Rogue Plants + Sneaky Illusive Cats

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It has rained. A lot. I’m sitting here waiting for my Walmart grocery order, and it’s 9:30 with gray skies.

But it’s soothing to look out the window and see everything so still, like the clouds stifling a yawn. Mother Nature is busy doing her thing.

My roof started leaking from all the rain, and on Saturday evening, Kendra came over and laid a tarp over it. In the dark. I didn’t know she was going to do it. And she could have fallen and broken her neck.

I heard noises out there and didn’t know that she was up on the roof while her boyfriend was holding onto the ladder. Scared me silly.

The roofers in town will be busy for a while.

First thing Monday morning, she learned that the renters in the little blue house had been out of town. The power had gone out, and the refrigerator defrosted all over her brand-new wood floors.

That was the first rental house emergency of the week, and there are probably others. She’ll have to get things wrapped up quickly because she and Marley are leaving for San Francisco in a few days.

With rentals, it seems there’s always something to deal with. I don’t envy her that.

Looking for Maggie:

On Sunday, Kendra said she couldn’t locate Maggie.

You know how cats are. They’re not like dogs and will come trotting up to you when you call them. A person could call out to a cat till the cows come home, and the cat would be unperturbed.

Cats will appear to be missing, and your heart is beating like a bird caught up in the rafters, and they will stay put. This happened to me with Daisy a few weeks ago.

Don’t cats know that we’re terribly frightened when we can’t locate them and wonder if they got out? Maybe they know, but just don’t much care.

It is the nature of cats to hide and stay put while we run hastily around looking for them.

Finally, Kendra found her sitting placidly in a grocery sack. Relief, of course, quickly overcame irritation.

The zinnias are resplendent with their many pink layers that look almost too pretty and perfect to be real. Nature often appears to be picture-book beautiful. Though how anything real could be so visibly grand is a mystery for the ages.

Every day, I go out on the porch and turn the pots where the plants have leaned toward the sun.

Stray Cat Etiquette:

Often, the black-and-white, somewhat bedraggled Killvester sleeps on the green settee cushion. Or he likes to lie behind the plants in the flower beds.

If I see him or any of the stray cats eating, I close the door and leave them alone. Sometimes my going out there startles them.

I suppose this is stray-cats-on-the-porch etiquette, respecting their presence and leaving them be.

One of you mentioned getting birdseed to try to keep the many grackles away from the cat kibble, so I ordered a few bags. Now, if I can just keep the trail of ants away. I poured lines of cinnamon around the cat food, but sometimes they find a gap and go through.

Rapidly Growing Cucumber Plant:

This cucumber plant, rising through the hosta and other plants, will need to be tamed. Soon it will be Jack-in-the-beanstalks tall. I’ll have to put something in the container to stake it, or it will take over the flower bed. I’m not sure how it came to be there in the first place!

With all the rain, the plants seem to have multiplied and become even more lush overnight.

Yesterday, I went out early in the morning and pulled weeds in and around the flower bed’s perimeter. You have to stay on top of it, or the weeds get out of control quickly.

I’m soon on my way to yet another dental appointment. I’ve had to go more in one year than I did in ten years.