Willow, Willow, Willow

We picked up the new kitten in Hanover at the Last Resort Thursday afternoon. She is predominately white some black spots on her sides and brown markings on her head. She a very pretty kitten with a sweet face and amber eyes. The other cats were terrified of her, but Sugar Ray, my 15 ½ year old Burmese and a very gentle pacifist, already greets her with touching noses, the cat equivalent of kissing. Mingus is confused. He walks around howling occasionally. He is obsessed with her and follows her around stealthily. But when she approaches him, he runs away. He tried putting his paw on her head to show her he is now top cat, but her response was to bat him back, which upset him and again he ran away. Xena who is approximately 12 times her size, spent all the time in between her arrival and half an hour ago hiding from her. Now finally she has come out of hiding and is watching Willow from a safe distance but intently. Willow is playing with a toy Dale & Stephen gave the cats in December – under a plastic tent a little toy sticks out and can be programmed to moved around in fascinating way. Willow has been playing with it for about 40 minutes. Xena has finally gotten bored and gone off, but Mingus is sitting very close watching. I am pretty much prepared for my annual juried intensive poetry workshop. I wanted to have it all together before we got the kitten as I new she would take a lot of attention the first few days, especially, and so would the other cats. I had someone drop out just ten days before class when I had spent a day and a half on her poems, annotating them, preparing a critique. This never happened before. By chance my friend Martha, in whose cottages a number of my participants are lodging, had an old friend she had not seen in years staying in our of cottages –a published poet with two books out. She had intended to apply next year but Martha asked if I would consider taking her. I read her five poems and said I would. So I added her to the class. I sent off the critique to the woman who had left the class. I hope the new poet Ann will not be at a disadvantage, as almost all the others have been communicating on our private Facebook group for months, introducing themselves, sharing work, announcing publications. Ann is from Oregon. The spinach is gone but the broccoli is here. The first yellow summer squash have formed and are getting larger. We had a catastrophe with pole beans. It got very cold after we planted them and they didn’t germinate. They will all have to be replanted, but when? Woody is staking tomatoes and I have my class beginning. I wrote 3 poems this week but know I won’t write anything until a couple of days after the workshop ends. It’s too intensive and the focus all week is their work, not mine. I like teaching this workshop to serious poets with talent, but it is exhausting. I have been doing a lot of weeding; however, not today. I want to stay in and keep an eye on the cat population and their interactions. Since I’ve been working a lot outside this week and in the remainder of the time, prepping for the workshop, a lot of other things have been neglected. So I’m playing catch up with them. The cats are getting back to the new normal. Relations are progressing with all of them. Willow still runs away when we approach suddenly, but she purrs now when we pick her up.