Take Joy!

Thank You

Thank  you so very much to everyone for your condolences; I should write everyone individually, but I just can't, right now . . . this way the crying will be over all at once. We're better than we were yesterday, of course, but still . . . I just miss Earl so very much! (And now Jane has decided to disappear, too—John let her out yesterday at 3 or so in the morning and she hasn't been back since. She does this periodically; last time she was gone for three days and I'd given her up when she showed up, hungry but otherwise unscathed. Cats do that sometimes. And Widget, when she was much younger and housebound because I lived in an apartment, got out and was gone for nearly a week. So I'm not worried about Jane yet . . . but it's cold and windy, and she's the other snuggly cat—not so much as Earl was, but she likes to curl up with her head under my chin and purr us both to sleep. The others love to be petted, but they don't snuggle. Jane, honey, this was not a good time for this!)

We did call Animal Control. They came out and spoke sharply to the owners of all dogs concerned. (Lucille, another of the neighbors, said she saw all four of their dogs go into the yard just after we left—the two big ones, and two nasty little Boston terrier-types owned by yet another of them. So four dogs—a pack—against poor Earl.) They couldn't take any of them, since no one actually witnessed the attack; and when John was out there with them, the girl who owns the little ones was going on about how Joe up on the corner has unleashed dogs too (never mind that Joe's unleashed dogs are two ancient Golden retrievers who can barely walk out into the yard when it's sunny, much less chase anything, besides which the subject at hand was not unleashed dogs per se, but unleashed dogs who trespass and kill pets on their home ground), and how no one knows who owns those big dogs, and it couldn't have been them anyway . . . John finally just left when she kept on, telling the A.C. guys that he was going in the house before he lost his temper. The upshot of it, finally, was that all dog owners, admitted or otherwise, were told sternly to either keep their dogs leashed or fenced, and we were told to call if they were on our property again and they'd come out and take them. Unfortunately, the dogs must be on the property when they get here, which is about as likely as snow in July, but John was told that if we continue to have trouble with them, Animal Control will bring a live trap out to catch them, and they'll impound them. For good.

In retrospect, I ought to have called Animal Control when the dogs first began coming in the yard, back when they (and usually only one at a time) just ran through and back home. But these neighbors (and there are three families of them, all related and all living down at the end of the road, unfortunately beside and across from us) are bad news, and no one wants to bother them because they just aren't nice people. Animal Control did tell John that they'd take the dogs away if no one claimed them, but apparently the owners did (and I know who owns the little ones and the big brown one that I think killed Earl; I'm just not sure about the collie) because I heard the big ones barking this morning—I didn't see them, though, so I am assuming they're in the dog lot behind one of the houses. So I will be watching, and I will keep my camera handy so I can take pictures to prove they were in the yard, if they come back . . . and I think we've figured out a way to fence at least that side of the property. We have a fence across the top line, and the garden is fenced, and then the goat lot fence runs from the end of the garden down to the end of the property and across, and part way back up. I'd wanted to fence it before, but we can't afford to do the entire 2 and a half acres . . . it just never occured to me that a lot of it is fenced already. We would just need to run fence from the top line across the driveway over to where the garden fence begins; and when we can afford to do the other side, from the top line down to the edge of the goat lot. (That side is long, and would take more money than we have right now, but all the dogs that live on that side are kept in fences by their responsible owners . . .) Of course, there's the matter of a gate for the drive, which would be expensive, but we think we can probably manage with something homemade for the time being. And it isn't as if we can go out and put anything up right now anyway . . . it's below freezing again and blowing snow, and they're forecasting a possibly-major winter storm next week . . . I swear, this has been an awful winter. It has to end soon. (I did see a few crocuses the first of the week, but they're under the snow now. ::sigh::)

Again, thank you all so much. I really do appreciate it, more than you know. And here's one more Earl picture:

We buried Earl this afternoon.

It was warm and sunny, and he wanted to go out, so I let him. (Spring's coming, after all, and he'd been wanting to go out more this past couple of weeks.) We decided to go down to the river for an hour's walk, and he didn't want to come in . . . so I let him stay out. I thought he'd get up on the cat tree in the sun like he usually does did.

 

He was out, and so was Jane, and Ocie, and Sam. All just hanging out in the yard, enjoying the afternoon. No different from any other nice afternoon.

 

When we came back, everyone was acting strange, even the ones who'd been inside. And we couldn't find Earl. He didn't come when we called, and he wasn't in any of his usual spots.

I found him down the hill in the woods, where the trilliums and bloodroot grow.

The neighbors' dogs (the dogs that run loose, even though we have a leash law in the county. Two big dogs, one a collie mix and the other a big brown short-hair about the same size—more than a match for one terrified cat.) came into the yard (again) and caught him in the open. He ran under the side porch, but they dragged him out, chased him down the hill and killed him.

He trusted me to take care of him. I failed. And now he's dead.

 

He was such a sweetheart—he never hurt a thing, he loved to be held like a baby while he slept, he'd lick my face when he thought I needed cheering up or reminding that he loved me, and he'd curl up under the covers with me and sleep when I'd let him.

So much joy in that one small body. And so much love—someone said once that a beloved pet is love in a fur coat, and that was Earl. He wasn't very brave—Sam was forever running him under the bed, and he ran and hid whenever someone strange came in the house, and he was afraid of small children—but he was so very loving. He was one of the bright spots in our lives here.

And now it's all gone.

It hurts that he was killed when I wasn't here, that he died expecting me to open the door and save him, and I didn't. And it hurts that all that love is gone. It's ironic, really—when I got him, a month old, he'd been rescued from a dog, and he always had a groove in his skull behind one ear from the dog's teeth; and it was a dog that killed him. So, I suppose it could be pointed out that he had ten years—ten good year, from what I can tell—that he might not have had. True, but it's cold comfort. (And it isn't just me; John says he feels almost as if he's lost a child.)

I took these Monday afternoon out in the side yard:

 

Go in peace, little brother, to whatever comes next. We'll miss you for a long time.

Cats in Baskets (now with bonus goat pic!)

Jane, on my alpaca shawl :(

Kali, taking up a good deal of my working space . . .

AND BONUS GOAT PHOTO!

 

Daisy in last week's snow.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Sam

Down by the River

These are from last week (or perhaps the week before—I'm losing track this winter), when we walked by the river after the last big snow melted (mostly) but the river was still high. The first two are from the river by Charley Owen park. The top one is of the marshy area near one end of the lake—usually you can barely see any water there.

These three are from the River Trail on the Warren Wilson property. Many trees fell . . .

 

and here, too, the river was way up into the sloughs, where there's usually only a trickle.

 

This tree was dead and hollow; the weight of the snow was too much for it.

 

And this is where we stopped, since neither of us had on waterproof boots. This is about half as far as we usually go.

The Aftermath

of the last batch of snow. These two locusts were dead, and had been for years, but were still standing on the far side of the garden. We'll have to cut them up and move them before we can plant this year, but that can wait until it's [marginally] warmer. They'll make good, hot-burning firewood. In the meantime, the turkeys like to roost on them while they're sunning in the afternoon—it gets them up off the wet ground.

We were luucky—with everything so wet, people lost trees right and left. These were the only ones we had come down.

Finished Just in Time!

Just in time for today's below-freezing temperatures and -5 windchill. . .this is the replacement for my late and much-lamented wool scarf (actually, I suspect that I've put it somewhere 'safe' and it will surface about June). It's only a long tube, wide enough to fit over my head and down around my neck. The yarn is Noro Kureyon, which I despise working with because of its thick-and-thin-ness—the thins are really skinny and the thicks are bulky and wooly—but I had six skeins of it in The Stash. I don't remember what I bought it for, but I think I got it on ebay for a little bit of nothing—probably because I love these colors.

 

It's one row of single crochets, one row of half doubles all the way through five skeins. (I still have one skein left; maybe a hat at some point. A small hat.) And it's warm, which was the whole idea—I wore it out to feed chickens and goats this morning, and break ice on their water, and add hot water to everyone's buckets and pools (all of which took half an hour or so out in the wind), and my ears were nice and warm.

I'd love to have another cowl—shorter and not so bulky, that I could just tuck inside my jacket collar, but I haven't found a pattern I like yet. I'm pretty sure I already have yarn for it, though . . .

Rime Ice

 

I took these yesterday—the top one was from a stoplight on the way down 70, and the lower one from Berry's Feed and Seed in Swannanoa while John was inside buying corn (against yet another winter event this week)—that's rime ice on the trees. There's still snow on the ground, of course, but the ice was gone by midafternoon.

Serena, Sleeping