Moochie Departs

Little Moochie passed away early Tuesday Morning.

Only last week she was living up to her name, begging for bits of chicken at our kitchen table during dinner. And she was bounding about the house rather well for an old lady. She would leap upon the back of the sofa, climb over my shoulder and settle upon my collar bone, her head or body pressed against my face blocking any view i had of the TV.

My daughter Laurel had nicknamed her , "The Suffocator".

She came to us in one of the earliest litters left in our storage area behind the house by a rather scandalous feral mother. She was born back in 1997 and was the runt of the litter. She remained our smallest cat, except for Asta who also died this year. (We've been hit hard by Death's scythe this year.) She was never much bigger than a kitten.

Her eyes glowed in the dark, more than any other cat I've seen. It was very startling to just see these two green lights peering from a totally dark space.

We noticed she was losing some weight, but she seemed fine until last Friday. She seemed to shed more weight very quickly and was so light you felt no resistance in your hand when you picked her up, as if she was an apparition and not solid at all.

Over the weekend she grew weaker. We pull a pad on our laps and someone almost always held her those last couple of days. When I placed her in the computer room over night on Monday, she raised her head to look at me, then she lay it back down. I told my wife, "I'll be surprised if Moochie's with us in the morning."

I was right. When I got up the next day, and I get up early, I found her basically as I had left her. She was already stiff, so she must have slipped away in her sleep earlier. I believe she died peacefully. She did not show any sighs of struggle or pain.

She is survived by her brother, Canterbury, the last of that litter. She had a good long life here, much longer and better than she would have had as a feral cat, if she had even survived kittenhood outside.

I expect we will see others pass in the not distance future. This is always painful, but a price you pay when you give older cats a home, as we have come to do. With the exception of Kerouac, the starving kitten my son Darryl rescued two years ago, and Flacco, my daughter Laurel's 7-month old kitten, all our cats are well over ten years old. My mother's cat, which we took in when mom died, is 17 pushing 18. Christy Cat was old when my wife adopted her 10 years ago. My daughter says Christy is 20; I say she is 100.

We'll miss you Little Moochie, rest well.

 12/11/12

Asta

Somehow cats always know when the end has come. They will wander off and find a private place to lie down and wait for death to visit.

So it was with Asta yesterday. I had come back from the store with bread and pills. My right ankle has been ablaze with arthritis all this week, as if a welder was shooting his flame up my leg. I got some Aleve. It didn't help. I got the bread for lunch because we were out.

I sat down on the sofa and noticed Asta was lying on the edge of the carpet. I thought this odd. She doesn't usually lay on the floor. She likes the back of the furniture or the window sill.

I leaned in over her and she didn't jump up and dash away. Asta has always been the scariest of fraidy cats. She jumped if you moved too quickly and ran at the least provocation. Besides when I sat down she would usually be quick to come up behind my head and then walk down onto my upper chest.

I though, did she have a stroke? But then she got up and walked across the room and out into the dining area. But she moved slowly and she is a quick cat. Still, cats have their moods.

Later in the day I realized I hadn't seen her since. The same come evening and I asked Laurel and Lois if they had seen her. We began looking and after searching the house could not find her. I was concerned. Did she get outside somehow?

My wife thought not and I couldn't see how. Lois said she will probably turn up, she had hidden well before and then popped up.

She had gotten out before, too. A half dozen years ago our basement window broke somehow. Before I was able to put something over it, some of our cats escaped. Brad, of course, because he was always finding ways to get out. He would always stay outside a few days and come back. A couple others we were able to grab right away. Sephoroth and Asta also fled out the hole and into the night.

Brad did come back, but Sephoroth (pictured left) disappeared and we didn't know his fate. A few weeks ago a cat began appearing in our yard occasionally that looked like Sephy. Could it be that Sephoroth had been taken in by somebody back six years ago? If so, had he escaped again or been discarded or what? This cat came around about every day for a couple weeks, but would run if it saw anyone. Then one day coming back from a morning walk I saw this cat dead in the middle of Glenrock, hit by a car. It may have been Sephy and if so, then Sephoroth died this year as well.

We didn't see Asta for a month that year she got outside, and then one day she appeared in our utility room. There is a place where cats can get into the house beneath the flooring and exit into this room. I was able to grab her and bring her upstairs. She was very clinging from that time on. I think it was a trying experience for her.

She also had a problem with her mouth after that. It would hurt her sometimes and she would growl and rub at it. Still, most of the time she was fine.

Asta was a tiny cat and different from any of the others. She was a brownish color. Her ears were tufted and she would flatten her ears against her head if you stroked her. Maybe because she was small she didn't like other cats to come too close and would snarl and hiss at any who did. She was a feisty little girl.

She had been in one of the litters this feral cat kept dropping in our storage shed. She was with the group of Amber, John, Thorn and Ridge. (That is Amber, Thorn and Asta as kittens on the right.) Amber, John and Ridge all died last year, so now only Thorn remains.  Thorn and Asta are 11 years old.

After Lois and I had searched last night, Laurel looked again. She found Asta curled up inside a cat condo right by the dining room entrance. I hadn't even realized this particular cat condo had an inner chamber. Laurel, who is a VetTech, knew right away she was dying. She brought her out, wrapped her in an old shirt and held her on her lap the rest of the evening.

When Laurel went to bed she fixed a place for Asta in the bathroom and put a litter box and some food beside her. When I awoke and went into the bathroom this morning she had passed away.

We will miss her. Rest in piece -- Asta, 2001- February 24, 2012.

John (Written October 16, 2010)

Animals are not people, but when you have them close they can become much like children to you. We have over the years rescued many cats who would have lived precarious lives as feral creatures otherwise.

Often these found friends were new born kittens. So it was a dozen years ago that we took in Amber, Ridge, Thorn and John. The first three were named after characters in a soap opera. John was named after John Lennon.

That is John sitting comfortably in the rocking chair.

John died last night at approximately 10:30 PM.

He had been in the hall earlier wanting to go in the bathroom, which was unusual behavior. (I believe he knew the end was near and wanted some private space.) I let him do so. We have been keeping the kitten there overnight and there was some of the kitten's food and water in there. John ate a bit of the food. The next time I looked in he was sleeping peacefully in the little basket-bed my wife had gotten for the kitten.

Later I was in the bedroom watching the playoff between the Rangers and Yankees. Around ten o'clock I heard some strange sounds from the bathroom and went to check on John. He was laying on a small rug and it was obvious he had thrown up a few times. He was kind of whimpering and didn't make any move to get up.

My wife came and took him into the living room and held him in her lap until he finally passed about a half hour later. (Yesterday was my wife's birthday, not a very pleasant ending.)

We were glad he didn't hang on any longer for something was paining him.

John was a very sweet and gentle cat. He was suffering from cancer and had developed a tumor on his right hind leg that rendered that leg somewhat useless. But he persisted to get around. He would often look for me to come into the living room in the evenings and then would lay in my lap as long as I stayed. He was getting very thin, but he ate well until the end.

This is always the hard part of caring for animals. They live much shorter lives than we and you constantly go through these departures. It is hard every time.

We loved you, John. Rest in peace.

Wave to Uncle Ron (Written January 29, 2011)

Retired in Delaware found himself visited by the Black Dog of Depression the other day. That can be almost as bad as being hounded by the Hounds of the Baskervilles I understand. Such beasts have tracked down The Little Woman many times in her life. It isn't a pleasant thing.

Ron seems to be recruiting cats to hiss and claw away the Black Dog, so here is another cat trying to cheer him up.

This little guy, Kerouac (yes, named for the "Beat" writer), a few months ago was on the road himself. Do not know his history, but my son and his co-workers found this tiny kitten huddled beneath the carts outside their store.

He had apparently been hiding out there a couple days. My son brought him home and here he is.

 If he wasn't here, he would have probably died, either from starvation, because he was skinny and famished when we took him in, or run over by the many cars in the parking lot of that mall.

He is the cutest little rascal, who nows likes to sleep in the crook of my arm when he isn't finding something new to play with.

Last year about this same time in similar conditions, that is much, much snow, this other cat showed up here. He was the opposite of Kerouac, being very large and black. Where he came from we do not know either and we assumed for a long time he was feral, but it turned out he wasn't. We were putting out food for him through two blizzards and the entire winter, finally luring him close that May. Now he is not out in that stuff this year, but cozy and warm and happy to snooze in a bed too small.

He had headed to this bed when we took him in and I guess he considers it his and compared to sleeping beneath a house in freezing weather, who cares if it is a bit snug.

The cat in the new Profile Picture is Mark. Mark came here (just for overnight) five years ago when he was a kitten. My middle daughter brought him home. He had been found wandering the road in front of St. Marks High School by a shelter worker, who rescued him and brought him to the shelter. My daughter, also a shelter worker, brought him home because there was no room for him at the inn. "Just overnight," she said. Mark made a beeline for my chest as I lay watching TV and nuzzled up against my chin. So much for this just overnight nonsense.

Cats always know who the big softie is.

Laid Up (Sorta) (Written May 8, 2011)

Back on Saturday, April 30, last day of that soggy month, I was coming up the trail through the Tulip Poplars of the state park. I thought there was something sitting in the middle of the path, but as I neared it turned out to be a rock that had rolled out of place. Then I saw movement beyond this big stone that I first mistook for a dog, then realized it was a fox. He saw me and stopped. We stared at each other. He then trotted off the trail, through the brush and into a field just beyond a stone wall. I didn't have my camera out, so I missed taking his picture.

He was a beautiful specimen of a fox, too. I was a bit flummoxed by the encounter; that is, coming upon a fox in daytime, especially coming down a path so near the parking lot. But he crossed the field, then stood in a picnic grove looking back at me looking at him.

I do not know if meeting a fox in the morning is a bad omen, but that was my last walk for a week. By Saturday night I was limping in agony as Mr. Arthur Itis came on the attack.

I had been free from any severe arthritis for quite awhile, but suddenly it seemed determine to make up for loss time. It had actually begun its assault earlier that week, with a constant burning along the side of my left foot. It was annoying and caused me to list over with a limp, but I could endure that. I was still making my regular walks on my off-from-work days and not suffering too greatly at work.

That quite changed that Saturday night. Besides the remaining burn on my left, I now found my fingers somewhat frozen, meaning they creaked and ached when I tried to make a fist, but worse of all, the broken-glass grinding of arthritis settled hard into my right ankle and top of foot. I was in deep and constant agony. I could not get comfortable in bed to sleep, I could not bear the pressure of stepping down on that foot.

Life does not call time out for the afflicted. Despite my suffering I had to work on Monday, even though I thought for a bit I would have to go barefoot as I attempted to press into my shoe. Somehow I managed, somehow I survived and came home to collapse and moan and groan about my fate.

Thus it was all this week. I was either in agony or groggy with lack of sleep. I felt like doing nothing, thus no writing got done on this blog for several days now. I worked on my genealogy, for it took the less effort.

So I missed all my walks, although I missed no work.

I kept my cat company as Kerouac, the youngest, is also laid up this week. Yes, he had reached the age when he faced the fate of such cats -- neutering and vaccinations. It seemed a routine thing, he being a male. A bit of snip-snip I suppose, but it became complicated.

First they found he had a heart-mummer, just like the Old Goat. I was born with a heart mummer. They nearly didn't do the operation because of this, but in the end they did.

The real problem was one of his testicles was inside his body, thus they had to perform surgery, cut him open and go after it. Now he is home, with some stitches and a tattoo and an inverted lampshade on his head for two weeks. He must be isolated from the other cats, no running, jumping, roughhouse or swimming. Well, the swimming isn't a problem.

At any rate, he doesn't understand this being kept alone in the computer room, let alone this silly collar about his head.  I feel for him as he tries to groom himself and can only lick the inside of the plastic or tries to scratch his neck only to come claw to collar and get no satisfaction.

As for me, most of the pain left me this morning. I had two walks today. Maybe I will sleep well tonight.
Meanwhile my little buddy must wait another week for his own renewal of freedom.

Goodbye Little Man (Written June 4, 2011)

This has been a sad year. John and Ridge both died earlier, Ridge only a couple weeks ago, and now Little Man passed away yesterday.

Little Man was in a litter of kittens left in our storage area behind the house by a feral cat over a decade ago. He became a favorite of my eldest daughter and she took him with her when she moved away three years ago. Of course, with the poor economic times she moved back with us this spring, and Little Man came with her.

Unfortunately he took sick about a month ago and began losing weight. The vet thought he might have a heart condition and twice each day we would give him medicine using a syringe (squirt it into his mouth, not injected).

He was mostly staying in the computer room with me these two weeks past. I got him some special food, because he was having problems eating the regular food we use. He sometimes ate and sometimes didn't because it was a struggle for him.

A couple days ago his eyes began to water and actually seal shut. Now we gave him eye drops and cleaned his eyes so he could open the lids and see, poor fellow.

My wife found him dead in the entry way between 11:00 and 11:30 AM yesterday, not long before I got home from work (there was nothing to do so they sent me home early). He had seemed okay when I left earlier and in fact when I first got up and gave him medicine, his eyes were open for once. He licked at his food some and kept changing where he lay, walking out into the hallway.

From where my wife found him, I think he may have been trying to get to my daughter's room. However, my daughter was at work all day and all the night before (she has two jobs) and so wasn't there. She got home at eve-time. She was upset, but took it well, although she regretted no one was with him at the moment when he died. I suppose she will have him cremated now and keep the ashes.

We are saddened by this, this hardest thing of caring for pets, but relieved too that whatever suffering he may have been experiencing these last few days is over.

So Goodbye, Little Man, Laurel loved you very much. And I'm crying now.

Oh, Whitey Gone to Rest (Written August 23,2011)

Whitey was one of our earliest. The name was hardly witty or original, for as you can see she was totally white and statuesque. Some people who saw this photo thought this was of a ceramic cat, not a real one, but it was very real. She was a pretty girl.

How old was Whitey? None of us know. The earliest picture I have of her is dated 2000, but she wasn't a kitten when we got her. She was two or three at best, maybe somewhat older. She had to have been at least 13 now. My middle daughter believes she was closer to 16.

Her early life was not easy. Somewhere in those beginning years she ended up out on the streets, on her own and not doing well. When she was rescued she was pretty beat up with a hole on the back of her neck from being attacked. She was so damaged, as it was, that she was considered non-adoptable and was about to be shipped off to be euthanized.

But The Little Woman couldn't let that happen. She told her fellow shelter workers that she would take Whitey and did. As I say, my oldest picture is 2000, so we have had her eleven years now.

As you can see, her old wounds and scars were healed and she cleaned up real purrty.

My son basically took her then as his own. For some reason she always got grief from the other cats, with the exception of a few. Reno and Christy Cat got along with her. Hobo Joe when he came also did. But most of the time she shared our son's room.

She died last night. He sat with her through the end, kept her cleaned up the last couple of days as she sank and was there holding her when she passed.

She is lying behind me in repose, as if merely asleep. Rescued from an early grave when in grave condition, she lived a good life in a loving home for the last 11 years of her life. And now she is where good cats go when they leave us.

Whitey ? - August 22, 2011 RIP

Purrs and Tears (Written September 2, 2011)

She was a sweetheart. She loved my oldest daughter the most and came to her when ever called. She was not large, not long anyway. She was a bit pudgy. She was very soft. And she was a purrer. You just looked toward her and she purred.

She was in a litter of a feral cat who bore her kittens in a storage space under our house. Five little fur balls that we took in a decade ago. Amber, Asta, John, Ridge and Thorn. They were the "Bold and the Beautiful"  Bunch, three named for characters on that show. John was named after John Lennon by my son.

Now only Asta and Thorn remain for Amber died today.

She had begun to act differently last week, wanting to be in the bathroom. Cats often seek out a place to die. At first I thought she was remembering her kittens. She was the only one of our cats who ever gave birth to a litter. We thought all the males had been neutered, but one must have either escaped the snip or something. Those are her kits pictured on the right. They were all adopted out.

She was a good mother. She watched over her little ones faithfully, staying with them in our bathroom until they were weaned and old enough to be put up for new homes.

It was kind of sad to see her look for her children for some time after they were gone. But it was necessary.

So maybe she was remembering during these her last days, I don't know.

She began crying intermittently and the other day I noticed she couldn't quite jump up as she used to. Now she wanted to drink a lot. She was different. She wanted to drink from the spigot in the kitchen sink and I would lift her up to the sink and turn on the water.

My oldest daughter took her to the shelter vet this morning. They found Amber had cancer, a large mass in her chest and so they put her to sleep today.

Perhaps tonight she is with her brothers, John and Ridge. If cats go to heaven, then the Angels will her purr  and perhaps someday in the future I will hear her again myself.

37 Things About Myself

My friend and fellow blogger just did a post with this title. (Retired in Delaware). Well, I'm kind of in between posts, so I copied his list and then filled in those 37 items as they applied to myself. I am sometimes lazy (something not on the list) and this made for a quick and easy Post.

THE 37 THINGS:

I descend from Welsh, Scot stock.  My paternal line has been in North America over 9 generations (1683) and my maternal line 8 generations (1705.)  I am thoroughly WASP (Quaker and Methodist.) 

I have no siblings, nor does my wife.  I am 6.0 feet in height and in weight 190.

Both parents are living.  I never saw them argue, but then my dad was seldom home and when he was I was usually sent to my grandparents.

I collect a lot of things.  In fact I'm a borderline hoarder.  

I love paintings by Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and Salvador Dali.

I hate seafood.  I like some fish, but find most other seafood repugnant on the tongue.

Coffee, iced tea, orange juice, V-8, chocolate milk and coke are my drinks. I usually keep each on hand. Turkey Hill Orange tea is my favorite store bought iced tea because it is closest to what my grandmother used to make.  I have traveled out of my way to restock.

I try to walk every day.  I love to walk.  Walking is my TM.  Plus, it keeps me trim and fit. I walk woodland trails, city streets, along waterways or anywhere in nature. I don’t do malls.

I like so many different singers I really don’t know who is my favorite all time.

I don’t have a favorite actor or actress. As far as most beautiful woman ever to grace the surface of the silver screen I’m inclined toward Ingrid Bergman.  She and I don’t have the same birthday. I do share that date with Helen Keller and Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan).

I was never in the armed forces (because of my psoriasis I was rejected), but my daughters were in the Army and the Air Force.

I was the first in my family to go to college, and I attended three.  I was a Sociology Major at one, a Computer Systems Major at the second and an Accounting Major at the third. My dad never finished high school; my mom did.

My work career was varied: oil refiner, chewing gum maker, publisher, food processor, steel fabricator, medical (hospital), banking, printing, non-profit disease research and retail. My longest consecutive term was in bank operations, finance and marketing.

I work now part-time as a stock manager. In is a physically demanding job as opposed to sitting in an office. It is very low stress, which is what I want in this time of life.

I lived most of my life in and around southeastern Pennsylvania. I lived a half dozen years in New Jersey. I now live in northern Delaware where I moved to be close to a job 28 years ago. I love living in this state.

I take medicine for thyroid and hypertension.  Occasionally I take an arthritis pill when the pain is too great.

I smoked cigarettes, cigars and a pipe for several years in the ‘sixties. (I smoked Sherman Long cigarettes in brown paper [you had to send away for them].)  I quit sometime in the late ‘sixties because I just didn’t see the point of smoking. I just said the heck with this one day and never smoked again.

I never smoked marijuana (except as second-hand smoke) and never tried any other drugs. I do drink a couple cocktails when we eat out for dinner (Whiskey Sour or Bloody Mary or Margarita). I’ve never drunk to the point of drunkenness.

When I make a mistake I try not to repeat it but instead learn from my mistakes.

I love to read.  Biographies, histories, books about business, novels and short stories. Actually, I will read just about anything with writing on it.

I hate politics.  I have been a registered Democrat, Republican and Independent. I would call myself a Conservative who used to be a very far left Liberal. The government has several times attacked me for exercising free speech.

I am in a long-term marriage to my wife of 49 years. I originally met her in early 1960. She is Irish-German. I will probably never live with another person, but one should never say never.

I love animals. We have several cats and have had several who died. We take in homeless cats, especially older cats with little hope of adoption.

I love animals. I have owned several dogs in my life, a Toy Fox Terrier, A German Shepherd-Collie Mix, a Chihuahua, a Border Collie and a Yellow Lab. The Yellow Lab died last March; he was 18.

I am not mechanically inclined, but am electronically so.

I can cook, but don’t like to. My wife does most of the cooking, but anymore we eat out a lot because although she likes to cook, she is tired of doing it all the time.

I don’t like to garden or yard work, my wife does.

We share running the household. My wife likes doing home improvement projects, but I don’t. She likes to tile and build things.

My favorite dish of all time, I am so bad at naming favorites, probably pot roast or dried beef gravy over bread.  

I have a salty tooth but I eat some candy.  I seldom eat desert. I prefer cheese and crackers as a snack. I really like olives and dill pickles, too.

Since childhood I have been shy.  I've grown much better as I matured, but it is still difficult for me to meet new people. I am not good with small talk or big talk for that matter if I don’t know you well.

I love to write.  When I was a teenager I wrote every day (and pretty much have all my life) and am a published writer. I had a website in the late nineties and have been blogging since early 2008. Writing is a major part of my life.  I would be lost without it.

Some of my favorite things – here we go with picking favorites again. I’m very streaky. I will get interested in something and go at it intensely for a while, so my favorite things change. I like to walk, write, and take pictures. I prefer fall as a favorite season. I like snow, especially when I don’t have to travel anywhere in it. I collect certain authors.

I'm usually easy going and seldom lose my temper.  When I do, I tend to throw things. Fortunately, this seldom happens. One thing, though, never threaten my kids. I may throw you.

I would like to visit every state and perhaps Ireland, Wales and the Holy Land. I doubt I will. The only time I was out of the country was a couple days in Canada in the early Sixties (on our honeymoon).

I have no patience for rude people; inconsiderate drivers, who don't use turn signals, keep their high beams up, ride my bumper, use cell phones (while driving, walking or eating in restaurants), and people who are dishonest with me.  

I am not naïve. I am a skeptic, yet probably too trusting of people.

On the Down Low: The Last Plateau

You never know what you may confront out on the trails. This morning as I came down the hill of Rockwood I ran into that couple with the two Pit Bulls again, and as before, one kept lunging for me. The dogs look well cared for, but I hope those people keep them well under control because I don't want to see anymore headlines about some kid being mauled by a Pit bull.

But it wasn't the lurching dog that scared me most this morning. When I was walking up a trail at Bellevue I saw a lady coming toward me. Lagging behind was what I assumed was her small dog. I wondered if she was aware how far her charge had fallen behind.

So I asked her, "Is that your dog?"

"No," she said, "that's a cat."

I continued walking and the cat continued coming toward me. It was a black and white feline looking somewhat like a combination of my own Brad and Hobo Joe. It came up to me going meow, meow, meow. I reached down and stroked its head. It was clearly well fed and cared for, not a feral.

I was turning up another path at this point, one to circle some trees and take me back on the way to Rockwood. The cat followed me up this path. Ut oh, the last thing I wanted was this cat adopting me. I would worry about it crossing the roads and Rockwood was a mile and a half to two miles away. I didn't want it going that far. If it did, what would I do?

I bent down and tried to reason with the cat. It is very hard to reason with a cat. Cats operate on their own terms. It went meow, meow, meow and rubbed my legs.

I went down a slope behind the trees and halfway down stopped to look back. The cat was sitting up at the top. A woman came jogging by me, perhaps the cat would take to her. I felt sure the cat lived in this park, probably as a mouser.

Now, back in Rockwood, I wanted to show you about the lower plateau and finish up this tour. So let's enter the gate to the pastureland and see what there is to discover there.

I went down these steps, gingerly I might add, to the lower layer of our cake (not to confuse anyone with MacArthur Park).  Then I walked around the embankment to see what might be there.

In our effort to always be informative, if you go listen to Richard Harris' version of "MacArthur Park" you will see he sings the words wrong. He constantly sings "MacArthur's park" rather than MacArthur Park. Now wasn't that life-changing news? There were a couple of other interesting things of note here besides Richard Harris' faux pas.

One was this doorway in the side of the hill. I didn't attempt to go inside. Perhaps this was the spring house or perhaps it is a root cellar.

Root Cellars were used to store vegetables and fruit to keep them fresh. Farms and homesteads  sometimes had more than one such utility and kept separate product in each. If this is the case, this one is certainly far more rudimentary than the Fruit Cellar we visited before. Maybe that one was used for the more glamourous apples, peaches and pears and this lowly dungeon was for the string beans and beets.

Sometimes these cellars were used to store home made alcoholic beverages, especially the illegal kind. Maybe that was the case here and is why it was tucked away beneath ground behind a lot of brush.

I don't know the hole-in-the-wall's purpose anymore than I do this wooden chute and bin. I really wonder what they would have brought down the narrow path above to drop down the chute.

Things to store in the Root Cellar?

It's a mystery to me.

Now let me go back a bit.

Previously we mentioned meeting a woman with a dog on the path in Bringhurst Woods. I was coming back toward Rockwood and had crossed into the short patch I call the No-Name Woods. Ahead I heard a steady, sharp yap-yap-yaping. As I turned a curve I saw a lady ahead with what appeared to be a miniature Collie, and it was the source of the sound. Neither seemed in distress, the dog was just very vocal.

When I approached this couple, lady and dog, I said, "Well, you'll never get lost in the woods, they can always follow the sound."

She laughed and said he did like to bark, it went with the breed.


"Oh, what is he?"

"He's a Sheltie." [For those unfamiliar with this breed, Sheltie is a nickname commonly used for the Shetland Sheepdog, you know the same place known for ponies.]

"I thought he might be a miniature Collie when I saw him."

"A lot of people think that about Shelties. They were developed in the Shetland Island to herd sheep. Thus they bark a lot. They had to bark to keep the sheep in line."

We walked together all the way back into and up the hill at Rockwood. We talked about dogs we had known and loved, and hopefully it was a pleasant discussion for both of us and not just me. We parted at the top of Rockwood hill as I turned to go down the steep side and she continued with yapping accompaniment down the gradual side.

Now as I stood in the lower plateau taking the photo of another gazebo I heard a familiar yap-yap-yap. I glanced over to the next pasture and there was the lady tossing a stick about, playing a game with the Sheltie. I turned and snapped their play.

I left them to their game and turned my attention to the large pasture below me where this other gazebo stood.

I walked down and entered the booth.

I have a thing for shooting picture through things. I'm just weird I guess.

This is the view from the gazebo of the hill with the man-made cave and the bin. The mansion sits on the higher plateau behind that cluster of trees.

I like this picture.

Something about those trees and the shadows, something spooky I think, like the trees are leaning, and with their shadows, trying to draw you that ways. There is an evil spirit lurking in the brush, which will feed on you and throw you down the Root Cellar. Hey, what'd you expect, I was once a professional pulp horror magazine writer!

But what else is there down in this lower level. I shift around and shoot out through a different side. This gives me a view of the drive that enters the park as it meanders through the pasture.

There is also some kind of ruin in the photo. We will have to go down and investigate what that is.

I leave the cozy gazebo and saunter across the field.

I have a friend who asks a question. Like me he is a walker and a picture-taker. He takes beautiful photos and he is getting better and better at it every year. You can find some of his photos on his Blog, "Retired in Delaware". Anyway, he asked the question,  "I still don't see anyone on these beautiful trails Lar. Where are the peeps?"

I usually try not to get people in my lens, I don't like to intrude upon them and I don't know how they would feel about my posting their faces on the Internet. I have a collection of very interesting people that I call, "In the Moment" and someday I just may publish it.  He will at least see one "peep" here, my momentarily walking partner and her dog romping in the field.


There is another reason for a lack of other human beings. I take my walks very early in the morning, usually just at sunrise. Frankly, most mornings there are very few, if any, others on the trails. The pictures in this post were taken at the end of my walk and some cars were just coming into the parking lot, but still not many.

One picture I regret not taking was of the woman with the Toy Fox Terrier. [Conversations with Dogs] I was in an awkward and potentially embarrassing position at the time the result of a wardrobe malfunction.

As I was nearing the bottom of the path where it crossed the road my shoelace had become undone. These modern shoelaces seem to do that a lot. I undid my coat and knelt on the macadam and tied it. As I stood up I noticed my fly had become undone and gapping. At the same instant, I notice the lady coming up the trail. I tried to zip up my pants and failed, and I tried to zip up my coat and fumbled that, so I stuck my hands in my coat pockets and pulled it in front of the problem. 

The whole time I had the conversation about the Toy Fox Terrier, I held the coat closed this way. It was especially tricky when I bend down to pet the Terrier, trying to keep a grip now with one hand, especially knowing that bending would only widen the gap.


I succeeded in accomplishing this meeting with a certain grace, keep covered and eventually escape to a secluded spot where I could get everything re-secured properly. But as much as I wanted a picture of the Toy Fox Terrier, there was no way to remove my camera from my belt, and hold it  up to take an exposure without exposing more than I wished. (I bet Ron is laughing at me. Yeah, like these kind of things never happened to you!)


Anyway, here we are at those ruins. What are they, you ask? 


Remember Joseph Shipley had purchased 211 acres from various people. This portion had been the farm of one Levi Weldin. (You may recall I was on a Weldin Road going to Alapocas.) The ruins here are part of Levi's house, so it predates the 1850s. I don't know when it fell to ruin, because in the 1890s the Bringhurst family turned the original structure into a playhouse for their son, Edward Bringhurst III. 


Perhaps Edward, Jr. played very rough.

The playhouse was a good piece down from the main house. They probably wouldn't have heard him smashing walls from up on the hill. 


Across from the ruins of the Levi/Playhouse ruins is a lake with a big fountain in its center spraying the sky with water. I really don't know if it is a natural lake or man made.


The structure beyond seems to be a service building for the park. It may have served as a guard house once upon a time.

Above the lake is the main parking lot. I usually circle around and end up parked on the upper portion near the lane exit, right in front of two twin trees. This is the only the lower portion of the lot in the picture so don't look for me. It is one way, so to get to the upper portion you must drive to the far end, go around the grass island and come back. 


If you continue out the far end there is a driveway. Turning right will take you down to the guard house and I don't think you are supposed to do that. I think there is a sign. I think you will be shot if you do.


Turning left will allow you to drive up the hill and park in the lot for the Carriage House.

I've never driven up the hill, I have always walked up.


At this particular time on this particular day, I decided to walk not up, but down a path running from the parking lot, along the lake and then toward the park entrance. I have never walked on this path before and was just curious.  It went pass this swale.


There were a lot of lights aimed in at the grove of trees just pass these rocks, almost as if it were a stage. Maybe it has been used for such a purpose, otherwise the layout of the lights didn't make a lot on sense to me.

A bit further, this path crosses the entry lane and then twists its way up the hill, going by a distant tree line and arriving up near the house where a confusion of lanes come together.


I have shown you just about everything possible for you to see other than coming to the place in person and walking about.


This is just one of the wonderful parks we have in this part of Delaware that make it a great state for walkers like myself.

Little left to do except go get my car and drive out between the concrete walls announcing where I have been. I notice that the name at the entry does say, "Rockwood Park", although everywhere else I have seen it listed as just Rockwood Museum. 


I guess it is both a museum and a park. I have never toured the mansion and someday I will do that. I don't know if they will allow picture-taking, as I noted before.

There is at the mansion a cafe called the Butler's Pantry. I am always there too early to stop in for a coffee or anything. It is only open Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. It is also the obligatory gift shop that every such tourist stop must have by Divine Law.


Anyway, my walk is through and now I drive home down our country roads with the hope that Bellevue Cat is okay.


The white line on the road ahead is where the Northern Greenway crosses.