Surprise Turtles

img_20200515_104316 — That is a turtle on the path. Just hanging out. Being cool. Like a turtle.

Three mornings a week, I walk with my friend in a local park. Last weeks we walked right up to a turtle, who apparently was going to cross the path at some point, but had decided it needed thinking about as we approached.

img_20200515_104349 — If you look closely you can see he has red eyes. Which, apparently, is not a sign of a zombie turtle. So There You Go.

That is an Eastern Box Turtle, for your information. A male of the species. You can tell that he is a male because he has red eyes. She said all eruditish, because she googled it and read half an article and looked at lots of turtle pictures.

There is something utterly delightful about seeing an animal in the wild. Particularly one which you rarely see. We have often seen deer in this wood. Last year a doe had twin fawns. They were so beautiful and lovely to see. I’m afraid my picture of them isn’t great.

img_20190715_103520 — There are two fawns there. the one on the left is fairly obscured by the foliage.

The walk was initially a prescription by my doctor for stroke prevention. Because I had the stroke and didn’t know it. It turns out that’s bad and a sign of poor choices and a good indicator of future strokes. So instructions were given to start moving. I started to walk. And it has been such a boon to my mental health. Honestly, I have quite forgotten that I’m doing it to prevent strokes.

I may have planted too much insurance

So, what with buying 2 tomatoes, and finding a volunteer in my balcony pot, I was already assured of tomatoes. I mean, surely?

But then as I was planting, I cut off the bottom shoots so I could bury it nice and deep. And well – there they were – excellent cuttings.

So I planted one cutting of each of the bought seedling and had to actively talk myself out of planting all of them. It’s insurance. You never know what could happen, you know. It’s best to just take out a bit of insurance. And now I have back ups of the two main tomatoes.

Also I have 5 tomato plants and I’m a single person living alone with two cats, who are obligate carnivores. I honestly don’t know what I am going to do if all of them thrive. Perhaps someone at work will want a late seedling… Or maybe I could do two plants to a pot. But I don’t like to stress my babies.

I’m going to the bait shop this afternoon to buy some worms to put in the pots. Because tomatoes deserve worm friends. I’ve crushed up all the dried up plants from last year and I’m going to put that on top of the soil as a feed for the worms. Although the soil is pretty rich – so I think they are likely to be OK, in any case.

Balcony Gardening has BEGUN!

I spent many years in an apartment without any outdoor access and when I moved here there was a marvelous south facing balcony. And I immediately started a tomato. It grew like a marvel but had terribly disappointing tomatoes. Just slightly bigger than a cherry. They were OK tasting. But just not quite anything size wise.

The following year – a friend gave me one of her seedlings and it got a fungus and was generally not producing anything due to the disease.

The next year I fell into a mental health hole and my cats chewed my seedlings to bits and I just didn’t have a tomato. It was a sad year.

So this year I bought seedlings online from Laurel’s Heirloom Tomatoes. She has a 4 plant minimum so I bought 4 and gave 2 to a friend as a housewarming present. They arrived yesterday.

img_20200523_163135

It’s all VERY exciting.

I know what you are thinking – what does one person need with two tomato plants. But it’s OK. They are different tomatoes. One is Green Zebra and one is Paul Robeson. So. Don’t judge.

Anyway – today I started to clean out the pot that I grow tomatoes in. And there was a damn volunteer!

img_20200523_162721-1 So now I’m going to be growing 3 tomato plants, which I admit, is perhaps a bit much for one person. But I can share. Everyone loves tomatoes. It’s a pandemic, dammit. Tomatoes are the only good thing a person can look forward to, you know. I’m just saying.

The real question is – where I am going to put the third one? There’s one good spot for sun on the balcony because it’s a covered balcony. There’s a second reasonably good spot and everything else is basically very bright partial shade. It’s a dilemma. It’s gonna take up some of my thinker space to figure it out.

I consider my volunteer to be an excellent omen. It’s going to be a very good crop of tomatoes.

Reading old friends

There are a couple of authors whose books I have read so many times I know some passages by heart. Georgette Heyer is one of them. Pulling out one of these books is like sitting down with an old friend. They are comforting and good company.

I know what is going to happen, but it doesn’t matter, I’m never bored. I’m just happy to feel the familiar company. To visit places I love. To hear the words in my head, that I’ve read so many times, is a delight.

I’ve spent the last couple of weekends reading these books again. It’s like being cuddled in a down comforter. Warm and snuggly.

FC – Prisoner Release Scheduled

So FC was captured. His wound has been tended. They are keeping him over night and are releasing him tomorrow.

Part of me wants to just take him into the apartment. But that is not a good idea for FC, my cats, or me. Or it’s probably good for him to recover inside, but since he’s already pretty traumatized and my preference is for him to trust me, I don’t think putting him in a tiny bathroom in my apartment is going to encourage trust.

Or am I thinking too hard? Shit. I don’t know. It’s just that I had this ideal in my head that FC and I would learn to trust over time and he would choose to come inside. I would not have to imprison him.

But…

Still. I don’t think the vet would let him go – because the plan has always been re-release – if he thought it was going to be dangerous. Poor Ol FC.

I’m glad he’s coming home so soon though. I missed him. 🙂

The Plot against / for FC

FC continues to limp. And continues to avoid being touched.

Tonight when I went to feed him I found another neighbor out there and a trap set up. Apparently she very occasionally feeds him and saw his paw. So she called a friend with a trap. And so now we are plotting together to get FC to the vet.

I left them to it, since I’m a very regular source of food for him and he knows it. And I don’t think he’s going to risk that cage when he knows I have food. It’s awful to think of this from his perspective. He’s hurt. He’s hungry and he’s about to trapped. Then go to the vet. Imagine how scary. But he needs his paw looked after.

It’s for the best. I know. And honestly this was a timely intervention. Because I was at my wits end trying to get him to come to me. If I could have grabbed him I believe I would have. I’m not afraid to be bitten. But he’s too wise for that sort of shenanigan.

So. This is good. I just hate worrying about his emotional state.

Snow in May

It did not snow here, but did snow a bit north of my location. In the 2nd week of May. On the one hand, it’s does seem like Mother Nature was showing her Schadenfreude at watching us all wither under her whim of a virus. A small smug smile on our collective misery.

Some Southern New Englanders see snow in May | WJAR

But I’m a bit perverse. I find the oddity of a snow in May quite charming. Mostly because I haven’t got any plants out yet, so I was not disconvenienced by the dip in temperature. And of course it didn’t actually snow in my location. So I could just lean into the marvel of a late snow. Lots of pics were posted. We live in an age where one can enjoy a thing without actually experiencing it.

I did worry a bit about FC. But since he was out and about, eating hearty meals, I tried to remember that he is in fact a feral cat and must have managed with far worse weather. But not this past season. That’s when he was allowed into the apartment downstairs during cold days. sigh.

Yesterday he let me get quite close but still refused to be pet. He still limps but it seems to be improving. Perhaps just a sprain from a bad jump?

FC – FeralCat – The interim update

I’ve finally seen FC. He was waiting for his dinner last night. His limp is very much worse. He holds his paw in the air when sitting or standing still.

Under good news – I don’t think it’s an infected wound. He doesn’t act sick and infected cat bite wounds make cats feels super shitty.

It’s obviously painful though and I would really like to catch him and take him to the vet. Although it might take me 6 months to recover any trust after that. Ideally he would trust me completely before I took him to the vet, but that is not the current circumstance.

So – trapping him and probably getting bitten and losing trust – is the path forward. sigh.

Why can’t life be a bit simpler?

A Third Cat?

Back in the fall, my little grey cat Timmy jumped off my balcony and got lost for 3 horrible weeks. It was a misery for me and I think also for him. He’s shown zero interest in going out on the balcony since.

While he was out, I would walk the neighborhood calling, holding an open can of smelly catfood. That’s how I met FC (FeralCat). FC owned the backyard of this apartment building. And lived under the box truck that is permanently parked in the parking lot that abuts the yard. After my fruitless wandering I would end up putting down the food for FC, because the cat was following me.

I am normally not a proponent of feeding feral cats. Wild animal populations tend to equalize to the available resources and when you feed cats – you promote more feral cats. And being a feral cat is NOT a glad life. So while it seems on the surface like a kindness, it’s actually a systemic evil. Groups that feed and sterilize are at least mitigating the problem, but it’s slippery slope.

But once you do feed a feral cat, you have a problem. Because I did it for 3 weeks, the cat was using me as a reliable source of food. Happily, my downstairs neighbors were enchanted by the slow taming of the wild cat and began to participate in feeding it, eventually gaining it’s trust and letting in/out of their apartment during the cold winter days/nights.

They had never had a cat and everything about FC was novel and unexplained. I thought the problem of FC was solved and went happily on with my life. Then the neighbors decided to move. And didn’t take FC. I have a lot of thoughts on people who treat animals as disposable when they are inconvenient, but I will summarize with they are scum. This neighbor was bold enough to ask me to feed and look out for the cat they consciously abandoned.

So now I’m feeding FC again. It’s not been particularly easy on my mental landscape. For one thing, FC isn’t always around when I put out the food. So I have no idea if FC got the food or some other animal did. Last time I saw FC he had a pronounced limp. But will not let me anywhere near him…

And worse – I haven’t seen him in 3 days. He’s feral. Or maybe she. I’m not sure because FC is never so comfortable as give me a high tail.

But feral cats fight. And cat bites get infected and need to be looked after. And now I have no idea where FC is, so I can’t concentrate on taming him and getting a look at that limp.

In my ideal world I would take FC in, all three cats would form a giant cuddle puddle of happiness and I wouldn’t have to worry anymore about FC. But reality is not like that. The two cats I have just coexist and are in a constant land war over disputed territories. They tolerate each other, occasionally play chase, but never groom each other or sleep together. It’s not a big apartment. Adding a third cat would easily disturb the power dynamics of the relationship and cause them to destroy my apartment.

Even then – keeping an outdoor cat entirely inside is cruel. But I live on the second floor and there isn’t a good way for FC to get up and down. I suppose I could let him in and out of the front door, but the idea of trudging out into a public hallway and down the stairs to let a cat in and out is borderline insane. Only people who have indoor/outdoor cats will understand. Cats have a thing about doors. Just an insanity really. They will beg to be let out, walk three feet, turn around and beg to let in. And they do this many times a day and night, before they decide that yes, actually the conditions are all perfect for a bit of a walkabout.

So. I don’t know what to do. It’s exhausting my brain at the moment. I had originally thought I would have the whole summer to tame him and consider alternatives. But the limp is really weighing on me. I wish he would show up and let me see him.