Death has been hovering about lately, keeping me primed and focused on living. Maxwell is a good teacher in this respect, waking me up at 4:30 in the morning, even after having such a hard time breathing the last few days. I get up to let him out and question him- don't you want to stay resting, go back to bed, stay still? Take care. In the way I think of taking care. He looks back at me, clear. Certain. If I am going to live, I am going to live. And I understand. Why bother staying alive, doing this living business, if he can't enjoy things as he does, enjoy his catness. Being. His time prowling about in the back yard, sleeping in the tall grass, checking on the squirrels. Trying for one last bird. Mouse in the shed? Even just getting up to greet the day, lounge in the shade while I sit outside to meditate in the morning. Sit on my lap. Neck scratches. Head pats. Plenty of time to rest and breathe easy. Breathe hard. Live. Such as it is. I actually saw him jump the fence yesterday. Focus on that as it comes. As it goes. And not throw it away even though it is not as it was. As it used to be. I think of our life. How really it is never quite as it used to be. Because it is now. Not then.

I take him snacks in the yard now, hoping to coax some eating from him here and there. This food toting thing has worn off on Eva, who found him in one of his resting spots near the side of the house, between two large patches of daisies, in the sunshine. She now takes him tasty plates of beef and salmon or lobster and chicken each day to keep him enjoying his time here. Licking his lips one last time.

At night he sleeps with me. Or he doesn't. I keep wondering when he will pass, hoping his time will be peaceful and easy. Close to home so that I know. He pushes on with living, taking what he likes, living life {as fully} as he can. As he always has. I laugh, remembering his high jinks from years ago. Opening doors on his own. Ringing the bell to be let out. His strange fascination with every printer we have ever owned. Sleeping on the neighbors' couches. Opening the yard up to other cats, much to the dismay of Agnes.

The other cats treat him well. Magoo still asks to have her head washed. Agnes still eyes him warily. Both are enjoying the greater variety of food entering the house these last several weeks.

I imagine what it will be like when he dies. How I will miss him. But {honestly!} (surely) that's cheating. After all, I will not really know what it is like to miss him, be without him- not really- until he is really gone. Really. I keep this in mind as he sits purring on my lap. I try to be like him. Focus on living. Purr. Enjoy. Be. I feel his presence, as it is now, as it has been for the last 13 years. My cat. My friend. And I know that if he's going to go about this business of living, the least I can do is go about living with him. And set death aside, as it always is, for the time being. And be.

And other times? I cry and know how much I will miss him when his time surely comes. And I let that be as well.

fun and games

Eva set up a river today for leaf races and then a game with her favorite erasers that she is collecting these days-



Swimming at the mouth of the river. Guinea pig on his own rock island.



Frog keeping watch. Elephant and penguin slide.

Samuel is heavily immersed in Harry Potter and Transformers these days.



Optimus Prime- who, by the way, had us both pulling our hair out a few short weeks ago. Has that much time passed already?



The kids have both been enjoying the fresh sand and water in the sand/water table. I thought there was a hedgehog family crossing that bridge when I last looked but I see that the army guys wanted a photo of their own.

Samuel took apart one of our small etch-a-sketches a few days ago. I took some pictures because what was inside was so curious- the tiniest balls of what we found out later to be aluminum. We also discovered these tiny aluminum balls are fragile and easily crushed by human fingers. (Later, we saw some of our local "small" ants carrying away some of the balls to their nest. Building material? Housing supplies? Who can say.)



Sorry- nothing to properly give them scale, but you can imagine if one of the smallish ants could carry two at a time in her mouth.



And here is some of the smashed aluminum immersed in water.

The rest of the contraption consisted of two knobs, the purple, plastic shell, and glass for the screen. There was surely something more? Something else set aside with the test tube of aluminum Samuel saved. Some small, nifty, gadgety piece of goodness, no doubt, to preserve and treasure and remember the experience by.

We picked marionberries and boysenberries for the first time yesterday. I made a mostly-marionberry cobbler this morning with a few boysenberries thrown in for good measure and between Eva and I, half of it is gone. I am planning to make marionberry jam either later today or tomorrow and hoping to pick more of these berries to freeze and enjoy either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week with some blueberry picking thrown in tomorrow to keep things balanced.

Eva picked up some more currants and yellow raspberries from the u-pick's farm stand after we had finished picking. I told her I would make currant-raspberry granita if we had enough. Which we now do. Yum!

finished shawl

I'm so excited- last night I finished the shawl I've been working on. I tried it out this morning and it really is the perfect summer weight in Rowan summer tweed (70% silk, 30% cotton. I used color 537, summer berry.) The shawl is a Vine Stitch Wrap from I-can't-remember-which-book-from-the-library. {Sorry.} It measures 22 inches by 55 inches. I used size 10 1/2 needles.

This post could read Cats Keeping Cool-



Samuel took this picture of Maxwell sleeping in the tall grass recently. And here is Magoo resting on some dried leaves.

But then I couldn't resist throwing in one of Albert looking extra cute. And he doesn't seem to be keeping cool here, although who can say really but him.



Albert snuggled between two blankets.

berry lore

A few berry related events. We went to the upick on Monday before the heat struck and Eva ventured off to pick currants on her own. She had been practicing doing various errands around the upick the last couple of times- going to the bathroom, going back to the car for an umbrella, going for some water, that sort of thing. And this time she was off to the currant section. We're not sure what we are going to do with them but I have some ideas about jelly I am investigating.

The first jam of the season has been made and consumed in great quantities. Raspberry! I decided not to make strawberry jam this year and am planning, at least for the time being, to make at least some boysenberry jam, if not Marionberry or even black berry. I would love to make a cobbler as well but since I have frozen all of the excess berries at this point, I am waiting for it to cool off a bit before I head back to the upick to pick some more. I'm wondering if this heat will be enough to jump start some of the other berries who start to become available during this particular berry time.



I picked the first pint from our blueberry bushes out front the day before yesterday! Obviously, this is a very exciting event and I am looking forward to picking more. They are big and blue and perfect out there. I feel a little trepidation about going out this evening to see if there are more but may check on them if it cools off later.



Blueberry transition.