Happy Kitten Day 2024

Where are we goin' Mama? (approx Nov 2010)
Looks like Grey Mouse, out on the porch, exploring with mama Patches.

The Ambush.
Grey Mouse, cool grey with more stripes as a kitten, on the footboard of Grandpa's old bed, clearly ready to pounce on a sister below.

 

My darling kittens were born on Sept 7, 2010. Only Grey Mouse is still here with me out of 4 kittens, (Rex, Spot, Lassie, Grey Mouse),  Mama Patches, father Sugar Mouse, and auntie/grandmother Mousie.

In the recent "cooler" weather, Grey Mouse was sleeping again on my shoulder or lap. We had another heat wave, but it is cooling again...
 

Little Rexie Kitten and his sisters plus Sugar Mouse October 2010/ Oct. 7, 2023

Written in Sept. 2023,  published Oct. 7, 2023.

Little Kitten Rexie while he/she was getting kitten formula supplemental feedings. You see how much smaller he/she was than the others. That is she-who-will-be-Grey-Mouse cuddling next to the little kitten while Spot and Lassie eat.

 Sugar Mouse was their father, but Patches wouldn't let him near her kittens. She was very protective of them.

 

Sugar Mouse out on the screen porch early in the morning. 9am Oct 25, 2010

Spot and Little Kitten Rex (maybe) bouncing and pouncing Oct 26, 2010
Notice Mama Patches' nose and toes at the far left where she sits on the arm of the green chair watching.

Spot and Grey Mouse (or maybe Lassie) notice their father watching.

Sugar Mouse watching his kittens Spot (and Lassie?) playing Oct 26, 2010

3 kittens looking at Mama up on the back of the chair. Small Rexie is sleepy. Noon Oct 26, 2010

These kitten photos were not published in a timely fashion because the external hard drive they were saved on stopped mounting, and the contents had to be retrieved. Technical difficulties.

Technical difficulties strike again now. As I was editing this post, my computer died without warning. Mostly seems to have been the power cable - but I am finishing this and scheduling it, in case that happens again.

And now I am remembering Rex/Rexie and my other darling kittens while I sort and publish these photos. And being very glad that sweet Grey Mouse is still here.

When Rexie was a small kitten, he/she had two potentially fatal problems. I thought he/she might not survive very long, but I resolved she would have a good life, however long. We had 12 years together.

Happy Kitten Day Sept. 7, 2023

Patches with her kittens, 2010. Sugar Mouse was the father.

 Well... For some meanings of happy... Happy memories...

And Grey Mouse still here with me, purring. Sitting on my lap, mornings and evenings. And on the cool rainy days, Sept 1-3, cuddling up under my chin and on my shoulder. Purring. She is a very sweet cat. 

The kittens were born on Sept 7, 2010. Squeaking in the cupboard.
This is after their Mama moved them into the other (cleaned out) cupboard. Here they are out on the floor being fed. And he/she-who-will-be-named-Rexie is not eating.

Four little kittens. (Spot is between Mama's front legs, getting a bath.) Rexie is resting while Lassie and Grey Mouse nurse. Before she had to get supplemental feedings.

Kitten (probably Grey Mouse) in flowerpot. When I have Photoshop again I need to clean up this image. But notice the interesting light pattern on the floor just in front of the flowerpot, from a reflection off the glaze on the pot.

Grey Mouse, now that Rexie is not chasing her away from the food and bed, is healthier. Now only a slender cat, not a skinny one. No more backbone showing. Her fur is thicker. She tells me when the food dish is empty. And she is very sweet.
Although on the recent hot (high 90s) days, she did not want to come in from the balcony, even when the sun was starting to shine on her in the afternoon. I had to go fetch her in.

I Have Seen Her Ghost a Couple of Times

Rexie is Wild - playing with a toy on the bed - a year old

Written Friday, Aug.18, 2023. Backdated

Well, not that kind of ghost. But something that has never happened to me before.

I have very poor visualization ability, except in dreams, and half asleep. 

You would think that that is a difficulty for a visual artist/designer. But since the days when my designs were colored pencil on graph paper, cross-stitch or quilt or jewelry designs, or costume drawings, the finished project, (however imperfect it was), always looked MUCH better than my imagination could picture.

And now, designs on the computer already look much better than my imagination.

That is different from what I have seen from writers, who say that their finished projects don't match their imaginations.

Another advantage to not having clear visual imagination, is that potentially traumatic events which are processed as stories rather than pictures, are much less likely to produce PTSD. (Temple Grandin)

But, Rexie's ghost?

Well, lying-sitting-up on the bed, half asleep, maybe with my eyes closed, I have seen a Rexie-shape walking up the bed beside me, just like she used to do...

A Word Has Gone Out of the World - Goodby Rexie my darling - Dec. 2022

Tiny Little Kitten, when he was being fed. Soon to be Rex.

After they knocked down their kitten-gate, and escaped. When I came in, early morning, the others were still close by, exploring. But this Little Kitten had crossed 2 rooms, climbed up into the feeding chair, and burrowed into this warm blanket.

Little Lion Rex, fully recovered from not getting enough to eat as a tiny kitten. Before they got sick.

One page in a school assignment. I thought Rexie looked like he was dreaming of being out in the grass, like Bob in the illustration.

Rexie stops to smell the roses, the year she decided the balcony was hers, and wouldn't let the others out there, where I was for hours every morning, taking rose pictures. She kept bumping me, insisting I
Pay Attention To The Cat.

Her hiding place, behind the door, on top of the cabinet. Scary noises.

In the chair with Grey Mouse, originally her friend. Now my only cat.

Is that a bird out there? Feb.2011 - 6months old. Rexie's first time in the bedroom in the daytime with curtains and the windows open to the screens. Warm sunny days in Feb, chilly nights.

First appearance. Looking at me.

Looking up at Mama. She had hidden her kittens in the drawer.

Rexie is the darker one in back. He/she has caught up in size.

Kitten soccer. Rexie is the smaller darker kitten, just peering out in the back left corner.

When Rexie invented a word to tell me when she/he wanted his/her forehead rubbed.

 First written Aug 15, 2023. Backdated.

As usual I didn't notice her symptoms early. Of course, they were different than anyone else's had been. 

I did notice when she became chubby enough to wobble. Only a few days later she was enormous.

Vets have become much more expensive since the last time I had much to do with them, and my old vet has closed.

By the time I could get her in somewhere, the week before christmas, it was a drop-off appointment. No money for more tests, or palliative care. They wanted to put her down.

But she was not dehydrated. and not in pain.

We had almost a week, sitting together on the bed, at first on my lap or chest as usual, then beside me on her pillow. Once she took a flying leap off my stomach on top of the tall bed, and belly-flopped on the floor, to go to the catbox.

At the end, she had a few moments of panic, climbing the pillows, trying to breathe. Then she became unconscious, nestling down into her pillow.

That's a lot better than the usual way...

I have seen her ghost a couple of times.

Goodby Spot March 25, 2020

Spot on heater March 12, 2011 - 6 months old

The kittens were born in September 2010. Since Lassie died, the remaining three have been healthy and happy, going out on the balcony/low roofs when the weather was nice (which it was all February 2020). They often slept on the bed with me, or near/on a heater. They had a newly cleared table in a sunny window in the bedroom. But this morning, Spot is gone.

Yesterday aft and eve, not eating, crying out from time to time in that deep voice as if to be sick, but not being sick. Sleeping on foot of bed, alone. ( Usually her friend/sister Grey Mouse would have been with her, licking her head and ears. But it was chilly; Grey Mouse was sitting on the radiator heater. ) Then late eve down off bed, curled up there at foot, and after a while, sick. Then she felt better, tried to get up on bed by me (Rexie was sleeping under the cover -  they would have fought). I thought she was OK. This morning when I woke, she was dead. By 10am already stiff. I think she must have eaten something bad while their food and water dishes were empty yesterday morning.

Back at the beginning of the year Spot had a respiratory thing, and was having trouble breathing. I put her in/under a blanket with a bowl of steaming water. An old-fashioned remedy which helped a lot, and warmed her up too. Also, she wasn't eating, so giving her some of the smallest jars of meat-based baby food worked well. She was very hungry, and gobbled it instantly. She had lost a lot of weight, and didn't have any to loose, a small light little cat. She had, I think, by 2 days ago, fully recovered, always eager to eat and drink.

Spot was the friendliest as a kitten, when they had visitors a few times. She and Grey Mouse were friends now, most of the time, sleeping curled up together, or half on top of each other. Occasionally Rexie would tolerate being on the bed at the same time as the pair of them. (And not even sitting on the top of my head growling, as he did as a kitten twice when Buddy came into the bedroom.)

Since January, I have been noticing especially how pretty her eyes and Grey Mouse' eyes were; their eye colors have gone quite grey, very pretty with their cool grey coats. I meant to take pictures...


Goodby Spot. I love you.  I.miss you.

I was probably listening to Bach online - Bach's birthday program in the middle of the night when she died near the foot of my bed. The music was on only softly, so I should have heard her, and didn't hear anything. My favorite composer will never seem quite the same to me, perhaps...

Stay Warm

Lassie on heater, probably spring 2011

Doesn't she look grumpy? And she is looking down. I think someone might have been there to dispute the possession of the heater with her.  She is glaring "Don't you push me off!"

This is probably the kittens' first year, spring or early summer 2011. She doesn't have her adult color green eyes yet. And that year they were kept in the bathroom with a heater, separate from Rex. That was the year that they were all on my lap in the chair, and we were enjoying a fire in the woodstove - on June 2nd!

We had a dry December this year - bad news in case we go back to drought conditions without fully recovering from the last one. We haven't had snow yet here, but back east they are having feet of snow in a winter cyclone, and record low temperatures.

I recently asked myself, "what do you do when the power goes off?"

And the answers I immediately came up with:

What do I do when the power goes out?
I get a fire started in the wood stove, (and if it happened today I’d be cursing myself while I cleared away the clutter in front of the stove) and be sure to cook dinner over the stove before dark. And go bring in more firewood before dark. Before it rains. Or snows.
Or dye some fabric, or take a bath, or wash the dishes with the last warm water in the water heater.
Or put extra blankets on the bed, and curl up in the dark and call my mother, whose phone number was the one I knew in the dark.

Seriously. There are lots of things to do to take advantage of/survive the situation. Those with a live-in lover have another option. Why they have lots of births 9 months later in cities.

Those answers are in reverse order, most recent to oldest, of things I have actually done over the years. It depends a little on what time of year, and time of day it is. But the latest wisdom I learned several years ago, when my power was out for more than 3 days.

[That is common enough here that it is necessary to have another source of heat and cooking, and lights, handy for when it happens. The bus driver, a few blocks away, had his power out for 2 separate weeks that year.]

That time, after a couple of days I had used most of the wood I had inside, and was wading through a foot of snow carrying firewood. And the lights I had were not bright enough to see what I was doing if I had to cook dinner after dark.

I learned to bake bread the summer I turned 16, at the cabin in Northern Idaho. In a woodstove. And the little woodstove heaters don't channel heat to the top the way a cookstove does. Much harder to cook over.


The next time the power went out that year, it came on only a few hours later. But by that time I had started a fire, and heated some leftover soup, and was having dinner.


2020 Last October, 2019, PGE turned the power off 6 times -- more than 10 days off total! We all, including grocery stores, lost freezers-full of food. There wasn't any rain all month, some wind -- not necessarily where the power was off. They were doing planned maintenance.

Lassie Had the Most Beautiful Green Eyes — January 2017

Lassie Reflected Nov 24, 2016
Written4/20/2017. First posted Oct 12, 2017

I had just noticed that again recently, as she came in the window from the balcony.

I don't know what happened to her. She had fallen off the balcony again in the fall. One of the rose pots was 8 feet away, in the bushes. Something scared her ... Maybe the great horned owls. It was still warm enough that I could lock up the other cats, and leave the door open to the top floor porch, and in the morning she had found her way in. I was thinking that next time, she could find her way home easily. ...  She seemed fine.

There were a couple of weeks, twice, when she was being unusually friendly with me. Not pushy, like in the past. Just sitting next to me on the bed, and being happy to be petted. I had to go invite her back, when she went away the first time.

I used to say"Everybody hates Lassie" because there used to be fights, and chasing away. I never knew who started it. But they aren't all friends now, as they were as kittens.

Then one day she climbed the bedspread up onto the bed instead of jumping up.

The first time I really noticed something was wrong, she didn't come running to eat with the others.

There was one last warm day in the middle of January, when I carried her out to be in the sun on the balcony again. Previous pictures out there were from November.

For a couple of days she licked the juice off canned cat food, and drank water and broth. She stayed near the heater, and I put a warm nest for her to sleep in. The last day, she was crying out. She calmed when I petted her very carefully on the back of the head.

She had swallowed a hair; that can be fatal. And then there are the 2 potentially fatal diseases, the one the kittens had, that they wouldn't have gotten if Mom's cats had had their shots, and the one that killed their father a month or so later...

Even waiting as long as possible between rainstorms for the heavy clay ground to dry, it was still very wet and heavy. Luckily a friend finished digging the hole for me, before the next rain. Next to Buddy, and with more rosemary.

Goodby Lassie. I love you.

Rexie has invented a new word in the language between people and cats 12/24/2016

Rexie on the balcony, July 12, 2015
(Written 12/24/2016. First published 2/3/2017.)

Rexie has invented a new word in *the* language between people and cat-people. Of course that language is a large part body-language, and only a little verbal. And it isn't a single language - it is a set of codes for each community of people and cats, just as individual and mutually intelligible as that between each mother and baby. (That is, not perfectly.)

Some is verbal. My cats come running when I call them, either to eat or to go out the window onto the balcony (different directions). (And sometimes to come in, if it's cold out there.) Rexie comes running to my tapping on the other window - he thinks that's his room, no sisters allowed.

But much of the communication between us is body language, stance, touch, movements. Reciprocal communication. When a cat is being petted, he/she may push against a hand, or move under a petting hand. She may tilt her head up or sideways under the hand. Or I may tug on the tip of her tail and she turns around very fast and comes back for more.

What Rexie has been doing, for about a year now, is tilting his/her head sideways, so far his forehead is vertical, sideways, one ear right above the other. It means he wants me to rub his forehead.

He does it when he's sitting so close to me, like on my chest,  that the angles I can reach him with are limited. I didn't know if he liked me to rub his forehead or not. So sometimes I did, sometimes not. And he invented a word to tell me when he wants his forehead rubbed.

Sometimes yes, sometimes not.

Oct 2017 Notice who is training who here... 
Dec 5 2017 Recently saw (online) that people can tell what their cats are saying in a recording — if-and-only-if it's their cat. Like I said, we all have our own unique set of codes. (Haven't tracked down a reference yet...)

Rex plays Oct. 21 2011

Rexie is playing, Oct 21, 2011, 10am. Just a little over a year old.

Pictures taken Oct. 21 2011. Originally Written Feb. 28, 2014. First posted with pics Oct. 19, 2016.

Here's Rex on our new bedcover, a denim quilt which was my mother's, that we just got in August 2011. Not my colors, but it goes with Rex...

Without the flash, you can see his rich color

He is looking so wild, and having a great deal of fun, playing with a favorite toy....

What is he playing with? 

 What is he playing with?

Yep, the ring that comes off the lid of some milk jugs.

 Oh, Rexie is wild!

The kittens like to bring their toys up on to the bed.

Mousie approx. 2008 - July 2016

Mousie in 2011 with one of the kittens (Grey Mouse?) - looking stripey

 

In December 2010, most of the kittens got calici virus. If Mom's cats had had their shots, it probably couldn't have happened.

They got it after they were weaned. Rexie was very sick, had to be hand-fed again, and 2 others had it too. Then their father Sugar Mouse died in early 2011, of a different horrible disease. I thought Mousie was maybe the carrier.

So I separated the kittens from their mother Patches, and Mousie. And Mousie didn't get to cuddle like this anymore. When she and Patches were frightened, they squeezed into 2 tiny drawers on either side of the sink to hide.

She was living here with Patches when the horrible guest of a renter kicked out the screen in the kitchen door, and then chased Patches out to die. Months later, he tried to do the same to Mousie, but she outsmarted him, and hid where he (and I) couldn't find her. After that, I moved her upstairs. (Buddy was gone by then, so there was a safe place for her.)

She was never friendly or pettable, but she co-existed with me, and liked to sleep in her padded nest-box. She told me when she was out of water or food. There were sunny windows, and a heater in the winter.

But it wasn't such a safe place after all. First, on a really hot day in July, she got very overheated. I re-arranged things so the fan could blow on her, and she seemed to be feeling better. But in the morning, she had knocked over the stuff in the nearby corner, and was across the room trying to hide behind the refrigerator. And among that stuff was a small black widow spider.

So whether it was the heat alone, or mostly the spider bite, she is gone.

The last of Mom's cats. Goodby Mousie. 

Little Lion Rex, November 2010

Little Lion Rex, Nov 2010

Written 6/22/2013, first posted 9/14/2016

He just looks so healthy here, stalking through his territory.

This mid-November picture is after he had completely recovered from not getting enough food as a tiny kitten, and was growing and thriving.

It was a month before the 2nd major life-threatening problem showed up.

Happy Kitten Day Sept 7 2016

Just found this original kitten photo, Nov 2010

 One of the kittens has a ball. The other grey kitten has a toy mouse. But Spot and Rex are watching the ball, ready to run out and play Kitten Soccer.

Some of my kittens from long ago, when I lived in the basement, used to play kitten soccer, in one of the rooms Grandpa had poured cement into when he was 80. He shored up the foundations, and poured concrete in most of the areas that had had just dirt floors originally. (He had been a mining engineer.) That floor had a wave and a half in it, so the ball would turn and go off in unexpected directions. Very exciting kitten soccer.

Kitten Soccer Nov. 2010

 My darling kittens were so cute when they were little. Now they are beautiful, except for one funny-looking one (Lassie). Rex/Rexie fell off the balcony this summer, the night a coyote howled in the orchard. He was gone by 3:00am, the coyote was howling at 3:30.

 I think he was on the roof in the midday, while I was looking all around for him, and calling. I could hear him, or someone, calling, and it was louder near the fireplace. But by the time I went up onto the roof, he wasn't there. (I waited for someone else to come home before I went up there.)

But after a night and a day and a night, he found his way into the open main floor. I was out on the balcony at 5:15 in the morning, not calling just listening, trying to decide where to look for him. And at 5:30am he started calling me loudly from the living room window under my feet.

Light and reflection Nov 2010

Meanwhile, almost unnoticed in the corner, is one of these fantastic reflections of light off a plant pot. The reflection has to fall against a relatively dark patch of floor or wall to be visible. Just like car bumper or hubcap reflections, which also make interesting patterns.

Enjoy the kittens, but notice the light. 

Kittens have forts - who knew?

Rex in his fort. Written Feb 11, 2014 3:21 PM  Originally posted Aug 26 2016.

I was going to try to pick-up the floor, and get a cleaned-up staged photo of this, and never got it done. Luckily, though I didn't remember it, I had taken a pic of the real thing. This is Rex in his fort.

They made the forts by tipping over the (sorted) boxes, and dumping the contents out, all over the floor. (When I say randomizing the contents of my room, I'm not kidding...)

The short stairwell down to the door to downstairs makes a good fort too.

And of course, forts are for ambushing your sisters from - leaping out onto them from where you're crouched hiding behind the boxes. Crouch, wiggle, leap!

Cats Are Looking

Cats are the least domesticated of our
familiar friendly animals.
If I watch them, I can see the wild.
Sleeping on my bed. Watching.

I chose these photos for the interesting images.

But the cats are all looking.

Take Time to Read - (but pay attention to the cat)

Take Time to Read - (but don't forget the cat). Terry and I took digital photography together; I got rides home with her. This was the best picture I caught of her. We have nice expressions when we're looking at animals...

Reading is very important to me. This spot in my living room near the window is a good place to read without losing all day.

Because the chair is comfortable  only for a while...

Rexie thinking about being a wildcat...

Bob In Tall Grass/ Rexie on painted chair

For a class assignment, I was putting together some presentation slides, and found some fun things looking through my images and photos. These  two cats were similar ages, still visibly young, although not kittens anymore, when these photos were originally taken.
Bob, being wild out in the grass, has been Photoshopped, using a filter.

Pure serendipity that I found them and saw how to put them together.

Doesn't Rexie look like he is dreaming about being wild?

All the Cats Are Outside Hunting Moths and Won't Come In to Supper Sept 2015

AllTheCatsAreOutsideHuntingMoths&Won'tComeInToSupper

 

Happy Kitten Day - late. The kittens birthday is September 7th; I made this new fabric design on September 10, 2015. I just got it proofed, edited, re-tested, and put up for sale today, Oct. 21.

Learned 2 things in the process. The first is that Spoonflower's new fabric-printing system is indeed brighter, and I'll want to get this printed on one of those fabrics. (The synthetics also print bright colors.) And the second is that with these textured backgrounds and fills (done from Photoshop patterns), it is important to print them full-size to be at their brightest. Otherwise, just like a small print seen from a distance, they go greyer.

I think I might be going to use this fabric, or one of its coordinates, for a fleece-lined open vest this fall.

The happy kittens (5 years old now) are all happy and healthy. They spend some days out on the balcony and low roofs with the roses, but when I'm gone to classes, I get home too late, and it's getting cool and dark already before I could let them in.

Rexie Stops to Notice the Roses Thursday April 30, 2015

Rexie on the balcony railing with St Mary mini rose, April 30, 2015

(Written and first posted Sept 30, 2015)

This was a rose year. (It's always Rexie's year, he/(she) and his/(her) sisters.)

I have sequential hobbies-obsessions. They repeat, not in order, every several years. You can kind of tell that, from reading this blog. Roses & gardening, sewing, cross-stitch design, quilt design, jewelry design & making, textile design, fabric dyeing...

This spring and summer again it was roses. In pots on the balcony because of the drought, the conquering horde of blackberries, and the deer. I have never before succeeded in growing them successfully up there, partly because it's too shaded in high summer, although fine in spring, late summer, fall & winter, when the sun is more to the south.

Partly because, I thought in the past, by July I couldn't carry enough water to keep them healthy. That turned out to be not true. 6-8 gallons a day for the whole row, in still-fairly-small-pots. The problem in the past turned out to have been spider mites (and aphids, etc) drying them out. Soapy-water spray &/or dip turns out to fix that. Plus watering on the leaves more. Plus a couple of friendly spiders.

As for the shade question, I mostly bought and grew shade-tolerant roses, as I could get them. Yes, there are shade-tolerant roses! Especially Hybrid Musks, which are mostly contemporary with this 1917 house, but with some new ones too. I passed on the totally tempting Darlow's Enigma, which apparently wants to be 12ft x 12ft! Not on the balcony...

But I love Lyda Rose. Also old favorites Angel Face and Iceberg are shade-tolerant, and a few minis. And several of David Austin's English Roses, like Abraham Darby. And I also tried some totally tempting ones, which I'm thinking of trying to breed - purples Ebb Tide and Rhapsody in Blue.

Because I think what I need here for the balcony are shade-tolerant, heat-tolerant (Lyda Rose and probably other Hybrid Musks are both plus disease-resistant), fragrant, purples or pastels, disease-resistant. And for the long-term in pots, small roses or larger-bush minis, or hanging basket minis.

So I was out on the balcony very early in the morning for much of the summer. Trying (trying!) a little hybridizing just to learn how. Plus potting-up, fertilizing, spraying soapy water for bugs, or apple-cider-vinegar for diseases (mostly a minor problem). Also in pots, I knew from when I worked in the nursery, roses can become Magnesium deficient, although there's plenty in the soil here.

I can do better with all of that next year, and get more flowers. But the advantage of the balcony is that everything is close up. I always had some flowers, mostly fragrant ones. I took 1000s of pictures. And Rexie was out here with me part of the time - but he kept telling me (by walking on the rail between me and the flowers, and bumping me) to stop taking pictures and Pay Attention To The Cat.

He also decided that the balcony was his exclusive territory, and his sisters couldn't go out there.

Rosemary, that's for Remembrance - Remembering Buddy

This picture of Buddy out in the snow on the balcony is from March 18, 2011. Pandora was out there too.

(Buddy died Oct 30, 2014 written Jan 6, 2015, first posted Jan 8, 2015 )

Buddy and Valentine were the 2 kittens whose feral mother was killed either by a raccoon or a boy and a dog. They were in a cage in the shed. Something pulled the bolt on the cage. Something killed the mama cat, who had just been spayed.

I had tried to bring them in for the night. The idea was that they would go back into the carrier inside the big cage, and then I could pick them up and take them in. The big cage did not have a secure floor that i could have picked up. (My good big cage had Cheesecake in it, who had been badly beaten up by something, and was supposed to stay confined for a month. The vet was surprised he survived.)

But when I went out to bring them in, they were all wild-eyed, and didn't go into the carrier. I didn't make the connection. And, fatal move, I fed them out there.

So, probably the giant killer raccoon who also probably beat up Cheesecake, and whose 3 inches across footprints I had seen on my windshield, pulled the bolt, opened the cage, and killed the mama cat.

But she fought long enough for the kittens to escape. And because they were used to coming to my car, when I went to feed the feral cats behind where I used to work, the kittens found their way to the house.

So I fed them canned cat food for a few times, sitting out on the porch. Then I got the bright idea of tying a cord to the screen door, putting the can of cat food just inside it, and letting them go in, and pulling the cord to close the door.

It worked. Then I had wild kittens loose in the house. I do not recommend this idea.

Eventually I got them up into the bathroom, where I had started taming other cats, and then out onto the balcony with the others, when it was warm. Buddy was named for his liking to be friendly with other cats, and do his greeting ritual with them. He became very good friends with Dovey, although not with her brother Lovey. (They rolled off the roof in a fight once.)

Originally he was not pettable, except over the backs of his friends at feeding time.

But in recent years, after he was upstairs with (Cheesecake and?) Pandora and Bob and me, he did become pettable, and even liked sitting on my lap when he had the chance. And his tabby fur was very soft.

He was one of the only 2 of my old cats who were still alive when I brought Mom's cats here. I put Musketeer upstairs with Buddy and Pandora, since he had lived with us for a while, until Mom took him away.

Musketeer lasted an amazing year and a half, considering how skeletally thin he was. When he finally went, after he stopped moving, he woke up from time to time, and took a little water in his mouth from a syringe. I spent several days in the nearby chair to be with him.

When Pandora went, she only lasted a few days after she stopped moving around.

I was keeping the older cats separated from my kittens, as much as possible, because of the various disease possibilities. So Buddy got to be with them out on the balcony on warm days, without food or water there, but did not get to just live with us. Or he was outside while we were inside. Or he was in the room with the wood-stove and we were in the bedroom area.

I always meant to get a picture of his large Buddy-face outside the window, and little Rex's small tabby-face inside the window, since they were similar soft-furred tabbies, only Rex and his sisters are so much smaller.

But this summer he stopped going out the window onto the roof and balcony. He was getting thinner, very thin. His fur got harsh. I was trying to feed him more, but he stopped eating the canned food, just ate the liquid off of it. I should have brought him some grass. I should have taken him down outside into the grass. There was a fenced area, until a tenant tore it open.

I wasn't paying enough attention to him. I wasn't sitting with him. It wasn't wood-stove season. I spent time with my "kittens", but not with him. He called and I didn't always come. I didn't really notice when he stopped eating any dried food at all. I didn't try to give him canned food at every meal. He was still trying to move around, to the cat-box and the water dishes, the day he died. He died on my lap.

When I buried him, as I put his little light curled-up body into the grave, I suddenly thought "rosemary". I went to pull some rosemary off the old bush which Grandpa or Grandma probably planted. (Mom's sister's name was Rosemary.) I had never done that while burying a cat before.

But when I pulled at the trailing branches, some of them broke off with roots. So I planted them around the edge of the grave, and tossed the others into it. The rosemary was beginning to flower. It was just before a rain, and it rained a little bit every week or two this fall. The rosemary should survive. Maybe I'll try to find some rue too.

So I will always know where Buddy's grave is.