HeronDragonWrites: How To Wash A Cat

Catmandudedog; Deb Marshall photo

The morning after this past week’s lovely weather, there was a line of little black birds and some even smaller speckled birds with little red hats and a few mourning doves sitting on the ice and snow coating the wart rail where I usually feed them, peering through the kitchen window waiting for me to bring out breakfast – which I didn’t have for them. I ran out the day before, and most years that would have been fine. But that cold and grey morning, the spring birds looking sad, and the ground completely white again, and the temperatures hovering around freezing, I raided freezer and pantry to come up with some sort of bird nourishment. They ended up with a mix of frozen blueberries, sesame seeds, crunched up pecans, barley, popcorn, currants, and some corn meal.

Then I left home early to have enough time to buy enough seed to feed them for another week or two. Them, I hope: not the bear.

Catmandoo, after Abu Dhoggi died last August, decided he’s the top dog in the house. Literally. He’s taken to peeing on people’s car tires, chasing herds of turkeys and deer out of our yard, going after visiting dogs with terrifying vigor, and finally – the ultimate – he got skunked. I’m now calling him Catmandog.

How do you wash a cat, you’re wondering? You don’t. Especially a Catman. No no no no-no!

I’ve known three cats who liked water. My third-grade school teacher, who lived down the street from us, had a cat who went for a swim in the lake every morning before breakfast, except for when the lake was iced over in the winter. The black cat we had when I was a kid – who was a very interesting being – used to sit in the middle of giant rain puddles and pretend to fish, scooping up water and flipping it into the air. And one of my editors, back when I was the managing editor of a computer magazine, had a kitten that would dive into the bathtub with her whenever she was taking a bath and paddle around happily.

Most cats, however, don’t like getting wet, and Catmandog, being larger than most little dogs and very opinionated, is a being you try not to piss off. He has big teeth, big claws, and a notch in one ear to prove he knows how to use them.

Of course, the first thing Catman did after getting skunked – which didn’t seem to bother him one bit – was head upstairs to his side of my bed for a nice snooze. And then downstairs to bask in front of the warm woodstove, and spread skunk stink throughout the house. Trying to sleep that night was … interesting.

Fortunately, cats take plenty of tongue baths, and the taste didn’t seem to bother Catman or Biscuit, so the stink is getting less pernicious fairly quickly. I even picked him up and gave him a belly kiss this morning, and didn’t come away stinking. I’m allowed to give belly kisses to this big wild cat, because I’m the mom. He doesn’t take my face off. No one else should attempt it.

The turkeys seem to be in male/female groups now and there have been a couple of toms strutting around the yard all fluffed up and blue of face with spread tails, glaring at any non-turkey movement. I’ve tried to get a good photo, but they head for the woods as soon as they see me at a window, so all I’ve managed to get is one shot through window screens, and not a close-up. I’d love to find one of their nests, but not willing to bushwhack through the brush and feed the ticks in order to find one.

Tom turkey in semi-fluff; Deb Marshall photo

This weekend, after a cold wet grey week, we had a day of sun and really warm weather – like 70 degrees or so. When I went outside, it was muggy – the sun and heat was melting the snow so fast the air was full of moisture. It was strange, but the snow remaining in my garden melted, so even though it’s still surrounded by fields of white and a fair amount of mud. I was able to walk the paths I put in last summer, and peer at dead vegetation, and discovered there are a few just started sprouts visible: chives, tulips, Egyptian onions. I hung the birdhouses on the fence and arbor at the back of the garden, and decided I need another one or two because the birds are so entertaining when they’ve got a nest started, and I also started to put down newspaper and cardboard mulch to kill the grass where I’m going to put in a new bed this spring.

Emerging rhubarb; Deb Marshall

On my birthday this next week, I’m going to go down to the building supply store order some stuff: pavers, rock-like lumps, cow manure, cement blocks, and other things I need to get the gardens ready. I might even try planting some lettuce seed under old windows to warm the dirt a little. I sorta can’t wait!

The ground is really only unfrozen an inch or two down except in the raised beds close to the house, so I’ve restrained myself from getting out any of the gardening gear, but this could be a great time of year to set pavers and build a new bed or two – cool enough to be enjoyable, no pesky biting bugs, nothing else that desperately needs to be done in the garden yet. Summer is coming: the Actress and her husband are back from the south, the Tall Dude’s back from his winter trek and starting seed flats in his greenhouse, and the Historian wrote last month to say he already had a cherry-sized green tomato on one of his indoor-started plants. He did the same thing last year, he has a wicked green thumb! And my mother, in her little back-yard microclimate, has daffodils in bloom and irises up. The Poet in the back woods has emerged from her winter enchantment and is also thinking about gardens, and what to do to prepare them...