Calendar Cat

Cathy Wilkinson Barash submitted this darling kitty: "Sebastian in 1995. He was the cat of my life and is greatly missed. Sebastian was Cover Cat and Centerfold in the Cats in the Garden calendar in the 1990s! I shot this image of him in our Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island (NY) garden. His whiskey barrel moved with us to Des Moines, IA in 1997. Here he is surrounded by edible flowers - sage, chives and dianthus. His catmint and oregano bloom later in the season."

Cathy is well-known garden communicator and a self-described "photographer, videographer, author, gourmet horticulturist, chief cook & bottle washer." She 

Budding Tulips

Kay Bischoff of Fresh Garden Living sent in this charming cat:

"Buddy Love wandered onto my farm one-and-a-half years ago with a fish hook in his mouth and a ruptured hernia. Such a sweetie, once healed he is still the ultimate curious cat, or Cat About Town as well call him."

Clean Living

Here is another cat submission from Lynn Title of Lanham, MD:

"Zeli is 18 years old. We think she is part Abyssinian; she has the facial shape and her color is blue roan, not grey. She was born at the D'Arcy Street shelter, the same place all my cats come from. We got her as a kitten, as company for the rowdy Labrador Kona we had back then -- she was a tiny thing tussling with her brothers, but stopped immediately upon seeing us to give us a huge PUURRRR. She was afraid of nothing, and regularly pounced on Kona, who barely noticed her attacks. But she was never a good hunter. Now she's a sour old lady who doesn't like the other cats, but she is still fearless and very people-oriented."

Smell-o-Rama

Here is another cute cat submission from Eileen Daniel:

 

Stinky is 5 yrs old, Ziggy's big brother & also lives in Pensacola, Florida. 

 

 

Stinky got his name,  when as a kitten his favorite activity was to roll in the kitty litter! These days, Stinky prefers a good roll in the nip!

Siamese, if you please sir

Another cat submission from Hunter Ten Broeck, owner of WaterWise Landscapes Incorporated, in Albuquerque, NM.This stray visitor stopped by the 'Tiger Eyes' Sumac, which is just changing to its brilliant fall colors.

The Hunter and the Housemaid

Ella and Cypress Vine

Barbara Pleasant writes the long-running Gardening Know How column in Mother Earth News and the GrowVeg Blog. She submitted the following tales about her two garden cats.

"I have two cats, Leon and Ella. Named for my late father, Leon, is the head cat and my special boy. When we got new puppies a year ago, he broke my heart by going to live in the woods for three weeks. This trauma reminded me that relations with felines are set up on their terms, with humans and their abandonment issues small matters compared to a full food bowl."

Leon

"Theoretically, Leon earns his keep by catching mice, voles and other unwanted creatures, and he is a good enough predator for our rural place in Southwest Virginia. But he has a show-off attitude that compels him to share his kills, so he often stages the kills, gladiator style, in the downstairs bathtub. And, while I can't say for sure that the two baby king snakes we found slithering through the house this summer were Leon's doing, I have my suspicions.

"Ella is the ladies' maid who seldom ventures more than a few steps beyond the deck, preoccupied as she tends to be with matters inside the house. She monitors the water bowl, the doors and windows, and becomes a maniac complainer when things are out of order. Ella has us well trained now, but every time I think of this little OCD kitty in a foster home with six other kitties, I don't know how she did it. At the adoption event, how did this crochety cat who doesn't like to be picked up manage to charm us by purring in our arms? Can cats analyze a situation and change their behavior to get what they want?"

Leon and artichokes

 

A Sunny Haven

Helen Yoest of Gardening With Confidence and author of Plants with Benefits submitted this week's pretty kitty:

"Meet Sunny, the garden cat. We didn't start out wanting a cat, but then one day a yellow cat with yellow eyes showed up on the back porch. Sunny adopted us.  We did all the right things to try and find his owner. We put up pictured posters with a phone number to call, we posted on pet-finding sites, we even got in touch with local vets, etc.  Some of the responses were really sad. There were a lot of missing cats that fit out cat's description. We had people come by who were hopeful that it was their lost cat and others coming over to see if it was their cat so they could close that chapter of their life. (They didn't want the cat back, but wanted to know he was OKay.) We even had people call to say it was probably their cat, but they were heading out of town and could they come by in a week or two to pick him up. We started getting very defensive of this animal. We wanted him to go to his rightful owner, but only if it was someone who wanted him and who treated him well.  Within a week, we were crossing our fingers that no one would claim her, and she would be ours to keep. That was two-and-a-half years ago. The vet figures he was under a year old when she showed up.

"Sunny is extremely sweet, has a dog sister, Pepperhttp://gardeningwithconfidence.com/blog/2013/06/13/gardening-pepper/. They play/wrestle a lot. The best part of Sunny is that he leaves the birds alone, he is an excellent vole-er, and sometimes burps chipmunk. We are there for him when he needs us, but otherwise he is on his own, and has found a wonderful home in Helen's Haven."

 

http://gardeningwithconfidence.com/blog/