Today's walk report and STAN!

 Happy Father's Day to all of the dads who bump into this post. I had a warm Father's Day greeting via the phone late morning from my boy but earlier I had another very special visit from feral feline friend Stan. The big deal there is that Stan has been AWOL since May the 4th at around 5:00 PM. Since Stan was first under the care of Docken beginning in April of 2017 and since I took over the reins in November of 2019 he has never been absent for more than 6 days and that only happened once. On several other occasions he was a no-show for 4 days but always showed up again on the 5th day, waiting patiently for breakfast on the patio. There were many, many days where Stan would hang out for most of the day here. Stan, again, is feral. I have only touched an outreached fingertip to Stan's nose on less than a dozen occasions. Many times I have worked in the yard with Stan crashed out on his lounge getting within a few feet of him but we both understood proper proxemics between us. Arm's length plus another foot or so has been the general rule of thumb. 

 
The story of Stan's absence and the surrounding circumstances is a long one and I may dedicate another post to it in the near future because I'd like a written record. 43 days and Stan was dearly missed but I kept thinking he would show up again. Every time I looked out onto the patio I thought I would see him and I checked dozens of times everyday. I also searched the neighborhood many times. "Abner, who's that person walking up and down the street hollering, STAN!?" "I don't know Gladys, some tall nut-job I suppose, now please, take a spoonful of your medicine." Friday's walk was actually two walks, I came home from the first walk, guzzled some Gatorade and headed out again. The second walk was dedicated to looking for Stan.

 
There were two recent sightings from a trail camera set up on the patio. The trail camera was a birthday gift from Docken. Thank you. Reviewing files on the trail camera became an early morning with coffee ritual once Stan disappeared. There was always this hopeful anticipation. I now think that both if these recordings might actually be of Willow, a stray female who was hounded by three other males back in March. Stan seemed to be more like a guardian to Willow.

Willow on March 18th.

Willow got knocked up by one of the three other males. Just a couple of days before Stan's disappearance he brought Willow to the patio for breakfast, she was the third female cat Stan had brought to the patio and the energy was--he was protecting them. He brought her here on May 3rd and I brought food out to both of them. On May 2nd I had a cat carrier set up in my garage and I tried to get a hold of Willow while she was eating on the 3rd. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do but I wanted to find a safe place for her to have kittens. I had picked up Willow on another occasion but this time she wasn't gonna have anything to do with that. She showed up again on the trail cam near dawn on the 5th. I suspect she had her kittens on May 6th. Again, this is part of a much longer story and I need to go back and confirm dates. I’ve edited this a few times already. Anyway, I'm thinking the two recent "black cat" sightings from the trail camera on 5/30 and again 6/10 are not Stan but rather Willow. For one, black shows up black on the trail camera. Note the plant containers on the patio and patio table in the second screenshot. The rubber mat hanging over the patio chair is gray. So is the low profile cat bed behind the left patio chair. And of course the patio is concrete gray.

I relocated the camera so the 940nm no glow IR LEDs lit the patio and not the ficus trees.

Check out Willow here, notice her legs and shoulders and the shape of her head. 

 More to come on this story. Two short conclusions as to Stan's long absence. One, it had something to do with Willow and her kittens. I'm still quite concerned about that chapter. Two, it has a lot to do with Stan's recent nemesis, one of the cats that was hounding Willow back in March, an orange and white tabby I named Julius. This image is from March. Julius also showed up on the trail cam last night and frequently shows up on camera spraying plants on the patio late evenings.

Here was Stan today. He's safe and he looked well. Stan is my buddy. I love Stan and Docken loves him too. It's been over 7 years. Stan is an amazing cat.

Onto today's walk, June 16th.

I decided to go back to the Braille Trail. I wanted to check on the Anna apples again and see if they were approaching ripeness. It's been two weeks.

The apples didn't appear any more ripe than they did on June 1st. Even the ground squirrels don't want to have much to do with them. It probably got a stomach ache.

How do I know that was a ground squirrel? It's more than just a guess. Here's a shot from the base of that tree.

A little wider...

Nice accommodations, I'd say.

Back to the tree for a moment. What's else is trying to drill holes in 'dem' apples?

Petunias.

One of the hoop houses had its door wide open. Looks like it's dedicated to growing some succulents. I mostly composed this image because it's a panorama that was basically coming toward me standing outside the door and I wanted to see if that would stitch okay.

Some Opuntia cactus, AKA, Mickey Mouse head cactus.

 Monarch butterfly on narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). The insect is a milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus.

Oenothera speciosa, evening primrose.

Iris germanica. bearded iris.

Canna lily.

This female red-tailed hawk has been profiled here before more than a couple of times. I've seen her for a few years now. This is how I learned that large wing feathers don't seem to grow back once lost.

Trying to get a better shot of her had me entering into this grove of palm trees. I have a story coming soon about the proliferation of palm trees in this part of SoCal. This is a vertical panorama. Some day I'm going to make an effort at bringing more than one camera lens so I don't feel the need to do stuff like this.

Myrtus communis, the common myrtle or true myrtle, native to southern Europe.

Catalpa speciosa, northern catalpa.

I took this picture because I thought I might want to bitch about an old tire lying around in here, apparently for years and what you can't see is that it's sitting right behind the campus "operations" buildings. I didn't even see the ground squirrel sitting on top munching on something when I took the picture. I was pretty far away and the squirrel is well camouflaged in front of the woody mulch.

I choose this song for Stan. I find it very cheerful and uplifting. It came up right around the time I was walking just to get a walk in and then heading back to my car. Thank you for coming home today, Stan.

Becoming Stan

 Happy Halloween!

Many posts ago I mentioned a book I received as a gift from my sister, Be More Cat. The title once again resonated with me recently during a discussion I was having with my feral feline friend Stan. To recap… Stan has been more than a welcomed visitor to this property for over four years. For about two years the lovely Docken took care of Stan when he visited mostly in the morning for some sleep and breakfast. She bought him a table for the patio and gave him two little houses, side by side on the table. He had a bed and blankets and as I recall he started using it pretty quickly. After breakfast he would generally take off to parts unknown. He still takes off for parts unknown but the obvious difference is… he does it a lot less frequently and he often comes when called, either by shaking a container of dry cat food or simply shouting out his name. Cats have an incredible sense of hearing, better than dogs and they can hear sounds four to five times farther away than humans can.

For approximately the last two years I started taking care of Stan, best I can. Remember, Stan is feral. Yes, food plays an important role. Docken still buys and donates lots of food for Stan and I let him know about it.

fe·ral

/ˈferəl,ˈfirəl/

adjective

(especially of an animal) in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication."a feral cat".

After two years, I have only had Stan barely touch the tip of my outstretched index finger with his nose on a few occasions. He’s generally cautious and controls my distance from him carefully. On another level, Stan trusts me. He’s comfortable with me to a degree he probably hasn’t felt with another human and it warms my heart. While he was trusting of Docken too, the difference now is… Stan hangs out with me. Stan looks for me and waits for me. In his own way and beyond anything he had here before, for the most part, this is Stan’s home. Yeah, the food, I know, the food… same with a pet dog though.

Getting back to my recent conversation with Stan and we have at least a short conversation everyday, sometimes a few times a day. Yes, it’s mostly one sided. Most mornings he’s just waiting for me to go inside so he can eat his breakfast but he does listen and he does respond with body language and blinking eyes. While I’m basically cordial with people, brief but polite, for the most part… I don’t like people all that much. Think about friends, think about really good friends who you can count on, heck throw in some of your family. These people are few and far between. Now think of something like Facebook (excuse me, Meta). Quit Facebook (and you should), quit Instagram (and you should), quit Twitter (because it makes you stupid), quit LinkedIn (because everybody lies) and watch, most of your “friends” will melt away forever. Anyway, Stan is feral, he avoids humans, he doesn’t trust them and the older I get the more I appreciate that. With help from Covid along with a really toxic sociopolitical climate, I’m a lot like my sweet colleague Stan.

Feral—used to describe an animal (such as a cat or dog) that has escaped and become wild.

I’m in the process of escaping. Hear me growl.

Black Cat by Gentle Giant, Please substitute he/his for she/her, thank you.

Update on Stan: 120822

 I know I should have done this earlier but I've been painfully busy. I mean literal pain was involved. I'm no spring chicken. I don't suppose I should advertise for "handyperson wanted" here on the blog, however... have you ever tried to find a handyman? And if you found one, then what happened? Hey, I have my own horror stories going back some 30+ years. So... never mind. 

Back to what I neglected to mention here. My most recent post was last Saturday, December 3rd and it began with a report on the lovely feral cat, Stan, who lives here when he feels like it. It's only a couple of paragraphs long but I'll provide the Cliff Notes version. Stan was hurt, he couldn't walk on his front right leg. It was day two of that and he was a no show the day before. Like a good, caring dad, I was concerned. Perhaps overly so but we (Docken, Lucy and I) are very fond of Stan.

Last Sunday, that would be December 4th, Stan showed up late for breakfast. I was anxiously looking for him every 5-10 minutes. I finally decided I needed to stop obsessing. I noticed late morning a lot of his dry food was gone and sure enough he was curled up in his house which sits on a 6' table on the patio (thank you, Docken). I left him alone and almost missed his departure. Fortunately, he had stopped to drink from a water bowl at the other end of the backyard. I spoke to him from the patio. I asked him if he'd like some Friskies. He licked his chops and I rushed inside to prepare a bowl. When I went back out he was waiting in the same spot, 30-something feet away. I put his dish down, patted my leg and said, come on Stan (this is an every morning ritual). I made sure he could hear the door click shut as I went back inside and watched from the living room windows. I saw him walk toward the patio--on all four paws! He was still favoring that right front leg but he was okay! Yay Stan! By Monday he seemed perfectly fine. Yay Stan!!

Anyway, I know there are some mystery folks who visit this silly blog on occasions and I thought I should report this to those mystery people just in case Stan tugged at their heartstrings last week. Here's Stan from this morning, post breakfast...

Today's no walk report: 110420

 Peace of Mind.

I've been thinking about this for awhile and now that I really need it, well, here we go.

Yesterday was election day in the United States and from the weekend leading up to election day until the day after election day, aka, today, I have been trying to move myself away from my reaction to it which I can put into simple terms... It makes me nauseous. I blame the educational system in this country. For the most part, public education is abysmal. We are also the nation of hate and fear. It’s not all of us, it’s not even most of us but those who live like that are loud and in our faces. We embrace reality TV as if it were culture. As Frank Zappa once noted, "People, we is not wrapped tight".

Anyway, this post is really about my cats because my cats, along with some music in the background, are an important detour for me in finding peace of mind. If there is any animal on this beautiful planet of ours that exemplifies the state known as Zen, it's the cat. Zen as translated by D.T. Suzuki as "being free from mind-attachment".

My sister gave me a book one Christmas, Be More Cat: Life Lessons From our Feline Friends by, Alison Davies. I just opened it randomly. How perfect...

 I take you to images of my two feline companions. They free my mind everyday, several times a day. This is Lucy, my most excellent friend for more than 14 years and Stan, an outdoor feral tom who first won the heart of dear Docken and has since become a very special part of the start of everyday here at home. No more commentary from me, just the pictures and perhaps a caption or two. These are in no particular order other than Lucy being first and Stan second. I didn't attempt any new edits including resizing. I'm searching over several hard drives and, again, over 14 years of photos.

This was probably her first week with me. 2006.

Lucy attacks Batman.

I was fixing the stereo, Lucy was inspecting.

A Genesis concert with dad.

Lucy contemplates Lucy.

I recorded a few of these.

Really? They're not real?

Watching a video of the hummingbird feeder.

She loved the helicopters. They're both in the shop now.

Her newly assembled cat tree. 2007?

She's a little more sedate in it, 2020.

Through the backyard window.

Note the Lucy pillow. A gift from my sister.

She gave a long, serious look at the stone Siamese when they first met.

Stan...

Stan, being feral, is often a bit of a challenge to get pictures of. However, Stan has touched my index finger with his nose several times. We're getting closer. Stan frequently comes when I call him. That took almost a year to happen.

 

Where does he go?

This is Stan saying, I love you, Eric.

Stan has a house, compliments of Docken Actually, it's a double wide condo with an electric bed.

Here's an earlier post with some pictures about Lucy and Stan's relationship. Lucy has a crush on Stan.

Let's not forget the music. Peace of Mind by Shakti. This song comes up with some frequency on the stereo depicted above.

Peace out.