Almost all the hens are gone to Maria and Jon’s Open Farm (
http://www.fullmoonfiberart.com/) . They went with their packets of bird seed, just in case they get “peckish” being away from home. My computer doesn’t know the word peckish, but raise chickens and you will know just what they can do when they get cross and decide to pick on another!
Zeldie, my cat misses them terribly! For some reason, she grew attached to them in the process of creating them. I would keep them on my dining room table and one day I found her head sticking up among theirs. I went for the camera, but Zeldie seemed to know and the picture never happened.
As my dining room is open to the rest of the house, without doors to shut her out, I tried to train her to keep away. When that failed, I took to covering them just in case Zeldie considered them her play pals. I would then find her carefully stretched out across their backs. Needless to say, the hens were soon finished and quickly tucked into my craft storage room, a room with a door!
Zeldie continued to seek them out, and has now taken to sleeping across a batch of pincushions on my table. I keep them covered well. I can’t help but wonder if she thinks she is hatching more chickens? This is but one of many” Zeldie” stories. She truly has a life of her own though she resides with us. Cats I have learned are never owned by anyone.
We have a lab/coon-hound dog as well, and unlike Zeldie, Cassie knows her place. She has a special bed in several rooms and that is where you will find her, though sometimes if Zeldie gets there first, you will find Zeldie instead of Cassie. Zeldie has her own bed, but that is not the one she prefers. Now that I think about it, this is a pattern of hers, claiming what is not hers and making it her own...even the back of my sofa has a blanket across the back now and my “vacation chair” too!
And remember my sister’s comforter that I was making? I had to spread tin foil over it to keep her off of it while working on it, and then there was the Sashiko log cabin quilt that I was writing about, one of my first blog series,yet to be completed. It became one of her “pet projects”, forgive the pun!. She bit a few tiny holes in the back of it and I am still waiting to applique a penny rug on its back to cover the mended holes. It will read “by Zelda and Jane McMillen 2012” and I will appliqué her paw prints along with my embroidered signature. She does have a way of uniquely adding work to my work!
She is my “mostly” and "sweetest" companion and I will miss her when her short life is over! Life will, however, then be filled with quilts on beds, furniture left uncovered and projects safely laid out on my dining room table again! Whoops, what am I thinking? Cats have nine lives and add to it my one life and that makes ten lives for Zeldie!
P.S. Don't forget Jon and Maria's Open Farm this Sunday, July 21st. There will be lots of artwork of animals with attitudes for sale in Maria's studio. Don't miss it! Visit her blog by clicking on the link above for further details!
