Bo Jangles

Life on the Edge

In August, 1999, we found the nest in the loft.  At that time we had just stopped running cattle and the barn was still full of hay.  Several half-wild cats who earned their keep herding barn mice lived there and did their best to hide themselves and their litters from toms, coons, skunks, and us.  In the bowl-shaped depression in the hay lay two kittens, not two weeks old, motionless, one dead, one dying, its eyes barely open, clearly abandoned.  Late summer kittens rarely do well, often left by mothers who perhaps cannot find mice or other game enough to feed a litter, perhaps driven off by stifling loft temperatures.  Deb took the still alive one back to the cooler house and with a syringe began force feeding KMR every hour.  I set up a terrycloth surrogate mother in a cage to comfort and protect it from predators between feedings.

Against odds, the kitten revived and was soon sucking on a bottle.

Within a few weeks, it started exploring its new home as if it had never been so close to the edge.

We named him Bo Jangles.

Lily and Buddy were a little skeptical at first but soon tolerated the addition.

While they never got as close as they were to each other--they were litter mates, after all--Bo was certainly related, since at that time, all the cats on the place were descendants of the Ur-mother, Mousetrap.  And Bo was pushy.

He soon saw himself as king of the house, a position that Buddy did not exactly agree with.

They often vied for high spot on the mailbox scratching post but when Bud wasn't looking, Bo took over.

Once, Deb brought Bogie, our Neapolitan Mastiff puppy, 80 or 90 pounds or so of muscle, to the living room past the mailbox where Bo was surveying his domain.

Without hesitation, Bo leapt, claws out, to prove control.  Poor unsuspecting Bogie about turned inside out to escape to the kitchen and the yard.  I'm not sure he ever saw the monster riding his back.  As Bo grew older, he grew even more dominant, although he tolerated Buddy and Lily as old-time residents.

He enjoyed sleeping on Mother's lap when she was still with us, but like teenagers generally, Bo wanted little to do with Deb, even though Deb had saved his life and was pretty much the only mother he ever knew--except for the terrycloth surrogate.  He would sometimes climb on my lap but it was rare enough that Deb snapped his photo.

Later in life, his standoffish attitude mellowed.  When he heard a car in the driveway, he sat in front of the door waiting for whoever was arriving, and followed into the kitchen demanding food.  If I was in my office and he wanted attention, he walked in and put claws in my leg so I petted him.  Sometimes he was content to sleep on the floor next to my chair, other times he kept after me until I walked to the kitchen and fed him.

When Deb brought Vader home, Bo beat him up and kept him terrorized, although eventually they reached an accommodation of sorts.

As he aged, Bo developed arthritis in his paws and began walking on his wrists.  For a while, he could still jump up but it was painful to jump down so we put a box next to the bed to ease the climb down.

In July of this year, I found him in distress, unable to lift his head.  His vet diagnosed potassium deficiency, a classic presentation, and feared he would not last the night.  An IV drip was started, and in two days, we brought him home, not quite as lively as a kitten, but still himself.  We had gotten Annie, a Cane Corso Mastiff, and Deb wanted her house trained.

The first time Deb brought her inside, she weighed perhaps 30 pounds.  Bo no longer climbed on the mailbox, but that didn't slow him.  The moment he saw Annie, he jumped in her face, landed several blows to her nose before the puppy knew what happened; she was convinced: she would not walk past Bo unless one of us stood between her and the cat.  When Bo lay on the rug on the way to the kitchen, Annie stayed on her doggie bed in the living room.

Then the cancer got worse, potassium levels plummeted.  We brought him home from the hospital and stayed with him through the day.  At first he acknowledged our presence, then toward evening he could no longer raise his head.  Sharon Blouin, Bo's vet, came to the house to help.  At about 7 p.m., Bo quietly slipped over the edge.  We buried him in the flower garden near Lily and Buddy.  In the spring, we'll plant flowers.

Bo Jangles

August 1, 1999--December 3, 2014

Requiescat in Pace

Rainsong Redux

We went back to Rainsong winery to sample wines, visit with friends, enjoy potluck, and to bottle a barrel of red, this year a generic combination of merlot, cabernet, and pinot noir.  The weather was in the last throes of summer: clear sky, warm, a lovely day, perfect for a drive and a party.  We arrived about noon.

The vintner, Mike, had already unplugged the barrel and draped a Tygon tube to the filling trough.

After most of the crew had arrived, Mike told us again about the procedure, and pointed out the pressing barrels, which have bladders in their centers that squeeze grapes against the sides for a more efficient result than bottom squeezing, as screw presses do.

So much for barefoot virgins.  In short supply anyway, here, given our ages generally.

We gathered in position, and the wine started flowing.

Filling bottles.

Corking.

Labeling.

Martha Lewis designed the labels.

Twenty-five cases later, potluck.

The wine is a little rough to start but if you let it air out, it improves greatly.  Like a lot of us.

Western Shade

In 1977, I dug a whorl of five cottonwoods from my Oak Street place and planted them at the southwest corner of the house on Park, planning on having shade in a few years.  As they grew, I got the shade I wanted.  I liked the way they reminded me of the cottonwoods in the dry washes of Western Colorado I once hiked.  I liked the shower of cotton each spring, some days as thick as a snow storm.  I liked the afternoon shade in the summer and the light through the bare branches in winter.

I wasn't too fond of the way sprouts kept shooting up all over the lawn, but I managed to keep ahead of them.  As the five original grew, I cut them too, one at a time, when they spread over the house or started leaning too far.  But the last one kind of got away from me, reaching some 60 feet tall.  As it leaned away from the house over the orchard, I wasn't too concerned.  Finally, however, I started worrying about what damage the roots might do to the house foundation if the tree fell, and as it was bigger than I thought I could safely deal with, I arranged to have it removed.

On August 7, about 8 in the morning, Tim of Tim's Tree Service called to say his crew would be there in about 15 minutes.  They were, with a rubber tracked high lift which they walked into the drive and set up.

With it, the cutter started at the bottom and worked his way up.

Two hours later, the last cottonwood was a pile of leaves and branches.

Not one branch had hit the roof.

The final step was cutting the trunk.

Then they left.  For $1,100 more, they would have chipped and cleaned and for an additional $200, grind out the stump, but for that money I figured I could move the remains to the fence along the back pasture now lined with blackberry vines.  I hooked the three-wheeler to the utility trailer and stared cutting and hauling.

I have plans for the trunk.  More later.

Spring 2014

Spring is off and on as usual, some days sunny and warm, others windy and rain but however changeable the weather, it is still fine to be out.  The apple tree over the dog run bloomed nicely,

and bees showed up despite the news about hive collapse.

Cherry blossomed. Pussy willow came and went.  Deer ate the tulips, left nothing but stems. Daffodils sprang up in the old apple orchard next to the house.

The mallard pair returned and scarfed down cob I scatter

and the geese don't seem to mind.

They spend more time fussing at me than at the ducks.

The chickens have started laying again.  A nice day's haul is five or six eggs from the eight hens.  They are getting old, three or four years, so occasionally produce a freak, extra small or large.

The Anna's Hummingbirds drain their feeder every couple of days and mostly ignore me and the camera but catching the male showing off his plumage is a tricky coup─a play of light and angle.

Usually all the camera catches is the dark side, but one day I caught him flicking his tongue, even rarer than catching color.

Not exactly part of the local scene, flowers at Pike Street Market are particularly lovely this time of year.

Locally, camas are back.

While out feeding, I discovered deer at the end of the back pasture, first one,

then another, five in all.

And then there's Bugsy the porch kitty, a year-round delight, looking for his lunch: "Feed me!  Feed me now!  Please?"