Bold the Beautiful

Miss Bold made a trip to the vets yesterday to be spayed.  She was not happy about it but is enjoying a certain amount of coddling as part of her recovery.  She is supposed to have crate rest for the next week.  Her incision is looking good and she is eating well.  She especially enjoys having her own plate of food and not having to share with the others. 
I cut back my sweet potato vines today.  I've been meaning to do it for a while.  They were rampaging all over the place.  some were visiting the melons.  Some were outdoing the cucumbers on their own supports.  A few were saying hello to the tomatoes.  One was slogging through the onion patch to greet the okra..  They are currently back in their own area and I took a large mound of vines and gave them to the ducks and chickens.
When I first went out to the garden to work, the kittens were nowhere to be seen.  No sooner had a picked some summer squash than furry bodies appeared.  Blaze and Darth Fluffy were the first.  Moments later, Snip, Snippet and Tiger appeared.  Snip and Blaze were most determined to help me by getting under my feet and inspecting every cut I made with my hand pruners.  Sometimes the safest way to garden with cats is the scoop them up and snuggle them in your arms while someone else does the cutting.  Blaze and Snip love to be scooped and snuggled.
I picked my first burgundy okra and found three nice sized summer squash.  Some of the tomatoes are ready to pick and there are armloads of sweet banana peppers in every shade from yellow through orange and red.  Lots more to do.

my fall garden

I have a nice sized garden and I also have cats.  Our cats are tamed ferals.  Some more tame than others but for some reason they like to hang around me when I am outside.  I think it may be natural cat curiosity.  Being out in the garden with me affords them the freedom to be close when they wish to be and at a distance if they are not quite sure what I am up to.
The cats are (in order of tameness) Tiger, Bold, Snip (or Snipper doodle) Blaze, Little Blue, Darth Fluffy and Snippet.  There is another one, a blue tabby, but he is very skittish and I haven't found a name for him yet.
We recently got our sweet corn stalks cut off and donated to a friend with cows.  That meant that my over-full garden had a place for more stuff to be planted.
In order to plant, I first had to remove the bottom of the stalks and the roots from the ground.  I like to use a hand cultivator for this process and the cats thought it looked like fun.  Thankfully, only two of the cats decided to become actively involved.
Tiger and Bold took up supervisory positions, but Snip and Blaze wanted to "help."  Every time I raised the cultivator to hook it under the corn roots, I had to move a cat aside.  As soon as I began to pull, Snip and Blaze were right there to lay on paws and pretend they were pulling.   It probably took a little longer to finish the job, but I was pleased that they seemed to enjoy my company.

After the row was planted I took a break and the cats decided it was time to play.  Darth Fluff hid under some tomato and sweet pepper plants and watched the action.  Snip and Blaze stalked each other and Snippet.  The game was to see how close they could come to one another and not be seen.  Then to surprise the quarry and both of them jump up in the air before running off in opposite directions.  My younger son came out to talk to me while we watched the cats and we spent most of our time laughing.  I have no fear of allowing the cats the run of the garden because it is strictly organic.
I planted a stand of beets and some more bush beans.  Now I need to get back out and see about getting some cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and chard seed in.  This is my first fall garden in years.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Most times I just clear the garden and let it lie fallow through the fall and winter, or I turn my fowl loose on it to keep the weeds down and add some natural fertilizer.