Tuesday - 186th

In the car, I turned the high beams on. The roads were completely empty. If you opened the window, you'd hear only yourself pushing forward against darkness. Every few minutes, we would dip into a low spot and bands of fog would blur the road before us.

You think the fog will get worse coming back? -- I asked.
Not likely.

It was midnight and we were sometimes speeding, sometimes crawling through the patchy fog, heading once again to the town of Stoughton. Ed had read several pieces on how to search for a lost cat and almost without fail, the authors, all who had lost a cat at some points, at many points in their lives, recommended beating the bushes when darkness fell on your community.

We leave the car at the apartment complex where Cutie, on her way to being adopted, was accidentally released into the wild. Or into the suburbs. Or is it the downtown? Or commercial hub of this town to the south east of Madison? Who knows where she is. She's been on the loose since Sunday. But those sage authors of cat search pieces claim that if your cat is shy, she will not go far. She will hide in bushes, not feeling herself to be safe to search for the familiar. So we go out into the dark and quiet world, calling out, not too loudly, hoping that we wont wake residents and scare the daylights out of sleeping folk with our roving flashlight and muffled voices.

We canvas the neighborhood around the apartment building. If she had been hiding there, she would have heard us. No one meows, no little kitten runs out from under a bush.

After an hour of this, we drive home.


The morning is almost perfectly sunny and bright. We should be having deep blue skies, but there is a haze. The smoke from the western states has reached Wisconsin, giving us milky blue-ish skies. Ed swears he smells the burn in the air. I think he must be imagining it. Still, there's no doubt that our skies are showing the extent of the drift of the plumes of smoke.


The garden? Oh, it's in its Fall phase. I like to look at it and admire it for what it is. Different from summer abundance, but nonetheless peacefully welcoming.
















We eat breakfast on the porch of course. It's a beautiful day for it!






And in the afternoon, he and I go back to the edges of Stoughton. It's a 20 minute drive. If we weren't there, we'd for sure be taking an extensive walk in one of our parks today. Why not hike here instead, even if the likelihood of finding Cutie is very very small? A purposeful walk! In the weak but warm sunshine. Until the voice grows hoarse from calling out to the little kittie.
















Home again. We walk back to the new orchard, where the bees are liking the meadow flowers and the pears are ripening nicely.











(crab apple visitor; it's been a summer of many, many monarchs)






Evening quiet. We wont be driving back to search tonight. We're both tired. The prospective new owner has put up pictures of Cutie all over Stoughton. Maybe someone will spot her. But realistically, the chances of her returning to the side of her sister are very very small.

Reheated soup, still good for the soul. Followed by popcorn, which is good for just about any mood you may find yourself in today or any day! Eat it warm, with sprinkled light shavings of parmesan cheese!  So simple. So delicious.