Farewell three branches

Featuring a home garden tour led by Finn

Finn

The Tour

I like to start every tour of my backyard here at the base of the Great Olive Tree. The oldest and grandest of the three olive trees in my backyard, she is my favorite tree.

Thank you for downloading my prancing tour app and giving it a listen. Feel free to donate Kibbles or leave a meow in the comments.

We recently had snow. Whatever snow is. It was terrifying. I watched it from inside. Because of the weight of the snow the Great Olive Tree lost three giant branches.

Here, before I start out our tour, I’d like to meow a poem I wrote.

Under the Weight of the Snow

by Finn

Under the weight of the snow
Three branches fell off the old olive tree
Snap snap snap
Three branches bearing leaves
Wind chimes
Hummingbird nests
Leafy green shade replaced with open sky 
I bound to the top of the old olive tree to sniff the torn limbs
To sway above my world in the spring breeze, 
With a view of swampboxes, mountains and quail
No snow, no past or no future lay behind my whiskers
Not even the weight of the nearby hawk on the telephone wire
Only whims like the whim to cross my regal paws 
And nap atop the old olive tree
Whose clattering wind chimes I never liked.

Let’s begin our tour here.

If you get lost or left behind just look for my grey tail or my paws with the white socks pointing out your location on your map. Whiskers back. Is everyone ready to prance?

Our first stop is “out in the yard”. Watch the sky for hawks and owls.

At the end of the walkway is our pet cemetery in the shade of the big lacy Palo Verde tree. This tree produces yellow snow which covers the pet cemetery in late spring. Its snow is neither cold or heavy. Just fluffy.

Two dogs, four cats, two hamsters, a baby jackrabbit and not enough mice are interred here.

Right here, in our pet cemetery, you’ll find grass and clover after the early spring rains. Try some of the delicious sprouts I’m nibbling now. Delicious.

Days like this I wish I had opposable thumbs!

I like the view of the hummingbird feeders from here. Their aerial dogfights over nectar can give a cat whiplash. If roadrunners are raptors those little fierce buzzards are pterodactyals. We’ll visit them later.

Here, where the earth is soft, I often pause for a “pit stop”. And now is as good a time as any time. Be careful where you dig your latrine! This exact spot is where I unintentionally dug up part of Tipper’s skull and quickly covered it back up on my last tour. I recognized the old terrier’s snaggle-tooth. Tipper was my size and a joy to antagonize.

I loved that dog.

We dig, dig, dig and we focus and now couldn’t be a better time for random grooming. Let us begin. Commence paw licking. Up and down, over and around. Just the face and ears. Let’s groom our tummy and work our way into our groin, leg up,up,up, straight up, like a periscope.

And now let’s cool down with a meow. Meow with me.

Before we return to the tour look behind you. Beyond the great wall, behind you, is where the pack rats live. Big as javelina. The greatest trophy game of all. I’ll discuss more of my amazing hunting adventures on my next audio tour, “Hunting the Great Packrat”.

Next on our tour is the big thick desert honeysuckle shrub next to the Great Olive Tree. I love to hide in there, among the leaves and red honeysuckle blossoms. I lurk for hours in there everyday, waiting to leap on Cactus wrens or Whiptail lizards skittering out into the sun to do their pushups.

Why the apes put this bell around my neck is beyond me. Ruins the hunt every time.

Me-ow, right? Let’s just sit here inside this forest of cool leaves and watch the bees and hummingbirds buzzing over our heads. Time for all of us to stretch and meow just to meow. How’s your tour so far?

Whoa!

Time to move! Prance with me, across the porch, to the other side of Rancho con Gatos to see the giant octopus agave under the other old olive tree.

I encountered a baby rattler here last spring. My giant apes came out and yelled at me for sniffing it. They howled and chattered and then we all watched the little snake slither away.

In the olive tree up above us I once watched a fat hummingbird with a bit of spider web in her beak buzzing in and out of the dark leafy heart of the tree. I wonder what she was up to?

I once killed a hummingbird. Flew right into me. I don’t think the giant apes ever forgave me.

I share Rancho con Gatos with two other “alleged” cats. They are terrible hunters, worthless lazy sun nappers, that beg for dry food. Pathetic. Nala is older than any desert tortoise. She is a crone, the bag of bones that lives in their bathroom sink and meows like a smoker. The other tenant is her adult daughter, Professor Tubbles. Tail like a rat, tiny head, huge claws, curved spine, matted fur.

I think she’s part armadillo.

Next on our tour, laying in this open grassy spot under the third olive tree, is Professor Tubbles. The professor will now demonstrate how cats frolic in the sunlight, rolling over and over in the dirt, rubbing and grinding their backs and shoulders into the sand.

“Meow. What are you doing, Professor?”

“Experiencing ecstasy. Meow.”

“Meow.”

“Why did you just bat me in the face with your paw?”

“Meow. Why not? Meow.”

Follow me over the garden bench area. Here is where I like to stop the tour to simply meow spontaneously. Under the ape’s garden work bench, in this chaos of mulch, broken pots and rusty shovels I have often found mice and bits of cholla packed up by packrats.

Near the area is a porthole that looks on the world.

Before we leave the garden bench look up into the corner where the walls meet. Bees built a hive up there, by the bat house, a few years back. They made honey from the agave blossoms that you see behind you.

We left each other alone. I watched them for hours.

And now this is the part of my tour where I point out the old very tall mesquite tree across the yard. I insist we all sprint over to it, leaping over brick pathways and agaves. Once there join me as I claw my way up, up, up all the way to the top and then rocket back down to the ground for no particular reason.

Be sure and say hello to the Gila Woodpeckers whose grub hunt we interrupted. A meow will do.

Next, I’m going to show you what I am most proud of here at Rancho con Gatos.

When I’m not a tour guide, or a lap cat, I am, as you may have guessed, one of the best trophy hunters. See this door mat in front of their back door? This is where I have left many rodent heads for the other cats and my apes to admire.

They must enjoy them because the apes always sweep them up and take them away to safekeeping.

I just heard a can opener! While we’re here let’s take a break and go into the house through the door and over to the dining area because it is time for lunch. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten since I ate that lizard’s head yesterday and I am starving.

It is time to take a break, rub whiskers with your neighbors and fill your belly.

Well, it looks like we’re all finished! Let’s race out of here and bound down to the fire pit where the apes burn wood under the stars. It’s in the middle of a big open area where all of us like to nap in the sun. Nala, Professor Tubbles and I have no clue why the apes like fire.

Here is where the olive branches go to become smoke and stars and sky.

Up the path you can see one of the apes inside his hacienda watching other apes on his TV bark the news at him. He paces like a caged zoo animal and howls and growls and snarls at the box that rules his life. Poor creature.

He should nap in the sun with us. Let’s toast for five-minutes. You only go ‘round 9-times. Get while the getting is good I always meow. Drop and roll and grind. And commence napping.

The call of a distant hawk was our cue to wake up and move on. We once met a Bobcat on this spot. We were all in the wrong place at the wrong time. The smaller ape saved us with her garden hose.

Let’s circle back to my favorite spot by way of the swimming pool. We aboslutely must stop here at the outdoor patio table by the pool and hop up onto it because this rusted patio table, purchased at Goodwill, features an umbrella with a crank that is just the right height to give any cat the best back rub. I get shivers just thinking about it.

Go ahead. Mute my purring. That’s the sound of feline freedom.

Ah, that’s it.

I’ll be right with you.

A little lower.

I once watched one of my apes fish a live rattler out of the pool. Imagine an ape that refuses to kill a rattler. I’ve seen the same ape send black widows and tarantulas outside with an adomintion to stay outside. Soemtimes I think he may not be an animal. Doesn’t he realize it’s not a jungle out there. It’s a desert!

If you want me to focus you’ll have to donate Kibbles online or scratch me behind my ears. I’m kidding. I’m ready to move back up to the porch. Let’s prance.

Here we find ourselves back on the porch where we can sniff the ape’s potted flowers on the porch table. They are beautiful strangers who don’t belong here. They won’t live through the summer. I nibble them when none of the giant apes are watching.

I prefer to sit among the fields of poppies, brittlebush forests or hedgehog blossoms that are beyond the great wall. That’s beauty you can’t buy.

We’re almost back where our tour began.

We can see the wounded old olive tree from here. She still makes me race up above the old hydra of her gnarled trunk, a labyrinthe laced with chambers, homes to snakes and kangaroo rats, season after season.

Run up into my Great Old Olive Tree with me. Claw your way up to the tallest cluster of leaves, where we can lay high above it all. Hidden, like a majestic jaguar in a cool leafy rain forest.