It’s great!”
            “It is great!” said Booker, who always goes second.
            “Shall we take a vote?” said Toots. “All those who have ever jumped into the fridge, raise your paw!”
            Sweetie and Booker were the only cats waving their paws, and giggling.
            “Just as I suspected,” said Toots.
            “Well, that’s the Purrsday wrap up, I believe,” said Suzy. “Shall we call it done, Toots?”
           “Yes, dear, that’s enough for today!” said Toots. “Thank you all for Purrticipating™! See you next time!”
            “Meow, over and out!” said Suzy!

🐈‍⬛🐈🐈‍⬛🐈🐈‍⬛🐈🐈‍⬛

It's Just Ralph and Maeve Talking

 

            “What’s the word bird,” said Ralph, comfortably suspended in air like he does sometimes, legs crossed, yoga style.
            “I’ve got one,” said Maeve. “This is from Millicent’s Colin, by way of Millicent.”
            “I hope it doesn’t make me put my feet down,” said Ralph. “What does her public want now?”
            “Three different readers, over the last year, have said your kind are nothing more than Indian paranoia, laid on top of Old Timer’s lies, and modern wishful thinking. IOW, you ain’t real because nobody finds bodies or graves. They think this is a fine, conclusive argument. No bodies, no Forest Giants. Obviously.
            “Well, Boss, Milly says she ignored the first two, but when the last one wrote in, she decided she needed to address the question,” said Maeve. “Then Colin asked her the same thing at home.” 

            She was on his shoulder, so she was levitating, too even though it’s silly for a bird to levitate, if you think about it.
            “Did she remind them that nobody finds bear bodies either?” said Ralph, putting one foot down on the forest floor.
            “She hasn’t written yet, Boss,” said Maeve.
            Ralph sighed and put his other foot on the ground. He took a seat on his cedar log.
            “They don’t find our dead because we are not animals, and we don’t want them to find our dead. Doesn’t that make sense?” he said.
            “It makes sense to me, but I bet that letter writer would like to know more,” said Maeve.
            “Tell Milly to tell that guy that we bury them deep and put a boulder on top that a Cat couldn’t move. That’s all  he needs to know. We bury them deep. If somebody did figure out where, they are very unlikely to dig one up. Of course, that’s just for public consumption.
            “The truth is a little more complicated,” said Ralph.
            “How complicated?” said Maeve.
            “I guess it’s OK if Milly knows this, but she has to not let on to anyone, oh maybe Colin is OK too.
            “Basically we hide our dead deep in the ground, or under a boulder, or deep in a cave, out of sight. But the body doesn’t stay there long. Over the course of a few days, it evaporates away, bones and all. The spirit goes back to the Maker, and the body returns to the world of matter like that. It just isn’t there after a while. Of course nobody has found a body. Our bodies don’t keep. We don’t preserve them, or burn them, or anything else,” said Ralph.
            “Well, that sure maintains the mystery,” said Maeve.
            “Yup. That’s the way we like it, nobody can prove one way or the other if we exist or not,” said Ralph, smiling again.
            “I like a mystery,” said Maeve.
            “So do I,” said Ralph. “But just between you and me, Birdy, some, such as babies, or very pure souls just leave. Poof.”
            “A mystery, within a mystery,” said Maeve.
            “Yes,” said Ralph, resuming his position in the air. “Mystery within a mystery.”

⭐

August 4, 2026, A Tootsday Thread

 It was a stormy day, with that dramatic lighting,

Somewhere in flyover country.

June 29, 2016.

I bet it was Montana. 

Where do you think we were?

I'm going to start letting my camera record where I was!

Have a beautiful day mon bon amies!!

🐦‍⬛🖤🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛🖤🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛

A Foot In Two Camps

 

            The next time Ranger Rick saw Ralph they were sitting in the station office, chewing the fat, as per usual. Neither one of them was very worried about some camper bursting into the room suddenly. It was a quiet day in the campground. One tent camper was out there hiking or something.
            Anyhow, Ralph had this vanishing thing down. He could do it in the time it took to take a breath.
            Rick had picked up a couple of day old Smørkage at the bakery, and he and Ralph were working on those and the first pot of coffee of the day. Dexter hadn’t shown up for work yet.
            “So, Ralph, my ebullient old buddy, I’ve been thinking,” said Rick, setting his mug down with a small thump.
            “Now, Rick,” said Ralph, “You know no good can come of that!” But he was laughing of course. And he set his mug down too.
            “What is it this time, my small relatively hairless confrere?” Ralph inquired.
            “Why all the slipping around? Why the hiding all the time? You know your people, and you know mine. You have a foot in both camps, kinda, sorta,” said Rick.  “It’s like you guys bounce off of us or something!”
            “In a nutshell, and getting down to it, your kind, except me and thee, and all that, are dangerous and loud!” said Ralph. “I’m used to it, like you said, two camps. But to your average backwoods Forest Man the noise is maddening! I tune it out. Most of them can’t.
            “I’m not claiming that every human person is dangerous. Most are just loud. I mean, if I wanted to I could tell you what that camper out on the trail is thinking. It’s like a P.A. system. It never shuts off.
            “We know what you’re thinking and want, loudly and clearly, from a long way off. Scary stuff, Rick,” Ralph sat back and waited.
            “You know, Ralph, I’ve often thought that it’s a huge mercy that we don’t hear each other’s minds rattling on,” said Rick. “It must be maddening. Can’t they shut it off?”
            “That’s hard because it’s both repellent and attractive. We are a curious lot, some of us have pretty goofy senses of humor, and we want to know, if we run into a human person, what they want out in the woods,” said Ralph.
            “It’s mostly that, plus the mothers and fathers don’t want their kids full of human ideas. Disruptive to peace that would be! They want the little ones uncorrupted, I’m sorry to say,” said Ralph.
            “I can’t say I’m terribly surprised, or proud of that,” said Rick, selecting another piece of cake and shoving the plate toward Ralph.
            “It’s a situation alright, but you know, on the other hand, sometimes we will run into human person who shines with love and innocent good intentions. It’s worth the price of avoiding the others. Little people usually start out that way. We enjoy their sweet minds. That’s why you hear often of human children being watched over by one of us,” said Ralph.     “Long ago, when I was pretty young myself, there was a child, younger than me, that I followed through the forest just making sure that she was OK.”
            “She never knew you were there?” said Rick.
            “She probably has figured it out by now,” said Ralph.
            “You know, Ralph, for a Wild Man of the Woods, you are a really sweet guy,” said Rick.
            “Thanks, a lot of us are nice guys at heart, but most of them just want to live in the forest and be left alone.”
            “Makes perfect sense to me,” said Rick, leaning back in his chair and stretching thoughtfully.
            “I better head back home and see if Ramona needs me,” said Ralph.
            “Tell her hi from me,” said Rick.
            “Evermore!” said Ralph. As he left the office, he was scanning the sky, and laughing.

🐦‍⬛

Spots & Stripes Furever!

 

 

A rhetorical question is posed by Mr. Baby Sir; Of all the colorations of cats all over the Earth, which is best of all. The matter is open for discussion says he.
 
            “Is this a trick question?” said Suzy, giving him a look. “Why, the answer is as plain as the nose on your face!”  
            “My nose  has neither spots nor stripes!” said Mr. Baby. “Be reasonable!
          “Many would vote for the Sylvester style black and white! Many would say it’s the cat with Siamese points, or the mysterious solid gray Russian Blue. But then, some would say it’s the solid black cat!
            “Then, there are white cats, some with yellow eyes and some with blue,” said he. 
            Toots and Sammie had been listening in on KittyComm™, but hadn’t remarked yet.

 Sammie cleared her throat and spoke, “I think we must all acknowledge what the UR coloration of all cats is, as it springs from, the beginning before all domestication and other shenanigans.”
            “Ah, yes, but does oldest mean best?” said Mr. Rhetorical Question.
          “Well, Sir,” said Toots, “Oldest might very well be the most essential coloration. And that might very well be the best, by definition!”
            “Oh, send my spiders spinning!” said Suzy. “We all know the answer! Quit dancing the minuet on my nose! All of us here and there too, share this same glorious trait! Even those half-grown Tomcats share this most glamorous and august patterning….”
            “What!” said Charley. “You cats ought to hear yourselves! What a mutual admiration society! Obviously, black and white are best. Any dodo could see that! It’s essential. It’s as clear as black and white itself!”
            “Now, don’t pick on Suzy!” said Mr. Baby suddenly.
            “Oh, I know about you two,” said Charley, smirking.
            “What!? No!” yowled Suzy in alarm. “No way!”
            “It’s alright. I understand. All you poor spotty and stripy things must stick together in love and war!” said Charley.
            “Ladies! Purrs! Please! Bitte!” said Mr. Baby. “Suzy is right! It was a trick question. I was having a bit of fun with you all. Forgive me! You all go to my head a little!
            “I believe that even Ms. Charley will have to admit that spots and stripes are the earliest and most persistent of cat coat markings. It’s just the way it has always been! But, the decision of which is best must lie with each observer! It’s subjective  as heck, as are all matters of taste.”
            “OK, Ok, you old charmer,” said Charley. “I can see why Suzy loves you!”
            Everybody but Suzy laughed. She might even have blushed a little if you are willing to believe a cat could blush.
            “I still say Spots and Stripes Furever!” said Suzy.    
            “Yes! There will always be Spots and Stripes! Furever and Furever, indeed!” said Mr. Baby.
            “Well, I agree, of course,” said Buddy, who  had been silent until that point. “There’s really no more to be said.”
            All six of the others murmured assent, and each went back to his or her appointed tasks and so forth and so on, each believing in their  heart that he or she knew the correct answer.
            Meow!

🐈🖤🐈‍⬛🐈💚🐈‍⬛🖤🐈🐈💚🐈‍⬛

A Catfurday Greeting for August 1

 

All I have to offer is love, and roses.
I wish for Purrs on Earth™ too.

💮💚💮