Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Pandora In The Sky With Diamonds

by admin - 12:32 on 10 July 2013

Humanity has any number of caffeine-loaded energy drinks and legal highs from which to choose; the feline world has just one drug of choice – catnip – although Tess, typically, felt nothing when presented with drug-riddled playthings, unlike The Pride.

Its birthday presents included two small catnip mice for The Fearless Ones and a much bigger catnip fish for Maia, stolen from her within minutes by envious no-longer-kittens.

Since then, all three have enjoyed frantic playtimes with an increasingly drool-soaked fish, their fun starting out with much wrestling and hind-legs-scrabbling before dissolving into a spaced out purple haze.

If The Cat Police arrive on the doorstep to take Matchgirl into custody for supplying drugs, followed by Moggy Social Services to place The Pride in a place of safety, I won't be at all surprised. At least it means the birds are left alone.

Not that there are many around at the moment; it's the time of year when the garden goes quiet. Or maybe the unexpected heat has reduced avian activity.

So I was lucky to snap a young woodpecker this morning. Catching them on a close-by branch is almost impossible, as they're the most skittish birds in the garden, but this one gave me a few seconds before realising it was being watched.

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