Shaman Has Always Insisted He Was the Perfect Cat

Yesterday morning, Woody saw a beautiful great blue heron just outside office door. Last night, a great deal of own hooting. It sounded like a pair of great horned owls.

If we have resident owls, that would explain why we’re not plagued with chipmunks nibbling on our tomatoes before we could pick them. We’ve also seen less rabbits this summer. We’ve had an incredible bounty of huge paste tomatoes, red and yellow maincrop tomatoes--but the pink tomatoes did poorly –not missed, we have so many reds and yellows. This morning, we canned 11 more pints of mostly paste tomatoes. I’ve never seen them so big. Paste tomatoes that weigh a pound? Hard to believe. And all the tomatoes are very juicy in spite of our long drought that only broke a bit this week.

Shaman went to the vet Thursday for his annual checkup. Our vet is on vacation so we had a new vet at the practice. She got down on the floor with Shaman and of course he rubbed against her, kissed her. She examined him and said he was a perfect weight, had a perfect coa,t and a perfect disposition.  In short, she said  he was a perfect cat. She said he is definitely a Maine coon cat, although an unusually small one. When we got him at the Northeast Animal Shelter, they told us he was the best kitten among all the 50 cats and kittens they had brought up from South Carolina.

We are still getting zucchini and eggplants. Tonight, I’ll make the half of a chicken left from last night into chicken salad, with sliced tomatoes [of course] and roasted beans.

Last evening started out humid but a cold front pushed down from Canada during the night and created good sleeping weather. I overslept. We appreciate the Canadian air, as we did not the wildfire smoke from Canada.  Last evening, we  watched half of the Michigan State game. They looked good, much better than last year. Tonight, we’ll watch the U of M game and see how they look. I am hoping the new quarterback is good, as last year, they had a good defense but a really lousy offense with two quarterbacks, neither of them even adequate.

I’ve been neglecting my garden and herb bed this week as I was working so hard on the book. I still hope to get through this editors’ comments by Wednesday. I have one more set of comments to go through, but they are much shorter and often more general. I want to get into the garden this long weekend.

This week is very, very crowded and busy. We’ve put off a number of medical appointments so as not to get stuck in Cape Cod August traffic and arrive late or not at all. Woody will have his fist cataract operation Thursday in Sancwich, about an hour and fifteen minutes from here. Our friend John from WOMR will be driving him, waiting around and bringing him back. Since I lost my license during Covid, I can’t help. We’re depending on our friends.