Nellie and the mouse...

Yesterday, a friend sent me a photo of my dear cat, Nellie, taken in one of her habitual locales:

(photo credit: Alice Higginson)

Nellie came to New Brunswick with me in 2009, hiding under the seat of the 26-foot U-Haul truck that my son, Geoff, and I drove from Whitehorse -- nine days on the road.  She was about two years old then, a former stray I had picked up at the local humane society... a bit standoffish like a typical cat, but she had some endearing habits, one of which you see above, another being that she loved to play fetch with sponge balls that she would retrieve expectantly, eager for another throw.

I had originally planned that she would be an indoor cat, but after watching her spend hours gazing out the window, poised as though to jump, tail twitching... always silent, but I could hear her internal keening... I caved, she became an outdoor cat and unwittingly, I laid down the path to her demise.  In October 2010, she went out one day and simply never returned.  Was it a fox that got her, an eagle?  I walked the woods and fields calling for days and days, watching for kill sites, but there was never a trace to be found to let me know what end she met.  Occasionally, for months afterward, I'd catch sight of her out of the corner of my eye, at the edge of the road or emerging from the trees beside the field, but of course it wasn't her, it was my heart's longing for her return.

Fast forward to today.  This morning I was getting ready to go to town for a life drawing session, when an item I needed went flying... search as I might, I couldn't find it, time was running short... oh, the hell with it I thought, I'll look later.  There was a more thorough search when I got home: under the couch, under the piano...  

Here, I must digress for a moment.  For the last few weeks, there has been a lingering unpleasant smell in my kitchen... a dead mouse, I'm sure, and though I've looked everywhere, even pulling out the fridge, stove and dishwasher (my kitchen is now as clean as humanly possible when apparently there's something dead in it), there's been nothing to indicate where the smell could be coming from.  Maybe in a wall somewhere or under a cabinet, though I can find no signs of egress.  The smell is mostly faded now but needless to say, it's been an unsettling business.  Mice don't ruffle me, except when they're dead and rotting somewhere.

So imagine my reaction when I peered beneath the piano and saw in the dimness... a mouse carcass, lying on its side.  Tail, white throat, the dark shape where a mouth would be... but wait, there had been no smell from under the piano... what was I looking at -- a mouse mummy? 

I reached for the yardstick -- really, do yardsticks serve any purpose higher than that of sweeping things out from dark recesses under heavy furniture? --  gave a swipe... and this is what emerged:

Oh, Nellie!  I do miss you...

The kindnesses of strangers

Okay, perhaps this is what they call "pent up demand".  Three blog posts in one day is probably excessive, but the snow plow just passed in front of my driveway.  And thankfully, the driver backed down to the end of my dead-end road, which means that the windrow of snow ended up on the far side of the road, across from my driveway.  

Do you appreciate what that means?  

I am incredibly grateful that the government road crews in this area do the kindness of backing down to the end of this short road, plowing forward with the snow pile ending up on the "north" side of the road, when all the dwellings are on the "south" side.  Nobody's driveway is blocked.  Such a kindness!  I ran out to the road and flagged down the plow driver to say thank you.  Not that I'm the hero; the drivers are.  (I wish I knew how to insert a heart here -- that's the price of being 65 and an internet klutz.  Heart... heart... heart!)

The fabled Nor'easter

As someone who grew up far from the sea and who spent most of my adult life on the west side of Canada, I had heard of the Nor'easter and was aware it was weather that easterners respected and even feared... but it was mythological, the subject of folksongs and tales, not anything within my ken. 

Now that I've lived in the Maritimes through six winters and the beginnings of a 7th, the Nor-easter is old hat.  You fill the woodbox ahead of time, then hunker down, stay inside if you can, avoid the roads at all costs, make soups or stews, find sedentary things to do (like reactivating this blog), go to bed early or otherwise wait it out.  The weather forecast on the radio this morning wasn't for a winter storm or blowing snow, it was for a Nor'easter... as though everyone listening knows what that means, what comes with the package, without needing to have it spelled out: gusty winds, blowing snow, drifts across your doorway and other inconvenient locales, windows plastered with snow on the prevailing-wind side of the house... um, the northeast side... and if things are really howling, the possibility of a power outage.  Oh joy!

Never let it be said that I'm a competent videographer, especially with my tiny Canon Powershot camera, but I thought I'd post a small Nor'easter sample for your viewing pleasure (especially pleasureful if you're watching in a warm, sunny place)...  Try to imagine the sounds that weren't picked up: the chirps of chickadees unfazed by the storm, and the muted sonorousness of the fog horn aiming to be heard above the blast... as if any mariner were foolish enough to be out on the Bay...

In the nearly interminable time it took to upload that video, I got stir-crazy enough to go out and shovel off the back deck even though the snow isn't expected to stop for another 7 hours... at least the drift in front of the door won't be quite so deep tomorrow morning...  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to attend to my soup...

Kate Eardley Wonderment is ba-ack...

After a hiatus of many years, I've decided to resume this blog.  Why?  Because people who enjoy my writing occasionally encourage me to write a book... and because I haven't got a clue what I'd write a book about... but I like writing... and even if no one's listening, occasionally there are things on my mind I'd like to say...

So here we go.  This time around, the blog will be public rather than restricted.  I feel less need to safeguard my privacy than I did lo, those many years ago.  Progress, I guess.  Much has happened in my life since then, notably the fact that at the ripe old age of 61, I returned to school, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University to be precise, and graduated this past spring with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Photography.  Back in 2010, I would never have seen that coming; now, it's in the past and I'm working through the transition from art student to practicing artist -- with some successes and more than a few challenges involved.  Among other things, I'm going to write about that process, in part because I need a forum to air my own related, internal meanderings but also because I suspect there are others "out there" who would benefit from knowing that they aren't walking that same twisty-turny road alone.  If a dialogue ensues, perhaps there will be others who can help me on my own journey. 

However, that's not all I'll write about... as you'll see in the next post!