Cats And Ice
After staying in Sick Bay for the morning a very wan and tired looking Tia came back out to her little herd. She is eating well and doing all the normal business after her scare on Friday so I would rather she were out walking about than in the sick bay which is really only a small draft free area of a barn corridor that I can easily shut off in emergencies.
Last night I checked on them all and Sheila was snoring so loudly I could hear her from the door. When I reached their sleeping room I could see Sheila fast asleep in her enormous straw bed with the calves scattered around her like black pearls. All the calves were sitting perfectly at ease, chewing their cud, heads up and turned to me, eyes shining, listening to their comforting sound.
Yesterday afternoon I saw That Cat perched precariously on a sheet of ice leaning down to the water below for a drink. I need to add here that there I plenty of other vessels of heated water in the barn for cats and birds. Why she chose this trough I don’t know. Camera House was not quite focussed when this happened. Watch this sequence.
He leapt as he fell and was out and gone within the second, doused in feezing water and flying through the air, the shrieking,spitting over the smash of the breaking ice causing quite the drama and scaring the dogs as he shot back into the barn to hide.
We were not amused…
I hope you have a lovely Sunday.
Love celi
ps. Don’t forget. I am an immigrant living in America with a green card. Someone said to me yesterday – but this ban on immigrants does not affect you, you are not from one of the banned countries? My voice had been shuddering with the horror of it, the speed of this persecution, the officers just doing as they were instructed, following orders. Putting people with green cards back on planes without letting them even make a phone call. Planes to where? Back to the hell they were escaping.
I went quite still.
It affects me, I said. Turning away. Because I am from the world.
116 Comments on “Cats And Ice”
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thekitchensgarden 
First, hooray to see Tia up and about — and I involuntarily laughed at the kitty’s escapade. Re: that other unpleasantness, it seems, from my reading this morning, that green card holders originally were exempted from the ban, but that Steve Bannon and Steve Miller were allowed to overrule the DHS. From my perspective, that’s as distressing as the ban itself, and leads to serious questions about who actually is running things. I’ll be having a little chat with my Congressman tomorrow, and hope several million more people do likewise.
Yes. Phone better than email – which is better than nothing. (There may be voice mail now if boxes aren’t full, A prepared sensible 3 minute non-emotional, no name calling speech asking what the heck is going on and what you want to happen. A calm speech, but serious one.)
To deny us entry when we already have a green card is Illegal. Surely. No matter where we are from. To achieve a green card is terribly hard – the vetting IS extreme and it takes years to get one. With a green card I am allowed to come and go from and to America but not be out of the country for longer than three months. I am going back to read the fine print in my immigration paperwork but I do not remember that the green cards could be rescinded en masse at the whim of the presiding regime and that the Immigration department (who approves the Green cards) can be overruled at any time. If this is the case they should change the wording from Permanent Resident to Temporary Resident with the proviso that this status can change at any time and without warning. c
I don’t think it matters what the find print says, Celi. Nothing of the past seems to matter at all and what you have is a whole new set of rules. Yes, it does affect you…. and it affects me, too, one who was born in and living in Canada. It affects every single thinking person on this globe we call home. Because of the divisive nature of all of this I have not put many words to my thoughts and fears so they’re not found as yet. But I do understand where you’re coming from. How fast and easily the house of cards can crumple. ~ Mame
That really brings it home!
Yes it is surely right on our doorsteps.. c
It is a horrible state of affairs for the World. Everyone is affected, even those who think they are not. On slighter note poor kitty, I hope he isn’t frozen into an ice cube!
He was fine – crazy cat. We did not see him for a while – he was probably up in the hay bales.. c
That cat’s hilarious! I had one that fell in the bath once – it’s amazing to see a cat fly 🙂
Waa. Hope you weren’t IN the bath – that could have been dangerous! c
Ha ha, luckily no, I was running it.
It affects us all. We are all immigrants .
It certainly affects the immigrants with Green Cards. c
Poor Old Puss! Guess there was no chance of a nice warm towelling. What a good suggestion to contact our congressmen. Not that I have much hope of any action from mine here in North Carolina. But just to let them know how displeased I am with the president’s dictatorial & distressing tendencies. I will contact them anyway tomorrow also.
I am TOTALLY amused my stubborn cat who has to learn the hard way. That cat is my Patronus!
Fear not, dear Celi. Many of us are committed to seeing this ban lifted for ALL immigrants. My kids and I are having a letter-writing campaign today to thank the Republicans who are speaking out (sadly at this point, only 5 out of 293) against this illegal and immoral ban. America was built on acceptance. Those not indigenous were strangers here once.
Well stated letters good. Great plan
I love your positive angle – it is more important to strengthen those who are doing the right thing. c
I got a chuckle from the icecat episode.
Nothing will convince me that the immigration changes are good. Quite the opposite.
One of my ginger boys swims … in the pond, bathroom basin. filled kitchen sink, maybe That Cat would prefer warmer water? 🙂 So very pleased to see Tia up and about and well again. Are you panicking about your trip to the UK, I am sure you will be fine but as you say what about the refugees running for their lives?? Laura
Yes and if they were to take offence to something NZ does and send me home at least no-one will be shooting at me. Fancy your cat swimming! That is amazing. c
The immigrant ban is a horror. We must fight it. We are fighting it.
The key is to never be the silence when the bad things happen.
Silence is interpreted as approval. Never ever be the silence.
The world is a scary place today. My husband too has a green card. He is from Mexico. Aside from that, the kitty made me laugh. Cat’s can’t help but find trouble… LOL
He will understand how I feel then – plus the Mexicans are taking a hit now too – so he must be doubly unsettled – give him my love from a fellow immigrant.
Oh poor kitty! They are strange critters when they want to be, doing the oddest of things. Guess that’s what makes then cats. 😀
Oh C, this trump malarkey is quite ridiculous. No room to talk though as we have a completely incompetent corrupt idiot ruining our country.
Have a wonderful week ahead.
🙂 Mandy xoxoxo
Incompetence at high levels is pretty scary.. c
I usually keep something in the stock tank, so that if a cat, mouse, whatever falls in, they can climb out. I once found a hen that had somehow fallen in the 100 gallon stock tank in the summer, and she was just floating on top, looking very dead. I took her out, noticed signs of life, washed her off with warm water and dried her very well. She made a full recovery! I am very glad your heifer made a full recovery.
Wow – what a tough old bird! c
Dear God, I worry about you too. The sheer madness. The sheer sorrow. These are dangerous times. Be safe my dear friend.
I am very much looking forward to my holiday away!!
Your PS is so poignant and beautifully written. I’m sorry our country has made you write it. This is a dark new world we are living in.
We need to adjust to avoid being blinded
It affects us all, whether we recognize it or not. Well said.
This one will – and hopefully they will see their error and fix it on Monday. No-one can stand behind this – it must surely have been an oversight. Maybe they did not realise how far reaching this kind of ban is. And how it throws every single green card carrier in America back onto tenterhooks.
I agree with you on this. I do not think anyone considered how “far reaching this kind of ban is”. I hope that Monday brings some kind of resolution. Communication all around is so important… and I, for one, do not trust anything the media relays.
Yes I agree that we need to verify what is reported – so I went and found the actual directive .
Admit tha you were just a little amused at the silly cat, just a little? I am horrified by what is happening. I will be calling the elected officials in my state…again. It doesn’t feel like America anymore.
I laughed and screeched myself – hence the camera shake!! c
So glad to see Tia up and moving around. (Had to laugh at that last post’s picture of the bucket with the instructions/cautions illustrated on the side )
Always good to think ahead about potential problems and be cautious when working with buckets and peoples lives. (I’m afraid to watch tv because of all the angry noise and afraid not to – all the congressmen’s contact info is easily found…We are the people – and know how to use that.)
Envy your full attention demanding farmy world even with the difficulties
Yes! I am lovely and busy!
Very well written 🙂
I am very relieved to see Tia up and around, feeling better. I hope your cat will use the other water bowls after her misadventure.
I am thoroughly appalled at Trump’s policies and agree we must keep contacting our elected representatives. It is a very scary state of affairs.
Loved today’s story!
But, likewise, I am an immigrant, a Brit, here on a Green Card. Just wondered what your place of birth was? Mine was London.
Let me ramble on a tad more. Reflecting on those above that are uncomfortable about the present face of America. Jean and I live in a rural part of Southern Oregon. We are surrounded by the most stunningly beautiful countryside. Even more beautiful are the people who live around us. In the main, folk who, like us, are the wrong side of 65. But the caring attitude of our friends and neighbors towards this pair of Brits who, so often, don’t know what we are doing, is touching beyond words.
This is what America really is about.
Please ignore who lives in the White House. They will never dim the lamp of what really matters in this country. Community!
I am from New Zealand. And i love that you are surrounded in such good folks. And beautiful too! c
New Zealand is a lovely country. Haven’t managed to get there but I did live in Australia for a couple of years in the late sixties and heard very good things about NZ.
Australian cities have the sweetest little houses – especially Melbourne – I love Melbourne.
Oh poor little kitty….hope he or she found a warm place to dry off- perhaps with Sheila? Good to see that Tia is up and recuperating.
We are all from the world and I can seeing being more stringent with new immigrants….but I think things have gone a bit too far over the top .
Most of us came here from somewhere else ….unless one is an indigenous.
Sheila used to have a cat but now that i think about it I never see a cat in with her now – maybe it is the cows.. or they have all gone over to the kunekune. c
Oh poor kitty. But how amusing. I am sick about the immigration ban. I can’t believe this is happening in my country. Need to find a way to make my voice heard.
I am walking again – c
Love that.
Hope the cat dried off safely – they do the silliest things sometimes. Yes, it’s horrific, what is happening over there at the moment – I am in the UK, feeling for everyone that is directly affected already and fearful for the future for us all. Take care
I am SO looking forward to getting out into your neck of the woods in a WEEK! c
Good work, Tia, glad to see you up and about.
This whole visa business is terrifying. It shows an astonishing lack of foresight about what will actually happen when you slam the gates without warning. There are families who had left their homeland and sold everything in the expectation of starting a new life in the US, suddenly stranded in yet another strange country because the US will not let them in any more. In limbo. What concerns me most is that other places will take what the US president has done as an example; that is what happens when you are a world leader. What will he decide to Presidentially order next? Persecution of one racial or religious group? Pogroms, concentration camps, mass extermination? Where does it stop, and who stops the man who set the ball rolling? When do his yes-men step up and say “No, enough, this is not right”?
Is he planning to pull down the Statue of Liberty, and its generous and embracing words?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
I see you’re aware too in the early hours… and thinking similarly with words that evoke my fears.
Weathering a huge storm directly overhead, lightning and thunder banging too loud to let me sleep and evoking thoughts of Armageddon, which naturally turn me to Trump and all his works.
I was entertaining thoughts of doomsday prepping🙃
It’s like watching an avalanche happening. There’s nothing you can do to prepare, you just have to hope you survive it.
I thought it said something about the sick too – I must research that.. c
You can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus
It seems our government has always suffered from a lack of foresight. They are the ones who sprayed agent orange even though our soldiers were down there, they are the ones that thought nuclear power was the latest and greatest with no thought to what would happen with the toxic waste, they are the ones who approve new drugs and later say ‘oops, sorry, that might kill you’. It even goes so far back as to say ddt is a great insecticide, spray in on the cows, waste oil is great at keeping the road dust down and on and on. It makes one wonder how anyone can put an iota of faith in anything they say!
The worst mistake of all is never learning from their past mistakes…
Happy to see a recuperated Tia. Laughter at a discombobulated damp kitty. Unsettled & wary at US govt’s ban and recent events… what new world order are they contemplating.
Damp Cat was sat at the door only moments ago ! All good.. c
A friend yesterday recommended that I read Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, and gave some explanation as to why. From their discussion, it is quite frightening. We are all world citizens, and I wonder when everyone will realize this.
Tia’s recovery is a beautiful thing. And the natural world carries on regardless. Hope you have a brighter day. ~ Mame 🙂
I read that not long ago too – in my student days I read it in french – don’t think I could do that now!
hold my beer … love silly cat antics
Pass it over! c
It’s crazy how you have your farm life and the added pressure of green card anxiety. Awful.
Lucky i have my farm life i think! c
Indeed you are, I think farm life is a great antidote to many of life’s ills! (I might be a tad biased)
I can not and will not condone this green card fiasco. I love your cat episode photos, the blurriness shows the excitement of it all!
I was hoping for a little bit of focus but you are right – the blurriness works! c
It affects me too. There is too much to say. On the other notes, happy to see Tia recovering. The cat sequence is quite amazing.
Have a lovely day Charlotte! c
I am glad to see Tia up and about. 🙂 We still have plenty of cats and it is sometimes amusing to see the trouble they can get into. My thoughts about Trump and his immigration deal almost leaves me speechless. He seems dead set on moving forward with his campaign promises, but it seems the man has no conscious when it comes to honest, hard working people with families that are here legally. If they have gone through all the processes to be in this country and work and have not caused any problems, then they should be free to come and go as they choose. In my opinion, anyone should be able to live, work, retire, visit and LOVE without borders as long as they do no harm and don’t have an agenda to do so. My fiancé is a Filipino housemaid working in Kuwait… She is AWESOME and I would love nothing more than to get her out of that country. She is very fortunate, though, and has been working for a very good family that has treated her pretty good for the past 14 years. OH, I have read a lot of horror stories, though. But how will Trump’s administration and their relationship with other countries effect our future plans… It would be much easier for us to move to the Philippines. Well, I better stop…
If it were me I would move to the Philippines! A warm, growing economy, cheap to eat and full of noise and busy-ness. I almost took a Nannying job in Kuwait – I am glad she is working with good people! I look forward to hearing the next installment of this story!
It affects all of us. Whoever thinks they are immune are being naive…
Life is a strange journey sometimes.. c
I love how you captured That Cat’s disaster in the water!! The poor thing! Concerning the ongoing disaster that is the Trump presidency, ‘katechiconi’ wrote exactly what I’ve been thinking. And posting on Facebook. People who have even a bit of intelligence and a sense of history – and a sense of how the world actually works – are disgusted and afraid. Very afraid. And so well reminded of another leader who did what he wanted without thought… and ‘had it out for’ a whole group of people based on their religion. ” ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ; o (
Hmm – we will have to see what comes next.. there are many many good americans.
True – Americans are a good people. Like any other country, there’s some not so likable.
Trump is wrong on so many of his ideas, very scary.
Tomorrow is the start of another week – i am sure it will get better from now.. c
Cats are amazing animals. The fact that he was able to jump from broken ice shows just how amazing they are.
I’m also impressed that you were so quick on the shutter to capture what happened. It doesn’t matter that it was blurry.
When I saw him on the ice ledge I scurried to get in a good position – the rest was just luck!! c
Stay well, stay safe, and above all stay your wonderful self; we must stand up for justice
Life is marvellous isn’t it – so full of surprises! c
Ah, Celi, my heart is heavy.
I am the descendant of immigrants; the most recent ones at the dawn of the 20th century, the earliest ones from the 1700’s, with a Native American in the mix as well. I am appalled, sickened, embarrassed, disappointed . . . at such a presidential order, at the speed in which the stroke of a pen made it so, with no plan, no rules, no basic elements of what is right nor rules – oh, I could go on and that will not make this right. I have contacted elected officials and will continue to do so. In-the-meantime, know that there are many working furiously to right the ship and remedy this horrendous action. Stay strong – and keep well on the farmy.
Thank you darling girl – what wonderful words! c
I am horrified by what my country is doing. I am so sorry that this bs has come to matter to you, as well.
I’m entirely happy with my decision to become an immigrant myself, instead of trying to import my Irish husband into the USA. Of course, your countries are not on the banned list – yet.
What annoys me the most is blocking Iranian people, but not Saudis. Beyond the government, the Irianian people are young and forward thinking. The Saudis are harbouring actual criminals.
This is true – i had not thought of that either – how did he make his list I wonder. c
It’s the same list the last president used a while back – go figure.
He’s making sure he stays friends with the oil producers…
I too want to join the conga line to voice the current politics is lunacy. However I feel it is merely a rash that has come out and will pass.
What an excellent description! c
Most unusual! After three attempts to access your site today I am about to give up with a big ‘?’ after my last post! May I just say I am in the conga line . . . !!
Weird – maybe because the blog has high traffic this evening.. c
Wow! That makes it four! Absolutely no problems . . . I guess I have just had a very interesting lesson 🙂 ! And I DO learn from my ‘lessons’ : ) !
Well said Cecilia – worrying times fir the world.
I am sure it will all come out in the wash
Well said Cecilia. Check my blog today, written before I saw yours. I had to chuckle over the cat. I had one fall in the bath one day when I was in it. Neither of us were very happy about it, but boy oh boy did he get out in a hurry. Never crawled around on the edge of the tub again either.
Crazy cats.. c
I hope you have been heartened by the mass demonstrations and the pressure they have placed on these malevolent and ignorant goons…
There are so many real and good americans – it IS heartening – lets hope the system backs them up. c
Bottom line, this IS a wonderful country – witness all the people who want to come here – and the vast majority of its people are good people. Amen!
Interesting, look it up yourself its called Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. Additional countries were added in 2016
I heard late this afternoon that there was a bit of backtracking on the original exec order, and that those with green cards will not be affected. Although embarrassingly enough, the right hand doesnt seem to know the left anymore. Interestingly, mr trump has numerous financial dealings in Saudi Arabia. No conflict of interest there, tho. 😐
Ah. Well lets hope they get it sorted out soon. c
How on earth do you roll over a full sized cow. That was an excellent tip though – i will remember it
Yes, this immigrant thing is horrifying. Just. horrifying.
When I can’t sleep because of anxiety, I’ll picture the Queen of Sheila on her high bed, and her attendants ranged around in peace “with their eyes shining.” But I’ll block out the snoring. Too much like the news.
You can still contact your Senators even if you’re not a voter. You don’t have to be silent. I marched with the Women’s March and DC was full again today as people protested at the White House. Our great city is seething and emotions here are still at a boil. Call call call call call!!! As for the cat , hopefully he’s learned his lesson! Poor guy! I hope he warmed right back up.
So happy Tia is doing so well. I’m sorry, so sorry, for the added stress on you of the growing pains of our nation. We have much to learn. I am glad that you and every other immigrant are here. We all benefit daily from your presence, your work, your care, your passion, your love for and mending of the land. So many of us seem to forget that nearly all of us are immigrants, whether recent, or 400 years ago. Forced, enslaved, indentured, fleeing persecution, or just hoping for a different or better life. And the people who were here to welcome all these immigrants are still suffering from our arrival.
It affects us all because the retaliation won’t “hurt” the President, or his band of cronies it will hurt US. The citizens of the world who can no longer see our families, return to our jobs, or in extreme cases, will be killed because we weren’t able to escape the violence in our homelands. This is fuel to those who need the smallest slight to justify bombings and shootings of citizens. It will be us who pay the price for our “elected” officials decisions. The whole deal just makes me sad, disgusted, afraid, and…sigh. I hope all of us find a way to come together and keep each other as safe as possible.
Yes. This. “It affects me, I said. Turning away. Because I am from the world.”
And because we Americans are ALL immigrants.
I am looking forward to the day when this whole administration will be impeached, but worry about the cost paid before that happens. As others have said, we the people of the United States are all immigrants. We replenish our well and our well-being by our diversity and inclusion, and broaden our knowledge and our humanity by positive interaction with the world.