Robins Update

I went to check on the robins Wednesday night. They were a week old on the 18th. One robin though was looking pretty rough, He didn't have nearly the amount of feathers as his three nestmates and even though his eyes were open, them seemed to be opening and closing very slowly like he hardly had the energy to keep them open. I thought to myself. Uh-oh he's failing to thrive.Wouldn't you, I mean compare this little guy to his buddies.

I spent all day Thursday wondering if I would have to remove a dead chick from the nest, but coworkers reminded me they often get pushed out. Thursday evening, what did I see? But four little chicks perfectly healthy!

I dunno. Maybe he is a late feather-er. I felt a bit like a chump though. They should fledge out by Wednesday. I want to try to get some more pictures of them, but with it so cold, I don't know if they will stay in longer. I don't want to spook them off the nest like I did last year. So we will see. Notice in the pictures how you can still see the last of their dandelion fluff feathers on their heads.

Saturday Spa Night

Well Saturday was a bit of a bust. Andrew and Dad and I went out to breakfast and went down to the Lucasville Swap days in Scioto county. I was hoping to make contacts for heirloom breed chickens but I only saw the same 6 breeds over and over. It was crowded, cold, rainy, and not, I hate to say it, that interesting.

By the time we got home and settled and I took care of some things around the house it was 6 o clock. I almost started in on some baking, but realized I wanted to make some scrubs as gifts and have some of my favorite rosemary scrub on hand before the heavy duty gardening kicks in. So I grabbed some items from the herbal pantry (which is an absolute mess and I should have just spent the evening tidying it up.)

By the way, if some of the pictures ever seem out of order here, it's because I am hopeless at blogger...

Rosemary Spa Scrub

Here is rosemary from my own 2011 herb garden, some dead sea salt and sunflower oil make the rest. I add a little extra rosemary oil because I love it. This is a recipe adapted from an Herb Companion article.

This is what I use after a hard day of outdoor work. I'll be hitting this scrub, along with Rosemary Soap and Salve a LOT in may when I'm planting lavender. Check out the good folks at Elder Forrest, I highly recommend their soaps and salves. These are the folks I get the rosemary salve from, but I also like their lavender and we have several of their soaps on hand in our linen closet. www.elderforestsoap.com

You should never use a scrub more than once a week. Rosemary is excellent for sore muscles and circulation. After a hot shower using my rosemary line up, I crawl into bed warm, relaxed and fall right to sleep. I notice I'm not as stiff in the morning either. In the winter, I use this after a new yoga routine that's um, really stretched me out.

Herbal Facial Powder

Mix with water, milk or honey. Chamomile, calendula, rosemary, oats, and comfrey.

From Left to Right

Baking Soda for the bath in old apothecary bottles, herbal facial powder, rosemary salt scrub, bee sweet honey almond sugar scrub for the face, and bubble bath (not handmade) in hand blown bottles.

Robins Five Days Old

Look at all the feathers in just five days. Mom is very skittish and won't come near them at all if I'm mooching around the herb garden.

Robins Three Days Old

Robins Two Days Old

First Oregano Cut of the Year

Behold, the Chickens!

We got our four golden comets last Friday. We've had a few husbandry hiccups. We needed an extra food dish, and the self-filling water tray is a little less than stellar so we may have to upgrade it.

Unlike Dad's chickens, these have no problem perching inside the coop part. And in the morning, when I go to let them out, one is always peeking at me through the perch behind the little window.

Also unlike Dad's chickens, these girls are indifferent to scared of me. I've tried petting them, and the walk away. I've tried hand feeding them leftover dinner rolls and pancakes and the just look at me. I haven't had a whole lot of time to work with them, but can't help feeling that they're kinda jerks as Dad's chickens follow him around and come to him when he calls.

So far we've feed them potato peels, rolls, pancakes, and cauliflower and broccoli stems. As the season goes on they will get more plant based scrapes. We've also feed them lay mash, to help them lay. We should be getting four eggs a day shortly. Lately it's been more like two or three.

Blackbird Balancing Act

It's a little hard to see cause it was dark out and I was in the dining room, but the red wing has one foot wrapped around the pole and the other on the lip of the feeder. It was quite fun to watch him eat. I have some fun ideas for the bird bath so we'll be seeing this as the season gets warm and more birds stop by for a spa.

Male Robin, Mooching Around the Red Winged Blackbird's Willow Tree (much to the red-winged's annoyance)

Robin on Her Nest, Hatching Probably Friday

Tree Swallows

Nestbox Neighborhood (or, Avian Warfare for Resources)

So for the past couple years we had two bluebird boxes hanging from posts in Andrew's grapes. But last year, for some reason, Andrew grew less than fascinated by the constant dive bombing from bluebirds and tree swallows. I mean, they never even grazed him, but still.

So this year, I bought two new bluebird boxes, and we took the other two down and on Easter Sunday Dad and Andrew hung all four at intervals along our neighbors wooden fence. So far it's hard to tell which birds are in which boxes, I think they are still muscling each other. The other day there was a dazzling array of five swallows whizzing around like fighter jets, and two bluebirds, passively aggressively sitting on the fence by a nest box.

As the season wears on I'll talk more about tree swallows, which I like more than bluebirds. But for now, here are some pictures of nesting season in the early swing.

Cilantro and Dill

One of the goals for me this season, is to cut the herbs off before the seed, or flower or whatever and they become unmanageable. If I have to food process them into a pesto in freeze, dry them or compost them or feed them to the chickens, I will. It will keep them growing back with a vengeance and hopefully yield more in the long run.

With this plan, I cut off the cilantro and the dill. The dill was already starting to seed good grief! But the dill had no fragrance or taste being so early so I composted it. The Cilantro however, dries beautifully. I'll be cutting off the oregano probably this weekend as soon as the robins hatch as I don't want to spook the Mom in this cool weather.

Door Pull

When I unwrap the cord each morning, it will lower the red door/ramp and in the evening provide further protection.

Back door with the Egg/Nest box

Note the chicken wire underneath the mini coop, to provide shade, and the side window shutter that can be lifted and hung on a chain, these side windows have stiff wire in the frame to protect the hens.

In the Orchard, with our newest apple tree to the right.

Behold...the chicken tractor!

On St. Patrick’s Day, Andrew and I went up North of Bellefontaine with Mom and Dad to look at chicken tractors. If you google chicken tractors, you will find plans, kits, and ready to purchase units ranging from completely junkie to Martha Stewart-better-than-what-many-people-live-in luxury.

We bowled down the middle and got a serviceable, cute tractor that can hold six chickens. Mom and Dad got the same one so we got a deal on buying two. Dad dropped ours off Thursday and here it sits, waiting for chickens, and the actual chickens will be another post.

A chicken tractor is, as you can see, a mobile unit combo of coop and run. Every two days or so, we have to move the chicken tractor around so they can have fresh range. At dusk, they all trot into their coop and you can shut the door in on them to keep them safe from predators. Even though the run chicken wire top to bottom, a raccoon could easily tear through it, maybe even an enterprising mink, but with the door shut and the pull to open it from the outside, the chickens will be safe.

I’m excited at the prospect of taking care of animals again, I mean, yeah I take care of the cats, but you know, farm animals. Dad has raised chickens before, and I’m reading up on it, and my pal Jay is helping me too.

We’ll be keeping the chicken tractor in the orchard area, pointed towards Stowe’s field. On evenings when we’re home, I’ll let them out an hour or two before sunset so they can really free range. They will love Stowe’s field, getting clover, choice grasses and of course, lots and lots of bugs.

On Friday night, Andrew and I did see a fox run down our yard along the board fence. But unless the fox can snatch a hen during those dusky free ranges...they’ll be safe. Look for a post soon about the forthcoming chickens.

Robin's Nest Update

Last night, after I finished putting natural fertilizer pellets on half the front lawn, I checked the robin's nest and there were three eggs! It was too dark to take a picture and I was hoping this morning when I left for work she would still be off the nest, but no, I peeked around the corner and she was sitting on the nest. So either there is just three eggs, or more likely, earlier this morning she laid a fourth and is sitting on it. Since she started on the nest today, then the babies will probably hatch out around the weekend after Easter. Learn more cool facts about robins at

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/american_robin/lifehistory

Also here are the other nest cam links that I promised earlier.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/heroncam/video_kiwanis2.html

Heron cam is wonderful. It has sound, and you can hear the herons making their strange calls, it starts out kinda like a chicken and ends up like a bull frog. Also, because of the sound, you can minimize it on your screen and when you hear activity pop it back up. Last spring I saw several instances of one heron giving the other sticks to refurbish the nest. It's crazy to see how much some of these trees sway in the wind, but the herons don't mind a bit.

I also love to follow the New York University Red tails. This year it is Bobby and Rosie. The first link is for the camera and the second link is to the blog that will tell you the whole story

http://www.nyu.edu/sustainability/hawks/

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/bobby-and-rosie/

Then we have the bald eagles in Norfolk Virgina, they actually fed all three of their eaglets last year. I was sure the third and smallest eaglet was going to bite it as they often do in a raptor's nest. But know, there was enough food to go around

http://www.wvec.com/eaglecam

And finally, our own Ohio peregrine falcon pair at Rhodes Tower. Last year Durand laid five eggs, but she was still too young and they either weren't fertile or she just didn't have the focus to sit on them. This year she is sitting on two and should do just fine.

http://ohiodnr.com/wildlife/dow/falcons/live_nestbox_video.aspx

Happy nest watching!

Herb Garden. Look for the robin's nest. Dragonfly will hold the hummingbird feeder later this spring.

From Top to Bottom: Chives, Lavender, Garlic Chives, Thyme and Evening Primrose in the upper left corner.

Cilantro on the bottom of the picture and oregano on top and parsley in the lower left corner

Vegetables Seedlings

Pictures from the Herb Garden Week of March 26th

Violets from last Easter's table setting.

Robin Pictures 2011

Robins!

Yesterday I was working in the herb bed, adding new soil and pulling up starts, when I noticed a robin hanging out around one of our pine trees. The robin had a long grass in its mouth and on a hunch, I turned to look at our front porch. There was a nest in progress on the top tier of a plant stand Dad got me a couple years ago.

This is especially heartening because of our robin experience last year.
Last year around this time, I was loading up recycling on my Friday off. It was a gray but warmish March day, when spring was still a promise rather than here in full force like this year. I noticed this robin, peeking up at me over the front of our walk way with several long grasses in its mouth. How neat, I thought, he's building a nest somewhere. Little did I know. When I got home hours later from errands, a nest was fully formed on one of our bird feeders, stored on the top tier of the plant stand. This was our first nest at the house.

I paid close attention to progress. So much so, that I could tell if the robin was sitting on her nest on a sunny evening as soon as I pulled into the driveway. When the eggs hatched in late April, I spent a whole day in the herb garden planting and potting. It wasn't long before I noticed little scratchy sounds. When I looked about I realized that the robin, her beak full of worms, was hopping/running all around me, trying to get to the nest unnoticed yet unwilling to turn her back on me to feed her young. She would peer at me from around the cone flowers, dance around the salvia, and skitter behind a pot.

I loved working with an ear cocked, listening to this quiet yet profound sound of the mama robin literally two, three, four feet away. Sometimes I wouldn't realize how close I was to her and be surprised by her within arm's length.

She refused to go on the porch though and feed her young while I was in the bed, so I began to work my gardening around her, spacing out my trips to the potting boxes or garage for supplies so every ten minutes or so, she got a window to feed them. I would have loved to watch her feed them, but I honestly believe she couldn't override her instincts to not turn her back on me.

I got annoyed, wishing she would get that I wasn't going to hurt her nest but you know, I can't talk Robin, so I just made sure to go get something or do something else every ten or fifteen minutes.

It only takes a robin like, five seconds to find a worm though, so, I had an afternoon filled with hearing a robin rattle around the garden. I'm looking forward to this again this year.

When Andrew and I got back from a vacation, the chicks had went from feathered fluff balls to fledglings, each day, one left the nest to join Papa Robin under one of our pine trees. Until I came home one night to the last one in the nest. The urge to get a picture was too much, but I scared the fledge and he jumped down from the plant stand, chirping his indignation as he raced across the front porch and took a kamikaze dive off the other end, racing for all he was worth towards the pine trees where I saw an adult robin waiting.

In less than a week, the robin was on another set of eggs. I was thrilled. Between these and Mom and Dad's nests, there was going to be a ton of robins hatched out that I could track that year. Then. Disaster struck.

On May 23rd of last year, tornado strength winds pushed through the neighborhood, I remember coming home, and seeing mama robin on top of her nest. As I looked at the debris around me and though of our roof I wondered...did she sit on the nest the whole time the storm raged past, and if so, what must that have been like through her eyes. Over the next two weeks as the bulk of the remodeling and re-roofing were done, I realized with a sinking heart that the eggs were not likely to hatch as there was just too much activity for her to sit on them. Having me putter about the herb garden was one thing, but the numerous trucks, noises, and crew heck, just the sound of roofing, kept her away, and in some ways, this seemed to magnify the sadness of the whole storm event for me.

After a three weeks, I tossed the eggs, I checked and they were already light as air from everything inside them evaporating...and I tossed the nest. I really wish I hadn't because robins can easily clutch three times in a summer. It wasn't long before I noticed robins hopping around with long grasses in their mouths. I'm not sure if this pair was a different pair or the same pair who had had enough of the front porch, but, now they were building a nest on our meter box on the south end of the house. I worried the eggs wouldn't hatch, that the metal would just fry them in the hotter hours, and Andrew worried it was a fire hazard. Well, there was no fire, and the eggs didn't hatch. I tried not to be too depressed.

And here we are in a new year and the robins are back on the front porch. Let's hope nothing disrupts them this year and I'm telling you, I'm leaving the nest up until labor day. Are they the same pair? Could be. Is it just a great spot for robins to nest...you bet. You can look for robin shelf plans on the internet or order a robin shelf from a place like Amazon, who knows maybe Wild Bird too.

I'm interested to see if any robins reuse nesting spots at Mom and Dad's house. They had a robin's nest in a set of antlers Dad had on the hunting cabin, and an old bird feeder Mom had at the pond. When the antler nest fledged, Dad took it away to power wash the cabin and as soon as he finished the wash, a new nest was built. Each site of Mom and Dad's fledged twice, with out one, a total of 14 robins hatched out to take their chances in the great wild yonder. I have no idea how many would survive statistically, let's say one...that's probably generous.

Below are pictures of the front porch nest and the chicks/fledglings,the antler and bird feeder nests. I will keep photo documenting the new construction of the nest and add it later.

Nests are one of those things, that once you start looking for them, you see them everywhere. Yesterday at Lowe's I saw a sparrow fly into the nursery as I was at the register. With a grass in it's mouth I watched it hop from perch to perch until it swooped up to an eve and I saw it arrange it nest. One of the best things about fall for me, is seeing all the birds and squirrels' nests in the trees once the leaves have dropped off. When I post next, I will post some links to some of my favorite live bird cams...

One of the best things in Life...

is line dried sheets. From April, or, for this year, from March, to October I line dry our sheets. There is nothing like stretching out flat on sweet smelling sheets after a hard day of (in rough chronological order)
Watering the herb garden and vegetable beds
Going to the Farmer's Market
Harvesting herbs and vegetables
Mowing the lawn
Hanging out by the pond, reading under a tree during the hottest hours of the day.
Enjoying a nice grill out on my parent's back porch
Walking one of the dogs at the club
Sitting on our front porch, with Andrew beside me and writing in my journal.
Taking a nice long shower or bath using a line up of favorite homemade scrubs, facials, soaps and shampoos.
If weather permits and I can crawl into bed with the window open, even better.

If you have never line dried sheets outside, I recommend it. Yes, they are a little scratchy, but it's the good kind of scratchy, that's the only way I can explain it. The smell of sunshine and fresh air can lighten up my soul in ways nothing else can. Hang the sheets out on a day you know you will be doing lots of stuff outside and once you finally pull the covers up, stretch your toes toward the end of the bed and sigh with the satisfaction of a great day. That's what I do anyway.

Some Tips:
Always wet some paper towels or a cleaning rag with water and wrap around the whole line and walk up and down the line to clean off any residual dirt/dust.

Take the sheets down while the sun is still fairly well up from the horizon before the dew sets in on the sheets.

Don't worry about a bird bombing your sheets, in all the years I've done this, I just had that happen once, and my parents clothesline is surrounded by lots of trees birds hang out in.

For extra indulgence:
Be on the hunt for vintage pillowcases at antique shops, auctions, and online (etsy is a great source) vintage embroidered pillowcases are like little pieces of art with flowers, kittens and other natural elements. The cotton used in vintage pillowcases is much thicker, I don't know if it's thread count per se, or just how they used to make them, but you'll notice that vintage pillowcases in good condition are incredibly more luxurious than store bought. AND you are reusing instead of new-consuming. Here is a sample of some vintage cases I have.

An evening last spring

Okay folks, I promise that I'll let up on the cat blogging, but I couldn't resist posting this picture as I watch wet snow blanket the yard. It's been a long hard week with the weather, so here's a treat.

I took this last spring, May, in the evening during one of those perfect times where the hard spring thunderstorm had passed and the setting sun shone from the west. This was a night that there was a rainbow, and looking out the back door revealed that bruised blue black on the storm wending it's way towards Columbus.

Huh, apparently falling wet snow brings out the bad poet in me as well.

Anyway, I was running around the newly planted herb garden trying to get nice pictures of some flowers, none of which turned out. the ones of Maxwell and Molly watching my antics however, turned out nicely. That gerber daisy was in a pot, and is not actually growing out of Maxwell's head.

maybe a non cat pic next time, J

the infamous mo mo

As I was flipping through many a spring-taunting photo for this week's blog, I came across this shot of a still kitten-ish Molly. Since I haven't posted about her specifically yet, I figured I would post about her tonight.

Molly is the third cat Andrew and I have shared since we have been married. We got her June 2nd, 2007 after realizing that Tweeker was desperately lonely. Andrew wanted a tortoiseshell. I don't know why, he's never had one before and he kept saying "I want a tortie kitten and I want to name her Molly." So we trundled to the Union County Humane Society and they only had two kittens, a tiger and a tortie. So Andrew asked for them to bring the tortie out and here came this tiny 8 week old kitten who had been thrown out of a passing truck.

The lady said her name was Molly (coincidence right?) And as soon as she was placed in Andrew's hand she snuggled up against his shirt, like her back to the wall, warily eying the world.

So we brought her home crying all the way and introduced her to Tweek. We put her on the ground, and she immediately shot, tail shaking like a skinny flag, under the entertainment center. This induced completely unfounded panic, and not trusting that she would come out on her own, we enticed her with canned food.

For about two weeks we kept her in the guest room. She was only 8 weeks old when we got her, and brought her out morning and night for play dates with Tweeker on our bed. Molly immediately laid out who was boss, swatting at Tweek, and demanding to be groomed.

Molly has grown more affectionate with age, partially I think because after Tweek passed away she became the dominant cat and partially because she just became more loving. She sleeps with us most every night, and demands loves to be cuddled on a sleep in morning. She is the most predatory of our cats so far, the most entranced by bugs in the house, the most alert to birds outside. She likes toys, but seems to be a bit bored by them, like she knows they aren't the real thing. And has always retained some wild spirit.

She greets me at the door now, and stands up on her hind legs, stretching her body long to be petted. She loves to run around the house with or without Maxwell and she chirps more than meows.

A favorite spot is over the cabinets above the refrigerator where she will cry for Andrew to reach up and pet her, letting out a little meow as she yawns.

When she's really cranked up she likes to run halfway up the stairs, point her butt towards the front door, and put her head on the stair, peeking at us like she's about to do a headstand.

They say torties have their own personality and that's true of our little mo mo. She's not affectionate the strangers and she's no dope. But she's our little treasure.

On New Year's Eve I decided to clean the floors because they had gotten to the point where every time I looked down I couldn't live with myself.

I hate doing floors.

I hate going floors because with two cats, one being long-haired, and having laminate floor in most of the downstairs, every fur tumbleweed, every piece of dust, litter and detritus just leaps out and screams at me.

The house I grew up in was almost all carpet so laminate, even after 5 years continues to drive me crazy.

The stairs though, the stairs are the bane of the bane of my existence.

You can't tell from this picture, but let me assure you, these stairs look as the carpet was put down yesterday.

How did I do it? A new three step process. First I used these wonderful things by pledge that Andrew saw on tv and bought for me...probably because of all bitching I do about the cat hair.

http://www.pledge.com/fabric-sweeper/

When we got home and tried them out on the couch, the half we fabric swept looked brighter, almost a different color than the control side of the couch. It's that incredible.

So I used this first on the stairs. It did two things. One, it got a lot of cat hair up. And two, it loosened up all the crap that had been trapped by the cat hair.

Then I used the two gallon shop vac with just the hose no attachments to pick up the loose crud.

Then I used the little attachment you see pictured on the stair. Mom got it from LTD.

http://www.ltdcommodities.com/

I don't know if you know about LTD, but like a lot of mail order/paper advertisements, the products are hit and miss. Mom loves LTD and this little attachment, with it's neon green bristles and manic spinning when attached to the hose pulled everything else up.

When I was done, the stairs practically glowed and sang angelically, like in a commercial.

And then the cats came to investigate.

I predict that by Martin Luther King Day, the stairs will look just as they did on December 30th.

But that's not the point.

The point is, for me house cleaning is like, a metaphor for larger things in life.

I hate that I have to do it. I come home from work or get up in the morning and notice a dirty/dusty x, y, z and sigh to myself as I envision time in the future, spent on cleaning something that will just get dirty again.

But there is something to be said for the satisfaction from focusing on a single task. I listen to audiobooks a lot when I clean, and to engage in the low level physical activity and let one's mind wander isn't a bad thing. The satisfaction of seeing the steps SO clean...only comes from letting them get SO dirty in the first place. I've never been a spot cleaner, more of a, let-it-accumulate then clean it really good, kind of gal, so I guess for me, housework is about picking the flavor of drudgery.

So much of our lives is about the balance of maintenance (mowing the lawn, cleaning out the car, getting milk for the 5 millionth time) and doing the fun stuff we all enjoy. How does one appreciate the satisfaction in the drudgery, and remind oneself to appreciate the time they get for doing things they enjoy? That is one of my goals for the new year, to be less cranky about the house cleaning, and to appreciate when I am doing the things I enjoy.

And, one last work about cat hair and carpets. A clean carpet can't snuggle with me on the couch or greet me at the door, or do playful antics with toys or for canned food. The cats can, and I am reminding myself of that now as Maxwell stretches from his spot on the dining room rug and walks off, leaving a light coating of white hair on the rug...

So I am going to enter a contest...

You can read more about it here

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

And scroll through the entries to the one dated February 7th.

Wish me

L
U
C
K

Jules

A Note about the Advocacy Column

Hello, if you have ideas for advocacy topics, have an advocacy question or want to nominate yourself for a future interview, drop a line at juliethelibrarian@gmail.com

All submissions will be considered.

Jules

Maxwell and Molly are finally mixing and I think we're making progress. Maxwell still stays largely in his room. We had to move the boxspring and mattress away because he kept hiding under the bed. Sunday night I returned from an author visit and found him on the family room couch to which he made a slight eeep sound and ran down the dining room and hallway and up the stairs back into his room so he must know his way around.

I was worried about Molly. Up until Tuesday night, Maxwell had her buffaloed, charging out of his room to the landing, kicking his hind legs out and chasing her off. Molly always came up to investigate though and she's figured out his bluff.

Last night I watched them get very close to each other. It was very interesting to watch. There was no chasing or spitting, just some low growling. Maxwell has the look on his face of being resigned that this other cat is going to do what she wants, but I hope he is understanding she isn't going to hurt him. He tolerated her approach until she touched his tail with her nose, then he lashed out but even then it seemed half hearted.

He was on the landing this morning but raced back into his room. I can only hope someday he'll be racing around the whole house with Molly, fast friends and happy.

I'll post some pictures of Molly soon.

Meet Maxwell

Well, the Monday after Christmas Andrew and I stopped by Petsmart before going to see Sherlock Holmes. I did not expect to see a cat I would be interested in but there was a little fluffy cat named Maxwell laying in his litter pan. He looked kinda like Kitten, and is fluffier than Tweek, with both layers of coat instead of one.

He loved to be petted and went on his hind legs to meet our hands for pets on his head. He has a sweet little cry, kinda like "eow" and it's the most pitiful cry you've ever heard. One of the adoption folks had a little dog on a leash they use to see how cats react. Maxwell left us in the play room to trot down the hall to his cage, and waited for the adoption person to open the door then he jumped right in. We loved him and he's been home since the day before New Year's Eve. He was one of 19 cats rescued from a good intentioned hoarder, who lives near a junk yard and just got overwhelmed.

He's still in the guest room, but is often in the room to greet us now instead of hiding under the bed. He already plays hard to get, refusing to jump on the bed (even though tell tale tumbleweeds of fur indicate he's been on it when we aren't around.) So we have to come to him to pet him but he's so darn cute and lets us rub his belly.

He needs fattened up, and his ears cleaned out and he is slowly meeting Molly. He took a swipe at her through the door they other day and I hope he won't dominate her, but as long as tehy get along and play together I guess it doesn't matter.

I'll keep you posted. jules

Um, Journals

Journals

If we don’t count the paperback teddy bear journal I bought in the third grade where my entries were, borderline incoherent sentences written in bulbous cursive then abandoned after a couple entries, I started keeping a journal in 1993. I can’t remember why I did. Just that I had gotten a journal as a birthday gift…from whom I couldn’t tell you. One of those thin hardcover blank books with lines, and an oil painting of a girl holding a cat on the cover…the kinds of blank books that were popular before the stores took notice of the market and cranked out wider varieties of blank books with lots more expensive options.

This summer I dug all of my journals out of my trunk (another blog entry on it later) and stacked them up on the dining room table. A coworker had mentioned that her daughter had begun her first journal so I wanted to see what they looked like all together.

I needed a couple journals a year during my junior and senior years of high school (which sounds just about right) but since have averaged about one a year. My entries these days are further apart but longer.

My journals are not going to help any aliens in the future decipher what it was like to be living in this time period, in this area. It’s the most mundane of things. The journals are not for an audience of hypothetical great grand children, or for a university library after I’ve won the Nobel in literature. It’s not to help me think things through either…usually when I am stressed or working on a problem, I wait until it’s resolved before I commit it to paper.

As I look at the journals I can see how my tastes have changed over the years. I started out using only journals given as gifts…getting 3 or 4 more after the first gifted journal from various relatives like clockwork around the holidays. The gifts weren’t given with the knowledge that I’d actually use them, and I find that interesting that several friends and family thought of a journal as a gift for a teenaged girl.

After a while I’d buy them, and went through a spiral bound phase. But I always waited to buy one until I was near the end of the current one. This worked well enough until graduate school when I got to the end and couldn’t find anything I liked in the stores. I went to every book store in the city and had to settle. I’ve had a policy ever since to buy a journal I like on the spot, and now have enough squirreled away until…oh, 45. But it’s nice to finish one journal and browse my collection of them, weighing them in my hands, looking at the lines (although I do ones without lines too) deciding about the color. I like all of them, but I choose each one at the time based on my mood.

I wrote at my desk in high school, college, graduate school, and got away from that once I was in the real world. I started writing in bed before reading but lately have switched back to writing on my table in the guest room, where I do all my fiction writing.



Pens? Pencils? Some of my early ones were in pencil, some were done in with pens that had some significance to me, a gift, a souvenir from a trip, etc. I’ve done black, but mostly stick to shades of blue. Very often the color and feel of the journal from covers to paper will influence the choice of pen and color. I’m so obsessive that when my pilot precise v5 ran out, and I tried to make do with the uniball blue roller (that I’m using in one of my writing projects.) I had to break down after a couple of entries and buy some more pilots at the store. That’s how weird I am…in case the huge collection of blank books I’ve already bought wasn’t a tip off for you.

Pens and pencils will have to be another blog. Prepare to be riveted.

I don’t know why I do it, it may be the simple reason that when I’m not working on something, I can always write in my journal and the movement of pen against paper, the ordering of the daily life things and sometimes what I think about them, feels calming. Like tidying up the kitchen or crawling into clean sheets. Since all my old journals are in the trunk, I rarely back track through them—and didn’t even do that when I drug them out for this picture. Every now and then when I do, some entries make me grimace, not so much at the language of my recordings but the priorities of what I recorded and my thoughts on them. Some make me smile to myself or laugh out loud and others bring a flood of things I had forgotten.

As I write this blog, I picture something I’ve never imagined before, me an old woman, tottering around the house, or bed-ridden in a nursing home, surrounded not bylarge print word finds, or tabloid magazines, but three score of these journals, reading them slowly from the beginning to the end, a review of my life as I told it in the narrowest of lenses before moving onto my great perhaps.*

*Directly stolen from my Teen Read Week experience from John Green, the last words of Simon Rabelay and I'm sure I am not spelling Rabelay right but am too lazy to look it up.

Here and Back Again

Well, it’s back to blogging. I haven’t in a year not for lack of topics. I could have been blogging about our trip to Los Angeles in the spring or our vacation to Wisconsin this past summer. I could have blogged about the lavender I planted in the backyard, or the black lab puppies my Dad raised this summer. I could have blogged about how Governor Strickland’s off the cuff decision to gut public library funding kept me at some level of internal turmoil during the cool weeks of summer. I could have blogged about making chocolate chip cookies or the few photos I took this summer.

But I didn’t.

And I didn’t blog from lack of inspiration. I’ve been following www.madeinatreehouse.com and www.alainnotebook.com and more recently www.herlandnotebook.com

I didn’t blog because I didn’t feel like it. The idea of blogging and posting a picture was too much effort.

And now I blog not so much from inspiration, guilt or any internal drive. I’m blogging because eventually, if I am very, very lucky (or unlucky time will tell how I feel about publishing) I may have a book to promote.

I read on a blog in the publishing ring of the web, that writers often reflect the culture of their times and the JD Salinger couldn’t get away with being the “secluded writer types” in this decade like he could 40, 50 years ago…because at that time the secluded writer type was what was expected…take the drunken writers of the 20s and 30s as another example.

And these days the name of the game is promotion. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, blah blah blah.

Part of deciding to share my writing with the world, means making peace with the fact that art becomes product. Passion becomes business. Revisions, promotion, all of it.

So I figure I might as well get in the habit of blogging, and start reviving and building my following from friends and colleagues.

I will try to post once a week. I’ll be talking about all the things I didn’t talk about this summer, don’t expect the blog to be blah blah blah my book etc. Not for a while and never entirely.

So what should I rattle off today? I suppose the recent sad news. My heart is still cracked over it, and I try not to think about it much.

As you have read in an earlier post, orange cats are magic and I have a history of them. The latest chapter, I am sad to report, is that we had to put our precious little tweek to sleep October 2nd.

It was unexpected and I’m still shocked really. I’m used to being philosophical about a pet’s death, chalking it up to old age like Chubby, or prolonged illness like Kitten. This past spring Tweek had developed, a sniffle, or a snuffle. No snot or anything, just snorting, snoring sounds. Antibiotics didn’t work but prednisone did and Tweek happily ate his ground up pill in a treat of canned food. The sniffling/snuffling went away.

Around Labor Day it started up again. I called in for some prednisone but it did not go away. The substitute vet at our place, gave him a high powered shot of prednisone and extended the prescription. He suggested Tweeker may have feline asthma as Tweek was the perfect age and it was the perfect time of year to show these asthmatic symptoms. By the last week of September though, Tweek was showing no improvement and the snorting snuffling was growing worse. Another trip to the vet, another medication. Our vet, a good country vet, I’ve known since a child told us if it didn’t work we’d need to do an x ray.

Two days later Tweek wasn’t eating, only getting in three doses of the new medication. His manner began to change. He was lethargic. We could not let him in the bedroom as we could not sleep from his snorting breathing.

I took him in Friday morning, dropped him off and gave the vet my Dad’s number as I was on the way to work but before I could get halfway to work Dad called me. The news was bad. Andrew had just gotten off work and Dad called him. Andrew met me at the house to go back to the vet together to say good-bye.

Tweeker did not have asthma, but a tumor, in the cruelest of places. The x-ray showed a mass in his trachea, that had probably been growing since spring, repressed by the prednisone and quietly growing all summer. Because of it’s placement in Tweeker’s throat, it would be impossible to remove without cutting into his major arteries, and nerves. He could no longer eat. His breathing would only grow more and more labored through a passageway slowly being choked off.

Our vet is a good country vet, which does not mean the suggestion is always “put ‘em down.” He looked at us and said, “there is a lot that I can do, and a lot that I have done, but I can’t do this.”

The brought him in and I held him so Andrew and I could pet him and say good bye. He kept trying to scramble out of my arms, stressed and scared by being at the vet’s his snorting breathing, a cause for worry sounded like a death knell. His eyes wide and bright and all I wanted was to fix him. But sometimes fixing means letting go. It takes two shots, one that’s used like before an animal surgery, then the final one, the vet gives behind closed doors.

I stroked his long soft fur, trying so desperately to memorize the feel of it beneath my fingers. The transition from him breathing that horrible rasping to silence. One last look at his little face, frozen in an open stare, and back to the reception desk to make small talk, about library funding no less, until the vet came back with a cardboard box and said he was sorry. And I know that he was. What kind of job is that to have? Saving and ending lives…ending suffering either way. How many creatures does a veterinarian put to sleep in their career on average? And how lucky are we to have someone to do it?

Dad and Andrew made a box and now Tweek rests in the orchard with Kitten. How can we be in this house less than 4 years and have buried two cats? I know Tweek had a great life, and every day he had two people who loved him, cuddled him, and gave him anything he could need. But at four years old, the consolation rings hollow, as I suppose it does for anyone losing a loved one too early. But it’s always too early isn’t it?

Of all the pets I’ve had, Tweek had the most habits, quirks, and little things he did around the house. I see his little ghost all around the house, in every room. All the little things he’ll never do again. I wrote over twenty things in my journal.

Molly’s behavior has changed drastically. From the first night she’s slept with me, not as close as Tweeker did, but close all the same. She’s taken to stealing bran flakes off my cereal bowl when my back is turned…something Tweeker did. She greets me at the door now, and this afternoon, she laid on my lap and we took a nap in the recliner. She cries more and wants more attention.

An internet site said that sometimes one cat is repressed by the older one, or the cat that was in the house first. It makes sense but it’s still eerie.

We’ll probably get another cat, a little boy kitten most likely in the spring if Molly continues to act lonely. And odds are, we’ll get an orange one.

But my story isn’t over yet, because less than 24 hours after putting Tweek to sleep I found myself in a hotel near OSU campus for a children’s writing conference. I could not have wanted to be there any less. I won’t prop any illusion that I’m less needy or neurotic than the next writer…I’m not. But being surrounded by 103 people needy and desperate for that love for their work as writers are was too much, it really was.

I overheard things that made me groan inwardly. I got so bored at one session I began to write a short story in my main character’s voice about the things I overheard and saw.
I had paid extra to have my query letter critiqued by a reputable and well known agent and the first ten pages of the book critiqued by an author. I had taken the first 19 pages of the book to our Wisconsin vacation, desperate to cut enough to bring the second main character in under the ten pages. I did, I drafted the query using advice from Query Shark and a book a colleague gave me.

So I was marking time until I could get my material back.

At the query workshop, the agent passed out our letters. My heart did race a little as she handed mine back to me, but it was heavy even as it raced. I read it. I flipped it face down on the table and leaned back in my chair. I read it again.

The agent would like to see a couple of chapters. She said other positive things, and some constructive things.

At the end of the workshop I approached her. My voice was not my own. I can speak in front of people no problem, American Library Association, a public library staff day, meetings at the library. Whatever. It’s easy I can do it on the fly. But talking to this agent. About my book. Five years of work. Characters I love so much. I felt so ashamed of my meekness but there it was. This was something that really counted in my heart.

The agents said send it anytime. No expiration date. Do a major revision. Try to bring the word count out of the sky. Take it seriously and don’t send it too soon in a rush of excitement.

So okay then.

I had to stay through the very end, to get the 10 pages back. A couple of dozen people crowded around the conference organizer with the ten pages, little bombs of hope, I thought.

I got mine and moved through the mob of people rooted on the spot to read their critique. I managed to turn two corners and go towards the lobby before reading mine. My heart sank at first as the critique started out saying they were just one reader. “Well, one out of two isn’t too bad.” I said to myself. But then I kept reading. This author who has written several books and one a nice selection of awards had lots of good things to say. Things that made my heavy heart life high enough to survey possibility. Comments written in the margin of the pages made me smile. I might be able to get these kids’ story out afterall.

I saw other writers comparing notes on their critiques, many with low voices and subdued faces. I wondered to myself what kind of world I live in where I can lose Tweek and get such substantial positive feedback on my book in the same 24 hour period. Was that the trade-off in the universe? Would it had happened even if Tweek was well and trotting around our house?

So how is that for my first blog entry in months and months?
I need your help. I need the motivation to blog, and I need to build a following for future possibilities of promotion.

Will you become a follower instead of just checking in occasionally?

Will you forward my blog to one person you think might like it?

I would like to have twenty five followers by the end of October. I will post two more blogs between now and the first weekend of November.

Thanks, Jules

Nothing like Lactose Intolerance to Keep You Humble

Okay, so we all know that by and large, this blog is not geared towards my professional work, that's a personal choice more than anything else. That said, I am thrilled, thrilled to share with you dear readers my selection as a 2009 Library Journal Mover and Shaker. You can read about it and see my ultra suave picture here

http://www.libraryjournal.com/MS2009Inductee/2140336012.html

I have my cousin Cherie to thank for the fabulous hair. The photo shoot was in Denver and she took me to her fabulous hair guy Wayne and he made me look, well, great.

In an alternate universe, I'm sure my hair looks like this all the time. It's the same universe where I've published my book and can eat macaroni and cheese.

But in this universe, I'm still lactose intolerant, and there's nothing like not being able to eat 8o% of the items on a restaurant menu to keep you humble.

As evidenced here by my very attentive server last night:...

well blogger says there's an internal error so picture a restaurant receipt here:

Atlantic Salmon 11.99
NO BUTTER OR DAIRY PLEASE OR SHE WILL DIE


Here's to decades without mac and cheese

your 2009 Library Mover and Shaker
jules

The Yellow Cats in My Life

On Christmas Day, a yellow kitten, about 12 weeks old trotted up my parents lane towards their house as if on a mission. Their 11 year old tuxedo cat was not amused and began beating up on the poor thing immediately. We separated them. The yellow kitten with a white tip tail and an upside triangle of white on its chest cried and purred and let me pick it up immediately.

We already have two cats, Molly and Tweeker. They get a long great. I really didn't want another cat. But, you can't turn away a yellow cat on Christmas Day so I popped it in a rabbit cage with plastic tray, with a can of food, dry food and a litter tray. I put straw in the corner and schlepped the poor bastard to our garage. Andrew named the cat BOLO, an acronym for Be On the Look Out for...

Bolo was very sweet, I let it out to run around the garage while I cleaned out its cage and gave it fresh victuals. I think I wouldn't have had to press Andrew to keep it, but two cats are enough. I put a night light in the garage so BOLO wouldn't be in pitch blackness.

Yesterday morning I called 9 count 'em NINE humane societies. There was no room at the inn, anywhere. At 3:30 though, the good folks at Union County called saying they would take one kitten, but I would have to pay a surrender fee. Fine.

I had a late lunch at Mom and Dad's and in the fog, the rain and the cold, trundled Bolo into a carrier and took off for Marysville.

I have to admit, the little sucker was so cute I almost turned back. I kept one hand with fingers laced through the bars of the carrier. Bolo laid its chin on my fingers and purred to sleep. Occasionally opening soulful yellow eyes.

Bolo is really cute.

But I don't want a third cat.

I took Bolo into the Union County humane society. They don't euthanize unless animals are diseased or aggressive. They pronounced Bolo a girl, among the slight 3% of yellow/orange cats that are female. They were impressed by how lovey she was and assured me that she would adopt out quick and they would call me when she did.

I paid the surrender fee and donated a little something extra. If you live near Marysville, stop by and ask for Bolo, or the little yellow cat that came in the day after Christmas. I would love to see her go to a good home.

Yellow cats though, have been a large part of my life, and by telling you about them, you'll get a further peek into the life that is Jules.


IN the begining there was...

The first cat I ever encountered was my parents cat, Kitty. Kitty was a tiger striped and my Mom really loved her. There are pictures of me as a baby with her nearby. Kitty had to have a surgery and didn’t make it.

When I was three, four-ish a gray tom began to live with us. I named him Lucky (man who hasn’t had a pet named Lucky). Lucky used up a good third of his nine lives during his tenure with us, from tomcat fights and once, Dad accidentally ran over Lucky with a truck and he survived, so was he really lucky?

After Lucky disappeared, there was a succession of strays that passed through. I was obsessed with the name Jeff for a while and when I was in the third grade, fall of the third grade we got a barn cat, a gray kitten that I inevitable named Smoky.

Smoky had a cold. Dad took him to the vet. Smoky didn’t have a cold, he had feline leukemia and died at the vets.

Not so good with the cats so far.

Then there was Squeakers. My Uncle cat us this cat, he kept a tuxedo kitten for himself and I got the adorable orange and white Squeakers. Squeakers was a terror. His favorite game was the “hide behind something and wait until family member walks by. Jump out, latch yourself to their leg with you claws and hang on.”

I felt guilty for hating this cat. Everyone was wary of him. One summer day, Dad was taking the round up with the spray wand and the handheld tank around the farmyard killing weeds. Squeakers decided to play his favorite game and before Dad knew it, and airborne Squeakers sailed through the air and through a stream of round up. Dad did not intentionally spray Squeakers, my Dad isn’t like that. It was all just a horrible intersection of circumstance.

Dad hoped for the best. But the next morning I found the worst when I went to feed him, Oh Squeakers the bell tolled for thee.

Even though I didn’t really like the little bastard, it’s still traumatic to be like, 8 and find your pet kitten um, prone and not breathing.

So Dad took me to a buddy’s house, you know the inevitable country farm with 50 cats.

I saw two yellow cats and I couldn’t make up my mind. Dad reminded me I could only have one. I reminded him that just the other day I found my kitten laid flat on the barn floor with flies buzzing around him…it would be years before I found out about the round up bit. I got two cats.

The one I wanted the most, the fat orange one, I named Chubby. He was a darker yellow to orange, short hair, with green eyes. I can see him in my minds eye, looking pissy and adorable. I also picked out his lighter yellow, blue eyed litter mate, Jeff. Yes, I named yet another cat Jeff, don’t ask me why.

So the Perdue family left Cecil’s farm with Chubby and Jeff in tow.

We have lots of pictures of Chubby and Jeff sleeping and playing together. Since they were litter mates, I was like the third wheel. Chubby liked to be petted on the head and could tolerate being picked up but he wouldn’t let you rub his tummy. Jeff would not let you pick him up or pet his head but he would stretch out in front of my Dad’s wood stove and let you rub his tummy.

We got these kittens when they were a little too old I think, to be really groomed to be affectionate. They were in at cats, meaning they didn’t have a litter box in the house and weren’t declawed but Mom trained both of them to go to the door when they wanted out.

In March of my fourth grade year, when the cats were one year old, I came home from school to find Chubby by the back porch crying. I could hear crying underneath the porch…it was Jeff. We was in the corner but too far back for me to reach. Dad got home shortly after I did and took Jeff to the vet. He wouldn’t let me see Jeff, whose back legs had been crushed by a car.

Jeff was buried by a large tree near one of our barns.

For months afterward Chubby did not like to be alone. If he was in the house and he felt like he couldn’t find us, he would stand in the middle of our hallway and cry. He did not however, greatly increase in affection. This is not to say he didn’t like to be petted or have his chin rubbed or brushed. This is to say he wouldn’t let me dress him up in a cabbage patch doll bonnet and dandle him on my knee like a baby. God knows I tried.

Chubby began to spend more time in the house as time passed. When we were leaving the house for several hours, we would have to put him outside.

Like a sixth sense, Chubby could tell we would be getting ready and make a break for going behind the couch. I was the obvious choice to fish him out. Chubby would wait until I had just reached him before releasing a potent cat fart. I managed to get him out every time though and he never scratched me up in the process.

Now by now you are thinking this cat is a real piece of work, but let me assure you that while Andrew refers to Chubby, even posthumously as the “viscious viscious creature.” Chubby was in fact my Beloved Childhood Companion.

When I was done with my evening chores, or later when I came home from my high school job at night and Chubby was in the barnyard, he would race me to the house. In my later college years, there were nights when I could beat him.

When I was little we would play a game where I would hide in the pine trees on the northern side of our yard and Chubby would follow me.

Chubby would sleep with me when I was sick. He was never one you could wrap your arm around and cuddle, but he would sleep by my feet or curl up behind my knees.

I used to make him catnip socks from my old socks and he developed a taste for syrup and butter left on my plate after eating eggos or cream cheese from a bagel and he loved pepperoni from Grandma's pizza.

As he grew older he spent more time in the house. Laying against Dad's legs on the recliner---more for body heat than affection I'd think. Mom would patiently let him out at 3 in the morning for him to go to the bathroom and then let the old man back in.

Chubby liked to be brushed, but even that was a little game. You could brush him and brush him and he would purr and roll around but brush him one second to long and BAM, he's whip around and try to scratch you.

Even though Chubby was a medium sized cat, he would scrap with any cat that came on the property, he was very territorial. And he had a couple close calls. He was struck by a car but only his back leg was stressed, not even broken. Another time he got a bad bite on his paw in a cat fight and had to go to the vet. When he was abotu 14 he ate something bad and nearly died, the vet saved him though.

By the end of my college years Chubby began to look different, grizzled. His head started to look larger than his body even though he weighed the same. It took him longer to jump down from beds and chairs. He moved slower. By the end of graduate school he'd let me hold him for longer periods of time, mostly because he was too tired I think.

After Andrew and I left our wedding reception, we went back to Mom and Dad's house to change out of the wedding clothes. I left my dress on the guest bed, in my old bedroom. When Mom came home, Chubby was laying on my dress, sunning himself through the west facing window. Mom took a picture of it for me. Despite having claws, Chubby didn't hurt the dress at all and Mom let him sleep, waiting for him to get up before packing my dress away.

By the winter of 2005 Mom and Dad were telling me everytime we visited how Chubby was on his last leg. I think they worried how upset I would be. Sadly, pets rarely die peacefully in their sleep. I told them they would know when it was time and that was okay by me. I still have in a little box, a bit of Chubby's fur, taken from the brush we used at our own risk to brush him.

One day in March, Chubby walked into the kitchen while my Dad was eating breakfast. He sat down and lifted a front paw to lick it as cats often do, but he lost his balance and fell down. He looked up at my Dad, and did not attempt to get up so Dad took him to our good country vet.

Chubby was very close to or just at 18 years old. Not bad, not bad indeed.

And I suppose it is with Chubby in mind that I was determined, no matter what to find little Bolo a place at a humane society. I was calling as far away as Licking County. If we had to keep Bolo a week until there was a place, or even adopted Bolo ourselves, I think we would have. But I am pleased with Union County and sure she will get adopted, who knows, maybe by a little girl who wants a yellow cat.

There are a bazillion stray cats out there, many will live and die without any notice of humans. We can't save them all. But like everything else in life, we do what we can. If you are thinking about getting a pet, or maybe you have lost a pet recently and are hesitant to get another, I would say this to you:

You love them while they are here, and give them the best life you can and then you let them go when it is time...they count on you for all of that. And, when you are ready, you save another pet's life...for yourself, for them and for the honor of those you have loved before.

Bolo and many other worthy animals are waiting for you... PS, I will post a picture of Chubby on the wedding dress when I can.

Ten More Random Things, real time

1) I've not been sleeping well lately. I usually read till I get sleepy but I keep reading andnot getting sleepy. Then the cats wake me up on and off and I don't have the heart to kick them out. Last night I actually woke up and reminded myself to do something at work and I know that's not healthy...I'm worried.

2) I had a horrible migraine Saturday. First one in two months. Sucky

3) We didn't put up a Christmas tree because I knew sweet little Molly would destroy it. I tried putting a fiberoptic tree up but she chewed it and knocked it down. So now all we have is snow men figures on the tv and presents in the corner. UGH.

4) Typing longhand writing takes a really long time.

5) I'm tired of cleaning our house and I'm only 30.

6) I'm bringing Clementines to our staff pot luck.

7) Thinking about sharing on the blog, the things I am doing in my life to go green and the struggle between, want, need and green. There are five billion sites like that but the difference with this one is you know me. Comment if you would like to see an occasional blog post on that.

8) Worried that I am running out of stem on the book. Seems like every scene I start bores me to write. If it's boring to write then God help the reader.

9) Rediscovered how much I love working quietly in my little room, and how much I love solitude.

10) My purple hat with the tassles is warm and whimsical.