Happy Meow-loween
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: black cats, cat photographs, cats, giuseppe, Halloween, mewsette, mimi, my household of felines | Tags: cat jack o lanterns, cat photographs, halloween, jack-o-lanterns, pet photography, photography 4 Comments
We Three Pumpkins
This card, “We 3 Pumpkins” features prior year photos of jack-o-lanterns from the previously mentioned Panhandle Trail Night Walk. The Rennerdale Youth Group carves more than 100 pumpkins donated by various farm markets and grocery stores, and the Collier Girl Scouts set out and light the jack-o-lanterns along a half-mile stretch of the Panhandle Trail from the bridge near the Walkers Mill trailhead to the Sunnyside entrance. I photograph the pumpkins every year, and of course I find the feline-themed pumpkins!
Time to put away the Halloween imagery, so until next year, Happy Meow-loween!
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Enter: Three WITCHES
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: black cats, cat photographs, cats, giuseppe, Halloween, mewsette, mimi, my household of felines | Tags: cat photographs, halloween, pet photography, photography, shakespeare macbeth, three cats with pumpkin and lamp, when shall we three meet again 3 Comments
Enter: Three WITCHES
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Guess the kids have been getting into my literature textbooks again. I thought my Riverside Shakespeare was too heavy for them, but there is no getting in the way of a determined reader. Now that they’ve mastered Act 1, Scene 1 of MacBeth, I can’t wait to see how they interpret Scene 2.
Maybe reading to them as kittens really did work.
Actually, Mimi, Mewsette and Giuseppe were gathered around the lamp “to keep warm” as they said, because the temperature was all of about 65 degrees. Time to get out the cozy beds!
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Your Kitty is a Star!
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: cat photographs, cats, daily photo, Halloween | Tags: cat jack o lanterns, halloween, halloween cat, photography Leave a comment
Your kitty is a star!
I photographed the Night Walk on the Panhandle Trail, featuring over 100 carved jack-o-lanterns! There’s always at least one kitty—this year there were two—but there was absolutely no moonlight so photographs were difficult. I thought this was the cutest, a kitty with stars!
I wish I’d had more light for the other one, but perhaps just the glowing cat face is just as effective.
Scary Kitty!
For a slideshow of photos from the community event, visit the Panhandle Trail website events page and click the link at the top.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Little Visits
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: cats visiting after death, Halloween, my household of felines, pet loss, pets visiting after death, stories of my cats | Tags: my household of felines, pet loss, pets visiting after death 8 Comments
Are You Looking at Me? © B.E. Kazmarski
This is the third and final article in the series of articles about my cats visiting me in a spiritual sense, a collective of individual instances through the years.
Working in my office/studio one evening, I heard the door of my refrigerator open—you know how you recognize these everyday noises—and I didn’t think too much of it. Until I remembered that I lived alone and I had not opened the door myself. I slowly turned my head to look into the next room where the refrigerator was plainly in view, and the door was indeed wide open, and…Kublai was standing right in front and looking over the contents.
Kublai, my first black kitty, was a real creative thinker, and between his strength and able mimicry of my movements—opening windows and doors, pulling lids off containers—and my tiny refrigerator, he just decided he’d open it one evening and help himself to the contents.
If I’d had a video camera he surely would have won a prize for the way he’d flip open the door, stand there with all the other cats ranging behind him and “humph”, his message: “There’s nothing good in here to eat.” Well, I was a vegetarian, but he was also a feline garbage dispose-all and stopped at absolutely nothing. He’d eat cooked carrots as well as anything else.
Happy Meow-loween From My Mewsette!
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: black cats, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, Halloween, mewsette | Tags: cat dressed as gypsy, cat photographs, cat with pumpkin and lamp, halloween cat, mewsette, pet photography, photography 8 Comments
Madame Mewsette will tell your For-tuna
This is Mewsette’s favorite costume! She didn’t even have to put on one embarrassing garment or accessory.
Perhps Mewsette’s costume is honoring my alleged gypsy great-grandmother.
When I attended Catholic grade school, we were to dress up as our patron saint for All Hallow’s Eve, and dressing up as St. Bernadette was pretty easy for me as I already tended to wear peasant-style clothing and St. Bernadette didn’t suffer any dire injuries or horrible torture like some of the other saints, she just lived to be very old, despite Lourdes.
Well, I think Mewsette is dressed up as one of her patron kitties—she is quiet and introspective, unlike her brothers, and I can just see her in the role of a familiar or a gypsy fortune-teller!
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Taking Sally Home
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: awakening, backyard, cat stories, cats, cats visiting after death, my household of felines, pet loss, pets visiting after death, stories of my cats | Tags: cat visiting after death, pet loss, sally the cat 7 Comments
A Warm Bath, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
Second in a series of stories about visitations for the Halloween season.
So many visitations happen around the loss of an animal companion that it’s difficult not to dwell on the loss itself—but that misses the point of the visit. They’ve returned to tell you not to dwell on their loss, and to know of their peace and happiness. I’ve yet to hear of a single visit where the pet was unhappy.
But some visitations happen before the loss, or just at the time of the loss where you may sense another presence and understand it’s somehow related to your animal companion.
The Balloon
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: cat stories, cats, cats visiting after death, feline artwork, my household of felines, pastel painting, pet loss, pets visiting after death, stories of my cats | Tags: cats visiting after death, fawn the cat, feline visitations, pet loss, pet return 1 Comment
Waiting for Mom, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
For the days prior to the Feast of All Hallowed, Samhain, the Day of the Dead and other celebrations of the dimming of the veil between this world and the next, I am sharing a few stories of visitations, the mysterious returns of my cats after they’d transitioned. None are scary, unless you’re afraid of something that isn’t physically there, but all include elements I can’t explain and only accept…and am glad to have experienced.
Fawn
One night in early April, 1988, still with patches of snow on the frozen earth, a very small, very pregnant cat politely but confidently asked me if she could come into my home to give birth to her kittens. Of course I said yes, and I witnessed the entrance to this life of four independent and individualistic progeny. The last one born stayed with me after the others were adopted; the “runt of the litter”, the little cat with the big attitude, a torbie, my Fawn.
Ten years later, a friend sent balloons to my workplace for my birthday. The whole bunch was too big to take home, so I took one home and tied it to a lamp in my studio.
Stacked and Mixed, A Lap Full!
Posted: October 29, 2011 Filed under: black cats, cat behavior, cat photographs, cats, cookie, daily photo, kelly, mimi, photographs, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: black cat, cat photographs, cats, cats on lap, feline photographs, pet photography, photography, tortoiseshell cats 4 Comments
Kelly shows a little tortitude.
So first Kelly was happily cuddled on my lap after a good thorough bath. Then Mimi finished observing the neighborhood from the shelf at the front window and stepped down from the desk onto my knee, settling down, overlapping Kelly. Kelly was okay with this.
Then Cookie hopped up on my lap and discovered she had no place to go! She ended up walking on both Kelly and Mimi…well, she is the queen of the household but there was a little grumbling. Then she just grew tired of trying to figure it out and decided to simply settle down on both of them. At that point Kelly showed about as much tortitude as she ever does, sitting up indignantly and growling for about four seconds, glaring at Cookie’s tail. I am just a prop in the great drama of laptime.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used in any way without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Cookie in the Snow
Posted: October 29, 2011 Filed under: cats, cookie, daily photo, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat photographs, cats, feline photographs, pet photography, photography, snow, tortoiseshell cat 4 Comments
Cookie greets a snowy morning.
Cookie has seen enough seasons come and go that she knows exactly what that white stuff is and what it means. Wet paws. Cold. Usually when we go out the door in the morning she heads right down the steps after a cursory inspection of the deck. But this morning if I hadn’t gone out to fill the feeder she would have been happy to stay put!
But she followed me through what had become slush in the short time since we’d gotten up and picked her way through the leaves and twigs under the tree behind me.
Cookie carefully makes her way through the slush.
She collected a few snowflakes, though these were melting already as we went in the door. After this she decided to warm herself on my lap using Mimi and Kelly as pillows.
Cookie with a few flakes.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used in any way without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Living Green With Pets: Bringing Plants Indoors
Posted: October 29, 2011 Filed under: cats, dog, living green with pets, pet wellness, pets | Tags: birds, cats, dogs, ferrets, gardening, house rabbits, non-chemical insecticides, plants, plants and pets, toxic plants 3 CommentsCookie greets a snowy morning.
We had an unexpected snowfall overnight and this morning, and while I’ve known for weeks I needed to do something with my plants before they ended up as frozen mush, snowfall was decidedly a surprise.
It was also better than the alternative at this time of year, a freeze, because while more tender plants will be tinged with air cold enough to produce snow, it’s also full of moisture which helps to protect leaf and petal surfaces, and plants under cover of a deck or tree aren’t as badly affected. A freeze is typically cold with a clear sky and low humidity, and any plant outdoors that has moisture in its leaves is pretty much done for.
Often annual plants are thriving in the autumn, into a second bloom after the heat of late summer is moderated by the cool dampness of early autumn. Many plants can be brought indoors and kept as houseplants through the winter, which saves you both time and money next spring when you can start with plants that are already growing.
The geraniums were enjoying the autumn.
You may have a variety of plant or a color of flower that is difficult to find, a plant that has an emotional tie to someone, or heirloom plants you’ve purchased or started from seed or cuttings. But you need to take precautions about what plants do well indoors, what might hitch a ride indoors with your plants, and what your pets might decide to do with all that lush greenness.
The Creative Cat 