Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Oh joy, my carefully planted ranunculas corms, and my sweet peas are sprouting through the soggy cold ground! Soon a riot of color will adorn the side of my house.
And then, when I come outside in the morning to gleefully examine the newest baby shoots..





















CATS!.

You know, those cute little creatures of whimsical playfulness, which are so adorable...

.










... They play and pounce, and keep you company as you putz around in the garden, pulling little weeds and tenderly grooming the tiny new flowers..

Then, as you come upon the patch of newest green sprouts, you see...

..crushed, bruised, battered and severed baby leaves... the victims of those very same creatures described above. It is almost an impossible feat not to fly into a rage as I observe the massacre. I personally own no cats... zero, zip, nada, none. But, my two daughters own three, which all seem to still reside at my home. There are also the neighborhood gang of cats, which, encouraged by said daughters, come to loll, dine, dig in their very spacious outdoor bathroom and chill at my estate, where they also stalk and prey on my garden birds & squirrels..

The merit of garden cats is debatable.

12 comments:

Autumn Storm said...

Darn cats!

Outdoorsy Girl said...

Oh how I miss the house that I owned before my divorce! I miss playing in my garden and sitting out by my garden pond watching the goldfish...and of course chasing away the neighbor's cats! haha.

My cat is an indoor cat so she couldn't wreak havok in my garden, but everyone else's cats did!

Keshi said...

lol naughty cats!

Keshi.

Jeanne said...

Urrgh. I've been waiting to see the lillies I planted four years ago, but so far our dogs have ploughed them down each year. Last year, one of them sent up a new shoot after being broken off, and our female dog ATE IT! I was just looking through the pictures of flowers in an on-line seed catalogue (I've become quite the voyeur) before I saw this, trying to devise ways to keep our dogs out of flower beds while still being able to see the flowers. So I truly sympathize.

Autumn Storm said...

Morning, Terry - hope you have a beautiful day!

Tai said...

HA!
Garden cats...that's funny.

Agnes said...

A RIOT of color! Absolutely the perfect descriptor!!
I am so overwhelmingly ready for SPRING to begin. I am celebrating every raindrop and every tiny green shoot on every plant. More than anything I need winter to END. This brown, bleak, dreadfully long winter has simply been too much to bear.
I feel I cannot move forward without blossoms.

The solution to garden cats is to plant catnip AWAY from your garden. They'll prefer it instead and leave your garden alone.
Catnip flowers too. :)

tsduff said...

Autumn - yes, darn cats. Definitely a Love-Hate relationship.


OG - yes, having a yard in which to garden and just sit while watching the birds, squirrels, etc is bliss. I'd make all these cats indoor cats, except for the fact that they can't keep their sprayers closed - grrrrrrr

Trace - glad your cats too are indoors. I have had so many cat wars I've given up trying to regulate the Daughters' cat population...

Hi Keshi - you are the bright flower of the blog garden :-D


Jeanne - cats leave giant molehills of dirt with poop in the middle... dogs leave pawprints and missing blooms :-D I once had a bull terrier who would wait until just the day when my rosebuds were poised to open, and deftly nip them off with his teeth, leaving each severed bud on the ground next to the bush....

Hi Autumn - just glad this day is waning. Been tough.

Tai - haven't you any of your own? (Pssst - I have several for
give away :-D)

AGGIE! Yes, the long dreary winter is still here, but there are signs of the thaw.

Catnip! What a great idea. I will have some in my herb garden. Problem is, my big garden is away out back. My flower beds surrounding the house seem to be the ideal spot for the Old Cat Potty grounds. I ended up laying a piece of foot wide plastic picket fence down flat on the ground on top of the baby shoots so that the cats can't dig and scratch their giant potty mountains. Now, if only I have any babys left to grow .....:-)

Love to see you stop by - thinking of you and hope you are in pretty good for the shape your in.... :-D

Keshi said...

**you are the bright flower of the blog garden

awww I guess we all r bright and beautiful flowers...and there r some naughy cats here n there lol!

Keshi.

Autumn Storm said...

Hey Terry - tough day, so hope you have an easy evening :-)

Jeanne said...

That female dog of ours is a hybrid cat/dog. She loves fish, and she catches mice as well as any cat I've seen, which unfortunately implies massive digging. She can't climb trees, though.

Autumn Storm said...

Good morning - have a happy Thursday! :-)