In the Garden

Hello friends who have not given up on me since my lack of posts for over a month. Here for you is a tour of the garden on a rare sunny day in June. It has been raining for over six weeks here and we are all waterlogged and somewhat gloomy but in our Yankee way, resolute. The rain is pouring on the roof this morning and the felines are only opening one eye to say "what a fricking drag and jezzes christ." The garden has been growing, it is on a hill and well drained but what the sun loving tomatoes will do is anyone's guess. We do have onions, garlic greens, lettuce, peas, chard with beautiful stalks of pink and yellow and the last of the strawberries to gather before they rot. We did mulch them with straw but this summer, they should have had more. Any lying on the ground are grey and gone. The strawberry farm down the road is probably a disaster this year and the corn fields by the river are sodden with stalks only a few inches high. But here is a tour on a lovely, hopeful day in June. Everything has grown a lot since these photos.

The raised onion bed. Good thing it's raised and drains well. The purple flowers are Olof's beloved patch of chives.

The potato field with the squash just beginning. The elder's home below with their summer gazebo on the deck. The felines hide in the tall grasses behind the potatoes and keep watch. They also have catnip bushes to lie in and dream away the summer days. When it is not raining.

The path by the onions, well mulched this year. A good thing or the weeds would be knee high. They like lots of rain.

Another view, our house below.

The upper terrace above the terraces for strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Potatoes can be seen and small broccoli, radishes and chard.

Olof lived in Brussels once and never forgot The Little Pisser.

The Tea House. Below it is a lovely ravine where the brook is rushing waterfalls this year. Olof built this one summer when I was away for a week. I should go away more often, eh?

Our beloved Brendan lies here by the upper pond with his brother Finnegan (known as Innigan Outigan Finnegan) and Silas the Faithful. Fergus is in an urn on the shelf, waiting for when we shall meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.

My favorite room in my home. We have dinner with friends here on summer evenings. When it is not pouring rain.

Hello to all, how's your summer? 

Billie the Kid

This little guy is in the group of four kittens in their own private room. He's not related to them. I don't remember the details of his story but he was injured and he might be deaf. He has a purr loud enough to make your heart vibrate.

He's the first kitten I've come across with a grade A Fergus personality. He climbed up on my shoulders and head while I was trying to get his photo, purring all the time and then he happily wanted to play play play.

He's a funny little thing with those extra toes. I'm sure he won't be at the shelter long, if any cat lover with the eyes to see how wonderful he is meets him.

Yes, I'd take him home in a blink of a kitty eye. And just think of the havoc it would create around here.

They steal your heart and break it into little kitty bits, don't they?

Atlas and Ollie

These guys are too much. If I remember the story correctly, Ollie is the kitten found at a dumpster who survived being poisoned. A trap was set to catch him and huge Atlas was the surprise catch. It seems these two are bonded buddies and they are currently sharing a nice large condo with a screen porch at the shelter while they wait for someone who connects with them as a pair.

They're pretty darn nice if you ask me.

Instant family!

To the Shelter

It's been ages since I had any time at all to run down to the shelter and get some photos. Nothing but a long list of video projects to get through. And now it's garden time. Harper and Ramona are seizing every second of the days in their fenced in yard. They wait for us to do boarder patrol in the morning (the bears are coming over the fence almost every night) and they know 6PM is dinner time and they (usually) come when I call them. By then they are ready to eat and run for a sleeping spot. They'll be crashed out until morning when they are ready to do it again.

I really believe cats need to be able to be outdoors in a safe way. They just come alive with the smells and sounds of the outside. 

Little Lady waits for someone. When I entered the kitten room where there were four, the soft sound of purring rose to my ears. These guys are sweet.

And passes the time.
This is Janis, she is five and was found as a stray.

And Ziggy, who is ten.
And Priscilla whol had just arrived with siblings.

Dancer has moved into the community room, which gives him room to move around and be sociable with the other cats in there. When I was there he was sound asleep. It is a good place for him to be at this time.

Ramona

Fooling around with my Canon this morning

Spring Comes and Everybody Wakes Up

Spring finally begins to arrive up here in the Frozen North and we emerge into the light. Of course, we've been outside most of the winter skiing but now we can actually sit somedays with our summer chairs embedded in the receding snow. Olof gets out the camera and catches some of the action. There was a flock of turkeys too, to keep things lively, but the bear seems to have chased them off. We've all warned to take in the bird feeders in early spring, because once a bear learns to associate people with food they are in trouble. There's a large campground across the river. So no sympathy for hungry bears.

Cats for Obama Unite!

Ok so this isn't about cats except it is about someone we think is a pretty cool cat, our President. This morning the NY Times posted two photos, one where his hair is black and one showing it as rapidly turning grey under the job stresses. Below is a link to the story on the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/us/politics/05gray.html

Well. Olof knows a bit about photography, yanno. He looked at the two photos and saw that the exposure on the greyish one was way off for the skin tone. So he corrected the grey one and voila, no grey hair.




Above is the NY Times photo showing Obama with grey hair/



This is Olof's corrected photo matching the skin tone, voila, no grey hair.

What do all you cool cats think?

Shelter Photos

Shooting with my new camera, a Canon 5D MK II. Things are quiet at the shelter before the coming storm of kitten season. Two pregnant moms currently in foster care. I hope the spay/neuter program has made a difference in the numbers this spring.  Don't miss the story of Atlas and Ollie posted on the shelter's new blog

Vince

Phinneas

Ollie

Margret

Hemingway (the toes of course)

What February Brought

This was taken a few days after we all arrived home from the thousand mile journey. Three years ago. They are grown up lovely, loving cats now. Ramona is still sweet and mysterious and wants to be with us. Harper is the huggiest boy cat I ever had. His favorite sleeping place is next to me with my arm around him. You can forgive a cat like that anything. Good thing, since when he is upset he sometimes poops on the rug. Yeah, I caught him doing it so I know it is not Ramona. As if Ramona would ever do anything so undignified.

I am just working my way through a pile of projects. I will be writing a full length video on steam trains. Should be fun. That is after I edit the German and French recordings.

The sun is higher now and it is the good time of winter. The buds on the trees are just starting to swell and the turkeys in the yard and figuring out who gets to keep the ladies. We have light from about 6:45 to after 5. It's nice. I got out the packets of seeds and I am trying to see which ones I think will germinate and which ones I really should buy fresh. I'm being thrifty, well as much as I can be.

We've been slogging through our winter routine here but it will end soon with the first day you can open the windows. That will probably be in March.

And then we'll fix the fence and everyone will stumble out into the sunlight. ahh spring is on the way out there somewhere.

Winter

Harper and Ramona are raising heck this morning. How can two cats make such thundering paws? And there is a lot of mrrr mrrrs and floofy tails going on. I think it is spring fever since we saw a robin yesterday though the snow is way up over my knees.

Not a whole lot of news here, we're just working away and watching the snow pile up. I'll be editing the translation of my audio tour in German and French and then I have a large writing project that will take me to spring. And we are dealing with those tedious internet issues when you have a bunch of domain names and web sites.

The felines have adjusted fairly well to being indoors, though it drove Harper nuts at first. Sometimes we take him over to visit next door. He likes that.

I'll catch up with blogging when I have something that resembles free time.

Meow to all

Shelter VisitS

  Things are fairly quiet at the shelter right now. Kitten season is over and there are empty cages. Dancer was  pretty speakative, he is living in a ground floor condo and was lively when I was there, chirping and chortling. He is still having occasional seizures, sadly, and his urine is too dark. I hope he will get out of the shelter and be able to have some kind of a good life. Remember, he has been in the shelter since he was a young kitten. If any of you out there know how I can get enough money to build a sanctuary, let me know. The organization I work with (The Rozzie May Animal Alliance) really wants to do it. We can probably get land, bought or donated. I would like to have a place where cats like Dancer, who don't have good chances of being adopted, could have a decent life with room to roam and people to spend time with them. This would be a different set up from a shelter, with long term living arrangements for the felines.

Speaking of cats whose adoption chances aren't great, this is Abby, who has been returned. I hate to see cats coming back. Personally, I like cats with attitude, it shows they have pride and self respect. Every cat is an individual and if you want a relationship with them you have to understand them. A cat is not a dog! Abby can come to my sanctuary too.

There is one little room with six orange cats in it, all very scared, since they were rescued from a hoarding situation. Even though I would love to have more cats, it is better to understand how they get along and how they can get stressed if there are too many in a living place. Just like people! So all six of these beautiful cats have those big scared eyes. This is Tootsie.

It is a challenge as a photographer to go into a room (with pink walls) and try to get a decent photo of a frightened cat. You can't really do them justice, you just have to try to get something that shows their beauty and help them get adopted over Petfinder. Her name is Juniper.

This little girl cat should get adopted pretty quickly. Her chances are good. Sweet Josephine.

And another scared cheese kitty named Saffron. (I'm just mad about Saffron) If you know who sang that song then you are my age.

And another. Sage.

The biggest challenge for me is getting decent photos of the black cats. The light isn't good, the cats are in motion and I am not a good enough photographer to deal with it well. I just bought some books on photography and I am going to work at it and maybe redo all my black cat portraits. This one came out the best that day at 1/60 shutter speed. ISO 1600 and f5.6. It did not look good in my camera but looked better when I got it in the computer. I end up using a high ISO because of the lighting but I try to go lower in the shelter when it will work. This is Odessa and she has wonderful soft fur that doesn't translate to this photo.

Another from the cheese group, named Curry.

And Tonka. Boy, if you want a nice big cat this boy is a twenty pounder and its not fat. With personality to boot.

And my favorite and the one in my I'd take you home in a second list. Victor is a kitten, he and his mom were found wild and he is thinking about how he is going to deal with this new situation. Look at those eyes. There is a feline person there.

The Cats of Rockhouse Mountain Farm

This is a story I wrote about the spay neuter clinic I help with PR. It ran in the local paper. There are lots of photos which follow. These are the folks who do the difficult work of helping lower the number of homeless animals and seeing they get medical care. These barn cats will live out their lives at their farm in peace. They are fed and sheltered. I didn't post the photo of the vet because I wasn't sure if he would want me to. But he is a wonderful guy who loves cats. He has three but would like six (his wife says three is the limit). We talked about how these wild cats are every bit as deserving of care and respect as our spoiled pets. And we agreed that every single one is an individual.
Here's the story. Lots of photos below.

Once there was a farm. It was a large farm, with fields and woods, a bed and breakfast and a barn. In the barn were cows. And cats.

Twice a day the farmer milked the cows and the cats gathered around the pans of milk. The cats lived a wild, free and dangerous life. They caught the mice eating the farmer's grain. They slept in the hay. They roamed the woods. Every spring there were kittens.

People came to stay at the farm in the summer time. They tamed the kittens and took them home, to live safe lives as family pets. And so the number of cats in the barn stayed about the same.

Then the bed and breakfast closed. The cows were sold. There were kittens born with no one to tame and adopt them. Suddenly there were more cats, the cats were growing feral, and some of them were pregnant.

"I've got a gang for you," John Edge said to Roz Manwaring at the Eaton Village Store while they discussed the Rozzie May Animal Alliance and the low cost spay/neuter services it was offering to the community.There were over twenty cats in the barn at Rockhjouse Mountain Farm. By the time the next breeding season came around there would be more kittens. Edge was getting concerned about the expanding population and wanted to do something about it. He trapped eight male cats and brought them to the Rozzie May Animal Alliance clinic for Tom Cat Day in April. But the travel and strange environment of the clinic was very stressful for these wild and semi wild felines, who would hurt themselves frantically trying to get out of their carriers. Edge brought three more to another clinic. But there were still more in the barn.

The RMAA came up with a plan to help the cats and the farm. If it was difficult to bring the cats to the clinic, the RMAA would bring the clinic to the cats. With Edge's willingness to sponsor the clinic and trap the cats, a clinic was planned for on location at the farm.

First, Roz and John met at the farm and looked over spaces where a clinic could be held. They chose the basement of the Inn. Next, Roz had to find a doctor willing to do this kind of clinic. Dr. Steve Caffrey of Fryeburg Veterinary Hospital said he would love to help and December 10th was on the calendar. Then Roz decided on the RMAA team for the clinic. Head RMAA Tech Stephanie Macomber, and experienced vet techs Kim Zulker and Kristy McNulty were available. It was especially important to have a knowledgeable team running this clinic as these were not going to be easy cats to handle, ranging from almost tame, curious kittens, to the queen of the barn, known as the Tasmanian Devil.

Two days before the clinic,(because of approaching bad weather) Roz and Stephanie delivered the RMAA surgical equipment to Rock House Mountain Farm. The next day Roz delivered 11 cat carriers to the barn.

On the day of the clinic the team arrived in the early morning and set up a day surgery. John Edge started even earlier, offering canned food to entice the cats into crates and carriers. After four hours of surgery altering six females and seven males, with all felines safely on the way to recovery, the team packed up and carried everything back out to the van. Roz and Stephanie returned the equipment back to Albany Town Hall, the RMAA's winter "home."

The next day Roz returned to collect the cat carriers from the barn. The surgical laundry had been washed, dried, fluffed and folded by Edge.

A clinic like this could not happen without the veterinarians and others who offer their skills. Dr. Steve Caffrey, Dr. Scott Johnson and Dr. Kate Battenfelder from Fryeburg Vet Hospital, Dr. Julie Dolan of the Sandwich Vet Hospital, Dr. Kjersten Morrison and Dr, Monique Kramer, from Maine, are on board for future planned clinics.

Also crucial was the support from John Edge, who cared about his barn cats at the farm, was instrumental in supporting the clinic, and who spent hours trapping the cats and assisting the vet techs handling them.

And the RMAA team who volunteered their skills and time for no other reason than to help lower the numbers of homeless cats arriving in shelters.

Why it is necessary to spay and neuter cats? Because cats have an incredible capacity for reproduction. A female kitten will be ready to breed sometime between four and nine months of age. The gestation period is around nine weeks and one female can have up to five litters a year with the average number of kittens in a litter being three. A cat can get pregnant while still nursing kittens and can continue to have litters all during her life. Litter mates will then breed with each other. One breeding pair can quickly overwhelm any living situation. And spaying and neutering lowers the chances for diseases such as Feline Leukemia and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus.

What does the future hold for the cats of Rockhouse Mountain Farm? They will continue to live their lives the way they always have, in the barn at the farm. There may still be a litter of kittens next spring. With a total of 24 cats altered there are still a possible three that eluded capture. If a litter of kittens appears in the spring, they can be tamed and adopted, and the mother spayed and returned to the barn. Over the next few years, the numbers will go down because outdoor cats have a much shorter lifespan than family pets. At some point the farm will have the three or four mousers it needs.

And if you are in need of a good barn cat or two or three, call John Edge. He can help you out.

Kim and Kirsty, vet techs.

Kim with a sleepy barn man cat. You couldn't hold him like this if he were awake.

The farmer was thrilled to be taking care of his cats and he was there every minute helping out.

Here they are getting a feline into position for a sleepy shot. Otherwise, you could not handle them. 

He trapped all the cats for the clinic. Here he is waiting with a rope attached to a crate door, waiting for a cat to go in for the tuna inside.

Stephanie, the vet tech for the Rozzie May Animal Alliance.

And Roz herself, who got the whole thing started and whose dedication keeps it going. She is organizing the surgical kits in preparation for sterilizing later.

There is a lot of stuff to be moved in and out for these mobile clinics.

I wanted to pack up this little guy and his twin and take them right home. John (the farmer) asked ," So which one is your car?". Sigh. I wish I could take Dancer home too and give him the attention he needs.

I promise more posting on winter activities soon. Today, a new year and a new president in 19 days. It is 0 degrees out and windy so freeeeeeezing. Harper is under the blankets right now and Ramona down by the wood stove. They got a Fling a String for Christmas.

Ramona Sleeps In

The cats are no fools. They spend most of their day sleeping by the woodstove or under it. And sometimes Ramona doesn't get up for breakfast until 11am. Lazy Girl.

We are amazed and dazed that the huge ice storm passed south of us and left us with power. Southern NH is a disaster with power out to almost half the population of the state. And it's cold. If you don't have some kind of back up heat up here, well, let's just say it is a good idea. In a long power outage we can manage with just the wood stove and I can light my gas stove with a match.

It was about 15F outside this morning and the driveway is a skating rink. Olof put down some of the sand we collected from Town Hall a few days ago, knowing this mess was on the way. One thing about winter here, overnight your secure footing gives way to slippery patches. You develop a new way of walking, place foot, wait, place next foot, wait. I also have crampons that go onto my boots and I often wear them walking to the studio. Especially if I am carrying my new MacBookPro which has my life's work on it.

Today I'll be sorting through the photo shoot of the clinic held in the barn and writing up the story for, hopefully, the local papers. And I'll post it here when I finish. I was thinking of the barn cats last night when the temperature dipped. They have bales of hay to make nests in and I'm sure they did it.

Winter in the North Country is an adjustment. I have learned that daily exercise is important to keep your circulation up and we have winter outfits consisting of polar fleece, lined jeans and smart wool socks. Thank you whoever invented the smart wool sock and cured me of wet winter feet for ever. Dressed right and in good shape, it feels good to be outside in the cold. Otherwise, we'd be huddling by the stove with the cats all winter.

But it's not great snow to get out in yet. Frozen slush. Or what we call New England Hardpack. We take advantage of bad weather to get indoor work done. If we get ahead there will be time to ski when the good stuff arrives.

Changing of the Season

So it is winter, really and truly. Where have we been? Nowhere but here, busy. Getting as much contented nothingness as possible as the snow begins. It is covered in white outside and on clear mornings we see alpen glow on Mt. Washington, otherwise know as the Rockpile. It can turn a shocking pink with our late sunrises. Everyone who can sleeps in, Miss Ramona has been known to be up for breakfast around 11AM. The human beans are, of course, up long before that, hitting the exercise bike and the computers. Gotta keep the tuna coming in, yanno.

I've got projects, good ones. I am finishing up a marketing video for our local scenic railroad and starting on a full length video for them about their winter operations. There's a 1921 steam locomotive and it is spectacular when it comes out of the engine house in clouds of steam. There will be a spay/neuter mission to a barn full of, well, barn cats, next week which I hope to get some photos of. Spay/neuter clinics are going on but I don't need to get photos of all of them. However the barn cat story will illustrate how the group (rozziemay.org) is willing to go out and help people with expanding cat populations. This farm for years managed the cat numbers because it was a bed and breakfast. Guests would come, see the kittens and take them home. That kept the numbers to a suitable level. Once the b and b shut down, well, you can imagine how a few breeding pairs can take over. It's going to be a challenging day. We'll see if the farmer manages to catch them all for us.



This little guy was at the shelter on my last visit. The kitten season seems to have slowed down and as many kittens as possible stay in foster care so I don't always know if the ones listed on Petfinder will be there if I go in to take photos. Foster care is better for the young ones. But I will have to make a visit soon since they have a cat listed named Tonka and he is the first one I've ever seen marked XL for extra large. I'll report back after my visit!

Yes, Dancer is still there as far as I know right now. I am sorry that he has not been adopted yet and I check PF all the time, hoping he has been found by someone who will care for him. He needs a special person, he needs attention and understanding, and he needs to get out and play. I have not been able to spend time with him to gauge his personality now but I will try to talk with someone there about him. He was napping during my last visit.

I also have Rosetta Stone for learning French and if I get any free time I can disappear into that quite happily for hours. And I picked up Libba Bray's trilogy, the one that start with A Great and Terrible Beauty. I just love young adult fantasy books and this one is really delicious so I am gliding through the last, huge volume in the series and believe me, I could spend today in front of the wood stove and never look up except for the other things I plan to do today. I can't believe I never picked her books up because I thought they were historical romances. It's the cover with a photo of a young girl in white lace and the title. Because of the title I thought the books were about the Irish revolution in 1920, yanno, Yeats and the Post Office and all that. Or the potato famine. That's it, I really thought the book was about the potato famine, not a wonderful gothic Victorian fantasy complete with a magic country and plots thickening everywhere.

Winter is a lovely peaceful time for us. Everything slows down in the North Country because it has to. You can't go at such a fast pace because the days are shorter, there is no gardening to do and you've got to consider staying warm. We have a lot of indoor computer work to do and the days stick to a plan of get up, drink coffee, exercise, work, lunch, work,dinner, movie, sleep with cats. And as soon as the snow is skiiable, which it is already in some places, we'll be outside in between the work hours on our skis.

So that's it and there isn't much to write about most days except that. Harper and Ramona have adjusted to winter, they sleep more though they still want the door open and they entertain themselves running in and out and yelling that their paws are cold. Olof carried Harper over next door so he could visit Grampa and he liked that, so I will try to do it more often and keep him amused.

If there is anything interesting to write about, I will, but otherwise, stay in touch ya'll. And please excuse me if by the winter fire I lie dreaming.