three cats and a lap

Yesterday morning I loaded one spinning wheel, one fleece, numerous bags of knitting, spinning, soon to be dyed yarn, bags of apples and (what else) tomatoes, books and clothes, my computer, camera bag and THREE CATS, and headed south into highway mayhem, aka the land where driving is a contact sport.  Bu, the oldest, is no problem at all.  After the first mile of bumpy dirt road she heads into her ‘own’ cat carrier and settles down for the trip.  (I carry two carriers, just in case.. I mean what if I was stranded on the side of the road with three cats)  Zak heads onto the driver’s (in this case me) lap and Sam… well, this was his first trip with the crew.  Where would he choose to sit?  Ahemmmmm…. battle for the lap!  Just so you know, it was in the mid eighties (thank God for AC).  Zak weighs in around eighteen lbs.  Sam, the little birdbones, is negligible weightwise but long in the taking up space department.  Just for the record, I’m in the hundred and twenties category.  That’s so you can sort of picture the lap real estate available to all.  Let’s just say it was a long trip, there was a lot of juggling for space and I was sort of wedged right into the driver’s seat. 

  (I was very careful taking this , moved away from traffic and all that, and just hoped that maybe I was getting the cats into the picture)

I am an extremely lucky person.  I know this.  I was able to loan my house to a friend while I was north for a month or so.  I never expected to come back to a mess.  I was scrubbing floors and counter tops before I even took a bag from the car.  After a stint in the office today, I’ll get back to it.. unreal.  Upshot to this… NO KNITTING. 

Before I left, I know it’s only for a few days, but this time of year frost happens, suddenly, and everything can change, so I took a short walk through the woods.  It was so beautiful.  The ground is covered with ferns, everywhere.  It always makes me feel like an elf or some such woods creature with ferns nearly waist high.

and these..