a kitten story in 7 pictures

four kittens = much delight

i've been listening to the kind of podcasts that i wouldn't normally listen to - mostly because the ones i normally listen to do a lot of talking about trump and his posse of trumpanzees, and frankly, i'm over that. so i listened to some back catalog stuff from oprah's super soul podcast (the alanis morissette episode) and also the bittersweet life (start with micro and quite possibly also stop there). my mind is buzzing with ideas of things to write about, but it's quite late and while that doesn't matter so much since i'm taking the day off tomorrow, i need to let them gel until morning. but suffice it to say, i'm looking forward to writing some micro memoir pieces (as if this blog isn't already full of those), and to spending tomorrow with the kittens you see above. they were born on may 2 and they're just about to hit peak cute.

charlie's latest masterpieces

our charlie outdid herself this time - having four gorgeous kittens! one looks so much like frieda, only she has white paws, then there's a little frankie tuxedo cat with white paws and lastly, two of her usual - white with spots of color (black and orange) on their heads. so sweet and wonderful! it makes us so happy to have kittens. and charlie's are always easy to find homes for. i'll admit i'm already scheming ways of keeping the little frieda look alike. i do love torties.

100 happy days :: day 93

ginny's eyes are open.

and isn't she just a little lump of pure happiness?

100 happy days :: day 84

teeny tiny kitten.
eyes almost open.
so much happy.

100 happy days :: day 48

today's happy: batman-themed moleskines. one arrived at my door today. 

frieda, aka catwoman, approved.

100 happy days :: day 45

i know i've already used the baby bunnies as my happy moment.
but seriously, who cannot be happy in the face of this?
every day, i think they're reached peak cuteness and yet every day, they get cuter.

also,
something has shifted. cosmically. in a good way.
i don't know what it is yet, but i'm choosing to roll with it.
happiness is in the air.
maybe it just takes 45 days of concentrated effort.

* * *

this is (pin)interesting and a bit surprising.
and tho' some of them are my own, not all of them are.

the view from sunday night

these two precious kittens went to their new home earlier in the week. both the people in this house and their mother have missed them quite a lot. loke (now luke) and lucy - they are special cats, but they will be loved in their new home. and sometimes you just have to let go.

we have chicken weirdness at our house. ever since the fox came into our henhouse earlier in the summer, all of the remaining chickens really don't like to be in there. i had these three locked in for several weeks (there is a fenced-in outdoor area as well) and this week we got a new hen with ten half-grown chicks. then, after a day or so, i found three of the chicks pecked to death and i opened the door so everyone could go out, thinking they felt too cramped. and also thinking they would come back in at night. they did not. and they're all back up in the trees at night. we have feral chickens at our house. and husband is talking about tearing down the henhouse and starting over.

happily, we don't have feral cats, as this wild bunch is as tame and sweet as can be. one of them went to his new home as well - he was a special one, with a bit of frankie factor about him. but i also know he'll be loved and cared for very much at his new home. now there's only four to go.

games were played in the waning golden hours of indian summer sunshine. and elderflower champagne was drunk as well. and my child must have inherited her father's strong nails, as those are her real nails and they're all that long and never break. it's infuriating, actually.

i'm doing my best to enjoy the last four kittens while we have them. i haven't actually put an ad up for them yet, as i want to hold onto them for a few more weeks. they're at the cutest and most playful right now. but molly is showing signs of growing weary of them.

maybe it's because when they all want a drink, that's an awful lot of kittens and there's scarcely room for her in the chair!

the weekend also held an evening of drink & draw. we're down to four regulars and we talked about lust as a theme...lust for life, lust for food, lust for well, lust. it was 3:30 a.m. before we even realized it! and that is precisely how a friday night should be.

i found myself partaking of the garden bounty on this sunday, which seemed to stretch to all of the time that was needed...time for a batch of pear-ginger-vanilla jam with the last of the pears that the wind has blown down from the tree. and a batch of fresh raspberry scones with the next-to-last raspberries from the garden. the leaves are falling from the trees and it was a bit blustery today, but overall, it's been a gorgeous indian summery weekend. and i feel fortified for the week ahead.

* * *

does the hyperfragmentation of our lives make us bored?

* * *

the truth about wonder woman.

* * *

ahh...those stormtroopers.

kittens make everything better

there's a lot of crazy out there in the world. some of it is messing about in the ukraine. some of it controls an area of iraq. closer to home, some of it runs the local school. and some of it apparently buys horses for its children in denmark without putting an acceptable amount of investigation and thought into it until it's too late and then they panic and spew all that crazy in your general direction.

we sold sabin's horse matilde several months ago and apparently the new owners didn't get along with her, so they sold her on (that's their prerogative, tho' i'd have preferred to be left out of her madness). i talked to the new owner a couple of weeks ago and answered some questions she had. then today, it became apparent that that new owner didn't really get along with her either, as i was contacted by yet another new owner who apparently passed a whole new level of madness test (seriously, this horse never attracted madness before to our knowledge), tho' i didn't pick up on that at first. for one, i spell way better than she does in danish (which doesn't say all that much for her) and for another, she's a stark raving mad lunatic who, i suspect, is illiterate, because she doesn't seem to have understood a word that i wrote to her. she has morphed a one-time hoof abscess into asthma (really?) and regular massage sessions into undisclosed issues (possibly related to asthma?). unbelievable what desperate, illiterate morons with too much disposable income will get up to. and subject total strangers to.  i can only hope that this too will pass. and that i will learn from it that i should not try to help people, even when they ask for help.

thankfully, i have kittens to play with. because despite what the cat trolls say, it's ok to live in a first world country, have kittens, take good care of them, find good homes for them in the end, but love and photograph them like crazy in the meantime. kittens really can right a whole lot of what's wrong with the world.

cats in scarves

she seems bent on taking our picture, but what are these things she's put around our necks?

are you kidding me? do we really have to have these scarves on, lady?

just go with it. it's like that thing with the crown.

she'll take a few photos and then she'll lose interest

and then we can go back to playing without any scarves on.

hey, wait a minute...

...i actually do look pretty cute with this thing on.

kittens four

i can't resist showing the progress of the kittens after all we've been through. they're nearly 3 weeks old. this is frieda. we may not be able to part with her. she's a little molly. strong, independent, curious, already her own little cat.

this is eleanor. she's enjoying a bath from her mama. that's her mama's tail there in the middle. and a bit of her collar of shame, which is still keeping her from licking her mastitis wound. which is healing at an amazing rate, thanks to fabulous honey-based medicine. i love that it's 100% natural. we need more medicines like that.

and this is perrie - she's the biggest, chubbiest kitten. which is exactly how a kitten should be. she is also best at holding still for her photograph.

this is danielle. she has an uncanny ability to convince me that she has died in her sleep. however, she's just really, really good at sleeping. she's the most outgoing of the kittens. don't let her plain black coat fool you, she's a real little spark.

and those of you with 'tweens in the house know that three of the kittens take their names from the girlfriends of three members of one direction. that's just how we roll.

sometimes you just have to photograph a pony

my facebook feed has been rife with dire warnings of late among my horse-oriented, danish friends. they are all concerned about some woman who has been seen stopping her car and photographing horses in pastures, surely with untoward motives. worst of all is that she looks...gasp...foreign!  and as i stopped to photograph this fetching little thelwellian pony along a country road the other day, i realized that maybe they're all talking about me! and my motive is nothing more than to capture a pretty pony in a green pasture filled with golden yellow dandelions on a sunny day. i do not wish to stuff said pony into the back of my stationwagon (together with a sack of grain, some bottles that need recycling and a horse blanket that needs washing) and speed off. nor do i wish to harm the pony or eat it (tho' sabin did recently suggest that this pony ate the others, as there used to be a whole flock of them in this field and this one does look a bit fat). all i want to do is take a picture of it in all of its fetching, photogenic ponyness. i do wish sometimes that people would worry about something important.

* * *

do you realize that what we see and know adds up to a measly 4%?

happy weekend!

15 days old. first taste of dandelion. great grandma's quilt. quite possibly the world's cutest bunny.

the epitome of cute

i think sweetpea (who is under the impression it's spelled sweetpee) may be even cuter than the baby hedgehog. especially when she scratches her ear with her back leg (i shall get a photo of that as well).

what i wore today

it continues to be grey, rainy and windy, so casual, warm clothes and no makeup are the order of the day. i thought i'd feature samba, the world's best bunny, to explain the bits of hay that are at my feet in these shots. i'm taking them out in a covered, unheated terrace that's at the back of our house (and arguably the best room in the house). it's where the bunnies lived before they got their new cage out in the furnace room where it was nice and warm for them this winter.

apparently the weather makes me not care all that much about matching my outfit either - it's all about being warm and comfortable today!

green cashmere sweater: gap, singapore

grey plaid pants: gap outlet, seattle area, 2003

scarf: made by me of lovely anna maria horner flannels

my favorite bit is the big giant vintage buttons

moccasins: same as yesterday

samba: bringing new meaning to the notion of bunny slippers