Happy Halloween

Gone trick or treating:)

blue eyed kitten

So as I mentioned before we had a stray cat have kittens in my wood shed. It is so fun to watch them! We plan on trying to tame them and find them good homes, but as of yet they have been hard to catch as they are to afraid and wild. Last weekend we rented a have a heart trap and were able to catch one of the kittens, only to later let her back out with momma as they evidently are younger then we originally though and are still nursing. The one kitten we caught was a beautiful little kitten but sadly I believe she is blind in one eye, she has a one big blue eye with no pupil. She is playful and does not seem effected or bothered by it, although to look at it, it first appears a little disturbing. It was a good conversation to have with my son about why we are sometimes born different or with birth defects. He has fallen in love with little unique beauty and I am not sure how we are ever going to give her up. My goal was to not name them thus not getting attached but we have found ourselves affectionately calling her "gum drop", I guess because she is sweet like a little gum drop:)

fairy houses

When I was a kid I loved to play in the woods behind my fathers home. He lived on a little peninsula on a lake so you didn't wander to far before you hit water. What I loved most were all the old trees growing in unusual shapes up from the edge of the lake or into the damp boggy woods. It was an enchanted land I would imagine. One time my sister and I found two dead twisted tree roots just laying in the woods, we imagined that a unicorn had shed its horn. We took turns taking those twisted roots to school show and tell, and tried to convince our classmates it was a genuine unicorn horn. We would take old ply wood and build forts around trees that grew in a cluster, then we would sit and wait watching for wildlife or better yet fairies to emerge. Like I said it was an enchanted land, that was long forgotten once we lost our youth. we are now preparing to sell my fathers old home and have had to spend a lot of time out their renovating. Today my little one wanted to go for a walk in those woods, feeling a bit nostalgic I took him up on the offer but I told him we had a mission to see if the old fairy house was still out there. He rolled his eyes at the thought but as we walked through the woods amongst those twisted tall trees he turned and said to me "you know this could be a magical place". And sure enough right where I remembered it was the little "fairy house", but sadly no-one was home they must of all been out enjoying the fall foliage;)

While we are knee deep in tomatoes from my sons garden, not a single one of his pumpkins grew. Growing his own pumpkins might have provided him with some pride and bragging rights, maybe not having any pumpkins is a good thing. If we had grown more of our own vegetables we might miss out on going to some of the local farm stands, one of my favorite places to go in the fall. All the variety of local grown veggies, the homemade baked goods, the colors and the smells, it is certainly a New England must! Now excuse me I am off to make a stew from all the yummy veggies I either grew or bought at my local farm stand:)

stray cat strut

A little over a month ago, we suspected we had a visitor of the critter kind, there were signs. Then one day she showed herself, this tiny little malnourished cat peered out from under our shed. So cute and so ridiculously underweight we took pity and left out a bowl of food. she was far to shy and skittish to let us near her. So every evening for the past few weeks we would take turns sitting outside with her while she ate. we have become attached to this little visitor, so much so we had to give her a name, and hence "pudding head" became part of our life. I was obsessed with this cat and worried about making this cat comfortable so she would learn to trust us so we could bring her into our warm abode this winter. Little by little we earned her trust, enough so she would let us pet her and love her but not enough for her to want to come into the house. Today my husband found her shivering and starving (did I mention this cat eats like a horse) so in she came. She made herself comfortable, that is until anyone went for the door in which case she would try to get out. I tried to convince her it was better in here then it is out there, but there is just no reasoning with a cat:) deafeated I let her out, but followed her because there was something that bothered me about this tiny little cat, her belly was full, could it be full of milk, I asked my husband. I followed "pudding head" out to our backyard and to our woodshed and in a flash I saw the little kitten run out from under a wood pile latch on to his momma, aka "pudding head" and then spy me and run back under the pile. "Pudding head" has kittens! So alas I am running a Maternity ward for cats out in my woodshed. I have no idea how many kittens as I am to afraid to move anything, so as not to cause an avalanche of wood onto the wee ones. So now I will sit and patiently wait for "Pudding head" to trust us enough to introduce us and while I wait I will wonder what to do with all these cats.