…and the most important thing is that there was a Harley sighting!!!

Last Sunday I spent a great deal of time creating an eye-catching lost cat flyer and changing it around a lot making many copies. Doing this made me feel that at least I was doing something about poor lost Harley.

Monday wasn’t such a good day. Rainy and dreary, plus I worked myself up about Pumpkin’s eye and texted a lot of people and talked on the phone, then finally called the vet and they said we could bring him in that day.

We took him and they wanted to keep him there for a few hours, so in the meantime we drove to Edinburg to put up flyers and when we got there it felt like it was a completely fruitless endeavor. I put one up in the sad little post office and another up at the gas station but the entire downtown area was boarded up and it looked like every house surely held a meth lab.

I stapled flyers to several utility poles and felt discouraged and hopeless.

We picked up Harley and the vet said he had a corneal ulcer. He needs a drop in his eye three times a day followed by ointment, with a 10-minute gap in between. They put a plastic cone over his head and he seemed OK with it, although very dejected.

We got him home and took off the cone so he could reach his food bowl, and then Kevin went downstairs and I finally put the cone back on Pumpkin whereby he totally freaked out. He crashed into everything, desperately trying to flee the cone. Smash smash, smashing into a shelf next to the couch and into a table and smash smash smash. It was horrible and we were both traumatized. Finally I got it off him and it was all battered. I called Sunny, our friend the cat-whisperer and said he’d be ok without wearing the cone.

Whew. Not a great day, all in all.

But then, Tuesday night, Nancy called to say that her husband Butch had spotted Harley down at their burn pile. Unbelievable! I didn’t know exactly where this burn pile was, but it was fantastic to know that Harley hadn’t run away and hadn’t been eaten by a coyote. Or maybe he did run away but then he came back. Doesn’t matter, it’s just good to know that he’s somewhere near Nancy, because she feeds everybody who comes near the house.

We still have two cameras set up on her property in hopes of catching sight of Harley just so we know he’s sticking around, but so far it has just been photos of cats, deer, possum, raccoons, leaves, more cats…but no Harley. But at least we are hopeful that he’ll want to stick around because of the plethora of food. When I dropped by later in the week to swap out SD cards in the cameras so I could bring them home and look through them on the computer, I realized that the burn pile is kind of down the road from their house, so it’s not as close as I’d hoped. But still…hopeful, that’s my mood right at the moment. Harley lives!

As for Pumpkin, I was worried because he kept his eye shut and I didn’t know if I was even getting any of the drop into his eye because when I pulled his lower lid down all I could see was the inner lid. On Friday I called the vet with many questions and we got to take him back on Saturday morning. When the vet checked out his eye she said he was improving, but it would be a good idea to put in a drop and then wait thirty minutes before putting in the first ointment, so the drop would definitely get totally absorbed. So now it’s a good hour that I spend with him three times a day, which is fine because he’s completely sweet and loving.

So things are pretty good right now, I think.

Meanwhile…I realize there are plenty of photos from January and February that haven’t made it here, but since many have to do with lots of snow, I’m over that. So here are just a few from March, which, dang, it’s already April.

A big platoon of white pelicans mid-March; maybe they’re migrating back home? Not sure about that.

Kevin took Les Paul down to the water and Spot joined them.

I love this picture. Just relaxin’.

Marley spend most of her time upstairs in the guest bedroom but she comes down quite a bit to eat from everybody’s food bowls. This is the first time we saw her on the couch.

Sometimes she lies in Kevin’s lap, which is awesome. Or on his legs…

And here’s a canna lily that bloomed for quite a while inside. Maybe it’ll warm up enough to put plants outside again.

Kevin took me to see a wonderful production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at Sangamon Auditorium.

It was a fantastic production, so well-done, and also so sad and overwhelming because in the end all the people in the town are forced out by the Russians…it’s incomprehensible that the Russians continue to commit atrocities right now.

Whew. On that happy note, I hope you’re enjoying yourself…

Ok then,

G.H.