15 October 2011

Still High and Dry, for Now

.
15 October: Happy Birthday, Friedrich Nietzsche, wherever you are!
.
Locally, we are still not affected much by the floodwaters that have hit neighboring districts so hard. No one really knows what will happen in these next few days, so it is watch, wait, and Be Prepared.
.
Our latest news is that a stray kitten has mysteriously appeared in the corner of our courtyard. She is wild and scared and hiding under some corrugated metal sheets. When it rains, she cries, and it is heartbreaking. We put out some food, and she apparently ate it. Tomorrow we will start attempting to gain her trust with food and constantly talking to her from a non-threatening distance. One of my few areas of moderate expertise is taming cats, a skill learned growing up on the farm. (My nephew once called me “The Cat Whisperer.”) Cats are tough critters to domesticate – then after that they own you.
.
For this kitten it is a race against time, because neighborhood monitor lizards eat small cats. The monitors tunnel under our wall frequently, and we see one every week or so. We lost a litter of four kittens a few years ago to them, one by one, and we only figured it out too late when the last kitten, an almost full-grown adolescent male who had just been neutered, was killed but was too big to be swallowed. Dukkha everywhere.
.
-Zenwind.
.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.