cats

How We Stayed Warm

Rae Spencer5 Comments

Warm 01s

I grew up in a house with a wood burning stove, so all of my winter memories are tinged with the scent of smoke.

Warm 12s

Mother ordered the first load of wood mid-summer, which gave it time to cure. She ordered a cord at a time, requesting a mixture of kindling and longer burning logs. It arrived as a tumbled pile at the end of the driveway, and we hauled it off by armfuls and wheelbarrow loads, stacking neat rows under the tin roof of our open-sided pole shed.

Warm 06s

Starting in my teens, I claimed the wood as my own domain because I enjoyed the physical activity of hauling and stacking. Plus, it gave me an excuse to be outside with the animals, who followed me back and forth as I worked.

Warm 11s

Mother disliked storing firewood on the porch, so she rarely wanted more than one day’s supply brought down each afternoon. However, she relented when we had snow or ice storms. Then I would carry wood until my shoulders and back ached.

(This photo is from Mother's archive, not mine.)

Or until I got bored and wandered off to explore the pasture and woods.

Warm 14s

Warm 15s

The stove was undeniably harder to maintain than central heat, but it was also undeniably warmer.

Warm 09s

Warm 07s

Except it didn’t heat the entire house. Our den was a smoky, sleepy haven, but my bedroom, in the opposite end of the house, stayed so chilly that blankets were not sufficient for a comfortable night’s sleep. Even so, I didn’t suffer. I had plenty of furry companions to keep me warm.

Warm 05s

Whoa, December

Rae Spencer4 Comments

December 1

Whoa, December, wait one minute
I’ve hardly roused from my feasted slumber
When you start to number my days

Set clocks and worry flocks of shoppers
Lost in evergreen lots and sticker-shock
Tick tock, sweet silver bells ring the hour

As if to hurry my step into line
My dour minuet with Father Time
Stumbling on to the end

The bitter end of another year
Another calendar page, scrawled
With duty and a glitter of waste

With things I never desired
The blouse gift-receipt, creased
In haste and taped over the size

I couldn’t accept; a final refrain
After the glaze is scraped
From cold and golden morns

And oh, December, please wait
For the lights to change, for fire
To blaze through our litter of wrappings

Pause tonight among muttering beasts
In their scatter of straw, their dusty ease
From lust’s numb ache, from labor’s strain

Rest among these flight-tired geese
Mid-route, heads tucked under folded
Wings, murmuring psalms to themselves

One Year Later

Rae Spencer8 Comments

A week after Mother’s accident, I met Vanna. I had seen glimpses of her before, darting through doorways or disappearing under a bed, but I had never really met her. She was a fearful, shy cat who rarely ventured into the open, even around Mother.

When Vanna finally allowed me to pet her, I discovered that her hair was dry and loose, falling out in handfuls. She had not been taking care of herself, and her matted fur felt like a physical manifestation of my own distress.

For the first time in days, I knew exactly what to do. Here was something that I could actually fix. I found Mother’s cat brush and went to work, laughing at Vanna’s ecstatic response to my grooming efforts. She purred and drooled, rolled and kneaded the air. And I fell head over heels in love. Three months later, when I announced that I would be taking Vanna home with me when I returned to Virginia, no one objected.

The drive was too long to cover in a single day, so we stopped at the Holiday Inn Express in Emporia. Mother would have laughed herself to tears over the thought of Vanna sleeping on a hotel bed.

Now it’s been a full year since our long drive together. Vanna has settled in and taken over the house. Her two housemates are too lazy to protest as she claims the warmest pools of sunshine and the softest pillows. They move aside as she bolts past them in the hall, as she chases her favorite toys or races to get there first, wherever she is going. They are patient, gentle cats, amiably dodging her jealous swipes and ignoring her touchy temper.

Some of their ease is rubbing off on her, and she is learning to share food bowls and favorite perches. Best of all, she rarely hides anymore. I seldom find her in a closet or under a bed. Instead, she sleeps in front of the windows and sprawls across the beds.

Every so often, usually after a poor night’s sleep, I catch myself indulging in a moment of grief as I watch Vanna. She is Mother’s cat, not mine. Or at least, she should be Mother’s cat. What if Mother had survived her injuries? Would she have consented so readily to my taking her neediest cat?

Such moments are lessening in frequency and intensity. I’m learning to file these questions in the unanswerable category, alongside a litany of other questions that start with “why?” and “what if?” I may as well ask why is there sunshine. Or why are there cats to enjoy the sunshine…

Frost in the Forecast

Rae Spencer4 Comments

For me, winter starts when I cut the ginger lilies.

So today, even though it was warm enough to open the windows, winter arrived in the yard. Our forecast calls for temperatures near freezing Saturday night, and I didn’t want to risk losing any of the bulbs to frost.

As I worked my way through the tangle of stalks, I recovered three chimes that had broken off of a wind chime and two birdhouses that had fallen during one of the recent storms. Somehow, repairing the wind chime made me feel a little less guilty about the lingering scent of unfinished blooms.

The cats followed my progress, moving from window to window as I moved from bed to bed.

(Please excuse Vanna’s sour expression. She was trying to ignore the fact that there is room for two cats on that perch. Fortunately, a flock of robins arrived shortly after this picture was taken, providing a distraction from the uncomfortable standoff.)

The robins were soon joined by several warblers and a pair of hungry squirrels.

Today’s strangest sighting was this very disheveled red admiral butterfly. It seemed to be heading south, perhaps following the opposite path of spring’s massive red admiral migration.

Wherever it was going, I hope it gets there safely. And I hope it was able to pause, for a moment, and enjoy tonight’s beautiful sunset.

Another Warbler Photo

Rae Spencer3 Comments

A sudden gust of wind forced one of the warblers to make an emergency landing on the fence this morning. He stayed there a while, fluffing his feathers and preening. His behavior reminded me of our cats, who cover any awkward step or fall with a bout of elaborate grooming, as if to say, “I meant to do that. Now, a little privacy? As you can see, I’m bathing…”