This drought and drown approach to blog posting is a little peculiar, I must admit, but hey, when I’ve got things I want to write about they all seem to come at once.

It’s coming up to December. The garden is done. I’ve still got lettuces in the cold frame and I’ve still got lemon verbena in my planters, but pretty much everything else has been harvested, cleaned, stored, dried, pickled, frozen, or eaten. I’ve weeded out the majority of the vegetable garden and knocked down the raised earth ridges in which I do my planting. Now I’m ramping up for covering everything over with leaves.
Up until we got one and I used it for the purpose it was intended (we originally purchased the thing to help start fires in the fire pit) I was highly skeptical of leaf blowers. The gas powered variety are LOUD and smelly and, in my experience, the majority of the people who wield the things are putzes of the first order who only use them to blow leaves into piles of someone else’s problem.
But we’ve got these two trees along our west property line. An alder and a maple. Both original to the development of our neighborhood which puts them in the 45-50 year old range. They’re enormous. And healthy. And last year I filled, and emptied into my vegetable garden, my 90 gallon yard waste container TEN TIMES. They’re wonderful trees and they produce wonderful mulch-able leaves. And the dirt in my vegetable garden is stupid healthy because of it. But that is one guaranteed FUCKLOAD of raking. Literally a 2-3 day job at LEAST twice each fall.
So I use the leaf blower. It’s a wee (as compared to the gas powered variety) little electric powered creature, relatively quiet (as compared to the gas powered variety) and it’s pink. I don’t know why, we certainly didn’t purchase it because it’s pink, but pink it is. So I wear earplugs or my i-pod headphones and create enormous, waist deep (really) piles of leaves, and haul them around back to feed my dirt. It’s really quite a lot of fun. If anyone wants to come over and jump in a pile of leaves you’re welcome!

Okay, I’m a cat lover (“NO! Really?” I hear you cry). Since dad is allergic we didn’t have cats when I was growing up. And, as a side note, what did all of us do the moment we moved into our own spaces? We got cats! Really what we’ve been doing all these years is selflessly participating in a program of gradual desensitization for our dear father’s immune system (honest! 😉 ), it doesn’t have anything to do with cats being loving, charming companions. Really. Honest. 😯
So anyway, since I didn’t have cats when I was growing up I never really got the chance to realize their capacity to have a very complex personality. This is not to say that dogs don’t have the same capacity, it’s just that dogs are far simpler creatures. I do meet dogs who have the complex, individual personality traits that most cats do, but they are far fewer. Most dogs are just content to be dogs. The vast majority of cats that I meet are strongly individualistic.
Pogo, as anyone who has met him or interacted with him when he is relaxed and content will know, is Silly. Silly, silly, silly. Case in point….When I sat down to write this Pogo, at 5 1/2 years of age when he should definitely have more dignity, was on the floor in my office chasing his tail. When we’re sitting and watching TV of an evening Pogo is usually right there on my lap and frequently in some variation of this position:

Pogo is silly

Flitter, despite her silly start in our household, is a far more dignified creature. So much so, in fact, that her silly brother frequently drives her absolutely crazy. There are Certain Ways in which Cats Should Comport Themselves:

And running around like a loon and showing your belly to everyone is Not One of Those Ways.
Which is, I think, what makes Flitter all the more funny. Give Flit the coil off of a spiral bound anything, bring out one of her jingle balls, or watch very carefully for the times that her tail chases her, and she is a remarkably ridiculous cat.
Growing up catless I never realized how flat out damn funny cats could be!