Cats – Page 8 – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: and she’s already fallen off the trail…

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Hannah: I bet you wished that you had a catio…

In my last report I shared how the Mother of Cats left us for the weekend to go play with her son’s kittens. Hello! We’re kittens too, right?! Well, in our hearts we are. The Mother of Cats says that I’m getting chunky and that I’m hard to pick up now… what is up with that?! If she would let me bring grasshoppers into the house so I could chase them without burning my little feet on the hot deck I’m sure I would slim right down, but does she let me have any fun? Nope. Not so much…

Anyway, the Mother of Cats finished up her first clue of the Sharon on the Trail MKAL shawl and then put it away to wait for the next clue.

I gave it a little grooming before she put it away, and we both thought that it was pretty cute. Then the second clue dropped last week and the Mother saw what it looked like knitted up… and immediately decided that she didn’t want to use these yarns anymore. She never took the shawl out again all week and just worked on her new sweater.

Okay, I have to admit that it is looking pretty darn good, right?

She steam blocked the part that was knitted in the sweater (it is called Alpine Bloom) and while it was drying she hunted and hunted for new yarns to knit the Sharon on the Trail again.

What do you guys think of these yarns? She’s still thinking of using gold instead of that mauve color…

I personally don’t care because it is really darn hot here and we spend every afternoon just waiting it out. The Mother of Cats reads books and I just sleep in any coolish spot that I can find. My favorite spot right now is on the paper from the Chewy box in front of a fan.

Do you see where I had a rash on my tummy? I had another bath (YUK!!!) and now the fur is growing back.

Anyway, once the Mother of Cats had located her new yarns for the MKAL you’d think that she would have cast on and gotten busy knitting, right? Nope. You would be wrong. She saw a sock pattern and went crazy casting on to start them. Then she got an email from her community knitting buddies that made her knit some more PICC line covers and start hunting for yarns to knit little toys and hats. SHE IS COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL!!! Like, she is worse than Mateo at the moment.

Here’s the start of the socks. These will be Pressed Flowers Socks after a whole bunch of time the way she is going.

So, I’m just kind of going with the flow and hoping to get some tuna soon while she is ignoring the shawl, pretending that it is TOO HARD to put that blocked sweater back onto the needles, and saying things like… why should she knit socks when it would be more fun to make some toys (hearts and little mice and maybe some tiny kitties…) to go to with the PICC line covers in a couple of weeks when the next Frayed Knots meeting happens.

Sigh. She should make me some knitted mice!

Mateo: don’t forget that tomorrow is Caturday!

That’s all for now. I’m going to go find another cool spot to sleep in…

This is Hannah, sighing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats: I’ve been reading like crazy because several books arrived in my library account all at once. Yay!

I’ve been reading All the Sinners Bleed as an audiobook while driving around in the car. The main character is still dealing with the trauma of his mother’s death from… (wait for it) …scleroderma!! I heard that part of the book while driving back from my rheumatology appointment this week. Crazy. In the book the mother suffered from extreme muscle pain, and I had just finished talking with my doctor about increasing my immunosuppressant dose because of my continuing muscle/tendon pain.
I also raced through Killers of the Flower Moon recently. What a great book!!! It’s about a cluster of abuses and murders linked to conspiracies to steal the oil generated wealth of Osage Nation members in Oklahoma. The center of the Osage territory is located in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a place I’ve been to since I have family located there. While flipping through all the footnotes in the book an interview with the author, David Grann, came on the television. How crazy is all of this!! He has written a new book called The Wager that I already have a library hold on.
I continue to be stalked by synchronicity, obviously.
The community knitting/crocheting group that I knit for has been expanding. We now are donating to other medical centers that have requested sewn PICC line pads for seatbelts in cars, heavy winter hats for homeless shelters, and now we are partnering with the Denver STAR program that provides emergency (non-police) responses to people in mental health crisis, or who are homeless, or any emergency that is not violent or criminal in nature. They need blankets, amigurumi, health items, and hats. Lots of knitting (and crocheting and sewing) needs to be done!
Do you see why I just fell off the trail? For something like this I might even try to crochet some little amigurumi.
Now I’m reading The Covenant of Water. Holy smokes, this is looking to be another really good book! Do you see why the knitting has stalled?
Hannah: Get off the computer, Mother of Cats, and get me come tuna!!! Also, a knitted mouse would be nice…

Hannah and the CoalBear: I’m Hitting the Trail!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’m hanging out on the catio before it gets too hot.

Did you notice that yesterday was Caturday? I had to stay in the house all day long because the Mother of Cats drove off and left us all alone for the weekend. She has been a little crazy lately, that Mother of Cats… She decided at the last minute to do the Sharon on the Trail MKAL and dug around in her stash to find some yarns. Okay, it was like a yarn explosion, but that is fun, right?

Has she finished her Alpine Bloom sweater yet? No, she has not!!

So she left us and went to her son’s house for the weekend because… he has new kittens!!! How could she leave us? Why did she ever think that she could knit while she was around KITTENS!!! She needs to come home right away!!

She did take out her yarns for a picture showing the order that she wants to knit them, but that is as far as she was able to get because…kittens!

So, the Mother of Cats hasn’t gotten any knitting done at all, which means that she is behind everyone else in the MKAL. Sharon from Security (Casapinka’s employee who needs a raise!) is in France hunting down Keith the Hiker who has (probably) stolen a mysterious paper wrapped object, stuffed it in his backback, and is currently on the trail with Sharon hot on his tail. The Mother of Cats needs to come home today so she can get some knitting down and we can get some COOKIES!!!

You know, I don’t think that the Mother of Cats can do much hiking, so I told Mateo that he is going to have to hit the trails with me if we’re going to help Sharon get that mysterious package back. France. We can do France.

I’m getting some rest so I’m ready to go!!

I hope that you all had a great Caturday, and that you weren’t abandoned and left all alone in a hot house with a crazy Mateo…

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

My son lost his beautiful cat Maya (who controlled the weather) and his remaining cat has been sad since then. Today Jonesy is looking happier than he has in months. Okay, maybe he’s still a little stressed, but that’s life with kittens for you…
The kittens are a Siamese mix and a classic tabby. So cute!
The yarns for the MKAL are from Indie dyers across the US: Texas, Colorado, Montana, and New York. How fun is that?

Now there are 38…

Bright sunny days are upon us, and the yard is filled with the call of blue jays. Okay, these guys are really noisy, and there are a lot more than usual this year, so the robins seem to be keeping a low profile. All of my plants are growing like crazy in the heat and the gardens are starting to look really good.

The cats are spending lots of time out on the catio.

I’ve discovered that the weeds are also growing like… weeds, so I have been spending an hour every day in the cool of the evening working in the gardens trying to keep ahead of the weed invasion.

There is a lot of pink going on in the garden right now. The Princess Alexandra of Kent rose is stilling going strong, the pink yarrow burst into bloom, and the snapdragons that are now blooming again are… just the pink ones! Of course, the angelica has joined in, and I must admit that the pink does make me feel good.

Even my knitting has pink blooms! This is the Alpine Bloom sweater by Caitlin Hunter.

So, I was thinking that maybe I should get some red when I took a trip to my local garden center this week. Woohoo! Roses WERE ON SALE at 30% off!!! It didn’t take long to locate a landscape shrub rose that had beautiful cabbage rose-ish blooms.

This is the Grand Champion Red rose. I bought two of them.

I thought that it would do well with the Ruby Meidiland roses along the back of my house.

The Rubies have been doing really well this year, but the shrubs didn’t fill in along the back of the house the way I thought they would, so there is room to put another rose between plantings.

See, the new rose will fit right in there!

Now I have to do more weeding (duh!), get the new roses into the ground, and then I plan to put a nice organic mulch around everyone.

So now there are 38 roses!

PS: Bea made this comment… “Mateo is wearing his don’t-mess-with-me face. He looks ready to rumble or hop on his Harley and hightail it for Sturgis.”

He kind of does, doesn’t he. I offer in his defense this picture of how he collapsed and fell asleep on the bookshelf last night…

The tough guy photo was taken right after I woke him up. It seems that he wakes up cranky…

The Soldotna Saga Continues…

It has been kind of a tough week. The weather shifted and suddenly became hot; I struggled with the sudden heat and couldn’t sleep well. I had adventures with online ordering that created a duplicate of an expensive item that finally got returned for me by my son. Mateo caught a baby bunny somehow that he brought into the house; it took two hours to catch it. My ankles/feet have decided that they hate my guts with as much swelling and tendon pain as my wrists did last month. Then the absolute worst: my next-door neighbor poisoned the bunnies and every single baby bunny died along with most of the adults that I have seen. I suddenly understood why bunnies suddenly disappeared last year.

I put the bodies into her trash. Every single one of them, including the rescued baby that I had carefully returned to the yard two days earlier.

Okay, enough of that. You should see what has been happening with the Soldotna Crop sweater:

I’ve been taking the knitting off the needles and steam blocking it to check for length, and I’m so pleased with how the sweater fits and looks now. I finished the ribbing late last night, steam blocked the whole body this morning, and took it out for this picture. Looking good, huh!!

I put the sweater onto blocking mats to finish drying indoors, and then I headed out to take some pictures of the roses. Let me tell you, these roses are really happy with the water earlier this year, and now that it is hot, they are blooming like crazy!

These are the front roses, and they are really looking good this year! Do you see all of those buds? They have never been this lush and prolific before. These roses are called Hot Cocoa.

My Princess Alexandra of Kent roses are enormous!

That rose is over 4 inches across, and for once the plant is sturdy enough to hold all of the blooms upright.

These roses are the little ones that you buy in the grocery store. I planted them outside and they really are blooming their little hearts out now!

Do you see what is going on with this plant? I had to put supportive rings around it like you do with peonies because of the weight, and the buds haven’t even opened yet!!

So, the roses are looking pretty darn good. I went back into the house with the pictures and discovered that Hannah had ~~savaged~~ overly-loved the Soldotna while I was out of the house.

She has done this to other items. I think that she is grooming the sweater, but I was not happy…

I pulled the worst of the fluff to the inside of the sweater with a little crochet hook, and then I shaved the remaining fluff off. It isn’t perfect, but it isn’t horrible. I’ve decided to finish the sleeves and will then decide if I should rip back to above the damage and then reknit the bottom of the sweater. I don’t want to reuse the blocked yarn, and it all depends on how much of the dusty pink is left over. I’m pretty sure that I will rip and then reknit. This sweater must be cursed…

Hannah: I couldn’t help myself. I love the sweater soooo much… besides, it was WET WOOL!!!

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Mateo: Don’t forget about Caturday tomorrow!!!

Basketball Synchronicity

Like just about every other kid in American, I have spent some time on the basketball court. I’m a wicked guard, not a great shot, and let’s not talk about my free throw statistics. There’s a lot of running around involved; I’m not a fan of running. Basketball never took for me, and as I got older, I was more drawn to softball, gymnastics, and volleyball. Basketball… meh. I don’t follow it, never watch it, and yeah… not really a fan.

But this year basketball has been all around me.

Last winter, fighting a flare, pumping myself up for a trip to the cath lab to check the pressures in the right side of my heart, I started reading The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama. Michelle really made an impact on me; she knits, she understands chronic illness, and she struggled with her height as a kid growing up in Chicago. The tallest girl by far in her class, she was always singled out, at the back in pictures, the anchor when kids lined up, you know… different. There was so much in her book to identify with; I suspect we all have something that made us apart and different as a child, and we all know how hard the middle school years are. She found her way, as we all know, and shines with self-confidence and purpose these days. The book was great, I learned a lot, and I recommend it.

Michelle is 5’11” tall, much taller than me!

Michelle wrote about her older brother Craig in the book, who also attended Princeton University, and out of curiosity I googled him. Oh. Craig Robinson has his own Wikipedia page. He’s a force in the world of basketball and is currently the Executive Director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Suddenly the height in the family made sense, and I remembered that President Obama also played basketball. Kind of interesting, huh. Basketball.

I loved *Dear Edward*, so I bought this book as soon as it came out.

Then I started my next audiobook, Hello Beautiful, while knitting along on the Hannah blanket. This is a book that will stick with you a long time, and I’ve really been unpacking the layers as I think about it even now. Imagine a dysfunctional family that loses a child just as a new baby comes home. Somehow the grief and loss from the death of their little girl is projected onto the little boy (William) growing up, and he is alone, unwanted, at a loss, searching for a family, and quite tall for his age. He finds a family and sense of purpose in basketball. He marries into a family with 4 girls, and just when you think all will be well, the bottom falls out. He is unable to play basketball any longer because of an injury, but he is lost without it. He tried to be the man his wife wants and goes to graduate school where he begins a thesis on the History of Basketball, but he also struggles to understand who he is and what should his life be. There are births, deaths, loss, grief, abandonment, and yearning for family throughout the book… and basketball. William ends up working for the Chicago Bulls basketball organization. Another great book, I learned a lot, and I recommend it.

By the start of this week I was knitting again without my wrist braces (yay!) and I watched a couple of movies online while I stitched along. I’d heard about this new movie called Air that is the story of the development of Nike’s Air Jordan shoes, so I watched that Sunday night while stitching on the Soldotna Crop sweater.

Look at all the progress that I’ve made! I’m coming up on the point where I separate the arms from the body of the sweater.

I thought that this would be a movie about a scrappy little company creating a new shoe. Oh, it is that, but it is soooo much more. It is a story about purpose, finding your way, and basketball. It is about maintaining balance, recognizing your worth, demanding the best, and knowing that a shoe is just a shoe until a person who will be a force for change and a model of excellence, Michael Jordan, puts their foot into it. It is about risking it all in order to make a change. What a good movie! I seriously wanted to have a pair of Air Jordans for myself by the end of the movie, and it was even better because the basketball team involved is the Chicago Bulls in Chicago. William from Hello Beautiful‘s team!

There’s kind of a pattern here, huh? A president and first lady from Chicago. William finding himself again in Chicago at the Chicago Bulls. Nike putting all their marbles into one basket with a new shoe on the foot of a player that they think will be the future of basketball, a player for the Chicago Bulls. Synchronicity. Obviously, I need to watch some basketball…

While I was totally not paying attention, the Denver Nuggets, the NBA team in my area, advanced in the championship series. As it turns out, the game that could win them the championship was last Monday.

So, knitting like crazy, I watched my first basketball game in a couple of decades last Monday. The Denver Nuggets won! The first championship for the franchise ever. Fireworks were going off behind my house as I finished the last round of knitting before separating the arms from the body of the sweater; you know this sweater… it had been ripped and tinked for weeks as I struggled with it. Today I’m knitting away on the body, my wrists are pain free, and I seem to have popped out of the flare.

Basketball. Knitting. Perseverance.

Who knew basketball was so awesome?

I already knew about the knitting!

Mateo: have a wonderful Caturday, everyone!

Soldotna Saga: Knit by Night, Tink by Day…

The weather has been just crazy here. In the mornings the air is cool, the sky is bright blue, bees rule in the garden, and birdsong echoes through the backyard. The cats and I head outside to the catio where I enjoy my current book and morning latte while the cats chase the occasional miller moth and stalk bunnies from their side of the wire. When my latte is finished, I get a little gardening done while the flowerbeds are in the shade and the cats doze on the deck.

See how cool it is out in the yard? That huge mushroom just appeared under one of my trees. Several plantings are now starting to bloom, and the roses are covered with buds. Mornings outdoors are really cool!! By noon clouds are gathering, gloom begins to gather in the house, and ominous rumbles start to sound to the west. The afternoon thunderstorms are piling up and moving east; sometime soon there will be rain, lightening, thunder, hail and hopefully no tornado alert…

This week’s hailstorm… seriously, the weather has been something this year. I don’t know when I’ve seen so much rain before.

Trapped indoors, I spend the gloomy afternoons tinking back on my current knitting project, the Soldotna Crop.

What is going on? Well, there have been an endless run of knitting misadventures with the sweater. First of all, I started knitting this sweater while wearing braces on both wrists. Yeah. The tension was a little funky. I frogged the sweater after a couple of days and started over. I transitioned to compression wrist braces and managed to get a couple of inches into the sweater. Um… the short row turns left holes in the fabric of the sweater, so I frogged back and reknitted that evening using German short rows. Great. I finally got to the colors and started knitting the chart.

I started knitting using this order of yarns, starting with the dusty orchid and moving right.

Yeah. I didn’t like the way the third color, the turquoise multi, looked. I wanted the gold next to the dark plum. I tinked back and dug around in the yarn stash.

I decided to knit the color chart in these colors, the alternative selection.

I really liked the gold yarn in the #3 slot, but the light silver was too light, literally. The weight of the yarn made it seem flimsy in the knitting, so… I tinked it back out. Back to the stash.

That darker grey is a heavier yarn that played well with the others. Yay! I made a lot of progress, but after taking the knitting outside I decided that the new grey was a bad decision. I knitted a swatch with the original turquoise multi and laid it on the sweater.

There was more tinking. I don’t want to talk about it. Two days ago, I knit back with the newest color order and this what I got.

I think that I’m done tinking for now; the plan is to just keep knitting and let the color chips fall where they may. My hands are feeling so much better that I can knit pain-free again, but I am still wearing the compression wrist braces for now. I’m almost halfway through the color chart and my gauge is spot on. I’m feeling pretty good about the knitting and there is only one last concern hanging over me… I sure hope that this thing fits!!

Have you wondered how the Scrunch socks that I started while struggling with tendonitis are doing?

I’m hoping to get the socks done over the weekend. 🙂

So, that was the week. Beautiful mornings, lots of rain, and adventures in knitting every afternoon and evening.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Knitting Changes

You know, some of the best lessons in life are ones that you didn’t see coming. Years ago, I was a member of a 6th grade instructional team that taught integrated units. The kids were learning about Canada in social studies at that time, and the language arts teacher had them reading Julie of the Wolves. I read the book too even though I was the social studies/science teacher, and one of the lessons really stuck with me. It was advice from Julie’s father to her: if what you are doing doesn’t work, change what you are doing. I am not one to quit easily, but sometimes that isn’t the right attitude.

I’ve been struggling with my treatment plan for months and I finally decided that we needed to do something different. My pulmonologist stopped the medication (Ofev) that I was taking to treat my lung disease (interstitial lung disease) because of side effects and started me on two inhaled medications instead. In the aftermath of this change, every single one of my tendons has decided that it hates my guts. Everything, everything hurts, and my arms are back in braces. I have two canes going so I am never far from one when I walk, and the walker is back out for use in the house. Feeling sorry for myself, I was slow to realize that Hannah had a rash on her tummy, and she was just miserable, licking and cleaning herself so much all the hair was gone and she had open sores.

After eliminating everything that I could think of, I have concluded that Hannah is allergic to the blanket that I’m knitting!

That yarn that makes up the Nectar blanket is made of recycled fibers, and it includes raw silk. If you don’t know raw silk, it has a slight smell because the proteins from the silkworm cocoon are present. I kind of think that the silk is the problem, so I have packed the blanket away for now because Hannah LOVES TO LAY ON IT!!! Hannah got a bath with soothing anti-itch shampoo and the rash is gone and her fur is growing back. Bad yarn, bad!!

It hurt my hands too much to knit on it anyway. The lace is hard to work, and the purl rows are misery. Goodbye, blankie. You are going into time out for now.

I also packed away the yarns for the La Prairie sweater that I wanted (really badly) to knit because it is a cardigan and is knit back and forth (instead of in the round); all those purl rows on the wrong side will kill me. The yarn is now keeping company with the Nectar blanket in time out.

Obviously, I needed to find something that I can knit. What I’ve been knitting (and want to knit) isn’t working, but by golly, there must be something that I can knit on. Something that is only in the round, almost all knit stitches, and easy to pick up and put down again without losing my place.

These socks were a free pattern on Ravelry, and they are just what I needed. There is no ribbing at the top: just stockinette that curls around to form a rolled edge. The purl row is every 9 rounds, so I can manage that. The heel is made with all knit stitches! I’m able to knit with size 1 cable needles because I push them with the back of my hands without using my wrists.

The socks are slightly oversized so they are easy for me to pull on. I’m slowly making progress and my wrists have improved so much that I’ve transitioned from the hard braces to compression braces on my wrists while I work. I knit outside most mornings with the cats enjoying the birdsong and fresh air, dreaming about the colors to knit a Soldotna Crop sweater in fingering weight yarn.

The cats hang out under my swinging seat while I knit. I think that they are dreaming about catching bunnies…

Soldotna is written to be knit in DK weight yarn, but I think that is too heavy for me to use as a light topper over long-sleeved shirts. I have been messing around looking at other sweaters by this designer that I’ve made that were written for fingering weight, and I think that if I go up a size in the pattern, I can substitute fingering for the DK. Also, fingering is easier to work with while my hands are totally acting like assholes, and stranded knitting is slower knitting and hopefully easier on my hands than my usual speedy pace. Did I mention that there are no purls in this pattern once I’m through the first rows of ribbing?

As usual I am fussing about the colors and the order in which they will be knit. I had completely decided on the first combination (with Mateo in the background) when I decided to play around with a combination that is more colorful by adding in the turquoise multi. Everything depends on the order of the colors in the design; I’m pretty happy with the combination on the right, and I’ve decided that if I don’t like it, I’ll just shop the stash and start over with some other colors. You know, if what you’re doing doesn’t work… The other factor that is causing me to lean towards the more colorful set is that the yarn is a little heavy for fingering, so I have a better chance that it will work in the pattern.

Have I wound the yarn for the sweater yet? Nope. It still seems too exhausting right now, but it is hopefully set out by the umbrella swift in my dining room. Soon, Soldotna, someday soon my wrists and hands will decide to behave themselves and it will be your turn.

Take that scleroderma. You’ve been messing with the wrong knitter!

Notes:

Julie of the Wolves is one of the books that gets banned from time to time, but it certainly made an impact with me and my students loved it.
My pulmonologist says that there are two other drugs in the pipeline that I may be able to take when they are approved. Yay, science!
Hannah was the best girl ever with her bath. She didn’t struggle or even meow while I was washing her tummy and then she let me blow dry her with absolutely no fuss. How about that!
The color of the yarn that I am knitting the socks with is… Perfect Miracle. How cool is that? Just the color that I need right now.

The BioGeek Memoirs: Miller Moth

Last night a miller moth got into the house. The cats staked it out and Hannah kept trilling for me to come help her get it. The poor moth, trapped in my house in an environment that was definitely not safe, clung to the wall up near the ceiling.

These moths are small: about an inch across and they will leave a dusty powder behind if you touch them. This powder, reminiscent of the powder on people working in flour mills, is the source of the moth’s common name.

Later in the evening, after I had turned out lights in the house and was reading in bed, the moth, attracted by my reading light, arrived upstairs to bat and fly around my light. Chaos erupted as cats launched themselves towards the moth, and I grabbed the lamp. Mateo dove down the wall behind the bedside table, chasing the moth while Hannah tried to cut it off from the other side. Sigh. It was another long night…

This year there are an awful lot of moths on the move. Look at what showed up on my Facebook feed!

That’s right. As the cats and I know well, these moths are creatures of the night. I see them snacking on flowers that attract moths (lilacs, I’m talking to you!!) and bopping around lights during the night hours. Why these moths, creatures that hide from light all day, are attracted to sources of light at night, is a mystery to me, but there you are. There are several theories about why this happens, which you can read about here if you’d like.

Miller moths are annual visitors to my part of Colorado as they migrate westward towards the cooler foothills of the Rocky Mountains for the summer. In their caterpillar stage of life these moths existed as army cutworms, wreaking havoc on crops and grasses in fields on the Great Plains to the east. Once they emerge from their cocoons, the adults take to wing and head west in a great migration that lasts for weeks every May-June. Why are they doing this? There is a lot of speculation, but mostly it is thought that they are looking for better food and cooler conditions to survive the hot summer.

I try to keep a good attitude about the moths at this time of year. These moths are nocturnal and hunt for hiding places during the day where they are safe; too often they crawl into the cracks at the edges of the doors and windows and if you open one, the moth will take flight, end up in the house, and begin frantically searching for another hiding spot. Opening the garage door sets off a flurry of moths. I’m not going to lie; it can be really spooky when an unawares homeowner opens the front door to an erupting cloud of moths suddenly taking flight and batting against their face and hair. In my case it is worse because I have a storm door outside of my front door, and when I open the door, the moths have no place to fly except into my house. <Cue the cat excitement!!> How do those moths squeeze past the storm door to get inside the gap? They are experts at squeezing through tiny openings! Seriously, it has been so bad this year that this also showed up in my Facebook feed:

You are supposed to gently trap them and return them to the outside world where they belong. Here is the link to the article.

Can you hear Mateo wailing why??? He thinks that these moths are the best cat toys ever, and this is what Hannah looked like the first time she saw a moth on the wall:

Hannah: what is that??!

Well, the reason why they should go back outside is because they are important to the ecosystem. They are significant pollinators of flowers like the lilacs I mentioned above and other plants with strongly scented (and lightly colored) flowers. They are also important sources of food for birds like swallows; right now, there are furballs of swallows dipping and darting through some intersections and dodging cars as they snatch moths from the air. It is so bad it can be concerning when you approach the intersection; a swallow hit a car next to me while I was waiting at a light yesterday. Clearly, there are miller moths at these intersections and the birds are dive-bombing the cars as they hunt the moths. The reasons aren’t clear why the feeding is so good at some intersections, but as with all things miller moth, there you are. It must have to do with the lights, the lines between the poles, the swirling air, nearby fields, whatever. Just another magical phenomenon associated with the migration.

There is one last thing that I think of when the miller moths arrive. It is time for the kids to graduate! Year after year, graduation after graduation, I shook the hiding miller moths from my robes, carefully arranged my masters hood around my shoulders, and marched with my students as they left me and moved on with their lives.

The best migration ever!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Backyard Adventures

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Don’t you think that the new blankie looks nice with my fur? The Mother of Cats made good progress this week with 6 more hexagons knitted.

The weather suddenly turned nice this week and the Mother of Cats has been letting us spend more time out on the catio. WE LOVE THE CATIO!!! I mean, there is so much stuff to see out there that we never ever really saw before, and it keeps on changing all day long. The leaves move all by themselves!! There are more bugs than Mateo can chase, and this squirrel hangs around barking at us. Mateo wants to go play with it, but the Mother of Cats said no. She kind of says no a lot to Mateo. He kind of deserves it!

I’m not sure that this squirrel wants to play with Mateo the way it carries on up in the tree… so much noise!!

Luckily for Mateo the baby bunny is starting to get more used to us and comes out when we are on the catio. At first it wouldn’t come out if it even suspected that we were there, so Mateo had to resort to watching it from afar…

Eventually, the bunny began to come out to munch on dandelions while we were on the deck right by it. Now we can watch it up close as long as we move sneaky. Mateo is beside himself with excitement and I have to admit, I really like it too.

Do you see how close I can get to the bunny now?

Friday we spent all morning outside. The Mother of Cats was working on planting new flowers while we snoozed under the garden chair on the deck.

Lots of birds stopped by the yard: a blue jay, a robin, mourning doves, and even a crow. The leaves on the trees had just burst out of their buds that morning, and the ill-tempered squirrel was literally frolicking in the grass of the yard. It was a perfect, perfect morning.

Until the Mother of Cats looked up in time to see Mateo streaking across the lawn outside the catio wire…

Soooo… there is a little problem with Mateo. He likes to streak through doors, but if he thinks that he is trapped on the other side, he has a TOTAL COW with so much yowling and frantic racing around that it is just horrible to watch. That’s exactly what happened when Mateo figured out that he was trapped on the WRONG SIDE of the wire. The Mother of Cats put me into the house, and then went outside the wire to catch him. Nope. Nope. Nope. There was no catching that little CoalBear because he was too intent on getting back into the catio, he is covered in slippery fur, and he just kept racing past her and pawing at the wire. He acted like he was afraid of the Mother of Cats! Did I mention that he was yowling? The dog next door started barking, all the bunnies and birds were long gone, and things didn’t look good until the Mother of Cats finally managed to herd him towards the opening in the wire so he could return to safety. Whew. She let me back out, got the staple gun to secure every single inch of wire so that there were no gaps at all, and then turned around to see…

Mateo leaping off the table and over the catio wire like a freaking gazelle!!

Cue the yowling, frantic racing and wire pawing … Thank heavens the next-door dog had been taken away and wasn’t barking anymore. Yeah. We had to go through the WHOLE THING AGAIN to get him back to the safe catio.

Mateo: Hannah called me names after we got back into the house. Why is she so mean to me?

Today we are staying indoors and taking it easy. The Mother of Cats moved the table so that it is farther from the wire, but we can’t go out unless she is right with us.

That’s okay. During all that commotion a freaking MOTH got into the house.

So now I’m hanging out with the Mother of Cats while she knits, and Mateo is relentlessly tracking the moth. He is such a silly, silly boy.

Have a good Caturday, everyone.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Hannah and the CoalBear: The Blanket Update.

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I have a new box to sit in! This is my blackberry box.

The Mother of Cats has kind of been all over the map lately. She knits on a project, works on her plants, reads a book, knits on another project, starts listening to a different book, and on and on and on. She just can’t seem to settle down and get things done. The books are getting stacked up next to the bed, and the knitting project bags are all over the house!! It is just crazy! I have been hanging out with her trying to settle her down, and slowly she has gotten several knitting projects done. A hat, a PICC line cover, some socks, and a knitted cat all got done. The empty project bags are piling up and I’ve shoved most of them into places where she can’t see them. The CoalBear dragged one of them behind the plants in the living room and I have one stashed under the bed…

Finally, she is spending most of her time knitting my blanket. Yay!

The blanket is going to be made from these knitted hexagons. Don’t you like that color of pink? I think that it looks good with my fur.

The Mother of Cats knitted a whole bunch of the units and kept them in a box where I couldn’t play with them. What is up with that? Finally, last week we began sewing the little units of the blanket together.

Look at how nice the hexs are going together!

It got really nice and warm this week and the Mother of Cats finally let the CoalBear and me go outside. There are bugs out there! I was a little freaked out by the wind, but mostly it is wonderful to hang out on the catio with her while she sews on my blanket.

Yes, you read that right. The Mother of Cats put up chicken wire around the deck so the CoalBear and I can visit the outside, look at the bunny, and enjoy the breeze while staying safe. This is our catio now, and there is also a swinging garden seat and a nice table out there so the Mother of Cats can hang out with us as she enjoys her lunch and sews on the blanket. I just love spring, don’t you?

So, do you want to see the whole blanket? It’s not done but you can kind of imagine what it will look like someday…

Yesterday the Mother of Cats finished sewing together all of the hexagons that were made and she went back to knitting more hexs. She wants the blanket to be pretty big so there is still a lot of knitting to get done, and she is even talking about buying more yarn. What? When will this blanket ever get done?

That’s okay. I’ll just grap a nap while she’s knitting.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The blanket is being knit from the pattern Nectar Blanket by Ysolda Teague. I got a little carried away sewing together the units and my version is going to be bigger than the largest size in the pattern because, well, isn’t it really nice looking? I want it to cover the bed and I do have to share with the cats…

I’m going to have to get another large cable needle to put the border on this baby!

It has been just beautiful outdoors this week and I put out some potted plants. Yeah. It is going to be really cold again with snow this weekend. Those flowers with the cats on their catio will be heading into the garage tomorrow.