The Plan

Is Peaches looking in the mirror? No, he’s looking at his doppelgänger through our glass storm door. A while back there were random sightings of doppelgänger on our road, but never on our property. The cat bears such an uncanny resemblance to Peaches that I’m convinced it’s his brother. Where has he been all this time!?  About 2 weeks ago Al was looking out the window and spotted him right next to the house! And guess what, I’ve been feeding him ever since (that’s a no brainer). He lives in the loft of our barn where all the other feral cats used to hang out (RIP Scaredy Cat and Barney). And today he came to our door because he needed more food. He was very polite about the whole thing, much like Peaches before he became so entitled.

Jake and Buddy and I just went out for a stroll in the snow. It was 12 degrees F when we left, which beats the -2F we woke up to. These dogs love navigating our country roads with me in tow. Strangely they don’t go on walks by themselves, even though sometimes I wish they would. They are typically way ahead of me, sniffing around in ditches and galloping through fields, but they’re very sweet about running back to check on me from time to time.

Jake and Buddy doing what they love best

We passed a small stand of plum trees I admire. These are growing in deep shade at the edge of a woods. Reaching for light has made them weepy and graceful, almost Japanese in habit.

wild plums

And we went by a stand of Jerusalem artichokes growing in one of our ditches. I plan to dig some of these in spring and eat a few and get a patch started somewhere where they don’t have to compete with invasive grasses. They produce beautiful sunflowers in late summer.

Jerusalem artichokes

Then we paused to admire the bittersweet, my favorite of all the treasures I’ve discovered in our ditches in part due to my orange fetish. The berries are steadily disappearing. Apparently they are poisonous to most animals except birds, who tend to eat them as a last resort.

American bittersweet

There were more berries a couple weeks ago and even more a month ago, but I didn’t get around to taking photos in time.