A boy and his Kitty

Tiberius and Conan have forged a strong bond. Conan caries Tiberius around constantly and frequently sings to him. I finally caught the cuteness on video! Surprisingly, Tiberius seems to really enjoy the attention and even purrs while being manhandled and forcibly snuggled. It's very sweet.

Tiberius & Livia

We just adopted two new kitties. They are an "adult" mom (10 mo.) and her son (3 mo.), both grey tabbies. This is the little boy, who Cary named Tiberius. He's got green eyes and is friendly, active and playful. He's also cute as can be.

His mother is less rambunctious, and has beautiful orange eyes. We were all calling her "Tiberius' Mommy" so I went to the internet to find out what the real Emperor Tiberius' mother's name was. Livia is a pretty name and seems to suit her.

We have them confined to the office for now, so they can get used to the house, and us, gradually. Sanford is spending a lot of time sniffing around the door, and Livia is sniffing back. Both are very curious about who is on the other side of the door, but there hasn't been any hissing or yoweling, so that is encouraging.

Tiberius is extremely playful and curious; while I've been typing this post he's knocked some things off the windowsill, tried to climb the china cabinet, and fiercely play-attacked his mother. He and Conan both enjoy couch fishing as well.

It feels good to have more cats in the house again. It's going to be an adventure to have young cats again, and I especially look forward to watching Conan bond and play with them. Stay tuned for lots more pictures, that's for sure!

RIP Sprout

Sprout was a great kitty. We will miss him so much. He was the cuddliest, sweetest little snuggle buddy anyone could ask for.

We're stunned; we didn't realize he was as sick as he apparently was. He had seemed a bit less energetic than usual, but nothing that seemed to warrant a trip to the vet. He wasn't exceptionally old, around 12 I think. This afternoon we found him deceased on the porch, looking like he just laid down for a nap and then passed on.
We buried him at the edge of the woods, in a beautiful and peaceful spot where the wild blackberries grow thickly. Not much more we can do at this point but mourn.

Sanford

If you had asked me, 6 or 7 years ago, if I'd ever let my baby play with this cat, I'd have told you "No way." In fact, when we first met Sanford, everyone, adult and child alike, was wary of him. He was a badass and he didn't care who he had to scratch or bite to prove it. He got "fired" from his job catching mice in the lumber shed at the ReStore for scratching and biting the customers and the staff too often. Janet even needed stitches! He was great at catching the mice, but his customer service skills left a great deal to be desired, so he came to live with us at the Apple Pharm.

After he settled in at the farm (read: once he established dominance over all the other cats) he decided I was the person for him. He liked to get up on my bed to snuggle, but I had to abide by the rules - no petting below the neck, no sudden movements, certainly no blankets over him and no handling his feet or touching his belly. It was a bit tense. Breaking any of his rules meant hissing and running away at best, biting and scratching at worst. But slowly he started to be more tolerant and trusting, at least of me, though he still scratched other people quite frequently. He brought me the freshest, most tender young rodents, fetchingly displayed on my bedroom rug, to show his affection.

When the time came to move out of the Apple Pharm, we had a group meeting to divvy up the cats. Sanford was unquestionably mine. He moved with us to an apartment in town where we lived for a few years until the house was finished. He dominated the small apartment complex from the start. He bullied the other cats and even went after raccoons, dogs and deer. He walked into our neighbors' apartments like he owned them, and ate their cats' food. He memorably came home one evening with his white fur covered in blood - and not a drop of it was his own. We grew to be a family, and he accepted Iggy and Sprout as part of his pride.

He loved it when we moved to our current house. He loved the territory and the rich hunting grounds (mmm, tasty little bunnies!). He loved and trusted us. He was no longer the wild, ferocious alley cat fending for himself. We could pick him up, pet him all the way from nose to tail, even treat his wounds and pet his belly. But even so, when Conan was born, I was nervous about Sanford. Would he put up with a baby? A toddler? Well, I needn't have worried. Sure, Conan had to learn about boundaries, and got a few scratches in the process. But Sanford always, clearly, understood these were just teaching scratches. He wasn't trying to hurt the kid. He loves Conan as much as he loves me - even more, I sometimes think. I'm not so sure he'd put up with me using him as a pillow! They are truly buddies, and it warms my heart to think about just how far this wild, trust-no-one cat has come.

Talking About Death

After Iggy died, Conan naturally asked about him. Not too frequently (we've got three other cats to distract him) but once in a while he'd say "Where Iggy?" or "Iggy outside?" and I'd simply tell him that Iggy didn't live with us anymore. I was rather proud of this answer, since it is completely factual and doesn't raise any potentially uncomfortable or scary questions about death. Conan would accept this answer and usually change the topic (he's got the attention span of, well, a two-year-old).

Then one weeknight, as I was bustling around trying to get dinner on the table before we all got too cranky to eat, he asked again. Distracted, I blurted "Iggy doesn't live with us anymore, remember? He died." Ooops.

Conan's eyes got wide. You could see the gears turning as he pondered this new revelation. Uh-oh, I thought. This could get ugly. I was envisioning tears, wailing, maybe even nightmares. How can I explain death to a little child? Philosophers, religions, scientists and shamans have been trying to come to an understanding of death for centuries - and they weren't suddenly put on the spot in the middle of dinner.

Then, very seriously, Conan asked "And his tail died too?"
Yes, I said, and his tail too. "And his nose died too?" Yes, and his nose. "And his feets died too?" Yes, those too. We went through all the cat anatomy Conan has words for, and I confirmed that yes, they had all died.

Finally satisfied with body parts, Conan had one further question: "Iggy no eat cat food anymore?" Nope, I confirmed. Iggy doesn't eat cat food anymore.

And with that, Conan was content. Iggy died. All the parts of him died. He doesn't eat. Iggy doesn't live with us anymore, end of story. No crying, no wailing, no existential questions about the nature of life or death.

Someday, years from now, Conan will surely learn more about death and loss, as we all must. But I was really struck by the beauty of his acceptance of it, and the purity of his curiosity. And of course, relieved.

RIP Iggy

Iggy asked to go outside Friday morning. He was stronger and more alert after a week on the thyroid medicine, so I let him out. He chose a nice spot under the bench under the big fir tree and quietly passed on. I found him this morning.

I'm pleased that he was strong enough to make his own choice of spot. We'll miss him, but I have no regrets or guilt - he lived a good, full life, and was loved.

Ignacio Mooma Pobst

Iggy, aka Tripod, aka His Royal Fluffy Majesty, aka Fluffbutt, was born in August 1996. His mother, Jive, was my friend Mandi's cat, and I had pick of the litter. The only other kitten was stillborn, so Iggy was mine. When he was 5 weeks old I brought him home - a little too early, as I found out when he nursed holes in several of my sweaters and blankets. But he was just the cutest little kitten so all was forgiven, and he grew and thrived and we formed a strong bond.

Just before Thanksgiving 1997 he disappeared from my apartment. I put up flyers and contacted the humane society, and a few days later I got the call that he had been found, but was badly injured. I went to the shelter and picked him up, and could immediately see that his front left leg was probably a goner. He was so glad to see me he refused to stay in his box, so I held him on my lap and drove him straight to the Cat Clinic. I said "you're going to have to take off his leg, right?" and they said oh no, don't worry, probably not, we'll clean him up and take x-rays and call you in a few hours.

A few hours later when they called and said "well, we have some bad news about his leg" I was not surprised. There were some other options, I could have taken him to Seattle for experimental veterinary orthopedic reconstruction, but I could barely afford the cost of the amputation, let alone what it would have cost to try and save the leg. The clinic staff was very surprised that it didn't upset me to think about amputating my cat's leg, but I was just glad to have gotten my cat back at all. Even if I only got 90% of my cat back, that was still a lot better than I had really expected.

In addition to losing his front leg, Iggy's right hip had been dislocated and had to be surgically pinned. One of his canine teeth had been broken, so it had to be extracted. A few of his ribs were cracked. He was a hurting little kitty. The vet speculated that he might have crawled up into the engine block of a car and gotten his leg caught in the fan belt. We'll never know for sure; Iggy never would talk about it.



To pay for Iggy's medical care, I converted my already-scheduled birthday party into a fundraiser. The clinic even allowed me to borrow his x-rays and we displayed them at 419 to show people that we weren't making it all up. People packed into the house, paying $10 or $20 for a plastic keg cup of beer. I don't remember how much was raised, but I know it greatly exceeded my expectations. To this day I occasionally hear about that party from people I didn't know had been there, or who didn't know it was my cat. It has become one of those Bellingham legends.

Once he recovered from his major surgery, Iggy lived a happy and relatively uneventful life. We moved around a bit, and he made friends with many of the other cats, dogs, and people that we lived with over the years. His majestic fluffy tail and his silky soft tummy fluff were admired and petted by all. He was never shy about speaking up when a food dish was empty (or just low) even if he himself wasn't hungry. He slept on numerous couches, pillows, beds, chairs, and floors. He absolutely loved to roll on concrete. Being a tripod never slowed him down, but then, he wasn't ever interested in moving very fast to start with.

In the spring of 2009, when Conan was just a few months old, a routine trip to the vet discovered that Iggy had Thyroid tumors. The tumors were not malignant, in and of themselves, but they did cause his thyroid to be overactive, revving up Iggy's metabolism. He was constantly hungry and eating, but still losing weight. The only feasible treatment (kitty chemo was not in our budget) was a topical steroid cream that had to be applied to Iggy's ears twice a day, forever. However, we didn't feel comfortable having this topical steroid cream in the house around Conan, who was already becoming very interested in the kitties. One of his first words was "Iggy".

Instead, for the last two years, Iggy has had his own private dining room on the sun porch, where he can nibble extra-special kibbles and even enjoy canned cat food without having to share with the other cats. He's free to come into the main house or go outside whenever he wants, of course. He has really enjoyed having his own space, free of toddler attention or feeding competition.

Good times can't last forever, and this past December Iggy started to really go downhill. He lost weight until he is now just skin and bones. His majestic fluff became matted and straggly. We moved his private dining room into the bathroom, because he enjoys sleeping on a hot spot on the floor under the bathtub. In the last few weeks he has stopped showing much interest in food at all, just licking a little at the top of the cat food pate I put out for him before going back to sleep. He looks old, and sick, and tired.



I put off calling the vet for a while because I was scared that I would take him in and they would confirm my fears that Iggy is nearing the end of his life. But denial is only tenable for so long, and it isn't fair to let Iggy suffer because I'm afraid to face my fears of finally losing him. So tomorrow at 2:15 we are going to the vet. Perhaps they will have some treatment for him and he will recover, start eating again, and gain some weight... but I am not optimistic. I may have to let him go at last, and it's so hard. He's been my kitty for 14 and a half years, and I can't imagine life without his hard little head butting into my hand in search of pets, or his piercing meow demanding food, or his contented purring next to my head.

I'm going to go cuddle him a little more right now, and have a good cry.

Update: The vet examined Iggy, gave him some fluids, and tested his blood. The results showed that Iggy is OK except for the thyroid thing (no organ failure), and there's now an internal medicine we can try to treat the hyperthyroid with. So we're going to give that a shot, and see if he recovers. The vet said we'd see results pretty quickly if it works. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, because he's just soooo skinny (4.5 lb), but I feel like I owe him the chance. If the medicine doesn't work, at least we tried.

Visiting Plain

Chloe turned two on November 14th, and I was able to take Friday and Monday off work so that Conan and I could make a trip over to Plain to help celebrate. We had lots of fun with Poppy and Debbie. Conan got to drive a tractor, pet a real horsie, play chase with Ginger (the most tolerant cat EVER), pound nails in uncle Jon's house, play in snow, "ride" Gracie the dog, and of course play with his cousin. I also picked (and ate) wild chantrelles, went for walks in the beautiful autumn woods, and spent a nice amount of time sipping tea and visiting with my folks. It's nice to be home now, but it sure was good to spend a few days back in Plain.

Here Kitty Kitty

Conan has recently become interested in the cats. He watches them intently, talks to them, and of course grabs for them if they come within range. We often put Conan in his exersaucer by the cats' food bowl so he can watch them wait for food. On the couch today I propped him up on a cylindrical pillow and he rocked back and forth trying to reach Iggy. It was very entertaining. Iggy, however, was not thrilled. It's tough to be a lazy, long-haired, three-legged cat in a house with a baby.
It's only going to get worse for him as Conan gets more mobile, and from the look on his face he knows it.

Remember when this was a house blog?

In non-baby related news, we have a new kitchen floor! Any of you who have been by the house in the past several months may have noticed that the cork in the kitchen was warped and gaps had opened between several of the tiles. This was due to a slow leak in an exterior hose bib caused by a late freeze last spring. We got the leak fixed last summer, and it seemed that the damage was minimal until the heat came on this fall. The cork had apparently absorbed more water than we thought, and as it dried out it shrank. A lot. We had huge (1/2") gaps, and in a few spots the top layer delaminated and chipped off. It was ugly. But I was kind of busy in December & January, and I didn't really think we could afford to replace it, so I put off dealing with it.

One day when my uncle Fred, who is a contractor, was visiting, I asked him what we'd need to do to go about fixing the floor. He knew how to do it, and said he'd be happy to bid the job. I told him I didn't think we could afford it, and he said "Don't you have homeowner's insurance?" Well, of course we do - I just hadn't thought of using it! I didn't have high hopes that they would pay for the job, but lo & behold, when the insurance adjuster came out to check the damage he said yes!

The first step was to strip out the old damaged cork flooring, down to the slab. There was quite a bit of moisture still trapped between the concrete and the vapor barrier, and a bit of mold under the trim in the pantry. Sanford and Marcelles inspect the newly revealed (and very warm) concrete:
Originally the plan was to replace the damaged cork with new cork of the same kind, but when we tried putting the newly purchased cork tiles down we ran into several problems. Despite being the same brand and looking identical, the new tiles are a smidge thinner, an eence wider, and the toungue-and-groove is a little different. In short, they don't fit together. We'd have had to take out the entire floor in the kitchen, living room, and probably office and replace ALL the cork to keep cork in the kitchen. We'd had some reservations about putting cork back in the kitchen anyhow - what if we had another water leak? We couldn't handle the disruption of replacing the entire floor downstairs right now - not with a young baby & going back to work - so we decided to refloor the kitchen with the black slate tile that we had used in the hearth and on the sunporch.

Here are the first tiles being positioned in place:
Note that the fridge is in the living room in the picture above. It made me feel a bit like Homer Simpson to have the fridge right at the end of the couch. In the end though, I prefer it in the kitchen.

Slate has some advantages over the cork - it is more responsive to the radiant heat, and it's very durable: we'll never have to worry about water damage in the kitchen again. However, it has a couple of drawbacks as well - it's hard on our feet, and every future dish we drop is a gonner. Oh well - as Mom pointed out, we have lots of dishes. Below, Iggy inspects the grout:
And here's the finished floor, grouted and sealed. It is so beautiful. It really defines the kitchen as a separate space from the living room, which I think is a good thing. It also ties the black of the island cabinet and the diswasher and refridgerator together. It will take a little getting used to, but I'm really happy with it.

There are still a few finishing touches left to do, like putting the trim back and retouching the paint, but by and large it's finished. It's so nice not to have to see (and feel) big cracks in the floor every time I walk into my kitchen now. Hurrah for insurance coverage! :)

Hank's 'hawk hat

Hank is one year old! His super fun punk-rock themed birthday party was on Sunday, and featured a piñata - for those of you keeping track, yes, it was a two-piñata weekend for me! Here's the "mohawk" hat I made for him, modeled by a spaghetti squash:
And here it is again, from the front, modeled with LOTS more attitude by Sanford:

It was even cuter on the little Hankster himself, but I forgot to take my camera to the party. Oh well...

Baby Barbarian Hat

I finished the baby barbarian hat for little Conan. Here it is, modeled by Sprout:
I had to roll up the brim so that it would fit Sprout, but even so this hat is so tiny! I hope it fits little Conan for at least a little while after he's born... I might have to make another one, in a larger size so he can actually wear it when he's bigger.

Rain in the Forcast

...means its time to seed the field. The original plan was to plant an annual cover crop for tilling in this fall, but since May & June's heavy rains delayed the final discing of the field I don't think there's time to get a summer cover crop in. Especially since I still haven't gotten around to getting irrigation hooked up... So instead we're just skipping to the permanent cover: clover. It's readily available, fixes nitrogen, doesn't grow too tall, and provides great bee forage & beneficial insect habitat. I blended a couple kinds of white clover (Dutch & New Zealand) with crimson clover, threw in a couple ounces of wildflower seeds for fun, and then added all the leftover packed-for-2007 garden seeds I had in my seed collection just to see what would happen. Who knows, maybe we'll see some fennel and leeks and radishes out there. :)
The grass has grown back somewhat, but there's lots of room for my clover to get established - provided of course that it actually DOES rain this week! The new seed spreader I bought for the job worked really well, I sure wish I'd had it when I was seeding the lawn last year!
As always, the cats supervised our work.
Even Marcel came out and watched. He sure is doing well these days, he's lost a pound and has actually been seen frisking around the yard like a kitten. A really BIG kitten. :)
Update 7/29: It's really raining! Not just teasing me with dark clouds that pass by. Hurray! I really didn't want all that seed to go to waste...

Disc'd Again

Mike the tractor man came back on yesterday and started the second discing of the field. The ground had finally dried out enough that he could go over it again without sinking the tractor. It really was a wet, rainy June. Look how much the grass had grown up since the first discing!
The blue barrel is filled with water to give the disc more weight, helping it to cut deeply through the sod and into the soil. This was a new, expirimental technique - it seemed to work quite well right up until a weld gave way on the disc under it, about halfway through the field. Whoops! So Mike came back today with a tiller attachment on the tractor, and finished the job. It looks amazing:

Now we just need to get some cover seed on it before the grass can get back in control. It'll never be grass-free, but a diverse cover is really a big advantage in an organic orchard. We'll need some nitrogen fixers, as well as some to provide shelter to benifical insects and a mix of flowers to attract and keep pollenators around even when the trees themselves aren't in bloom. Not sure yet what exact mix of seeds I'll get, but I guess I better get to work figuring it out since the ground is ready!

The Four Cats Farm board of directors came out with us to review the work. I believe they were pleased, although it can be hard to tell...

The next big step will be hooking a faucet up somewhere in the middle of the field. Even in rainy whatcom county, irrigation is necessary in the summer - which reminds me, I better go turn off the sprinkler in the garden. :)

Beans, Blossoms and Bugs

Warm weather over the weekend brought out the first flowers and really made it feel like summer at last. The strawberries are really looking good, they are in full bloom now under their protective netting.
The first Pea blossoms opened yesterday, and the plants are loaded with buds so I know more will be coming soon. These are the ones I got as starts from Dave, the second batch I planted from seed is only a few inches high - it'll be a while before they bloom, but they are looking really good too.

The Rosemary I planted in the fence flowerbed is in full bloom now, and wonder of wonders, the asparagus I planted way too early (in February!) has actually come up. Granted it's really thin and little (compare the asparagus stalk to the rosemary leaves) but I had given up hope it would even sprout. However, it looks like 6 out of the 8 roots I planted made it, yay!

The beans I planted last Saturday all came up, in unison, yesterday. It was amazing to see how much they grew from the morning when they were just starting to poke through the soil, all bent over and still in their seed casings, to the afternoon when they stood stiffly upright with their little leaves proudly unfurled.

Here's another surprise, the bleeding heart I planted at the same time as the asparagus not only came up but actually flowered. I just "found" it on Sunday, already in full bloom in its shady little nook in the tree island. Good thing I didn't miss it entirely!

This Calendula overwintered at the corner of the house, survived an early spring weed-whacking, and is now covered with big yellow daisy-like flowers, occasionally hosting yellow hunting spiders like this one.
The wildflowers are also beginning to bloom, such as this wild red columbine growing at the edge of the bushes behind the pergola.
Deeper in the shady parts of the woods, the False Lily-of-the-Valley (maianthemum dilatatum) is in full bloom. This is one of my favorite wild places on the property. I don't have a real path to it yet, but I make a point to scramble through the thimbleberries, alders, blackberries and tall grass every few weeks just to admire the lush and beautiful green of the leaves, moss and ferns.

Today, however, the tranquility was shattered by the scolding of several small birds who really didn't approve of the fact that the cats had accompanied me on my walk (as they often do when the weather is nice). They must have a nest or two in the vicinity; I'll give them a little time to raise their babies in peace and safety before I go back to visit my spot again. I guess my maternal empathy is starting to kick in!

Saturday Sunshine

It's an absolutely beautiful day. I worked outside in the garden all morning until I wore myself out, so I decided after lunch I'd take some pictures instead of working . :) Of course, now I'm tired again... might be time for a nap in the hammock!

The biggest project this morning was building a bean tipi. I cut down and limbed 8 saplings, wired them together at the top, and pressed the bottoms into the dirt several inches. I planted "black seeded yard-long" pole beans on the tipi. I've never grown this variety before, but somehow I ended up with a seed packet, probably picked it up for free at a trade show. Next to the tipi are a couple rows of bush yellow wax beans as well. It feels good to have my beans in, finally!

In the backgound behing the bean tipi, you can see some of the greens and chard I planted earlier. They are doing extremely well, after all the rain we've had they are loving the sunshine. The Pak Choi is especially lovely:

I also planted the center bed with several of the wedding favor seed packets that we had left over. I put the wedding plaque that my cousin Heather and her family gave to us in the middle of the bed. Aw.

The gooseberries are doing great, as you can see below. They are covered in tiny (difficult to photograph!) green berries, and have lots of new growth. The tasty and underappreciated berries appear to be a real winner in our yard, we'll have to put in a few more plants.

Lest this all seem a little too idyllic, Sanford brought home a young bunny for his lunch. This is the second one (that I know of) so far this spring. He's quite proud of his hunting prowess and seems to enjoy showing off his kills, so naturally he decided to eat this one under the picnic table.
I'm just glad he kept it outside.

Strawberries, Catnip & Mushrooms

We accomplished a lot of different projects this past weekend. Here are some of the highlights: First, I'm really glad to have a protective net over the strawberry planter: Not only will it protect our not-too-far-off strawberries from the birds, it will keep the cats out of the planter. It had been getting a bit too much feline attention lately.

Speaking of cats, we also planted them a catnip patch. It is protected by an old wire freezer basket, turned upside down and staked at the corner with tent stakes. The idea is that the cats can nibble the parts of the plants that grow out past the protective cage, but they won't be able to uproot the plants or chew them all the way down to the soil.
There are three plants under the cage. The middle one got caught out in the open and seriously chewed before we planted it, but I think it will recover.

The biggest project was to innoculate a mushroom log. We bought a bag of 100+ Shiitake spawn dowels from Cascadia Mushrooms at the farmers market a couple of weeks ago. While there were a few trees that came down on our place this past winter, after reading the instructions we learned that you are supposed to innoculate a log within 6 weeks, to avoid the possibility that some other fungi got there first. So we decided to cut down a new tree for our mushroom patch. We chose an aspen near the rope swing, in a shady area on the north side of a thick patch of trees and bushes, but where we can easily get to it for harvesting and tending.

After cutting down the tree, we proped the log up off the ground a few inches with some concrete chunks from our rock pile. The instructions say to do this to keep bugs from getting into the log. Then we started drilling holes - lots of holes! Into each hole we pounded one of the innoculated dowels. Then we sealed over each dowel with tree-heal, which keeps the moisture in and prevents other microbes from getting inside. The idea is to get the spores into the wood while keeping the bark more or less intact. This is what the finished log looks like:
The black spots are the tree-heal latex pruning sealant. When we cut the tree down, it broke into two peices. Our bag of dowels was only enough to do one peice of the tree, so we are thinking we might get another kind of mushroom to do the second log - maybe oyster mushrooms. For now we just left the second log lying alongside the shiitake log.
It will take anywhere from 6 months to two years before we get a crop of mushrooms on our log. But when we do, MMMM! It will be worth the wait. :)

New Flower Bed

We had lovely early-spring weather this past weekend, so we got out and dug up a new flower bed along the newest section of fence. Here Sprout models the latest addition to our landscape:
In the front I planted Daylillies from Keeley, Lavender bushes from my mom,a couple of Coral Bells and 8 "Jersey King" asparagus roots. The back row is entirely blueberries, all different varieties. We planted 5 of them, and have two more still to go once we finish working a few more loads of nice dirt from our pile into the far end of their bed.

It seems a little wierd, after last summer's obsessive focus on establishing a lawn, to be out there digging up our sod! But most of all, it feels good to be out in the sunshine with a shovel again. :)

Weekend Chores

We finally started on the mega-project that is cleaning up and organizing the shop. Between our moving into the house, friends storing their stuff, the pottery studio, and the general craziness getting everything ready for the wedding, things've been piling up willy-nilly in there for a couple of years, and you can see the result: It's a big space with plenty of room for everything we've got in there, but we needed to organize to a higher degree beyond "heap on the floor" so that there'll actually be room to move around and work on projects. We didn't finish cleaning it up this weekend, but we made a great deal of progress. One more solid saturday and we might even be able to park inside!

In addition to working on the shop, we also cleaned the chimney in preparation for winter. Last year we burned a lot of green wood, so it seemed like a good idea to scrape out the creosote before we started firing the stove. Brushing out the stovepipe turned out to be the easy part of the job, Cary had no trouble getting up on the roof with the chimney brush and working it down the pipe. Vaccuming out the creosote flakes from the bottom turned out to be really complicated, because there are all kinds of crazy baffles between the firebox and the stovepipe. They make the stove burn nice and clean and efficient, but they sure do hamper efforts to get the shop vac nozzle where it needs to go! Eventually after much cursing I managed to get the baffles out, and then with Cary's help was even able to get them back in afterwards.

The cats had a productive weekend too, as you can see: Iggy and Sprout really enjoy the picnic table. Sanford prefers to lounge ontop of our cars. Marcel prefers to stay low to the ground, although he actually climbed up onto the observation platform - without any human help - for the first time this weekend, which is quite a milestone.