So this is what the branch of the Manitowoc river near here looked like last year.
And this is what it looks like now.
Here’s how another stream I cross over regularly on the bike looked like last year.
And here’s the same stream now.
As you can tell we’re no longer under drought conditions here in Wisconsin. Finally. We’ve had enough rain now to pretty much replenish everything and make up for the months long drought we had up through this past winter. Everyone around here, especially the famers, were afraid that the drought was going to continue.
Rainfall has been a bit above average and weather has been relatively cool, but growing conditions have been pretty good.
So, Cat…
I ordered one of those walking harnesses for Cat One because, well, why not, right? You don’t really take cats for walks of course, cats take you for a walk. They go where they want to go and if they don’t want to go where you want, they’ll just sort of lay there and your cat walk turns into a cat drag, I suppose.
But if you’re the patient and willing to follow where the cat wants to go, it can be fun.
Sort of, I guess? Or so they tell me.
We got to the bottom of the stairs of the front porch and she smelled something that really got her interested and there we stood for a while as she smelled, and smelled and smelled. And then, of course, started eating grass. Then she went over into the hosta bed and tried eating one of the hostas. Fortunately one nibble was enough and she swore off those for life.
Then a truck came down the street and the next thing I knew I was holding an empty harness. She was just gone. I mean like instantly gone, and instantly, without occupying the intervening space, she was up on the table on the front porch trying to get in the window.
How the hell did she even do that? The harness is one of those ones that has a collar around the neck, and a strap that runs around the chest right behind the front legs, and it hadn’t been loose. It had actually been a bit snug. All the straps and buckles were intact. She was just instantly gone and up on the porch.
Apparently cats can teleport now? Why didn’t someone warn me about this?
grouchyfarmer 
Cats are amazing animals. I love them.
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They are indeed! don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, but there’s just something about cats that I find absolutely fascinating.
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Walking a cat has got to be as hard as walking a pet snake. Just wish some of that rain would translate here in the Deep South…..between intense heat and sunshine and little to no rain gardening is a real challenge. chuq
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Cats are independent minded little critters at the best of times. The only way you can get a cat to do something is to convince her that it’s something that she wants to do. That I got as far as I did with Charlie is a bit amazing, really. Up until that blasted truck came along things were going splendidly and she had been really enjoying it.
The weather… it looks like we’re on track towards having yet another extremely disruptive and dangerous summer. We’ve already had something like 11 or 12 tornados in the state, although thankfully there was little damage caused by them so far. Other states haven’t been so fortunate.
Right now it seems the insomnia is back. Sigh… 3 AM and I’m sitting here answering comments and doing my emails because I can’t get back to sleep. Sigh… Going to be one of those days, I guess.
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Cats are the very picture of indifference…..looks like we are in for a very active hurricane system….lived thru Katrina not interested in doing that again….it is 0430 and I am awake as usual…..pain issues makes sleep a luxury. Have a good day chuq
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Our weather up here in Wisconsin is looking a bit bad too. We normally get about 22 – 24 tornados a year up here. We’ve already exceeded that and it’s only the end of May. Sigh… We’ve already had two significant power outages up here because of the weather. One lasted for about 14 hours here. We were lucky. Some places near here had no power for three days. My wife wasn’t too sure about spending the money to put in soar power but spending almost the whole day being the only house in town that still had lights and heat made her a convert.
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MY tomatoes are squirting out regularly Solar is looking more and more good for me these days. chuq
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Unfortunately it’s like the wild west out there as far as “professional” solar installers and financing companies are concerned. People are paying $40K – $60K fo solar systems that shouldn’t cost more than $20K – $30K, and then the installer that put it in goes bankrupt a year later and now they’re on the hook for a $40K solar system that doesn’t work and no one will repair because they didn’t put it in. If you’re at all comfortable with doing your own electrical wiring you can save at least half the cost doing it yourself and you’ll still get the 30% federal tax credit
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Thanx for the suggestions….we are still looking at the options. chuq
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We have had more rain here in the last 3 weeks, than we have had in the last 1.5 years. The Tn. river looks like your river branch shot, chocolate milk for water, but here it’s running at around 65,000 cfs at the dam, currently. No pun intended.
Plus, it’s been at (minor) flood stage, twice in 3 weeks. And is at this time. Which means there’s floating debri along with the chocolate milk. The 65,000 cfs ain’t that bad on its own, but combined with absolute zero visibility, and floating tree stuff, it’s a royal PITA.
But it’s good news for us well owners. My well had some trouble with level recently, burned out a submersible pump because water got low. So, had to put a new pump in, and it’s a painful job dragging that fucker up from 75′ down when you are my age. But once you start, you can’t stop! Then we went in immediate water conservation mode. No troubles since, but not getting crazy with our water use anytime soon… Even though I’m sure it’s in better shape now. Not taking chances.
Interesting, the cat had the ability to teleport. That’s pretty cool 😉
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Wow, so you’re getting it too… They were saying on the radio this morning that this has been the fourth wettest May on record going back to about 1830. We aren’t at the flood stage yet here. We had serious drought all last year so this is actually been bringing our water levels back up to normal.
Cats… Cats is weird, to coin a phrase. Just had the two of them following each other around the house for about five minutes, then Mercy walked up to Charle, swatted her one upside the head and then just walked away.
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We’ve been very dry. I mean we have had periodic rain. But it’s been too little, or too far spread out between showers, to do much good. Much of last summer our grass was crunchy when you walked on it.
This has been a wet spring, and it is welcome.
Got to love cats. We had our little spitfire fixed and she has calmed down some. She still has ATTITUDE, but it’s dialed back to to were we can stand it 😉
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