Toothsome Devil

I am Elwha.

I am a toothsome devil, young, muscular, handsome. I am sixteen pounds of muscle, a tiger cat, ISO of wonderful lady. DON’T get confused by my sister in the photograph. She likes to lean on me sometimes, especially when Mother is gone. Mother has been home, thank goodness. She goes out in the nasty car, but comes back by nighttime. It has been hot this week. She slept in the basement bed one night. My sister and I were a bit worried, it was different and confusing, but she apparently doesn’t have our heat tolerance. We loll in the upstairs when we want the heat.

Contact me, babes. I am in my prime and want to meet the lady cats.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: toothsome.

Goal achieved!

I am Elwha, cat.

I achieved an item from my bucket list today! My first prey!

I am in the cat cage in the wild outside. Mother opens the window some days. It has been cold and wet, but I go out anyhow. This time I see movement. I freeze and slowly stalk it. My hunt is successful and I make my catch. I squeeze through the door and carry it to the kitchen.

I put it down. I hope it will run, but it is slow. Still alive, though. Mother notices and admires it. I would let her eat it. She doesn’t take it.

Mother is proud, too. I hear her tell the phone β€œElwha caught his first worm!”

I taste the worm but I am not that hungry. I left it but it was gone later. Maybe mother got hungry after all.

I bet I can catch more for her!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bucket list.

Telegraph

Sol Duc’s posture telegraphs her thoughts. “Where have you been? This is past your bedtime/curfew. I don’t like that and I disapprove.”

“But Sol Duc, I was listening to a band, and it’s only 9 pm. My muscles are feeling better! I am not sleeping twelve hours a night.”

Elwha: “Mom, I was asleep. Why are you out? Sleeping twelve hours is nothing! I can sleep for twenty!”

Me: “Ok, ok, I am home. I am going to bed!”

Body language can say so much! For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: muscle.

Tulips

Yesterday I pick up my Community Supported Agriculture box from Reddog Farm. The box was ready on Wednesday but I forgot! I thought it started next week! At the beginning of the season, the box contains tulips. Though the tulips are not in the box. There is a sign: choose five tulips from the cooler. I love the tulips!

I love my CSA too. I have been in a CSA for all but two of the last 23 years. The first one was Collingwood Farms. My children loved the potatoes. They would look at me with sad sad eyes and say “These aren’t Collingwood potatoes!” when I would substitute ones from the grocery store. I could tell too. The local potatoes are much sweeter and more delicious.

A friend came with me to get my box and then we had sauteed leeks and kale at lunch. And Elwha likes to help with photographs.

We are blessed with choices of a variety of CSAs. They come to the Farmer’s Market, which also started last Saturday. I missed the goat parade, but went a little later and it was packed with people and produce. Hooray for the local farms and all the people supporting them in different ways.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

The pinch

I am Elwha.

Mother has relented, a little. I could feel the pinch of hunger in my belly. She seemed to be ignoring the offerings in my bowl. My sister has helped. She is able to climb up and get the gloves with the delicious animal smell. I do not know what the animal is, but it makes me more hungry than ever. She brought me a glove from high on the shelf and added it to the bowl after we had our sparse morning feeding! I was starting to feel as if my belly was pressed against my ribs! My sister is still rounded. She is smaller and doesn’t have my needs.

Yesterday I talked to mother all day and she finally relented and gave us extra food! We were out in the bird watching box for a good half hour. My sister talks about zippers but she is not able to manipulate them to let us out. We would very much like to eat one of those birds! Or four. Or more. Some, the gold ones, are very small. It is cold out and the sky wets on us, so I am more hungry than ever!

My sister would run out of the bird watching box in a moment. I would catch a bird, but then go back in. Those cars and trucks going by terrify me! Especially the recycling one and the buses. They want to devour me, I know it. Mother does not seem to fear them.

I feel better with the extra food. I hope that mother continues to give it to us. At least until we catch those birds.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pinch.

I must demur

I am Elwha, cat.”

I love my brother, but I must demur with him. He worries so.

It is true that we nearly starved as kittens. Our first mother disappeared and we cried and cried. We were picked up and brought to a strange cage place, with many many animals. It smells of fear and grief. Some of the cats are older and displaced. They have lost their families and are very sad.

Still, there was food! My brother is worse off than me, and often shoulders me aside when the food comes. I slap him with my claws if he is difficult and I get enough to eat. They give us more food than we can finish.

People handle us and pet us daily. At first I don’t like it but then I do. Elwha has a louder purr than me but I don’t care. The people must earn it.

Two women come one day and handle me and Elwha. They leave. Two days later we go to a very strange place and sleep. I wake groggy and kick my brother. The women are back and we are put in a smaller cage. This worries me but I am so groggy that I cannot fight. We are shaken for a while and then she lets us out.

In what turns out to be home and she is Mother now.

I am helping Elwha with his installations in the bowl. It is silly. We are not going to be starved. In fact, Elwha was getting portly and now he is a finer figure of a tom. Mother feeds us in separate rooms. I don’t put offerings in MY bowl, but I am willing to help him. We both enjoy the tissue paper, especially when it is red. It’s a bit of a waste to get it wet, but it makes him happy. I enjoyed shredding the last piece on the stairs, like a scene of death and destruction. I would dearly love to do the same to the birds, but Mother takes us out with harness only. I still like to go out.

I am Sol Duc.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: demur.