Frannie the Urban Farm Cat

On a recent visit to the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC, I was able to meet Frannie, the resident garden cat and her litter of kittens (three are shown below). 

Frannie is Instagram famous. You can follow her at http://instagram.com/fmgg_farm and learn more about the monastery gardens and urban farm she patrols at http://www.fmgg.org/. She is fed and cared for by the FMGG volunteers.

I asked about the five kittens and they are all spoken for -- thank goodness as I was ready to take one home in each of my pockets that day!

He's Got Moxie!

 

Matthew Von Hendy shared this photo of his cat on LinkedIn.

He wrote, "Moxie is a loveable tuxedo getting into everything. In this case, he got into a bag of produce we had gotten at the farmer's market."

Sweet Pepper

Rich Crider, owner of Three Shovels Farm, shared this garden cat photo that he took while touring daylily gardens.

He writes, "This is Pepper in Peggy Jeffcoat’s South Carolina garden." Peggy is a daylily hybridizer and has an amazing garden, that I'm sure Pepper enjoys exploring,

Rich previously shared a cat photo with us here.

Cat and Magpie

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A post shared by Karin Reber (@cinamonkairbear)

Landscape Designer Karin Reber shared some adorable photos on her Instagram feed from her recent trip to Norway of an orange cat and a magpie interacting.  See the linked post above. The yellow Norwegian poppies are beautiful as well. PS No worries, the bird was just fine.

A Shady Rest

Rich Crider, owner of Three Shovels Farm, shared this garden cat photo that he took while touring daylily gardens.

He writes, "This is Milo. Taken in David and Doris Bishop’s Shady Rest Gardens in Cartersville, GA." 

In their garden description, David and Doris write, "You may be approached by a friendly kitty wanting his/her head petted." Clearly, they are big fans of garden cats!

Milo certainly seems to be taking advantage of that shady rest!

Flinging with Cats

 The Fling (formerly Garden Bloggers Fling) took place in Memphis, TN, this year. As usual, part of my time was spent prowling the tour gardens for cat sitings. 

The first one was at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens of this orange kitty scampering in the shade garden. He (she?) gave me that impish look right before disappearing down a drainage pipe. (If anyone at the Dixon knows anything more about this cat, please do share!)

Next was this faux cat in the private garden of a cat lover who also had an affection for all things blue. She not only had lots of blue garden decor, but also a few blue cats by her front door and a "cats rule" sign that I heartily agree with!

Finally, as I ran around the Cooper-Young neighborhood gardens on our last day of the Fling, this pretty gray boy ran up to me and insisted I stop and pet him. The owner of a nearby house came out and told me his name is Arthur and that he is fed by several households on that block, but not really ownd by any of them. I think Arthur is quite content with that arrangement.

Community of Cats

I visited Community Forklift in Edmonston, MD. It is a "nonprofit reuse center for home improvement supplies" that collects donations of new and gently used building materials and home essentials and make them available to the community at low cost.

I have visited here several times before, but this is the first time I saw the feral cat colony that lives behind their warehouse. They are clearly well cared for andf not afraid of humans, though I still kept my distance so I didn't spook them.

The area is very industrial with lots of nearby warehouses. There is also a railroad nearby. I'm betting these cats are doing a terrific job holding down the local rodent population there.