Harrumph

Tuesday afternoon (view from the bedroom). It begins…

It happens every year, but every year it’s a drag. The spring snowstorm(s). I had five days off at Easter (April 15-19) and only one of those days was nice (Monday, April 18). The rest were either too windy and dreary to walk, or snowmaggedon (Tuesday, April 19 – about 15cm). Yes, it’s pretty, and yes, the moisture is good, but it’s still deflating. When I lived close to Mill Creek Ravine, the day after would have guaranteed I’d be in the snow covered woods, but it’s different now, with two people and a ravine that is quite steep. That’s my excuse anyway…

Early evening
The next morning…
Mid morning
Afternoon
Bye snow…

In praise of tables…and coyotes

Yo, dog

Tom and I often end up at a coffee shop during our walks, so this is just a little appreciation post for tables. I mean, regular waist-level tables that you can rest your arms on and lean into, not the barbaric knee-level tables in coffee shops that are meant to be ‘casual’ but are actually the opposite, cruelly exposing one’s soft underbelly and leaving us open to all manner of predatory attack. And what do you do with your arms?? It’s a minor quibble, but for those of us who are not comfortable exposing ourselves to strangers, give us normal tables. And thanks for the coffee.

Also, we saw a coyote along Ravine Drive next to MacKinnon Ravine. He seemed unimpressed by our presence, focused on something in the bush. Also, he seemed to be molting, or hadn’t seen a brush for awhile. Tom spotted this one, and also the last one we saw in Glenora near his old house. He’s got some kind of coyote radar.

Run away little squirrel/rabbit/dog/cat…

The walk was pleasant enough. -2C but very windy, as all of the days have been in April.

We got a cat!

Sweet Pea on day one

On February 11 we picked up our little Sweet Pea from SCARS Animal Rescue. We both wanted a cat, and even though I would love to have a dog some day, a cat is the right choice for us now. I first spotted Sweet Pea, who was then called Astrid, while scrolling through Facebook at my hair stylist’s and something went ‘ping!’ I texted Tom, and he immediately responded yes. One application, a phone interview, and a meet and greet later, we took her home.

One of her many napping poses

She has settled in beautifully. The first 24 hours Sweet Pea kept busy exploring her new forever home, taking periodic naps between us on the couch. As I write this several months later, she no longer naps beside us, but she is always near. She loves to be petted, and has the sweetest, tiniest voice. She’s also a little bullet when she’s got the zooms, taking the stairs two at a time from the basement to the top floor in pursuit of who knows what. Her favourite things are pipe cleaners, but she also loves grocery bags, twist ties, bottle caps, a scrap of carpet from the dollar store, and occasionally, the actual toys we buy her, but maybe not as much. Her absolute favourite thing is watching the birds and squirrels from our many windows which have deep window wells for her to perch and chatter. She’s also a house plant messer-upper and a sponge stealer, but overall a very good girl. We can’t believe how lucky we got with her.

Sweet Pea had her first appointment with our vet on April 7 and she passed with flying colours. The vet wrote ‘Excellent!’ on her health report, and said things like ‘she’s perfect’ and ‘she’s amazing’ to describe her. Only one minor hiss and a bit of low growling but otherwise, she behaved well. She has gained one kilo to 3.4 (or about 7.5 lbs) since we got her, but she’s still teeny tiny. The vet thinks she’s probably a bit younger than what was thought, maybe just under a year. He also thought the sponge stealing was funny but didn’t offer any solutions. When he was done, Sweet Pea jumped back on her own into the carrying case and was completely normal when we got home.
This afternoon, she made friends with a yam. Maybe we should have called her Sweet Potato.

I yam what I yam