Lucky Cat’s Day at Apshawa
“Don’t eat that!”
My person yells that often when we go on an adventure. I know he’s looking out for me, but as a cat inquisitive as ever you’ll meet, I find myself drawn to colorful, odorous, or unusual plants, first smelling them gently, then bunting them if it’s to my fancy, and finally licking it to check for taste. I wasn’t going to eat the shining red berries, anyway—they smell like those awful orange, yellow and green fruits my person is always peeling with his claws.
But what a lucky cat I am to have a person who takes me out into these woods, not like so many of my kind, confined to a few small rooms where the only moving food available are those distasteful brown insects that scare a human half to death.
This day, we traveled to a place he called Apshawa Preserve, in the land he calls New Jersey. The warm weather was perfect for an outdoors walk, and so when my person led me through the gated entrance at the start of the preserve, I was quite excited. The paths in the preserve are well marked in the human way, with splatches of paint left on the trees for him to follow.
I, of course, picked my way more carefully. It is the wet season and the paths in this preserve seem to follow the natural course of ephemeral water channels, rendering them all mud. My person’s feet were caked, though it didn’t seem to bother him, the foul beast. For my part, I gracefully darted from rock to rock, or kept to lightly stepping over leaf litter around the worst puddles, and I took every opportunity to clean myself.
The red berries weren’t the only thing to pique my interest food wise. There was also the strange brown leather stuck to the rocks, the gray lichen, and the dried flower heads I was so tempted to chew on. My person, overly concerned as always, pulled me away each time. He would never survive in the wild.
His concern has always been water. He loves to point his black box at it, and can hold as still as I would hold while hunting a rodent. He’ll often wade the water to get to whatever it is he sees, and even walks through steep ravines he has no business being in. He likes to coax me into posing for his black box as well, I only agree so that we finally move on.
The highlight of this preserve, for both of us I’d like to think, is the large body of water near the middle. We rested here awhile while I preened and dreamed of catching one of the large geese that swam along the edges. I’m not sure this goose wouldn’t have caught me instead. We walked the entire perimeter of this lake, even crossing a couple of feeding rivers, and one earthen embankment that was being overtopped by the adjacent swamp.
Having spent several hours here, we finally started heading back for home as the sun was setting. I could tell my person was tired, and he seemed tired of forcefully pulling me from all of the attractions he didn’t want me near, even stopping me from trying to take on a couple of snakes at one point. He should really let me refine my hunting skills, but I love him anyway. We made one last stop at the small stream near the parking lot and took some final pictures before heading home. It was nearly dark.
Other images in order of metions.
