In the middle of the rain some fierce sounding rain awakened me. It sounded like hammers hitting our metal roof. It was a fast, full on fury for a few minutes and then it subsided to less than a dull roar. I got up to check downstairs and see if anything was askew. Thankfully, nothing but a whiny cat wanting a midnight snack. It took a bit but falling back to sleep after a brief scare is always welcomed. This morning I slept in a bit and woke up in that groggy state, where it takes a little bit of time to begin to function. Buddy was waiting for me in the hallway, so we descended the stairs, she being much quicker than I. A quick check out back found Punky resting on a rock waiting for breakfast. So after getting the coffee started and Buddy treated, I headed to the garage to prepare a delicious Saturday morning breakfast for Punky and Strawyer. Soon after their morning grooming the kittens joined them out on the rocks. Lots of rambunctious playtime of slipping and sliding and chasing their own tails. The runt, whose gray patch on the top of their head that looks like a toupee, hangs with Punky most of the time and only joins in occasionally. Poor Strawyer doesn't quite know what to do with these kiddos running around. Sometimes he playfully swats at them and other times he lets them come close and touch his nose.
With a little less than an hour to run a couple of errands and by gauging the sky while leaving, I decided filling up the truck and going to the grocery store were the priorities facing me with this time crunch. Sure enough, I had put the cart up and started the truck when this horrible noise, that I took for a motor type problem, began...no, it was only some of the hardest rain pelting the truck with a good force. It was a tedious drive back home, maybe not getting over thirty miles an hour. The rain let up just a bit and I was able to get the groceries in. Then, the deluge hit. In just a little over an hour the rain gauge measured around 2 inches. The rocks on the incline did their job but other little waterfalls formed. I was worried about the kittens, surely they were over under the grill. A white and orange flash caught my eye...drenched little kitten coming out of the cleft of the rock. I could see a gray and white face looking out from one of the bushes. I felt so helpless...what to do? Would Punky let me help them? The meows of distress were sounding over the pounding rain. I put on my galoshes and opened up the garage door, then the side door. Punky came out from a shrub carrying a kitten in her mouth. Almost too big for her to carry now but two other kittens followed behind. She was barking out, or should that be meowing out, orders left and right to those kittens when she put the kitten in her mouth down. They sat there on a rock while she came over to the garage and checked it out...she brought the kittens over near me but placed them under the storage tote. She went back for the other kitten. I got some towels and began drying off those kittens much to their dislike. That fourth kitten came out with her, then ran back into the bushes. Back Punky went to get that kitten...it wouldn't budge. She came back to the garage and meowed those kittens to follow her under the grill. The little kitten mewed constantly. I went over to the bushes and climbed up into them. The lightning and the rain was a bit unnerving and it didn't feel safe to be out there in all that mess. So, back to the garage, cleaned off the yuck and went into the house and onto the back porch. Punky stayed with the three while the prodigal cried in the bushes. When the rain let up just a bit, she ventured out again calling for that kitten. It took three times but finally that little one came down to drier spaces with mom and reunited with its siblings.
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That all happened on Saturday and it is now Monday. We got a reprieve from the rain that was forecast yesterday and it was a beautiful day. I've changed my plans for today just because....I like these kinds of days.
Buddy had a restless night Saturday thus that translates into one for me as well. All those awake hours aren't wasted but it does tire me out. On Saturday morning Roy had asked me to send him my taco soup recipe. Sent it with added notes of different things to add or not add. He told me later how he made the soup and to be honest...I got a little miffed over it. It sounded like he totally messed it up and made more work for himself than needed to be done. Such a minor and stupid thing for me to get miffed over but when one doesn't really cook but one has perfected taco soup, well guess my feelings were hurt. In those awake hours, after being so pious praying and thinking through the lesson for Sunday morning, I got to thinking about that taco soup debacle. Well, the debacle is mine, not Roy's. Sunday morning I apologized to Roy for overreacting to the whole thing and the story made it into the lesson, twice...what we meditate on...skews or blesses our thoughts, prepares us for the moment or moments God will use us..and by wanting Roy to make the soup exactly as written, well, that was me just putting "Saul's armor" on him. Told him later about using the illustration and assured him, I was the bad actor in the story...he came out smelling like...well...his version of taco soup.
Since I had the less than three hours of sleep kind of night, I left after Sunday School. Made a quick trip to Fresh Market and came home, ate lunch and took a nap. Before leaving for church earlier that morning, I snapped a few pics of the kittens at rest and then awakening to rough house with one another. Upon returning home, I saw two kittens resting on the rock, but didn't see the orange kitten nor the other kitten that I have named Bolt, for two reasons. Bolt is the kitten that wouldn't come down to the others in the pouring rain and looking back, he might not have been scared but rebellious. He explores farther away from the others and marches to the beat of a different drum. Even yesterday morning he still had all the red clay on his one side while everyone else had groomed and cleaned themselves up nicely. The second reason is in the middle of that gray patch on his back is a streak of white that looks like a lightning bolt...so his name is Bolt. Later in the afternoon, Punky was searching and calling out for those two kittens. She kept arranging the other two on the rock where she could see them. She kept going out onto the driveway, so I went out there and searched all the regular spots, no kittens. Her pacing picked up and her frantic passion of keeping Mama Cat away from the backyard intensified. A little later here came Strawyer coming out of the weeds and coverings of the ravine part of the gravel road and behind him, the two kittens. They certainly were disheveled and a worse for the wear. Maybe the call of the gravel road, that has called out to the multi generations of these cats was too much to resist. There was a very happy reunion of the four and mom joined in once she figured out her little family was together again. The two that hung around? Well, they were treated with a little snack. When I brought it to them, they went back into the shrubs but kept their faces where they could be seen. Really trying to get them used to me and socialize them. With all the kittens that have passed through the yard, I have been able to observe and interact with these more than any other litter. They came to the yard being the youngest and whatever the attraction has been in the past for the corner up on the gravel road, it isn't holding much interest these days. The terrain under the porch is very different than when it was the deck. So when the kittens were very young, they were under there but with all the rain in recent weeks and when construction was in their midst, it wasn't a good choice. Punky is hiding these kittens under the shrubs and it looks as if the cleft of the rock isn't a popular choice, probably because of the rain Saturday and the fact the kittens have grown since they first found solace there.
I was considering a drive to Otto NC to look at places there for chairs for the table on the porch but I think I can find what I'm looking for closer to home. It is just being consistent by checking on local shops. So there you have it, my life this past week, cats, studying to teach, and shopping for chairs in consignment shops and antique stores. Boring, maybe to others but for me contentment. Well, except for the muddy part searching for a kitty.
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