My Cat Toots

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

My cat Toots is not especially nice to strangers, in fact she is terrified of everything and pretty much acts feral... except with me when we are all alone.
I sleep with her every night, and I like to believe we mutually makes each other's life nicer, easier, warmer.
She was a kitten who was doomed at the shelter, the vet i had gone to when the love of my life "Kitty" was dieing, happened to pick up some kittens from the shelter who needed medical attention for a bad cold. Toots had almost died the day before and when they handed her to me she sneezed blood, then started purring in my arms.
Love at first sight is absolutely real.



Xoxoxo

Chicken Chasin' & Shovelin' Sh!t ( ft. JuJu the Donkey)

I don't really make plans anymore. I think there was a time though, many years ago that i could make plans and stick to them, that i could decide way in advance what i might be doing a particular day. Now I wake up in the morning and have no clue, i might get asked by the first person who rings my phone "what are going to do today"....
usually I have no plans, i have to make it up as i go along. I am almost living "in the moment" (maybe Eckhart Tolle would blush), but I wasnt trying to. I just fell into the abyss of no time frame (no watch, no schedule), and I can't say whether it is good or bad, only that I remember that alarm clocks are stressful evil noise makers and I think had i stuck with using one i would be mentally ill now.
I dont really know what i am doing with my life, but I know for me, life is for living.

Here is a video of today. I spent alot of hours, shoveling donkey poop that finally defrosted in JuJu's stall.


Xoxoxox

Ms. Buttersworth The Chicken Improves!

*
Here is my vid of Ms. Buttersworth my sick (but less sick now) chicken over the last 3 days. She is still staying in the Luck Cabin with me, but seems to be improving - thanks to everyone for their comments, ideas and help!



PS- For those that mighta missed it... Ms Buttersworth was acting strange, not seeking out food, shivering, hiding from the other chickens, isolating herself, lacking hygiene habits, acting confused & scared. She was eating and drinking if the food & water was brought to her, she just wasn't making any effort for herself.
I put garlic, ginger and usnea in her water and am keeping her fed by the nice warm wood stove.

Xoxoxo

Ms. Buttersworth (the chicken) Moves In (temporarily)

The last few days Ms. Buttersworth the chicken has seemed to be gettin' senile. She had been a little clucky and weird a few weeks before that, I thought maybe she was going through a possible nesting phase... but then she just seemed cold, confused, and I got that nursing home vibe. The last rung on the sanity ladder. Her lil' red comb on her head turned half black and patchy, flopped over a bit. When I would pick her up she seemed to be shivering, and was hiding in the corner of JuJu the donkey's hay pile.
So now Ms. Buttersworth is in the warmth of the Luck Cabin, her own private box with food & water... and a cat 'nurse' to watch over her. Toots the cat has been making BiG EyEs since I let Ms. ButterCrazy inside.
She eats and drinks. She just doesn't roost, or hang out with her friends, or seem to know where she is going...
is this chicken old age?
XOxoxo

A Day (or two) In The Life

On October 5th I turned 33. Not a big deal really except that it marked a ten year anniversary of something that would change my life forever. This of course led me to think in slightly different terms then usual - basically that silly deep contemplative junk that comes up while I am doing something like shoveling donkey poop, i think: WOW Whoooo woulda thought I'd be doing what I am doing right now back when I was 23...!
This is why instead of doing a ten year soul review (cause it's not like I'm having a near death experience just a birthday), i thought I'd do a day in the life! This is actually a day and 1/2....
*
Pictured at the top is what happens every morning. I sleep with my cat toots every night and in the morning I wake up with her either snuggled under the covers by my belly, or on top the covers by my belly. Always keeping me warm. I tell her that she is a "fish in the ocean of love" while petting her head, she lays back and looks like she's swimming through an invisible ocean and smashes her face against my hands.
Now that it's cold, before doing ANYTHING I get my fire started... I get dressed, eat a lara bar and prepare to greet outside and feed all my animals!

JuJu the donkey and all the chickens get fed a little corn (the chickens also get food scraps), and JuJu gets her 'flakes' of hay (mixed grass hay, never gluten grain hay)...

While all my babies are eating and happy, I take the time to shovel all the donkey shit. Unlike many other areas of my life, I am quite maticulous about keeping the animals fenced area clean. She usually poops in the same place over and over as if she's potty trained but my daily shoveling sometimes throws her off (i think JuJu thinks i am saying it wasn't a good spot to poop in.)

Each day I take the bucket of donkey poop and dump it in the organic gardens I am building. If I have really good energy I keep going with mushy rained on & trampled top soil from the fenced in area too. I usually max out at ten buckets in a day, cause dat' shit is heavy!

On this particular day, while building up the garden JuJu the donkey also went into HEAT again! When donkeys go into heat they make this attractive face (pictured below), while making smacking, chewing and breathing sounds. Some drool can happen from time to time. Chewed food falling out. Tail up. Alot of pee'ing.

After I've taken care of everyone I sit down at the computer to check on emails, stalk ya'll on facebook, check on my store, and watch music videos. ;) I spend time at the computer throughout the day, especially while resting and cooking (i cook all three meals a day).

A RARE thing that happened on this day was I cleaned my house...

only cause after the cob project it was a dangerous (broken plate pieces) and scary (donkey poop cob dirt smeared all over) place.

The tempature also dropped so drastically at the high elevations inthe mountains here, I had to carry all my plants in one by one... gawd I love my plants. So much. Most of them are herbs i use for cooking everyday. I set them up on little round logs so they could reach the light of the window.

Since basil is seasonal and had already died, i took the old peaches I had collected from a neighbor's tree to plant in that pot in hope's that next year at least one of those seeds will sprout a new tree. :)

A daily thing now too is splitting all the logs I have here. This is the stack I did in one day...

Lately, my gravity fed water has been getting clogged with silt. Since the spring water has now been boxed in I can't see exactly why this is happening but there's a good chance some North Carolina crawfish are playing around in there...

I have to blow the pipe.

A neat trick I learned, instead of shoving a long wire up there to unclog it, if i put my hand over the pipe and blow air up into the pipe hard enough the clog come out and tons of water rushed out. Sometimes so fast it hits my face before I can pull back.

I try to walk in the woods everyday. Which isn't hard to do cause I am surrounded. I think it is when I feel most relaxed, most energetic, most healthy and happy.

For my birthday me and Bort took a small trip to Waynesville, NC to go to my favorite thrift store ever! We thrift scored big time, I even found a winter coat that's washable and almost matches my donkey. :)

Next door to the Second Blessings thrift store this little town actually feeds their homeless and poverty stricken everyday. It's pretty awesome. I always wanted to help there but my stupid auto-immune disease won't let me touch the food.

Me and Bort also stopped at the lake there, called Lake Junaluska. All the times I lived near that lake and I had never sat by it. It had quacking & laughing ducks and sparkles reflecting off the surface.

As pretty as it was, I could not wait to get back home to my own lil' pond, and the quiet of my cabin.

I read. Alot. Usually before I go to bed, or by the fire, when evening comes, or when I am sick of the internet during the day. I get used books online, from friends, or borrow from my local Spring Creek Volunteer Library.

Was my average day as exciting as you thought?
Is it as exciting as I thought it would be when I was 23?
*I imagine 23 year old Leslie sitting outside the All Natural store on Magazine St. in New Orleans. Her eyelids shimmer with pink glitter, her lipstick is red, and her head is shaved on the sides. She's eating the daily special which happens to be a vegan Jambalaya (her favorite), she has no idea what is going to happen in a week or two. She is a successful artist, she's young, educated, what could go wrong. Her Italian artist boyfriend gets up to go use the bathroom...
and 33 year old Leslie comes to the table and sits in his place.

She says "In ten years you will be a recluse living in the woods in the mountains near Asheville, NC. You will never have returned to New Olreans, even this deli will no longer exsist. In the Mountains you will be surrounded by animals you love and love you, in a cabin, in a place so remote it will shock people. You will buy only hypoallergenic toilet paper, cook all your meals, and use a toilet that composts poo. You will know how to identify trees by their bark and plants you can eat in the forest. You will never eat this Jambalaya again."

23 year old Leslie will frown hard about the Jambalaya, but smile a big grin about all the rest. She will say "That sounds really fucking cool."*

Barnyard Relationship Building (when they discover each other)

Yesterday was the first moment that all my animals living at the Luck Cabin lined up in a perfect row and got acquainted. At the moment I have one donkey (Juju Bean), one cat (Toots) and one rooster with one hen (who need names but I am afraid if i name some animal will come and eat them!)
The donkey is being gentle with the chickens now, who are her neighbors in the mini barn - but upon their first meeting JuJu forgot about her HUGE-MUN-GUS size and was hauling ass after the squawkers trying to make friends (they ran and hid to her dismay). When Toots the cat finally came around on the outside of the fence, JuJu knew the smell was familiar, she sniffed the cat, then sniffed my clothes then the cat again - and made an acknowledgement beyond words. But when I put Toots inside the fence, Juju chased her trying to get close.
The BIG discovery though was when Toots, saw the chickens! ANd JUJU, all together. It was all she could do to keep from going crazzzzy - she tore at the ground, attacked sticks and dirt and plants, ran back and forth and showed off to her new friends. (Ya know when kitties get that wild bazzurk look in their eye and let the wind of their spirit control every movement....)
Slowly, we will evolve to all understand each other a little better, get in the groove of habits- luckily animals allow time for that sort of thing. In fact they demand it. Sometimes I wish the humans would let me just observe them from the other side of the fence, quietly before being thrown into hand shakes and introductions. But.... then everyone would think I was the weirdo stalker staring at their yard & houses. ;)

Xoxoxo

Toots At The Luck Cabin

I love my kitty Toots (pronounced like "tootsie roll")... she's my little buddy who used to sleep with me every night till she discovered the loft in the cabin. The loft is now Toot's private dark oasis. But here are some pics of me and her enjoying our time exploring, sleeping and playing together... (before the loft thing happened!)
Me and Toots in the morning pictured above and below is Toots on a rock in the creek.
And her protecting her territory, the ladder to the loft....

Xoxoxoxo

Pretty Things Outside

Here are some pictures I took today of some neat nature moments behind my house...
#1. Pinkish tree roots exposed from being on the edge of a stream/run off.
#2. Black Walnuts surrounded by chickweed.

#3. Old moss covered cinder blocks that toppled over making the shape of a tombstone.

#4. Tree branches hugging each other.

#5. My kitty Toots belonging on Cute Overload for being such an adorable watch cat!

Did I mention nature rocks!?!?

xoxo

Toots Uses A Reusable Shopping Bag

My kitty Toots really enjoys this lightweight organic cotton reusable shopper sent to me by designer Meadow. :) I cut a little hole for her to peek out of, since I knew I could sew it back together later... that is if she doesn't want to travel this way everyday. She loved it and purrrred happily in her faux womb.
( Don't mind me being in pajamas/long johns ... it's snowing today and I didn't think I needed to get dressed.) Isn't Toots the cutest !??!

Meet Toots

This is Toots (pronounced like tootsie roll and not the sound a horn makes.) She is my BFF who happens to be really small like me and a little scrappy looking too. She's not a lover or a fighter but more of a trashy diva. She eats healthy cat food (Califorina Naturals) that is gluten free because I have Celiac Sprue and I have to feed any animals I have around the same diet as me so that I can be licked without danger...
Toots doesn't kill much of anything except bugs, and when she gets attacked by normal sized cats she poops herself in defense- which is a great method that I hope I never have to use. We wake up every morning together and she stretches in my arms. :)

Having animals around is an amazing way to keep relaxed, happy & healthy - and to learn compassion for the biodiversity we exist in. If you are thinking of having an animal friend make sure to go to your local animal shelter, which is where I adopted Toots from!