The Slow Slide Into Autumn and the Story of Sam

Summer is definitely over and we can only hope that next year we will have a much longer season. I feel like it ended in August just after we moved into the house. In fact in our second week here I noticed the leaves beginning to change on one of our trees and I thought it was dying! I didn't clue in right away that we had already begun to move into fall. Autumn on the other hand has been beautiful! Lots of sun and warm days interspersed with the occasional hurricane. Very slowly the leaves began to change color and then as the weather warmed up again things began to grow and bloom a second time. Just in the past week though there has been a distinct drop in temperature and it has begun to get cold. I had been wearing scarves with my coat but I have now dug out hats and mitts/gloves. Halloween will possibly be cold this year, not a warm one like last year unless it changes again. Hannah's 8th birthday is coming up next week and we were supposed to be doing a sleepover party this weekend but unfortunately we all got sick mid-week and then I ended up losing my voice so we've had to postpone it. Disappointing but at least Daddy will be home for the new date. I guess I got rundown. Go figure, sometimes I think I'm doing fine and then it sneaks up on me and my body shuts me down. So I've been lazing around doing not much of anything and eating lots of soup. Nice. I kind of wish it was like this more often but Hannah is involved in lots of activities and try as I might I can't bring myself to limit her. She loves to be on the go, unlike me who would rather be home chilling out more. Josiah is like me and would rather be home too which makes it difficult when we are getting ready to take Hannah to one of her activities because he usually protests. I lost my sitter again so I have to take Josiah with me when we go. I'm in a more remote location than before so that should make it even more challenging to find another sitter. What a pain in the @##.

We have a new addition to our family, Samantha aka Sam, the cat. A few weeks ago I noticed that we have mice and they were getting into places I didn't like at all. I thought we could stick it out until Art got home but there was no way I could handle it. I can't trap them, and although some folks think that's ridiculous, I still can't do it. I've tried live traps before and I seem to have this very real fear of mice and can't get near them to even release them from a trap. I can pick up spiders with my bare hands and I've picked up snakes and I've even slept in a tent that was infested with earwigs for 3 weeks while doing my yoga teacher training but I cannot deal with mice! So, I figured the next best thing was to let nature take care of itself and find a good mouser. So the hunt was on. I asked around to see if I could borrow a cat for a short while but that didn't pan out. I figured the best place to start were the shelters. I looked online and found some lovely prospects but some roadblocks as well. The SPCA will only allow you to adopt if all adults sign the adoption papers and Art wasn't due home for almost 3 weeks at that point. I decided to go in person to the next shelter but didn't have any better luck. We got checked over well by the owner and he decided that we were only suitable for the cat he chose for us. That meant either a kitten or male cat that he seemed determined to get rid of. Well I needed kitty to report for duty right away so a kitten wasn't right for us besides the fact I didn't want to have to raise a kitten, I have enough on my plate. And the other option wasn't right for us either. I had been informed by the girls at the barn where Hannah rides that if you want a mouser you need a female. Male cats are too lazy to chase mice they told me. Who knew. I guess they're like all the big cats. I didn't even bother to mention that I NEEDED a female because he didn't seem like the kind of person who would part with one of his precious kitties if he thought they were needed for anything other than sleeping all day and looking pretty. Goddess forbid that a cat should get to do what it loves to do just because it's unpleasant sounding to us. So we left there without a cat. Next I went for Kijiji which seemed like a good place but there were just lots of kittens. I left a couple of messages and in the meantime found another rescue website in the Valley with lots of adult cats. I saw a picture of a lovely calico female who was in foster care and called the number. The elderly gentleman who was looking after her had become quite attached to her and wanted to think about it overnight. She sounded perfect for us. He said she had a lovely disposition, was good with kids, very friendly and often brought home little presents for her owner. I gave him a call the next day and he decided he could part with her. The kids and I had all gotten sick and I even ended up losing my voice so I had to postpone our trip to get her until the weekend. Mom had decided she would go for the drive so after church that Sunday we left for the drive to Kentville. The gentleman who was fostering her, Al, was elderly and in his words 'gets confused easily' so he wasn't very clear in his directions. We headed for Kentville and then called him from a gas station to get more directions. He was confused about where we were and ended up not giving us very clear instructions. We didn't get very far before we realized we were lost. We stopped to get some clarification from someone at another gas station but we didn't have much to go on. There was a flashing amber light then a stop sign and then a street that is called Woodbridge, or so he thought. Mom thought for sure there was no cat and he was just leading us on. She couldn't believe that he was that confused and didn't know where he lived. Anyway, after more than one laughing fit I called him and explained where we were and he still couldn't give us directions. We had been driving around on secondary roads for awhile so when I finally found the highway again we decided to head back to where we were originally and try again. We ended up in Berwick, 2 more exits from where we started and asked directions to the old highway which he kept talking a lot about . I figured it was better to get on a road he knew, he was not familiar with the main highway at all. He apparently does not go very far. We were glad we hadn't invited Dad along for the trip and I was very happy Art wasn't with us because no man could have stuck that one out and for sure we would have been exchanging some awful words. Mom explained that in the country people give directions differently than in the city and that time, meaning how long it takes to get somewhere, has a different meaning. Uh huh, that was apparent even from the lovely folk who tried to help us along the way. So we found the old highway No. 1 and called Al and had him lead us in. Things had begun to go very well until we couldn't go any further because a bridge had been taken down and was being repaired so the road was out. There was no detour so Al came and met us. He didn't bring the cat though instead we had to follow him back to his house which was way off the beaten track in the middle of nowhere. He drove like a maniac on those old back roads, it was hard to keep up and from the turn right here to the turn left here then right again and then left and the right it was hard to believe that he was so confused he didn't know where the bloody Irving station was just off the main highway. But anyway, he'd obviously been driving those roads for years. I ran in and got the cat, he didn't seem to want to socialize and Mom said she wasn't getting out of the car, although I think he was just anxious to get it all over with as he was sad to see Sam go. He had to lead us back out because I would have been driving around in the woods for weeks trying to find a way back to the main road. I mean we were way out in the country. I put Sam in the pet carrier that I had bought on Kijiji and had picked up in Sackville on the way to the Valley and put her in the back of the car. We were not very far down the road when the cat jumped up on the back of the seat behind the kid's heads. Oops I mustn't have closed it properly. Al was insistent that we have a carrier and he wouldn't part with his, in fact he didn't give me anything except the cat and her health record, so I was hoping he wouldn't see her in his rearview mirror wandering around the car. Once he had left us I stopped and put her back in and we got back out on the highway but within seconds she jumped back up on the top of the seat. What the heck was going on?! We stopped in Wolfville to buy some apples and I put her back in the carrier and watched as she reached her paw up and pushed the zipper open a bit and then using her nose she pushed it open the rest of the way and jumped out again. Well, that was a waste of $20. We picked up some apples and got back on the road as it was getting late. The kids were getting hungry so we knew we were going to have to stop again and it would be dark when we were heading home. Sam wandered around for a bit and then crawled up on the dash and went to sleep for the drive home.

She is a lovely cat and although it was a long journey I'm glad we went and picked her up. She is so friendly. I'm keeping her separated from the dog until they get to know each other better which I figure is going to mean Zeus getting a couple of swats. I want her to be comfortable here first and it isn't like she doesn't know about him. He knows she's in the basement and barks whenever he catches a glimpse of her but she seems to be getting more used to his noise everyday. The kids love her and Josiah who usually plays so rough with the dog is gentle with her. He'll learn too if he isn't I guess. And the best part no sign of any mice or new droppings since she moved in. She's been spending her days in the basement which is where they are so if she isn't catching any then maybe they have moved on. Whatever, it works for me.