Meet Cleo

About a month ago Lee Ann came across a troop of three tiny kittens at the barn where she works.  This is an occupational hazard - there are always unwanted litters being born to the semi-wild mom cats who live in the barns and fields.  Even if you don't really want another pet, if you are Lee Ann and have a tender spot for animals in peril you get one anyway.  She caught one of the kittens, then about four weeks old, and brought her home, and that kitten has become our Cleo.


We have been on a long downslope with pets.  Former supersonic dog Danny is thirteen, a two-time cancer survivor who sleeps more and more of the day.  Cat Stitches is twelve, once lean and mean but now pudgy - though still mean.  Both have lost a step or three.  Enter Cleo, who dashes around the house climbing the drapes and leaping from hiding like her tail is on fire.  It is as if we have staged the bearded oldster 2016 giving way to the bouncing baby 2017 with our animal corps, and while it will take more than the stroke of midnight for the torch to pass we are definitely positioning for the handoff.  Here's to fifteen more years of clawed upholstery.

A New Hopersimmon

It's not much to look at, I know, but on the bank of the Ohio River a few days ago I found American Persimmons on the ground and now I have their seeds.


When we lived in Georgetown we had such a tree in our backyard.  This is not a common thing, as far north as we are, and we felt we had been given a rather low-profile blessing - let's face it, most people have never seen a persimmon, let alone wanted one in their yard.  But to us this was a charming find.  Lee Ann figured out how to make persimmon pudding, which was probably on every American's list of favorite desserts in 1850 or so.  But then we moved, and the new owners (being more conventional types and therefore blind to the cool factor) cut down our little persimmon tree.  The dogs.


At our "new" place (we have been here six years) we planted a persimmon tree we got from a nursery.  It still has not borne fruit but it is probably one of those improved varieties with better yield, more sweetness and absolutely zero cool factor compared to the scarce original.  But now I have the seeds of four American Persimmons, enough for a grove, and in six or eight years I will let you know how the pudding turns out.