Gift From Kitty

Have you ever had a pet bring you a ‘gift’ from the outdoors? Recently my mother informed me of a neighbor’s cat. The neighbor in question had forewarned her that his outdoor friendly cat likes to catch live snakes and bring them home. The neighbor also expressed there might be reason to believe the cat could indeed bring these live snakes to others in the neighbor it’s well acquainted with. When my mom relayed the conversation to me it got us to thinking of a special time in my early teens when my cat Tony at the time, had brought us half a dead squirrel. No I don’t mean it was half alive, I mean it was literally the top half of the poor little creature’s body. Pure suburban road kill that an adorable black and white cat had dropped between us girls so proudly and pleased with himself.

Instantly my mother and I had begun hysterically jumping around and screaming. This wasn’t like a dead bird we’ve unfortunately had cats catch and bring into the house before. Perhaps though the comic relief moment looking back on it, was when my freshly visually impaired father came into the room with a wad of paper towels ready to take care of the dead animal. He was of course asking us where it was and not thinking of how he couldn’t see, we simply pointed and screamed “It’s over there!” Tony, my cat at the time who so thoughtfully brought this present to us looked as puzzled as a cat can from all the commotion. Maybe that’s why he opted to pick it up and move it before my dad could pin-point where we were attempting to direct him as he was asking us, “Over where?”. It was when Tony picked it up to move it did my mother and I begin a whole new round of screams. Although we did manage to calm ourselves somewhat (not really, but let’s pretend shall we?) enough to finally inform my dad where the half-squirrel was and eventually the poor dead animal was taken care of.

Looking back on it, my parents and I do have a good laugh over the experience now. My cat Tony is no longer with us, hasn’t been for quite a number of years. However, his presence is most certainly marked permanently in our memories thanks to that unforgettable moment.

--XOXO, Jane

Coffees & Tractors

Only in the country will you see what I did yesterday early afternoon. I was still out of town and the sun seemed to be shining down for a moment. I happened to look out to capture the beautiful gaze of the lake across the street from where I was staying; when my gaze was captured by something you just don’t see every day. Well, not if you live in the suburb/city like me. I must say the sight I saw amused the heck out of me and caused me to laugh, because all I could think is that if I was a country girl I would probably be doing the same exact thing at one point or another. There is just nothing like looking out the window, to let your eyes be greeted with the sight of someone riding her tractor down the road casually with one hand on the wheel and the other hand holding a coffee.

Now I’m sure to many out there this may not seem unusual or strange. Heck, you may even find it more boring like an ever day occurrence and not so amusing. However, to a city chick like myself I admit I had to laugh. I sort of knew the woman driving her tractor down the road just from a couple happenstance meetings on my ventures out of town in the past. However, I just didn’t feel right or comfortable enough to snap a shot of her to share on here. Let alone actually just go on outside to ask her to take her photo while she was on the tractor with her coffee like that. She probably would have looked at me like I was completely nuts if I did. All well, the image of her will be imprinted on my memory for some time I’m sure. I swear though if I ever see someone getting around the Grand Rapids area on a tractor like that I will definitely have to take a photo to share. That would just be far too amusing and unusual for these parts.

--XOXO, Jane