Pocus, my friend and cat of 23 years, was euthanized this evening. He's been having seizures since late last week as a result of renal failure. The kidney failure was bound to be terminal and the seizures were causing brain damage and stress for him. So my mum took him to the vet and they put him down before he was in too bad of shape from him rapidly declining health.

I wish I could have been there, but there wasn't anything to be done about it. I'm a wreck today, I miss him terribly and feel bad that my mum had to do this on her own. He and I grew up together, I don't even remember a time when he wasn't around. I knew he was getting old when I left home for college, so I said my goodbyes each time I went home for a weekend visit, just in case. Of course, after 6 years of bracing for his death, I think part of me started to feel like he'd always be around. I haven't seen him since I left the US over a year ago.

Day 1 on the farm

I arrived last night about half past eight. I was quite glad, as we were driving over the countryside, that I hadn’t had to ride a bike. The main roads looked almost wide enough to ride on the side of but the smaller roads would have been impossible and the terrain was never flat for more than 10 meters at a time. It was insane. I would have had a hell of a time getting up here. IF I even managed at all.
The farm is a small space, called a lifestyle block, meaning that it is mainly used for maintenance of the owner’s lifestyle, not for profit. They do sell the bulk of their produce and eggs, but also stock the fridge with them too. I just basically shadowed Jeni today as she showed me around from chicken pen to chicken pen, veggie patch to veggie patch. I listened as best I could but my head was reeling with information. I believe we’re going to do some planting tomorrow, so I probably will get dirtier than I did today.

I have never seen cobweb as a decorating scheme before. There are spiders in every corner of this house, hanging from lamps and lining window panes.

Today, we made the rounds and watered a few areas that were drying out, fed the animals and headed over to Jeni’s sister’s farm for the afternoon. Jeni was working out one lovely gray mare there with the friendliest personality while I took a brief nap on the living room sofa. I had, after all ,only gotten a few hours sleep last night, what with the wild horrors of sleeping with spiders in my room and the rooster crowing from 4am onward. Then we cut a dozen lengths of bamboo from a high field in Virginia’s farm to be used as support frame to hang netting from to give the new planting area shade before we put the young tomato plants in the ground.