Cat On a Cold Tin Roof

I was sick recently.  Just now recovering and recovery is slow.  I don’t cough very much anymore but I can’t work long and hard, if I try, my legs get shaky and I just want to lie down wherever I am and take a nap.

Both Bet and I were sick at the same time.  And for the same reason. 

Dirt had been sick in April and we had avoided getting what he had for quite some time.  But then we had a stressful week and were slammed at the end of it with Super Crud.  Fever, chills, exhaustion, fatigue, pounding grey-matter exploding headache, coughing coughing coughing.  I woke up on Monday, May 6th sounding like Shohreh Aghdashloo, luckily by the next Monday I only sounded like Demi Moore.

We drank a lot of tea, some of it a bit unusual but very good. Slept a lot.  Then slept some more.

I spent a lot of time looking out my bedroom window watching the weeds grow, it was painful because, as usual, I was already too far behind in my work, and the weather, especially that first week, was the finest we have ever had in May.

But weeds weren’t the only thing I watched.

Both Bet and I were a lot like a cat on a cold tin roof, no place to go, in no big hurry.

So we were easily entertained by the view from the window.  Mostly The General entertained us.

Birds during mating season often are challenged by their reflections in a window.  The General was obsessed by the male red-winged blackbird in my bedroom. 

The General?  He marched up and down his parade post and he has beautiful epilates that clearly indicate his rank, so of course he is The General.  And he has a lovely supportive wife. She came by one day to see this male bird whom her husband was protecting their home and family from. 

All she saw was a buxom female redwing trying to horn in on her territory and her man.  She was miffed.  She told The General that he better not return to parading up and down and whistling for her.  He didn’t come back for a couple of days, but then he couldn’t resist.  Besides he knew that the female his wife saw was really a big tail-feather kicking male that just dressed up like a woman to trick her. 

So back he came.  I began to really feel bad for The General, I couldn’t figure out why he was picking on my windows.

Birds are attracted to clean windows, it’s my big excuse for not washing them in the spring, and my bedroom window is no exception to the “don’t wash” rule. 

Even though my windows were dirty prior to The General’s rampage against the Intruder, and the mess he made himself, he still persisted in “seeing” the other fellow.  I wanted to be able to see out so I didn’t want to put something outside my window to convince him he could leave and go eat and make fertile eggs.  I decided to try the reverse, clean the windows, and put up my window screen to deter him.

So I rested hard and then got up and gave my window my all, and then slept for four hours after I was done.  At one point, towards the beginning of cleaning the window, I felt so good to be up and out that I thought for sure I was all done being sick.  Not so much.

You can see how well that whole screen deterant worked.

The General made quick work of my clean window, so I’m not bummed that by the end of my big cleaning stint I just didn’t care that the screen was dirty, I just put it in cob webs and all.  At first I was a bit miffed at how tired I was and that I was going to have to take it out again or live with it. 

Well, The General took care of that for me, this is my window just after a few minutes of his harassing the intruder through the clean glass.  I’ll be re-cleaning after nesting season is over.

I’ll be back later with more Sick Times At the Farm.  But it has stopped raining heavily and it’s time for my three hours of half cracked work, I’m just a cat on a cold tin roof, not movin’ very fast.  But out I go.