Kitty Television

When June came around, I wanted some color on my porch.  Spring/early summer in Portland is often iffy…lots of cool weather and rain.  We often joke that "Summer fell on a Sunday this year and most people slept-in and missed it."  So while I have tulips and crocus and daffodils in the spring looking pretty and colorful, I wanted something else to brighten up the space before summer actually happened.



I have an old macramé plant hanger I made back in the 70s that I still use outside.  It is hardy, using six strands of jute per knotted rope, with beads as large as my fist.  I love it, but it is looking sad and stringy, like a young girl’s hair that didn’t get brushed after swimming.  But I hung it on one side of the porch, along with a nice bird feeder and a bowl of black-eye Susans and some colorful plants.

On the other side of the porch, I planted some flowers in a bird bath and potted the rest.  So both sides of the porch have lots of flowers and color and summer.

The squirrels were loving the bird feeder.  I didn’t mind that they were eating the food because, well heck they were critters.  But then I noticed that they were using the macramé plant hanger to climb up and jump over for the feeder.  In the process they were smashing all the plants and flowers.  So I moved the macramé plant hanger over to the other side of the porch, changing it with the wind chimes.  I moved the other plants over under the bird bath.  Now I can look at all the plants while I sew of work online.

I was sewing and heard a strange noise on the porch.  I go into the front room and all three cats are sitting in the large front window, looking out at the porch.  A squirrel was attempting to jump from the lilac bush to the wind chimes in order to get tothe feeder in its new spot.  The squirrel was frantically trying to grip the chimes with his feet, falling down on the porch, and jumping back into the bush again.  The cats were enthralled.  It was truly Kitty TV!

Well I felt sorry for the critters, so I put a bowl of squirrel food out on the corner of the porch.  First the bluejays came and grabbed the peanuts.  Then the squirrels came and grabbed the sunflower seeds.  Then the squirrels came and tore through everything.  The cats were there, always there, watching and wanting a squirrel of their own.  Some of the squirrels–we had about five–came up to the window and stuck out their tongues at the cats, humming "Nanner nanner nanner! You can’t get me!" and ran off.

After a couple of days I needed to clean up the mess they had made and discovered they had gnawed through the paint bucket and were gorging off the food in that container.  So I decided I needed to move the feeding bowl out to the trees and the feed bucket into the house.

Meanwhile, the cats continue their vigilant watch for all bird and squirrel activity.  Entertaining for all of us.
peace~~