A Sure Sign of Summer

/ Katie / 14 Comments

Look at this little guy!

I’ve written before about how I find bugs fascinating. Graham snapped a few pictures of this one – just molted – yesterday, and I just had to share.

Last year, we had a giant brood of cicadas in the region, and boy were they…annoying. And different from our usual set, too.

Neat to watch, and cool to think about, but generally loud, and ever-present. I caught one of them landing on me every ten seconds.

No brood this year, but one of the surest signs of summer around here is the gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) hum of the cicadas. Like fireflies in the evening and passing storms in the afternoon, it’s really just not summer without it.

Happy Monday, Gatsby-cat!

/ Katie / 13 Comments

Happy Monday, y’all! Here’s a picture of Gatsby, taken with Graham’s new camera earlier today.

I just had to share, and I hope his handsome face makes you smile.

Gatsby’s sixteen, and in addition to the eye issue he’s been dealing with, we know he has a heart murmur and kidney disease, which is not advanced, thankfully. He’s also had some digestion issues in the past couple of years, which seem to have settled for now.

I adopted him when he was a kitten and I was nineteen.

We’ve basically grown into adulthood together.

It’s funny, watching a beloved pet get older. I still look at him and see the scruffy little kitten he was, even though he’s going gray and he’s slowed down quite a bit. He used to play fetch. He used to play at all, for that matter. His days now are filled with naps in the sunshine and cuddles and snacks. It’s quite a life.

It’s been a quite a life.

I don’t know how much longer this sweet old man has, but I will treasure every second I get to spend with him.

Graham’s New Camera

/ Katie / 6 Comments

Graham got a new camera! It’s a Fujifilm X-T30 II, and he’s really liking it so far. It’s lightweight, easy to carry, and takes pretty good pictures. He’s been snapping some random, quick shots around the house and garden to try it out, and explore its different modes and features.

And of course, our two favorite subjects. 😊

Gatsby’s been dealing with an eye issue, which we’ve finally gotten diagnosed and have some medicine for. Not that it’s easy to give him the medicine, but at least we’ve got it.

We’re planning to spend some time this weekend playing around a bit more with the new camera. Hopefully we get some good photos!

Groundhog Problems

/ Katie / 14 Comments

Don’t be fooled. He might be cute, but he’s a nuisance.

Let me back up.

We’ve always had a groundhog on our property. They’re very common in Virginia. The year we moved in, he was living under one of our outbuildings, and we’d see him poking around the yard and eating grass and just generally doing groundhog things. We didn’t think much of it.

That, apparently, was a mistake.

Six years later, he’s invited his friends to move in. Now we have three groundhogs. And one of them can climb trees. Did you know groundhogs could climb trees? Because I didn’t.

I did some Googling to see just how urgent an issue this is, since I generally don’t like to intervene with nature when I don’t have to.

The good news: Groundhogs are typically not aggressive or violent.

The bad news: They can wreak havoc on a property, and they’ve been known to carry fleas, ticks, sometimes rabies, and various diseases, though they’re more likely to cause property damage than to make people sick.

So, I think we need to make some phone calls. I don’t know if the situation we have here warrants their removal or not – they’ve stayed away from the main house, and from us and our dog. But, I think we’ve reached our groundhog limit, and I know there are ways to remove them humanely, if that’s necessary.

After all, you know what they say: Three’s a crowd.

Am I a writer this week?

/ Katie / 20 Comments

It’s been a week, y’all. Last week was a week, too. I don’t feel like I’ve been able to focus and spend time on the projects I care most about lately, including my writing. In fact, I don’t feel much like a writer this week at all.

It’s not a great feeling. And it’s also not true.

On weeks like this, when I’m tired and stressed and when my impostor syndrome gets the better of me, I remind myself that creating is fundamental to who I am. It’s part of me, just like my hair and my nails and my eyes and that weird little wrinkle I get in my forehead when I think too hard about math. It’s like breathing.

Every day, I’m thinking about a story, or an idea, or just some words that fit nicely together. Even if I can’t do anything with them RIGHT NOW. Unfortunately, we live in a world where RIGHT NOW is often table stakes, a requirement of any job and an expectation in any undertaking. There’s just not a lot of value placed on someday soon, or on letting your mind meander even when your hands are busy elsewhere. It seems, in many ways, we’ve lost the will or the way to appreciate the art of daydreaming.

So, I’ve not gotten much writing done this week. But I am a writer. I can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. I wouldn’t want to.

And if you’ve had a week like mine, this week or in the future, I hope you remember: You are a writer. Even when things get in the way, and even when it feels like you’ll never get back to your trusty old pen and paper (or laptop). YOU ARE A WRITER.

In conclusion, TL;DR – Yes, I am still a writer this week. And I wonder what next week will bring.

Two Inspiration Cuartetos

/ Katie / 22 Comments

It’s time for another monthly poetry challenge from Rebecca over at Fake Flamenco! July’s challenge is to write a cuarteto about what inspires you to write. This one was a little tricky for me – I don’t focus on rhyming in my poetry, so it felt something like flexing a new muscle. I think I did okay, though. 😊

Raindrops pinging on the roof,
a cup of tea, and a cloudy day
make a happy writer, I would say.
And right here is the proof.

I like to write at night
when all is quiet and still,
to keep company with the moonlight
and share thoughts with just paper and quill.

I had a lot of fun with this one! If you want to participate, too, you’ve got until Sunday. I think you should! It’s always good to try new things, right?

Our First Apple

/ Katie / 19 Comments

A happy Monday indeed! Here’s why:

A couple of years ago, we planted some baby fruit trees.

They’ve had a tough go so far, and a few of them didn’t make it. We honestly weren’t sure whether they’d ever actually produce any fruit at all, so imagine our surprise and delight when we discovered our very first apple!

Really, there were two, but the deer (or one of the other little creatures that frequent our back garden) must have gotten to one of them before we could. I’m happy we even have one, though, and I hope it’s a sign of even more to come. There’s a special kind of magic to watching things grow, isn’t there?

When the Job’s Done (A Poem)

/ Katie / 6 Comments

And when it’s over,
I’ll sleep.
I’ll sleep
the sleep of
the fighter
the maker,
and I’ll take my rest
with a side of
satisfaction,
thank you very much.
For such a hard week,
it’s gone fast,
almost done.
Ranking it from ten to one,
I’d say –
zero.
But I’m still here,
and soon enough,
the work goes on.