So, the stray kitten is fitting in perfectly well with our already strange and weird family, as you can see. So, this is a miniature adventure story that leads to mushrooms! I don't know if it will technically be a miniature adventure story, but it does, indeed, lead to mushrooms. So, I settled on the name Yata (Yahtuh), which is Greek for cat. He likes it, but the rest of my family does not. There's complaints of, "It's too difficult!" and "It sounds like an old lady." No, that would be Yaya or Yaiyai (Yahyuh) which is Greek for grandmother. The Sister has been calling him Kitty and Yeti and dad's been calling him Toto. Whatever. I'm not too concerned. The kitten will come to any human voice that seems like it's calling him. He spends most of his time on the breezeway (shown in the photo), the garage (to the back of this photo) and the deck (to the left of this photo). He'll scamper around the front yard with you to retrieve mail or just if you're out there working; which was the case with dad. His toys are climbing and scratching tree trunks, twigs, grass, pinecones, power tools, and cords. No, really, I caught him playing with dad's table saw the other day, well the cord of it. I decided he needed a bed, since none of dads junk is comfy cozy, though he'd been sleeping on this little two shelving unit (just to the right of the photo) on top of small metal beams, an old T-shirt that is a rag, a soft red case containing grilling tools (we'll need those this year) and a leaf blower. So, I found a cardboard box and cut a wide and low hole in the front center and put an old blanket of mine in there. I put him in it and he seemed confused. "Yer ta sleep in there, Yata. This is yer comfy cozy bed. Just fur you." Because honestly, that is what I sound like when I talk, there's no proper your or for about it. Later I went to check on him, peering out the kitchen door and he was playing in the box and the tumbled over the side onto the shelf and started playing with the cord of the power saw. Later when I checked on him again, he had a corner of the blanket in his mouth trying to tug it out of the box. The next morning, the blanket was back in the box. I asked dad if he'd fixed it and he hadn't realized that I'd given Toto a box. So he put it back himself! Precious! When he's really hungry, he climbs up the screen door, like in the above photo, and meows. I have to open the screen door, reach around and take him off and then proceed with him and the food to his bowls. The Sister didn't want any part of this kitten and she's been house sitting anyway, so only comes back here occasionally. This weekend though, she kept going outside to visit him and play with him. He tromped through the front yard with us and we were playing with him in the grass and she said I should let Colonel Mustard out. I opened the kitchen door onto the hall and then opened the front door. I trumpeted (which is his particular call) and he shot through the hallway and out the front door like a rocket, shooting past The Sister who reached her arms out and gently caught him to slow him down. He's the only cat the we have that wants to be outside. He met Yata and hissed. Yata cowered a little, but thought the ginormous Gingie was super cool and wanted to follow him around and be just like him. We decided we'd let them pal around together for awhile and left to go inside. Then it rained. A lot. And The Sister said, "Perhaps we should check on Colonel Mustard?" I had forgotten he was outside because it's not a normal occurence that we let him go outside. Just the day before I'd forgotten him in the bathroom. He'd gone in there with me when I went to brush my teeth and he wasn't in sight (but on the laundry hamper in the open closet) and I forgot. When I went back in later, before I'd turned on the light, there was this large thing between the sinks on the cabinet. "Odd, I don't remember leaving anything in here on the cabinet." and then it turned it's head to look at me and I screamed a little while in the middle of turning on the lights, but it was only Colonel Mustard. So, I went out on the breezeway and trumpeted for him. Yata came running to me right away and then I heard Colonel Mustard crying in fright, and it sounded like it was coming from the back yard. We (Yata and I) made our way out onto the rotting deck and I kept calling his name and trumpeting. Then he appeared , below me in the backyard, and was looking at me with a panic stricken face as if to say, "Help! How do I get back up there!! Also, I'm completely wet!" So, I dashed back into the house and down the basement stairs, past our sleeping dog Mika, and out the partially opened sliding glass door. There I called him again and he wanted to run as quickly as possible to me, but there's some metal cabinet of dads and the lawnmower with a wheel barrow attachment fix to it. So, it was taking him awhile and by the time, Yata's little white face appeared over the edge of the deck and he excitedly wanted to come down and join us. I looked at him fiercely and pointed my finger at him, "YOU. Stay there. I mean it." Colonel Mustard finally made it through the obstacles and shot into the open door and into the basement. He knew this place... and then he paused. "Something's... different." You could tell by his stance he was uncertain. So, I scooped him up and past Mika and up the stairs. And once in the safety of the kitchen, he laid down and told all the other cats about his big adventure I'm sure. Also I'm betting he left out all the parts where he was scared. But, Yata was now completely interested in the back yard. Later, The Sister was taking care of Mika and doing stuff out in the back. Yata saw her and climbed down the ladder and into the backyard to visit her. We have an old pool latter, the free standing kind for an inflatable above ground pool, but there's also a step ladder. Yata's using the step ladder. There is a smaller one on the breezeway near the kitchen door and before he realized her could climb the screen door, he'd been climbing up that one and hanging out on one of the footholds. She picked him up, climbed the pool ladder, set him down and told him to stay. She descended the pool ladder and he descended the step ladder. So, she scooped him up and carried him around the backyard and introduced him to Mika, which didn't go well at all. Mika loves cats and just wants to baby them, but because she's so huge, cats are afraid of her. He was spitting and hissing and she just whined because it was a baby that she wanted to bathe. Now, if I go out on the breezeway to call him for food, sometimes he climbs up the step ladder from the backyard and Ta-Da! there he is on the deck running towards me. Every time he pops out from somewhere I swear it's like he's giving jazz hands and saying "Ta-da!!" He's actually only come up that ladder from the backyard twice when I've called in the last few days. Other times he pops out of the garage or from this stack of boxes in front of the dining room window. So, perhaps he's bored with the backyard? Who knows. So, how does all of that lead to mushrooms exactly? Apparently it doesn't. I've miscalculated the adventure. Prior to The Sister coming home for the weekend, so on Saturday, I went down to the basement to take care of Mika and while outside cleaning and refilling her water bowl, I decided to meander and see if there was anything to photograph. I found a mushroom (top left photo), it was your average size fungi about 2.5 inches across on the top. I'm squatting down to get a good picture of it and once I'd done that, I noticed one of our planter pots half buried in the ground. "Wait a minute... that doesn't look like stone or whatever." I moved closer and it was a fungi that ants were eating. The thing was bigger than my face! I've never seen one like this in my life and found it quite fascinating, but then I am fascinated by fungi and mycology. Even my favourite joke/pun is mycology related. It's actually been my favourite and retold since I first heard it when I was fourteen. A mushroom walks into a bar and up to the bartender. "I'll have a round of drinks for everyone!" The bartender replied, "Wow, that's really nice, why would you do that?" and the mushroom responded, "Because I'm a Fungi." Get it? Get it?!? Fungi = Mushroom. Fungi = Fun Guy. I love that joke. I'm rubbish at identifying mushrooms, but I have a soft spot for them and won't step on them if I see them (same with mosses and lichens) and will take photo's of them when I find one I've not seen before. These were taken at a friends house. This was one of a line of varying sized mushrooms growing all about this grassy spot at the local mall. This was the largest and was bigger than both of my hands. These were found at the yoga studio that The Sister and I go to.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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