Hard years

Little did we know how much of a pastime sightseeing would become for us when Grant took me up to Cooper’s Lake one day in late 2016. The Pacific-northwest is a beautiful part of the world and you might wonder how I didn’t spend more time enjoying it.

It was because going anywhere was an ordeal due to the roads always being congested. It wasn’t a matter of shooting off on a country road. Local roads didn’t take you anywhere that led to an outlet. You had to get on a highway and sit in traffic.

It was one of my frustrations with that part of the world.

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Then again, we had enough to keep us busy, not least the many losses, those last two years in Washington. Perhaps there’s a reason I have mislaid the date books for 2016 and 2017, but the sequence matters not.

Upstairs, I lost my beloved bunny Macy, while in the foster suites Baby Girl and Moma died within weeks of each other, followed by Bob.

Then in August 2017, Grant received the call about Willow (1) having been abandoned.

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Willow had been brought to a shelter with two companions, so when we claimed her, we also took Muffin and Penny.

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Although I’d had to stop accepting cats, there was no way we could leave those two behind and they turned out to be very nice animals.

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Willow was one of those I’d really wanted to keep, but it had been clear that she was uncomfortable with the upstairs crowd, so reluctantly I’d given her up to people who seemed to fall in love with her. Yet, when they decided to travel, they had given her to their son who was getting divorced. He in turn left Willow with his ex-wife who before long abandoned her property, leaving the three cats behind in the yard whence a kind soul rescued them.

We were heartsick about it, yet delighted to have Willow back and this time she would certainly stay, but it was not to be.

Grant found her dead one morning, less than two weeks later.

Our consolation has always been that Willow’s purpose was to ensure the rescue of her two companions who remained with us for the rest of their days, much loved.

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A month after that sad episode, my garden assistant decided she would like to come inside.

This little black cat had appeared in the cul-de-sac opposite, months earlier and eventually wandered down to watch me poking about in the garden. Grateful for the encouragement, I talked to her and she began hanging out nearby. Anytime we came in from an outing, she scampered over chattering, but she always hung back timidly, not yet trusting.

We didn’t know her name, so for reference, she was simply Blackie.

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Grant put together a bed in a box that he placed on the porch so she would have somewhere dry to sleep and we put out a bowl of food for her every night.

Sometimes, she would venture into the garage for a moment, but fled if we got too close.

Then one day, she marched across the threshold, announcing that she’d come to stay.

So much for no more cats.

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But on November 7th, 2017, we lost another beloved friend.

“M” had been the heart and soul of the Kitty Suites.

Luckily, we’d found a vet that would come to us, so we didn’t have to take our boy on that awful last journey to die in a sterile, cold room.

We gave him a last walk around the garden he loved and then he left us, lying peacefully on the floor of the room that had been his home for 9 years. How quickly the years had passed.

How empty the suites seemed without him.

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Maybe it was “M”s death on top of all the others that had come so close together that set in motion the mental process that would precipitate my decision to sell the house in Washington State.

What I needed was a much smaller property and I wanted to be away from suburbia. I had moved three times while in Washington but I’d been unable to keep ahead of urban sprawl. I needed to be free of it, to have space for wild animals to come and go safely unimpeded.

To achieve this within Washington State, I would have had to move east, away from the coast. It did not appeal to me, so one day I sat at my computer and looked at properties back east.

It seemed I could easily find something suitable, – if I could make it work.

I always did like a challenge…

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