Foggy Morning

I am up before sunrise these days…in my office before it is light outside. I noticed the fog advisory in the forecast and waited until it was light enough to go out to the patio for some pictures. Fog takes away familiar landmarks…making everything look different. It changes the perception of place considerably. I like the image with the holly and pine around the edge best.

At closer range everything just looks wet. Spider webs stand out because every strand is coated with tiny water droplets.

The leaf texture makes a difference in whether water beads or makes a film. The poke weed (picture on the right) had regrown very quickly from the cut stump of a few weeks ago.

A few minutes…and I went back indoors to continue my morning routine: dark chocolate and some reading.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 17, 2022

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Federal flood maps are outdated because of climate change – The challenge of record rainfall events becoming more common and resulting in flooding of places not seen as vulnerable previously.

Hundreds of Monumental “Kites” Spotted in Arabian Desert – Low stone walls that could be enclosures used to guide game for capture/slaughter as early as 8000 BC.

The mystery of the human sacrifices buried in Europe's bogs – Sacrifices or maybe burial for anyone that died mysteriously or unnaturally. I remember being fascinated about the ‘bog bodies’ back in 1970s…buying the book about them by P.V. Glob.

Diet change may make biggest impact on reducing heart risk in people with hypertension – Too bad that the study also found “the availability and affordability of healthy food sources does not easily allow people to follow the DASH diet.” Diets are hard enough to sustain without those extra challenges.

Despite its innocently furry appearance, the puss caterpillar’s sting is brutal – The don’t look vicious….but the hairs have poisonous barbs! There are other caterpillars that also have ‘hairs’ and can deliver painful stings – like the saddleback caterpillars. In general…I avoid handling caterpillars with hairs or bristles!

Cancers in adults under 50 on the rise globally – Earlier detection could account for some of the increase…but it is unlikely to be the sole reason. 8 of the 14 cancers on the rise are related to the digestive system. With those types of cancers, the hypothesis is that the food we eat has changed dramatically and has changed our microbiome composition…and eventual these changes influence disease risk and outcomes. There is still a lot of work to be done but it appears that the drastic rise in early onset cancer began around 1990.

The biggest myths of the teenage brain – Hopefully some of these findings will be factors in decision making for things like high school hours and how to help teenagers better understand themselves.

NREL Study Identifies Opportunities & Challenges of Achieving the U.S. Transformational Goal of 100% Clean Electricity by 2035 – No single solution….having multiple pathways to the goal is probably a good thing.

Arctic lakes are vanishing a century earlier than predicted – Warmer temperatures and more abundant autumn rainfall have caused permafrost around/beneath Arctic lakes to melt…and the lakes shank between 2000 to 2021. The reduction in lakes impacts migratory birds and other wildlife…and human communities in the Arctic.

Fall Foliage Prediction Map – My road trips this fall will offer many opportunities to see fall foliage: 1st week in October in Michigan and Canada, the rest of October around Missouri, then Texas later in October into November.

Reflecting the world when my grandparents were born

I recently browsed 12 books by Clifton Johnson in Internet Archive and realized that the years when they were published (1893 to 1915) were just prior and during the years my grandparents were born (1901-1912). My grandparents were born in Oklahoma and Texas; these places were not direct subjects of any of the books, but I thought my grandfather born in 1901 might have walked down a dusty road in Texas kicking up dust…dressed in overalls and a hat…just as pictured in The Farmer’s Boy. I couldn’t tell whether the boy in the picture had shoes or not; my grandfather talked about not wearing shoes when he was a child if it was warm enough because they always fit poorly and there was never enough money to buy new ones that fit. In the picture of “a schoolgirl at home” in Highways and Byways of the South – the bonnet reminds me of the type one of my grandmother’s wore when she was working outdoors for the duration of her long life.  

Johnson used both drawings and photographs to illustrate his books. The majority on this list are travel type books…but there are some fairy tale books too! According to the Wikipedia entry about him, he treated photographic prints as a “rough draft” – a challenging decision in pre-Photoshop days! He lived most of his life in the northeast of the US but travelled broadly…recording what he saw.

The Oak-Tree Fairy Book

The Farmer's Boy

New England and Its Neighbors

Highways and Byways of California

The New England Country

Highways and Byways of the Great Lakes

Highways and Byways of the Rocky Mountains

The Country School in New England

The book of country clouds and sunshine

Highways and Byways of the South

The Land of Heather

A book of fairy-tale bears; selections from favorite folk-lore stories

 

Enjoy the sample images (one from each book)!

Lake Springfield Meadow (2)

Continuing from yesterday’s post about our photography at Lake Springfield….this post features the images from my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS).

The water at the edges of the lake was low enough for lotus to flourish. There were still a few blooms. The sun was shining though one of the leaves showing its intricate veins.

I used my camera’s zoom to photograph the meadow from the path or mowed area. There were plenty of flowers to photograph.

And critters too. There was a large spider that was mostly hidden behind its web.

The grasshoppers were still enough for some photography. One was much smaller than the others and I wondered if it was an earlier instar of the larger ones.

The skippers were active. I didn’t see larger butterflies…maybe it wasn’t warm enough yet.

Dragonflies were flitting about…harder to photograph. One stayed on the asphalt path for a few seconds…a terrible background but the image shows the great color and structure of the body (too bad that the wings don’t show up very well).

Another was on a grass head for longer and I moved to get a better angle. The light on the body showed the structure and colors better than I remember seeing in the past. There was a notch out of one of the forewings and some wear on the trailing edge of both wings on that side. This was not a recently emerged dragonfly!

Overall – a lot to see and photograph with a short walk.

Lake Springfield Meadow (1)

My daughter suggested that we see that meadow near the Lake Springfield Boathouse…and it was a great end-of-August photography session. I took by phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e) for macro photography and my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). Today’s post contains the macro images and tomorrow’s post will showcase the bridge camera results.

When I use my phone for macro photograph, I almost always use my remote clicker to capture the image; that makes it easier to hold the phone still and at the right distance from the subject to get the composition/focus that I want.

There was a large sunflower near the boathouse that was full of insects. Since we parked near the boathouse, I photographed the plant at the beginning and end of the visit….mostly at the beginning. The only one of the series below from the later stop is the grasshopper! The morning was still cool enough for the insect to not be moving around yet.

In the meadow itself there were thistles and other late summer/fall flowers. There was a heavy dew that morning which had not dried up completely. The skippers were already flitting about but one of them was still for long enough for me to get close with my phone.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more from the Lake Springfield Meadow….

Slime Mold

One morning when I came back through our back gate after walking around the neighborhood ponds, I saw something unexpected in the grass. At first, I thought it was some escaped packing peanuts.

I took a closer look. Not packing peanuts. I took pictures….and later put them into iNaturalist. It identified it as a slime mold! I think I had expected slime molds to be shiny…and yellow…because that is how they were depicted in my biology textbook (many years ago when I was in college). But – it turns out that they dry out and are no longer slimy and they are other colors beside yellow too!

It’s thrilling to see something in my own yard that I’ve known about only from books previously….another thing to like about my move to Missouri!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 10, 2022

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Circadian rhythm disruption found to be common among mental health disorders – A lot of research challenges…therapeutic potential.

Striking Winners of the 2022 Black and White Photo Awards – Perhaps I’ll try a B/W photography project…

Global Survey: Climate Change is the Top Threat – Finally….more people are beginning in realize the peril of doing nothing.

Industrial Revolution Reversed 7,000-Year Cooling Trend in Siberia, Bringing Temperatures to Unprecedented Highs – Another aspect of climate change…that threatens to unleash more greenhouse gases…spurring further warming.

Wooden canoe burial discovered in Northern Patagonia – From 850-1,000 years ago….a woman buried in a ceremonial canoe made from a Chilean cedar.

Photographer gets rare glimpse of British Columbia’s Spirit Bear – The black bears with a mutation that blocks the production of melanin…and makes them less visible to salmon (i.e. they catch the fish more effectively than the bears that are black!).

Feeling anxious or blue? Ultra-processed foods may be to blame – A study with over 10 thousand participants. Learn more about the NOVA food classification system used in the study here.

In the field with wolverines – Interesting animals that live in northern areas around the world…only about 300 of them in the lower 48 of the US (in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming).

First sighting of massive Atlas moth confirmed (in Seattle) – The Atlas moth is from tropical Asia. The conservatory-based butterfly exhibit I volunteered with for several years (in Maryland) included them occasionally; they were contained in the facility following the permit requirements. Hopefully the one in Seattle didn’t find a mate. Their caterpillars would feast on leaves of apple and cherry trees.

These Early Entries From the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards Are a Hoot – Ending the gleanings list with some fun images.

Kittens! – Month 1

The first month with our 3 kittens has been full of small adventures for the whole household. They quickly got comfortable outside their sequestered area. Sometimes they were quiet enough for us to take pictures.

When I started packing for my trip to Carrollton, one of them decided one of the bags was a good perch….and he didn’t want to vacate.

While I was gone, my husband experimented with them out of their room during the night. The first night was OK but the second one they wanted to play most of the night. So - we’ve reverted to enticing them into their room with a late night snack.

The kittens like my husband’s office. They sometimes attempt to take over his keyboard and monitors. He has tried putting towels and boxes over the electrical cables on the floor to discourage their biting on the cables….they prefer the towels for naps. They still get into the extra office chair, but it will soon be too small to hold all three at once.

Puma discovered the receipt bin and Pooky joined him…tussle ensued. Typical behavior when they meet anywhere in the house.

The kittens have broken two glass coasters as they race around the house and over/under end tables. One end table fell over sending a coaster flying and another was swept clean when the racing kittens used it as part of the route through the den…another coaster flew and shattered. I’ve put the remaining glass coasters away and we are using unbreakable coasters.

It is now impossible to keep them off the kitchen counters completely. I made a small bouquet with items from the yard. The roses and crepe myrtle are still in place, but the wavy grass seed heads are bent and scattered. Maybe they looked too much like a toy to the kittens.

Overall – it’s been an eventful month and we are anticipating continued kitten adventures.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2

Settling in, developing new routines – 3rd month

It seems like the “settling in” picked up speed during this third month…the things we are doing now are the ones most important to making this place the home we want.

Kittens. Getting three kittens was a milestone for us. We had been without a cat since mid-January; even though we missed having a pet, we also realized it would be easier to make the long distance move without one. Once we were here, we waited until we had the house unpacked enough to be safe for kittens. And so – now we have 3 kittens (siblings) that are keeping us busy tweaking their environment to be safe for them…and not have too much damage to the furniture, drapery, etc. Having kittens will limit the travel we do together through the end of the year…but they provide an abundance of entertainment to make up for it.

Travel. I will be in Texas one week of each month to help enable my parents to remain independent in their own home….and celebrate their 70th anniversary in December. It’s not quite a routine yet but getting close; the way I handle laundry and snacks for the road and packing is becoming more consistent every month! And my husband is keeping busy with the kittens and visits from my daughter.

Birdfeeder. We now have 2 bird feeders….both visible from my office window. The one that seems to be the most popular is on a pole with our three holly trees around it. The birds seem to feel very secure coming there. The screen from the window blew off during a storm (I simply picked up and put it in the storage area of the basement)….so I can usually photograph the birdfeeder and bath through the window. I plan to clean the window frequently and enjoy the birds!

Yard. What a difference a month makes. The rains have been more consistent, and we’ve been able to reduce the frequency our sprinkler system comes on. Learning how to winterize the system is ahead of us…but not until we get closer to freezing temperatures. I am making plans to mow the yard (electric mower) probably beginning at the end of this season so I can enlarge the beds for shrubs, bulbs, and perennials in the back yard. I’d like to get bulbs planted this fall.  

State parks. We are starting a project to visit local and state parks. I’ve got a map showing all the parks within a 100-mile radius. They’ll make for some great day trips!

Previous ‘settling in’ posts: 1st month, 2nd month

Carrollton Yard – August 2022 (2)

My mother is maintaining her practice of cutting flowers in her garden to bring inside. In August there were two types of lilies! The naked lady lilies were beginning to fade but she had one of the last stalks for her arrangement. The shorter and darker pink fairly lilies were added for the lower tier.

The naked lady lilies have green foliage in the early summer then die back…sending up stalks with blooms in late summer. Each stalk has multiple blooms. The pink blooms lighten as they age. Most of the stalks were done by the time I arrived in August.

The fairy lilies have one bloom per stalk and stay a darker pink. They seem to bloom after a burst of moisture and were at their best after the August rains in Carrollton, Texas.

The garden has luxuriant borders of chives, and they are getting ready to bloom. I suspect that by the time I am back in September, there will be seeds forming! Maybe I’ll collect some to start some chive boarders of my own in Missouri!

Carrollton Yard – August 2022 (1)

The August temperature was not quite as hot…and a lot wetter. The Carrollton, Texas yard was looking better. I went out in the mornings while the temperature was still pleasant to pull weeds and capture images of the morning. One of the big trees visible in the distance (not far from the big power lines) still had some damage from the earlier very hot and dry weather but the damaged parts almost glowed in the light of the morning.

In the yard itself…I enjoyed using my phone for macro photography. I took the first series the morning after a ran when there was plenty of water still on the plants.

After that – the flowers were dry in the morning.

I enjoyed both the flowers and buds of the morning glory.

Tomorrow’s Carrollton yard post: two kinds of lilies and blooming chives…

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 3, 2022

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Pregnant women are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in dishware, hair coloring, plastics, and pesticides, study reveals – Something else for pregnant people to be anxious about. I wish these studies had a stronger component about how to reduce exposure, but it seems that the problematic chemicals are very pervasive.

The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier – These ideas a geared to making it easier for individuals to make healthier choices. Right now…it seems that the push is toward unhealthy food choices.

Cool planning for a hotter future – Actions we need to take to achieve the ‘late century rapid action’ maps.

Low physical function after age 65 associated with future cardiovascular disease – Individuals were assessed for walking speed, leg strength, and balance….and the scores were more predictive of cardiovascular disease risk than the traditional risk factors that work for middle-aged people (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking or diabetes).

On “Trash” Birds: Rethinking How We Label Common Species – There is no such thing as a ‘trash’ bird or any species. They are all just part of our world!

Can These Lights Make Crosswalks Safer for Pedestrians Distracted by Their Phones? – People shouldn’t be walking while looking at their cell phones more than where they are headed….but they do and maybe Hong Kong is ahead of us in developing a solution to reduce tragedies.

Is Breadfruit the Climate Change-Proof Food of the Future? – Not a food I know anything about…it’s not in our grocery stores yet. I looked at some recipes and it seems like it would be a versatile addition to our diet.

Archaeologists Call on UNESCO to Protect the Hagia Sophia – It’s sad when pieces of architectural history are not maintained. Hopefully this call will help organize what is needed to preserve Hagia Sophia.

Heat waves + air pollution can be a deadly combination: The health risk together is worse than either alone – There are ways to stay safe…but it is not possible for everyone all the time. We need to address the underlying issues for the health of everyone. Often – addressing air pollution also is step in a good direction of climate change as well.

See the Incredible Sunflower Superbloom in North Dakota – Wow! Maybe a trip to North Dakota some July/August should be added to our list of road trips we want to make.

eBotanical Prints – August 2022

20 botanical print books in August. My favorite book this month is the one about tree silhouettes! I will continue to browse Flora Costaricensis series in September.  

The whole list of 2,452 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the August 2022 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the August 2022 eBotanical Prints!

The Plant World Vol IX 1906 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1906

The Plant World Vol X 1907 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1907

The Plant World Vol XI 1908 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1908

The Plant World Vol XIII 1910 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1910

The Plant World Vol XIV 1911 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1911

How to draw & ink trees & shrubs in silhouette * Ehrlich, Frederic * sample image * 1931

The Plant World Vol XV 1912 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1912

The Plant World Vol XVII 1914 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1914

The Plant World Vol XVII 1915 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1915

The Plant World Vol XIX 1916 * The Wildflower Preservation Society * sample image * 1916

Flora Costaricensis No. 13 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1983

Flora Costaricensis No. 23 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1990

Flora Costaricensis No. 28 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1991

Flora Costaricensis No. 33 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1993

Flora Costaricensis No. 35 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1971

Flora Costaricensis No. 36 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1995

Flora Costaricensis No. 40 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1977

Flora Costaricensis No. 40 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 1999

Flora Costaricensis No. 41 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 2000

Flora Costaricensis No. 45 * Burger, William (editor) * sample image * 2005

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2022

The celebrations I noted in August 2022 are part of the continuum of transition to Missouri – our new home.

A neat garage. I celebrated how organized our garage looked after we set up the bunk bed frame for all the camping gear! Sometimes a quick and simple task can have a bigger impact than expected on our perception of place.

A rainy morning. It was a relief – and celebration - when we finally got some summer rain. The August temperatures have also been a little cooler than in July….and our grass has turned green again.

Roadtrip home. I celebrated my shortest time ever for the drive from Carrollton to Nixa. It was a Sunday so traffic was light…and the weather was dry.

Finding boxes of Atkins shakes. My husband only likes one flavor of Atkins shakes and I’d been challenged to find them in prior grocery shopping weeks…and then there were two on the shelf at Walmart! I celebrated (and put both of them in my cart).

Sooty, Pooky, and Puma. Celebrating new pets. Their antics are fun to watch…they demand interaction…challenge us to make small modifications to our household routine for their safety.  

Kittens napping. After times of high kitten activity (with 3 of them there are frequent chases, tussles, and a general tendancy to move small toys everywhere in the house), we celebrate some quiet time when all three are napping.

Mango chicken salad. I selected something new from the menu my daughter was ordering from….and celebrated the result!

Spider bite not infected. I went to Urgent Care with a bug bite different than I had ever experienced (painful and it looked different). They identified it as a probable spider bite and cautioned me that it might get worse before it got better. I got a tetanus shot and perscription strength topical antibiotic…celebrated that they said it did not look infected (and it never got infected although it is taking several weeks to heal).

Taking pictures through my office window. I like taking pictures through my office windows. A storm blew off one of the screens…and I’ve left it off. I haven’t taken many pictures through the window yet…but I am celebrating that I now have the physical setup to do it. I’ve seen chickadees and finches on the bird bath about 4 feet from where I sit….and a hummingbird investicated a plant nearby.

Coursera anatomy course. I celebrated completing another anatomy course (Anatomy of the chest, neck, and abdomen) from Yale on Coursera. Every module was well presented and interesting.

After Rain

We are finally getting some rain in our area of Missouri and our yard is green again. I went outside shortly after one of the rain showers and discovered the rose bush was full of water droplets – like jewels on the leaves and flowers. Sometimes that align with the edges or ridges of the plant but there was so much water that the beads sometimes were on any surface that would hold them! One of the flowers was acting like a bowl to hold the water and reminded me that some frogs in rain forests lay eggs in the bowls of water in bromeliads.

Other plants also were very wet and holding beads of water although the droplets seems smaller than the ones on the roses…and I noticed we have a lot of spider webs!

Our New Neighborhood – August 2022

I started out an early morning walk around the neighborhood ponds noticing the moon….almost matching the blue of the sky and the resulting image looking like a cyanotype print!

There were still a few flowers at the pond edge…and seed stalks that caught the light.

I noticed that river birches were the most numerous trees around the pond and decided that looking up into their canopy of leaves and curling bark was more interesting that viewing the whole tree. From further way.

There was a pine tree from a yard that hung over the path….a dense cross hatch of branches and needles that had detained a pine cone. All the cones that must have fallen to the ground had been picked up.

The tree I was most fascinated with was a willow – glorious with the light behind it. When I got closer, I noticed that there was a metal stake embedded in the trunk. Perhaps when it was a very young tree, it had been braced with a stake on each side….and no one came to remove the bracing. Slowly the tree is incorporating the stake into itself (this could be dangerous years in the future if the tree needs to be cut down).

I also noticed surface roots on all sides of the tree. Did the soil erode after the tree was planted?

There is probably more the this tree’s story…..

Spider Encounters

Earlier this month I had two close encounters with spiders.

The first happened when I noticed that one of the screens on my office windows had come off during a storm; I went out to retrieve it from the flower bed noticing that it was slightly warped – probably from being ripped out of the window frame. It was also very wet, so I put it in the shower stall. I checked the other screens, and one was partially out of the window frame; I stepped into the flower bed to take it the rest of the way out and put it in the shower too. That’s when I noticed several spiders making a new web from the bottom of the screens to the shower floor! I took a few photos and was thinking that the through-window photography would be better without the screens (i.e., I would just leave them off and enjoy the clarity of the view without the screens).

Back in front of my computer screens – I noticed that the back of my right calf felt strange. I saw a puncture wound already surrounded by redness; I went upstairs and applied cortisone cream. By the evening it was hurting like an injection into a tensed muscle and the redness was a bit larger. I started putting antibiotic on it. It was not better the next day; I had my husband draw around the redness with a Sharpie so we could tell if it was getting larger/smaller. A whitish gray area formed in the middle of the redness and the muscle was still hurting the next day and I realized that it was a something different than the usual bug bite – time to go to an Urgent Care facility. They decided it looked like a spider bite! I got a tetanus shot and prescription antibiotic. The bite looked worse before it started getting better! My theory now is that while I was having my positive experience retrieving screens/photographing spiders…I also got bitten – probably by a spider I didn’t even see when I stepped into the flower beds wearing a dress rather than my usual yard work jeans!

Yard Work

I had a high-priority bit of yard work to do after we set up the bunkbed frame for the camping gear: clear out the regrowth of the invasive pear tree in the crepe myrtle. On closer inspection there was another plant that was not the crepe myrtle also growing around the base.

I got my pruners and gauntlet gloves out…took the wheelbarrow to ease moving what I cut. I noticed that the poison ivy had regrown under the cedar on my way and pulled it. There was part of it that had grown up into the cedar enough to put out rootlets!

It didn’t take long to cut all the green on the pear sump and pull/cut the other plant too. The wheelbarrow was about half full. I cut one of the larger branches of the crepe myrtle because my attempt to brace it had not worked.

I opted to leave the cuttings in the wheelbarrow to dry out/reduce their bulk before I put them in the compost ring. I left the wheelbarrow on the patio under the deck and decided to photograph the longer crepe myrtle stem in the red wagon.

The red wagon had been under the stairs during recent rains and has some water in it – which is emptied out. I (thankfully) didn’t see any mosquito larvae in the water but there was a skeletonized leaf that stuck to the wagon when I poured the water off.

Took pictures of the bark, flowers, buds, and forming seed pods of the crepe myrtle…. appreciating the ease of my phone for some quick macros.

A little bit of yard work…that morphed into a photo shoot!

Kittens! – Day 5

The kittens were contained in the room with the futon overnight and we started thinking about continuing that indefinitely because they are so rambunctious when they have the run of the whole 1st floor. We introduced the donut (round tube with openings on two sides, dangling toys in the openings) that our adult cats enjoyed so much. The kittens used it very differently….not as a place to curl up for a nap….rather an obstacle course they could run through or around taking a swing or bite at the toys as they entered or exited. Action was too fast for good pictures!

After a lot of running around, they still enjoy a nap together in the extra office chair…but only if my husband stays in the office with them! They all want to play if there is a human moving around in their vicinity.

The big discovery of the day was the cat tree. It’s been in front of the piano room windows from the beginning but they didn’t notice it immediately. Puma was the first to climb it and he went all the way to the top the very first time. Sooty followed --- also all the way to the top. Their little claws are sharp; my husband has bigger scratches than me because he kept trying to rescue them before they jumped down from the top of the cat tree. We moved a chair close to the tree to give them an easier path up and down. The chair may need to be reupholstered after they graduate to adulthood!

This is the last daily Kittens! Post…but I will do some weekly posts.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4