I managed to get a shot of the catalpa tree as it looks from the street. It’s covered in blossoms. And it’s very, very tall. We were just sitting on the porch this morning, drinking our second cup of coffee, and we were hit with a wave of scent from its blossoms. Heavenly.
They fall to the ground pretty quickly, so today will probably be one of the last days to see it in its glory. Rain is forecast for the rest of the week. (Don’t get me started.) And as it rains, more and more blossoms will fall.
The catalpa has huge heart-shaped leaves. After the blossoms fall, they’ll be replaced by long bean pods, which is why many people know it as the ‘bean tree.’
Simply gorgeous.
If this is indeed the only day in which we aren’t dealing with rain (though rain is due this evening), I have a lot of weeding to do. They’re out of control because excessive rain = excessive weeds. I’m over it.
Sigh – and another sigh.
The farmer’s market was cancelled yesterday, but Don didn’t find out that bit of information until he got there. It rained pretty much all afternoon.
And there you have it. It’s Monday. I have to weed. The rest of the week looks like a wash, but I’m hoping there will be pockets of sun in there. Fingers crossed!
Happy Monday.
sorry you have more rain you don’t want/need right now and that don couldn’t set up shop yesterday. hopefully the weather reports for you are wrong this time or the storms swerve and miss you.
wow about the catalpa tree … those blossoms are gorgeous! any ideas how tall that tree is?
reminds me of that quote by warren buffett … “someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”. many thanks to the tree-planters, gardeners, farmers …!
hope today’s a good day for everyone!
kathy in iowa
Highly doubtful about the weather forecast changing!
The tree is over 40 feet tall, Kathy.
I’m really appreciating all the exposure to Catalpas from you, since, as far as I’m aware, they don’t exist in the West. Gorgeous blossoms, beautiful lush foliage. As with flowering jasmine around here (loving that perfume), I can begin to sense what it might be like to breathe in that scent. Your writing got me to read the wiki page about them. Interesting plant.
Sorry to hear no farmer’s market and continued rain.
I miss night-blooming jasmine, Martha. I use to love its scent when I was living in San Diego.
Thanks to you, I now know what a catalpa blossom looks like…sure wish I could smell them. My neighbor’s tree has yet to blossom…but, even when it does, the blooms will be up to high to get a whiff. Unless, the scent is carried by the wind. Here’s hoping.
Rain for much of our week as well…and some weeding. I am surprised that all the mulching I did has suppressed most of the weeds. Hurray!
Have a good day weeding! ;)
If you find a blossom on the ground, it will still have its scent.
We have some sort of wild grass around here that is getting in everyone’s flower beds and mulch does not quite contain it!
Wow, those flowers look like orchids!
They’re beautiful!
That’s all you can do – hope for the best. We weren’t supposed to have sun today but it came out around noon and it’s so wonderful to see. I’m hopeful this surprise appearance will be repeated at periods during the rest of our week of predicted mostly cloudy and rain forecast.
That tree is truly gorgeous and I’m guessing quite old based on its height.
Glad you got some sun, Kay!
Yes, the catalpas and the maples that are right by the house are very old.
Claudia, have you told us how tall the catalpa tree is? It’s magnificent and such beautiful looking flowers. Hope you have busy fun project soon and activities planned for this week, despite the rain.
It’s at least 40 ft tall, but it may be even taller.
Gorgeous tree. Lots of thunderstorms in our future.
What a bizarre spring this has been!
we had two catalpa trees where we lived once. and a concrete picnic table under them like you would find in a national or state park!
you could literally sit at that picnic table and not get wet in the rain. the catalpa trees were so heavily leaved with huge leaves… it was amazing. they were old and very tall too!
I have always loved them.
They are wonderful trees, Tammy.
My Monday is rife with mental exhaustion, which then makes me feel physically depleted as well. Your photos helped today to calm me. What a gorgeous flowering tree!
I’ve had some emotional upheaval I let get the best of me.
This weekend, the long, drawn-out saga of my next-door neighbor and his beautiful Mastiff came to an end (we’ll see by a 5pm deadline, but that’s 99.9% the way it’s going down). The owner is finally giving up this 7-year-old, extra-large, WONDERFUL dog for adoption. (He keeps getting out the gate; they won’t change the gate. It’s an active household with a lot of people coming and going with that gate; nobody seems to want to develop a routine of confining the dog if the gate is open. The dog had lost his canine companion. He lost two humans in the home with whom he had a bond. He is not getting human attention; he is lonely and bored. Lonely more than anything; I’ve read about the breed; mastiffs are loyal to a human family; they really need their humans.)
I don’t want him to get hit by a car. There are times he’s been ‘out there’ on the run for days on end, in all kinds of weather, vulnerable to multiple dangers. I don’t feel by nature he’s a ‘roamer’; with the right family, he could be a couch potato. The street is no place for a domestic animal. He needs protection. He’s been on a 7-day hold at ‘the pound’; today is Day 7; thankfully, it’s a no-kill animal rescue leg of our City.
I didn’t sleep a wink all night. I can’t take this dog although everything in me says I must. He’s a 100-lb (minimum) dog and I don’t have the physical strength to manage a dog of that size, certainly not at my older age now. Great head, neck, shoulders; powerful (the rest of him doesn’t have that much heft, almost thin in the hips and tummy). He’d be too rough with my elderly retriever/shepherd (she’s big, but not THAT big). I have cats in the yard; he and cats don’t mix.
So I went to say goodbye this morning and I’ve done nothing but cry for the past 24 hrs; emotions too close to the surface and suffering from the lack of sleep. I can only hope that other humans will not fail this super-sweet and well-mannered dog (who just came that way ‘out the gate’; like, just naturally a good boy). I had a long talk with the director of this pound/shelter and she vows to me she will be intimately involved in his adoption process. (Larger dogs don’t get adopted quickly the way small ones do. Especially older, larger dogs.) I gave them any info I knew of this lovely big guy, who I’ve ‘kept an eye on’ from across the fence since he was a weaned pup. He’s a part of my every-day life, but only across the fence; still, I’m involved.
I can’t help but be involved. I can’t mind my own business when it comes to neighbors’ animals. When I got married and began to live in houses 30 years ago, not apartments, such that people had yards with cats and dogs in them, I’ve had the misfortune of every time except once, being next door to someone who was NOT taking good care of their pet. Not just according to me, but according to the law. (It’s caused me a lot of stress when I know I could have just put on blinders. [I’m no saint; I’ve put on the blinders too many times; and that, of course, then haunts me of which animal I should have gone the longer distance for.] I’m not a do-gooder; I’m not puffed up. Believe me, I’d rather not have the aggravation. I just like dogs and cats [bless the beasts, bless the children, give them shelter, keep them safe, keep them warm {remember that old Carpenters song?}].)
You wouldn’t believe some of the circumstances I’ve planted myself in the middle of, and I think to myself, “I’m just one person in one little neighborhood of thousands across America, does this just happen TO ME or does it happen to other people, that you get the bad luck of living next to somebody who is neglecting an animal?” (Somebody said alternatively to me, “Maybe it was pre-destined, because you were a person who wouldn’t look the other way.”)
Anyway, the shelter director said that, as the mastiff goes off hold today as not being claimed or else verbally released, he will immediately be neutered which will likely help with his need to bust out and find a mate (she told me it’s staggering, the number of people who STILL, even after all the info about it, REFUSE to spay or neuter their pet, even when she’s offered to do it ‘for free’). Then, the mastiff will be slowly introduced to other dogs again and handled frequently so that he becomes accustomed to a leash and acceptable play; they’ll even work with housetraining in the hopes he can be adopted as an indoor/outdoor animal (when he’s heretofore been exclusively ‘outdoors’ and she said, as I-myself have experienced and known of, that a dog benefits from an outdoor/indoor life).
Another neighbor had gone to visit the mastiff a couple of days ago (a lot of people have cared; we’re a dog-friendly neighborhood; I’ve lost track of how many times in the past couple of years that at least three of us have found this big guy and gotten him in the car to get him back home, like from several streets or blocks away) and she’d told me (my neighbor) yesterday that the dog is happy despite being in a pen; he’s getting attention, he’s got consistent food & water; he’s got a soft bed; they’ve de-flea’d him, he loves going on the walks and getting exercised by volunteers; I was told today he’ll be de-wormed now; last time this happened, not long ago when he’d stayed another 7 days, they immunized him. All of this is so good; so necessary. Of course he’s thriving on a healthy routine.
I’m glad he’s out of the night dampness; we’re still cool here with June Gloom on the west coast of Calif. In the last years as an outdoor animal (short-haired; with, in my opinion, inadequate shelter), he’s had to endure a lot of sweltering-hot weather and, then, this past winter’s neverending rain and cold which none of us in SoCalif ever quite get adjusted to…
He was happy to see me, but also happy and alert to all that was going on around him after his very isolated life alone in a backyard for too long. I don’t actually believe in the word ‘closure’ and I didn’t want to see him today, not really (or so I’d convinced myself), but the rescue center director encouraged it, they brought the dog out to me for our goodbye reunion and, I have to admit, I needed it more than the dog did, so I’m glad I went.
He pressed his big head into my neck so hard that it hurt, but I didn’t care; it’s how he shows deep affection. I was so glad for one last chance to throw my arms around him. And I know it sounds like I’m flattering myself (I’m not), but I know how much this dog loves me as I do him. He could always rely on me for a daily hello and a tasty treat.
There are a lot of amazing people doing a lot of amazing things in animal rescue, with also the help of people who notice things and try to step in to help (‘see something, say something’ applies to a lot of diff scenarios; me & my neighbors with this dog, you and yours with Ashley and Pliers; both instances, the animals not cared for the way you and I would do it, but an overwhelmed owner, not ‘bad’ people, just a bad situation).
I refuse to disparage my neighbor although I don’t agree with how he’s owned the dog; I know this man to be a good, decent person; his ‘life’ situation has suffered a lot of change; he looked at me yesterday with tears in his eyes, “Vicki, I need your help; I don’t know what to do about the dog.” (You know, every time he has to go get him out of the shelter, it’s $100, so it’s an expense that’s mounting, although this whole thing is about SO much more than money.) I tried really hard to stay neutral (VERY hard for me to do), just putting him in touch with people who know more than I do when it comes to this sort of impossible decision, which only the owner can make.
Oh dear, this is why I rarely leave comments here or anywhere anymore; I just can’t shut up.
Just missing ‘my’ special boy, Magnificent Mastiff, praying he’ll have a better, new home with someone who’ll overlook his size and age. He’s just a big baby; a puddle of love. What got me to bawling again was that I was scrolling thru your last posts, Claudia (catching up), and looking again at this recent drawing of our snow princess (she was ‘ours’ because you shared your lovely dog with us over the years) and it’s SO REAL, just SO the Scoutie of the last couple of years before she passed; what a treasure to have that work of art in tribute and memory of one really excellent dog. I loved seeing her ‘picture’ again.
I guess I felt safe pouring my heart out to you here. I know you understand how I’m feeling today.
There was more.
A new neighbor above us on the hillside (a large property undisturbed for 40 years with a house dating from 1910 that is falling down) brought out the chainsaws EARLY yesterday morning (on Father’s Day Sunday!!!) and hacked to the ground a massive, ancient, beloved, natural-green ‘fence’ separating our properties. I know they did it purposely early, with enough guys so they could get at it quickly, before any of us other surprised (in horror) neighbors could react. It was really insidious. We were sleeping soundly, husband and I; holiday-Sunday; groggy, dark gray fog outside, looking at each other, ‘where is that noise coming from?’ Like a wound in the still of morning, not even song of a bird in the quiet.
I wish we’d called the cops. Seriously.
Too late for prompt action. They didn’t ask; they didn’t prepare us or anybody in the neighborhood although it (in a majority sense) affects me more than anyone else, like 80/20. Nightmare scenario; my worst fear realized that after so many years, this is the kind of neighbor I’d wind up with, after having nothing but peace and tranquility since my parents lived here and I was still in my 20s at home. Abandoned but beautiful in its neglect, a rare one-acre agricultural/residential parcel from the time the town was incorporated, few of which still remain in the City proper. Adjacent to my property line. Looking down over my own property…but with privacy, in the form of that majestic, healthy, property-length vine/hedge which had, over decades, entwined in a chain-link fence to offer zero visibility and total privacy between the two properties, 12-15 ft tall. GONE. In a chainsaw second.
Now anyone from a main street above them, can walk thru their yard and right into my private rear yard, and they’ve had vandals and homeless encampments on that abandoned/vacant property in recent months which has resulted in break-ins, so I also now have THAT to worry about (because this new owner isn’t living there, not this early in ownership, with a house on it that needs to be razed…and, if the trend plays out here, they’re probably going to get re-zoning to commercial status, with my VERY #1 fear being that a three-story apartment building will go in there, making me feel like I’m living in a fishbowl, fence or no fence).
We meticulously cared for this monstrous and gorgeous green vine/hedge which created the natural fence. Just had it trimmed and boxed and shaped on May 31 before June 1 mandatory weed abatement; now money down the drain. I can’t explain how huge this vine/hedge was; it’s a big job to groom it. It takes three guys, tall ones, on tall ladders. Guess I should say WAS a big job to groom it. The only thing eclipsing my tears is my anger.
I’m livid. It actually makes me feel violated. What a lack of respect, to not be neighborly as a newbie and talk to other neighbors, start things out friendly and be communicative. Nope, instead, just come into a neighborhood where people have lived in their houses since the 1950s, take over with your chainsaws, intrude on our properties to suit yourself. Sheesh!
(In their chain-saw zeal, they whacked growth that didn’t belong to them; so, of course, I’m ready to sue [won’t], with the only thing holding me down at the moment is the big headache of starting a neighbor war. The mess they’ve left is unreal. Again, just two weeks ago or so, we spent $800 [very, very hard for us to save up that kind of money; takes us a long time on our fixed income] – – de-weeding, trimming, cleaning up the yard, and that was supposed to ‘last’ til Fall. Oh, they offered to come ‘clean it up’ after the chainsaw destruction [I tried everything in me to keep my cool but they could clearly see I was NOT happy; I was bristling with pent-up fury] but I can already see they don’t have any kind of knowledge or affinity for landscaping; they’d step a foot onto our property, knee-deep in all that whacked off brush/leaves/woody stumps with their chainsaws only to tromp all over our drip-irrigation lines and new plants we’ve JUST put in for the bare spots on the hillside. I basically said, no way, stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.)
My husband (who is calmer on these things [this is my family’s house, since I was a toddler; I can’t be objective]) is going to try to negotiate about going in halves on a property-wide fence, soonest. Me? I had the ‘discussion’ with the people (men); they kept saying, ‘look at all the space you regain since we cut all this down’; yeah, right, they were just trying to justify their drastic action (and they knew I wasn’t buying it). In the first place, why even cut it down? Had they lost THAT much space on their side, or wouldn’t they want the natural barrier, from US?!! Now, we’re both going to have to, or else just my husband and I are going to have to, spend money on an expensive fence (we’d want wood, not chain link), which is NOT in the budget; was NOT on our agenda right now. Everything was FINE just the way it was!
Oh, and before this upsetting development on Father’s Day, a couple of days before (I’ve lost track that quickly; did I already mention this?) we awoke in the early-foggy-quiet morning to three dogs (one was big, a husky/German-Shep mix) in our fenced and gated backyard (what the???), bewildered of where they came from, causing mass chaos, cats flying in every direction, and guess whose dogs they were; yep, from this aforementioned property, with the dogs getting thru a small ground-level ‘hole’ in the foliage (must have been a VERY tight squeeze) which had been the ‘cat tunnel’ for four decades between the two properties (barn-cat descendants; feral cat colony sanctioned by the local Animal Control), which is probably the ONLY way a fence will be erected more quickly than not (because we did open our gates to get their loose dogs out of there, they scattered, and only after a wide social media search did they finally recover all three COLLARLESS dogs [on the one hand, we felt like heels to have let the dogs out, but it was a scene of havoc, waking us out of REM sleep, and my elderly cats were defenseless because it was a most-unexpected and startling event {everybody survived but one of my cats only finally emerged last night, scared to death}]).
It’s like 6pm-ish/dinnertime here and I wanted to have a productive day after all the stress and conflict of the weekend. Didn’t happen. I’m drained. I nursed SEVERAL cups of coffee this morning, tried to perk up after visiting the dog I’ll never see again, resisted the inclination to go back to bed midday and just put a pillow over my head to shut out the difficult world(!!) which now includes my ugly, stripped hilltop. As I age, I don’t deal with these ‘upsets’ very well. (And things I can’t control.)
But, well, knowing how much you love your yard, Claudia (and I don’t have even a tiny bit of your green thumb; but you know how much a person can invest in the planning, labor and time with landscaping and garden, and if you truly love your surroundings of green things growing, really living in and enjoying your outdoor space), I figured (again) how much you’d probably sympathize right now with my ‘pain’. (I got a double whammy.)
Since yesterday afternoon, I shut the blinds, and all my bigger windows look toward that hill and rear yard (my oasis; my happier place); so, by shutting the blinds, I get no beauty, no sense of space, no light, no horizon. We won’t be able to keep that up; it’s too dark inside the house; we’re not moles. Right now, though, no, I just can’t look up there and see my vine/hedge gone. There are all sorts of loss in this life we are forced to mourn. Am I silly to grieve over a dog and a hillside when other people are suffering loss of loved ones, loss of their health, loss of their jobs, loss of their homes?
It was just so nice, that noble, natural ‘fencing’, stayed green all year, was hardy in all kinds of weather. Was sheltering, cocooning my yardspace, no people ever in view (I like my privacy). What a needless waste. I have a stone bench ‘way up there, the green fence behind me, the valley floor and mountains and river basin far below, the ocean far to the west but visible; I’ve taken great strength from this view of my local world when I’ve tried to recover from cancer and a lot of other things. Now, if these neighbors would like to step one foot over, I’m sure they’ll take a load off and sit on my little bench. I wouldn’t be surprised. What a bunch of bullies.
(And I also just ‘love’ how they’ve decided the chain-link fence/vine was theirs; my dad [missing him so much yesterday] isn’t around to tell me the history, and I can’t remember such things of my childhood, as to when the fence was put in which these new people just whacked down with the vine. I can’t THAT immediately, in the mess of my cluttered home in mid-stage remodeling, find my dad’s packed-up papers easily. My husband isn’t quite sure of the property line as there’s so much old-growth foliage in that location. But how do they know, those new people? Was their appraiser/surveyor right, or did they guess, too? These new owners may very well have whacked down a barrier that was half ours.)
I just don’t have the energy tonite to think about fighting; the damage was done; by the time we realized what was happening and what this adjacent neighbor was doing at the property line, it was indeed too late. But I’m going to continue to think on what recourse I have, which I think may be none. I don’t have the money for some big legal thing. One thing I’m thinking we COULD do is to not take out the vine’s thick stumps that are on ‘our’ side; see if they’ll start showing some kind of green leaf even though they’ll be in ‘shock’ for a long time if not forever; let the vine grow again. Of course before it’s ever once more 15 ft tall (and all filled-in like it was), I’ll be dead; I don’t have that many years left of my natural life. It takes SO long to grow a lot of the plants, vines and trees of our world. Still, it feels like a vindication I need right now. (Until I chill. Although this will NEVER be okay with me, what they did and how mercilessly and opportunistically they did their dirty deed.)
Sigh. (Big sigh.) As Scarlett O’Hara said, “tomorrow IS another day”…
…here’s to a good Tuesday; I want it to be good! Thanks for listening (as I’ve dominated your blog once again; I’m sorry, Claudia). I need a hug. (And an inkless ‘pen’ so I don’t keep writing. And probably a shrink I’m sure some would say…)
We’re all sending you a hug, Vicki. What your neighbor did was unconscionable. At the very least, they should have discussed it with you beforehand. I never fail to be amazed the cluelessness of some people. Your loss is devastating, I know.
Two years ago, I came home from the trip out to California to see that someone had trimmed several lower branches on one of our trees that is smack dab on our property and not on a property line. I knew it was my neighbor. The tree is a shag hickory that sprung up out the ground near the street and we were so thrilled to have it as our very old shag hickory had died for some inexplicable reason. I stewed about it for a year and then had it out with her last summer. I found out that she did it by complaining to the county (she was worried that it was in the sightline of her teenaged children who are now driving. This is a busy road and people drive too fast and her daughter was almost hit. I don’t think the tree had anything to do with it really, it wasn’t that big, but the mom was reacting out of fear.) The point I made to her was that I understood her worry, but the fact that she had it done while I was away and NEVER TOLD me about it is what made me angry. I made sure she knew that was never to happen again and that she must speak to one of us before anything like that happens again. I felt it personally. It was a tree that we loved, that we’d watched grow from a seedling. That anyone would touch it without our permission was inconceivable. The tree is okay, though it looks somewhat lopsided.
We’re fine now, but I must admit, she tries my patience. She’s the one who has tried to convert me several times. But she’s a good person, so we worked through it.
Thank you for sharing and understanding. My husband went up the hillside today to re-think everything. He measured it off and from what they chainsaw-hacked, they’ve left us with 600 sq ft of debris which includes roots, leaves, rocks, stumps. It all has to be dug out and it’s hard manual labor. I once owned a 2-bed/1-bath condo that was only 900 sq ft.
It’s so unbelievable and I know I’ve been in a sort of heartsick shock. My husband worked for half the day and only was able to clear about 70 sq ft. He knows he can’t keep at it; it needs a younger worker. I don’t know where we’re going to get the money to hire the yard crew back to deal with this destruction, build our own fence, replace greenery; it’s going to be weeks of work and cash we don’t have. We never dreamed this would happen, not to this degree. But I want a fence up soonest; I think I’ll try to sell my vintage car again, like I tried last Fall and the deal then didn’t go thru; it would give us the money to re-secure our property.
I was out just before dusk and these new people were actually standing at this twisted and now REALLY broken chain link sans its vine, talking on their phones and utilizing my view. GO AWAY; I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU. GET OUT OF THERE! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR CONVERSATION (the sound carries). Sorry. I don’t feel like sharing right now. I don’t want to look up there and see humans milling around, staring down into my yard. Go home. Get out of my space. Don’t sit on my bench. (I need a fence TOMORROW; right now.)
When my husband caught the one dude today to approach the idea of each going in 50/50 on the cost of a replacement fence, you could tell it’s not a priority as they’ve now re-fenced their dogs in another part of this vast property (in SoCalif, an acre inside a town is A LOT of urban land). He had the nerve to say, “Let me work on the house first.” Nope, that does NOT cut it. I ain’t waiting for a year or two for him to get his act together. So, we’re just going to have to proceed solo. It’s a couple of diff family members and this one wasn’t the chainsaw murderer; he apologized, said his brother shouldn’t have cut down as much as he did, but I don’t feel anything is truly sincere.
My husband knows a little of these things, so he counted the rings of the stump and a couple of other indicators, which showed this ‘tree’/vine/hedge to date from about 1940 or before. I think that’s accurate. I’ve gone back in my memory to like age 8, then 18, remembering what I saw outside my bedroom window and I can almost remember how it grew so high and how from the time I was a preteen I could always look up there and see a wall of green.
But I have to get calm. The last four days have been awful and my health is somewhat fragile. I think as a result of lack of sleep and immense stress, it’s what helped me develop an infection, and I had to go on antibiotics again today. I have to work harder to protect my health now and try to de-stress. My husband and I talked today of the need to let it go because we can’t bring this beautiful, green, living thing back. It’s gone. There’s just a lot of unfair stuff in life and this was/is a biggie because it’s all mixed in with sanctuary, wellbeing, visual comforts; beauty; protection. And nobody likes to have something like that taken away from them.
Thanks again, Claudia. Like you, I feel green things that grow are living ‘beings’ which respond to more than just a drink of water; we’re all part of the earth. I feel like I’ve lost a friend. I’m probably what they call a tree hugger.
I am definitely a tree hugger. I know this wounds your soul. Get some rest. Take care of yourself.
I’m sorry, Vicki. I’ve been there. I used to rescue dogs all the time when we lived in San Diego. I rescued one and found a shelter for him only to find he had parvo. It broke my heart. I hope your friend finds the perfect home for him. These things are heartbreaking and haunting and they never really leave us.
He’s gone; they gave him up. It happened. He was never a big barker but when I was calling my cat today, I know the Mastiff would have been running up and down the hill, right there with me, participating and having a ball. I really noticed the silence in a poignant and heartbreaking way. Big, beautiful boy; I wish I could ask for an angel on his shoulder as he navigates a new life.
(That was the other thing. Calling the cat? I know you’re not overly fond of cats, Claudia [I’m more of a dog person myself, yet I wound up being cat-friendly, too; it’s my environment], but you know how I somehow got stuck with these feral cats from the hill and then you get the occasional stray who’s known humans but attached himself/herself to the feral colony. Well, when those dogs ran wild into my yard where the cats sleep and have their shelters [this was Friday; the loose dogs from this new uphill neighbor], my cats’ protected space was busted to smithereens. One cat disappeared for a day, afraid to come out from underneath a shed. The third one only just reappeared yesterday. My fear was that he was caught on the other side of the debris and couldn’t get back over to my side, as he straddles the two properties. If he can’t get to me for food and water [and he’s an old cat; weaker]…well, I’ve been beside myself, calling and calling, trying to see if he’d come to me. I was so relieved to find him on ‘my’ side; I don’t see now how he could get back to his other digs on their side, so this was a lucky break in a series of bad ones! He’s a nice old boy with personality and I’ve grown fond of him.)
You can see how my emotions have been all over the place in the space of Friday to Tuesday – – the oddest event of those dogs in my yard which was a headscratcher; the chainsaw massacre; my lost cats; the neighbor’s dog going to adoption; and the calendar is also full with other things of life, like medical appointments. Whew.
I’m not a cat person, but I like them and was around them all the time when I worked in an animal hospital. I’m allergic, which doesn’t help.
Take time for yourself. At some point, we have to realize that we will what we can and continue to help those animals who need our help. Stay in touch with the shelter about your friend. It sounds like he will be well cared for and I know some family will love him.
Thank you for being such a generous, kind, loving, helpful cyber friend, Claudia.
xoxo
Hi Claudia, I live in Michigan. We had one of those trees in our yard at my Mom and Dad’s. I always called it the popcorn tree and the bean tree. To me it also announces that the 4th of July is coming :) I never knew the real name :o
Have a good evening. Bobbie
Well, now you know! I never saw one in Michigan that I recall. I don’t think there were any in our suburban neighborhood, but it was a post-war development where maples and elms and oaks were planted.