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Today is Veterans Day in the United States.   Huge thanks to all who have served in the past, and who are currently serving to help keep us safe.  We include thanks to all our allies: today is Remembrance Day in Canada and Armistice Day in the UK.     

Gardening Post Thursday

:::meowwww:::

Dad is home! So he let us out on the deck yesterday and we had fun sniffing everything and enjoyed the leaves before he blew them off the deck. Mom is still worried about a dangly branch but Dad still let us out.

He also took some video but Mom has to try some things to get the video uploaded. In the mean time, here are a couple of pictures of us out there.

Wordless Wednesday

Our branches

Kitties, LOOK at this pile of branches from all the tree limbs that came down in our yard! And there is another one a bit smaller too. You can tell how high the pile is by comparing to the mailbox. The pile is taller than Mom!

Our town is sending some strong men and trucks with chipper-uppers round to collect the branches and turn them into mulch. Mom was super excited because they may do our street first! So maybe by the end of today we will have a view of the street again.

*I* just want to be able to go out on the deck again. But Mom says No, not yet. There is a nasty dangly branch over the deck and she doesn't want it to come down a bash a human or a kitty. We still have much work for the tree "surgeons" to do.

Edited at 6 pm: Branches still here. I guess they weren't able to get started as soon as they hoped. Or some people called the town and said they had not had enough time to get their branches lined up at the curb. Maybe tomorrow?

Jack the Cat - Rest in Peace

Some of you may have heard the news already. Jack the Cat has gone to the Rainbow Bridge. You can read the full story on the Facebook site here

It is very very sad that all this happened to Jack due to being transported by plane. His human was moving to California and taking her two cats with her. Some will say that people should not send their cats in Cargo, but instead take them on the plane with them. However, as we have said before, currently the TSA make you take your cat OUT of his/her carrier when going through security. The same thing that happened to Jack could have happened if he had escaped from his human at security. Things need to change in how pets are handled when in cargo AND the security procedures.

Rest in Peace, sweet Jack. Be free at the Rainbow Bridge.

At least his human does not have to wonder whether he is alive and lost any more. And he died surrounded by love and caring.

PhotoHunt - LIght

We get great light through our dining room window. Especially good in the winter. This picture is from late last November. Mom is interested to see they gave me fresh nip last November. They didn't bring my nip plant inside for the winter last year, so it must have still been before frost last year.

Finally Friday

We just got our phone and internet back last night, so we are not in synch with posting for Dona Nobis Pacem today, though of course we do wish for Peace everywhere.

Things are getting more normal here, though our yard looks just dreadful - tree limbs everywhere. Yesterday a dangling branch detached from a tree in the wind and hit the roof and damaged the front gutter some, but fortunately the limb didn't hurt anybody when it came down to the ground. Another limb landed in the driveway, but again nobody was under it. It seemed to only take a mild breeze to shake these limbs free. The storm broke the tops of pretty much all the trees.

We have been doing a lot of THIS: actually though Mom doesn't have a picture, we have BOTH (me and Audrey) been on the sofa napping at the same time. That is a first!!

Yippyyay

We know it is Wordless Wednesday but we have to use some words to let our wonderfully supportive friends know that our power company came and sorted our street out last night. They took away the trees on the power lines and then strung a whole new electrical line for the street. We have lights! We have heat! Mom can make tea and coffee and toast! No phone or internet yet, but that's not so important.

Thanks to everybuddy for your lovely comments and purrs.

Still here

No electricity yet at our house. We are hunkered down for the long haul.

Here I am looking out the front door on Sunday morning. Most of the snow has melted now - there really wasn't that much. However the snow clung to the leaves and was too heavy for lots of the branches, so many of them broke. In the middle of this picture you can see our young flowering Kwanzaan cherry tree - its branches usually reach up to the sky, but the weight of the snow on them brought them all the way to the ground. Luckily they are young and flexible so none of those branches broke.

At the beginning of the snowstorm, Mom took this picture of our impatiens on the deck buried in snow. She thought it was rather pretty. That poor window box was smashed by a tree limb that came crashing down on that part of the deck railing, so it just looks like moosh now.

Added to answer a few of the comments: The deck railing held up fine. Dad built it super strong.
We don't expect power till near the end of the week.
No generator (Mom would be scared of one by herself, but wishes Dad was here and that we had one. But Dad says we would need special electrical work to have a generator connected to our heating system, which is gas, but needs electricity for the water pump).
Dad is away on a trip till next week.