Fast & Slow Changes
It’s August 26 and the light in the sky is changing. This I can see. This I know. The summer season here in the North is bending in the direction of autumn. Which also means winter is coming. Not swiftly, of course. Not next week or even next month. But it is on its way. Because no one season lasts forever. Every season is of the nature to change.
When I drive home on Monday nights after sangha in Missoula, it’s noticeably darker now. And because we live off-grid and manually move our 2 solar panels around like a sunflower rotates to track the sun, I am acutely aware of how the shade from the trees is shifting and growing, and how the sun is rising later in the morning and disappearing behind the trees earlier at the end of the day. According to the notes I keep, it’s likely we will need to start making occasional use of our gas powered generator to fill the batteries we run on for electricity soon.
Some changes happen quickly, others slowly.
Summer fades to fall, which turns to winter then back to spring, relatively slowly. But say you go from a no pets household to adopting 2 rescue kittens. That will change your life instantly! Oh. So. Did I mention we just doubled our permanent resident population here at EM? Yep. We just brought home 2 sister kittens from the Humane Society this past Saturday. They were found under someone’s porch in May and brought to the shelter about 6 weeks later. Both are now a little over 3 months old.
It’s been a long time since last we had young kittens like this around. Our last cat came to us when he was around a year old (RIP Larch). The 2 brother cats we had before him we got as kittens but that was over 20 years ago. So I kind of forgot what a handful kittens can sometimes be. We’re very delighted to enfold them into our little cabin though. And they won’t be kittens forever, thankfully. Once they get a little more settled in, we’ll introduce them to being outside, as they’ll be indoor/outdoor cats. For one, we’ve always had our cats be indoor/outdoor. Cats typically aren’t big fans of staying only inside. Also, indoor cats can drive a person insane, especially at night. There’s a reason cats sleep all day and it’s because they’re party animals at night. For two, we’re hoping they will help chase away our small critter population, which has been greatly increasing. So they’ll both be part of the family as beloved members and also have work they’ll hopefully be glad to do and will keep them busy.
We’d been considering getting cats for a little while. We like cats a lot. We like having them around. For us, they’re simply really good company. Having close animal friends to spend our days with feels like a special gift and a treat. They also, of course, take some work. But fortunately I have the time to tend to them. And the tending will get a lot easier in due time as they grow up, which with cats happens pretty swiftly. So please allow me to introduce you to R&R. River and Raven. They sure are cute.
